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1% Better Every Day - a conversation with Alan Lazaros, Next Level University
26 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of the Abecederpodcast The Independent Minds, host Michael Millward meets Alan Lazaros, the CEO of the Next Level University.
Next Level University helps individuals work out what they need to do to be able to lead a fulfilled life., which as Michael and Alan discuss has undoubted benefits for an employer.
Alan uses his personal experience, and the four bucket model to explain how happiness is linked to how well we balance achieving our definition of success, with being fulfilled as individuals.
Their discussion explores how people are defined by teh goals that they set for themsleves and how those goals impacts the ability of the person to live a fulfilled life.
Nevertheless, says Alan we can all be 1% better today than we were yesterday, which means that our work can also be 1% better. Magnify that 1% by the number of employees in a company and you soon start to see some big improvements.
Find out more about both Michael Millward, Alan Lazaros and Next Level University at Abeceder.co.uk
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Travel
Whether you want to visit Worcester in the UK or the USA make your travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club, and access to trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, package holidays and all sorts of other travel purchases. Use our offer code ABEC79when you join-up.
Three the network
If you are listening to The Independent Minds on your smart phone, you may like to know that Three has the UK’s Fastest 5G Network with Unlimited Data, so listening on Three means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
Visit Three for information about business and personal telecom solutions from Three, and the special offers available when you quote my referral code WPFNUQHU.
Matchmaker.fm
Thank you to the team at Matchmaker.fmthe introduction to Alan.
If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests or if like Alan, you have something interesting to say Matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made. Use our offer code MILW10for a discount on membership
Being a Guest
If you would like to be a guest on The Independent Minds, please contact using the link at Abeceder.co.uk.
We recommend that potential guests take one of the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.
We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.
Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Introduction to Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysseedah and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:23
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward.
Why Use Zencastr?
00:00:27
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on Zencastr. Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms.
00:00:45
Speaker
Zencastr really does make making podcasts so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abysseedah.
00:00:59
Speaker
All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencastr is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:14
Speaker
As with every episode of the Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Meet Alan Lazarus: A Personal Journey
00:01:23
Speaker
Today, my guest Independent Mind, who I met at matchmaker.fm, is Alan Lazarus.
00:01:31
Speaker
Alan is the CEO of Next Level University, which is based in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. If you would like to visit Worcester in Massachusetts,
00:01:42
Speaker
or indeed Worcester in the United Kingdom, the best way to arrange your travel is to do like I do and book your flights, hotels or holidays at the Ultimate Travel Club because the Ultimate Travel Club gives you access to trade prices on all sorts of travel purchases.
00:01:58
Speaker
You'll find a link and a membership discount code in the description. Now that I've paid for my next trip there, we should meet Alan. Hello Alan. Hello.
00:02:09
Speaker
Thank you for having me. i It is an honor. I pinch myself before interviews because nine years ago I started listening to podcasts and they really helped me reorient my life in a more positive upward trajectory. So I listened to a lot of eloquent, amazing speakers who...
00:02:26
Speaker
sounded like they had it all figured out and I'm now starting to sound like I have it all figured out. I definitely don't, but i'm I'm on my way to figuring out a lot of stuff by helping a lot of people and I'm just grateful to be here. So thank you for having me. I also love the audio only medium because most of the interviews that I do are on video and I feel like the audio only medium allows you to be in your mind at a deeper level.
00:02:51
Speaker
I agree with you. She's one of the reasons why we do it also is more flexible. Thank you very much though, for being a guest. Could we start please by you giving us a potted history of Alan Lazarus?
Early Life Challenges and Academic Journey
00:03:03
Speaker
I'll be as brief as I possibly can be.
00:03:05
Speaker
I'm going to be 36 in November. I often joke, you can't see me on camera, but I often joke and say, i'm hoping to hit puberty at 36. I look very young, which does not help me in my business coaching career. I can back that up. One of the things that I did say when we first met in a video format was you do look like the all-American boy, the corn-fed all-American boy.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, that ah I remember that chat with you and I do. And that has been ah and interesting thing because my birth father's last name is McCorkle. And so my last name, Lazarus, is actually a Greek Orthodox last name.
00:03:43
Speaker
And so Greek people often say, they look at me funny and they go, Lazarus? Because I'm blonde hair, blue eye, Polish, German, Scottish type of American.
00:03:55
Speaker
And so anyways, my birth father's last name is McCorkle. His name was John McCorkle. He passed away in a car accident when he was 28.
00:04:05
Speaker
I was two years old and I had an older sister who was six. I had a mom who was 31. She was a stay-at-home mom. And I had a stepfather named Steve Lazarus. And my stepfather was in my life from age three to 14 in the mid early to early probably early two thousand s And so the economy was definitely booming globally, dot-com bubble type of stuff. So we did very well. We had boats and ski trips and motorcycles and snowmobiles. And we we did very well in the economy.
00:04:34
Speaker
And we lived on a lake. And when my stepfather left at 14, he took his entire extended family with him and 90% of the income. So he got the yacht and the apartment building. We got the house and the dog. and 14 was the hardest year of my life. At that same year, my sister moved out with her older or boyfriend.
00:04:49
Speaker
That same year, my mom got in a fight with my aunt Sandy, her sister, and we got kind of ostracized from that side of the family too. And when my stepdad came into the picture, we didn't really associate much with the McCorkles anymore because we were trying to be the Lazaruses. And so...
00:05:04
Speaker
By the time I'm 14 years old, I kind of in some ways lost three families. The McCorkle certainly took us back with open arms and stuff, but I haven't really seen anyone on my stepdad's side or my mom's side except for one person since I was 14 years old. So it was definitely adversity.
00:05:20
Speaker
And I didn't realize a lot of this until my 30s, quite frankly, when I started doing some therapy. Now I'm starting to get it. 14 years old hits. And i looked at my past. I looked at my present. I looked at my future and I knew I was in trouble. I didn't have a trust fund or a nest egg. I didn't have anyone else that was going to provide really.
00:05:39
Speaker
And I just did the only thing I knew how to do, which was aim as high as possible, work as hard as possible and get as smart as possible. So aim higher, work harder, get smarter. So I went to computer engineering school. I got straight A's through high school. I got in. i got financial aid and scholarships. I was very grateful for that.
00:05:55
Speaker
I was able to go to one of the best tech schools in the world. It's called Worcester Polytechnic Institute. and I got my computer engineering degree and it was $50,000 a year back then. So it was a very expensive school.
00:06:06
Speaker
And then I got my master's in business there. After that, I did a lot of job hopping and soul searching and I worked for a bunch of tech companies. Computer engineers are very needed in the 21st century. So I did very well. I went from 65 to 85, from 85 to to then And in my early twenty s and i paid off eighty four thousand dollars worth of debt in a single year I thought wealth was the answer because when my stepdad left, we struggled. So I just made as much money as possible. I put $150,000 into an investment account in Vanguard and I accumulated that over time. I bought a bunch of tech companies and I was off to the races and my expenses were super low because through high school and college, I was so used to being broke.
00:06:47
Speaker
So I didn't really need much. So in my mid twenties, I'm working for a company called Cognex. I've job hopped a lot and I'm a computer engineer who works in industrial automation and I'm an outside sales engineer managing a territory of Vermont, Connecticut, and Western Massachusetts selling machine vision equipment into manufacturing facilities.
Turning Point: The Car Accident
00:07:07
Speaker
I'm up in New Hampshire with my little cousin and a dark winter night in 2015 and the snow banks were covering the yield sign and I was supposed to yield. I end up on the wrong side of the road.
00:07:19
Speaker
I end up getting into my own car accident. So I look up from the GPS and I see in front of me what I thought was a Mack truck. Two things saved my life. The first one is it wasn't a Mack truck. It was a lift kitted pickup truck.
00:07:33
Speaker
The second thing is i was driving a 2004 Volkswagen Passat. I used to call this car the tank. I spoke to someone one who was involved in the introduction of the Volkswagen Passat into the United States.
00:07:48
Speaker
And part of the original marketing was that the way in which the car was built made it one of the safest cars on sale in North America at the time.
00:07:59
Speaker
It is really glad to know that that helped to save your life. It's really great. I'm so grateful to hear that. I'm telling you right now, if I was in my mom, Honda Civic was super reliable, but if I was in that car, no way, no way.
00:08:13
Speaker
ah The Volkswagen saved my life. I'm so grateful. So thank you for saying that because I know intuitively that Had I been in a not that car, things would have been very different.
00:08:25
Speaker
So my little cousin and his name is Dan, he and I were physically okay. So the airbags deployed, but physically we were okay. Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually though, I definitely was not because my dad died in a car accident when he was 28. So this is the second chance that my dad never got.
00:08:42
Speaker
And so for me, this was my existential quarter life crisis of who am I? You know, what's the point? What's my purpose?
00:08:54
Speaker
Am I fulfilled? Do I regret who I am? what what are my regrets? All the existential questions. What's the point? The best way I can describe it now, I now have
Finding Fulfillment Beyond Achievement
00:09:03
Speaker
these four buckets. I'll go very briefly. But essentially, I think we all go through these four buckets in life. The first one is you're unsuccessful and you're unfulfilled.
00:09:10
Speaker
and I remember I was a car kid and a busboy in my teens, and i was I really was. I was unfulfilled, and I was unsuccessful. And then in corporate, I was very successful, but I was unfulfilled, and that's obvious in hindsight.
00:09:22
Speaker
At the time, I didn't really know any better, but after my car accident, that became clear. Then after my car accident, I actually went all the way past broke, and i became very fulfilled, fit, strong, healthy, capable, productive, loved who I was,
00:09:35
Speaker
Started my own company, but I was unsuccessful. So I was deeply fulfilled, but unsuccessful. And that's bucket three. And then the last bucket is both successful and fulfilled. So here I am nine years later. I'm a business coach. I've got a podcast heard in 170 countries and I've person team. And now i And what I think a lot of people want to be, and it's taken me a long time, but i I'm both successful and fulfilled.
00:09:59
Speaker
And if you can't authentically say that you want your future to be an amplified version of what already is, then there's work to be done. And I think that that's the indicator of whether or not you're successful and fulfilled is...
00:10:15
Speaker
who you are is aligned with your goals and your goals in the pursuit of them actually is fulfilling. And I think that fulfillment is the real, the real tell of whether or not we're in alignment with, you know, our calling and our growth and our purpose. And so as esoteric and fortune cookie as that can sound, it's very clear to me now that fulfillment is really what I think everyone should be optimizing for. And I don't say that lightly because I certainly was not before 26.
00:10:45
Speaker
You're on that career wave where the accumulation of wealth is as important as whatever it is that you're doing in the job. And then you have that experience and so think this is life has got to be different. There is more to life than what I am doing.
00:11:00
Speaker
And you move forward. How did you go from that point to next level university?
Founding Next Level University
00:11:07
Speaker
So my first company after my car accident, my first company was technically back in 2012. We started a little company in college called Campus Libre, but I guess my second company was called Alan Lazarus LLC.
00:11:20
Speaker
What you'll never learn in school, but desperately need to know, because that was what always frustrated me is i was very education based. I did very well in what I call STEM, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business, and finance.
00:11:34
Speaker
But I didn't learn the emotional intelligence side. I didn't learn the communication and vulnerability and humility and the character development and the personal development and the self-improvement. And so I started a company to try to rectify that. I wanted to bring personal development to the school systems. And that was a probably a great mistake. But I didn't do very well.
00:11:53
Speaker
I struggled. That was my first company. And eventually I got to the place where I gave some speeches at different schools, one of my alma maters. I realized it wasn't going to work. And I think most people who start businesses realize that.
00:12:06
Speaker
And I had to pivot. And so I got to this point where I had a podcast called Conversations Change Lives. And the idea was I want someone to be a fly on the wall where I have great conversations with great people about real meaningful things.
00:12:24
Speaker
So one example would be if you want to be a pilot, but you've never spoken to a pilot, ah about their actual experience, you might be making a life decision based on very low awareness, which in my opinion is just very devastatingly wrong.
00:12:38
Speaker
A girl I dated in college who wanted to be a nurse, but she had never really spoken to nurses. And to me, you can't make a lifelong decision with low awareness. It's just very dangerous. So You're making decisions based on image and marketing rather than actually on experience and exposure. Exactly.
00:12:57
Speaker
Exactly. And so I wanted to talk to nurses. I wanted to talk to engineers. I wanted to talk to pilots. And I wanted to help kids, younger people, Have a resource to say, you know what, maybe I don't want to go into engineering because it sounds pretty terrible or it sounds awesome.
00:13:13
Speaker
Right. So learn from other people's mistakes, learn from other people's successes and failures. So that was the idea. So conversations change lives. And I, my first guest, his name was Kevin Palmieri. He had a podcast called the Hyperconscious Podcast, and it was change the way you think, change the way you act, change the way you live. That was the tagline.
00:13:32
Speaker
And he had me as his first guest. I had him as my first guest. And eventually we just teamed up and had the worst podcast title of all time, which is the Hyperconscious Podcast Meets Conversations Change Lives.
00:13:44
Speaker
And it was just a terrible title. So we just kind of did an episode a week. And eventually we said, listen, we got to go all in on Hyperconscious. And hyperconscious, if you look it up and you Google it, it means to be acutely aware.
00:13:57
Speaker
And then eventually, three, four or so years later, hundreds of episodes in, him and I rebranded to what is now known as Next Level University.
00:14:08
Speaker
And the idea of Next Level University is holistic self-improvement, 1% improvement every day in your pocket from anywhere on the planet, completely free.
Next Level University's Mission and Focus
00:14:18
Speaker
And health, wealth, life, and love. Health is physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Wealth is how you make your money. In other words, are you fulfilled by meaningful work?
00:14:27
Speaker
How much you make, is it increasing or decreasing over time based on the economy and the future? And then where you spend it, where you invest it. And then love, which is intimate relationship first, self-love.
00:14:39
Speaker
And then you've got pets, family, colleagues, clients, mentors, mentees, all these different people. And so if you master those three areas of life, even though it's ridiculously difficult to do so.
00:14:52
Speaker
you can have a holistically fulfilling, magnificent life and maximize your potential and contribution and quality of life. And so next level university is really that. How do you get to the next level?
00:15:02
Speaker
No matter how hard your past has been, you have a spotless future. And how do we help you climb your own metaphorical mountain based on true self-awareness, not based on what your parents want or what society wants or what your upbringing wants, but based on who you really are and what your gifts really are and what you really want to do in the world.
00:15:21
Speaker
It's really very interesting listening to that, where you're talking about the different levels of of happiness, the different levels of love. I wonder how many people actually know those.
00:15:32
Speaker
you know When we're planning our lives, our lives are very much predetermined until we leave education and then we're in the big bad world.
00:15:43
Speaker
And we have to have made decisions about what we're going to do and how we're going to sustain the life that we want to or afford the life that we want to live. But how many people who face with those decisions actually understand what you've just been talking about in terms of the different aspects of life that need to be addressed in order to be in a happy, fulfilling life?
00:16:09
Speaker
It's a much smaller percentage than what I think it needs to be. i find it so fascinating now. My whole world now is self-improvement. Before 26, it's so obvious to me before that car accident that I was an achiever. I was professionally developed, resume, cover letter, educated science, technology, engineering, business coach.
00:16:30
Speaker
mathematics and finance. I understood the economy. I understood business. I understood how it all worked. I was learning and growing. I had mentors and stuff like that, but I wasn't self-improvement oriented.
00:16:42
Speaker
It was focused more on achievement than it was on fulfillment. It was focused more on achievement than it was on if I improve me, then everything in my life will improve. And it is alarming to me, and I'm not going to put it lightly, how few people are focused on self-improvement.
00:16:57
Speaker
Even if you just look at fitness, Physical fitness is not as common as you would think because health is very clearly the most important thing in the world. a lot of us don't realize that until after we lose our health, unfortunately. but That's true.
00:17:12
Speaker
Health, wealth, and love is like a tripod. and You focus on one at a time, and then you but if you neglect any one of them, You're in some serious trouble eventually.
00:17:23
Speaker
Right. And so I know a lot of wealthy people that neglected their health. I know a lot of healthy people that neglected wealth. And I know some people who are healthy and wealthy, but they're not at all in love and they've become divorced and now they're alone. And at the end of the day, I just don't want that life. I, I, I saw a lot of that growing up. I saw a lot of really unfulfilled, miserable people, and i just knew there had to be another way.
00:17:46
Speaker
When you talk about achievement and fulfillment, the first thing that came to my mind was achievement is outward facing. We do things to impress other people, to get their approval. that We want somebody else to say, we've achieved something.
00:18:02
Speaker
The fulfillment, doesn't really care what somebody else thinks. The fulfillment is about what is it that I needed? What did I want? What have I got?
00:18:13
Speaker
How do I get more of the fulfillment? It's much more inward facing and not in a selfish way, but in a very constructive way. It's definitely not in a selfish way. It's usually in the service of something greater.
00:18:26
Speaker
I don't even think you can be fulfilled without serving something greater than yourself. think we all need to believe in something greater than ourselves as a set of values or even people that we want to emulate.
00:18:39
Speaker
We have to be in many ways be our own version of great, but also realize that that doesn't make us better than anyone else. That's the radical humility. I think that one of the reasons why life is so hard is it's layered.
00:18:54
Speaker
There's a book called The Self-Made Billionaire Effect that I read back in 2012. It basically studied the, at the time, I think there was 1,200 self-made billionaires or something like that. And they just studied the thinking habits of those people.
00:19:06
Speaker
And I've always been fascinated by achievement. So for me back then, I was curious. And one of the things that really stood out to me is this commonality for all self-made billionaires, regardless of whether anyone listening wants to be a billionaire or not. That's not what I'm saying.
00:19:22
Speaker
there's ah There's a thinking modality of, call I call it duality. The idea is that you can hold two seemingly opposing ideas in your consciousness simultaneously. And I've come to realize over time that a lot of people can't do that.
00:19:35
Speaker
And I don't want to say they can't do that because that's probably limiting, but they don't do that. they They think that there's like a path. There's a answer. Yes, there's an objective truth. So if you think that there's 50 million people in Canada, you're wrong. There's 38 million. Last time I looked it up.
00:19:51
Speaker
At the end of the day, you need to understand this idea of an optimal stopping problem, which is... Too much and too little. Goldilocks. Fulfillment is the dance between a duality. It's yin and yang. it's you know Some people think mathematics is everything. Some people think science is everything. Some people think spirituality is everything. Some people think family is everything. And everyone's wrong because everyone thinks they're right.
00:20:14
Speaker
And the truth of the matter is, is it's it's nuanced and it's it's an exploration of who you are, setting goals based on who you actually are, not who you think you are.
00:20:26
Speaker
Then learning on that journey more of who you are. And then you have to reassess those goals. And so people say, for example, they always say this, well, it's about the journey, not the destination.
00:20:37
Speaker
That's got to be one of the dumbest things ever because the destination dictates the journey. That's true. i If you drive from Boston to Los Angeles, that's very different than 30 Minutes South.
00:20:49
Speaker
And so you have to choose a destination that creates a magnificent adventure that forces you to grow and contribute beyond yourself. And so I think the the reason why life is so hard is because it's it's complex and complexity creates uncertainty and uncertainty creates lack of action and lack of action creates lack of momentum. And most of us, I've i've been very blessed to have really big, powerful brain.
00:21:12
Speaker
I know a lot of people who really struggle to contextualize life. And I now have a lot of empathy for that because if I didn't have my big brain, would I be able to have created the life that I've created? Would I even be able to conceptualize any of the ideas I've even said here today?
00:21:32
Speaker
I mean, half of that stuff I uncovered. I didn't read this in a book. I do. I feel like we all have ah different, unique potential. And I think that fulfillment is something that we all should strive for.
00:21:44
Speaker
And it's a byproduct of meaningful progress toward meaningful goals for a meaningful purpose. But it's unique to every single one of us. You've had a experiences that have made you readdress your own life, investigated ways in which successful people in various different contexts of success live their lives, and then created Next Level University in order to help other people also go through that experience and reach a level of fulfillment.
00:22:15
Speaker
What type of learning does Next Level University provide in order to fulfill your objective?
The Learning Loop and Personal Growth
00:22:22
Speaker
I created something called Learning Loop and I wrote a blog about it on my LinkedIn and it's five steps. The first step is humble curiosity.
00:22:30
Speaker
The second step is new knowledge. So when once you're humble and curious, you learn from other people, you learn from the world, you learn from the book, some sort of resource. you You're just curious about something.
00:22:41
Speaker
Then you get new knowledge. When you're curious, you seek new knowledge and then you get new awareness. Then the third step is a new choice. Once you have new knowledge, now you have the opportunity to make a new choice.
00:22:52
Speaker
Because here's the thing. It's not a choice if you're not aware of it. I didn't choose to not be into self-improvement. I just didn't have anyone in my life who was saying, hey, self-improvement might help you.
00:23:06
Speaker
Humble curiosity was created by my car accident. Then I got new knowledge by picking up self-improvement books and self-improvement podcasts. Then I made new choices. And then those new choices led to new experiences. And then those new experiences led to new reflection and contemplation, which then led right back to humble curiosity.
00:23:24
Speaker
I always say the iPhone 14 that I have in my hand right now, in 2007, the very first iPhone came out. And that that's a right piece of garbage compared to this phone. but But back then, that was a revolutionary breakthrough. These phones were always possible.
00:23:40
Speaker
The problem is we just didn't know how to build them yet. So Next Level University is the same idea, but how do you build yourself? Instead of the iPhone 14 with iOS 15, whatever, what is Alan Lazarus 3.5 and what is going to look like?
00:23:57
Speaker
And 3.6 version of Alan at 36 years old is going to be way more capable, way more intelligent, way more aware, way more belief, way more self-worth, way more understanding, way more options, way more choices, way more resources, way more and much bigger network.
00:24:12
Speaker
that that How do you grow into the type of person through self-improvement, humble curiosity, and learning So that you can have more opportunities and more choices because when you have more opportunities and more choices, you become more fulfilled.
00:24:27
Speaker
And when you become more fulfilled, the ultimate thing underneath all this is fulfilled people don't hurt people. When you're fulfilled, you just want to help because I'm just a fulfilled human being. I want more fulfillment. I want everyone to be fulfilled.
00:24:39
Speaker
But when you're miserable and broke and i used to have a drinking problem and you're unhappy and vindictive, you you you're just a bad, but you're not as good of a person. I'll say that. You're not a bad person. You're not as good of a person.
00:24:51
Speaker
And so when you get great sleep and when you're healthy, happy, productive, and fulfilled, you just want to see other people win. And that's the world I've always wanted to live in. So Next Level University is The mentor in your pocket, the male role model in your pocket every single day from anywhere on the planet completely free that Kevin and I never had because we both grew up without fathers.
00:25:12
Speaker
And we were looking for male role models unconsciously. And quite frankly, I was wildly disappointed with many of my male role models, if not all of them, to be completely honest. Yeah, that idea of male role models, nobody quite knows what the male role model is supposed to be, really, because nobody's ever really taught us or explained to us what being a role model is.
00:25:36
Speaker
But it is a key part of the development of children, especially boys. So at next level university, the people who study there are going to be experiencing or going to have experiences which enable them to explore their own potential in a format that is not like a conventional university. It's not lectures as such.
00:26:01
Speaker
I think it's it's conversational. So we have a group coaching program that we do and there's lectures there for sure. and And we also have our own journal and we've got monthly meetups we do every month for free. And we've got a book club every week. So so there are there's a lot of different learning resources. But the idea is The deeper down the business model you go, the higher you can climb in your own metaphorical mountain toward becoming the hero of your own story and and eventually the guide.
00:26:26
Speaker
And the idea is self-belief and self-worth. How do you believe in yourself more, believe in your own potential more through honest self-awareness, not delusion? And then how do you keep the promises you make to yourself on a day-to-day basis to trust yourself and...
00:26:40
Speaker
love yourself and build self-worth. And so, yeah, the the the whole thing is built around this idea of you can be more successful, you can be more fulfilled, and you can improve yourself by a little bit each day to achieve your goals and dreams. Not your ego goals, but your your real goals and dreams. And you can make sure those goals and dreams are aligned with the greatest good.
00:27:04
Speaker
And ultimately, I think everyone needs to take responsibility for their own future. And so I believe in the, I do, I believe in the responsibility of the individual. We all clean our own porch and the whole world will be clean, so to speak. And Anything other than that is always going to be because I think what happens is a lot of people and this is what I've seen in my coaching. So I'm not just talking. I need to make this clear because there's so many people on the internet that are just saying stuff.
00:27:27
Speaker
i I have a 10,000 hour tracker over the last seven years. I do podcasting speaking coaching training and writing. That's pretty much the main five things that I do. I'm a coach who also speaks podcasts, writes and trains. So I'm mostly a coach.
00:27:42
Speaker
So the majority of my 10,000 hours in my 10,000 hour track, I just crossed 8,000 is coaching one-on-one hour long coaching with individuals all over the world. So my, my roster right now is 24 individuals.
00:27:55
Speaker
The youngest is 16. The oldest is 63. The youngest name is first name Micaiah. And he wants to start a YouTube channel and earn more revenue and figure out what he wants to do with his life.
00:28:06
Speaker
And then, so it's everywhere from a 16 year old all the way to ah someone who's been in business for 20 years, who's already a multimillionaire, who wants to reinvent themselves and everything in between. And so I have these conversations with people from all over the world.
00:28:18
Speaker
You just realize that there's these simple fundamentals that are underneath the human condition that if you master them and cater them to your own uniqueness, you really can flourish at to such a great extent.
00:28:34
Speaker
And I'm not talking... fortune cookie motivational stuff. I'm talking you actually wake up in the morning leagues ahead of where you were just a couple years ago through consistent effort over time with the right guidance.
00:28:47
Speaker
And a lot of us really, i think it comes down to we don't have the self-awareness to understand how to set goals. 4% of people achieve their goals. 4% of people have written goals. Only 8% of them ever achieve them, which is to me a huge
Aligning Goals with Values
00:29:03
Speaker
indicator of two things. Number one, we have a serious self-belief problem because if you really believe in yourself, you will set big goals and you will eventually achieve them.
00:29:12
Speaker
At least that's been my experience. And number two, the goals we're setting are based on a false self. One of the things that I've found in my coaching, I help people literally for a living achieve their goals. We set at measurable, achievable goals and quarterly, annually, and then the decade.
00:29:28
Speaker
And I see that, you know, people are climbing these mountains literally, and we track everything. I have data on all of it. It's very clear to me that a lot of people who set goals are setting goals that are wildly incongruent with their true values.
00:29:42
Speaker
Like if you love spending time with your family and you want to also be a billionaire, you're you're in trouble. that that Those two things are not congruent because most of the self-made billionaires grinded for decades before they even came close to that mark.
00:29:58
Speaker
You just have to understand that your goals have to be congruent together. with not only your actual strengths and weaknesses, but also your core values. It does sound as if the important thing is to know the destination.
00:30:10
Speaker
like the book Tuesday with Maurice is that in order to learn how to live, you first have to decide how you want to die. when i When my time is over, this is the life I want to be living.
00:30:23
Speaker
Therefore, I need to make decisions now, which will put me on the path, the journey to reaching that destination. Unfortunately, most people i don't actually work out the end result the different stages that they want to be at in their life as they get older.
00:30:43
Speaker
So they go from being 18 to 21. They just arrive 21. They haven't defined where it is that they want to be. It's not in career, not in their family or romantic life, not in their bank balance, the amount money they have.
00:30:59
Speaker
Not even like down to things like whether they're going to drive a car or not, what type of car that will be, where they're going to live. They haven't made those decisions. So when we celebrate a birthday, sorry, we celebrate our birthdays really because we've gone around the sun once more.
Living Purposefully
00:31:15
Speaker
Whereas what you're saying is that we should be celebrating our birthdays because we have reached that age, but also reached the things that we wanted to achieve by that age.
00:31:27
Speaker
If you can authentically say that you're doing all you can with all you have, then I think you're you'll be fulfilled. Before my car accident, my people think I'm too hard on myself, but the truth is I i couldn't say that.
00:31:41
Speaker
You know, I had more potential inside of me that I was squandering. And I don't believe you can be fulfilled while squandering your potential. And i think i don't I also don't think that you can maximize your potential without also living for a meaningful purpose greater than yourself in the service of others.
00:32:00
Speaker
Even right now in this moment, I'm not serving the self. I mean, yes, it feeds me back because my company grows and that kind of thing. But right now I'm just serving. I'm practicing my craft. I'm becoming a better speaker.
00:32:11
Speaker
I'm talking and meeting with a wonderful person. I'm learning in real time from you and from this amazing conversation, sharp minds, sharp one another sharpen one another. And I'm serving the greater mission of I want self-improvement to continue spreading because similar to, well, i remember COVID, it was 2, 4, 8, 16, 32.
00:32:32
Speaker
sixteen thirty two It spread exponentially. And i I hope that self-improvement can spread that same way. And that's really the mission that I'm on. And it's been magnificent. It's been also brutally challenging, but I've also grown a ton. And so that's my mission. But I think all of us have some sort of a calling that we can connect to.
00:32:52
Speaker
It's been very, very interesting. I really do appreciate your time.
Closing and Future Episodes
00:32:55
Speaker
ah This has been awesome. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Where can people find out more information? So nextleveluniverse.com, we say called nextleveluniverse.com. So the podcast is Next Level University and the website is Next Level Universe, which encapsulates all things Next Level. Thank you very much, Alan. Thank you.
00:33:11
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Alan Lazaros, the CEO of Next Level University.
00:33:23
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us at abysida.co.uk. There is a link in the description. If you're listening to the independent minds on your smartphone in the United Kingdom, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
00:33:40
Speaker
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00:33:54
Speaker
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00:34:05
Speaker
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