Engineering a Fulfilling Life | Alan Lazaros | Ep 195

Alan Lazaros  00:00

A really good business is one that's good for the owners, good for the team, good for the world, good for the community, good for the people. It's a win, win, win, win. No one's going to have higher standards than you. No one's going to care about your company more than you. And so if you're not leading by example, I think you're in trouble. You only have three resources in lifetime, effort and money, and the plants that you water are going to grow, and the plants that you neglect are going to die, and that's the law of entropy.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:35

Welcome to another episode of Better Business. Better Life. I'm your host, Debra Chantry Taylor, and I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal lives by creating better businesses.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:54

I'm a certified EOS implementer and FBA accredited family business advisor and a business owner myself with several business interests. I work with established business owners and their leadership teams to help them live their ideal entrepreneurial life using EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. Today's guest, I'm quite excited about. He is a self-confessed person who lives by numbers and formulas, and this is a very different way of actually looking at life. He has three online businesses between himself and his partner, girlfriend, and several different podcasts. He believes in getting 1% better every day, and he has a team of 20 people in his team that actually runs next level University. He is going to be talking to us about three things that really matter in your business, and how to take you to the next level in terms of your life, love, health and wealth. Alan Lazaros is the CEO of Next Level University and always and also a business coach working with individuals to help them to get more in their life. Love, health and wealth. So welcome to the show, Alan. It's great to have you in studio today. I'm very excited, because I've actually met with your co-founder before, and we've talked a little bit about what you guys are up to, and I think the things that you're doing for imperfectly with the whole philosophy of my podcast, which is obviously better business, better life. But it's more to life than just business. We've got to be ensure that we're actually enjoying every part of our life. So people haven't met you. Would love to hear a bit about your story and how you got to be, you know, the CEO of Next Level University and build three online businesses, all these wonderful things. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Alan Lazaros  02:31

Debra, thank you so much for having me. I want to start with gratitude. I always try to start and end with gratitude. I started listening to podcasts. I just went and got a drink. So I ran up the stairs. So I'm a little out of breath. I little out of breath. The I started listening to podcasts nine years ago, and they really helped me sort of reconstruct my life in a much more positive direction. So I'm very grateful to be here and to be able to help people with that. So thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. As far as my story, I'll try to give you the condensed version. So I'm about to be 36 in November. I often joke and say I'm hoping at puberty at 36 because I look very young, which does not help in my business coaching career. By the way, people don't like to be coached by someone much younger than them who looks 12. But anyway, so, so my beginning of my life started in a lot of adversity, and I'll be very brief about it, but when I was two years old, my father passed away in a car accident when he was 28 I had a stepfather from age 3-14. My real last name is actually McCorkle. My stepfather's last name was Lazarus. I took his last name around age seven. When I was 14, he left. He took 90% of the income with him, and I went from upper middle class in Massachusetts to basically, I get free lunch at school now because our income is so low and so I was a very broke high school and college student, and my dream was to go to be an engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which is one of the best engineering colleges in the world, kind of like a mini MIT, but it was $50,000 a year, so I didn't know how I was gonna afford that.

So I bootstrapped through all of high school. I got straight A's through all of high school. I got what's called the President's Award, it's actually behind me, signed by George W Bush. And I got a bunch of scholarships in financial aid, and I got to go. So I got my computer engineering degree, then I got my master's in business, and then I was off to the races. And I went from sort of a broke high school and college student to making a ton of money in the 21st century, just tech companies. So I did. I robots inside of technologies, lens, Americas, Tyco, safety products, a bunch of different companies. I eventually landed a company called Cognix. I went from 65 a year to 85 to 105 to 125, 125 to 180 at my peak in corporate and then I got in my own car accident. I was up in New Hampshire, my little cousin and I had a head on collision with what I thought was a Mack truck. It ended up being a lift kitted pickup truck. It was a dark winter night, and that was sort of my brush with mortality, my core. Quarter life crisis, because my birth father, John McCorkle, passed away when he was 28 in a car crash. And for me, I was 26 at the time, and this got me questioning my whole life. And this is the second chance my dad never got. That was almost 10 years ago, and that's when I started my entrepreneurial I had had some other companies in the past. I mean, I was entrepreneurial my whole life in hindsight. Hindsight is 2020 but that's when I really started this sort of new mission of holistic self-improvement. Because before 26 I was achievement oriented and I was improvement oriented, but I wasn't self-improvement oriented. And so after that, I flipped the script. I went all in on self-improvement, health, wealth, life and love. And unfortunately, I went from successful and unfulfilled, free car accident to pretty much super fulfilled, happy, healthy, productive, fitness model, fitness competitor, fitness coach, to broke. So I was unsuccessful externally, but I was fulfilled internally. And now I'm finally in a position I think all of us want to get to, which is I am both externally successful and internally fulfilled. And I actually think that's the hardest place to get to, because usually what's most meaningful to us is not what the economy pays the most for. But there is a way to do it, and that's really what you and I think both kind of do is we help people build businesses that they love, that yes, are very hard to grow and sustain, but it's meaningful work that's fulfilling.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:27

And creating a business that they love, doing what they're doing, they add value to other people, making a huge difference to other people, but also are compensated appropriate as well, because that's really important. You know, it's not about the amount of money you make, but you need to make the money to have a good life.

Alan Lazaros  06:43

You must your quality of life is tied to money. That's very important.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:48

Cool. Okay, so when we had a bit of a chat offline before we came on board, you talked about the fact that you know you and your girlfriend, your partner, that you've got three online businesses. You've also got 20 people working for you. And you've said that because all your work is online and remote, there are something you've actually never met in your business.

Alan Lazaros  07:06

Yes, there are actually several. So we, we have people that work with us on our team from the Philippines, and I've that's an 18 hour flight for me. And so we, we don't know them, but we're on Zoom, so we have a 20 person virtual team, and they're from all over the world. We have one in Spain, we have several in the Philippines. We've got several in Canada, and then scattered throughout the west coast and the East Coast. But ultimately, I've met a lot of the core team. I always say, you know, there's sort of patriots and there's mercenaries. Patriots will fight for the cause mercenaries. Mercenaries will fight for the money. And ultimately what that is I have a core team, and those are the people that are really on the mission with us. And then you have freelancers, and that's contract work, but ultimately it's overall, it's a 20 person team, and my girlfriend has her own team as well, and they collaborate a lot, too, on our third business. So next level University, though, it didn't start with 20, but it's grown a ton. We actually had our peak. Had 22 we had to let a couple go, and one actually just left recently due to mental health challenges. But ultimately, it's a high functioning habit tracking, metric tracking Online team, that helps us harmonise and orient our personal, individual goals with the goals of the business. And it's been the hardest thing in the world to be a leader, but it's also been the most meaningful work in the world. And ultimately, people say you can't achieve anything alone. And that is true. You cannot achieve anything great alone. It takes a team. And if you want to have a great life, you need a great team. That said, though, and this is the one little sort of thing that came to me in my 30s, is one person can make the difference between a good team and a great team by setting a new standard. And so it's interesting, no one can achieve anything great alone. However, one person can make a huge difference, and that's an interesting duality that I think a lot of people don't understand.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:08

And they can make a huge difference both ways, right, positively and negatively. So I know that you talk about the three things that really matter in business. Obviously, people is one of them. But you also share with me that it's not natural for you people, is not your natural place? Is it?

Alan Lazaros  09:24

No, definitely not, definitely not so the three things, there's metrics, org, structure, discipline, systems, SOPs, metrics, numbers, all that kind of stuff. And then that's number one. Number two would be packaging and producing and delivering great products and services. And then number three would be people, which is influencing human beings, and I struggle with the people one and the reason why, and I talked to you about this a little bit offline, but I've uncovered so just so people know I'm not. Talking head. I have 28 people on my roster right now that I coach, and I've coached hundreds over the years. I'm I have a 10,000 hour tracker, and I'm coming up on 10,000 hours. I have about 8000 of coaching, speaking, podcasting and training. And when you do that much over the years, you just learn all different people, all different backgrounds, all different countries, all different cultures, all different industries. And you do, you see patterns. And one of the patterns that I've noticed is that there's these four modalities of thinking. We all have all four, but we have one, really main one, and so my main one is numbers and formulas. So the first modality of thinking is numbers and formulas. It's the rarest. Statistically speaking, most people do not think in numbers and formulas. Engineers definitely do, and your husband definitely does, based on the book that I just downloaded from his recommendation, technically your recommendation.

Alan Lazaros  10:53

But you know what I'm saying? All right? Number two is images and pictures. These are the visionaries, images and pictures, artists, okay? And the third is words and concepts. So that's actually the most common. Most people think in conversation words and concepts. And then the fourth one is energy and intuition. And I think women tend to think in energy and intuition more than men, statistically speaking. And that was my bad one. So we all have one really good one, a couple mediocre ones, and one really bad one. My really bad one was energy. I did not understand vibe at all. I put myself in low vibe environments. I didn't understand I couldn't tell when someone had negative intentions. I couldn't tell when someone was being overly dominant. Now I totally my girlfriend helped me understand. So the one reason to go back to people, why I suck with people, for lack of better phrasing, is I just think in numbers and formulas, and a lot of people consider that very cold and calculating. And so I have a playful example. When you're in high school and a girl says, Hey, do I look fat in this? And you say, yes, at level six out of 10, that doesn't go very well. And so the engineers amongst us will resonate with this. You kind of hide and walk away that version of you.

Alan Lazaros  12:04

There's two worlds. There's your world behind the scenes, what you really think and really believe, and then there's the social world that is allowed to say certain things. And so unfortunately, the part of us that is necessary to grow and scale better businesses and have a better life is numbers and formulas and metrics and habits and consistency and discipline when it comes to your relationships, I mean, you need empathy vulnerability, you need to understand nuance, you need to be relatable. You need to care. You need to show emotions. You need to have humility, those the skills that are necessary to succeed in a practical, physical, tangible sense, are almost diametric opposites of what it takes to succeed with people. And it depends on the people, of course, but ultimately, most people are either cold and calculating and intellectual and formulaic or really good with people. And unfortunately, some of the people that are the best with people are also wildly irrational. And so I think there's a lot of cognitive distortions that come from that. But ultimately, if you want to win in business, you have to be good at all three. So you can either become ambidextrous and actually learn the alternative to your natural state, like I had to do, or you can get a business partner who compliments the other side. So kevs the people person. He's more relatable. He calls himself regular dude, and I am. I definitely don't identify with that whatsoever. So he's the relatable people person, who people like, I'm the esoteric weirdo, but we need us both to succeed.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:39

Okay, I don’t think you're quite a weirdo, but I understand what you're saying. And okay, so let's talk a little bit more about these three things. So when you talk about, so I call it an operating system, but it's a myth. It's the structure. It's the, you know, the way that you actually run the systems and processes. What's important in that? Why? Why is that important?

Alan Lazaros  13:56

Yeah, well, the, the simplest way to break it down is most people don't understand that results in life are actually a byproduct of a system or a cycle. So for example, I have this thing called the Business star, branding, marketing, sales, client, delivery and community. Those are the five things that we try to improve every other week. We the chief officers rate them from zero to 10, and a lot of people don't understand that the success that they want in business and in life is actually a byproduct of a system that they're not executing. So for example, there's a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear, and he says that everyone wants to win an Olympic gold medal. It's not the wanting to win that's the difference. It's the system that you implement in order to get there.

The problem is, is that the result you want dictates the system that's effective. And then Pareto’s principle comes into this where 20% of effort produces 80% of rewards, and. However, what? If you take 20% of 20% you get 4% if you take 20% of 4% you get 0.8% if you take 20% of 0.8% you get 0.16% if you take 20% of that, you get 0.04% so I call them the 0.04% essentials. What are the tiny hinges that swing the huge doors? The problem is, if you don't think formulaically, it's very hard for you, like, if you want to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks, I can tell you exactly how to do it. It's not actually that hard if you know exactly how to do it and you have enough discipline to actually execute it. And as arrogant as that might say might sound, it really comes down to track your calories, track your weight, make sure you exercise consistently, and make sure you're in a caloric deficit, and it's 3500 calories per pound. So you can actually reverse engineer an exact finish line. And Kevin and I did this and proved it. We said we're going to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks, and we both weighed in, and it's a mathematical formula, however life gets in the way. And so for everyone out there who wants to achieve a lot of goals in their business or in their life, you have to have someone in your corner and or develop the skills yourself to actually reverse engineer the process and the systems underneath that that build it. And that comes down to metrics, habits, systems and processes and tools, and that's what I do for a living, but ultimately, for the longest time, I didn't understand the value of that, because it always came so naturally to me, and that's something I think will resonate with everybody. You're so good at the thing you're so good at that you don't even know it's valuable. And if, if, if you don't wake up to the value of it, you won't, maybe you might sell yourself short in business.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:49

Yeah, I’m just interested in the whole goal thing. I mean, I love James the atomic habits book. It's a great book. Do you think this is a magic number of goals, like as humans, is there a limit to how many things we should be working on at one time, or how many things we should be looking at to do in there. Because I'm always talking to people about less is more in business, but I'm just interested on the personal side as well as the business side.

Alan Lazaros  17:09

Well, if you crunch the numbers, and again, I'm a numbers thinker, so I'm going to keep bringing that up, but I did the math once, and if you are top 1% in health, top 1% in wealth, and top 1% in love and top 1% in quality of life. The number gets very, very big. So, it would be one over 100 to the fourth power. So you'd be one, and I think it's like 100 million or something. I'd have to redo the math. But the point is, is that in order to be the best in a room of 100 people in any one given thing, in order to be the best holistically, it's actually exponentially harder. And so yes, if you study constraint theory. So the things that I think are very important to study are constraint theory, game theory, chaos theory, and then productivity. And if you, if you study all those things, and you understand the formula, formulaic infrastructure of how to orient your life and optimize for certain things, there's something called multi-disciplinary optimisation. And what it what it says is you can only optimize for one thing at a time. So for example, for right now I'm optimising for this podcast episode. Right now, I'm optimising for adding as much value as I can in this moment.

Alan Lazaros  18:29

However, this is a finite game within an infinite game. So in a finite game is this podcast episode? The infinite game is to become a better podcaster. So one of them is a mountain that gets higher as you climb it. The other one is, how do I make this as valuable as possible? And so in business, business is an infinite game, but it's a series of finite games within infinite games. And so to answer your original question, if you focus on too many things at once, you're basically leaving a lot of potential on the table. But if you focus on too few things, you're also leaving potential on the table. And I personally struggle with this because I have mentors that are multi, multi-millionaires that are very, very, I mean, one millionaire, and I see their health, and I can't be that. I can't allow my fitness to take a hit for business success, and so I built a business that's built on holistic self-improvement. I told Emilia this. I said, I don't want to be at the top of the mountain and not in love. I don't want to be a billionaire and get divorced. I don't want to be a billionaire and be out of shape. I want to be successful holistically. However, the more holistic you want to become, the more difficult it becomes to be top 1% in any given area, because even having kids is a full-time job. I don't have kids yet, but I know that it is I coach a. Ton of mothers who have kids, and fathers, starting a business is a full-time job. You know, if you're starting a business for time freedom, you're in trouble. Starting running a household is a full-time job. Staying in shape is a full-time job. And so you have to be very selective about the things that are most meaningful to you, and hopefully those things are built on your strengths, and then you can mitigate some of the weaknesses that come along with that. So hopefully that's an answer that helps. But ultimately, it's very challenging. I get why people are successful and unfulfilled, or fulfilled and unsuccessful? Because I think being fulfilled and successful simultaneously, I believe, is unbelievably difficult.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:40

It's interesting. I've been reading a book called driven, I think it's by Daniel Pink, and it's all about the makeup of entrepreneurs and what makes us up. And he has the same issue around you know, it's really difficult to keep that balance, because you put your energy into being the best at one thing, and something naturally tends to fall away. So it's like, how do you keep focused? I guess, I think you said it. It's like being really aware of what is important and where you want to be, and then bring those systems and processes and metrics in place. You can check them off every day, every week, and ensure that you're doing what's required.

Alan Lazaros  21:13

It's, uh, it's like a tripod health, wealth and love. I think you can you only have three resources in lifetime, effort and money, and the plants that you water are going to grow, and the plants that you neglect are going to die. And that's the law of entropy. So the law of entropy states that all things will fall into chaos unless you, and we all know this, you have a home that you don't renovate, it's going to go to go to crap. You have a business that you don't work on, you're in trouble. And so how do you have you're not going to have 50 things that you do at level 10 standards. There's no way. And so each quarter, I pick three, and I focus on those three, and I do the same with my clients. So every quarter I say, okay, what are the top three MIPS most important priorities for this quarter, and then you have micro and macro. So my macro MIP, most important priorities are number one, husband, no, no.

Number one is CEO. Number two is husband, and number three is father. I'm not even a father yet, and I'm already making that my macro priority. My short term, though, is podcasting, training and coaching. And so for this quarter q4 we have 97 days left in the year. I am focused on podcasting, training and coaching, and I'm going to allow myself to be a little less intentional in all the other areas. Now, it doesn't mean I'm not going to exercise, it doesn't mean I'm not going to be lovely to my partner. It doesn't mean that I'm going to let the house go to crap. However, the majority of my time, effort and money are going to be put into those three things. And ultimately, if you can do that, quarter over quarter over quarter, 25 years is 100 quarters, there's a lot you can do with that. I mean, you can build a magnificent life and a magnificent business in 25 years. But if you are a short term thinker, and you don't play the long game, and you don't do things and invest in things that build on each other, and you don't accumulate and compound, you're probably going to feel like you're always drowning, most likely.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:16

I was at gym this morning. I saw those really interesting quote on the one. I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but it was something that lies. If you, if you don't like starting over all the time, then don't stop trying so well, there was effectively trying to say was that, you know, it's the reason you have to keep starting over, is when you stop and let things go and then you're going to start over again, whereas if you actually just keep, keep building on it, like you're talking about, then it becomes just a whole lot easier.

Alan Lazaros  23:40

So much the I think the majority of our shortcomings or is caused by neglect and a lack of clarity. So clarity creates certainty. Certainty creates Action. Action creates results. So we just don't have clarity. We don't know what we want, and we don't there's a Zig Ziglar thing. He talks about a wandering generality versus a meaningful specific. And I always say this to my clients, my business owning clients. I say, Listen, Tesla should not sell energy drinks and Red Bull should not sell cars. What are we doing? Like, who are you and what are you here to do? I'm here to help people reach their potential in business. I'm not selling ice cream on the side, and that's okay. We live in a specialized world. You're not going to go to Ben and Jerry's to buy a car, and you're not going to go to Tesla to buy ice cream, and that's okay. You have to be a meaningful specific and I know that we all have to wear a lot of hats, particularly women. I coach a lot of women. They have to be mom and they have to be CEO of the household, and they have to be CEO of the business, and they have to be the breadwinner. And I understand and I don't understand. I understand that. I don't understand, however, we cannot choose 50 things. You got to choose a half dozen things that you want to be world class at. And. Asked water those plants and let the others die. I'm saying it you gotta let the other ones fall. I can't worry about whether or not I have nice shoes that are always clean. I can't worry about whether or not my friend's friend likes me like that is a quick way to burn to the ground and then constantly berate yourself for feeling bad. You've got to make the game winnable. I think short term, it can, it can require pain and challenge. But I think long term, you have to have a game that's sustainable, and winning with winnable and meaningful. It has to be meaningful, and so don't allow, don't put level 10, time, effort and money into persons, places, things and ideas that you only value at level two.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:47

So that clarity really creates confidence. Not quite as scientific, but I know that in Alice in Wonderland, that when Alice reaches the fork in the road, she comes up with a Cheshire Cat, and she says, you know, which road do I need to take? And he says, along the lines of, you know, where are you headed? She's like, Well, I'm not sure. It's like, if you don't know where you're headed, any road will get you. And that is the same thing. It's like, if you know what you want to do. I always joke, because I've got, I'm a big reader, but I mean, I've read the secret, and I always thought the secret was an interesting book in terms of, you know, if you think about things that become reality, I don't think it's quite as simple as that. But if you're really clear on where you want to head. Subconsciously, you just see different communities you start to, you know, look for what will actually help you with that. And I think a lot of people, even in business, don't have that clarity about what they really, really want from that business. And then life is another kettle, official together.

Alan Lazaros  26:38

Well, I think that you need clarity on three things, everybody, particularly business owners. You need clarity on where you are and who you are. Self awareness. You need clarity on your goals, which is where you want to achieve, what you want to achieve, and where you want to end up. And then you need clarity on that, how the game plan, the strategy, the the formula, the habits, the metrics. We have a model wide test, I'm very grateful. And it has what's called supervisor mode, which basically means it's self driving as long as I'm watching. And it has nine cameras, so it has three in the front, one in the back, and then two in each door. And when it's rainy, or the one of the cameras has mud on it, it says camera is occluded, and it won't let you use supervisor mode. It won't be self-driving. And I know, I think most of us are like a self-driving car that don't know our current address self-awareness. Don't have a destination address, goal, and we don't have accurate data of the terrain, so we think we're driving off an exit, when in reality, we're driving off a cliff and then blaming the world, when in reality, we just think inaccurately. And as an engineer who tries to spend his entire existence thinking as accurately as possible. It's very obvious to me when I meet someone who wants a certain goal but doesn't have the accurate thinking to get them there.

Alan Lazaros  28:11

When it comes to themselves, others in the world, you do have to understand how you work and why you work that way. And you have to understand how the world works and why it works that way. And you have to understand how people work and why they work that way. And if you can spend your life learning that, what's the difference between a five-year-old and a 50 year old? The 50-year-old has more awareness, so they can make better choices. They can be more discerning. And so what I've got to boil down to is, if you want a fulfilling life, you have to orient your life around what's meaningful, which means you have to have self-awareness, and then you have to actually be able to achieve external results, which means the other example I give is this iPhone. This is the iPhone 14, when I was in 2007 when I graduated high school, the first iPhone came out, and it was garbage compared to this, even though, at the time, it was a revolutionary breakthrough. So what's seen the iPhone 14 and the iPhone the original one, this iPhone 14 is so much more capable, it's not even funny. And I say, Well, you work the same way. I'm Alan 3.5 and Alan 3.6 is going to be far better than Alan 3.5 far more capable, far more aware, far more skill sets, far better operating system. And so I people get triggered when you say this, but I have a really good gaming computer, and it doesn't trigger anyone when I say, my gaming computer is far more capable than yours, because it has better hardware, better operating system, better software. But if I say I'm far more capable than you, everybody gets triggered. But it's the same idea, right? I have updated my software and operating system more in this narrow area of business, therefore I am more capable in business, which is why I'm a business coach, but I don't know anything about. Plumbing. I don't know how to fix a car like I I don't know if people realize how ignorant people are when it's not their thing, because most people are constantly avoiding being seen as less than I have no problem being seen as less than I fix computers. I'm a computer engineer. I'm really good at metrics and habits in business and online and but I don't know anything about plumbing. I don't know how to fix a car to say, like, I don't know any of that stuff, and I'm okay with it. So if you're out there, what's the thing that you do? Well, that's deeply meaningful that you want to help people with, that they need help with, that they'll pay for. And if you can answer that question and complete consistently, iterate on it. I mean, you'll be so far ahead of the competition over the long term if you can stick with it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:49

So interesting. So what about I mean, I think we've got so many inputs and things in today's world and so much going on and so much comparison with things like social media and all this, all this stuff that I think is a little bit overwhelming at clients. I imagine I'm very I think I'm very fortunate. I know exactly why I'm here, and I know exactly what I want to achieve, but it's taken a bit of time to get there. Well, what if somebody's sitting there going to go and this sounds wonderful, but I've got no idea. I've got absolutely no idea. I don't know who I am, I don't know where I want to go. I don't know but I just know that I'm not fulfilled. What would you do?

Alan Lazaros  31:18

The answer that I would have to that there's, there's a Venn diagram that I have on my LinkedIn. I wrote an article about it, but, and a lot of people have heard of this, so it's not it's not uncommon. But if you haven't, this will be a game changer. So it's three circles. The first circle is what is deeply meaningful to you, what work is deeply meaningful to you. So one on one coaching, I started for free, and it was still worth it to me. It was so I loved every second of it. Okay, so for you, what could you do for free that would be so fulfilling that even if you never got paid, you'd still enjoy doing now, don't you are going to get paid, so let's wait. Okay, write out a list what's deeply meaningful work for you. All right. The second one is, what are you ridiculously good at? Now, this is the one that triggers people, because no one, a lot of people, want to believe everyone's created equal and in spiritual sense, they are in the real world, the tangible world, in the economy, not at all. And if you don't agree with me, go play basketball with Lebron James. It's not equal. It's never going to be, and that's okay. So you have to understand what you're ridiculously good at compared to others. Okay, so what's meaningful for me is one on one coaching, what I'm ridiculously good at is reverse engineering finish lines and creating metrics and habits that align with that. Okay, now the third one is what people will pay you for. So if you read out all the list of what's meaningful work for you, and then a list of all the things you're ridiculously good at, and then a list of all the things the economy will pay you for, currently, not 20 years ago, but currently and into the future, you will find what is at the epicentre of that, which is your unique greatness, your unique gifting, your unique strengths, and you can monetize that. Unfortunately, most of us are unfulfilled in our careers, because what's most meaningful and what we're really good at, and what the world will actually pay for are usually not aligned.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:24

So a lot of the businesses I work with are actually established businesses. They've been around for quite some time, and yet they still haven't necessarily worked out. What is important. This is an exercise that it's not just for when you're starting a business. Is it something you should be doing on a regular basis to go Am I aligned? Is this really what I love, that I'm great at, that fulfills me? And I think that people get into the thing of all, and the owner of the business, I must do this. There's no must in this world, right? It's, it's your choice as to what you want to do. And so getting clarity around what does feed your soul, what is important to you? Maybe you don't need to actually run the business. Maybe you can just be a, you know, a visionary, getting coming up with all the new ideas or maybe you're, you just loves the engineering side, to be an engineer, like, there's no this, there should be no must or shouldn't, like sugar.

Alan Lazaros  34:11

Yeah, everything's a choice. And everything come, every choice comes with repercussions, positive and negative. And, I mean, there's a million examples that I could give, but so Kevin and I, we Kevin Christina and I, we call ourselves the three cowards. I'm joking, but we're the chief officers the company. So I'm the CEO, he's the CSO. I'm the CEO slash CFO, because I do the finances, and he's the CSO, Chief Sales Officer, people person, and she's the COO. So we each have what's called our g3 target. And this is a simple framework where, basically, I say, Listen, these are the three things we're going to focus on. We are the DRI, the directly responsible individual for these three things. So mine is podcasting, training and coaching. Kevin's is. Sales, Next Level podcast solutions, which is our podcast production company that produces 50 different podcasts. And then next level social media, which is we also have the social media company at our company. It does my social media as well. And then the third one is Christina, and hers is support the team all the it and then graphic design, that's it. I said, let everything else fall but you me and Christina, better have level 10 standards in those things, because those things are of level 10 value at our company. Now, that's easy to say, but figuring out what those things are that are uniquely suited to Christina, to Kevin and myself, that has been that's taken years. And then on top of that, I say this. I say if I have a level 10 standard, and then that means Kevin and Christina will have level 10 or nine standard, and then our team will have level nine or eight standards, right? So no one's going to have higher standards than you. No one's going to care about your company more than you. And so if you're not leading by example, I think you're in trouble. And that's what makes it hard, because how do you keep doing the things that you want to see from your team while you're also running the company? And so that's a whole another conversation in and of itself, but ultimately, so for example, we have a journal. I say I will never sell something that I'm not using. So I have to use this every single day, partially because it's unbelievably helpful, but the other part of it is because I can't sell something I'm not doing.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:32

So we’ve got the operating system, the metrics, the organisational structure. We've talked about people a little bit. We've already talked about products and services, and that's the third thing that you say is really important in business, need to be a little bit of a brief overview of what you mean by that.

Alan Lazaros  36:45

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so there's, there's B to G, B to B, B to C, B to G is business to government. B to B is business to business. B to C is business to consumer. And I think most businesses, not all are business to consumer at the top of the business model, and then they end up business to business. So we have listeners, longers and business owners. Listeners are people who want to learn from us, long as are people who want to produce their own podcasts and build their own communities. And business owners are people who have skin in the game, who want to generate revenue. And I we do all three. We coach all three. Some people started listeners become lawyers, become business owners. That's great at the mountain that gets higher as you climb it. When it comes to products and services, what I think a lot of people in the 21st century don't understand is that you have to do a lot for free, because that's become the new economy. Google gives their services for free until you are eventually paid. Most things. Spotify, for example, has free with ads, and then they have a paid service.

Alan Lazaros  37:45

So everyone, I think, needs to develop products and services that are consistent and congruent with the purpose of your company, and then you need to have free that then leads to paid and that's a whole Another podcast episode in and of itself. But ultimately, so our podcast is free. This podcast is free. That's awesome. Okay, what you're the job of free value is to build a relationship with the right person that you're trying to help. And the goal of the business model, or the funnel, so to speak, quote, unquote. So for example, Social Media leads to the podcast. Podcast leads to a monthly meetup that we do every month for free, and then that leads to potential one on one coaching. The one on one coaching is paid value, but all the rest builds a relationship. And the goal on each level of this business model or funnel, and this is just a mock one. It's not ours. It's similar, but it's add value on that level as much as possible. So social media, you inspire and motivate, and then you listen to the podcast, you get inspired, motivated and educated, and then in the monthly meetup, you get a little more tangible, tactical, actionable stuff, and then one on one coaching, you really get dialled in and accountable and listen like train tracks. So that's a good business model where the goal is to add more value on each level and then to convert to the next level. Because ultimately, the point of a business is to help people. And if that's not the case, you probably have a business that's not aligned with me. And I think a really good business is one that's good for the owners, good for the team, good for the world, good for the community, good for the people. It's a win, win, win, win. And I use cigarette companies as an example, because really, what's good for the company is not necessarily what's good for the world. And again, we can have a moral and ethical discussion about that, if you want. But I I don't work with companies that I think are at the detriment of others, and I do work with companies that I think actually want to help people. And in order to help people, you have to be profitable, because you're supposed to invest those profits back into growing the snowball of the company so that you can have a bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger impact.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:42

Yeah, I think we're on the same page there. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that we'll get nervous about making money. Sometimes it's like, well, actually, as long as you're using that money to reinvest to do more things everybody, and I know that I encourage my business owners to actually share their revenue and their profit with the people in the team. Gonna say, but they'll think, I'm earning too much money. No, we want to get them on board with achieving the same goal of being profitable, because being profitable means that everybody benefits.

Alan Lazaros  40:09

100%, when you when, when the business owners win, the team should also win. When the team wins, the community should win, the customer should win. It doesn't have to be a win, lose. It can be a win, win, win, win, win, win scenario, and if you set up your company that way, in the long term, you will do very, very, very well in the short term, it will be unbelievably challenging.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:33

Okay, we probably got to wrap this up, because I know we've shared huge amounts of golden value here, but we could probably talk all day, and that's not going to happen. I'd love for you to share just three things that the listeners can go away with, that they can actually do in their life that can make a difference for them, and could be tips and tools from your personal experience, things you might want to offer. But what would you recommend?

Alan Lazaros  40:53

Number one would be habit tracking. Start small. Pick three habits that you know you should be doing, that you know you want to do that you're not doing. And just do them for next quarter. Q4 do them for 90 days and write them somewhere. I have a whiteboard in my office, so write them somewhere. You can see them visually every day. Number two, upgrade one of your tools. So if you have a social media company, and you don't have a phone with a good camera, you need to get a new phone. So invest in tools. I have a nice microphone, I have a nice camera. Packaging matters more than the product. Sometimes you need the right tools. I call them tools for success. Number three would be get a journal. So we have a journal called The Next Level Dreamliner. I'm not going to sell that here, but ultimately, get a journal that keeps you contemplating and reflecting, and that you're writing your thoughts down on so for us, we have the top three gratitude’s. We have our most important tasks on here, most important win, most important improvement, and then what we call a next level lesson. But journaling will change your life, because it'll keep you working on your life as well as in your life.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:02

I actually use a panda planner, original kind of format. I've had onto my remarkable as well, and it's just a really great way to kind of check in in the morning, check in. Got the new colour on. It's really exciting. But anyway, yes, I do. Just got the new one.

Alan Lazaros  42:13

Friend is going to be so jealous.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:17

But I do like I love the fact that it checks it checks in in the morning. I've got my gratitude. I've got what I'm excited about. I'm talking about planning out my day, and then I check in the evening, and then, you know, review what's worked, what's hasn't worked, and I get a bit of gratitude at the end of it. So it's really cool.

Alan Lazaros  42:29

Awesome. Debra awesome. And if it's awesome, let me know, because Emilia is considering getting one.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:35

Yeah, I’m still in my first week of it, so I'd have to reserve judgment at the moment. It's certainly beautiful. Having colour and a backlight, that is one of the things I do love about it. It's one of my favourite tools, because I get very easily distracted by things, and so having something that is not allowing me to get distracted by other things is actually very helpful.

Alan Lazaros  42:52

Yes, because people say, Well, just use an iPad. No, no, because that's distracting. There's other apps, there's email, right? So the remarkable I have one. She has one. I use my Dreamliner now, hard copy, but I love the remarkable. That's a great company.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:07

Fantastic. Hey, look so much stuff in here. We've talked about the three things that really matter. We've talked about the different, the four different ways that people actually approach life. We've talked about three things they can actually. There's just a whole range of stuff in there, if anybody wants to get in contact with you, and obviously explore the next level University. How would they?

Alan Lazaros  43:25

So there's three places for really. So you can do you can DM me or follow me on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn. So that I would put that in the bucket of social media. I'm on Tiktok too, but I don't really use it much, so Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn are the best way. And then the podcast is next level University, spelled just like it sounds, holistic self-improvement in your pocket from anywhere on the planet, completely free every single day. And then we have a website called nextleveluniverse.com not to be confused with next level university.com because that person who has that URL is charging way too much money. So we decided to do nextleveluniverse.com, the podcast is Next Level University.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  44:06

Okay, perfect. Hey, that's fantastic. Look. Thank you again for your time. Really appreciate it. It's been fascinating talking to someone who does think in a different way. To me, it's certainly challenged some of my beliefs and things. So thank you appreciate it.  

Alan Lazaros  44:18

Debra, thank you for having me. It was an honour and a pleasure, and I appreciate it, and I already got a good book recommendation from you, from your husband, so I appreciate it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  44:25

And keep in contact. We'll help you. Talking in soon.

Alan Lazaros  44:29

Will definitely will.