As we continue this year and our whole overall purpose and theme for this year with no BS wealth is to bring you into the mindset, the emotions we've talked about it on every episode. You hear about me all the time is the fact that our emotions drive our decisions specifically financially. But today with Alan Lazarus, I'd see you didn't screw that one up. With next level, not only is he a bad ass pot, but Cast host, but his whole background and how he got to his purpose is what we're going to drive on. So without further ado, Alan, once you tell us a little about yourself, but also how the hell did you find your purpose in. One. How did you even get to where you're at? Because your backend story is something that I don't think a lot of us want to go through. Nor do, should we go through?

Alan Lazaros:
2:10

I appreciate the candor with that because it, at the beginning of my story, I started with a lot of adversity and I didn't really realize that at the time. So the first thing I want to say is, first of all, thank you. Thank you for having me. I think it's a big deal to be able to speak into other people's lives. So anyone listening or watching this, thank you for your time and attention. The second piece of this is I am going to tell my story. I think it's important to provide context of who I am because it's not just the message. It's the messenger. But the other piece of this too is I didn't really understand any of this as I was going through it. And so I used to listen to podcasts like nine years ago. And these people would tell their stories and it sounded like they had it all figured out. And so I don't want to cut. Now I come off that way completely. I totally come off that way. Like I had it all figured, Oh, that's an interesting narrative. And that worked out that way. It's like rewatching the movie of your own life. When you see a movie as a kid, like I saw Finding Nemo back in 2003, and then you watch it again as an adult, you realize all these lessons and all these things that you didn't notice before. And so the same deal in my thirties, I started doing some therapy and I started really reflecting on my past a ton. And so now I'm thir I often joke, I'm hoping to hit puberty at 36. Yeah. Cause I, I'm thirty six thirty five going on thirty six, looking about twelve, so that's good. But I'm hoping to hit puberty soon root for me. But, at the end of the day I'm older now, and I've started to reflect a ton on my past. And so I'll tell my story, but just remember I did not understand any of this at the time. Born into adversity. Father passed away when I was two years old. He was twenty eight years old. Passed away in a car accident. I had an older sister who was six at the time. I had a mother who was thirty one. She was a stay at home mom. My father was the breadwinner. And she was a stay at home mom. My father's from a big Irish Catholic family. And so my real last name is actually McCorkle, not Lazarus. Lazarus is my stepfather's last name, and I'll get to that in a second. But the McCorkle family, my mom and pop up on my dad's side, my birth father's side. Had six kids, all J they had Jim, Joe, John, Jane, Joan, Jeanette, big Irish Catholic family. Yes. So at age three, from three to 14, I had a stepfather named Steve Lazarus. I took his name around age seven. And because we were trying to be the Lazarus is we didn't really talk much with the McCorkles. We separated ourself. I think partially because obviously my dad's death was painful. So maybe on some level we were avoiding that, but we were also trying to be the Lazarus's. Now from three to 14, I playfully refer to this time. I'm out now, this is a podcast about finance, but also about emotion and mindset, all kinds of stuff. So I'm going to bring all this in. This is the late nineties, early two thousands stepfather worked for a company called Agfa did very well worked on hospital computers. And I playfully refer to that part of my life from three to 14 as boats and BS snowmobiles, ski trips. We had a yacht, we had deep sea fishing. Motorcycles, trucks, mom drove a BMW. We did very well from the outside looking in, and it was the nineties when everyone was doing well, let's be honest. So at 14, my stepdad leaves and takes 90 percent of the income with him. So I go from Xbox, dreamcast, early Christmas presents, mom drives a BMW to, I get free lunch at school now. Cause our income is so low. He got the yacht and the apartment building. We got the house and the dog. And now I get free lunch at school because our income is so low. I get, I'm shopping at Salvation Army. My mom trades in her BMW for, a little Honda Civic type of thing. And I go from, I can't wait to go to my dream college, which was WPI, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It's like a mini MIT in Massachusetts. It's 50 grand a year. And this is back then. So I went from, I can't wait to see if I get in to, even if I do get in, I'm not gonna be able to go because I don't have any money. And so I did the only thing I knew how to do. My trauma response, now in hindsight, didn't know this at the time, by the way, was aim higher, work harder, get smarter. And I just, Did that and so I got straight A's through high school behind me is something called the President's Award right there. It's signed by George W Bush and Essentially what you what that means is you get straight A's through all of high school for all 16 report cards You have to have a 95 or above GP I did get 189 in honors English, but luckily it was weighted because it was honors class Never took honors English again after that big a big math and science guy And so anyways I ended up getting into the dream college now circle back to 14 when I'm 14 years old And I did not know what this at the time seriously stepfather leaves like I mentioned same time sister moves out Same time mom gets in a fight with my aunt sandy her sister My aunt Sandy ostracizes us from her side of the family. Again, now I'm 35, I reflect back and I go, I kinda lost three families by the time I'm 14. So now it's just me and my mom in that big house, and I gotta bootstrap my way through this thing. See what we can do. Get into college, I get my computer engineering degree. I go get my MBA. My dream was to be a fortune 500 CEO, like my, of a tech company, like my hero, Steve jobs, not my hero anymore, but it used to be, I used to argue like who's smarter, Steve jobs or Bill Gates. But anyways, so I did that and I, and then I job hopped in corporate a ton. Went from complete broke college student within a very short amount of time 65 a year to 85 a year 85 to 105 105 to 125 125 to 180 Almost 200 and I was a 1 percent global earner global not in the u. s. But global earner And not net worth but earner by the time I'm in my early 20s, so I don't have a mortgage I don't have kids I'm not married and I'm making almost 200, 000 a year in my early twenties. I paid off 84 grand worth of debt in a single year, college debt, which was wild. That was my goal. I just needed to get out of debt and I had 150, 000 in a Vanguard investment account. Bunch of tech companies. I bought cognacs. I bought apple. I bought a bunch of tech companies, ETFs different real estate investment trusts, small cap growth fund, all that stuff. And I was off to the races. That's when I got in my car accident. I'm 26 years old at this point working for a company called Cognex. So the companies I worked for, iRobot, Tyco Safety Products, Oz Development, Sensata Technologies, Simplex Grinnell, Lens Americas, all these different tech companies. And I eventually landed a company called Cognex. I'm an inside sales engineer, and then I get promoted to outside sales. And again, this is the shortest possible version. Again, how do you condense 35 years into minutes. Like this is the short version. So, so anyways, I'm an outside sales engineer. I manage. Vermont, Connecticut, Western Massachusetts. That's my territory. And I sell industrial automation equipment into manufacturing facilities. So machine vision equipment, essentially cameras, just like this camera in front of me, imagine water bottles going down the line and it checks the quality assurance and it measures everything and that kind of stuff. And I'm 26. I'm up in New Hampshire, my little cousin, we're playing call duty. We're not drinking. We're not partying, nothing crazy. And I'm driving a TGI Fridays to save money and pay off debt. I bought a car. A 2004 Volkswagen Passat for 5, 000 cash because I didn't want to waste money on a car. I wanted to get out of debt and be wealthy, right? And that car saved my life. Thank you. VW. I used to call this thing the tank. It's a German engineered steel trap heavy car. Awesome. So I'm in New Hampshire. I was supposed to yield and I didn't the snow banks were covering the signs. I ended up on the wrong side of the road. I look up from the GPS and I see in front of me what I thought was a Mack truck. Big bright lights right in front of me. And I calculated no chance. We live through this scariest moment in my life to this day. Was it a Mack truck? It was a lift kitted pickup truck, fortunately. And both airbags did deploy. My cousin hurt his knee on the airbag. I hurt my face in the airbag. Physically, we were okay, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, I was messed up. He was still 17 invincibility complex tweeting about it that night. I am existential quarter life crisis. The second chance my dad never got type of stuff. I was messed up emotionally messed up mentally spiritually physically good physically. Okay, which was great. And this thing was totaled too So thank you VW for saving my life my goodness But this was the second chance my dad never got because when he was 28, he died in a car accident And so for me, I just had to question everything. I questioned my whole existence. I questioned my life. I questioned my choices I questioned my friends I questioned You Who I became as a man, what my legacy would have been. I questioned everything. And the best way I can describe it now, again, in hindsight is before 26, I was very successful from the outside in. I was very professionally developed. I was very achievement oriented. I was very improvement oriented, but I wasn't self improvement oriented. I wasn't personal growth. I wasn't personal development. I was very Professionally developed resume, cover letter, LinkedIn, job, bachelor's degree, master's degree, all that kind of stuff. And so I think we all are ready or lefty. I was professionally developed resume, LinkedIn, cover letter, all that, but I wasn't personally developed. And so I think we all need to learn how to be both. And what I've found coaching now I've coached for, so that was nine years ago, the car accident. Now we have something called next level university. It's a podcast. It's global. Now we, I've been coaching for seven years now. I'm actually coming up on my 10, 000 hours. I have a 10, 000 hour tracker coaching, speaking, podcasting, and training. I think I'm around the 8, 000 mark right now, but I track it every week and with all people all over the world. So my youngest is 18. My oldest is 63, all business owners, 23, 24 people on my roster as of yesterday. And I coached these people from all over the world. And so now I see, okay, this Professional development without personal development actually isn't that uncommon. You have these amazing, developed, personally developed, holistic, heart driven people over here, but they don't win in the economy, sometimes. And it's wow. And then you have these professionally developed resume cover letter computer engineers that do unbelievably well in their field, in their career, but their personal life is an absolute mess. And that was me. So now I flipped the script hard after 26 and I went all in on self improvement and I actually went from successful and unfulfilled to fulfilled and broke. And then I eventually now I'm grateful to say I have both, which is good because being successful and unfulfilled sucks. Being fulfilled and unsuccessful also sucks. Yeah, I'm telling you, it's, it sucks. It's better than the first, but it's, it still sucks. So yeah that's where I'm at. And that was the believer, not the short version.

Stoy:
13:46

Man, like I said earlier, like we could go hours because when we speak through people and we want their story. So what you just laid out, although you're professional at it now, and you've been through it, we see so much trauma and things that have then dictated their next move specifically when it becomes to the money situation. And what you have found is what we try to get everyone to do is figure out that purpose. Hopefully it's not a car accident that scares the living hell out of yourself, but at least awaken of I'm not fulfilled. I need to become fulfilled, but I can't give up everything to become just fulfilled because then you have no money and there is this balance. I just love that part. So when you found this new, this new purpose and driven being like, you know what I'm going, balls to the wall, I'm going to figure out this personal development side of things. When you started that, what was that initial, we know what the initial step was and why, but what was that initial feeling for you when you started to go through therapy, you started to get on this path. Cause I feel like a lot of people are scared of that's what's going to happen to them immediately. Yeah.

Alan Lazaros:
14:49

Yeah, so there's something called an ACE score, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and you can, this is super well researched, you can look this up, and I had never researched this until after my car accident, but there's actually a lot of studies that are done on this ACE score, the higher your ACE score, Adverse Childhood Experiences, the more statistically likely you are to head towards early mortality. And. All of us are on a spectrum of trauma. Everyone has trauma. It's just to what extent frequency, intensity, density, duration. And just for everyone out there, I'm a computer engineer. So I'm, I think in numbers, so everything's statistics for me. So just bear with me. But I didn't, I knew intuitively that I was on the high end of ACE. A score but I had never had it statistically validated. I hadn't done therapy and got it confirmed I hadn't got it diagnosed or anything like that. So I knew that I had gone through a lot, but I didn't really understand The depths of it. I didn't understand what it was holding me back from I didn't understand how disconnected I was from my emotions I didn't know what the word vulnerability meant until I was 29. And again, it's not like I wasn't vulnerable it's just I didn't know what it meant, so I couldn't intentionally do it. And so Brene Brown's work has been really good for the world, particularly for men who never knew what vulnerability was. And so to answer your original question, after that car accident, I just started opening myself to all these different ways of thinking and being. I explored spirituality. I explored emotional intelligence. I explored emotional maturity. I explored vulnerability, humility, courage. I started to look inside a lot more. And so I, I would always playfully share this, a lot of women growing up, not all of them, but they're encouraged to have a diary and have a journal. And now I have a journal and I journal every single day, but I hadn't journaled at all up until 26, so there was no journaling and reflecting and going inward. And so I tended to be very externally driven, very achievement oriented. And that's not uncommon for a, for an American male or for a male in general. After that car accident, I just started to say, you know what? I'm going to work on this fulfillment thing. And to your point, not everyone needs to go through a car accident to get to that place but you do have to face whatever pain you're, you've been avoiding. And I think that's what the car accident did for me, really, at the day, it just got me to face all the pain that was already there. Because when you face mortality, you have nothing to lose after that. You're not playing not to lose. You're playing to win because you reach a certain level in life and you have status, right? You're a computer engineer and you went to WPI and you make all this money And you achieve what you thought was what you were going for the whole time. What you don't realize is. How empty that is when you're not being you when you don't know who you are when you aren't super Deep and you don't live a meaningful existence and a meaningful life and you haven't explored the inner stuff Like what do you adore? What do you hate? What don't you like in the world? What bothers you in the world that you and so you mentioned purpose your purpose is the opposite of whatever bothers you most You and I actually said that for the first, that's the first time I've ever actually said that's really good. Your purpose is on the other side of whatever bothers you most. So if bullies bother you, your purpose might be to help stop bullying. For me, you know what bothers me? How little people work on themselves. I was just at the eye doctor earlier. That's the reason I keep scratching my head. I haven't not worn glasses in months. So I'm, I usually fix my glasses. I don't know if you noticed that during my story, I did that a bunch of times. But I just got my context literally. I was at the eye doctors earlier and I had this moment in there. I'm not trying to be mean, but why doesn't anyone here work on them? No one's fit. No one seems vibrant. No one seems super fulfilled. Like why aren't we not? No one There was a couple people in there that were pretty good But the doctor herself too and I don't want to be unkind But the truth is I was like, whoa, you don't take care of yourself at all and I have empathy for that Maybe she's miserable. I didn't take care of myself either before 26 So I get it But my point is it but it bothers me that we don't work on ourselves, right? We take better care of our cars and our homes than we do of ourselves You And so that's my purpose, my calling, my, my purpose is to maximize my own unique potential and help others do the same. And that's what I'm doing right now. And that's what I've been doing essentially every day for the last nine years, since that car accident. And I don't think you choose a purpose. I think you uncover it. It's like you choose it, but it shows you. Yeah, and you uncover it more than anything.

Stoy:
19:36

It just makes you all lighter. But I say this quote a lot, what like true wealth is, the definition of true wealth. And I'm not even going to give the definition right now, because I'm going to use you as an example for it. You were wealthy, in terms of what people think wealth is, prior to 26, right? We could all say that. You're doing very successful, you're good to go. You even said it yourself, I was wealthy. That's wealth, that people think of. We're now living true wealth. Yeah. And that is what true wealth is. So those that listening and you keep hearing me repeat the definition of true wealth, he's living it now because of trauma and true wealth comes down to finding your joy and your happiness, being able to take care of others and live life on your terms. Nice. And that's what you're doing. And I love that. And I'm going to steal something from you that. Acknowledge and never even thought of being an athlete, former athlete myself. I don't know why the hell I didn't think of this, but playing not to lose versus playing to win. I would say majority, 95 percent of people out there are playing not to lose. And that is, I'm going to take that analogy and I'm probably going to write a blog post about it now, but it is because if you're playing not to lose, you are doing everything defensively you're probably highly stressed out because everything. Is life or death to you when you're playing to win the game, all of that stresses out, you're just moving forward. I'm a figure it out. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. I'm happy doing this. I don't have to worry about those things. And I just loved how you brought that up.

Alan Lazaros:
21:08

One of them is goal oriented and aspiration. One of them is I'm playing to win. I'm, I'm aspiring to be X, Y, Z, or to do X, Y, Z. The other one is playing scared in fear. So if you're playing not to lose, it means you have gained something that you're afraid to get to lose status. You're afraid to lose status when I went from almost two hundred thousand dollars a year The most successful quote unquote out of all my peer groups and then I became a broke podcaster Like that did not go. I got made fun of i'm not even kidding for a couple years it was so bad. I remember thinking like I thought you guys were my friends i'm trying to help people What why am I being so mistreated? It was really I feel like I cried for two years. It's an exaggeration, but it was a lot You It was really quite alarmingly bad. And when you go through that, Lonely Land is what I call that, what my girlfriend called it, Lonely Land. Because you have Old World, you have Lonely Land, and then you have New World. And every, think of a movie that you love, every one of us goes through this. The reason we love films and literature and books is because we see ourselves in these films. Old World is the world that's normal and comfortable. And then usually tragedy or trauma happens, and then the hero has to answer the call, and they go from victim to hero, and in the hero's journey they're super lonely, they have to face themselves, they have to heal their trauma, they have to learn and grow and all that, and then eventually they become the guide, but usually through the help of a mentor who helps them along the way and Lonely Land is that chasm in the middle of, I was a, Lonely Land in college was broke college student, don't know if I'm going to be able to go to school. Then I achieve all the success, and then I go from top of the status, whatever, in my peer group, all the way back to the bottom of a broke entrepreneur. If you can't do that, you are trapped. And I understand why. I do. I lived with my mom in my late 20s. Now, some of that was to help her too, keep the house and the family and all that. We've since sold it. Living with your mom in your late twenties, when you were a 1 percent earner in your early twenties is not a thing that most people do. And I remember someone asked me on a podcast one time, they said how did you know it would work? How did you get the courage to do that? And I actually was very honest for the. Not the first time, but I'm usually scared to share things like this. I said, honestly, I did know it would work eventually. Now, was I a hundred percent certain? No, but I was, my computer engineering brain did calculate that I would be able to do it. And that's a self belief thing. So if you don't have a lot of self belief, you probably are trapped. You probably do feel trapped. You can't just quit your job and then hope it works out. And so self belief is where you need to put it in the work. Self belief and self worth are the two main things. We can talk about them if you want to. I don't want to take us off the rails, but if you were to come to me and say, Alan if someone else wants to achieve their dreams or change careers or find a way to be successful, but also fulfilled. I would say self belief and self worth. Those are the two main things you got to go to work on self belief is I can build the castle Self worth is I have earned this castle. I deserve this castle. I'm gonna live in this castle. I'm gonna protect this castle I'm gonna honor it low self worth is I'm gonna invite all my friends and let them spill beer on the carpets and treat me like Crap and that kind of stuff. So I had high self belief low self worth Some people have low in both and that's being feeling like a victim. The hero usually has a lot of self belief and very low self worth. And then the guide actually has both. And I always use Harry Potter as a reference when he breaks the wand and throws it away. That's when he was enough as he was. That's when he finally became the guide. And before that Dumbledore was his guide. So how do we end up talking about Harry Potter?

Stoy:
25:16

I don't know. I don't know. But you went there and that's great. When someone is in this moment and that first I want to tell everyone you're not alone. That's why, I have my career. That's why you have yours like we want to be out there because we want you to know you're not alone in this world. There's a lot of people like you. It might not have your story, but we're here to help and we can understand that. With that though, once you got someone we're talking about purpose, we're talking about self worth that's cool and dandy, and they recognize that, but what is that step that they need to take? And what does the process look like? Because it's not quick, right? If this is not something that tomorrow, all of a sudden I win the lottery and I'm good to go. Like we're straight. We're good. It is a journey. It is a life journey. It's a wealth journey. Everything is on that, but what does that look like for them so that they can visually see that or envision that.

Alan Lazaros:
26:04

It looks like an infinite game. So people say that it's one of the reasons life's so hard is because everything's a duality. Everything. Everything's a duality. I'll explain. Okay, so people say it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. The problem with that is that the destination you choose in advance dictates the journey. My journey was very different since I chose CEO of a tech company like my hero at the time, Steve Jobs, no longer my hero. Driving from Boston to LA, I've done it. It's very different than driving 30 minutes south. It's a different journey. So yeah, it's about the journey, but it also is about the destination. You need both. And most of us are righty or lefty. You need to be professionally developed. You need to know how to create a great resume. You need to know how to interview. You need to apply to the school or the job or whatever that's important. But you also need to be. Empathetic and warm and loving and compassionate and heart driven and in touch with your emotions. So it's a it's an and not an or And so to answer your original question What does it look like it looks like an infinite game a bunch of finite games within an infinite game So if you study game theory talks about the two types of games an infinite game is one that never ends And there's no beginning middle or end there. There's It goes on forever. And then a finite game. So the best way I can describe this is a finite game would be you and I playing chess one match me becoming the best chess player. I can be is an infinite game. The chess match isn't a finite game. Life isn't a bunch of finite games within an infinite game. So me winning that one chess match is a stair step toward the infinite game of me becoming a better chess player and hopefully a better man. In some way, I don't know. I'm sure there's a lot of non great character driven chess players. I don't really know, but my point is that we fail quote unquote at life because we don't, we're trying to play finite games in an infinite game. Wealth. Okay. I was wealthy relative to what relative to how broke I was before that. And we need to play our own game and climb our own mountain. And we have to set the parameters of our own game within an infinite game. So the best way that I've figured this out for my clients and all that stuff is okay. What are the, what are the results that you want? And by the way, those are results you think you want. Cause as soon as you get them, you're going to wonder but you, but it's better than having no goals at all, because you need some direction. So what are the results you think you want? And then there's an iceberg on my whiteboard over here that has all the things underneath it. And I'll go quick with this, but if anyone wants it, I can send it. So results are the tip of the iceberg. That's what everyone sees. But what you go to work on, cause this was not overnight after 26, I just went to work on these things. The results of the tip of the iceberg beneath the iceberg is metrics, habits, tools, tasks, choices, skills, values, resources, awareness, beliefs, environments, influences, standards, and potential. So what I do with my clients, they come to me, they say they want this result. So let's say someone comes to me and says, I want to be, I want a net worth of 75 million. And I do have a client that actually has that as the goal. I have to go in my brain and say, okay, does this person have the potential to actually do that? And the answer is yes. Okay, cool. And by the way, there, there have been times where someone comes to me and says, I want to be a billionaire. And the truth is they don't have the innate potential to do that. I'm not going to beat LeBron James at basketball. I was not born capable of that, no matter how hard I work. Okay. Again, a duality. You're capable of anything you set your mind to? Yes and no. Obviously you've never played basketball against LeBron. So potential is number one. Standards. Does this person want to uphold the standards that are necessary to get this iceberg above the water? Okay. They do. Nice. All right. Who are their influences? I call it a five pointed star. Okay. So who are the five biggest influences is that, are they headed towards those results? All right. Next would be environments. Is this person going to the bar on the weekends? Is this person constantly going to barbecues and distracting themselves? Beliefs. Do they believe in themselves? What do they believe about themselves? What do they believe about the world? What do they believe about other people? And those are the three, by the way, not knowing yourself, not knowing about human beings and not knowing about the world, how it works and why it works that way, you might as well be on a GPS that has broken data, like the old garments, you drive right into a cliff or off a cliff. Next would be awareness. This is the understanding. Do you have a deeper understanding of yourself, others, the world. And then you've got. So some people I was fortunate. I had two huge advantages in life. Number one, I had a really powerful brain. Very grateful. Number two, I was born in a country with something called equal opportunity, and I was given a lot of financial aid and a lot of scholarships because I had academic excellence, but they invested in me. My country invested in me and I'm so grateful for that. I wouldn't have been able to go to school and where I grew up was not good schools. It wasn't a nice environment, small town, small mind. And I got out of that. I went to one of the best tech schools in the world. I met some of the most brilliant minds out there. And most of my friends from college work for tech companies now, and one of them works for Apple all kinds of stuff. So the point is I had resources that were given to me that allowed me to elevate. And if it wasn't for that, I might not be this man in front of you. In one level, I earned that by working really hard on the other level. I was born in a country that had that. How lucky am I? Holy crap. Next would be values. This one's a hard one. Some people, you ever have someone come to you and they say I really, I want to lose, I want to lose 20 pounds this year. And then they like go to the beach and eat hot dogs. It's the problem with people's goals is they're in conflict with their values. Listen, I love movies. I love eating food. I love food. Big fan. So I try hard not to set goals that directly conflict with the things I love most in this life. Because if you want to be a billionaire, let's say, or a multimillionaire. You're going to have to delay gratification a lot. I had one client of mine who wanted to achieve huge impact, but he also wants to get his kids off the bus every day and all that kind of stuff. He wants to be at all their sporting events. It's listen, you're not going to be a billionaire and be at your kids soccer games every week. That's not really a thing, despite what social media might look like. There's only 3, 200 billionaires on the planet, by the way. And how many of them didn't inherit their money and were self made and didn't have any and got their kids off their boss every day. None of them, but again, not everyone thinks statistically, right? So at the end of the day, there's that. So the results cannot conflict with core values and I'll almost done here skills. Do you have the skills? And if you don't, can you develop them? The hard skills, the soft skills, do you effectively communicate? Do you know how to communicate effectively? Do you think accurately and analytically? Skills. Choices. Your choices have to align with the results. Tasks. A difference between a habit and a task. A habit is, I'm putting rice in the rice cooker every day. A task is, crap, I gotta buy a new rice cooker, my rice cooker broke. Tools. Tools for success. iPhone 14, the computer I'm using right now cost me 2, 000. This thing, this is an Asus, this thing's a beast. I call it the space station. I've got a 52 inch behind me. I've got this nice microphone tools for success. These tools enable me to do my great work in the world. So you need to have tools, habits, and then metrics. So here's the problem with why most of us don't achieve our dreams. All of those things have to be in alignment. You set a goal just saying you want something. And here's the problem. A lot of the people who achieve things, they stumble upon it. They don't know how they did it. That's been fascinating. I've interviewed, I've been coached by, I've coached literally wealthy, famous people. And I'm telling you, half of them have no idea how they got there. That has been nothing short of alarming for me. Again, I'm a computer engineer, so I reverse engineer everything. So I, maybe I'm a weirdo, but they didn't line these up. They didn't go, Oh, these are the standards I need. And these are the environments I have to be in. And these are the police. They stumbled upon a lot of that. And now they're teaching what they think did it. And It's that's not going to work for you. Yeah. And so you've got to be very humble which a lot of really wealthy people sometimes aren't. And then sometimes they really are. Sometimes they really are too. But at the end of the day, I get why we struggle to achieve our dreams and be fulfilled because what are the chances you're going to be fulfilled and have all those things in alignment and never get to eat pizza? I mean,

Stoy:
35:22

it's very low. And you've summed it up. Usually we always ask what's one thing you want to leave? And I think. Your depiction in your impiction of the iceberg and all of those steps really nail it. But ultimately to simplify the overall message is not everyone has their shit in order. Most of us haven't figured it out by trying to figure it out, right? You are going to stumble into something if your things are alive, right? Just to put it very simply That is the summary of what we're talking about here. And the thing is It's a journey. It's going to be a forever thing until the day you die. You're going to figure it out. Things are going to adapt. Don't think that your path that you have created is specifically what you're supposed to be doing your whole life because things can happen. Things will change. And if you're open, you know who you are, humanity, you've learned other cultures. That's when opportunities can step up. For you.

Alan Lazaros:
36:14

Story, I just have one more thing to share about that. Cause I really, I think this will land in a new way for anyone who's watching or listening. I said this recently to my business partner, Kev he's grown and evolved so much over the last seven years. It's not even funny when we first got into business together, we have a 21 person team and we have a global business. Now it's wild. And he's, he and I started off as a couple bodybuilder bros talking on microphones. It's wild how far we've come, and that was back in my fitness modeling days. I was a little different, but I don't know if that was the real version of me or not, but anyways I suppressed my computer engineer and I brought up my athlete and now hopefully I'm a little bit of both. But anyways, so I said this to him. I said, imagine this version of you. 34 year old Kevin 3. 4 version 3. 4. And you took this version of you, this mind, this body, this human being, this consciousness, and we put it into your 17 year old circumstances. I said, who are you dating at 17? He's who are you hanging out with? What were you doing? What were you reading or not reading? What were you partying? Whatever you were doing? I said, dude, the moment I put you into your 17 year old circumstances immediately, every person, place, thing, and idea is a little bit more misaligned. A lot of misaligned. Honestly, you do not achieve your goals. You grow into them. I this version of me would never have dated my ex. That's okay. Maybe at the time that actually made sense for that version of me. It's a growth journey. And so I'm not, I don't regret dating my ex. I am glad that I didn't continue dating my ex. I'm the partner I have now. I never could have been with, she's se, seven years younger than me. I always joke, I say when she's 29, right now, when I was 29, she would never have dated me. No way. She's way more mature at 29 than I was at 29. That's my point, is this version of you has persons, places, things and ideas around them that are aligned right now. But when you grow, when you learn, when you improve. When you work on yourself, when you work on your self belief and your self worth, the world will amalgamate around you. You will filter out the person's places, things, and ideas that no longer align, and you will attract in the ones that do. And you need to set those boundaries yourself. And my friend group 10 years ago versus my friend group now is a complete 180. And I had a car accident that, that helped amplify this process. But even without it, That would have happened to some extent and you got to let that happen So if you keep holding on to the past and playing not to lose friends not to lose family Not to lose money not to lose status not to lose corporate You are in so much trouble because you're going to stay stuck Instead of what you're supposed to do, which is grow Into the full expression of what you were always meant to be your full potential whatever your full potential is That's what I think we're all after so anyways

Stoy:
39:31

And the only way to get that is to go get it. You have to play to win the game. So again, Alan, I appreciate you appreciate everything that you're doing. I really hope that we can continue to grow both in our relationship, but helping more people understand their purpose and what drives them to get them on that path, that's great for them. So we appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been great. Thank you.

Black Mammoth:
39:53

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