EP18: GETTING TO THE NEXT LEVEL IN YOUR LIFE | ALAN LAZAROS | NEXT LEVEL UNIVERSITY

Alan Lazaros, co-founder of Next Level University, joins Tony Bradshaw for a candid conversation on what it really takes to build a thriving business and podcast from the ground up. From leading by example to tracking the right metrics, Alan shares the systems and mindsets that have helped him grow an engaged online community — and how you can apply the same principles to your own journey.

TAKEAWAYS

Consistency is key — keep evolving and never stop showing up.

Lead by example. Be willing to do what you ask of your team.

Track your metrics daily to stay aligned and avoid operational chaos.

Focus on high-value activities and let technology do the heavy lifting.

Build a community that values genuine human connection over automation.

TIMESTAMP

00:00 Introduction to Alan Lazaros and Next Level University

02:52 The challenges of starting a business

05:39 Leading by example in business

08:24 Managing a virtual team effectively

11:21 Tracking metrics for success

14:03 Building a cohesive business model

17:10 The value of community in podcasting

19:04 Starting your podcast journey

22:25 Building a personal brand through podcasting

25:06 Framework for success: goals and metrics

28:25 Embracing hard work and discipline

32:00 Recommended resources for growth

CONNECT WITH ALAN LAZAROS AT nextleveluniverse.com

Get Business Smart Coaching helps entrepreneurs and leaders build better businesses and better lives on purpose with purpose.

Learn more about Get Business Smart Coaching at TonyBradshaw.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Get Business Smart Podcast. And we're going to have some fun today with Alan Lazarus. Is that correct, Alan? Uh, it's Lazarus, but no worries. The world does not revolve around my last name. All right, Lazarus. And so Lazarus is going to be fun to talk to today because he's co-founder of Next Level University. So you may have heard me talk about 1% better, where you just got to get 1% better every single day. And you stack that up over time. And if you can do that with discipline, you're going to end up in a pretty good place. So Alex is really, or Alan is really good with next level, just helping people reach that next level, find their full potential, unlock their full potential. He's the host of the next level university podcast, which I'm going to become a listener of. I want to hear some of what you have to say, Alan. And he's a business coach. And so, which is something we're doing with this show, Get Business Smart, is reaching out, trying to find business owners that need a little help. Because on average, you know, nine out of ten businesses die within the first 10 years. And if you're in a franchise, eight out of ten survive. So uh they have a system that allows them to be a little bit more successful in the business world if you're a franchisee. And if you're not a franchisee, good luck because it can be really, really hard to figure out business. So, Alan, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

That is the first time I heard that stat. That's interesting. Because yeah, first of all, thank you for having me. And already an insight because I'm a curious guy. That's interesting with the franchise thing, because they have a system that they're already running that they know works, and they obviously have some brand awareness behind them typically.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Yeah, they don't have to be a little bit more than a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

It's almost like the momentum's already kind of going. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Exactly. Yeah. And uh I didn't really hear that stat until I until I talked to a few franchise uh guys who are helping sell franchises. There's been a couple of them on this show, but also on my other show. And uh they basically just find people who want to start businesses and go help them pick a franchise. They usually handle about 600 franchises that they represent, and then they don't get paid by the person, they get paid by the franchise company for placing them into that franchise. So they've got different ways and methodologies. So it's really fascinating. I hadn't heard that stat either. And so it kind of surprised me, but I'm like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense because the system's already there.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah, it makes sense. Because in a way, the system's there and the infrastructure's there, and that's the hardest part. Starting something from scratch is alarmingly difficult. And for anyone out there who does want to be a business owner, I started my first business when I was 21. It was called Campus Libre. It was in college, it was a campus-specific Craigslist for textbooks. It was like a our biggest competitor at the time was called U Loop, and it was basically a four-person team, and we we had a falling out, so failed. And uh nine years ago, I started a podcast with my business partner now, Kevin, and that has been successful. But it's been put it this way, and I'll share this right out of the gate. I haven't taken a day off in 11 years. And the reason I say that is not to brag or or any of that. It's it's if you are not going into business with humility, you are going to die. You're gonna lose. And to me, humility is I am gonna work every day. Uh, the four-hour work week, I think, is uh stupid.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Yeah, that's interesting. I think everybody's got different concepts on what business is and where it's at. The one thing I know for sure that I've learned is running a business, growing a business, delivering a business, it takes energy. It takes a lot of energy. And, you know, I think some people might, you know, deliver that energy over a long period of time. Maybe they are working a four-hour work week. Maybe it takes them 10 years to get it off the ground because they are working a four-hour work week. Others that I've talked to might work 60 hours a week on their day job and then work 60 hours a week on their business for, you know, one, two, or three or four years. But it really comes down to energy, and you have to put out a certain amount of energy to make that business successful. If you're not willing to put that energy out, don't go into business because it's gonna take a lot of energy to you know get to that first million dollars, which is obviously pretty rare. I think a lot of businesses don't ever even reach that first million. They fall very short of that, and uh, which is you know, it's kind of sad, but you know, you're learning so much, man. And so, you know, when you started uh back at what 21, you said you had to wear a lot of hats, right? So you had a lot of different things you had to do as a business owner.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

So in my first company, I was uh founder with a team of four in college, and I was the chief marketing officer. So I that was mostly just the marketing sort of growing it. But the second company I started was Alan Lazarus LLC, what you'll never learn in school but desperately need to know. It's kind of like personal development, self-improvement, and personal growth. I wanted to bring that to the masses, and I now realize that that's alarmingly difficult. But but that's kind of so that was 11 years ago, and that's kind of what next level university has become. So yes, I've had to wear every hat along the way this second time around. And in some ways I still do as the CEO, because if someone else is sick or can't do it or whatever, like ultimately it falls on you. And so I always tell my team, I'm not gonna ask you to do anything that I'm not willing to do. Now, that doesn't mean I do the same things that they do, but I do run the same level of work ethic and consistency and reliability.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

So yeah. Yeah, willing to get in there and mix it up. You know, that's one of the things about my former boss that I really appreciated when I went to work for him back in 2001, which is uh Dave Ramsey. Um, we used to have to unload trucks and we would get these big trucks in with thousands of books that had to get offloaded. And he was right there with us in the assembly line, unloading the books, passing the books along.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

You know it.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

And uh yeah, and he's doing it. He did that for for wow, a long time, probably until we hit, man, maybe at least 75 million a year, maybe a hundred million. He started pulling back a little bit from it then, but man, he stayed right in there with us unloading those trucks. He would do it sometimes. He even uh did uh when we would reset our room, we used to have a staff meeting, which we would have, you know, a hundred first it was like a hundred chairs, then it was like 150, then it was 250, then it was 400. And we would have to reset this room, pull all these chairs up, and he was right there with us, uh loading chairs, like stacking chairs. I love it. And uh eventually, you know, he got away from that. You know, he just had to go, okay, I'm I'm just doing too much and I have to back it up. But he still would get in there sometimes. Nice. He just wouldn't do it every time. So that I really respected him for that. I thought it was pretty good. But uh, you know, being really focused, like you said, being willing to do anything that way people can see you lead because you're leading by example.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yep. That's exactly it. Uh the hardest, hardest thing in the world, most important thing in the world, leading by example. Be the tip of the arrow. Don't have your team go into battle while you sit back. That's just be present, yeah. Because it's just ridiculous, in my honest opinion. I'm all for leverage, I'm all for Paretoing Pareto, I'm all for high high value activities, uh of course, right? And and strategy and all that. And if you aren't executing and working at a level 10, you're not gonna be able to lead the nines and the eights and the sevens. Like the law of leadership is a thing, and you have to care about your business more than anyone else will. Ultimately. And you have to show that. You have to sh that has to be obvious. It has to be obvious that you're willing to do whatever it takes to be successful, and that doesn't mean neglect your health or anything. I'm I'm just saying you have to be more committed than your team. Your team will only ever be one notch down committed from your level of commitment. That's my truth.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. Now, uh, how many staff members do you have right now with your company, uh next level university? Twenty-four. Okay, good number. And now are they mostly like centralized or are they uh virtual? Virtual. All virtual. Fully virtual. Even your partner?

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Is he virtual too? He's in yeah, he's a state away. We're we're he's like an hour away.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

But you guys get to meet up sometimes. Yeah, of course. Do a beer or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah. If if you drink. I don't drink. I don't I don't drink. But another one. But we we had an event actually uh in March called Next Level Live. We did it for nine years. We actually stopped doing it as of March. But I saw I was at it was at his house. So I still see him.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Yeah, yeah, good, good, good. Yeah, I didn't I don't drink. We uh I grew up in a family, had a lot of alcoholism, and uh so just very averse to it. My wife uh went to school out in Wyoming, she's like all the high school kids were drunk all the time. And so she like hated alcohol, so you know we both got together. Good for you. Right about twenty-eight, and so it's pretty interesting to see how two people get together that that don't drink. And you know, now I've got a son that he didn't like abide by that. So he just got married. They're 21 years old, so they have a little alcohol in the house. It's uh I don't drink either too at all. Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, I quit seven years ago. Okay. Seven or eight years ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Yeah, that's good. So um so when you're leading, let's switch back to leadership. So you got this team, you got this leader team. What are some of the things you do? Because leading a virtual team, it's I would think uh I do some virtual stuff with people, but not everything I do is virtual. It's like, you know, maybe like f I don't know, 50-50 or something like that. So what are some of the quirks and things that you have to work through or you had to learn to run a virtual team at the level you're running it?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah, ultimately tracking. A lot of people don't like tracking. So every client, every team member, where they all track metrics and habits and goals and priorities and all that. Like we have uh you ever read a book called the 12 week year? No, I haven't. Okay. So there's something called the 25 year framework and the 12-week year. Uh one of them is by Dan Sullivan, the 25 year framework, and then the 12-week year, I forget the name of the author, but it's a book. I don't even think it's a particularly great book. I think it's a great concept. I think it's a great concept. So the concept is what if I could achieve more in 12 weeks than you could all year? And it it piggybacks on quarterly goals. So I combined the 25-year framework with the 12-week year, meaning I'm 37, so in 25 years, I that's a hundred quarters. What could I achieve? If I can't achieve my goals and dreams in a hundred quarters, I'm lazy. That's my truth. Yeah, yeah. So I I set up all of NLU, next level university, our whole team on that sort of system. So we have a bi-weekly team huddle where we go through every department. Every department has what's called a DRI. Steve Jobs called it directly responsible individual. So you know who to point to if something falls. We all have our golden, silver, and bronze glass ball, aka our top three priorities. And so I tell my team, and this is something we had to learn, is we're all juggling 12. Nine of them are rubber, rubber, they can drop and they bounce. Three of them are glass. If you drop them, they break. One's gold, one's silver, one's bronze. If you're gonna drop a glass ball, you better drop the bronze or the silver, never the gold. Yeah, it's gonna be. And so I I everyone has their top three priorities, and then they have a quarterly goal that rolls up to those top three priorities, and then they have an annual goal that that that rolls up to. And so everything's reverse engineered, and and it everyone has what's called peak performance tracking. I do this with all my clients and all my team members, and and essentially it just makes sure everyone's I always make the joke, what if Michael Phelps' coach was like, yeah, just jump in the pool, swim around. Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people do in life. And yeah, I'm an engineer, so I am obsessed with tracking. I think tracking is everything you and I talked about, tracking finances.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Yeah, so yeah, I love what you're saying there because what happens, and I think a lot of people do this, is they go to work, they work 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week or 60 hours a week, but maybe they're only like 40% productive. And and uh what you're talking about is like, hey, how do you maximize your productivity to you know that 80, 90th, 100th percentile to where you're actually delivering something? You know, you got goals, you got a 25-year goal, that sounds wonderful. Um, and then you're doing these these three big rocks. Now we we incorporated rocks at Ramsey's. Uh, we did it through uh a process called scaling up and patterson process. So there's uh we had like three different systems we were using. One was scaling up by a book by Vern Harnish, it was based on the Rockefeller Habits.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

And then we had Patterson Process, which was very similar to uh Rockefeller Habits, and and we implemented that. So uh that's what your your model sounds a lot like that. And then you've of course got EOS, which is entrepreneurial operating system, which I think is more of a I see it more as a small business tool. You know, when you start getting up over like 75 people, I think it falls apart a little bit, but you know, that's my opinion versus somebody else's. Now what Go ahead. I was gonna say, what tool are you using? Are you using Monday.com Google Sheets?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah. Basic, cloud-based, free. We we use Google Works Suite for everything. And it's I have full control over all of it, and um it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

I love it. Now, did you do uh templating and programming in there and pay somebody to do that, set up and move on? No, no. Are you just like super simple, this is it?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah, the simpler the better. People don't do complex things. Uh-huh. So so we have one most important skill, one goal for the year rolls up to the long-term vision, you know, three priorities, three quarterly goals, and then one most important skill. And and everybody tracks every day. It's all cloud-based, it's free, it's simple enough where everyone can use it.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

And I say, I say this if you can't get in front of a spreadsheet once a day, getting in front of a spreadsheet once a day keeps chaos away. Nobody likes it. Yeah. Don't care. It works unbelievably well. I have people just absolutely crushing it. And and it's simple. Simple, simple, simple. And the truth is all these other things are so complex, people don't use them.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Yeah, I agree with that. Now, uh, I love what you're saying there because it's basically like a task list reminder. You're going, hey, we're gonna get in front of the spreadsheet once a day, we're gonna look at it, we're gonna reset our priorities because you tend to get drift, you get mental drift, you know, what do I gotta do now? What do I gotta do next? I gotta deal with the kids when I get home, I gotta deal with dinner when I get home, I got all these different things. And then it's real easy to see your priorities slip. Now, when I learned, what I learned, we were doing a big project when we were redoing Dave Ramsay.com's website. You know, we had a man, it was like an $80 million website at that point when we were trying to rebuild, rebuild this website. And so there was a lot of potential for problems to, you know, crop up. So we had to do that analytics, we had to watch all this stuff and and organize it. And what I learned, we had like four key men on the project, and I was surprised at how much they all drifted within like 30 days. And it's like, hey, this is what we got to get done. And then 30 days later, it's like we're on different pages. And I'm like, how in the world did we go from being on the same page 30 days ago to being off the page? So then we started implementing like daily huddles and things like that. And uh, and just like what you're saying, we're going, hey, we're getting back to the focus every single day, back to focus, back to focus. What do we need to take care of today? So I love that.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

That's the runway. I call it the runway. You have to have a certain, especially if you're virtual, you have to have so we have a bi-weekly team huddle, we have metrics meetings bi-weekly in between those huddles, and then on the huddle we go through each department. We do green, yellow, red. Green means we're making progress, yellow means we're coasting, red means we're sucking, and then there's a 0.1% improvement. 0.1% every day leads to 9% per quarter, which is 41% year over year, which means you double your revenue every two years.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Yeah, yeah. That's fantastic. I love it. So you got uh basically two businesses right now, right? Is that correct? Basically two companies. No, just one to the first one, the first one when I'm just doing the coaching. Oh, the the podcasting when I just one company.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Okay. Yeah, it all rolls under one company. Two product lines, though. Two product lines. Oh, way more than that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Tell us about your product lines then. Top top to bottom, biggest to smallest.

unknown 14:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

So the top is social media. Uh the next is other media, is what we call it. So things like this podcasts. We have our podcast called Next Level University, and then and then it goes into some other stuff. So I have a master class I've been doing for five years, I have a book club I've been doing for five years, and then there's a paywall, and then we have a group coaching program called the Next Level Podcast Accelerator that we've done for about three years. Okay. And and there's a bunch of other stuff too. We have a Dreamliner, it's called it's being changed to the Peak Performance Planner, is what we're calling it. But eventually it's next level podcast solutions, next level web solutions, next level social media. So those three departments are very big. I told you we produce 86 podcasts now. And then I have 34 business clients that I coach. So we have 144 paying clients, we have over 300 people in our private communities, and then we have 1.5 million listens. And again, rather than all those numbers, really what it is is a cohesive business model that actually builds trust over time through consistent effort.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love what you're saying with the diversification when you grow that thing, those kind of grow. They they uh it's pretty powerful when they start stacking on top of each other and you figure that out. That sounds very similar to what we did at Dave's as far as multiple. We have like 12 different business units, but they all complemented each other. Of course. Which is powerful. Now, uh your community, let's talk about that for a minute because I just launched my community two months ago. We're still in the like early stage phase. We're doing like free memberships right now to get people in it so they can talk about it, and then we're building up the value. So we'll probably take a you know six months or so to build value, and then uh we'll probably open it up, start selling it maybe in about uh maybe July, I think, maybe July, August or something like that. I did talk to another gentleman on the show, I forget his name at the moment, but he had gone the route uh from podcasting and investing, which is what he did, to actually financial coaching. And he started three different communities. One of them had uh 7,000 members, one of them had 2,500 members, and then I think the other one maybe was 700 members. And uh and he's charged about 20 bucks a month. So when you start running those numbers, I mean that it's not insignificant revenue. You know, you got 7,000 and uh 20 bucks, you're talking about $140,000 a month that's uh coming in through his uh revenue channels, which I thought was pretty cool. So you your group is about 700, you said right now? 300. 300, 300.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

We have several groups. Okay, they're very engaged though. Like these are not just numbers, right? These are people I know deeply.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Now, are they are you charging for these groups or are they free memberships, or how does it work?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Some of them are charged, some of them are free. The group coaching program is charged. So we've graduated 220 people from our group group coaching program. We do it every quarter. It's like a 12-week boot camp for podcasters.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

Oh, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

And it's focused exclusively on podcasters? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so uh it's level up yourself, level up your podcast, level up your business, 12 weeks, four weeks each of those sections, and we have a private WhatsApp community with everybody in there, and it's it's on fire. But ultimately, I think the point for your listeners rather than all these numbers and nonsense is is I think community is the future. Human connection, belonging, and community is the future because everyone's trying to automate everything and people are sick and tired of talking to AI.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Yeah, they're gonna reverse, it's gonna reverse a little bit, fly back.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah, so we we don't really care about numbers in in that sense. I mean, I it's interesting because I obviously care about numbers because I know all the numbers, but to me it's the people. We have we're very specific about our people. Like, very discerning. And once you are in, we like really nurture our community. I mean, every single day. We have a fitness group that I'm in every day. Kevin's in there every day.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

Yeah, you know it's interesting when you talk about AI, people just sick of AI and the automated responses and things like that. Because I think there's gonna be a reversal on automation in like different places. So, like, for example, you can go to like steak and shake and deal with a real human and eat a burger, or you can go to McDonald's and go to a kiosk and all of a sudden it serves it and there's no interaction. And I think people will reject that in the long run. I think people will step up.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

It makes human-to-human interaction more valuable. When everyone in the world where everyone's automating, our company is never going to automate the human-to-human part. We'll automate the stuff that's behind the scenes that no client sees. But the group coaching program is me and Kevin and my team member Amy, and we're like very close with these podcasters.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Well, let's switch to the podcasting because we are on a podcast. I've released uh roughly 170 episodes. I think what did you say yours was? 2,500, 2,500, or what was it? 24. 2450 we're coming up on. Yeah. So wonderful number. You do a daily podcast, been doing it for a while, obviously. That's powerful. I've been doing a weekly for a little while. Um, getting the numbers out. So, what are some of the things when you see somebody, somebody on this show's listening, they're like, hey, I want to do a podcast. I've thought about that. What would you tell them? What would you how would you start them out?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Uh first of all, the way to start is make sure it's something that you're deeply passionate about. Because you're not gonna I don't think you're gonna be able to compete if it's something that you're not like deeply obsessed with. So that's number one. Make sure whatever you build your business around is an obsession, or at very least, a like a deep passion. Like I don't care about cooking, so it's if I had a cooking show, it wouldn't work. I have a client named Nina who has the purpose-filled kitchen and she has a cooking show, and that's great. But I don't I'm not interested. For me, it's fitness, finance, and family, and it's it's level up, like reach your full potential. So, so number one is make sure your topic, it's a topic you could talk about forever. You have to be obsessed. That you have to be, right? And then people who are obsessed will find you. Most relationships are built from a common passion. All my friends in high school loved Halo and Halo 2, right? Of course, because I loved Halo and Halo 2. Yeah. So so most relationships are based on a common core value, common passion, or a common wound, and all that has to be the epicenter of your podcast. Um that's number one. Number two is consistency is everything.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Absolutely everything. Oh my gosh, yeah. I I did 50 episodes and took a break. And then I started again and got 50 more episodes and took another break. And then, yeah, looking back, I'm like, man, that was so dumb. I've been building all this momentum. I was right there when podcasts were kind of cresting up. I was in a perfect space, and then now I'm rebuilding again.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah, so many people do that. So, so Kevin and I have been podcasting for nine years, uh, me 11, him nine. And yeah, don't stop. Start and don't stop. You can shift and evolve. You're gonna have to, because you grow, obviously. But like, yeah, no, don't stop, don't stop. So, so 90% of our success is just we never stopped. You know, you can you have 2,450 episodes. Even our worst episode is better than most people's best episode just because we've been doing it for so long.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

And and you get to know your listeners and you understand their core values and their goals, and it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable what can happen. But, you know, you can't do it for a year. You have to sign up for the long game. You have to sign up for the long game. If you're not playing a long game, you're not gonna win.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah, you know, I went from uh stop, start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. And then this year was the year 2026. I'm like, you know what? I'm a podcast pro. I'm just gonna do it. Like it's a weekly thing for the rest of my life. Uh, I'm just gonna keep plugging it away. I'm gonna do the social media every week, I'm gonna do the newsletter every week, I'm gonna do the Podcast release every week. I'm gonna do the clip the video clips every week. And so and I've been pretty faithful with all that. It's pretty good. Not a hundred percent, but maybe like ninety.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

If you do an episode a week, every week for 10 years, that's 520 episodes, you'll get somewhere. Yeah, makes sense. And you can build momentum and you can build a business around that and a brand, a personal brand around that. It's interesting. Personal branding is the future, I think, and and particularly the human to human connection we were talking about. But you can't just be a person. You have to be a person with something behind you. And so a podcast is a good way to have something behind you. And you need to find a way to connect with your people. And it's a triangle. So I always say the magic is in the middle. There's the host, the guest, and the listener. It has to be for the listener. So you're here. I'm a guest. I'm grateful. I appreciate it. But your listener needs to be what matters.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

And so that's another tip for a podcaster. If you want to start a podcaster, fall in love with really actually helping your listeners. I've met thousand podcasters over the last nine years, and some of them don't care about their listener at all, and they're never going to win.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Yeah. Oh, that's yeah, that's a good point because I think if you're the one talking all the time, you're not really putting yourself in the seat of who you're trying to serve and what you're trying to teach them. I think that's a really big deal. Now, I have just started serving the podcast market, uh playing with it last couple of years. I dabbled with uh podcast booking to try to get people on shows. I actually have one client right now I'm doing that with. I tried to start it a couple years ago and it kind of failed, failed. And then now I've actually got something that's getting a little bit of traction. And then I've got uh two guys that I've helped get podcasts off the ground. I might have a third that I'm actually doing. I don't want to be a caught podcast professional, at least I don't think I do, uh, to to build that as a business. But these are just friends of mine that need a little bit of help. They had great stories. One of them, it's a guy, uh his name is uh Dave Weil. He's uh very interesting because he went to school for seminary to be a theologian, and now he runs a stake and shake.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

So his podcast is called Not My Plan. So he's like, if have you ever had anything not go according to plan? And so he interviews people whose like lives blew up and didn't go according to plan and what they did to get back on track, and it's pretty fascinating. So he's like got about 10 episodes out, but pretty good guy. And it's fun. It's fun seeing him grow and put the story together. And there and now you have you said 86 clients that do that you do that with?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah, anywhere between 86 and 92. Uh huh. Because they do social media and podcasting as well, but at at minimum would be 80 podcast specific.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Okay. Now you have just one show, right? Okay, cool. Yeah, I had uh talked to a guy, Chris King I think it's Chris Kematose or Krematose. Uh he runs the uh pod Podfest conference uh annually. They've been running since like 2014. They get like, I don't know, five, six, seven thousand members, people come show up. But uh his wife, yeah, he's his wife did a podcast, and uh he started coaching her at one point, you know, they came to an agreement that she would listen to him. And uh she now has like 16 podcasts with over a hundred million downloads, so she just loved it so much that's awesome that she just started releasing new shows, new content. And she had one show she released that was she didn't monetize, but I think the first episode they released out, they got an email back, and it was a woman that said, Hey, your podcast saved my life. Yeah. Because she was gonna commit suicide. And then she heard this specific podcast that was not meant to be monetized at any level. She's just like, I just think this needs to be said, I'm gonna say it. And this woman found it and it saved her life, kept her alive. I think that's just a phenomenal thing. Yeah, the platform can do it. So that's the best. Um, so you got you got your show, next level living. What do you mainly do you have like a program university? Next level university, sorry, living, I said living. Um do you have like a schedule? Like what's that show look like? What does it entail?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, every day, every morning, 6 a.m., it launches all the podcast platforms, YouTube, and it's anywhere from the smallest one we do now is probably 15 minutes. The largest we do is 45 minutes. So it's between 15 and 45 minutes every single day. It's about success. So this is sort of my quote for it: success and personal development in your pocket every single day from anywhere on the planet, completely free. That is next level university. Now, there's a bunch of other stuff we have, obviously, and we don't advertise, so there's no advertisements on it. We we only sell our own stuff. But it's a really tight-knit community if you want it to be. And if you're not humble and grateful and like have high work ethic, you're gonna hate us because we're we don't believe in any of the like do less and earn more crap. At the end of the day, yes, you can do less and earn more. Wealth builds wealth, we get it, but the purpose in life is not to do less. The purpose in life is to do all you can with all you have and to get to the next level. And so we care more about striving than arriving. And a lot of people that are uh trying to sell sort of the the four-hour work week type of concept is is is uh I th I actually think and and you could probably speak to this better than me because you're 55, but I I don't I think the 21st century has gotten like alarmingly lazy.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Oh yeah, yeah. People don't know what to do, they're lost, they're not vision. No direct no vision, no direction.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

We're fundamentals only. Like work ethic, you know, in the gym, regular like every I've I've worked out every day for Fortnite almost 4.2 years. And so That's good. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. But ultimately, here's the deal. Most people think I'm lying when I say that. I'm not, it doesn't matter. Here's my point No one can lift the weights for you. AI can't lift the weights for you. Like success and happiness and fulfillment in life comes from climbing meaningful mountains toward meaningful goals with a meaningful community. That's what our podcast is really about. I don't like I don't want to talk about all the all the other stuff. That's what matters. Being in a tribe of people that care about you, believe in you, support you, but also challenge you. Challenge you to stop being so lazy. And I think the world needs that desperately. So Kevin and I grew up without fathers, I told you that. And we we've become, we've tried to become the male role models we needed. That's really what it comes down to.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Yeah, you know, I'm glad you said that. I think uh for me, I when I was, you know, my dad grew up in a broken family with no role model in his life. So when I looked at myself, I kind of felt like, oh, I'm doing better than my dad. So I'm I'm pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. And what I realized as I got a little bit older, like in my 40s, I'm like, shit, I didn't do good at all. Like, I was terrible. I was a terrible husband, terrible father. Like I didn't, and I was just doing a little bit better than my dad. And I just but he wasn't my standard. And I think when I started realizing, like, he's not my standard, I gotta have another standard. What is that standard gonna be? Like you're talking about, like how do you stretch yourself? And it's taken me a while to get there. You know, I was a little bit older, obviously, than you were when you're you already got that mindset, you know, at your age, which is uh very, very powerful. I think I can't wait to see what you're doing when you're like 55 and 60 years old. Appreciate it, man. Appreciate it, Tony. Now let's talk about your framework just for a minute, because uh I'm sure you've got a framework you use when people get into your program. So can we talk about that for a minute so that the people can kind of get a little bit of it on them?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

It's ultimately it's dreams, which is decade plus, goals, which is this year, and then quarterly goals, and three priorities, and then a most important skill. So it's dreams, goals, priorities, metrics, habits, skills, and identity. Most people don't understand the difference between a metric and a habit. A metric is something that you measure, like weighing yourself every day. A habit is going to the gym every day.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

And so, so your habits uh is the process. The metrics is what you measure to see if you're on track towards your goal. The goal is a timeline and a target, and so there's 48 days left in Q2. Like human beings are inherently lazy. You have to be up against something. It's called necessity. Deadlines are everything. Push. And so you you have to have the reason most people don't have goals and dreams. So the research shows only 4% of people have clear written goals. Which is alarming because you can't achieve much without goals. You can't achieve imagine like a sports team that didn't track anything. There's no like how do you know Michael Jordan was great? Because there's there's a referees and there's stats and there's a hoop, and there's a three-point versus a two-point, and there's rules, and there's imagine just people running around aimlessly. That's what a lot of the world is, unfortunately. And and people are like, well, what's the point of setting goals and achieving goals and all this stuff? It's most of what we want in life is a byproduct. So, for example, financial freedom. You know this because the Dave Ramsey stuff. Like, financial freedom is what everyone wants, but that's a byproduct of disciplining yourself every day in finance. Like, there is no such thing as automatic financial freedom. You have to accumulate. There's the accumulation phase and then the distribution phase. And the people in the distribution phase, the later years of life, like 80% of the wealth of the world is in people's hands that are 50 and older. So these 30-year-olds are hearing this stuff thinking, oh, well, I want financial freedom. Well, how do you build that? Decades of hard work.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Particularly if you don't, you know, grow up with it like me. No trust fund, no generational wealth. Like Kevin and I had to build it ourselves. So we just teach that. Yes, I have a framework of dreams, goals, metrics, habits, skills, and identity. But ultimately, what it comes down to is how do you set a timeline with a target and actually discipline your and here's why people don't. You want to know why people don't have goals? Because the moment you set a goal with a deadline and actually track it, you feel horrible about yourself. Like most people are overweight, most people are unhappy, most people are not driven, most people are not waking up in the morning pumped for their future. I'm not trying to be sad, I'm not trying to be mean. It's just nihilism. It's it's hopelessness. The antidote to hopelessness is a meaningful life, and the meaningful life comes from meaningful mountains that you climb. The future is brighter than the past. When the b best is behind you, you get nihilistic. I do too. So there's a way to engineer it all. You can reverse engineer within reason uh whatever you want. And that's really what my framework is is just reverse engineering a clear, specific goal that's actually aligned with who you are and your core values.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Yeah, wonderful, man. I love that. Very, very good. So the structure there is very phenomenal. And then you uh, of course, uh you didn't say fitness, but fitness is a part of that. It's under the habits section, correct?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Yeah, fitness, fitness, finance, and family is the new sort of three areas. It used to be health, wealth, and love, but I'm kind of narrowing it more. But yeah, fitness is the foundation.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Yeah, I've got a friend that does a similar model with uh with his coaching that he does, which is phenomenal. So uh let's go with uh let's see, what what other kind of words of wisdom would you have for somebody that, hey, wants to go start a podcast, maybe they want to go start a business, whatever these things are, what kind of wisdom do you have to let out there?

SPEAKER_00 32:00

I call it the unrelenting tortoise versus the entitled and arrogant hair. I have a digital asset that I show to my clients and I send it to them all the time. Like unrelenting tortoise, unrelenting tortoise, unrelent- I have it written over here on my whiteboard, unrelenting tortoise. It's gonna be awful, it's gonna be terrible, it's gonna be atrocious, it's gonna be really difficult, and that's what it takes. But it's better than later in life not having achieved your dreams. So that's the words of wisdom, I guess, is like there is no candy land where you wake up in the morning, you have a great day, and then you go to bed feeling great. Like at the end of the day, climbing Mount Everest is hard. Achieving your goals and dreams is hard. That's why most people don't. So just embrace the hard. And the entitled and arrogant hair is in the digital asset. It's it's someone who's scrolling, wasting time. Like we all have 168 hours per week. If you sleep eight, that's 112 left. And if you work a 40-hour week, you still have 72 hours. And so people always say, Well, I don't have the time. It's like you have 72 hours even with a 40-hour week, even if you're sleeping eight hours a night. And I recommend that for longevity. But you do have the time. We're just wasting so much time, and myself included. So, so it's ironic. What I've found in coaching is the people who think they waste time actually waste less than the people who think they're hardworking. Like it's a paradox. It's like if you think you're hardworking, you're probably not. If you think you're lazy, you're probably hardworking because you're constantly working on not being lazy. And so for me, I wake up, I honestly think I'm lazy and unproductive, but that's because I'm always trying to get better, better, better, better, better. And so if you think you're strong, you're probably weak. If you think you're weak, you're probably strong. Because and that's the last thing wisdom I would give you is like big fish, small pond, if you think you're hardworking, maybe you're just around a lot of lazy people. And I that was true for me where I grew up. There was a lot of people that didn't have big goals and dreams, and I thought I was really hardworking, and then I realized no, they just they just are really not that hardworking. So, so just get into a bigger pond that challenges you and your your future self will thank you.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Yeah, that's good good advice there for sure. All right, so last question. Uh you got one, two books or resources that you can recommend to the listeners that could help them kind of reach that next level. What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 34:14

One of the best books ever written is just the book I would start with, if you're new to personal development, would be The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. I have it right behind me. Okay? Right there. The book that I think is way better, and this is interesting because when you get older, I'm 37 now, so I'm still young, but you know, I read The Compound Effect 10 years ago and I think it's magnificent. But as you get older and wiser, certain books get worse and certain books get better. Certain movies get worse, certain movies get better. Oh, yeah. The book that I think is world-class, like unbelievable, is The Art of Impossible by Stephen Cotler. The Art of Impossible by Stephen Collar. That it's called a peak performance primer. And as far as I'm concerned, having done 7,145 coaching sessions with people all over the world, all different industries, all different backgrounds, all different cultures, all different sexes, all different companies, fitness mindset, peak performance, business. What I've learned is that that book is probably the best one resource that if you really did do everything in that book, you would achieve what most people would consider impossible. But you have to do it and do it every day.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I'm gonna have to pick that one up, man. I've not heard of that one. So that's that's really good.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

You're going to love it for sure.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

All right. So uh uh, Alan, uh, how do people find out about you? Maybe they want to get a pet podcast done. Uh they're gonna reach out to you, plug into that, or plug into one of your coaching sessions.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah, I appreciate it. So at the end of the day, I don't really uh how do I share this? Okay. If there's any part of you that is even remotely entitled andor lazy, do not reach out under any circumstance. I am not for everyone. I used to think I was, and that was a terrible idea. I've just, Kevin and I are not for everyone. That said, if you really are inwardly humble and you really do want to face harsh realities and actually achieve real goals in the real world with real people, then the our podcast might be for you. And I say might be because quite frankly, every episode might as well be hey, here is where you're inadequate. Hey, here's where you're sucking, hey, here's where you need to do better. Like, we, I believe, me more than him, but him too, that the 21st century has gotten overly validating. It's everybody's validating everybody. Like, yeah, no, you're the best. Yeah, you're great, you're awesome. Like, no, you're lazy and inadequate and you know it, and you need to get better. I like that. I miss that. And if you have high self-belief, you need that. It's it's motivating. So we care more about getting better than we do about you feeling good about yourself. And I just want to give that warning. If that excites you, definitely check out our podcast. If it doesn't, don't, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

I love it, I love it, uh, Alan. So really appreciate you being on the show, all the insights you've given. Probably one of the best ones at like going, hey man, we're just gonna shake things up, move forward, you know, hit new heights. Like, I love it the way you talk about that. And uh one of the better people I've heard push that, that kind of concept, and it's it's pretty refreshing, especially considering you're almost 20 years younger than me. Yeah, sometimes I think when I'm getting older, I'm like, oh man, am I burning time or what? But uh, you know, we're doing a good job too. So so thanks a lot, Alan, for being on the show. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me, and thank you for anyone who listened. I appreciate it.