Alan Lazaros on Rebuilding His Life After a Near-Fatal Car Crash

00:00 Alan Lazarus had the kind of life that most people admire on paper. The degrees, the success, the hustle. But at 26, a car accident, very similar to the one that killed his father, forced everything to stop. And in that moment, the truth he had been avoiding came crashing in. In this conversation, Alan opens up about who he was before that day, the quiet shame he carried, and the identity he built from the rubble. We talk about performance, abandonment, 00:28 and the lie that achievement can protect us from the pain. What stuck with me the most is how clearly Alan sees potential in himself and in others and how determined he is to not waste it. This one's a blend of strategy, soul, and the kind of honesty that makes you rethink your own default settings. When I was 26 and I got in that car accident, who I wanted others to believe I was and who I wanted to believe I was, all three circles collapsed and I was just sitting 00:57 sitting there in the truth, all the truth at once, which is very traumatic. In tandem in the left hand, I had post-traumatic stress, PTSD, and in the right hand, I had post-traumatic growth. I'm Maciel Houli, and this is The Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. 01:26 Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift podcast. I am here with Alan. Hello, Alan. Matt, what's happening? Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you wanting to be a part of the Life Shift podcast. It's a journey that I never could have imagined for myself and maybe I wouldn't have imagined for myself had I not had my own Life Shift moment as a kid. But, you know, when I was eight, my mom was killed in a motorcycle accident and my dad and my mom were divorced. They lived thousands of miles apart. 01:56 And I was visiting my dad at the time and he sat me down and he had to tell me. And at that moment in time, it was like this line in the sand. was just once those words came out of his mouth, like nothing that we had imagined for my life would ever be the same. And time period wise, this is late 80s, early 90s. So nobody's really talking about grief or a kid and how do you like get them through that? Let alone my dad didn't have the tools for himself. 02:22 And so I just assumed that everyone needed to see that I was gonna be okay, that I was gonna be happy. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, I was a hot mess. And it was like, do other people have these singular moments, these very pivotal moments that happen in an instant, whether they're positive, negative, or anywhere in between that like really changes them? And so now on this journey of the Life Shift podcast, I get to talk to people like yourself who have had probably many of these life shift moments throughout their lives. 02:50 but we get to talk and center it around these main pivotal ones that we feel like there's a clear before and after version. So thank you for coming on this journey with me. It is a healing journey that I never knew I needed and I'm so glad I have. Matt, I'm a podcaster. I've been podcasting for eight years. I've been having meaningful conversations, say things that matter to people who care for 10 years actually, because I was a speaker before that. And I have three of those life shift moments that I can think of that I think 03:20 I know I was never the same after and we'll get into it, but thank you. It's an honor. I appreciate it. No, it's, naively went into this thinking, Oh yeah, people just have one. Meanwhile, I knew I had multiple, also like, I have three big ones and probably 300 little ones. Yeah. And if we're lucky, we continue to have them. Like we can force them upon ourselves. Not so lucky on the traumatic ones, but on the ones that we can make changes. And this is kind of what you do in your everyday of like, yes. 03:50 helping people develop in different ways. So like we can choose our life shift moments at any point in time. And I naively went into this like thinking it just had to be this big grief trauma moment because that's my lived experience. Like that is who I was for nearly 20 years trying to figure out how to make it through that grief journey. And so these conversations are just so important for people like me that didn't have all the answers or the tools. 04:17 I actually have a theory as to why the traumas change us so much, but I do want to speak from a place of credibility. So I've been tracking for 10 years. So 10 years ago, I got in a car accident. We're going to talk about it. And I found personal development and I wanted to bring personal development to the school systems because I had been sort of a straight A student. I, I like you, my, my dad died in 1991. I was almost three. My sister was six. My mom was 31 and 04:47 I grew up in an environment with a lot of grief and pain that was not dealt with. And I became this sort of existentialist. And existentialist is a fancy word for someone who contemplates themselves, others in the world and contemplates life and doesn't want to talk about trivial shit. And so I wanted to understand this thing we call life, mortality, the whole nine. And when I was 26, I got in a car accident. My dad died in a car at 28. So for me, this was head on collision, my fault. 05:18 This is the sort of mortality moment, the second chance my dad never got. So from then until now, and before that I was a big time academic. was a smart kid and I am, I say it in quotes if you're on YouTube, but I definitely had high IQ, but I didn't have the EQ nearly as well developed. And so 26, I get in my car accident and I realize, okay, I'm externally very successful, but I'm internally not super fulfilled and I don't really understand why. 05:47 Got straight A's in high school and college. I did really well. I didn't get straight A's in college, but I did very well. And I didn't learn about personal development. I didn't learn about fitness. I didn't learn about courage, humility, and vulnerability. I didn't learn about these things. So I want to bring personal development to the masses. I want to bring personal development to the school system. So I started a little company called Allen Lazarus LLC. What you'll never learn in school, but desperately need to know, desperately was in all caps. Good luck getting speeches at high schools and colleges with that slogan, right? 06:16 And now I have Next Level University, this is what I do. But to build the credibility piece from the beginning, 10 years ago I started tracking the coaching, training, speaking and podcasting I was doing. I'm an engineer and I have metrics for everything I used to carry around these little black notebooks, now it's all on Google Sheets. And I have a 10,000 hour tracker. And I just surpassed a few months ago, probably three or four months ago, my 10,000 hours of coaching, training and podcasting. But what you learn through that is that 06:45 you actually can manufacture these pivotal shifts. But the reason why they happen through trauma typically is because of these three circles of the egos that I kind of created. My girlfriend and I, future wife and I, she created it. She calls them the primary, secondary and tertiary truth. I call it the three circles of the ego. It's more her idea than mine. So the picture at Target with three layers, the outer circle is who we want others to believe we are. 07:12 That's perception, that's the social status world. That's your Instagram account. The next layer in is who we want to believe we are. That's self-delusion, that's your ego, that's your psychological immune system, that's your identity. And then there's who you really are. Whenever I am interviewed by or interview with another man, similar to you, Matt, I can size up the size of their ego based on how much I trigger them. 07:40 You have high EQ I can tell because you I was late and you were still very respectful. I Don't trigger you that much and if I do you deal with it very well so you handle your own emotions and self-regulate instead of Attack or belittle or chop down that kind of thing and guys do that crap all the time, right? And so the reason why I think trauma changes us When I was 26 and I got in that car accident 08:07 who I wanted others to believe I was and who I wanted to believe I was, all three circles collapsed and I was just sitting there in the truth. All the truth at once, which is very traumatic. And I had both PTSD, double yellow lines scared me. I kept getting pulled over because I was too far on my side of the road because I had crossed the double yellows and gotten a head on collision, my fault. And the ceiling fans, was claustrophobic. Crowds bothered me for a while. 08:36 I had to literally puff my chest up and walk in and out of doors for a little while there because I was so claustrophobic after the car accident. But I also had in tandem in the left hand, had post-traumatic stress, PTSD, and in the right hand, I had post-traumatic growth. And post-traumatic growth is you rebuild your identity, you rebuild your life on that sort of rock bottom foundation. And when you do coaching, training, and podcasting for 10 years since then, 09:03 you realize that those pivotal traumas can either make you or break you into the new version. And so 10 years ago, when I got in that car accident, that was the foundation I built my new life on. And my new life is now, what I say is the deep dark holes that we find ourselves in, the tools and the skills that we need to climb out of them also build skyscrapers. And so now we're seeing me 10 years later, next level university, 2100. 09:31 23 episodes, 18 person team, multimillion dollar business. But what we're not seeing is that I was completely shattered, for lack of better phrasing, after that car accident. And that was when I created sort of my new second chapter of my life, so to speak. Yeah, no, I agree wholeheartedly. And I think there's maybe a difference too with when you're a little older and you've kind of experienced a lot of things. Like I don't necessarily ... 10:00 think that as an eight year old, had much of the identity. mean, the, you know, the outer circle or even maybe, maybe more so the identity of what I wanted people to kind of like what I wanted to be. Most of that happens in high school. So I'd say not yet. But, it almost it's weird. My brain now thinks of these tragic moments and the things that kind of decimate everything around us and kind of level the ground around us is almost 10:29 and maybe it's my awareness now is like it's almost an opportunity. It becomes this space of you can do anything. Like you can build anything now because you have this blank space. Whereas the very type A version of me growing up, which I have semmed to losing my mom and becoming a perfectionist because of fear of abandonment. a lot of that built on, yeah, I was kind of feeling that because you described my entire upbringing after my mom died. 10:59 and through your story. So essentially. When did you find out that you had the fear of abandonment? Because that took me till I was 30 because I haven't told the part about my stepdad. So my real last name is McCorkle. My birth father was John McCorkle and my stepfather left at 14, took his entire extended family with him and I still haven't seen or spoken to a single one of them since. And then we weren't associated with McCorkle as much because we were sort of the Lazaruses. And that same year, my mom gets in a fight with my aunt Sandy. 11:29 and we get ostracized from my mom's side of the family that same year when I was 14. And I've still to this day only seen or spoken to two human beings from that side of the family. So by the time I was 14, I kind of lost three families in a way. And when we reestablished a relationship with the McCorkles, I was kind of the ghost of Christmas past because I looked just like my dad. It was Jim, Joe, John, Jane, Joan, Jeanette, six kids, and John, my father. But ultimately, 11:56 the abandonment stuff, I didn't realize that that was driving me until my late 20s, early 30s. And then it became very evident that I kind of was this sort of social coward who always tried to fit in. But yet I was this type A super achiever behind the scenes. Yeah. Yeah, it was very much the same. It took me, I would say early 30s was when I went, finally found a good therapist that like clicked with me and 12:21 kind of uncovered that all the decisions that I had made since my mom died were out of fear that if I didn't make the right one, my dad was going to leave, my grandmother was going to leave, I was going to have that same pain. So I had to get good grades because if I got good grades, nobody would be mad at me, nobody would leave, nobody was going to leave, but that trauma was so deep seated in me. 12:48 And then when she told me, like, it all makes sense. I'm like, damn, how much time did I waste just trying to be perfect? But you know, it served me in different ways. Yeah, yeah, of course. And I had that too, pretty heavily. You try to prove yourself, prove your worth, prove your value, because if you're valuable, then you won't get abandoned. But that actually flips. And eventually, you're so valuable, you're such a mirror that you actually do get abandoned. So that can really go the other way on you. 13:16 And I don't know if this happened to you and we'll jump into your story in just a second, but like for me, I felt that I was not living my own life. I was living a life that I thought that my father wanted me to live. know, so like I chose college degree based on what I thought everyone wanted me. I'm like, I didn't want a business degree. So I have two of them, you know? I did. My mom wanted me to be an engineer. Yep. 13:44 Yeah, you know, and so it makes total sense that something like that happening multiple times for you and one when you were a kid, which probably planted some seeds as a young kid, and then as a teenager, which is a whole mess in itself, you kind of take these things on, you're like, well, shit, if I'm perfect, then 14:03 people aren't gonna leave me or they're gonna like me and you know like all those things that we just take on which is not necessarily true. And alarmingly not true. Yeah, the more perfect you are that being liked by being better is not good strategy. And I can't say that that like looking back when I thought I was trying to be perfect I definitely was not perfect at any point and if I ever felt perfect it was fake. It was totally fake. 14:29 So you told us a little bit about who you are now and what you do now. Is there any other way that you identify in the world now? I would say when I was 26, that's when I sort of, because I do identify very much with what you said about I kind of manufactured a life that I thought would be approved of and did the traditional American dream, quote unquote. Like I said, preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, corporate. 14:58 crushed it. Paid off 84 grand worth of college debt in a single year, $150,000 in a Vanguard account. Yeah, well, so I would say that I brought my high school friends to college, college friends to corporate. It was definitely bring everyone with me. We all climb meaningful mountains. My paradigm, and again, this is only in hindsight. I didn't call it that back then. But if you've ever read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, he talks about the paradigms. 15:28 And some people have, you know, a work centered paradigm, career centered paradigm, church centered paradigm, family centered paradigm. There's all these different paradigms. Paradigm is a fancy word for your belief about life. And mine in hindsight was pre 26 was achievement first, hence my all my awards. Achievement first, friends, second and fun third. So naturally I had a ton of achievement, a ton of friends and a ton of fun. We had the party house. 15:58 My mom and stepdad were partiers too. So I kind of was inculturated in that. Then at 26, everything changed and I reevaluated. was sort of the Phoenix burned down, Risenew from the ashes. And I reestablished a new paradigm. My new paradigm was achievement state, growth and contribution. It was legacy. It was impact. It was what do I want to stand for and what do I want to do in the world to make a difference? 16:27 And that's where I've been for the last 10 years. So what I identify with is, and it's written right over here, to reach my own unique potential and help others do the same. Everything else is secondary. And I think that's my essence that's always been there, even though it got muddied by trauma and challenges and adversity and loss and abandonment. But eventually it shines through and it becomes this calling that you just... 16:54 can't get away from. I'm just absolutely obsessed with helping people reach their full potential. And the vehicles in which I do that through our coaching, training and podcasting in the areas of fitness, personal development and business, and with kind of a math tinge, because I was always the sort of math nerd. But ultimately, I do think everyone can uncover. used to think you can, I think self-improvement often comes and starts off from what I've found in a place of, well, I don't like this about myself, so I'm going to change it. 17:23 I actually think that's not what it really is. I think it's more, is who I am and I'm going to accept that. So self-awareness first, self-acceptance second, and then self-improvement. There's a big difference between this is a weakness, I'm going to go change it and make it a strength versus this is a weakness, I'm going to accept that and I'm going to work on mitigating that weakness while doubling down. And I always say, don't build your career or your company on a weakness. But usually, 17:53 a lot more work. is something that I've found really fascinating. Yeah, it's a lot more work. It's actually, and you're gonna fail most likely, because we all we all can think of someone who, like in math class, for example, I could just party all night, get straight A's in calc without even going to the going to class. And other people struggle with math, and they've always struggled with it, right? So and then me in basketball, for example, I got reverse dunked on by someone in sandals that was five, six that played D one at UConn. And I just was like, you know what? 18:21 I gotta stop putting so much effort into this. It's not the same game we're playing here. But ultimately, what I identify with now is someone who is here to help other people reach their own unique potential. And the word unique is underlined on my whiteboard. Because we don't talk about this. And I know you'll like this because you like deep conversations. I looked it up. 340 different types of dogs. And yet we all assume there's one type of human. No, there's... 18:48 There's Great Danes and there's Dalmatians and there's Chihuahuas and we're not all supposed to be the same. And some people are great at math and some people are great at English and some people are poets and writers and some people are Michael Jordan, right? And so be the best you. Yeah. Nobody's trained to do that. So it's great that you're doing that now because did you have any of that in school? Well, so here's the thing, right? You and I were trying to not be abandoned in hindsight. 19:18 And in order to not be abandoned, what if we had to be less of who we really are? And what if our deepest fear is actually being all of who we are because it makes people insecure? And what if it makes people insecure because we're at the top of the freaking bell curve? Like I've never once done math with someone and not had it turn into them insecure. But that's what I'm supposed to do in the world. So now I help people reverse engineer finish lines. I have a math modality of thinking, statistics and probability. 19:45 and science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business, and finance, that's my strength zone. What was not my strength zone is relationships and EQ and vulnerability for obvious reasons. And I think that all of us are actually usually afraid of where we're great because it hurts our social life. Usually where you're the greatest is where you trigger other people. I think that's interesting and I'm curious if, because you were so achievement focused, you said that that 20:14 didn't change since you're like you're still achievement focused. Is the definition of achievement different for you? Like is is the goal and the success different than it was before? Whereas before maybe it was just like I need to be top of my class. I need to be top grades and now your achievement definitions are different. Definitely different. Yeah. So it used to be so I wanted to get the president's award. I got the president's award signed by George W. Bush behind me and I got into WPI and I got all the scholarships and financially and all that kind of thing. 20:44 Before it was be the best. Achievement meant be the best. And I love mastery. There's some virtue in that. But not all of it was virtue. Some of it was I want to dominate and I want to crush it. And achievement was very much be the best at whatever it is we're doing. Be the best out of all my friends in snowboarding, basketball, video games, whatever it is. But then it's the ceiling of sorts because what I found out, and this is only in hindsight, 21:13 If I was too good, they wouldn't want to play anymore. And I loved playing Halo or video games so much that I would purposely actually lose so that they would want to keep playing. And that's that sort of fear of success. Because everybody wants to be more successful, but not so successful that they get ostracized from their peers. We're afraid of failure. We don't want to be a failure compared to our peers. 21:38 but we also don't want to be so successful that we get ostracized from the group, especially those of us with abandonment issues. So what I've come to understand is I'm actually far more scared of success than I am of failure, but achievement has totally shifted toward growth and contribution now. I now channel most of my achievement orientation, yeah, towards growing the business, but ultimately, how many people can I help? How good can I get at my craft? That is, you can see it in my tonality. 22:06 If I'm even remotely good at communicating, it's because of the thousands and thousands of times I've done this before, because quite frankly, I still think I'm hot garbage. We all do sometimes. Have you failed before in your mind? OK. With your definition of failure, what that would be. I think on the deepest level, I would consider failure, quitting or giving up. I don't think I've ever really wanted something and actually given up on it. What I would say is I have 22:35 changed my mind. I never question whether or not I can do something. I only question whether or not I really want to. Now, can I be the strongest man in the world? Definitely not. Can I be the fastest swimmer in the world? Definitely not. Can I be in the NBA? Definitely not. But for the most part, I don't struggle a ton with self-doubt when it comes to external achievement. And that's very rare, I've found out over the years, even though I used to think everybody had that. What I do struggle with is socially, I feel like the self-worth piece doesn't come as naturally. 23:05 And so the way I describe self-belief and self-worth, self-belief is your belief in your ability to build the castle. Self-worth is how much you believe you deserve to live there and how well do you honor and protect the castle or do you let your friends come in and spill beer on the carpets and disrespect you and that whole thing. And so for me, it was self-worth that was the struggle more than self-belief. Do I think I've failed? I think I failed tremendously by 26 because I failed. I wasn't reaching my potential. 23:35 So yes, absolutely freaking lutely. However, since then, I can honestly say I'm putting it all on the court. And that's actually kind of why I, a lot of people think I'm nuts. I haven't taken a full day off in 10 years. Sometimes it's an hour a day. Sometimes it's 18 hours a day. And they say, oh, that's bad for you. Listen, no, it might be bad for you. I'm not saying everyone should do what I'm doing, but I'm going to build the self, build the family, build the business every day for the rest of my life because I know what it's like to reach mortality. 24:05 and to regret not putting it all on the court. Now, you still need intentional recovery, you still need rest. I'm gonna rest too. But at the end of the day, I don't wanna ever look in the mirror and not know I gave it everything I had. And that's actually the thing, I think we're all running from something. I'm running from the feeling I had at 26 when I just knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I just squandered my fucking potential. 24:33 A lot of people are like, what do you mean? You were so successful. You worked so hard. You were so hard work. No, no, no. Hey, I squandered my potential. I drank too much and too often. I didn't exercise. I was not reading personal development books. I wasn't putting it all on the court. What if my 3 % was impressive to you when I knew it was only 3 %? So to me, that's how I gauge success now is how much am I putting on the court in an optimal aligned way. Yeah. 25:00 This question might come off as rude and it's not intended that way. Is there a sense of you going, going, going and always working towards this that is there a deep seated like fear that if you stop and pause that like it's hard to get back going like a part of me is thinking like the car keeps running right like if you just keep going, hopefully, but if you stop, it's a lot harder to get started again because I've done that before. Is that is there any of that in in your innate? 25:30 need to keep working and building and getting better? I do think some of it is from the consciousness and the awareness that momentum matters tremendously. And I have it written up actually here. So in the upper left hand corner of my whiteboard, it's a star and it says potential. That's my sort of one word. And I have 0.1 % improvement every day for 50 years, makes you 84 million times better. If you put a dollar in a financial bank, financial calculator and grow it by 0.1%, one tenth of 1 % per day. 26:00 for 50 years, becomes round up $84 million. And so I always say, what if you could become 84 million times more capable, 84 million times smarter? Now here's the thing. If you take weekends off, that number goes down to 439,000. So I crunched the math on this. If you and I both want to reach our potential and you take weekends off and I don't, and you just don't get better on the weekends than I do by 0.1%, 26:30 I end up 191 times better. Not everyone cares about reaching their potential, so don't hate me for this, okay? I know that that's my core value. That's what I care about. Trust me, I built a business on helping you reach your potential. If everyone wanted that, I'd be way wealthier. But that is what I deeply care about. And so yeah, I would say there's some fear, but I think it's more logic and rationality than fear. And I mean, it's also driven by your goals and passions. 26:58 Right? So to your point, it's not for everyone and your particular needs, wants and desires, that's how you get there. And so that's how you achieve that. Fulfillment is the byproduct, I think, of reaching one's potential and helping others in their own unique way. Fulfillment is a byproduct. I use laughter as an example. You ever read Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning? You're an existentialist. Okay, you'd love it. I don't have to read. 27:26 Okay, you're joking. Man's search for meaning. Unbelievable. I've read it like 50 times. In that book, he uses laughter as an example. If you're going to laugh, I need to tell a funny joke. You can't force laughter. I believe the same thing is true for being a fulfilled human being. think fulfillment is a byproduct of alignment with your greatest level of contribution and your potential. And so to me, climbing meaningful mountains and setting aligned clear goals 27:56 for your seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, quarters, years, decades, lifetime. I think fulfillment is what everyone wants. And I think that comes from working toward meaningful goals that contribute beyond yourself in alignment with your strengths and weaknesses. And I think that's what I'm really optimizing for. Because people always ask, well, why lose 10, what do I do a 10 pound and 10 week challenge? Well, why 10 pounds? Because. 28:25 As soon as you get to 10 pounds, you're just gonna want to lose 10 more, of course But by that rationale we might as well do nothing and just sit around in our own filth like I Want to build and grow as an individual and I want to grow my family and I want to grow the company and I want to and the whole world benefits By us being more productive and more capable. So yeah, we're kind of doing this episode backwards Which I think is really interesting to me because I we're getting a really clear picture of this after version of you and it's 28:54 What I'm struggling with right now is what does that before version of you look like? Because it sounds like you were driving in a very similar way, but maybe the goals and the fuel was different, maybe? Definitely. So like it feels like on the surface, maybe if people saw you now and then they might assume that you're the same. Based on your accomplishments. If they're very non enlightened. If they looked at you on paper. 29:24 would they assume that you were the same? Probably. Okay. Yeah, probably. I mean, it's so weird because I used to not very superficial too, by the way. So they might On the surface. Yeah, on the surface they would. Beneath the iceberg is way different. I used to be too much of a coward to share things like this, but I realize now that I want to be all of me. So when I was young, 29:54 I was the ultimate dreamer. had dreams forever. I mean, I wanted to be an Abercrombie model. I kind of did that. Not for Abercrombie, but I was a fitness model. I had all these dreams and goals, right? And a lot of kids do. And it turns out in hindsight, I actually thought everybody meant it. All kids have goals and dreams, but it turns out most of them are just talking. And I never was. I intended on it. And Kev's like, well, that's weird. My business partner. 30:20 And I don't say, I said, Kev, I don't say something without intending on doing it, having already reverse engineered everything that's necessary to it. Even as a kid, yeah. And so I remember I had these two paths that I was going to take. I was going to do lawyer, politician, president. And this was a sincere, Alan as a kid thing. I used to not share this because people thought I was nuts. And I figured, OK, I could do that. I genuinely believed it. And I still to this day actually think I could. 30:48 Which again, you're not supposed to say out loud. Yeah. Yeah, I'm old enough now. You're not supposed to say that out loud, but I do believe that. Okay. And then the other one was going to be engineer, masters in business, fortune 50 CEO, like my hero at the time, Steve Jobs. The point is I was the super nerd, right? And I had all these goals and dreams. So on the surface, it probably looks similar because I am now a CEO of my own company. 31:16 I am still an achiever and what most people would think is out of his mind in terms of achievement, but it's very different and the fuel is different. I would say what I struggled with the most pre-26 is I was always, always, always clear on the future that I wanted and my goals. What I wasn't clear on is in here. In here, my heart, my core values, who I am. 31:46 I was always clear on the goals and the process to get there. I mean, come on, that just came easy. What never came easy was the inner stuff. And that's why I have a therapist named Carol. The inner work for me was the difference maker. And this is the IQ EQ thing. IQ was easy for me, still is. As much as you're not allowed to say that, there are people that are just really smart and you can do this. You can say whatever you want. appreciate it. You're human. I appreciate it. Yeah. But it's... 32:13 Socially you get very ostracized when you talk highly of yourself. So it is what it is. And if can't handle that then they're not in your circle. That's fine. You know, like you have a better relationship with that than I do. It's hard. It's hard. But go on. Yeah. Well, so EQ, which is vulnerability and emotions and self-regulation and emotional maturity. 32:38 and journaling and self-reflection and feeling things and dealing with your trauma and healing from your past. Like none of that was natural. Science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business and finance, it just clicks for me. It always has, it always will. I can't walk into a Panera without seeing their profit and loss statement. But the inner stuff, forget it, man. Did you have it? Or was it just hard to access back then? Like as a kid? I it wasn't a focus. 33:08 I think if anything, I probably ran from it because it was so painful. push it down. It was so painful, yeah. I think it's like a beach ball that you try to hold underwater because you're so afraid that it'll splash everybody if it gets out. I since when I, after my car accident, that's when I went inward. I went way inward, breath work, therapy, mental health, just personal development, personal self-improvement. Whereas before it was achievement. 33:38 After 26, it became about personal development first and achievement second. so the accident itself is something that you said that it was kind of somewhat your fault in some way? Absolutely. It was entirely my fault. And that probably plays a little bit of the role as well. Do you draw any interesting parallels or connections to that actual accident and how you were living your life before to how you're doing now? 34:09 Yeah, I would say that one thing that's very clear and again in hindsight, I was definitely on autopilot a lot more than I am now. Because it was easy too. and that's one of the interesting things too is when you look back, it's, well, I was super existential. I was always having heart to hearts. I was always contemplating myself, others in the world, but I wasn't going all the way into the deep emotions and I certainly wasn't facing my past. 34:37 After that car accident, I remember I called, had a girlfriend in high school, her name was Alyssa. And after the car accident, I would call people from my past and I would say, hey, what did you notice about me? And she said, you never, ever talked about your dad. My birth father, John, I never talked about it. She's like, none of your family ever talked about it. We just avoided it. Now I talk about John all the time. I talk about my dad dying and mortality. Like it's not something that's 35:07 being avoided unconsciously anymore. Yeah. So it unconscious. Not talking about it. Yeah, for sure. Got it. Yeah. It was almost like an unwritten rule. You just don't go there. Because my stepdad was around. And my stepdad was friends with him. And it was just painful. Every time it got brought up, was... It got awkward or people don't know how to feel or... Because we're not trained to do that either. Nobody has tools to like do that back then at least. And I think the other piece of it too and... 35:37 It's just, it's a little weird with my stepdad was my dad's friend and my, I don't know. The whole thing was just, and I've since actually, my therapist sent me something called the nine rules of shame. And it talks about generational shame. And one of them is basically you just don't talk about anything real. You ever spent time with a family that just cannot fucking talk about anything real? Yeah, not just a family, just like people. 36:06 It's brutal for me. It's, it's. There's a fear. There's a vulnerability. There's a fear of being any sort of vulnerability or wrong, which is a vulnerability. Any of those things. think people are just trained to to skirt the issues. That's why Bernie Brown's work was so powerful, because shame and vulnerability. Shame is the beach ball you hold underwater, even if it's not rational. Right. My dad's death was not my fault. But how do I know as a kid I didn't? 36:35 think it was or something, right? Right, you took the patterns that your parents were modeling. Exactly. And what if when my stepdad left, I assigned that as my fault because I wasn't enough or whatever. All that shame and it's just held under the water. until you, breath work for me was transformative. I don't know if you've ever done any breath work. No, I don't know how you do it as a type A person. 36:59 Yeah. You're funny, Sneaky funny. That's the same reason I can't meditate. Because I'm like, am I doing it right? How do I do it? Oh, you're not joking. I'm not kidding. No, I'm serious. It's very hard for me because there's, for me, there's so many rules that I want to follow. I'm definitely a rule follower and I need to like, and so those kind of things I can't. So no, breath work, not on my list yet. Whoa, okay. It's transformative. So we had someone on our podcast. 37:29 way back, her name is Samantha Skelly. And the last 10 minutes, she took us through a breathwork exercise. And this is during the beginning of COVID. We had 22 people or 23 people in the room, virtual on Zoom. We recorded the whole thing, put it on YouTube, permission from everybody, all that. And 22 out of 20, 21 out of 22 of us were crying by the end of it. And it was just, I still use it. She picked these beautiful songs in the background and you do this breathwork exercise and I don't cry anymore. 37:58 I still do it every now and then and it's not like I'm trying not to cry, but in the beginning it was just waterworks, man. The beach ball had to come up and I just had to get it out. And I do feel like there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score. And when I first read the first part of that book, I haven't finished the whole thing, it talks about all the statistics. And I feel like breathwork has helped me release so much trauma. 38:27 Yeah, and it's interesting when you do get to when you do have the opportunity to release that trauma of like, how much I don't know if you did this, but I reflect back on like, why was I holding that? Like, what was that serving? Besides making everything so much harder and worse for me as I was going through it. It's like once you let go, you're like, like, I didn't need that. I didn't need to carry that like, and it's it's so there's a lot of like regret in my mind of like, man. 38:57 For as smart as I was, I was pretty stupid. That's IQ versus EQ, man. So dumb. When I hit that therapist at 30 something and she was like, you realize everything you've done was with that scared eight year old brain. was like, Had I known that when I was 10, maybe I would have been a C student and been fine with it. That could have been fine. Matt, here's the thing. We weren't taught shit, 39:25 Nor were our parents, to be fair. Exactly. There was no chat GPT. There was no Google. Google's only 30 years old. I think it's 31 this year. I always playfully refer to where I grew up as the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. And the reason why is not just the Nickelback song. No, I'm kidding. Or no, it's Green Day song. It's, I'm telling you, man, I was a kid and I remember thinking... 39:54 Okay, you don't even like each other, never mind love each other. Marriage scared the hell out of me. Everybody hated their jobs. Everyone was waiting for Friday. Everybody partied. I mean, was not... We lived on a lake. We had a lot of fun. It wasn't all bad. But a lot of it was pretty bad. And there wasn't a lick of personal development. There was no... 40:19 Tony Robbins books laying around. There was no Jim Rohn. There was no Og Mandino. There was no Zig Ziglar. know, Brian Tracy, none of that shit came anywhere near me. And I'm telling you, I would have loved it. And unfortunately, I saw one of my clients, he's an AP Cal teacher in Massachusetts and he has real estate and he's big into personal development. I still ask him, said, dude, is personal development reaching the schools yet? He's like, brother, no. 40:49 Not at all, actually. It's alarming how little personal development is in schools. And to this day, I go into schools and I speak and I'm telling you, there's this unwritten energy. Don't go near it. Interesting. From the adults? in colleges. Yes. Or from the kids? The adults. The adults. I spoke at my alma mater, WPI, not long ago. And there is, there's this weird energy of, you can't say certain things. 41:19 Because I'm all for entrepreneurship, build your own business, start your own thing, design your life, design your future, incremental improvement over time, personal development, personal development, personal development. But there is, there's a little bit of, that's not why you're here. You know, you're here to teach them this narrow view. And there's a little walking the line thing going on there. it's just like you said with vulnerability, try to be vulnerable at the Thanksgiving Day table. immediately you're going to go back to talking about 41:48 some Thanksgiving parade or something. It's very hard to go beneath the surface and to talk about real stuff because it's so heavy. Yeah, I just think it's so important that we do, that we buck the system and we do it because it may not like that, if we go with Thanksgiving example, like you may say something and then we go back to whatever. But I think by you- What's whatever by the way in your head? Just, well, not politics. I was gonna say politics, but. 42:16 That's probably not something people should talk about at Thanksgiving table either. I don't know, just like stupid pop culture stuff that's not necessary, right? Like, just surface, like so-and-so got promoted, like who cares? All these things that don't matter in real life. But what I was gonna say is I think that even by saying it and then the conversation goes back, I think there's still, it still opens the door a little bit to give permission to somebody else to feel free enough. 42:43 to say something that might feel a little bit more vulnerable, like, oh, so-and-so did it. Didn't work out so well, but they did it. So maybe I can too. Like that's what I think about on this podcast sometimes is like, I'll like tell, know, how I felt in a certain moment after my mom died and someone will connect with that and they'll take me down a tangent they never even considered talking about. And it's like, we never would have had that conversation had I not opened the door. And I think it's so important and a responsibility for those of us that 43:12 are comfortable enough being vulnerable to do it as much as we can. Maybe that's just like the savior complex or something that I have going on because I needed this when I was eight. Just like you needed those books. needed it so bad. It's unbelievable. Jerry Springer though. Brother, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the ignorance, man. I am. I am so disappointed in the men growing up. 43:42 I mean, I had so many heroes. Dude, looking back, it is alarming how little of them actually worked on themselves. And I'm not kidding, and this is a public medium, like people would be very unhappy hearing this. I would love to say that, I had wonderful mentors. No, it was, whoa, half the people that mentored me should never have had the opportunity. And that's my goddamn truth. 44:09 It is alarming how little people are working on themselves and it is not okay. It's not okay. And here's what I can do about it. I can lead by example. I can read every book I get my hands on. I can do my very best to open the door, like you said, and I can come on here and be as courageous as possible, even though I'm going to be villainized for it. I'm going to make sure that my children, when I have them, grow up in an environment where it is psychologically safe to talk about real things. Because 44:38 this whole men don't cry and women need to be XYZ and you know at the Thanksgiving table you basically just talk about the weather and events that are useless to your point. Why aren't we talking about our dreams? Why aren't we talking about our goals and our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses and our strengths and why aren't we talking about money? You want to know why we all suck with money? Nobody talks about it. You're not allowed to talk about finance. You're not allowed to talk about fitness. 45:08 because everyone's so damn insecure. And you want to know why we're insecure? Because we don't talk about it. It's the chicken and the egg. The dream part is really interesting to me. I recently kind of came to this realization that I don't think I've ever had a real dream. And not in the sense of going to sleep and having a dream in that way. I've had those. But like a real dream for myself. And I think it's because I was stunted as a kid where 45:35 Like my mom died when she was 32. So, so much of my life was like, well, I'm not gonna make it past that. So like, why even plan for anything more? And I don't remember dreaming about anything that was like outside of like the next step on my checklist of like, get good grades and then I go here. And so like even at 40 something right now, however old I am, I don't even know that my brain is capable. 46:03 My logical brain is capable of dreaming of something that is out of reach right now. And I think it's just, mean, and here I am being vulnerable, but I think it's super important that we do help people realize that we should dream about like real things that we really want to accomplish and not just say we want to be a unicorn when we grow up or we want to be an astronaut or like something like, and just say it because that's what everyone else is saying. But really like you did. 46:31 Like have a plotted plan, like you felt you were gonna do these things and like that was real for you. I don't think I ever what's wild is I did it. And Matt, I appreciate the vulnerability. I don't mean to interrupt you. In the neuroscience, it shows that the conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind, so the prefrontal cortex can project into the future and predict outcomes in advance. But it's a muscle that if you don't use it, you lose it metaphorically. It's interesting that you and I both had 47:01 loss at a young age, for me the past was painful and the present was painful so I escaped into the future and I developed this so heavily. Because in my head it's, okay, how do I get out of here? And so I was like, okay, one day there's not going to be all this pain and fighting. My mom and stepdad fought a lot. And so I was always, okay, one day. And I was also, you think I look young now, imagine me in high school. So I couldn't get a girl to look at me, never mind date me, right? 47:29 I had to play the long game. These other guys had pit hair and dunking basketballs and I'm this little prepubescent five foot three red faced kid. So I had to go into the future and play the long game. That was my trauma response. Playing the long game was a trauma response. And for you, it was actually just get approval, play the short game, which is fascinating. I was a mask. I was someone for someone at that time. Not on purpose. Yeah, of course. None of it was. 47:57 We're just kids. We don't know. Our brains aren't fully developed. And the neuroscience shows that structural, chemical, and functional changes – I'm going to get my PhD in neuroscience at some point. I'm sorry. I'm obsessed with it. What did you say? I'm sorry. I'm obsessed with it, man. I love it. What I've found – they hooked people up to fMRI systems and they said, imagine yourself in a year. And some people could. 48:20 Okay, imagine yourself in two years. Okay, five years. Okay, 10 years. Okay, 15 years. Eventually it becomes a stranger. Some people can only think a couple weeks out. That is a muscle that is developed metaphorically. And I just happen to be able to think very far out. Like I feel like I have a perfect picture of me. Perfect is the wrong word, but I have a picture of me at 40, 56. I used to say my career, I'm not even kidding. I wish there was a camera of it. I always said in my early 20s, my career won't even start till my 50s. I still believe that. 48:50 Like in my 50s, that's when my career will really have some legs under it. I've been playing the long game ever since I was younger. That's why I never understood why Steve Jobs didn't take care of himself. Yeah. Right? It's like he didn't exercise consistently and all that. And so again, I have a quote of him back here. I've studied him my whole life and he was a visionary, but, he was brilliant, but yet he wasn't brilliant with him. 49:13 himself and his own health and longevity and all that kind of stuff. So I've looked up all the stats on longevity. The average life expectancy in Canada is 83 actually. It's pretty high. In the US it's 78. 79 for women, 78 for men. Statistically speaking, you're gonna live to 78 or 79 depending on what country you're from. So someday you're gonna arrive. People always say, why don't you care about the present? Everyone says the power of now, the present, the present. I'm like, no, the future is gonna become the present pretty fucking soon. 49:43 You've got to design your future in advance and then build toward it. I'm so convinced that future orientation is the key. I really am. It doesn't mean never be present. It just means make sure that you don't shoot narrow up in the air hoping it lands someplace nice. So with all the things that you're focused on now and the future that you're planning for yourself and creating for yourself, like super intentionally, do you think you would be, even though you had dreams as a kid, if that accident didn't happen, if that scary 50:13 potentially, you know, life-ending accident didn't happen. Do you think you would be like you are now or what do you envision? Can you? Are you allowed to think about that? Yeah, no, I am. I do that. I do that all the time. Like a sliding door's moment? Yeah, course. I think that yes. So I think we're all born these pristine, wonderful humans and I think we get mud on us. And then we react to that mud very, I think of it like a clear glass of water and we get mud slung in our glass. 50:42 generational trauma, stepdad, mom, fight, whatever, you name it, loss, abandonment, mortality, death, sudden, we don't know how to clear our glass. Breathwork is one way that I've cleared my glass. So yes, I would have cleared my glass, I think eventually, but maybe not as quickly. I think that that car accident cleansed my glass of a lot of quicker than would have happened otherwise. But I do think that if it wasn't that, it would have been something else. 51:10 because here's the thing, there's something called an ACE score adverse childhood experiences and they've found statistically speaking that people with a high ACE score actually have quick mortality. So there's a correlation between high adverse childhood experiences and early mortality on the statistical bell curve of mortality. So the average of 79 people with high ACE score tend to die on the lower end of that bell curve. And I think that my 51:39 Surviving that car accident was the chance I had to turn that around because I was reckless man people with low self-worth are Reckless, they don't value themselves enough. And why would they when they grew up in an environment that didn't value them? It drives me nuts man, like some of the way kids are treated, of course, they're not gonna value themselves They were taught not to value themselves. They were taught to be disrespected. They were taught not to invest in themselves 52:10 And then you have these other people who are entitled and think they're, you know, on the other end of the spectrum of they think they're God's gift to earth, even though they've never done anything since high school, right? And so we end up with spoiled brats in them on one end or low self-worth superhero martyrdom on the other end. And it sounds like, you know, you and I were on the martyr end. Yeah. Well, I mean, you had this like, I mean, you had the life shift moment at a time that seemed like, like almost like a 52:40 The bad word coming out, but a good time for you to pivot into your life because you had on paper all of these successes that were happening. You just had like a little maybe not a shell of a person, but you didn't have the full embodiment of yourself until this moment. And then it like was like, you might not get this chance again, buddy. Maybe you should do something with it. Is that what it felt like? Yeah, absolutely. Like. 53:06 You survive this, you won't survive the next one if this happens again. I don't know if I'd go as far as to that, but I would say I was a... No, that's okay. Dramatic is good. Dramatic is good if it gets us off our ass, right? It was a shell of myself. It was. 160 pounds, skinny fat, drank too much and too often. Everything for everyone, nothing for himself. Again, I'm condensing 26 years into a very short time, but didn't respect himself. 53:35 had high self belief, which is known as self-efficacy in terms of the science of achievement, but very low self-worth. Definitely hadn't dealt with his trauma. So it was a shell of myself for sure. And now I do feel like I'm more of the full embodiment of who I am. And I see potential in everybody too. It's been really hard for me to see so much potential in people and to have them squander it. And I think that I have this framework called the True North Questions. wear this 54:05 necklace behind around my neck with the North Star on it and it represents sort of my calling and these true North questions. One of them is what breaks your heart in the world? What breaks your heart? What pisses you off? What are you ridiculously good at statistically speaking? What do you love to do even when it's hard? And then what about you never changed? And sort of the center of that Venn diagram is supposed to reveal to you your sort of calling. And one of the things that 54:34 I figured out. It doesn't really bother other people as much as it bothers me with squandered potential. When I see someone who has so much potential, there's someone I'm thinking of growing up, I'll keep it anonymous. This dude was brilliant. I mean, he was unbelievable. He beat me at chess. The dude squandered it, man. He ended up not doing much. And again, who am I to tell him and pass judgment? I get it. But at the end of the day, I care about 55:03 Potential so much human beings have so much potential and we waste a lot of it and I'm not saying that to be mean I'm saying that so that we wake up like I needed a wake-up call to and Wake up like your future is not gonna be bright diet by default You're you're not gonna reach your potential by default like you you got to get to work and you got to read every book and you got to listen every podcast and you got to you got to put in the work and I think that's the society's default though. I think that we 55:32 I don't think we're taught to understand our self-worth. I don't think we're taught to understand our full potential. I don't think we're even challenged to do that. At least in my generation, I don't think that that was even the thing. Like you just had to get a good job and then life, that's how it goes. know, like there wasn't a lot of, it really was. It was like you get a good job, you buy a house, you have a car, you are quote unquote successful and therefore if you're successful, you're happy. 56:02 Like it was a simple equation, which was not true, but that's what we were taught. It's not true. But that's what we're taught. So we're all conditioned to not even understand that we have a bigger potential. There's a book called The Art of Impossible by a man by the name of Steven Kotler. We interviewed him. He is someone who studied flow and the science of peak performance for his entire life. He was a journalist and the art of impossible, in my opinion, if someone actually wanted to be happy, fulfilled, I'll use fulfilled. 56:32 He talks about how not shooting for your full potential and not shooting for goals that force you to reach your full potential is actually bad for us neurochemically, neurobiologically, it's bad for us. If you don't use it, you lose it. So people think, well, you have a beautiful girlfriend, a future wife, you guys are super successful, you have an 18 person team, and that's so true, that's great. But 10 years ago, I dreamed all that up. 57:00 and then started working toward my true potential. And so people say it's about the journey, not the destination. I do not agree. The destination you choose in advance dictates the journey. I drove from Boston to Los Angeles when I was in my early 20s. And that's very different than driving from, you know, 30 minutes south. And the journey you embark on is predicated on the destination you choose in advance. So shoot for LA and then when you're on your way, maybe you change to Wyoming. I don't care. You got to, you got to embark on something. 57:30 And I think that the whole traditional buy a car, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids. listen, those might be milestones that are great and can be great, but there has to be something more. There has to be something more. If your career is not built on something meaningful, you will always be unfulfilled. The reason I'm here right now, it's 7 22 PM. 57:59 I'm still here giving it everything I've got because this is meaningful. It's not because I want to be here. It's not because I'm not tired. It's not because my voice isn't hoarse. It's not because it's because it's meaningful and fulfilling work. And if you don't have meaningful, fulfilling work, you will always struggle because meaning, that's why marriage with being in love matters more than the wedding photos. The wedding photos 58:29 are a snapshot in time, the marriage matters more than your Instagram account. Meaning in real life with real people is where fulfillment lives. And that's why I coach people because it's so meaningful to see them reach their potential. It's the most meaningful work in the world. It's not because it's easy. Coaching is atrociously hard. I always say to people, you can't even sell personal development for free. I'm trying to get people to pay me for it. 58:57 So, you can't get your parents to grow for free. You can't even gift them these books. I'm trying to get people to pay me for it, so I'm playful, it is, meaning is what matters. And if you orient your life and your entire existence around what's most meaningful in terms of what your passions are and your purposes, then you will end up more profitable, assuming you're smart enough to kind of collaborate with the economy. Yeah. 59:26 if you are, think it gives you a more fulfilling life, even if it's not the monetary element that comes to it. I think there's there's more value there. I think we could talk about this and I could ask you all sorts of questions all day, but we probably shouldn't do that. I do want to ask you the question that I ask everyone that I'm sure you've done this. Sure, you have had this practice, but this version of you 2025 Alan talk to the Alan that's still driving. 59:53 doesn't know he's about to get in an accident. Is there anything that you would want to whisper in his ear, tell him? 01:00:00 So good. Exercises like this are what we should have been doing in school, I would say. 01:00:10 Smart move buckling up. That's my playful version. I would say what my highest self has been saying to me since, which is all you've ever really cared about and all you ever really will care about is reaching your full potential and helping others do the same. You get one life and you have time, effort, and money. Those are the only three things you have. You have time, effort, and money. 01:00:38 and you have squandered so much of it. And this is what I would say to him. I'd say, Alan, if you are fortunate enough to take care of yourself enough to live for a hundred years on this planet, you only get 36,500 days. And if you only ever had $36,500 in a bank account and you could never make another dollar, how carefully would you spend that money? Do not waste another fucking day. He'd probably listen. I would get through. 01:01:06 He might not like me, but I would get through. And tough love sometimes is sometimes we need that. And sometimes it's really helpful. But it often has to hit at the right time from the right person. What I've experienced is you could hear something a thousand times and then that one time it breaks through and you're like, why didn't you tell me this before? And it's like, oh, I did. I did. Yeah. And it's even true to our self talk. 01:01:34 Like we might have said something a thousand times and the one time we actually believe it. And that's the time that we have the breakthrough. I appreciate you telling this story of you in this way. Typically we kind of go on a linear path, but this time I love the way that we went back and forth and compared our experiences because like I said, at the very beginning, this podcast is like this weird healing journey for me, like so selfishly. 01:02:00 I thank you for planting different seeds and making me think about things in a different way. It's just so valuable and I know people out there listening will also have similar takeaways. So thank you for just being a part of this. Matt, you are so very welcome. I'll come back anytime. Thank you for having me. It's an honor because quite frankly, and I try to tell myself this, you know, at a day like today, it's been a long week. I'm 47 in Q2, 47 coaching sessions, trainings and podcasts per week, front-facing. 01:02:30 And I'm grateful, but this is what I have to tell myself. This is my self-talk. Alan, do not ever forget what it was like when no one gave a shit. So keep it up. Thank you so much for having me, Matt. I really appreciate it. And I'll come back anytime. Great. Well, to wrap us up in a quick ending, can you tell us, like, people want to learn about your coaching. Maybe they want, like, your tough love. They want your services. How can they find you? What's the best way to, like, get in your orbit? Nextleveluniverse.com is the website. 01:02:59 Next Level University is the podcast. We do an episode every day. We have 2,123 episodes. It's 1 % improvement in your pocket from anywhere on the planet every single day, completely free. Next Level You, pun intended, Next Level University, but Next Level You, not Next Level Me, Next Level You. And if you have humility and work ethic and you have a sincere interest to reach your full potential, you are going to love us. If you are entitled on any level and you want big rewards for minimal effort, 01:03:29 you're not going to like us at all. Do not reach out under any circumstances. We're just going to butt heads. at the end of the day, we're strivers, we're not arrivers, we're strivers. We're climbing meaningful mountains. And if you want to climb a meaningful mountain with us, please reach out. I will put easy links in the show notes so people know how to find you and connect with you and reach out to you if any part of your story, your personal story affected them in any way. I encourage people to do that whether you want them to or not. 01:03:55 I think it's so valuable even for someone to just say, hey, that resonated because now they're opening that door of vulnerability. And so I think it's so important. So thank you again for just being a part of this. I really appreciate you. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you. Keep doing what you're doing. I'm trying. I'm trying. So I never know how to end these. I've done 200 and something episodes and I still don't know how to end. And I told your business partner, Kevin, as well. So I'm just going to say thank you. 01:04:22 for being a part of this. Thank you all for listening and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. 01:04:36 For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com