From Computer Engineer to Business Coach: The Unstoppable Journey of Alan Lazarus

Welcome to the Six Figure Shift Show, where real

business owners share their journeys to scaling

smarter, earning more, and shifting into their

next level of success. I'm your host, Debbie

Longo, executive behavioral coach. And on this

show, we explore what really takes to make the

shift through mindset, strategy, and behavior.

Tune in for real stories, real shifts, and real

results. I have a very special guest tonight.

Alan is a computer engineer turned business coach

who co -founded Next Level University, a global

top 100 podcast, boasting 2 ,000 episodes, 1

million plus listeners around 175 companies and

$1 million in revenue. Armed with an MBA and

a data -driven mindset, Alan helps leaders translate

core beliefs and values. into daily habits that

scale culture, performance, and profit. His mantra,

humility and honesty are the best tools to succeed

at any level. From habit -tracking dashboards

to value -based decision frameworks, he shows

executives how to build teams that own the mission

and how to communicate when belief systems clash.

Get ready to learn how identity metrics and radical

transparency coverage to create teams that don't

just hit targets, they refine them. Good evening,

Alan. Welcome to the show. I have a few questions

here. The first question is you mentioned about

your next level university. What is your system

behind the 2000 episodes of podcast? How did

you? get to that and what was the drive that

brought you to all those episodes? There's a

story behind that and 10 years ago, I got in

a car accident and my birth father passed away

in a car. I was two in 1991. When I was 26, I

got in a car accident that fortunately didn't

take my life, but it did get me to contemplate

what I was doing. And that's when I found my

calling. I created a company called Alan Lazarus

LLC, what you'll never learn in school but desperately

need to know. And I wanted to bring personal

development to the school systems. And then I

started a podcast in that company called Conversations

Change Lives. And that was basically how to be

a fly on the wall for great conversations with

great people. I noticed that kids were picking

majors and picking careers based on very little

data. I wanted to interview people. and ask them

what their life was really like versus what they

thought, because I was a computer engineer. And

the reason I chose that is you're good at math.

Engineers are good at math. Engineers make a

lot of money. You should be an engineer. That

wasn't enough data to make a lifelong decision.

Then I met Kevin Palmieri. He was my first guest

on the show. He was a foreman for a weatherization

company at the time. And he had a podcast called

the Paper Conscious Podcast. Change the way you

think, change the way you act, change the way

you live. I was his first guest. Then eventually

we teamed up and had the worst titled podcast

of all time. It was the conversations change

lives meets hyper conscious podcast We did that

for about 20 weeks in a row one episode a week

Eventually, we rebranded to just hyper conscious

We went all in on hyper conscious podcast and

then probably 400 or 500 episodes in we Transitioned

to what's now known as next level University

and it's a place where you learn how to level

up your health wealth life and love how to be

healthier, wealthier, and more in love. One percent

improvement in your pocket from anywhere on the

planet, completely free. That's a mantra. And

so how did we do 2 ,100 episodes? It's actually

2114 as of earlier today. We started with one

a week, and then it was two a week, and then

it was three a week, and then I think we jumped

from three to five, and then from five to seven.

All these different themes. But we created a

production company. So Next Level University

is the name of the company, the name of the podcast,

and the name of the brand. We have something

called Next Level Podcast Solutions, where Kevin

and myself, our company, 18 person team now,

we currently work with 108 podcasters and business

owners, paying clients. And so it's really scaled

quite a lot, which is awesome. And we work with

podcasters all over the world. We have a group

coaching program called the Next Level Podcast

Accelerator. How did we do it? We eventually

got to a place where we did one a day, 1 % improvement

in your pocket anywhere on the planet, completely

free, next level university. And that is what

we built the brand on. We built the brand on

consistency, reliability, sustainability. We

will be there to be the male role model we never

had, because both Kevin and I grew up without

fathers. He was raised by his mom and his mima,

and I was raised by my mom and my older sister.

And so we wanted to be the male role models we

never had. Interesting. That's very good. Thank

you. Also about the revenue streams. How did

you get there? Kev was a podcast coach. So I

did a bunch of different types of coaching. I

did fitness coaching. So I was a fitness model,

fitness competitor, and a fitness coach. And

I have these trophies behind me. I did fitness

competitions. And I figured, okay, where do I

have results? Where do other people want results?

Fitness. So I did fitness coaching for a while.

I did some mindset coaching. Eventually I did

peak performance coaching. Did a little bit of

life coaching then I was a business consultant

and then I was a business coach And I've been

doing business coaching now for the last probably

four years But ultimately it was always okay.

We have these listeners all over the world What

do they want that I have and how can I help them

achieve their goals for a fee? And so Kevin and

I started coaching it started out with totally

free. We just found listeners. We said who wants

coaching? He was a mindset coach. I was a fitness

coach and we just started out for free. And then

eventually it was, we can't do this for free

anymore. And they were like, let me pay you.

And it started out with 50 bucks a week and then

it was 75. And then it went up from there. And

now I have 20 clients. One of them is four times

a week and I sell 12 week packages and we have

a group coaching program and all that kind of

stuff. So the revenue streams are right now back

in 20, from 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, that four

year span, we had an average of 119 % year over

year growth. I'm a computer engineer, everything's

numbers and metrics for me. So we grew like crazy.

And then it was 18 % and then 11%. So we used

to have a 24 person team, 24 departments and

a charity. I came to Kat and I said, brother,

we overextended. So when fish are jumping in

the boat like that, you end up buying stuff,

you hire more team. We got cocky, we didn't mean

to. And So I had to sit Kevin down and say brother

we're gonna go out of business Unless we refocus

and so we took a 24 department Company down to

I said, what are the departments? We would go

out of business without we only came up with

eight Of the 24 only came up with eight that

were directly profitable. So we doubled down

on those eight now We're back to I think 16 and

we have an 18 person team. So what are the revenue

streams now? One -on -one coaching is big We

have group coaching program. We've done 18 groups.

We're about to launch our 19th group. We also

have next level podcast solutions. We produce

over 60 podcasts, including three of my own.

We also have something called next level social

media. We do social media for nine clients currently,

and then we have one thing called next level

guest solutions. We get people onto other podcasts.

We also have a next level dreamliner. And again,

I don't want this to turn into some sales pitch,

but it's a journal that I use every day. Reverse

engineer your goals and dreams one quarter of

it at a time. Achieve your dreams 90 days at

a time. Use the journal every day too. We also

have a book club that's indirectly profitable

because they end up being my clients. We have

a fitness group, all kinds of stuff. The main

revenue streams though are podcast production

and one -on -one coaching. We also have something

called Next Level Live. We've done a live event

every year for eight years, and that's pretty

profitable. Now it's fully virtual. It used to

be in person and it was not profitable. But those

are the basic revenue streams. We also had an

app called Optimal, habit tracking app. We put

most of the departments in coast mode so that

we could refocus and double down on things that

are directly profitable and indirectly profitable.

Those things are going to come later on. But

everything revolves around this one simple idea

of level up yourself, level up your podcast,

level up your business. Listeners want to learn

from us to reach their true potential. That's

personal development and success. Longers want

to build their own podcasts and their own podcast

communities. Business owners have to generate

revenue. Otherwise, they're going to go out of

business. I'm a business coach. He's a podcast

coach. We have someone named Amy. She's personal

development coach. We built a very large company

in terms of business model and then tried to

grow into it. Which in hindsight, I think we

spread ourselves to them. I am actually doing

it that way now because I had a spiritual teacher

mentor for 19 years and she passed away in 2021.

And she had a few businesses and she would constantly

be giving stuff out for free. One -on -one sessions.

They could have been friends. of clients or somebody

that she met like in church or whatever. So that's

what I do too. My mission is to help people.

It's not to chase after greed and power because

it just comes. The more I give away, the more

it comes. If I'm focusing on just money and how

much can I get from everybody and I give limited

amounts, that will wind up to be destructive.

You know, I always say money can never be number

one, but it also shouldn't be number 10 It passion

is what are you obsessed with? So I'll just use

fitness as an example. So I'm obsessed with fitness

Purpose is I help others get in shape passion

to purpose into profit is third So how do you

make that profitable? But profit can't be tenth,

but it also can't be first if the only goal is

profit like I'm here right now Number one. I'm

here to serve Number two, I'm here to practice

my craft and become a better podcaster. Number

three, if someone ends up reaching out and this

is profitable, great. But if not, that's okay.

And it needs to be a priority, but it can't be

the number one priority. So I'm curious about

digital products because we're talking about

companies advancing and going from zero to being

a large company, six figures, or having that

as a goal. What if I have too little product

or too much product? Will that affect me and

my company? Because I just want to have the right

amount. But what does that mean? What does that

look like? It all comes down to supply and demand.

And people think that if you create the supply,

the demand will come. That is absolutely not

true. So I break it down into five simple steps.

I have a podcast called Business Growth University,

and it's got only eight episodes as of right

now. In the very first episode, I talk about

what I call the business star, and the next five

episodes go deeper into each. The business star,

it's branding, marketing, sales, client delivery,

and community. And ultimately the supply and

demand thing. We have online courses. We give

them away for free. And that creates leads. It's

called lead gin. And then you reach out to those

people. Now, you know that those are listeners

and then you offer them other things. But the

ultimate key here, I like to change the word

sell to help or to invite. So I have something

called a next level sales system that I run.

Every single day for 42 days in a row, actually,

I'm big on streaks and numbers. Anyone will understand

that based on this conversation. And I call it

five by five next level sales system. five posts,

five unique posts, five likes, five comments,

five DMs and five invites. And I do that every

single day. And to me, social media marketing

and social media branding and personal branding

and sales is really critical. Client delivery

is also critical too. Client delivery, what I

use as an example is when you buy a bag of chips

and it's only a third full, if you constantly

disappoint everybody, they're not going to keep

buying the bags of chips. So you have to be able

to over deliver on your promises. And I think

that in today's digital world, there's a lot

of people that are really good at branding, marketing

and sales, but they can't deliver and they can't

meet the bold promises that they make, particularly

with digital products. And then there's other

people that are really good at client delivery.

You're either good at branding, marketing and

sales, but not good at client delivery. or you're

really good at client delivery, but not good

at branding, marketing and sales. And the truth

is you need to be good at all those five. Branding

is who you are and what you are. It's your reputation

in the marketplace. I always say Tesla should

not sell energy drinks and Red Bull should not

sell cars. Marketing is the message that you

have. It's the messenger who you are and it's

the channels in which you reach your target demographic.

And it's your target demographic. Sales is helping

real people in the real world with meaningful

conversations. It's building meaningful relationships.

And so do it yourself in the real world. Make

sure you know who your target demographic is.

Make sure you know what problem you're solving.

So for us, for example, next level university,

if you are a listener, you really don't have

to go anywhere else for your personal development.

We're going to help you level up your life, love,

health and wealth every day from in your pocket

completely free. We don't have any advertisement

except for our own stuff. And basically we take

away the problem of having to curate content

on YouTube and you can just trust that we're

going to be there for you in your pocket, motivating,

inspiring, and educating you every single day.

Client delivery is okay. My program is 12 weeks.

It's called the Next Level Business Accelerator.

It's 1500 bucks, which it comes to $125 per session.

We're going to do metrics and habits and goals

and priorities and all this kind of stuff. And

I'm going to make sure that it's the Mario car

booster. Client delivery is can I actually deliver

on that? And the truth is, in the beginning,

I couldn't deliver with certain people because

they wouldn't execute. And so now I'm much more

picky. I actually have a filter of people I don't

work with. To go back to your original question

though, digital products are the future. Online

is the future. There's 8 billion people on this

planet, 5 .65 billion on the internet. And that

number is increasing. You can scale companies

way faster. than you could in the past, but there's

also way more competition. And it can be very

hard to create a compelling product or service

on the internet that actually gains traction

because it's really good and worth the price.

The last piece is community, and these are the

companies that really crush it. If you can build

a community where people identify as a next leveler,

or they identify as someone who believes what

you believe and lives life like you live it,

Like our fitness group, for example, those are

all really warm leads with real people, but you

can't spam them. You have to add value first.

And that's why the next level sales system is

set up the way that it does. It's five posts,

five likes, five comments, five DMs, five invites

in that order. Because the invites are an ask.

But the first 20 things you do on their posts,

likes, comments, and DMs, those are all adding

value. So it's add value invite. I was on with

a client earlier and I said, do you want to come

to book club this weekend? That counts as an

invite. She said, no, not interested, but thank

you. Her name's Moe. No worries. But at least

I shot my shot. Why? Because she's going to be

a part of the community. She said, Alan, I'm

too overwhelmed. I appreciate it. Not interested.

All good. No stress. And I get my check for my

five invites for the day. I think that very few

of us are mastering all five of those things.

Last thing I'll say. about this. Success is not

doing 10 ,000 things. Success is doing those

five things 10 ,000 times and improving on them

every single time. And as an engineer, it's so

obvious to me that if you are consistently improving

in those five areas in your company, you will

be successful. And then it's just a matter of

creating more and more demand and then limiting

the supply and then raising the price. but doing

it in a way that's integrous. Because here's

the thing, when you iterate, I've done 10 ,766

coaching sessions, trainings, and podcasts. If

I'm not better than the standard coach at this

stage, then I can't raise the price. To me, the

value for the client or customer has to be at

least five times what you charge in their consciousness,

not in yours. So I always tell people the average

amount that people earn on average, 788 % more

over their lifetime for people with a coach.

I said, if you can make 788 % more working with

me, and it says especially for business coaches,

why wouldn't you invest in me? Which is really

an investment in yourself. However, if you don't

have work ethic and you don't want to execute

and you can't handle hard truths, there's nothing

I can do for you. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I have a small company. I want to have a plan.

and I need to know how I'm going to get to whatever

my goal is, if it's making six figures or whatever,

then I'm going to execute that plan. A specific

goal, timeline, how many employees I'm going

to have, just a very specific thing. And I think

that what you explained is very good for a small

company or an entrepreneur to really get motivated

to say, Alan and Debbie, they're really successful.

And I could do that too, just by taking a few

suggestions and maybe get a coach because I need

help in this world. So I need people to help

me in order for me to succeed. That takes a lot

of humility. Success to me, the biggest thing

that I can share that I've... learned over coaching

so many people from all over the world all different

cultures all different backgrounds all different

sexes all different types of people and I do

relationship talks coaching as well we coach

couples we've been doing that for five years

and the self -belief plus the humility rarely

walk hand in hand and they're the two most important

character traits for success you have to believe

in yourself enough to execute but be humble enough

to know you need help simultaneously Kevin and

I, he had low self -belief, but high humility.

I had high self -belief, but low humility. And

so you have to be certain enough that you're

going to succeed, but also scared enough that

you're going to go out of business to actually

stay humble. We got cocky when we were winning

119 % year over year. We're more than doubling

our business every year. Of course we got cocky.

We didn't mean to. We just did. And now we got

our biggest client we've ever had three months

ago. It's almost six figures, just one client.

I said to Kevin, congratulations, this is awesome.

Biggest payday we've ever had. But dude, don't

get cocky. We celebrated for three minutes and

then I was like, back to work. Let's go. Because

the moment you get cocky in business, you're

going to go out of business. But you have to

have a little bit of that confidence in you.

You can't be too timid. You have to have tenacity

and self belief, but you also have to have humility.

It's hard to keep those hand in hand. If I have

a partner. that has more of a quality and I have

less of that quality, it's better to have the

opposite than a lot of the same quality. With

you and your partner, one can motivate each other

and that will help you get your quality bigger

and vice versa. I always say similar core goals

and core aspirations and core values, complementary

skill sets. And that's the key. It's the yin

and the yang. Make sure your yin is yanging.

But you have to have common goals and values.

Goals in conflict are a thing. If Kevin and I,

my business partner, if we're both driving from

Boston to LA, we both grew up in the same small

town. If we're driving from Boston to LA and

I want to go the southern road and he wants to

go the northern route, we can't take the same

car. And that's a goal in conflict. If I like

heavy metal and he doesn't, we can't take the

same car. If I'm going to Vegas and he's going

to LA, we have to leave separate cars once we

get to Vegas. So it's a metaphor of that's why

a lot of intimate relationships fail and a lot

of business partnerships fail is because they

have goals that diverge and or core values in

conflict. So Kevin and I have very similar core

values and very similar goals, but we have complimentary

skill sets. And that's been really helpful. He's

more short -term thinker. Make sure we stay in

business. I'm more long -term visionary. And

we both have both, but we've really, we call

it drive to five. I'm usually overconfident.

He's usually underconfident. And so we balance

each other out pretty nicely and we drive to

five. So 10 means you're basically overly optimistic.

Zero means you think nothing is ever going to

work and you got to be at five. You got to be

both confident and humble simultaneously. And

I think he and I help each other. I asked him

the other day, am I over? He said a little bit

over a little bit more optimistic than I probably

should be. I need to, I need to get a little

humility in advance. because you either stay

humble or you get humbled. We check each other

and respect each other. And it's important. And

every now and then I got to say, come on, man,

like, you can do it. So I'll give you an example.

We're shooting for half a million this year.

He doesn't think we can do it. And I'm certain

it's possible. I said, we can't miss a trick,

but I got to go for it. Worst case scenario,

I end up at 480. I'm still glad I went for it.

But here's the thing. He is more motivated by

small short -term goals. I am more motivated

by shoot for the moon land amongst the stars

and that's the truth of you have to understand

what motivates you and usually The people who

have really high self -belief and self -efficacy.

They need to aim really high and get their butt

kicked I always say aim high you'll get humble

pie aim low and you won't grow And so for him,

I need to get him to aim a little higher. For

me, he needs to get me to be a little more practical.

It's good we're having this conversation because

if somebody's on and they want to be in a partnership

with somebody, the statistic is very low that

a partnership makes it. Nine times out of 10,

a partnership fails. That's why a lot of companies

are not in partnerships, they have big boards.

And that way multiple people usually is not good.

But in that sense it is because everybody has

a stake involved. They have a benefit. So they're

trying to keep the company. But to have one partner,

the statistic is very low. That partnership,

the business might work, but the partnership

will actually make it because of these things

that you're saying. You're absolutely right.

Back in 2012, my first company was called Campus

Libre and we had four team members. And we applied

for something called Y Combinator. Do you know

Y Combinator? Y Combinator is an incubator program

in the U S and essentially there's a group of

mentors that have no time, but they have a lot

of money and wisdom. And then there's young entrepreneurs

who have a lot of time, but they don't have money

and wisdom. And it's an exchange and I eventually

want to create my own incubator. And in some

ways I already have one with the 20 clients that

I have. But I don't have equity in their companies

yet. Why Combinator actually won't invest in

your company unless you have a certain number

of team members. Because two is scary, but one

is also scary. Unless you have four people that

all have sort of skin in the game, an investor

might not even invest. in your company. And I'm

going the non -investor road. So we bootstrapped

our company. I told Kevin I didn't want investors.

I got offered large investments early on and

I said, no, because I said I don't want anyone's

hands in our cookie jar. I didn't come this far

to be told what we can and can't do with our

own company, that kind of thing. That's definitely

made it harder by a significant margin. If you

do want a business partner, you have to be really

self -aware and you have to be really aware of

who that other person really is. And remember,

it's who they are when no one's watching. People

say words lie, actions lie when they're around

you. You need to know who is this person and

what are they when no one's watching. That is

the really important question to ask. Yeah. How

can someone get in touch? I have absolutely people

and absolutely not people. I don't think everything's

for everyone. I don't think everyone's for everyone.

My absolutely people are people who have high

work ethic, high humility. and who have a sincere

interest in reaching their true potential in

life and business. That is my absolutely people.

If that's you, please reach out. You can Google

my name. Next Level University is the podcast.

NextLevelUniverse .com is the website. And if

you are someone who wants huge rewards for minimal

effort, you and I are not going to get along.

I believe in striving, not arriving. I believe

success is earned every single day and the rent

is due every day. So at the end of the day, I'm

not here to help people who don't have high work

ethic and that's nothing personal. I just know

that I'm not a good fit for you. So thank you

so much for having me. Thank you.