From Car Crash to Coach: Building a Durable Podcast and Business with Alan Lazaros

If you’ve ever wondered why some podcasts quietly stack momentum while others sputter out by episode 21, this conversation with Alan Lazarus pulls back the curtain. We get honest about the real work: pairing repeatable systems with genuine people skills, playing the long game with weekly cadence, and aligning passion with purpose so profit arrives as a result—not the goal.

Alan traces a winding path from a life‑altering car crash to building Next Level University, revealing how each iteration of his show sharpened the niche and strengthened the promise: 1% improvement, every day. He explains the two‑train model that keeps creators afloat—let a short‑term train fund your life while a long‑term train (your podcast) compounds trust and opportunity. We break down the “triad of failure” that derails new hosts—wrong expectations, wrong approach, wrong time perspective—and replace it with a durable blueprint: clear listener targeting, dependable publishing, and continuous upgrades to titles, artwork, audio, and show notes that boost discoverability and retention.

We also dig into the craft that separates memorable voices from forgettable feeds: storytelling with hook‑story‑lesson‑future pace, asking “who is the listener?” before you hit record, and using analogies that bridge the abstract to the obvious. Alan’s take on the industry’s future is practical and optimistic—barriers keep falling, reach keeps rising, and the most serious creators will win bigger than ever by mixing consistency with care. If you’re ready to stop dabbling and start compounding, this conversation gives you the mindset, the model, and the next steps to become unignorable.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. Tell us your current publishing cadence and what you’re changing after this episode—we’ll cheer you on.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Alan’s Origin Story
• 2:06 Turning Loss into Purpose
• 3:17 Early Shows, Rebrands & Finding the Niche
• 5:12 Mistakes, “Failing Forward” & Client Lessons
• 8:17 Two Sides of Business: Systems and People
• 12:04 Why Most Podcasts Stall & How to Survive
• 15:36 Expectations vs Reality: The Long Game
• 18:11 Short-Term vs Long-Term Trains
• 21:07 Frequency, Relevance & Leveling Up
• 24:45 Weekly Beats Biweekly: The Compounding Case
• 28:00 Don’t “Take the Summer Off”
• 30:15 Top 3 Communication Levers
• 34:10 Where Podcasting Is Headed Next
• 37:10 Passion → Purpose → Profit
• 39:25 How to Connect with Alan & Final Takeaways

Transcript

Carl: 0:04

Welcome to Communication Connection Community, the Podcasters Podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern-day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news, updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. Let's dive into today's episode. Alan Lazaros is the CEO, founder, co-host, powerful combination of technical expertise and business acumen. He is a business coach, consultant, trainer, and speaker who specializes in helping businesses maximize their growth, impact, and profitability online. He's very heart-driven. He has a no BS approach to inspiring, motivating, and educating. What it really takes to get to the next level. He's been a podcaster for a number of years. I am so thrilled to talk to somebody who eats, sleeps, breathes, lives, speaking, and podcasting as much, if not more, than I do. Alan, welcome to the podcast.

Alan: 1:18

Gratitude first. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing the energy. Thank you for having me. I started listening to podcasts about nine years ago, and they really helped me reorient my life in a much more constructive and positive direction. And so now I'm a podcaster who helps people do that, and it's really a dream come true. So I appreciate it.

Carl: 1:35

Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the impact that podcasts have had on you. And then I want to talk about your journey through communication and podcasting as well. I know there's a lot to unpack here, but let's talk about first how it's impacted your life.

Alan: 1:48

Okay. So the first thing to realize here is so I'll provide a little bit of context. And this will be the very short version. So when I was really young, my father passed away in a car accident when he was 28. And I got in a car accident when I was 26 that really shifted my perspective. And before that, I was an achiever. I was improvement oriented, but I wasn't self-improvement oriented. So after 26, I really got into not only self-improvement, but holistic self-improvement. And then I started to really find my calling for lack of better phrasing, which is I speak into the lives of other people and I help them be more successful and more fulfilled. And I do that through podcasting, coaching, training, speaking, and writing. And all of those things, those five things I just mentioned, podcasting, coaching, training, speaking, and writing, they all have one thing in common, which is hey, you need to be an effective communicator. And so I've spent the last nine, almost 10 years now, since 26, since that car accident, really trying to perfect my craft in how to speak powerfully into the lives of other people and lead by example too, because it's not just the message, it's the messenger. And so, number one, improve myself, lead by example, that kind of thing. And then number two, how do I use my experiences and my knowledge and my awareness and my attitude to help people really prosper and inspire, motivate, and educate others? And so that's really what I'm here for. So when it comes to the second part of your question about communication, podcasting, all that, I started a little podcast called Conversations Change Lives about seven or eight years ago now. And my business partner now, his name's Kevin, he had a podcast called the Hyper Conscious Podcast. So the Conversations Change Lives Podcast, he was my first guest. And then I was his first guest on the Hyper Conscious podcast. Then we teamed up and we created the worst naming named podcast of all time, which is the Conversations Change Lives Meets Hyper Conscious Podcast. And we did that for about 20 episodes, and we eventually went all in on the Hyper Conscious podcast, change the way you think, change the way you act, change the way you live. It was all about holistic self-improvement. It was about self-awareness, it was about understanding yourself at a deeper level. It was about what motivates you, it was about the fundamentals of success and fulfillment. And then 650 or so episodes later, we rebranded to what's now known as Next Level University. And it's self-improvement, health, wealth, life, and love in your pocket from anywhere on the planet, 1% improvement per day, totally free. And we're now realize in hindsight we've become sort of the male role models we never had because we both grew up without dads. And so that's a very, very short way to tell you and condense the last decade, but really 35 years, into what was definitely more than one minute and a half.

Carl: 4:34

So you've basically taken your professional life and your personal life, and they're very much in sync with what you're talking about on the show. It's not like there's any separation. Okay, obviously there's some personal things you're not sharing on the show, but a lot of what brought you to the podcasting space is because of that personal experience. And it's very, it's very interesting that your business partner also, and I haven't met Kevin, but has a has a story as well that probably complements what you've been doing. And of course, both of you in the earlier stages developing the business model and also the podcast, you made no mistakes, right? It's perfect right from day one.

Alan: 5:11

It's yeah, no. So you're funny, perfect from day one. Ideas don't come out fully formed. We, in hindsight, let's just say if I could go back in time, I would tell myself a thing or two. And no, we failed forward massively. We've made more mistakes. That's actually one of the things that we tell our clients because I coach business owners and he coaches podcasters. And some podcasters want to start a business, and some businesses need a podcast. So we do both. But ultimately, I say that all the time. I said, listen, we've made every mistake in the book. So we have learned to overcome and learn from our mistakes over time. And that's one thing that you really, when you spend a lot of time in a certain industry or a certain space, the experiences that you gain through just massive pain, suffering, and failure, you just end up eventually really good. But it's basically only because of all those failures and pain and stuff. And so we're not going to help our clients skip steps. And even on this podcast interview right now, if you're a podcaster, a communicator, writer, speaker, trainer, I'm not going to help you skip steps. What I will help you do is increase the rate at which you improve by helping you not avoid the mistakes we've made, but maybe understand them, recognize them sooner, pivot sooner, and improve quicker. Because ultimately that's what it is. What if I could tell you that you could be where I am in five years instead of the 10 that it took me if you had me in your corner? And that's really the proposition I think that's a very honest proposition.

Carl: 6:39

And anyone who thinks that, and obviously I said it as a joke, because just like you, and we work in very similar spaces, which I think is also make that clear, because even though we work in similar spaces, we come from different backgrounds, we have different experiences. And I'll say this out loud there's more than enough work for both of us to keep us busy forever and a day. So there's no poaching of clients, there's nothing like that. There's more than enough people interested in the podcasting space to keep us both very well employed for the next, I don't know, as long as podcasts are around and they're different evolutions. But what I like is that you've taken this experience and you've been, hey, you know what? You're going to make mistakes along the way. I've worked with clients who think it's going to be perfect in their first 10 episodes, and they'll get those instantaneous, massive results that experienced business owners and celebrities and thought leaders are getting, not realizing that, hey, they've been on a journey for a while. Then all of a sudden flick the switch and hey, here's a podcast with the, you know, the likes of Oprah Winfrey or Joe Rogan. They didn't just fall off a turnip truck and here's a podcast, and it's massively successful. There was a journey that they took to get there, and they all can report in some capacity or another that they failed along the way to get there. So thank you for letting us know that there has been, you know, failing forward. I love that expression, failing forward. What I want to do is share some of the things that you've learned along the way, business-wise, podcasting-wise. Let's start there. What are some of the keys that you've learned?

Alan: 8:11

Well, there's certain fundamentals that are obvious in hindsight. And so at this point, I have a 10,000-hour tracker and I track coaching, speaking, podcasting, and training. And I'm at like 8,000 or so now. And the reason I say that is not to brag. The reason I say that is because I I want people to understand that I'm not just saying these things. When you've done 8,000 hours of this work, patterns become so obvious. All different industries, all different backgrounds, all different cultures, my coaching. I have 28 people on my roster, about to be 29 right now, but I've coached hundreds over the years. I was fitness coach, then I was mindset coach, then I was peak performance coach, then I was life coach, then I was business consultant, now I'm business coach. And it's been just a main focal point. So all these different industries, all these different backgrounds, everything from real estate agents to hey, I'm 16, I want to start a YouTube channel all the way to 63. I'm in New Zealand. I've been in, you know, home staging for two decades and I'm already a multimillionaire, but I want to grow and scale, and I don't want to work 12 hours a day anymore. All the different walks of life. There's a couple fundamentals that are just true for everybody. I'll start there because we're trying to cast sort of a wide net here. Business is about two main things. You have to be really good at these two main things. And if you're not good at both, that's okay. You can get a business partner. All right. So the first one, and this is a must, particularly in the 21st century, you have to be good at systems, you have to be good at metrics, you have to be good at discipline, you have to be good at consistency, you have to be good at grit, you have to be good at org structure, and you have to be good at technology. Okay, that's the lefty. Okay, that's the left side of the formula. And then the right side, and very few people are good at both of these. Business is about people. You have to be good with people. So Kevin is much better with people than I am. He's relatable, he's likable, people don't think he's arrogant. I am the esoteric computer engineer, weirdo who thinks in numbers and metrics all the time. And so I'm okay with people, and I think I've become a strong communicator, particularly to engineers. But Kevin's the people person, always has been, always will be, and I'm the system structure, discipline, metrics, habits, organizational. And we work together very well. A lot of people who start podcasts or who start businesses, what they don't understand is that they are really good at one or the other, and that you need to be ambidextrous in the 21st century, ready and lefty in order to be effective in business. And the other thing people don't understand, I'm glad you mentioned it, is the people that are successful in podcasting, a lot of times they had a career 20, 30, 40 years before that, 10 years before that, that built up to the moment when they started a podcast. And then that was their credibility that actually made the podcast big. So, Brene Brown, for example, maybe she has a podcast, I think she does, but she was a researcher and a writer for decades before starting a podcast. And so if you're a podcaster who wants to start out with podcasting, but you don't have a career behind you, it's going to be a lot harder to grow and scale to that same level. It maybe it's possible. I personally haven't seen a ton of it, but our company produces 50 shows at this point, three of my own. And we have really good understanding and metrics of the different demographics and where you can hit the top charts and how to actually succeed. But ultimately it comes down to a few fundamentals. Number one, you have to be good at those two things that I mentioned. Number two, you have to be really good at effective communication. Some people are just not strong podcasters. And here's the thing, you've got to understand there's what, three million podcasts? Most of them are not still in production. So I think the stat is 70% of podcasters don't make it past the 21st episode. Something like that. If you are not a strong order, strong speaker, strong communicator, if you don't have discipline and consistency and your audience cannot rely on consistent content, why would they listen to your show when they could listen to someone else's who is consistent, who is a strong speaker, who does speak into their lives? And then on top of that, you have to know who your listener is. You have to have an actual niche that solves a real need or real problem. And then underneath that, you have to build a business that's actually profitable to sustain that podcast. And so we could talk for days about all that. One, it's way harder than you think. Number two, you can win, but it's a survival game. Who can survive the longest? Because ultimately, most people, I mean, we've got our first year in podcasting, we only had a thousand and fifty-four listens for the entire year. We did an episode a week, every week for a whole year, and we only had a thousand fifty-four listens. We get more than that per day now. And so there's a compounding accumulation effect that happens with listens and listeners over time. And some of our older episodes get more listens than our new ones. And so the key is to be consistent, to have a target audience, to understand what they need, value, and struggle with and what they want for success, and then to help them, and then to have aligned guests and to be consistent and disciplined. But ultimately, it comes down to people and it comes down to process, and you need to be good at both.

Carl: 13:16

And I think that you hit the nail on the head when you said that some people are good at one and some people are good at the other, but very rarely are you good at both. But you need to be able to embrace both or have somebody on your team that can fill the gaps where you can't, or have a business partner just like you do, who's good at what you're not exactly the best at. And you're a very good communicator, by the way. Just saying it's working very well. I'm sure as a I'm very much an extrovert as well. So the people part, the relationship building, the communication piece, it comes more naturally for me. I did want to touch on a couple of things that you said. It's harder than you think. And there's many different layers to that. Not only is it harder than a lot of people think, and we try and make it as simple as possible, hence our branding. And you've indicated this, you've hinted at this more than once. It's a long game, not a short game. Yeah. I always will share with people who are looking at podcasting. I'll say if you get a thousand downloads, a thousand downloads in your first year, you're doing well. I know. Very well. And people look at that and say, Well, that doesn't sound like a lot. Let's break it down more and let's look at what that really is. So when you share that success story, that you're getting that a day now.

Alan: 14:31

Yeah, exactly.

Carl: 14:33

Imagine those first 10 episodes or that first 52 episodes, if you had quit in month nine or in month 10 because you weren't getting 10,000 downloads a month.

Alan: 14:44

Yeah, which we are now. That's the wild thing, is in the beginning, to your point, we have this uh triad of failure. So if you have a formula for failure, here it is. Number one is you have the wrong expectations, number two, you have the wrong approach, number three, you have the wrong time perspective. So imagine someone who thinks they're gonna hit the top charts the first week, who thinks podcasts and isn't consistent, and then the third one is they think they're gonna blow up in a year. That's the wrong expectation, that's the wrong approach, in consistency, and the wrong time perspective. And this is why you can talk to an experienced podcaster who wasn't famous beforehand. You have to say who wasn't famous beforehand. The right expectation is okay, I'm gonna be consistent and I'm gonna get a few people who listen. And then if it's good, those people will tell people, and those people will tell people. And most businesses and podcasts grow through referral and organic reach. Number two, the approach. The right approach is stay consistent, improve the quality of your communication, figure out who your audience is, meet your listeners, learn about them, learn from them, learn what they want, need, like, value. And then the last piece is the right time perspective. Try really hard to play the long game. Now, the reason why most people don't play the long game is out of necessity. This is what I came up with this to try to help a lot of my business clients realize how to succeed long term. I call it the short-term train and the long-term train. So everyone out there watching or listening, whether you're starting your own business or your own podcast, or you're even in a corporate career, you need a short-term train and a long-term train. The short-term train has a purpose. The purpose of the short-term train is to pay the bills, to keep the lights on, and to make sure that your current lifestyle has enough revenue to sustain itself. Okay. The long-term train is the one that will eventually provide way, way, way more results over the long term. And so I'll give you an example. So right now I'm running two trains the short-term profitable train that pays for the team and the production company and the expenses and all the softwares. And I mean, we're coming up on a half million dollar business, and that's great. And I'm really proud of us, and that's awesome. What people don't understand is that the expenses of a business of that size is ridiculous. So, yeah, we make a half million dollars in 2024, but we're going to spend 400,000 of that just to sustain itself. And then hopefully it'll be six next year and seven, and then you know, 1.5 and all that stuff. That's how you grow and scale a business. So the short-term train for me personally that is profitable is business coaching. So I have 28 clients, I coach business owners on how to start, grow, scale, and monetize their podcast. That is what pays for the podcast. The podcast is a long-term train that builds credibility. So if you have your two trains and they actually feed each other, it can be very powerful. So my long-term train is the podcast called Next Level University, and that gives me the credibility and the warm leads to coach people. And then the coaching feeds the long-term train with marketing dollars so that I can grow, expand, and scale. And I think a lot of people think podcasting is going to be a short-term train when in reality it's actually a long-term train, and you're going to need a short-term train that actually feeds it long enough to where it can eventually replace your main income.

Carl: 18:22

Right. And just like in business, as you've expressed, with a podcast, you also need to realize that there's a time when you need to consider leveling up. Those first 10 episodes, 52 episodes of that first year, you may be able to do it on a very different budget or not shortcut, but you understand what I'm saying, where there's things that you can do, but there's a time where you might need to level up. You might need to level up the quality of your guest. You might need to change certain softwares that you're using for recording, or you might want to consider doing recording some of your episodes in a studio, whatever it is. I find that there are still podcasters out there that are still trying to do the same thing the same way they did four and five years ago, and wonder why their show isn't getting any different results.

Alan: 19:12

Yeah. So this is the packaging matters more than the product. The way that I try to mitigate the challenge that you see there, and I see this challenge too. I'll give three examples. So we'll call him Fred, Ted, and Ned. All right. Fred starts a podcast, and all of them, Fred, Ted, and Ed, all have a podcast with a thousand episodes. They've all been doing it for the same amount of time in the same way, in the same niche. Fred does a thousand episodes, but doesn't improve each episode. He's the same, he doesn't improve his speaking, he doesn't improve his packaging, he doesn't improve his marketing, he doesn't improve his branding, he doesn't improve the digital assets, he doesn't improve the website, he doesn't improve the team, the production quality, the audio quality, the microphone, he doesn't improve anything. It's just a thousand episodes. All right. Ted improves by, let's say, a tiny bit, and he improves himself a ton, but he doesn't improve the packaging. So the packaging stays the same, the marketing, the branding, everything external stays the same. But Ted improves his quality of his output, his communication, his effectiveness in adding value. He improves himself and his speaking as an orator. Okay. Ed improves both. Ed improves himself by 1% per episode, and he improves the packaging. He gets a new mic, he gets a new software program, he uses StreamYard, he tries these different things. That person who's getting better at both oratory speaking, his expertise and improving the packaging of the show, Fred, Ted, and Ed, Ed is gonna be leagues ahead of Fred and Ted. Here's the real thing that you got to understand, and this is the math behind this. So I actually did this once, and I I'm a math guy, so forgive me for that. I put a dollar into a financial calculator and I put three percent. So I have clients that do weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly coaching. And one of my clients, his name's Cole, this is probably four months ago. He said, Alan, I'm thinking about going to weekly coaching. Should I do it? Is it time? And I said, My fear is you're gonna burn out. But let me show you the math. I pulled up a financial calculator, I put a dollar in it, and I said, Cole, is it fair that if you were to come to weekly coaching, is it fair? And this is not a sales pitch, by the way, so don't think that this is a mathematical thing about podcasting. All right, is it fair that I can help you improve yourself by at least one percent per week? And he said, Yeah, definitely. Is it fair that you can improve your system, metrics, habits, your system of success is what we call it, by one percent per week? He said, Yeah, absolutely. I said, Okay, is it fair that you can improve your execution of that system by at least one percent per week? And he said, Yeah, absolutely. I said, Okay, so I'm gonna put a dollar in a financial calculator. There's 52 weeks in a year, I'm gonna do this for a decade. Let's just see what happens. So dollar in a financial calculator, 3% per week for a decade. Guess what it comes to? Math is hard.

Carl: 22:04

I know it's you're geeking out with this, I know, but math is hard for me. So I'm guessing it's over a million.

Alan: 22:10

It is 4.7 million, right? 4.7 million. So you would be 4.7 million times more successful. Okay. Now here's the wild part. I said I'm gonna change 52 times 10, 520, to 260. So there's 52 weeks in a year, divide it by two, that's 26. So instead of weekly coaching, you're gonna do bi-weekly coaching for a decade instead. So 260 instead of 520. Guess what it comes to? Again, math is hard. I'm gonna guess it's a million. No, no, 2000, 244. It's unbelievable what happens when you cut the frequency just in half. And so my point of the Fred, Ted, and Ed thing to bring this back to relevance is the person who improves themselves, the quality of the show, and improves the marketing of the show consistently and does a weekly show rather than a bi-weekly show, is going to absolutely dominate compared to the person who kind of does it lackadaisically and doesn't really improve.

Carl: 23:17

Wow. And again, I'll say it again, math is hard, but thanks for giving you some numbers to play with. And I'm sure that, and if you're listening to this and then you're going, wow, think about that. Because if you're a podcaster, or even if you're not a podcaster yet, if you're coming to this space and thinking, maybe I'll do an episode a month, okay. I'm sure there's math for that. I'm sure it isn't a very good number, but think about the impact that you're going to have on your prospects, your clients, yourself, your business growth and development doing it every week versus even every other week. And let's not even talk about once per month. I'm assuming you don't even talk to clients who only want to crank out one episode a month. It's not even a conversation starter.

Alan: 24:00

Yeah, you're not relevant enough. This is the thing that I think people need to understand, and I don't want to project onto anybody, but ultimately you're not relevant enough. Imagine if Game of Thrones only came out with an episode once a month. It wouldn't pick up the same way. The frequency, I always call it frequency, intensity, density, duration. I'm a math geek. Ultimately, the frequency has to be relevant enough to where you stay top of mind. Doesn't mean you have to do a daily episode like we do. That's actually nuts. Uh, don't do that.

Carl: 24:27

You have to be at a certain level of crazy to do a show every day. Or let me take it from another perspective. You need to be at a certain level of experience development to be able to take on a daily show. I started doing a show three times a week, and that were basically got whittled down to once per week, then every other week. So I'm experimenting with different pieces, and I figured out that for me personally and for a lot of my clients, once per week totally makes sense. I know I'll eventually be doing a show every day. But, anyways, it's a certain level of you have to look at where you're at.

Alan: 25:01

When we started, we started with one a week, we jumped to two a week, we jumped to three eventually years later, and then we got to five, and then we jumped to seven. But that's only when we created a production team. So Kevin went away to Scotland for 13 days, and we had to record 28 in a single week. And these are not little micro episodes, these are an average of 25 minutes each. And it was wild week. I mean, we were burnt out, but again, we are obsessives and we're nuts. But ultimately, if you are a podcaster, communicator, speaker, trainer, you've got to have enough frequency to stay relevant, to stay top of mind. Imagine a TV show that only comes out with one a month. I mean, it's not gonna gain enough traction. And so weekly run rate is a great start, I think.

Carl: 25:48

Here's a question for you because I've had clients and some of them are still with me. Some of them have since taken on other directions, shall we say, or faded into the sunset. They'll take a break. I'm gonna shut down for the summer, gonna take a couple months off. And again, I know I think I know what your answer is going to be, but thoughts on that?

Alan: 26:07

Yeah, I think that's a terrible idea. I'm scared to say it. I'm trying not to be such a social coward. I'm an engineering mind, and so I learned very young when a girl says, Hey, do I look fat in this? and you say yes, level six out of ten, that doesn't really fly very well. So I've kind of bottled up my mathematical mind. But in just statistics and mathematics, that's a terrible idea. You should never take the summer off. You should stay consistent. And when it comes to success, I have this written on my whiteboard. At the top, there's a true north star that says transformation. And I tell this to my business coaching clients, and I'll say this here just because I think I'm probably starting to turn everybody off. Uh, I care about your success and your fulfillment. So success is number one, fulfillment is number two, and feelings is third. And I say that to my clients. I say, listen, I'm not here to make you feel good about yourself. I'm here to tell you what will actually get results. And usually what actually gets results does not feel good. And so, yeah, I think taking the summer off is a terrible idea.

Carl: 27:05

It's like, what's the adage? Nothing good or nothing worthwhile in life ever came easy. There's usually a certain amount of pain to go through it. You know, the whole concept we talked about earlier, failing forward, failure is a very negative word, or it's been perceived to be negative, mostly through our education systems that have allowed failure to be if sorry you didn't make the cut, eh? You failed. That's that's a bad thing. Failing forward is a good thing if you are allowing yourself to transform, to learn, to grow, to do all of those things. We could talk about this forever. You're coming back on the show. I don't know when, but we'll we'll have to have a deeper, you know, we'll have to figure out what are some of the strategies that we can share together based on what our experiences have been collectively and what we've learned individually as well. I do want to quickly pivot though, because I want to make sure I give us enough time to talk about something that you've experimented with or have explored, and that's 25 impact points of effective communication. We talked a lot about the podcast and communication being a piece of that. I don't expect you're going to go through all 25, but can you give me even the top three or top five things that, in your experience and estimation, are crucial?

Alan: 28:16

Absolutely. I'll speak for a podcaster, a speaker, or a trainer. These are the three that I would pick. And I have them up in front of me actually on my phone because you and I had prepared for this. And ultimately, the number one that jumps off the page is storytelling. I took a storytelling course in college. I was a computer engineer and it was an elective, and I ended up loving it. But ultimately, hook story lesson future pace. You have to be able to tell a compelling story that has some form of a lesson within it. And I've been doing that throughout this episode, and it really is an art form. It's an art and a science. And Morgan Freeman, for example, can read a freaking recipe off of the fridge and make it more compelling than anyone because he has the right storytelling ability and oratory. And that's what these 25 impact points will help you do. So one of them is storytelling. That's number one. Know your audience is the next most important one. And that's why I always ask podcasters before I go on. I've been very grateful and very fortunate to have guested on over 450 shows now. And I always, always, always ask the host, who is your listener? Because who you're talking to, I need to understand what are you struggling with? What do you care about? What do you value? What are you trying to succeed at? Because people don't listen to podcasts just to be entertained. I think that's a big piece of it. And I think being entertaining is important. I probably am not. But ultimately, you want to get somewhere. You're here trying to get somewhere. You're trying to get to some goal, you're trying to get to some next level, you're trying to get to some part of your life. So you have to know the audience, you have to know what they want, you have to know what they need, and those aren't always the same thing. And you have to understand them. I would say the third one is probably related to. Examples and analogies, metaphors. You have to be able to take what someone doesn't yet understand and apply it to something they do understand. So, for example, earlier I went down the esoteric math financial calculator thing. That didn't land super well, and the reason why is because I didn't connect it to something people already understand. So I did a poor job on this one. But ultimately, what's something other people understand? Okay, so imagine a train in the Harry Potter movies at a standstill. It takes a ton of effort and energy and steam to get it moving even a couple inches. But once that thing's going 80 miles an hour, even if there's a brick wall, it'll blow through it like paper. That I took something that you don't understand, and I'm gonna apply it to what we talked about about podcasting. In the beginning, podcasting feels like drudgery. It feels like you're losing, it feels like nothing's working until eventually you start to pick up steam, and then nothing can stop you. If you stick with it long enough, nothing can stop you. And so that's a good example of using a relatable analogy or metaphor to help people understand something that maybe you understand that they don't. So you have to understand. So number one would be storytelling, number two would be know the audience, and number three would be understanding your examples, your metaphors, your analogies. You have to be able to relate what people don't understand to something new that that you want them to understand.

Carl: 31:24

Again, I'm blown away by by where our conversation is going. We're gonna make sure, by the way, that the full list of 25, we're not just going to give you three, we're gonna give you the full list of 25. There is a checklist that will be in the show notes. I do have a quick question I want to ask you though before we get your information and give you the final thought. Let's truncate this as much as we can. Podcasting's been around over 20 years, we're probably coming up on 25. Where do you see it going over the next two to five years?

Alan: 31:56

I think a lot of people during the beginning of COVID started podcasts. And I don't quote me on the stat because I don't remember the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure the number of podcasts pre-COVID that were in production was a million or so globally.

Carl: 32:14

Just shy of a million, yeah.

Alan: 32:16

Just shy of a million globally, and then it jumped at the peak to five million, and now it's back to probably two and a half because most shows do fall off. And I'm not sure those two and a half million are in production. I mean, most podcasts are out there and and they just stopped them. And we've had many clients that came and stopped, and that's part of it. It's attrition, it is what it is. But where do I see the industry going? I think the barrier to entry in podcasting is getting lower and lower and lower, and the opportunity is getting bigger and bigger and bigger because I remember six or seven years ago when I said I was starting a podcast, people would say, What's a podcast? That doesn't happen anymore. So there's 5.44 billion people online, and that's gonna exponentially increase. So we're heard in over 175 countries. There's 8 billion people on the planet as of recently, actually. We crossed the 8 billion mark. There's 5.44 billion online on the internet, and that's gonna increase exponentially now that uh Starlink is out there and everyone can have access to the internet via satellite. And so the market is growing, the need for it is growing. And if you can build a business of products and services underneath your podcast where you actually have a congruent listener need with product and service, you can really do something special. And your podcast can be lead generation to help people in a profitable way in your business. And so I see the industry getting more and more and more lucrative for the people who take it seriously, but less and less and less lucrative for the people who just want to show up and make a quick buck.

Carl: 33:54

Or just do it for fun or for a hobby. There's less chance of those individuals seeing some monetization from it.

Alan: 34:04

For sure. And I I think the monetization piece is what people are going for too quickly. I think your podcast should be built underneath your passions. What are you obsessed with? What do you want to talk about all the time? If it's film, make a film podcast. Turn your passion into purpose. Purpose is serving other people with your passion. So my passion is self-improvement in business. So my purpose is to help others improve themselves and their businesses. And then profit is third. That's the one we go for first, but it's third. It needs to be turn your passion into purpose into profit. Profit has to be third. It can't be 15th, because you'll go broke, but it can't be first. If you're in podcasting for profit, you're screwed. Like genuinely, because everyone's gonna know that. They know you're in it for you. It has to be for the listener first.

Carl: 34:50

It floors me the number of individuals coming to the space for the first time saying, I want a podcast and I'd like it to be a revenue stream. And I I just cringe when people come to that space thinking they're going to, again, we mentioned this earlier that they're going to get rich or get discovered, and that's going to make them the $10 billion. I know that's not a number, that's not a mathematical term, but $10 billion. $10 billion. Like they're the they'll be instantly famous just because they have a podcast, or if they just do a few, that's going to lead to the monetization and they'll get all the sponsors and all of those things. And it's yes, there's a lot of money in podcasting. There is, but there's also the, as you've said, there's the taking it seriously. Yeah, okay, have fun with it, but it's taking it seriously and also staying the course, doing it for the right reasons, I think is what I'm driving up.

Alan: 35:41

I agree a thousand percent. If you are doing it for the right reasons and you do work on yourself and you work on your communication and you work on understanding your listener and adding value, you will be profitable long term.

Carl: 35:55

But don't expect it to happen tomorrow.

Alan: 35:57

Yeah, but don't expect it to happen right away. I think for the first year, expect it to be a money pit.

Carl: 36:03

A grind, if nothing else. Expect it to be a grind.

Alan: 36:06

Yeah.

Carl: 36:06

Alan, this has been a great conversation. How can people get a hold of you if they want to follow up with you or learn from more of the services that you provide?

Alan: 36:16

There's two ways you can reach out. Oh, there's more than that. You could just probably Google my name, honestly. And I'm very grateful to be able to say that at this point, because in the beginning I could not say that. The main way is nextleveluniverse.com, spelt just like it sounds, next leveluniverse.com. The podcast is next leveluniversity, because the person who has that URL is charging too much money. So we said next leveluniverse.com is the website. Next leveluniversity is the podcast. And the idea is simple. No matter how hard your past has been, no matter how hard your now is, if you take personal responsibility for your own choices, you can have a bigger, better, brighter future. And there's always a next level. And we can help you get there. Imagine having a mentor or a coach in your pocket every single day. 1% improvement in your pocket, health, wealth, life, and love from anywhere on the planet completely free. And it's really cool what you can do and what you're capable of with a mentor in your pocket every day. And we take our listeners on a journey too. It's it's not, hey, you should do this. It's hey, we're doing this, and you might enjoy it too. And so we lead by example in everything that we do. And uh, I really appreciate you having me. Thank you.

Carl: 37:26

All of the links for Alan will be in the in the show notes, the links to the podcast and that checklist too, those 25 things that Alan was referring to. Oh, again, Alan, you're coming back on the show. Don't know when, but we definitely have to have you back and see if there's some opportunities to join venture because that's another thing that I think that people don't do enough in the business world. And even in the podcasting space, is they work in silos and they don't realize that if they just coordinate, collaborate with other people, even for just idea sharing, even that it can really make the world a better place and also make a huge difference personally and professionally. Before I let you go, though, my friend, I'll give you the final thought.

Alan: 38:06

The final thought. That's a tough one because I got so many thoughts. Um just please, not a mathematical one. Just yeah, I got you. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny. Uh Kev Kev always says I'm the math geek, which is true 100%. So uh the final thought would be this. You have a passion, you have something that is unbelievably interesting to you that you adore. It's probably always been there. So for me, I've loved movies since I was a kid. I love film. I'm obsessed with film. Okay. I've also been obsessed with achieving goals since I was a kid. I help people achieve their goals even when they don't want me to. I don't know how to talk about anything other than goals and dreams. I probably peppered it into this conversation 50 times. You have a passion. You have an obsession. And that is something that can serve others. Imagine how good you could be at something if you were obsessed with it. And you could use that obsession to serve others, that passion to serve others, and then for a profit. And so my final thought would be this take personal responsibility for your own future, identify what you are obsessed with, what are you super passionate about, and then how can you pour into the lives of other people with that thing in a profitable way long term? That's how you create both a successful and a fulfilling life.

Carl: 39:21

But no, it will not be easy. That's a great place to leave it. Alan Lazaros, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Alan: 39:28

Thank you. I started with gratitude. I want to end with gratitude. Thank you for having me. I will definitely come back on and uh keep doing what you're doing.

Carl: 39:35

And hey, thank you for being a part of the show today. So glad you can join us. Believe it or not, I can't work this magic by myself. So thanks to my amazing team, our audio engineer Dom Carillo, our Sonic branding genius Kenton Doborowski, and the person who works the arms. All of our arms actually, our project manager and my trusty assistant, Julovell Tiongco, known to us here simply as July. If you like what you heard today, let us know. You can leave us a comment or review or even send us a voice note. And if you really liked it, we hope you'll share it with your friends and your colleagues. If you don't like what you heard today, well, please feel free to share with your enemies. And if you know someone who would make a great guest on the show, let us know about it. You can get in touch with us by going to our show notes where all of our connection points are there, including the link to our website, LinkedIn, and Facebook as well. And if you're ready to be a guest on podcasting, or even start your own show, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space and rock it. Because after all, we're Podcast Solutions Made Simple. Catch a game next time.