124. Alex Allman: Navigating Relationships and Pathways to Success
Join me for a captivating conversation with relationship expert Alex Allman, where we explore the multifaceted world of adult friendships, networking challenges, and the complexities of relationships. Tune in as Alex and I reconnect, sharing insights on the value of maintaining strong friendships through life’s transitions and the unique difficulties men face when they rely too heavily on their partners for emotional support.
In this episode, we riff on everything from entrepreneurship to the intersection of intelligence and laziness, copywriting, and strategies that can transform your business.
BIO: Alex Allman is the creator of the best-selling books and programs that have helped tens of thousands of men, women, and couples enjoy more passionate relationships, overcome insecurities, enhance sexual pleasure, create deeper intimacy and communication, and improve their sexual confidence.
His writing, lectures, public appearances, and videos have been seen by more than 10 million people around the world.
In 2007, he founded the company Life Love Passion, Inc., with the mission of helping men and women have the experience of True Love, and to help them get more fun, deeply connected passion, and intimacy in their relationships.
Learn more at https://howtomantv.com/
Transcript (by Podium)
00:00 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Welcome back, my friends. We are here today with my dear friend and good buddy, Alex Allman. It’s been a minute since we have caught up, so I’m super stoked to chat with him, for my own benefit, but also for all of you listeners. Alex helps men with relationships, specifically when they are frustrated with women. Now, I don’t know anybody like that. Quite a few people fall into those experiences, but Alex and I go way back. He was a dear friend of Sean’s, which is how we met, and, Alex, I’m just super excited to see you get to chat again. So welcome to the show.
00:36 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Just imagine how excited I am then I think everyone who’s listening knows I’m getting the better end of this deal.
00:43 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I can’t even imagine. So let’s start here. Yeah, what is on your heart that you would like to talk about today?
00:53 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Oh, wow, that’s not where I expected to begin. What’s on my heart that I’d like to talk about today? I was just setting up in my studio and I had all the doors open to vent it out, because it was kind of hot in here, and one of my neighbors was walking by and asked me what I do and we started somehow talking about adult friendships and I think that, yeah, it really struck me. It’s honestly, it’s a thing for me. I am by no means fully satisfied and have this on lockdown, but we moved here a couple of years ago and so I’ve refound my social circle, but I miss my friends from the last place I lived.
01:43 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I don’t even know where you guys live now.
01:44 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I’m in San Diego now. We’re actually in North County in Del Mar, which is maybe the most beautiful place on earth that I’ve ever been, yeah, and. But it occurs to me, and we have a great set of friends here now, but I miss, I miss you. I missed Sean all the time, once he stopped coming to LA as much when I was living there. And then, of course, I was in the Caribbean, where I’ve lived in a hundred places and, of course, even if I had stayed in any of those places, none of my friends stayed in any of those places. Everybody just keeps moving and moving. So you just recently sent a newsletter saying that it was like reach out to a friend day. Yeah, and you had reached out to our buddy Craig.
02:30 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yes, you were talking about there.
02:32 – Alex Allman (Guest)
And, funny enough, I had just spoken to him too. Are they back from Ibiza?
02:38 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
They were in London when he sent me a photo, so I don’t know.
02:41 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I spoke to him about a week earlier and they were in Ibiza and they were just previously in Lake Como. Oh cool, that’s their life, yeah, but I guess. But the thing is to kind of bring this where I’m going. I think it’s really sad for a lot of people that they don’t have a lot of friendships and maybe they don’t have time there’s the kids and the this, and that it is really challenging and I’ve been really trying to work on that more. I’ve noticed that it goes to happiness, it goes to productivity, it goes to good luck and actually I’m considering doing a program. I mean, I think what I’m going to do is a five-day challenge. You know, the five-day challenge thing is like big now and I’ve done a couple of them and I happen to love the five-day challenge format because it’s fast, it’s a challenge, people expect a result, you promise a result, they expect a result and your feet are in the fire because it’s live and I really like that.
03:36
But I wanted to do a thing about good luck being a lucky person, and there are things that you can do to become a lucky person and one of them is to have a lot of friends, and good friends, who trust you Because if they trust you, they bring opportunities to you and they’re there for you when you need them, like if you need to borrow cash for an opportunity. Having trust is a big deal and having friends is a big deal. So friends who know you, by the way, friends who know what opportunities you need in your life and who care about your success, it’s a big part of when you. Why does that guy have all that good luck? That’s a piece of it. But specifically when the neighbor was walking by, tangent retrieval. We were talking about how it harms relationships, and particularly for men, when they lose touch with their friends who they can vent with and who they can kind of bounce shit off of, and their woman becomes everything.
04:33 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, that’s dangerous.
04:34 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, their best friend, their confidant, their lover. It’s tough when you’re confident your lover and your best friend are the same person. Even if that’s true, for them to always be that person, particularly you know, if you, if you’re having a disagreement, you need somebody to do a reality check.
04:52 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah.
04:52 – Alex Allman (Guest)
And and it’s really stressful on relationships. So I guess that’s what’s top of heart at the moment is feeling into this little pain point for my audience and thinking about, you know, creating something around that to to help them.
05:11 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, I’m, I’m all about it. I do want to like clarify and just emphasize what you just said, though, is that distinction of, even if they are all those things best friend, confidant, et cetera, et cetera Like I would say, sean and I were those things, and yet I would be like get your ass out of here, go hang with your boys, because, one, I’m an introvert, two, I’m an independent freak and three, he absolutely needed that. I’ve heard guys and you probably experienced this too with your clients some guys get very they’re frustrated because their woman whether it be wife, girlfriend, whomever is like well, like why can’t I come on the boys’ night out or whatever. And then I’d be like please, sean, just go. Like I don’t even want to be with you. People, get out of here, I’ll see you later. And he’s like how are you like that? Because a lot of women are not like that, and I would say to women listening, encourage it, send them out. You don’t need to be there everything, because it’s super dangerous when you are.
06:16 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, I think. Well, a lot of people have these kind of insecure attachments and they’re afraid of you preferring the company of other people even for a moment, and they get a lot of weird angst around that. And obviously, if that’s the case, as you say, the advice is just do it. Do it anyway. Confront your fear, because all the growth is outside your comfort zone, so get the hell out of your comfort zone. But there’s also this other piece that if a man is getting that consistently from a lot of women, it’s not the women, it’s him. He’s not showing up as trustable and probably because he’s not, you know, probably because he’s not.
06:51 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
There is that yes, yeah.
06:53 – Alex Allman (Guest)
So I mean, you know, becoming a trustable man to your woman and making her you know, I mean Sean fills you up with love. So then you didn’t feel like, oh, he’s probably out there getting something that he can’t get from me, which is nonsense.
07:07 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I was like please go, I’ve had enough of you.
07:09 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Right, exactly Well, you know, and also so as you know, my wife is an introvert as well, I know. I adore her because I’m like I get you, and another friend of ours who’s a rather famously introverted, but I don’t want to mention his name. We were once having a conversation around this.
07:25 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I know exactly who you’re talking about.
07:26 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, so he had this funny thing the five love languages. He said well, there are two other love languages that he didn’t mention in the book, which are leave me alone and get the fuck out of here 100%.
07:40 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yes, yes, and I, yes, yes, and, and and I will add to it because I’ve had the same conversation with this person acts of correctness, not acts of kindness, but acts of correctness, like doing it right according to us, obviously, yeah. So, yes, love languages could be expanded a little bit. Anyway, let’s get back to this idea of adult friendship. I find myself in this position a lot because I have lived some and you’re going to be in the same boat. You’ve lived so many different places, so you gather relationships and friendships all around the world and I’m like, oh okay, so one of my besties is in Nairobi, kenya, one of my besties is in Chicago, one of my besties is in Portland. These people are all over the place. So how do we, as busy entrepreneurs, maintain and I’ll tell you what I have done and I’m very deliberate about this, but I would love to hear your perspective too, about what do you do about this, obviously before they take your five-day challenge.
08:44 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Well, my five-day challenge isn’t necessarily about friendship, it’s about luck, but I think this is a key piece about it, though Maybe I should do one on friendship.
08:51
I like that too, making friends and having a broader social circle. But I’m ill-equipped for it because you’re an introvert and I’m extroverted. But even as an extrovert I find there are a couple of reasons for why I’m quite shy, and one of them is I don’t know if you know this about me, it’s something I only discovered recently and I didn’t realize. I have a condition, a neurological condition, and I don’t recognize faces. It’s called prosopognosia, really, and I only found out that that’s my thing, like five years ago when I took a diagnostic test and I was off the charts for it. So if I, if I could remember so clearly, it’s such a funny thing.
09:30
People have extreme cases of it where they can’t recognize their own mother, and I don’t have that. But if I go to a networking event and I have three meaningful conversations on Monday with people where I’m, you know I’m spending at least 30 minutes going deep with them, I won’t recognize them on Tuesday and that’s shocking and embarrassing and so I avoid making friends sometimes. But I didn’t realize I had this thing. But I knew that my best friend in high school seemed to know everybody in the hall. I didn’t fucking know any of them. You’re like, who is that? So it’s hard for me to expand my social network, and one of the things that’s been important to me is making friends with a super connector.
10:09 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yes.
10:10 – Alex Allman (Guest)
And then they are always inviting you out to stuff. You know like, find somebody who’s skilled at it. Like you don’t necessarily need to develop the skill, you need to find the person. So I got a buddy here in San Diego, samir, and he’s you know, he’s the mayor of of our.
10:27 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
you know, like Sean knew all the people and then fascinating people like yourself and many others through him, but I was certainly not going to go out and like seek out those people. So super connector is huge.
10:54 – Alex Allman (Guest)
The way that I have actually that has nothing to do with your question, which was you know, what do you do as a busy entrepreneur with all your things? Yeah, and the answer is I wish I had. I wish I had the answer to that. I really struggle with it. I’m bad at keeping in touch. I try and make calendar notes, in fact for a while. Do you know Gabby and Raj? Yes, I don’t know them well.
11:21 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Everybody you know knows them. This is true, they’re in our circle.
11:33 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, so Raj has this like spreadsheet that he uses, he, he, he does consulting for, for companies, and he creates these 90 day sprints for them with all of these little you know KPIs, all these goals they got to hit in their 90 day sprint and they’re, they’re pretty good, but he makes them. He has one personally for himself and he was showing it to me and I was like, can I get a blank of that? And I did it for a while and one of the things, one of my KPIs, was every week I had to reach out to at least three friends, and which, of course, it’s so fucking stupid also. I mean, you know, women used to be able to.
12:08
You could, just you could knock on somebody’s door, you could literally go to a neighbor’s house. I mean, maybe that’s that’s telling of my age, but it used to be. You could knock on somebody’s door, um, and just to see if they were home. And then it became well, you would telephone first and then I mean, now you can’t even telephone, you’ve got to, you have to text, you’ve got to send a text and say, can we talk a week from wednesday?
12:25
so shitty I thought I, I honestly I despise that, uh, but I don’t know how to fix it well, how to fix it okay.
12:34 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Can I tell you what I’ve done?
12:35
yeah because, like I said, I I am very, very deliberate about this, especially since sean’s death, because a lot of people, so many many people I can’t even tell you how many said things to me like, oh my gosh, like I wish we had been in better touch, I wish I had contacted him more, I wish, wish, wish, wish. And I’m like, well, fuck all these wishes, like, do something about it. So what I did about it for myself is my bestie besties. They’re literally all on my calendar Now. Some of them it’s every single week, because I know it’s not going to happen if it’s not on my calendar. So that’s like how my life runs so closest, closest, weekly.
13:18
Next layer out, maybe like bi-weekly. Next layer out, maybe once a month, but they’re still on the calendar. Next layer out, maybe like just once quarterly, but there’s a date and a time. And then, of course, we can shift those up as needed. But it’s like, oh, we couldn’t make that one, let’s reschedule soon instead of waiting like three months. And what that really has done is given me I’m really into decreasing cognitive load these days so that I can focus on exactly what I want to focus on and not have to remember every all the other bullshit that we try to keep in our brain. So what that does is it takes away that pressure and responsibility of like Ooh shit, I should be reaching out to these people. They’re already booked, they’re already scheduled, the zoom thing is set Like we’re done.
14:01 – Alex Allman (Guest)
So that is what’s been working for me thing is set like we’re done, so that is what’s been working for me. That’s amazing, yeah. Yeah, I know I have a lot of friends who would resist that Like they wouldn’t want. What is the resistance?
14:20 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
The resistance is, I’ll be for sure, too busy a month from now, and I can’t schedule too busy for what to catch up with your friend for 15 minutes.
14:23 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Well, you know, we know people like that Maybe, yeah, well, I wouldn’t be.
14:29 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I would be like what the hell? Come on, because, like, seriously, okay. So, case in point, my best friend is a insanely, insanely busy high-level exec at a very big multinational company. His work is nuts, and so there’s many a week like he and I are on every other week. There’s many a week that he’s like can this? Uh, can’t. Like I can’t, I cannot even spare a minute. Okay, no problem, but here’s what happens, like, let’s say, something did happen to him or to me, vice versa, whatever. We would have just talked like maybe a couple weeks ago. So it wasn’t like months that I’m like oh shit, I don’t even know what this guy’s doing. I don’t even know how old his kid is right now, like I didn’t know how old your kid was. So there’s more connection and I would push back against any friend who resisted that, because you could be like look what if it’s once every six months? You know, yeah, you might be busy, but at least let’s check in and say, hey, you know well.
15:29 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I’m going for it.
15:30 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I’m doing it.
15:33 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I’m doing it, I’m doing it All right.
15:34 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Here’s what else I want to talk about. Okay, I’d like to talk about okay, so you’ve done lots and lots of things. You have taught me about copywriting. You have taught me, like, about marketing, because you have used all those things to create your own business, working with men and relationships. So I want to talk a little bit about that, about how you got into that, and specifically not just how you got into, like, the mentoring aspect, but the work that you had to do to make that thing go, because I I, I know I know about this much of it, like and I know that’s a fuck ton that you had to work, as as we all do.
16:17
Any of us who have had, like, successful businesses we have to work, and I think people forget that because they’re like oh, I just want to become a relationship coach, great, cool. I want to do what Alex Allman does Awesome. And it’s like okay, do you know how to copyright? Do you know how to do this? Do you know how to do like? And I learned a lot of that from you, because at the time when I met you, I didn’t know most of that stuff. So let’s talk about the, the journey to becoming Alex Allman of today in that context of work.
16:49 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Oh man, so I’m probably the laziest person. You know that. I do not even believe I’m the laziest person. I know, and we know, a lot of the same people.
17:04 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
We do know a lot of the same people, but I I hardly believe that well, I’m, I’m, I’m really quite lazy and I’ve got awful add and it’s hard but I’m, I’m, I’m really really smart, so, but I’m not the smartest person we know, by the way.
17:20 – Alex Allman (Guest)
It’s like I’m not as smart as Evan, or.
17:23 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
You can say all the things you do. I mean, half these people have been on this show already. So, yeah, right, so I’m not.
17:29 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I’m pretty smart, and so I can get away with maybe not working that hard.
17:37 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, please, please. Let me interrupt you for one moment. Because, this does not make sense to my brain, because I would say I also, and maybe it’s a different kind of smart, but I am also very smart.
17:53
I’ll give you that, and yet yeah, I have had to work my ass off in this because I did not find the whole entrepreneurialism thing like easy in other aspects, like I never had to work in school, I never had to work in my corporate job because I was smart enough to be like I’ll figure out an easier way to do it Right, like it’s skirt around and make it more efficient. This, though, not the same experience at all, so I almost want to ask you like, what kind of smart are you referring to?
18:24 – Alex Allman (Guest)
that might make it easier.
18:26 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I was a writer first yes, so was I.
18:28 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, so I’m a pretty good writer, like I can take my thoughts and I can put them down on a piece of paper and give people an experience. So that’s something that I had.
18:43
So, that made copywriting a little easier for me. I was smart in that way. I guess I’m not smart in every way, right, there’s a lot of areas where I’m fairly thick headed, but I’m pretty good at that. I’m pretty good at that communicating thing. So I was writing articles for a website that our buddy, eben Pagan, was running for his business Double your Dating.
19:08 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, back in the day, david D’Angelo. Back in the day.
19:12 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Right. So what had happened was I had been writing in Hollywood, I had a television show that I had created that really looked like this was going to be the one, and everybody was very excited about it. And it was at NBC, and the guy who brought it in to NBC left to take the CEO job at Fox, and so then the new guy that came in couldn’t possibly run this thing, because if he did and it was successful, everybody would say oh, that was the last guy’s thing.
19:46
You know, yeah, so you don’t get any credit for that. And if it tanked they’d say, well, you were the idiot that was in charge when that thing hit the air, right. So what you would do in that case, if you’re that kind of executive, is you put it in turnaround, which means you keep the rights but you don’t do anything with it. And the reason you that is because, again, if, if, if, they sold me the rights back and it went, or the studio that I was working with and and then it became successful.
20:13 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
It looked like an idiot.
20:14 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Right, so anyway. So there I was. The lawyers had made a lot of money, but at this point I am, I’m like in debt, I’m fucked. This is a big thing that I thought was going to happen, and I’d be like, woohoo, my credit card. That’s not happening and my woohoo credit card is now a big problem, right, and I’m like yeah.
20:32
I’m staring down the barrel of this gun and I had no income at all. And I’m 39, literally months away from my 40th birthday. And I’m 39, literally months away from my 40th birthday and I realized I’m not going to be able to pay rent. I’m literally going to have to move in with my parents, you know, at 40. Or I could go back to bartending at the nightclub where maybe they would give me my job back, but everybody there is like 20. Yeah, and I’m going to be 40. And I’m in this blizzard of self-hate.
21:01
And Eben calls me up and says I need you to write some articles. Would you be willing? I will pay you anything. So I looked at all my minimum payments and a month rent and the this and the that, and I added up all my expenses for the month and I said $11,000. And he was like, okay, cool, so here’s what I need. And I’m like, oh, I should have asked for 20, you know, but anyway.
21:26
So I wrote a bunch of articles. A bunch of those articles were about sex and those articles were very successful and they got a lot of buzz. And Eben read them and he called me up and he said let’s have lunch. And he said you know the stuff that you’re writing about because I’m in this business. I read all this stuff. Right, you’ve got a very unique angle. Nobody’s talking about it the way you are. Men have a lot of insecurities around this.
21:53
So my first book ended up Revolutionary Sex. That was my first book. And he said you’ll write a book, I’ll teach you how to market it. So that’s where I learned copywriting from Evan. He was very generous with me at that time and he, he, basically, you know, he he told me a bunch of books to buy on copywriting, which are, you know, the usual suspects, you know John Caples and all of those you know famous old timers. And I read the books and I wrote a sales letter and he had Craig who was working for him, craig Clemens, who’s now one of the most famous copywriters in the world. Right, critique them for me. Yeah, that is so awesome. Yeah, back then he was, by the way, he was working for Eben, part-time, learning to be a copywriter as Eben’s kind of protege and still working like his waiter job, and now he’s, you know, one of the most famous copywriters in the world.
22:45
Yeah, now he’s Craig Clemens. He’s Craig fucking Clemens. So, yeah, so, um, you know, uh, craig gave me feedback and and you know, uh, but that that’s how I learned copywriting and yeah, so you do need to learn it, but my work ethic is horrific and I always do the absolute minimum. I think if there’s a lesson that I could share in this, it’s ship the product which I’m good at. I’m lazy enough that I’ll send it out with typos and shitty, and I just don’t want to work on it anymore. There are people who are like I need to work on this until there’s a masterpiece, and in the world of copywriting, that’s a giant mistake because you might have gone in the wrong direction. Yeah, Like your masterpiece might make more sales.
23:28 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
What’s that I said? I go for 80%, like I don’t. I. I I myself I am a stickler about things like grammar and punctuation. I don’t always get it right, certainly not perfect, but I do make the attempt. But I’m like this is never going to be perfect. I could work on it forever and it still wouldn’t be perfect. So if I can hit around, what I feel like is 80%, it’s out the door, it’s done.
23:48 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, I think I go for around 25% Because I’m just like, I don’t like, I just don’t want to look at it anymore. And I know here’s what I know from experience that where my laziness worked for me, here’s what I know from experience that where my laziness worked for me, here’s what I know from experience that a lot of times the thing that I think is going to be the thing, this is the one, and for a while I was. I had this thing going with a bunch of other copywriter buddies called Headline Roulette, where I would test a bunch of headlines and then I would have all my buddies bet on which one was going to have the highest open rate and some of the best copywriters in the world would frequently be wrong.
24:31
So you think you know, but you don’t know. So you do the thing and then if it starts getting sales, I’ll revisit it. You know, I got another good tip, by the way, but let me just just to complete this. The goal is to write more than one. That’s the thing, because just don’t know. And, and the other, the other like tip is if you, if you’re sending out newsletters already, um, watch the ones that are popular, see the ones that get a lot of opens and clicks, the ones that get a lot of opens and clicks, that should be your sales letter. So you know, I’ve got this book about sex and it deals with body image issues and communication and how to ask for what you want and how to I don’t know perform oral sex and then, like every fucking thing, you’re gonna write, sex.
25:11 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
There’s like a lot to it you know there’s a lot to it there’s a lot to it.
25:14 – Alex Allman (Guest)
There’s all these psychological problems and these physical problems. You know like, uh, I, performance anxiety, it’s all over the map and I’m sending out all these you know emails and then there’s, you know, but so, like, the book is about all of this. But if the thing that is like got the big open rate and everybody’s going crazy about is, let’s say, performance anxiety, which it’s probably not, but let’s say it was, that probably should be that, then that’s going to be what my, my, my sales letter headline is going to be. I don’t care that. The book is barely about that at all, because you got to get them where they are and you might even end up rewriting your book or your whatever it is you’re selling. Maybe you thought that your coaching program was about everything, but it turns out no, the money is it’s about.
25:58
I met an entrepreneur who and this is a long time ago, I think now it’s funny because now, like, the whole trans thing is like a political hot button and everybody’s trans because it’s fun to be trans and it’s cool to be trans was a makeup artist and she wrote a book for trans women or, I guess, cross-dressers really men who are cross-dressers probably more than trans women but on how to do your makeup so that you’re less likely to get made as a man so you can walk out in public. Because it turns out, a lot of cross-dressers never go out in public out of fear for somebody going oh my God, that’s a man in a dress. So she would give tips for that. That’s a tiny, tiny niche, and she was making bank, bank, so she could have done a book on how to do great makeup for every occasion, but she found that little niche. So how do you find that out?
26:56
It’s by interacting. It’s by getting out there and seeing what actually and maybe you’re just doing this on social media put up social media posts and there’s that one that goes way more. You know, the other ones all got 20 views and this one got 670 views. Yeah, pay attention, get 10,000. And this one got a cool million. Well, you’re onto something you know and and and. Copy is really about that interactive listening and just getting it out there. Getting it out there because it may fall on its face, and you’re like why did it fall on its face? I thought you got to get it out there. So, yeah, that’s copy tip one.
27:31 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Well, I would say there’s a lot of great things in what you just said. Probably the best is that there is hope for people out there that are lazy.
27:40 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, no, I mean to make it short and lazy, and then you can always make it better. And, by the way, it’s easier to make it better when money is coming in, like then it’s easier to do the work, and it’s also easier to hire the work because that’s my other tip is hire somebody.
27:53 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Well then you don’t have to do it, yeah.
27:55 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, and well, maybe you still have to do it, like you might still need to take what they did and make it better. Well, at least you have a starting point then. Yeah, right, exactly, no blank pieces of paper, but the other? I mean, listen, if you have the money, you should hire a great copywriter. Yes, as Eben told me, and a couple of other people have said similar things, you should hire a copywriter, and I think he got this actually from, I remember famous copywriter’s name, john Carlton. I think he got this from John Carlton Hire a copywriter, and if it makes you super uncomfortable and you’re like I don’t think I can mail this. That’s exactly the one, that’s the one, that’s the one, exactly so, and I’ll or pretend you’re writing for somebody else who you despise, I don’t know. So another famous copywriter, chris Haddad, wrote this post on Facebook and I was like, of course, of course. So he is from Portland and he’s everything you would imagine from Portland, like he’s straight and cross-dresses for fun sometimes. Do you know, chris?
29:10 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
No, but I know Portland, so he’s a super liberal.
29:14 – Alex Allman (Guest)
He thinks that we should elect some Green Party guy who has it on the books that we should hunt down people who have guns and take them Like he’s that guy. He’s on the books that we should hunt down people who have guns and take them like he’s that guy, he’s all the way right.
29:24
So he wrote a. He wrote a post saying um, I’ve discovered that I am wildfire at writing copy for right wing nut balls. You know all the survivalist shit. You’re gonna learn how to build a bunker, you know so. So he was like I can, I can I make so much money whenever I go into that niche. He’s like I just every time first, first thing out of the gate, sells like crazy and it occurred to me right Cause he has no respect for them. Yeah, and I think if you’re like a right wing guy, like if you’re really you know into your gun and you’re you know like if you think the election was stolen from Trump, you should be writing copy for the libtards Because it turns out it’s very freeing.
30:20
You’re like they’ll buy anything, they’ll believe anything, they’ll buy anything. And it turns out that works super good, because, I mean, we have too much respect for our own audience. We’re like my audience would never fall for that nonsense. Yeah, that’s true.
30:34
Yeah, so when I, when I write in a sales letter, listen, I don’t know how many copies are left. This all could be shut down very soon because there’s a lot of scarcity and I’m only going to keep this open for a few more days. This offer might be gone tomorrow, because I can’t let it go this cheap much longer. My accountant is breathing down my neck like all that nonsense.
31:00 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
And it is nonsense, and it’s painful.
31:03 – Alex Allman (Guest)
It’s so painful to write something that’s not 100% authentically true. It is so painful to the people that you respect. I think my audience won’t fall for this. They’re going to think I’m so hosed up and worse, when they come back and see that price later, they’re going to know I’m hosed up. They’re going to know I’m full of shit and I just don’t want that relationship with my audience, you know. So it’s really hard to write good copy for the people you respect, because good copy includes urgency. Yes, I have not solved this to my own satisfaction, by the way, because I I try everything to sneak in. I never say this will be gone in three days. I say-.
31:44 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
You try to keep it authentic.
31:45 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Well, I’ll say something like you better act now. You’re really in the right place at the right time. And you better act now because I’m only going to keep this price for as long as I’m running this advertising test.
31:56 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Which may be forever.
31:58 – Alex Allman (Guest)
It’s my advertising campaign. Is that right? Yeah, right. Which I’ve been running for two years. You know what I mean and it is true to some degree, like it could be true. So you know I try not to balls out lie, but it is so painful to do that shit where, honestly, you know I’m more on the liberal side. I’m not, you know, like Chris, but it would be much easier for me to sell survivalist stuff and gun gear because I’d just say anything, it wouldn’t. You know what I mean.
32:27 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Totally. Yeah, it’s a really important conversation. One of the things that my mentor will tell me again and again and again and constantly I need reminding is Mindie, you are not necessarily your audience and who you are selling to in this capacity, they’re not you, they’re not where you are, they’re not any of that. So you’re thinking I’m? I am thinking about it in the sense of like how I would react to copywriting or I would react to an ad, and he’s like stop that, because these people are not that. And that’s exactly how you need to talk to these people to get them into the boat. So I appreciate the questioning of like how do we keep it authentic and true but like still have the scarcity, the urgency, all the things that copywriting needs?
33:17 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Right, and I’ll just be super clear the things that make the most money for me were written by other people and make me very uncomfortable. That is awesome and it’s painful. It’s painful every. It’s the thing I hate most about my business.
33:33 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
That’s so funny to even hear that I would have to think what do I hate most about my business? Well, I don’t have to think about it at all. That is definitely Clearly that was very, uh, apparent.
33:49 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, so I mean um, and then that puts me into a weird position too. I know if I hire somebody, um, I’ll make more money. So I just think about it like this I hired a copywriter this is really put it in perspective. I hired a copywriter, uh, named Alex Cheskovich Just give him a shout out because you know he may. I paid him $30,000 for a sales letter and I would say over the past this was probably 10 years ago I’ve made probably $2 million on that sales letter across 10 years, you know so that’s a pretty good $30,000 investment.
34:21
It’s not. It’s not. I bought Bitcoin at a dollar, but’s a pretty good thirty thousand dollar investment. Uh, it’s not. It’s not. I bought bitcoin at a dollar, but it’s. It’s pretty good.
34:26 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
still fucking good yeah, but here’s the big distinction about buying bitcoin and what you’re doing is you’re actually impacting positively so many people’s lives around the whole planet. There’s a big, big, big difference and like, oh, I did an investment in crypto and it worked out for me so huge, hugely hugely different.
34:45
So we’ve been talking, we’ve been like mentioning money and getting paid and all this stuff. I want to dig into that a little bit because my intention with this show, with my work, is to like help people understand at least what I perceive to be wealth, and I would love to ask you what is your definition of wealth?
35:06 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Oh Jesus.
35:08 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Is it hard or what I know I’m going to hate?
35:10 – Alex Allman (Guest)
every question you asked. It’s funny, right before we run cameras. I was talking about how you and I are opposites.
35:16 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
We can talk about that too after this, because I’m hosed up in that area. This is even more interesting to me, then let’s hear it so um, uh, I, I like fancy stuff that’s okay.
35:33
So this is why I’m asked. I literally ask every single person on this show and they all have different ideas and opinions about this, right, and my whole thing to anybody who is listening is not to say, oh well, I think it’s this, or Alex thinks it’s this. It’s like take bits from what we’re all saying, test them out, try it on, see how it fits for you, and then keep the ones that you like, keep the ones that feel good. So I’m fascinated.
36:02 – Alex Allman (Guest)
There are moments in my life where I just recognize that money and wealth are virtually uncorrelated for me. I agree. There are just moments in my life where I just get that, like my, my highest pleasures are, you know, just a walk in the evening holding hands with my wife, or jumping in the swimming pool and throwing my daughter as high and as far as I can listen to her scream, you know, yes, like I mean it was really. There were nothing tops that right. And with that said, I got a thing for really expensive hotels and expensive watches and wine and expensive restaurants, and it brings me a lot of pleasure. And you need a lot of money to play some of the things I like to play, to play some of the things I like to play. But what I should be doing is prioritizing things like security and long-term wealth building, and I don’t really Listen, any of us could be dead tomorrow.
37:15 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
So like, yes, I mean that is important. I’m not saying it’s not, but also enjoying yourself while you’re here.
37:21 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I’m doing well, so I’m not well it’s not, but also enjoying yourself while you were here. I’m doing well, so I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m not well balanced.
37:26 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Okay, but what I want to ask you about is, in your answering of that question, it was almost as if there’s like a hesitation, like well, I should be saying this, but this is the truth for me. What’s the what’s the deal with the hesitation? Why not just be like I really like nice things, I like taking care of myself and my family, I like to have these amazing experiences, and that’s it Like period. There’s like conflict in you, I feel like For sure.
37:54 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, because I’m out of balance. I think there’s much to be said for, you know, splurging on the crazy vacation. I think it’s great, and all of that. I think there’s something to be said for that, when you’ve got your financial house in order and you’re on track to meet long-term goals, which I am most certainly not.
38:20 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Okay, so maybe you just like are a little too far to the Right. I’m on balanced Right.
38:25 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I mean I, I, I could use some, some balance in my life and um, and I think the other thing is so integrity is a big deal would be. Yeah, and I think if I was going to do, um, something about luck which I might yet do, Friendship.
38:42 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I think, you should, especially since you’ve talked about it like four times now. Already People will be like Alex, where’s that thing about luck?
38:49 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I’m ready Well here’s what happened we, I, we, just I took my in-laws to Vegas. Yes, I, I, I don’t. They live in Moscow and there there’s a war going on. We, we usually go there, but there’s war going on and, right, being an american is not a good idea because it’s a proxy war with america, right, and so you know, people there might take it into their hearts that, to defend their wise and, uh, fearless leader, vladimir putin, maybe they should beat me up, right. So, uh, you know what I mean. Like, just being an american used to be fun there, and now I think it would be potentially dangerous, so I flew them in instead of the other way around, and they were dying to go to Vegas, and I have to love Vegas.
39:30 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
That’s so funny.
39:32 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah. So you know, I got the pimped out suite at the Bellagio and the whole thing, and then the, the, the cabana at the pool. And as I’m walking around I realized what I never do in Vegas is gamble. I never gamble. You know, I am honestly the luckiest person that I know. Like my good luck is insane. And so I realized the reason I don’t gamble is that gambling isn’t a matter of luck. Gambling is a matter of math. There’s no luck in gambling, it’s math. The casino isn’t like. I wonder if we’re going to win or lose this month.
40:05
The casino is always going to win. They never think that, because it’s math. You know what I mean. There’s no uncertainty in gambling.
40:13 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
There’s a whole equation on it called the gambler’s ruin. It’s that the house will always win because they have infinite amount of resources, and the person who continues to gamble will eventually always lose. It’s math, it’s just exactly.
40:28 – Alex Allman (Guest)
There’s no like you can’t. But there are people who don’t think it’s math. They think there are some people who are unlucky, who keep losing, and there are some people who are lucky, who keep winning, and that the mix is such that there are fewer lucky people than unlucky people in there. But that’s not at all the way it works. And there are people who know the math and still superstitiously believe that you could, you could have a lucky night and there was just no such thing.
40:52 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
So, um, now you absolutely have to do this program Like yeah, so talk about that. Dynamic is huge.
41:01 – Alex Allman (Guest)
This is. It’s funny how this conversation is kind of weaving these layers of open loops. But there I was in Vegas thinking about the luck thing and so I started thinking maybe I show a five-day challenge on luck, and I realized one of them is friendships. Yeah, one of them is integrity, if you have and I mean integrity, by the way, the way it is specifically designed by Werner Erhard, who did you know the landmark forum and for that est. And Werner has this idea around integrity that I love. I love where he said and, by the way, whatever happened to Werner Erhard, who used to do the landmark forum and all that stuff is he went into I’m done with people and I’m working with corporations now and he applies this idea of integrity to corporations as well. And he says, very seriously integrity is not something you should think of as a moral stance, it is an efficiency, it’s simply a policy. It’s a policy and as a policy you can test it. It’s an effective policy so that if your clients and other businesses that do, or your customers, think that you have integrity because you’ve always shown integrity in the past, then they will continue to do business with you. And not only that, but they’ll wave a flag and say, hey, come do business with this guy. So as a policy, it works. And therefore, a couple of things, and one of them is that when you say you’re going to do something, you always have to honor your word 100% of the time. If you say you’re going to do it, you always honor your word. Now, you can’t always keep your word, because sometimes your flight got canceled, but you can always honor your word. Sometimes, you know you, your flight got canceled, you know, but you can always honor your word. You can say okay, my flight got canceled. Here’s how I’m going to make it up to you. Does that make us square? And so you can always honor your word, and you must. And and the implication of that is, before you give your word, before you give your word, before you say you’re going to do something, you have to decide. If it’s, in other words, once it’s inconvenient, that’s not the time to decide whether or not you’re going to honor your word, it’s too late. You have to be more careful about what you say you’re going to do, because if you say you’re going to do it, you have to do it. So that’s the distinction he makes. And if you do that in your life, your luck changes because everybody. It’s crazy how that changes your luck. And I’m going to bring this back to copywriting. Close the loop, why not?
43:31
One of my clients, to whom I had enormous integrity, is also a famous copywriter. But I saved his marriage. I made his marriage happen, I should say. I saved his relationship with his girlfriend and they’re married and have a baby now, nice.
43:46
And at some point he, who is wildly wealthy and only writes his own, he doesn’t write for anybody else, so nobody would have heard of him as a copywriter. He writes for his own company and he’s I mean, they probably do 40 million a year. Just put it in perspective. He’s extremely rich. And he said to me you know, I’m going to take a week off work and I’m going to write you a sales letter. So that one was free Nice. But it came from this idea of I mean, that’s good luck, right? I had a client who’s a famous copywriter, who’s like I think your stuff is so important and should be out there that, not just as a favor to you but as a favor to the world at large, I’m going to write your sales letter. And that sales letter in the last five years has probably made me three or four million dollars. Oh, that’s good luck.
44:38
That’s good luck. All right, hang on, I’m going to see if I can wrap this whole thing in a bow. There was one more open loop here around why I went down this integrity, ah yes. So when I coach men and their relationships with women, I drill integrity. I drill integrity into men who want to have a passionate life, who want a bigger, expanded life. I’m like this policy works. It works like crazy. It changes the way the whole world looks at you and it happens fast. The very first time you honor your word, when it was really fucking hard, most people wouldn’t. It’s like winning the lottery. It really changes your luck in life because people begin to see you as that guy. But the most important place to have integrity, Mindie, the most important is what oh, you should know this with yourself.
45:35 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
That’s what I did. I was pointing to me. Oh, you were pointing. Oh okay. Oh yeah, I forgot you were not looking at that. Looking at the camera, I was like that’s what I said. I mean, I didn’t say it, I pointed to myself. Most importantly, have integrity with yourself, 100%.
45:48 – Alex Allman (Guest)
That’s why I have shame around my financial idiocy Got it Because I just have a problem with I have a spending problem. Hi, I’m Alex A spending problem. So I and I know it and I often say to myself well, everything that I make over X this month I’m going to invest, but then month I’m going to invest, but then. But then a couple of my buddies are like we’re going to Cabo and I’m like, of course I’m going to Cabo.
46:24 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yes, yes, yes, I mean you can do both, though Put a little bit to the investment.
46:32 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Well, no, but I mean you have to. The point is, I’m not keeping integrity with myself.
46:34 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
So when you say you seem to have shame around it. That’s the shame.
46:36 – Alex Allman (Guest)
The shame is that I preach integrity with myself and when I break integrity with myself and I don’t honor my word to myself, nobody knows but me. But it, yeah, I mean, I think that’s. I got to clean that up. I mean that is something.
46:52 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Know the details, but people do know, because that kind of stuff, as you well know, leaks out energetically. I think and people can pick up on that. Now they wouldn’t be able to say, oh that Alex, he has a spending problem because he goes to Cabo. You know, it’s not detailed like that, but there is that thing. So that’s very interesting and thank you for your openness on that. I feel like a lot of our audience listening right now will be like yep, I get it, and I get it too, because I was that and then to me, it landed me in bankruptcy court and eviction and homeless and lots of other bad things.
47:32
So that taught me a lesson that I was like you know what. I don’t really want to go down that route again. I am going to clean that aspect of myself up and I I totally understand, though like that drive. So thank you, I appreciate that I have a question that I ask every guest that I’m gonna hate it aren’t? I. What’s that?
47:52 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I’m probably hate it.
47:54 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Like all the rest of them today, this question is based on an acronym, so there’s four parts to my question and I’ll walk you through each part. But the point of the question is for us all of us listening to what you’re going to say to get to know how you operate a little bit in certain aspects, so that those listening, if they’re like, hey, maybe I want to create some sort of my lifestyle, like he has done, they’ll learn little details about what it is that you do. So the acronym is HERB H E R B. The H stands for habits. What are your habits other than spending? Okay, we’re going to do these one at a time. We’re going to do it one at a time.
48:39
Cause it’d be a lot to remember. I told you earlier I like to reduce cognitive load.
48:43 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Right, so I think we’re talking about good habits, or just all my crazy habits.
48:48 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Let’s, let’s go with the good, the ones that support my life, that support your success, that lead to productivity, the little bit that you have.
48:57 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Okay, I am very habitual and crazy about my health Ooh, let’sive about it but it really works for me because I prefer healthy food, just in general.
49:22 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I actually do prefer it. That does make it easier.
49:25 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, it aligns with my preferences, but I think part of that is the psychological habituation aspect of it. I think there’s this thing when you, when you’re like, oh, I have to eat broccoli because that’s a fucking diet, I don’t get birthday cake, I get broccoli, and I have it. Quite the opposite, I have it like this is so good for my body right now. Oh, it’s so delicious, you know, and, um, I I’m a very, very good cook, so, oh yeah, I’m a very, very good cook.
50:01 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I want to come and visit now.
50:02 – Alex Allman (Guest)
My, my, all my cooking is predicated on pleasing me. I know my tastes, so, yeah, so I I make me some, some vegetables, and I can really, you know, I can really crush that whole thing and get a lot of joy out of it at the same time. Um, you know, exercise every day. Uh, I take long walks every day. I hit the weights at least five days a week. I mean, all of that is, I think, uh, supports my ability to do anything, because again, my you, again my ADD is so bad.
50:41
I would say I’m also a habitual learner and this is probably not totally to my benefit. There is this ADD thing where, if I need a piece of information for something that I’m writing, let’s say I’m writing some copy for something that I need to deliver so that I can make some money, and I forgot the name of the guy that wrote the five habits. But I mentioned the five habits. So now I got to. I guess it’s the seven habits, five love languages, whatever. So now I got to go find Gary. It’s the seven habits, five love languages, whatever. So now I got to go find Gary Chapman’s name or the other guy’s name, and so I go on to Google, for us a hot second and I see something interesting Uh yes.
51:26
Now, four and a half hours later, I now completely understand how the escapement links to the gear train and ultimately, uh, the um, the, the, the spring barrel of a wristwatch right, such that the loss in kinetic energy is compensated for by the?
51:51 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
um escapement fork and I’m like you got all.
51:56 – Alex Allman (Guest)
So I need to like know everything, and so that’s bad news and the good news. The good news of that is I think that by enriching the brain, it fires a lot of my creativity, so I’m a habitual learner. Like this is like like biting my nails, like I.
52:14
I can’t stop myself from doing it. I don’t bite my nails, by the way, but I used to. But that habit, I think, cuts both ways, but it’s very much part of how my life works and how my life happened. Is this habitual learning? I’m always learning, learning, learning, learning. In fact, when I’m at the gym, I’m always reading a book. That’s me too, yeah, and I try and read eclectically and as wide as possible.
52:44 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Okay, hold that thought right there, cause we’re going to get into that Like that’s. That’s part of the other part, okay, yeah, the E in herb is environment. How do you set up your environment so that it again like helps you be as successful as you are?
53:04 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Hmm, um, I moved to San Diego.
53:08 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, well, that’s huge.
53:10 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, um, the weather here is good every single day and I take these long walks, and um, weather here is good every single day and I take these long walks, and, um, you know we moved. So there’s there’s a couple of places on earth where you get the 10 out of 10 schools, and San Diego is one of them, and the others are not places I wanted to live, so it was a no brainer. Um, but yeah, I’m moving to San Diego, surrounding myself with the right people. I think it’s a big deal the conversations you have. If there’s anything in your environment that matters more than that, I’m I’m unaware of it. Yeah, if you really need the right people. Uh, for me, I need a certain buzz of distraction to manage my ADD. So I work.
53:49
I work well in coffee shops for example.
53:51 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
We are exact opposites.
53:53 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I know that, yeah, yeah, I need. I need some level of of distraction to get anything done, okay, so I think that’s part of it. Um, I think you know more recently I’ve gotten better about this. It’s so funny because you know I will think nothing of spending $2,000 a night on a hotel, but sometimes there’s like a $50 widget that would make my desk area more productive.
54:18
And I’m like that seems like a waste of money, but I’ve I’ve gotten better about that. I’ve actually been um spending money on stuff that makes my work environment better, and that’s been a game changer for me.
54:32 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, it’s so worth it.
54:33 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, that’s been a game changer for me. Game changer for me. Yeah, it’s so worth it. Yeah, that’s been a game changer for me. Nice, like there’s this, this microphone, stand here. Um, I don’t have one at my other desk and I just ordered one. I’m like, why don’t I have another? Fucking this is stupid.
54:46 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, the microphone.
54:49 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I can never figure it out. I’m like why don’t I just have two of them? We’re not going to unscrew this one all the time, so anyway perfect.
54:53 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, shit like that, stuff like that reduces friction and it’s so good for all of us.
54:59 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yes, Reduces friction is the right term. I have just gotten wise to this idea that spending money to reduce friction turns out to be a very good investment. I just figured that out but it really goes to environment in a big way and it’s it’s been a game changer.
55:12 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that. So the R in herb this is where we’re like we can dig into some books. The R stands for resources, and that could be books. It could be courses, programs, coaches, whatever. But what I would love from you I mean we really could talk about a million of them but what are some resources that have had the highest impact on you that you would recommend to?
55:36 – Alex Allman (Guest)
others. Yeah Well, I think finding the right mentor is a game changer. Yes, so I mean, I think that most people are okay with the whole mentor thing. You might have some men. I don’t think this is much of a woman thing. Maybe there are women like this too, but there are certainly men like me.
55:56 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Well, let’s be clear, my audience is majority men. Okay, well, I think that there are probably some out there.
56:03 – Alex Allman (Guest)
There are probably some of them out there that are as idiotic as I used to be and had it in my head.
56:09
I guarantee it that having a mentor was somehow like putting myself below somebody. There was a certain amount of shame in asking for help. That’s weird, right. I don’t know where I got it from. I think there was even a part of me. If I was to really do some psychoanalysis, I think there was a part of me that felt like it might be slightly traitorous towards my father that I would have another man that I had in high esteem who I went to for guidance. Yeah, for guidance, exactly. Wow, right, isn’t that strange? That’s some deep shit right there.
56:46
It is, but I mean so this goes back probably 20 years ago. I discovered this whole thing about it’s cool to have a mentor. Yeah, and that was yeah changed my life Like that. I mean it’s crazy how much better it is to have a mentor than learn something from a course.
57:06 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Or try to do it yourself or anything else you know decades, right.
57:10 – Alex Allman (Guest)
So having a mentor is a big deal to me and I’m constantly looking for where that might work out for me and it turns out that, other than famous celebrities I’m probably including some famous celebrities, but you probably can’t get Jeff Bezos because he’s probably got a lot of people who he’s mentoring right now in his own company. But in general, people are quite flattered to be approached and say you know, I’d like some mentorship from you. And the only thing if you really want to get good with the mentor relationship, it’s important not to gush and thank too much because mentors don’t like that shit, and never to go for reciprocity like I want to give you this great thing because mentors don’t like that shit.
57:52 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
They got that shit and they probably don’t need it.
57:54 – Alex Allman (Guest)
They don’t need yeah, they don’t need it and they don’t like it what they want. The way you make a mentor happy is you take their advice and you report back. This worked.
58:03 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
This didn’t work. Oh, that thing and get the result. That’s the best, absolutely the best.
58:08 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yeah, right, and I mentor a lot of people and I can tell you it’s the best. It’s the best when you tell them something and then go do it like right away, and then they come back and they’re like here’s my result, what next?
58:19 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
oh, my god, it’s freaking awesome, although I will say I am one for public praise, like I will take it. Um, yeah, I don’t like it. I don’t like it when they gush to me. I’m like, yeah, I already know this, go tell, go tell facebook or whatever like. How about your experience?
58:36 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I guess I like that because it’s good for business, but yeah, but other than that I don’t think I. Yeah, the praise I mean.
58:43 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
I don’t like need it, but it is that’s why I like it, because I’m like go external validation feels good, but that’s not, I guess, because everybody needs it in a different place.
58:53 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Yes, that’s not like. For me, external validation might be from like um, the girl walks by while I’m working out and says oh wow, you look great. Oh, hey, say it again, Right, so you know what I mean. Uh, but I think uh. I think we all, we all have that that area.
59:10 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Yeah, it’s definitely different for different people, though, like all these people, you know, they’ll say things like oh my God, you’re so beautiful and I’m like, please talk to me about my brain or something interesting. Come on, anyway, but let’s talk about.
59:23 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I do want to know some beautiful women everywhere, by the way, yeah. Yeah, cause it’s exhausting after a while.
59:28 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Right, it’s exhausting, I get it. I do want to know what some of your favorite books are, though, like we can’t, so so, uh, mentors, I just really discovered podcasting and, uh, there’s something about the long form, which? Hello, by the way, you were giving me shit before we started and we are now at an hour, so this is long form, now Okay.
59:51 – Alex Allman (Guest)
So what I love? Long form, because I think it allows people the space to really find, like it’s down in the depths. It’s that little piece that I find most valuable, so that biographies are amazing for me.
01:00:08
Yes yes, but of course, books in general, any subject that matters to me. Right, there’s a subject that matters, I’m going to buy a book about that, whether that is again. You know I go down weird rabbit holes. I have books on like Japanese contemporary art. You know I go down weird rabbit holes, but I love the fact that you can get so much more from a book well than just about anywhere, like a full length book.
01:00:33
And for me, because of what I do in teaching, like a full length book and for me because of what I do in teaching relationship stuff, there was a thing that existed before psychology. You know, when you know Freud and what’s his name? Henry James, no, the other James William, when psychology was invented, james, william, james. So prior to all of that, yes, it wasn’t like there was no place you could go to learn about human nature. Where you went before that was great literature and people felt that you were a man of great learning if you read great literature, even though that shit was made up. But a great novel becomes great and lasts through decades, centuries or millennia because they get something about the essence of human nature, which is why Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 2,000 years later, still reads like contemporary fiction, like it’s the same stuff.
01:01:41 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
So, um, yeah, I, great literature is what are what are like a couple of your top I could I couldn’t even begin.
01:01:51 – Alex Allman (Guest)
It’s too big, it’s too big, but I, I, just I. I just read Portrait of a Lady for the first time.
01:02:01 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
That’s why you’re thinking about Henry James Exactly.
01:02:05 – Alex Allman (Guest)
Wow Really got some subtleties about human nature from that that they’re hard to see, some subtleties about human nature from that. That they’re hard to see. They’re hard to see. And I mean I think there’s enormous value in, you know, reading books on psychology. I get tons of stuff from that. But I’m amazed at how much nuance and how much of my teaching comes from what I’ve learned by, you know, reading Nathaniel Hawthorne or Ernest Hemingway or Ovid. There’s just so much there and so much of what we understand about telling a good story and marketing comes from Aristotle you can learn stuff from. It’s hard to believe that we were having the same conversations then, that we are now Like, if you read, you know, buddhist texts that are thousands of years old and you’re like that feels very contemporary to me. I just learned.
01:03:08 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
It’s the same stuff. It’s the same stuff. Okay, so let’s move on to the B.
01:03:11 – Alex Allman (Guest)
The B is beliefs.
01:03:11 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Okay, so let’s move on to the B. The B is beliefs. What beliefs or worldviews do you hold? Maybe like being one of the? There’s anything that I learned from mentors, it is this this piece around beliefs.
01:03:51 – Alex Allman (Guest)
So the first thing that we have to look at my probably most importantly deeply held belief is that beliefs are chimeras. They’re like they don’t exist in the way we think they do. They’re just opinions that we have a lot of faith in, but they’re not real. We interact with our beliefs as if they’re real, but they’re not real. They’re just nothing more than mental efficiencies. They’re just mental efficiencies. I believe that touching fire is going to burn my finger. It’s a good belief. It’s a good mental efficiency. You don’t need to retry that every time you see the pretty flame. Thankfully, you know what I mean. But, um, but every belief, ultimately every belief is just made up shit like all of it. And when you get that, the freedom that follows is incredible. Get that, the freedom that follows is incredible, and it allows you to really focus in on all those things that you believe that are harming you.
01:04:44
So there’s a fairly common belief out there among men single men, especially married men as well often that a woman will leave any man for another man who has higher status. It doesn’t matter who the woman is, it doesn’t matter who the man is. This is just Darwin, darwin 101. She’s with you. There’s a guy with higher status who’s like drop that loser, come with me, and she will say say yes 100 of the time, because women are simply baked that way. And a man who loves his wife, who thinks she’s honest and has great integrity, still has this niggling doubt that maybe that’s true. Um, and then he begins acting insecure and wacky. Um, and I think there are probably women out there that believe things like that about men, you know if she’s younger and prettier, right, so so.
01:05:37
But these things, I mean, they are just they’re bullshit.
01:05:42
Yeah, like, all beliefs are based on nothing. But a belief like that can ruin your life. That belief can ruin your marriage and then it will continue on to ruin your life. So, and it’s just bad programming. Now, is it true sometimes? Sure, all beliefs are true. Sometimes they may even be true right now for you, in the relationship you’re in, but believing it is still a fucking problem for you, correct? Yeah, in fact, if you change that belief, it might change the problem. So, like, my biggest overarching belief is that beliefs are all completely invented.
01:06:15
There’s a particularly nefarious ones and I’ll just mention one of them, because it was such a game changer for me in my life which was this thing called worthiness. People believe that worthiness is a thing that if you do a certain number of things, then you’re worthy of success or you’re worthy of that great relationship. And it turns out that worthiness doesn’t exist in any meaningful way. Now, I can’t convince you of that in the two minutes we have left here, but if you were willing to do the work, if you were really willing to do the work, if you were willing to take hours, or even days if necessary, to really question with a pen in your hand and a journal, really question what makes worthiness who do I think is worthy, who’s more worthy than me, who’s less worthy than me? And just really work out.
01:07:07
Eventually the concept itself vanishes. You realize that worthiness is an idea invented by your self-critical voice to punish you or to explain certain things away, like we explained the chariot pulling the sun God across the sky. But it’s mythology. Yeah, there’s just nothing there. There’s nothing there at all. And releasing this worthiness thing was such a game changer for me and it’s been a game changer for my clients who, I could, by the way, knowing it and feeling it are different. Getting across that divide, like knowing your belief is bullshit, like knowing your belief is bullshit. Knowing that, like that weird insecure belief you have is bullshit, isn’t enough Sometimes to feel it. To really feel the new belief is like something again, you’ve got to kind of prove it to yourself. You’ve got to take your, you got to take it deep, you got to wrestle with it, you got to confront it, you got to get your teeth into it. It’s not easy to alter beliefs, even when you, when you’re you know the frontal lobe has figured it out.
01:08:08
The animal is still in there, so it’s a big deal, but I think I think beliefs are the biggest game changer for me in my life and yeah, yeah, I freaking love that so much because I talk about this often so many people, ourselves included.
01:08:28 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
It’s like we know things, but I always talk about the distinction between knowledge and wisdom, like wisdom is when it’s actually embodied, when you are living it, being it, breathing it. That’s when you’re really got it. It’s not just like, oh, I can understand that concept logically, so absolutely love all of that conversation. And to the listener, do take the time to do that. Like, get your journal out, get a pen, figure out for yourself, because I can tell you I talked to plenty of people about that same topic worthiness, deservedness, all of these things. It’s a huge, like prevalent issue and a journal can be one of your, like, greatest investments, just of time to figure that out. So, alex, if people are interested in you and want to be, you know, in your world, in your sphere, learning more from you or following you, where would you like to send them?
01:09:15 – Alex Allman (Guest)
I would send them to howtomantv.com or howtoman.tv. They both go to the same place, but HowToManTV.com is where I’m currently doing my best work. I’ve been on alexallmanlife, but I’m migrating over to this new home where we’re doing higher quality video and rethinking a lot of my ideas for the world we’re moving into, which is new.
01:09:40 – Mindie Kniss (Host)
Nice, so I will link to that. If you’re watching on YouTube, the link is down below. If you are listening, you can find these links in the show notes at Lucra.com. Alex Allman, you are very dear to me, you know this. Thank you so, so, so much for being here.
01:11:18 – Alex Allman (Guest)
It was a real honor. Thank you, Mindie.
