High achievers often chase extravagant career and financial success in their lives, but at the cost of their relationships, purpose, and well-being. Daniel Weinberg discusses what it takes to escape on-paper success and achieve a life of true fulfillment and satisfaction with Wall Street Journal best-selling author and transformational coach Alex Peykoff. He shares how he abandoned his “F-U money,” reprioritized his life, and now spreads unconditional love with people around him. Alex also offers valuable advice on how high achievers can redefine their ideas of success by embracing emotional resilience, being comfortable with their vulnerabilities, and harnessing their power to love without limits.
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Rich On Paper Poor On Life With Alex Peykoff
In this episode, we have Alex Peykoff. He talks to us about what happens when you win the game and still feel empty.
Alex, so great to have you on the show.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Where are you in the world right now?
I was in California, and like everybody else in the world, we get heavy. I think sometimes we don’t regulate our emotions, and I knew that I was feeling really heavy and getting bombarded by stuff in California. A friend of mine has a property in Mississippi. It’s a ranch out here. I went out here to clear my head. I think in life, we forget to regulate.
I knew I was heavy. I knew I was having bad thoughts in my head, where life was heavy, and sometimes you got to go reboot. It’s easier to reboot where there’s neutral. You’re not getting influenced by things that you are used to circulating around. It’s helped me, because just like everybody said in life, we all have our struggles, but the problem is we don’t ever address them. For me, I had to get out and start walking through the truth again.
I think it’s always important when you’re reflecting on yourself and it shows you’re connected with yourself when you have the ability to recognize, “I’m not really good right now, I need to do something to get back into balance.” I’m going to want to talk to you a little more about that later because I’m going to want you to share with the audience the tools that you use to be able to go through that process of how you do become self-aware and you do action.
Rich On Paper But Poor In Life
What are the types of actions you can do to bring things back into balance? How about we start off with, take me back to the moment you realized, this is your term that you’ve coined, and I think it’s a brilliant coin, which is when you realized you were rich on paper but poor in life. I think that just captures so much when you express it like that.
It’s interesting because you and I talked before, for me, I was suppressing so much of my emotion I’ve always been a decent-sized guy, been six feet, a couple of hundred pounds almost my whole life, been an athlete, was a machine, just knew how to work and make money, but to do that, you can’t have emotion. I was suppressing it. When I was 36 years old, my daughter was born, and I just started seeing life differently. That I have a different purpose. I started learning about unconditional love.
When she was fourteen, we were living in probably one of the most affluent communities in the world, had all the things that people said you’re supposed to have. The worst day of my life didn’t happen on the boardroom floor. It happened where I get a phone call from the hospital, and my daughter was a victim of rape. The hardest thing about that was she couldn’t look at me. That’s hard because she thought she did something wrong. I did something wrong.
I was using the roadmap of what society was telling you to be successful and to be happy and accumulate all this monetary wealth. I was using the map that society was telling me so I get to the top of the mountain. This isn’t my map. This is someone else’s map. I did all this crap for somebody else, not for me. I had to really go deep. What the F was I doing? I wasn’t living for me. I thought I was living for her, and I wasn’t emotionally present. I’m not saying I was a bad dad, I was a good dad, but I was trying to get more and more. Get the accolades, “You’re great, you’re this, you’re all these things.” All that was bullshit.
I just really want to frame it for the audience here and give them some context because when you say, “I did what society suggests what the path is,” and when you say you did something, you chased wealth, etc., we’re talking about a different level of wealth. We’re talking about stratospheric wealth. Wealth that there are only a few people in the world who really experience. This is not the 1%, this is the 0.1%. Let’s put things in context. I’d love to hear from you. What did your private life look like at the time? You come from a very well-established family. Why don’t you describe for the audience when you say, “I chased all those accolades,” they’re like top of the mountain accolades.
I’ll walk through that. When you grow up, they say they want F-U money. I had F-U money, which basically means if I wanted to hop on a jet, private jet, I got it. Off-road racers, racing boats, got that. Houses in different parts of the world, but more importantly, I’m living in a house that’s $23 million. That’s F-U money.
I had multiple cars. You name a car, I had it. Whether it was a racing Jaguar or an Aston Martin, all the stuff that people say I want. I had the stupid watches, all that crap that you’re flexing and you’re flexing. As I said, all that monetary stuff, it didn’t fill me up. All these people, they want this money stuff. It doesn’t do it. I had it. People were like, “That new Lamborghini Urus or whatever, go get one of those.” It’s not going to fix anything. If you want a private jet to fly place, you’ll have access to those. You have access to mega-mega yachts. It didn’t matter. All those were distractions. They were distractions.
What were you avoiding? Be a little more specific around when you’re chasing performance like that. You want men to be aspirational, to be motivated to achieve success, etc., not for the sake of success but we want men to still be motivated to chase success. What you’re saying is when you’re chasing success, you can get lost in the chase of success. When you’re doing it, what did you find that you were avoiding? What were you pushing down? What were you not confronting? What was missing?
I’ve always been a sensitive person. I always had a heart. I felt things. When my daughter was born, the world stopped. The world freaking stopped for a microsecond like, “This feels amazing,’ but now I’m vulnerable. Now who’s going to protect me? I’m putting out unconditional love, am I going to get it back? Can I tell the world the truth on how I feel? I don’t want to crush people. I want to sit there and cry with people and show emotion. I want to be human.
To be a man, our society is telling us you can’t do that. What I found out, that so-called Achilles was my superpower. Where I am now is because I speak from my heart. I cry, I tell people, “I had some really bad thoughts last week.” This is the truth. I had some really shitty thoughts in my head last week like, “Why am I here?”
Where does that come from?
It comes from shame. I slipped into an old mindset where I was worried what other people were thinking. Did I do enough? What happened is during the holidays, my daughter was struggling. She’s a human, but I thought it was me like, “What’d I do wrong?” I thought I did everything I could. I started getting into that agenda like, “Poor me, I fucked up. What’d I do wrong?” I forgot to remember the truth.
I focused on that one microsecond, and it rewrote my whole truth falsely. That’s part of being okay with how I feel inside, but society, as a man, doesn’t let you do that. We’re supposed to be conquerors, we’re supposed to be providers and protectors. What we’re really supposed to be, we’re supposed to be reflectors and listeners. That’s what we’re supposed to do. When you’re trying to get all the money and all the cars and all that type of stuff, you don’t have time for that. You go and you have no time to breathe and reflect on what have I done? What’s my impact? Have I given anything back or am I just taking?
Society expects men to be conquerors, providers, and protectors. In reality, they must act as reflectors and listeners. Share on XRebuilding Your Life Into Something Different
As you were conquering the corporate world, your whole life changed in that one moment which you opened with. Walk us through the call and however much you’d like to share and how you responded. More importantly, why that shattered your operating system to be rebuilt into something very different.
I’m going to give you a little background story to get to where we’re at, because I think it’s really critical. I think when people share stuff, they forget what was the first step, where you got there. When my daughter was born, I knew the mom was complicated. I started going to court when my daughter was two weeks old, going through a journey of the time of fighting it, and I became a Dad. I was wearing both hats, and I loved it. It was amazing. My whole life I devoted to being a dad and a mom.
That’s what I wanted. I wanted to make sure she had unconditional love, which I didn’t really get from both my parents. I got it from one of my parents. Here we are in Emerald Bay, very affluent community in Laguna Beach. She’s fourteen and a half, going through her little struggles, but I’m not really there. I’m there, I’m not listening to her, I’m trying to fix things. Our culture’s men, we want to fix things. Really crappy way to live, to fix things. Just listen and reflect.
I get a call. It’s a gated community, it’s a security complex, and they call and say, “Is this Mr. Peykoff?” I say, “Yeah.” they tell me, “We have your daughter here. She was just dropped off in a car, and it looks like she’s in bad shape.” at that time, I had an assistant that was helping me with my daughter and had a relationship with her. That lady went and helped her. She gets to the forensic hospital. When you’re a victim of rape, you go to a forensic hospital. It’s a very specific type of hospital.
They go through all the things. That’s massive trauma because they start walking through the stuff. As I said earlier and I’ll say it clearly, she was pushed by in a wheelchair with police officers behind her, and she couldn’t look at me. She couldn’t make eye contact with me. Still, to this day, and we’re talking many years ago, the pain is next freaking level because she was just this little girl.
We’re all little people inside still, but society wants us to grow up and push down our emotions so we can be tough and we stop feeling. We mask it with this monetary stuff. It’s okay to cry, and I looked at that and I did everything in my power to start rebooting that and making sure I was there. Backing up just a little bit, there was a hiccup in November and December of 2025 where she regressed a lot because she had some stuff happen.
I was like, “What happened?” You know what? She’s human. She was fighting those feelings and she knew she was hurt, and she was thinking about not wanting to be here anymore. I said, “Girl, we’re okay. I love you.” she was obsessing about losing her grandma who was her life. We all spiral down, but she was fighting those emotions because they were so heavy and she didn’t feel safe except to talk to her dad about it.
She had no other person to talk to her about it. In being a man, you’ve got to get that support group around you and talk from your heart. It’s our superpower. We’ve all had struggles. That’s where I just looked at stuff like, “What am I doing? Whatever I’m doing right now is wrong. I’m going to change it all,” and that’s where I am now.
What’d you do? You made a lot of changes in your life. You speak about it, you’ve written books on it, so what did you do to completely right reprioritize your life?
I had to really look at the people that were around me and who they were. What were they about? Were they being truthful? Were they able to tell themselves the truth? Did they have a hidden agenda? Were they putting their truth onto me? And I realized 90% of them weren’t there for me.
It’s all about the deal.
It’s the deal. I’ve been on this planet for a little bit. I found out most people can’t be there for you because they can’t be there for themselves. To do that, you have to be able to tell yourself the truth. We’re all flawed. We all have some baggage. We all have some brokenness. Own it. As soon as I couldn’t be that rock for people, it didn’t work out. I found out this sucks. I basically had one person around me. It was my mother. Everybody else said it was my fault. My own father, who is alive now and I respect him and love him, told me it was my fault.
What happened to your daughter?
Yeah. Going back to emotional awareness, is that my truth, or is it his truth? Okay, but we put so much weight into people that we love and so much value into what they say, but it’s not always the best. We have a brain. We can figure out maybe that doesn’t feel right. I tell people this all the time, just because somebody’s your biological parents, doesn’t mean they’re your parents. Sometimes your friends are your support group and that’s the problem. We lean on people, expecting them to change. Very few people change. You work with a lot of men. Every man that’s reading right now, change, especially being a man, is difficult. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.
Change is constant. It doesn’t stop.
No. You have to be aware of that. You’re going to have good days, bad days.
As you’re saying, because when I spoke to you last time, you were in the zone. You tell me now that you’ve recognized that you’re having a bit of a dip. We’re all big waves surfing here so you’ve come off the board and you just trying to work out how to get back on the board. We all go through it. It’s not linear. I’m interested to know how you reprioritized your time allocation in life.
You were giving it to building big business and doing big things in the corporate world, but clearly you decided, “I’m not going to allocate that energy to that category as much as I was before, I’m going to reallocate it.” What did that mean? What did you do to change paths? Obviously, the catalyst was your daughter’s situation, but it’s what you did with it that I want to hear about.
I knew even when I was working and building stuff, it was for validation from somebody. Maybe it was my father, which most of us, it is a parent issue, that’s just the fact. I realized that I’m not getting back what I had hoped. I was looking for love and acknowledgement back.
You thought, “If I perform and I give and do what you tell me to do, in return, I get unconditional love.” That’s not the equation and that’s not the reality of how this thing works.
Absolutely, but we don’t know that because we all have issues. That’s the fact, so you acknowledge them. What I realized, I could use this ability to build things and fix things and create things to get a really cool impact unconditionally. I started putting that out there. I started doing a lot of real estate and helping people build homes, and I’d get, “Thank you. You made our dream come true.” I helped a friend of mine build a health club. I started writing books.
I’m starting to read these reviews from the book, “You changed my life. You did this.” I’m going, “I’m doing this because it feels good. I’m not looking for anything.” I was doing it unconditionally, and I was surprised. There’s a quote, a review in one of my books and a woman says, “I was a catalyst that opened the door to her universe.” Put a dollar value on that. You can’t.
I have sixteen kids I put in college. They believe I changed their life. Put a dollar value on that. You can’t. When I’m going down and we all go down, I start going back and play the videos in my head of the amazing things I did unconditionally from this thing right here, from my heart. This heart that we have, we don’t use it all the time.
The shortest distance should be our heart to our head. We put our heart down by our feet and it’s not communicating. We get in these patterns. “I’ll just work and make money. I won’t feel. I’ll go drink, I’ll go party, I’ll go do all this type of stuff. I’ll go buy a new car.” We’re not feeling. We’re putting a freaking Band-Aid on the truth. It’s called busyness.
Overcoming The Fear Of Not Being Accepted
Tell me why. Why do men fill themselves up with that, put the armor on, have the mask up, why?
It’s a simple answer and I’ve got to explain it really carefully and you can ask me questions about it. We’re afraid. We’re afraid to be accepted. We don’t think we’re good enough. Will they really like me? You know I’m very honest. If I tell you the truth that last week, I was having some very serious conversations with myself like, “I’m tired. Should I be here? I’ve done a lot. Should I be here?” You know what’s going on?
If I tell the random person that, most people are going to freak out. I’m telling you, I’m vulnerable. I need to be heard and I need someone to give me a hug and tell me it’s okay. Am I 6 feet, 200 pounds at that time? No, I’m 5’10” 150. I’m down. We’re afraid. “I’m ashamed of what I’ve done in my life.” I chased money and I hurt people’s hearts and I did all these things. I’m just talking in generalities.
Maybe some of us have a little bit of a monster inside us. Why can’t we share that? Everybody’s had stuff. All of a sudden, you’re going to be vulnerable and you’re not going to be superhuman anymore. The male species has been designed not to feel anymore by cultural things, so it’s okay to feel. Here’s the thing. I don’t know how many people in the world. A trillion people, who knows. Not everybody’s going to like you.
You’re going to have way more contentment in your heart if you tell people this is how I feel. My mom passed away a year and a half ago. There’s days where it sucks, like unbelievable pain. Is it normal to feel that way? Absolutely, yes. If I feel like that for a few days, society’s going, “Dude, what’s wrong with you?” I’m a human. I feel. I hurt. That’s the problem. It’s okay to feel, bleed, and hurt.
You’re going to find out you have more friends because someday you’re going to be alone and you’re going to have to sit there and figure, “Were these guys my friends? Did I tell them the truth? Why didn’t you tell me that ten years ago when we met that you that this happened? Your brother died of a drug overdose or you have a brother that’s schizophrenic since he was eighteen.”
“Why don’t you talk about that type of stuff? Now I know why you’ve got that short fuse why you snap because you’ve got this pain that you’re afraid to talk about. You’re afraid to share. I get why you’re an asshole sometimes because you can’t tell the truth, because you’re afraid I won’t love you and accept you.”
It is okay to feel, bleed, and hurt. Share on XWho are the men you go to?
Gnarly question.
What’s your crew? Who’s your go-to?
Oddly enough, I have 2 men and I have about 4 women. I resonate better with women because women seem able to be a little more unconditional on the front side. I have a friend of mine that I’ve known since I was fourteen. He was my best friend’s uncle, and he’s even-keeled. He sees things the right way. We had a conversation and he says, “Why does your family do that?” I said, ” You get it. You’re right. It doesn’t freaking make sense. I’m not going to try to figure it out anymore.” Really cool.
Another friend of mine was going through a custody case around the same time. He’s struggling. He’s vulnerable with me and he’s raw, says, “I’m only here because I’m taking care of my granddaughter. My daughter died of a drug overdose.” These are real people. It’s not, “Alex, can you give me some money? Can you find me a job?”
It’s like, “I’m hurting. I’m struggling and I don’t know what I’m doing.” My friends who are females are like sisters to me. They say, “You keep on forgetting who you are.” They’ll start playing the video back. You know what, you look at all the people you’ve impacted. Look at the power. There are very few people who look at the legacy you’re creating for people to connect.
You’re telling people the path they’re on right now is wrong. No one’s saying that. Maybe it hurts. Maybe it feels empty right now, but you’re stuck on that pity party and just redirect a little bit and see these great things. Our culture, we thrive on negativity. We give it so much power. When I’m down, we’re letting that negativity turn into fear and we become frozen in fear and frozen to feel. That’s what happens in this culture.
What It Means To Be A Dysregulated High Achiever
Explain what it means when men hear “nervous system regulation,” they switch off. When you hear about what it means to be a “dysregulated high achiever,” explain to me what are you experiencing when you talk about the dysregulation?
I’ll explain it in a couple of different ways, and I’ll explain it from a monetary standpoint, I’ll explain it from a relationship standpoint. Let’s put it this way. Let’s say I was in a relationship for six years. Dating person, amazing person. The relationship ends. I can feel that pain, I can feel the nervous system overloading, not wanting to eat, not wanting to cry, not wanting to do anything. I can do that or I can flip gears and go get a rebound.
I can go find somebody else to make me not feel and not feel that pain. That’s what I call it. In work, same thing. These guys will have pain, they’ll have a loss of a dog, a wife, a losing whatever. What do they do? They’re not going to feel it, they’re going to push it down. I’m going to go make a deal. I’m going to go buy some crypto. I’m going to do something this and I’m going to make some money and I’m going to get that high. That high is only momentarily.
The next day they wake up, they got to get the high again. They’re trying to manage their nervous system through pulses instead of actually processing through it. Hurt takes time to heal. Healing doesn’t heal overnight. There’s a famous saying, “If you’re with somebody for 8 years, it takes 4 years to heal.” That’s fucking freaking science. So much easier with these guys want to regulate their nervous system by distraction.
You know what happens if you go through your whole life distracting the nervous system? You end up dying from loneliness and health issues. That’s what happens. There’s been five people in the last year and a half who have died and they were very old. They were very famous comedians or comedy producers. They all lived to be 90-plus. How they live that long? They didn’t sit there and tell their nervous system to shut off. They felt it and healed it with humor.
If you go through your whole life distracting the nervous system, you will end up dying from loneliness and health issues. Share on XThat’s Norman Fellows guy, 100-some-odd years old. All of us as society we want to distract ourselves, let’s make more money. Let’s go get some more action from this woman or that woman. Let’s go see how many women we can get. That woman’s got longer legs. She’s got a better top. It’s distraction. They’re going to tell me I’m great, I love this dinner. You told me, “I love your car, I love your house.” Do you love me? Do you love me, the inside?
They distract by not letting that nervous system feel. The nervous system is powerful. You talk about people have heart attacks? It’s the nervous system that’s doing it. I had heart pain. I had heart pain for almost a week. I was trying to say that’s not how you feel. I was saying, “No, you don’t. No, you shouldn’t feel that way. You shouldn’t feel that way. It’s not you. It’s the other person,” all that stuff. I had to walk through it. Did it suck? Yes. Pain is supposed to hurt. You can’t keep on taking Advil for pain. It doesn’t work.
Three Things Wealthy Men Are Afraid To Admit
What do you think most high-powered or super wealthy men are most afraid to admit? Ones you’ve come across in your world.
I think there are three things. I think most of them are lying. Most of them are sad inside. They had abandonment issues, rejection issues, insecure attachment issues, all those types of stuff. You can mask all that stuff with a brand-new Ferrari or first-class tickets to Hawaii or going to Bora Bora with some hot people. We’re afraid to tell the truth. I’m soft. I cry. I was telling you earlier. They’re afraid. They’re afraid they’re only loved because of their ability to make money.
When we die, no one’s going to say, “I wish I had more money.” “I wish I had more time with my heart and my loved ones. I wish I was more emotionally present.” They’re afraid to sit there and sit in their truth that they are actually alone and they have no friends that like them for just themselves. Their friends hang out with them because, “I can get you first-row seats to the Laker game or to a hockey game or a rugby game,” or whatever it is.”
“I can go take you to dinner and I’ll be your wingman we’ll go hook up with these chicks.” No, maybe I don’t want that. Maybe I want to sit home and just watch Netflix for five hours straight. They can’t do that because they’ve got to be on all the time because if they go off, the truth comes in. They don’t have anybody to tell their pain and their loss and their sorrow.
“By the way, remember that girl we were talking about five years ago? I miss her and I fucked up.” “No dude, let’s go get some other chicks. Don’t feel that bad, dude. You’re being a bitch. Come on, don’t feel, man. Go get on the wagon again,” or whatever the word is. Let’s go party, let’s go drink. Let’s power some shots.” No.
You’ve created this Men’s Anonymous group because people really want that. I’m not who I say I am. I’ve been hiding behind this money. I’m freaking lonely. I’m fucking lonely. I’m afraid to cry. By the way, when I’m not with my friends I cry in the shower. I cry my eyes out. I watch certain movies and I see people dying and I’m freaking like what am I doing? By the way, I happen to like the movie The Notebook. “You like The Notebook? What’s wrong with you?” I’m being sarcastic. That’s the problem.
Different Tools In Living A More Fulfilling Life
What are some of the tools that you teach your readers or audience when you speak about what they can do for themselves when they’re facing these types of challenges, like trying to connect with themselves and open them up like you were forced to open yourself up? You didn’t choose it. It was chosen for you and you basically had to respond and you did positively.
There are a couple of things I work on. One thing that I tell people all the time is look at your life and ask yourself one simple question. How’s it working for you? That’s a lot of reflection. How’s it really working for you? I’m a nature person. I want to walk on the beach, I want to see a sunset, and I want to sit there with zero distractions and I want to go through my life and look at my wins, pat myself on the back, I want to look at my losses.
I want to be present with it. I want to sit there and tell myself the truth. Where am I? And I want to say, “Look, do I have the mindset of would’ve, could’ve, should’ve?” if I’m going through life with would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, I need to change something right now. Part of that is I don’t want to have regrets. Every day, I’m telling people exactly how I feel. When I leave a situation, I don’t go, “I should’ve done that.”
When I first talked to you, I said, “This is how I’m going to communicate. I’m going to tell people I like them, I love them, I care about them. I want people to know how I feel.” “I liked what you did, I compliment people.” I wasn’t doing that before. I wasn’t respecting myself. One of the tools, going back to tools, is you have to start respecting yourself. If you don’t respect yourself, no one’s going to respect you and your life’s going to be shit.
To respect yourself, you really have to make a conscious. What am I doing right? Am I sleeping three hours a day? Not respecting yourself. Am I being disingenuous to everybody? Not respecting yourself. Am I making money a tool for happiness? Not respecting yourself. It all comes back to one core thing. Respect. I know everybody wants all these tools. It doesn’t work that way. It’s really simple. Look in your mirror and have a conversation with that guy in the mirror and tell him the truth.
It’s going to hurt at first, but tell yourself the truth. Find your flaws, find your things, but embrace them you are who you are and you have to love yourself unconditionally. I know I’m getting philosophical here, but if you don’t love yourself internally, you’re F-ed. “Alex, that sounds so stupid.” No, it isn’t. You have to love yourself and if you really love yourself, you can pretty much do whatever you want to do and you will attract the right people.
Your level of happiness will be so different. We’re afraid to love ourselves because maybe we’re not good enough. We are good enough, but you’re comparing yourself to everybody. The other tool, stop freaking comparing. Stop comparing. There’s no upside to compare. Respect, stop comparing, look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself the truth. Count your wins. You probably have enough.
When you say count your wins, is it just a self-acknowledgement inside? What does that mean?
I look at this. The last couple of weeks have been tough. December was tough when my daughter didn’t want to be around. It was really terrible. She got off some meds for almost a year, she had a relationship that ended, she didn’t want to be around. I wasn’t looking at my wins. I was looking at, “What’d I do wrong? How’d I screw up?” The fact of the matter she’s 26 years old, she’s got 2 degrees, she actually does love herself inside. She just got knocked upside the head by an unhealthy relationship.
That’s the truth and that’s the win. I’m here now talking to you sharing my story. That’s a win. When this interview goes live, you’re going to see there’s going to be people responding to it in a positive way. That’s a win. I’m one guy and I just impacted whether it’s 30, 40, 50 people. It’s a freaking win. That’s what I mean. Just slow down. As silly as it sounds, look at the flowers. The flowers are quite cool outside.
Seeing a puppy, watch two kids play and laugh and remember that innocence that we used to have. It’s okay to be childlike inside. We don’t have to be an adult 24/7. You don’t have to be. No one says you’re supposed to be a grown-ass adult every fucking minute of the day. Be a juvenile little crap for a second and just have fun and laugh. It’s going to heal you. When’s the last time people sit there say, “Look, I’m just going to be stupid. I’m going to go fill up some balloons with water and throw them at cars,” or whatever.
We do not have to be an adult all the time. You can be a juvenile little crap for a second and just have fun. Share on XBe a dork. It’s hard to be very depressed when you have that internal belief that you can put a smile on someone’s face. One of the greatest gifts I’ll teach people, I can change your life really quickly and it will cost me absolutely nothing. I’m going to tell all your readers, tomorrow, the next day, when they’re walking down the street, smile at somebody. Watch what happens. It was free.
When I want to cry and I want to be sad, I know I can go outside and smile and be okay because I have pain just like everybody else. I’m a human, and like I said, I’ve written two books that have done quite well and I help people. I hurt just like everybody else. Coaching and taking care of yourself, it’s a 24/7 job. You have to sit there be able to cry with some I’ve only met a couple times because that makes us live.
Alex’s Relationship With His Daughter
You made me smile. Before we go into finish off, can you tell me how your relationship with your daughter is ten years down the track? How would you describe the relationship? Are you as close with her as you always were? Is it stronger than ever?
We’re super close. It’s not funny, but like I said, I was her dad and her mom. When she had her first menstrual cycle, I was there, doing all things. She shares some of this stuff. Some of the stuff, you don’t want to hear. She tells me everything. She tells me, “Dad, no. I’m really struggling with this boyfriend and I drove by his house to see if he was there.” I said, “Child, why are you doing that?”
We’ve all done stupid stuff like that. She’ll say, “Dad, this is what’s going on. I’m really sad. I’m this,” and it’s very honest. She’ll talk to me about intimacy and we’ll talk about intimacy. I said, “Girl, there’s a huge difference. You’ve got to start loving yourself again.” for your whole audience out there, the only reason I’m here on this planet now, it’s about being vulnerable, being true, and not being afraid to tell you, it’s because of her. If she wasn’t around, because I want everybody to know it’s normal to think this way. I’m not saying anything that’s going to send me to hell tomorrow, it’s how I feel. If she wasn’t around, I wouldn’t be here. Truth.
You wouldn’t want to turn up.
No.
After all the other stuff you’ve just told me about how you’ve impacted so many people’s lives by doing what you do, why?
Here’s the truth again. You have that dialogue and then you start realize, “Look at all these people. I’ve changed.” You end up not going to do it. You think about all these people you impact. Right now, my number one job is to make sure she’s okay. I have two number one jobs. My number one job is not to hurt Alex, and my number one job is to make sure she’s okay.
You could ask anybody, if they lose a child, they struggle to stay around. It’s a massive pain. It’s the biggest loss you’ll ever have. I do know that I will go through that. I do know I will pick myself out and realize that wherever she is, she’d want me to keep on being me. I want to clarify what I say. I think there are times when you think that you’re not going to do it but you feel that emptiness because that’s your purpose.
You have to redefine what your purpose is. When she went to college, my purpose got a little hiccup because all of a sudden, she was at college. I’m like, “Wait.” It’s that empty nester syndrome. I’m like, “What do I do?” Our relationship is great. She’ll call me up some days and be totally rude and I’ll say, “Girl, don’t go talking to me like that. That’s not respect. You can call me back when you’re calm.”
I talk to her very differently. I tell her how I feel. I want her to know what’s going on in my head. She’s 26. She’s got a degree in Psychology and a phd in Business Communication. She’s very smart kid. She got a heart of gold. I tell her how I feel because I don’t want it to be a surprise if I get sick someday or if I have cancer. I want her to know what’s going on in my heart. “Girl, I hurt. I miss Grandma. I miss certain things.”
That’s giving her an emotional IQ. I don’t think any parent, when their children are old enough, you should lie to them. I don’t think you should burden a kid when they’re fifteen, saying, “This how I feel,” but when they’re an adult, you share. “Look, this what’s going on man. Life is tough.” There’s nobody who’s going to tell you life is easy. It’s not. Here’s the beautiful thing. It’s really cool if you take your head out of your ass. I apologize to everybody with my colorful language.
Life is tough, and nobody will tell you otherwise. Learn how to take your head out of your ass. Share on XNo, I love the colorful language. I did an interview and my mom’s feedback was, “Great interview. Did you have to swear so much?”
It’s passion.
Answering Five Rapid-Fire Questions
That’s right. I’m going to finish off with my five quickfire rapid-fire questions here. I’d like to know who you would like to say sorry to, given the chance? This is a big one.
I think when you look at that, it’s where you are in your life. If I was to say sorry to anybody, it would be with Tara Young. We dated for six years and when she wanted some space or was feeling overwhelmed, I don’t think I respected what she was saying. I was not respecting myself. I was thinking all about Alex. I would apologize say, “I wish I would have been not so selfish and would have gone back to who I am which is a selfless person and should have been more unconditional instead of trying to push my way onto you.”
What are you proud of being or doing in your life?
My greatest thing is I raised my daughter since she was two weeks old and was her dad and her mom. The memories we have are unbelievable. Creating life is the greatest gift and I’m super proud of it.
When did you receive kindness while needing it most and expecting it least?
A mentor of mine passed away. His name was Don Enright. He always had this uncanny ability to know if I needed something. He sent me a text message and I kept it and it was so amazing. It was so true and that was years ago when I was going through like, “What am I doing? What’s my identity and why am I going in the lane?” he just had a way of saying it, “This guy is unconditional.”
So much in my second book, I talk about him and so much of my life is based on his teaching. It was totally unexpected because he just did it. That’s what I said earlier. People don’t expect things. If I sit there and say, “I saw what you did. Thank you.” Just say thank you. He did that. He was just dear in my heart. I miss him dearly.
What did your mother or father teach you that you frequently remind yourself of?
I’ll go with my dad first. My dad knew how to walk a very straight line and accomplish things. My dad was a problem solver, probably one of the best problem solvers on the planet and I always think back at that. My mom never bitched. She never complained. She was happy. She just always found happiness in stuff. Even though she was hurting towards the end of her life, she just was happy.
She was a giver. She gave unconditionally. She would listen. She was just a great listener and she’d hug. That’s what I miss. The greatest gift she just she was unconditional and she was happy. She lost so many people in her life but she kept her happiness about her. She kept on having that life is beautiful. She’d say, “I had a good run.” That’s what I learned from her.
Finally, I want to know what Alex Peykoff’s superpower is.
You’re watching it right now. My superpower is the ability to show emotion. It is a superpower for every man who’s reading through this. Your superpower is this emotion. You will meet more people and have more true relationships if you can just feel. I hardly know you guys and I think I’ve cried four times on this episode. That’s my superpower. I’m a grown-ass man, 60 years old, fit, all that crap but I can cry and feel. That’s a superpower. The last thing I want you guys to know, whoever’s telling you it’s a weakness or Achilles, they’re full of crap. It’s a goddamn superpower.
Alex, you’re a legend. Thank you.
I appreciate it.
That was really cool.
Thank you.
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About Alex Peykoff
Alex Peykoff is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, transformational coach, and speaker who guides elite entrepreneurs and high achievers from “on-paper success” to a life of true satisfaction. Through his book, “The Satisfaction Guarantee,” and his transformative programs, Alex helps individuals redefine success, embrace emotional resilience, and align their lives with their core values. Alex is a globally recognized expert in personal transformation and fulfillment. As the proud father of an amazing daughter and a key figure in his family’s business, Niagara Bottling (the largest privately-owned bottling company in the world), Alex has lived a life of undeniable success. However, he discovered that true fulfillment goes beyond material wealth and external achievements. After feeling “rich on paper, poor in life,” Alex embarked on a journey to redefine success and find genuine satisfaction. Today, he shares his insights and strategies through his coaching programs, speaking engagements, and best-selling book, helping others achieve the same transformation.
