In a rapid‑fire five‑minute interview on the Business Blast Podcast, Alan Smithson, CEO of Metaverse—a leading North American VR/AR consulting firm—shares concise advice and personal habits. He stresses the importance of loving your work, batches email for two hours each day, and relies on Google’s G Suite for all online tasks. For physical health he limits carbs to only those he truly enjoys, and for mental health he practices deep breathing and yoga. He identifies family and supportive relationships as the core of happiness. Smithson recounts his biggest regret—partnering with a bad investor—which ultimately forced him out of the DJ product space and propelled him into early VR leadership. He recommends the book Rich Dad Poor Dad for its tax‑structure insight for entrepreneurs. His favorite quote, “Dream big and follow your heart,” originates from his daughter’s Love Sandal brand, which he promotes alongside his own sites (allansmithson.com, metaverse.com, lovesandle.com). The episode ends with a brief Anchor advertisement.
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Alright everybody, welcome back to the Business Blast Podcast. For this episode we have Alan Smithson, CEO of Metaverse, North America's leading virtual and augmented reality consulting firm. So welcome Alan, and because we only have 5 minutes I'm gonna dive right in. And question number—
thanks very much, let's do this.
Question number 1 is what's your best piece of business advice?
My best piece of business advice is you're gonna be working a lot in whatever business you do. You You really have to love it. If you don't love it, don't do it.
And what's the number one thing you do to increase productivity?
I batch my emails. So I spend, basically I sit down for 2 hours and I hammer through my emails and then I don't touch my emails at all during the rest of the day.
And what's your favorite online business tool?
It's gotta be the G Suite, the Google suite of products. I use Google everything.
Same, same. And what's your number one tip for increasing your physical health?
I actually, I only eat delicious carbs. So I cut out pretty much all carbs, bread, potatoes, rice, all that crap. And now if I want a chocolate croissant, I eat a chocolate croissant. So I don't feel bad. So I cut out carbs that aren't super delicious.
Oh, I like that. What's your number one tip for increasing your mental health?
Deep breathing. So I do yoga and deep breathing exercises. I think, you know, when you get stressed a little bit, The best thing you could do is literally take a really deep breath, let it out slow, take another one, take 3 really deep breaths, and that kind of resets you, especially when you're, you know, you're stressed, your shoulders start tightening up. That seems to be the best thing for me.
And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
Family. I think the, the most important thing in, in my life is, is my family, my wife, my children, and surrounding yourself with great people. I've traveled all over the world and I've met with amazingly successful people all over the world. And the ones that are really, truly happy, they surround themselves with great people who support them and don't bring them down.
And what's your— if you have one, what's your biggest regret and why? Hmm.
My biggest regret, I guess, is I brought on the wrong investor at one point in my last company and ended up losing that company and losing everything, lost everything. It was a regret, but in retrospect, even though I regretted that decision and all of that, in retrospect, it actually ended up being the best thing that could have ever happened because I got kicked out of the DJ product world and I got forced into the virtual reality space. I got in really early and became a globally recognized leader in the space. I can't say that I look back, it doesn't look like a regret anymore, to be honest. I think anybody who has regrets, get over it.
I agree. What's the best business book you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from it?
The best business book I read, I think, was right at the very beginning. It was called Rich Dad Poor Dad. It basically taught me that as an employee, you earn your money, you pay your taxes, then you buy your whatever you need. As a business owner, you earn your money, you buy the things you want, and then you're taxed on what's left. The fundamental change in tax structure is a quintessential difference between becoming very wealthy and not.
And what's— last question is, what's your favorite quote and why?
Dream big and follow your heart, because it's the slogan for my daughter's shoe company. My daughter invented sandals that leave a heart-shaped tan line on your feet when she was 9 years old, called the Love Sandal. We came up with a slogan for Dream Big and Follow Your Heart. That is really what we want to do in everyday life all the time.
That was a while ago, so we still actually have a minute left. So record time, Alan. That was awesome. Amazing. I remember, I think you had mentioned that back when we met at Mastermind Talks, so that's been going on for a while, hasn't it?
It has. She started when she was 9 and now she's 13. We're going to be doing a big blitz now that the weather's warming up again and people are thinking about sandals. We're going to do a big blitz. So lovesandle.com. And, uh, yeah, the website's down right now, but we're getting it back up with e-commerce soon, and we'll do a big blitz in the spring.
Perfect. And this last question is, so lovesandle.com, and then where can people find you online?
Sure, uh, I'm actually, um, allansmithson.com. That site will be up in the next, uh, month. And then my current site for our business is metaverse.com, and it's M-E-T-A-V-E-R-S-E. Vrs.com. And we're about to launch the new site this week, so stay tuned. It's going to be pretty awesome.
Perfect timing. Well, thanks for coming on, Alan, and we'll talk to you soon.
That was amazing. Thanks.
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