Bill Alverson on Legal Litigation, Pageant Coaching, and Reinventing Your Life

Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonald’s franchise in his 50s.

How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear? In this series called “Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life “ we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.

As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Alverson.

Bill is an established litigator who expanded his legal basis to become one of the most successful pageant and now sorority rush coached. Bill’s life also took a dramatic shift when he separated and then became divorced from his wife with whom he had 3 children and now is married to Doug. The entire family has reintegrated to where all parties successfully get along.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

I was raised in a typical medium size town in the south — Dothan, AL. A skinny kid, like real skinny. Played the piano and sang and did school theatre. Honor roll guy — bit of a nerd, who liked to read. Voted Most Talented by my peers through school and made all — state choir. Very, very active in church. Contrasting my father who was not an active dad with me, who was on the state baseball championship team and my grandfather who was on the SEC champion Auburn baseball team and part of the St. Louis Cardinal’s farm league. I was viewed as a “disappoitment athletically” although in the 6th grade I was the city champion as a track sprinter.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

There will always be someone richer, someone poorer, someone more attractive, someone less attractive — you are no better than anyone else but nobody is better than you. Treat people as equals. To which I’ve added for my family — be the friend you want to have.

You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

1. Sixth sense of awareness — I read people. Read them well. This came from being the kid that went to 4 different elementary school and then one that was “goody too shoes” and extremely skinny. I learned to evaluate and look at others.
2. Verbal — I was skinny and fast and smart. I helped the bullies in school. I outran when needed. I learned survival speaking skills.
3. Faith — Still to this day I have faith. It’s a big part of handling disappointment and disaster and I’ve seen far too many aspects in my life where lemons have been turned in to lemonade.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?

I was a major insurance defense litigator. The type of lawyer in John Grisham books.

And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?

It naturally happened. I started coaching girls in pageants and they succeeded… this grew like a domino effect. When my law firm voted me out for being gay (although not disclosing that) — the pageant coaching helped me pay the bills. That business grew. I had a good friend who helped bump it out by having me at his store to do coaching seminars and sessions.

Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?

My plunge is a bit of a wading. My legal career changed and I still practice but a different type of practice. I went hard into coaching — pageant, rush, job interviews etc. as a source of income to survive.

What did you do to discover that you had a new skillset inside of you that you haven’t been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?

Pretty simple — results. I had quite a bit of success but then had to hone it into a skill set. Combining my life experiences — all of them — and using that perception and deductive logic allowed me to positively impact clothes.

How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.

Oh its gone well. 3 TV shows speak to the success of that. And still being called. My clients have become my priority and earnestly try to see each of them where they are and how we can grow.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

For my tv experience there is my friend Byron who was simply an acquaintance at the time. Byron told my story at a dinner in Syracuse NY to a gentleman who was also a freelance journalist who took an interest in my story… He got the NY Times interested, which led to 7 pages in the NY Times magazine. I’ve yet to see anyone else who has had 7 pages. THAT changed everything.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?

My latest tv project came from being discovered on Tik Tok as a pageant coach. Random — led to zoom interviews and boom we have a new tv show!

Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?

I don’t have any struggles with believing I CAN do things, but I tend to look at the negative — what’s next… what can we do… I suffer with living in the moment.

In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?

I didn’t do that. I seriously rely on myself. I really haven’t asked for support or help — I never do.. it’s difficult for me.

Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?

I got out of my comfort zone with my body. I post shirtless pics every now and then… I was very much taunted as a skinny kid and the world doesn’t stand up for skinny kids.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1 . Think bigger — at age 12 I wanted to be a lawyer and would say international law but I did not advocate for additional education

2 . Get over yourself and give grace. We sometimes hurt others — even unintentionally… that used to bother me greatly. I’m better there.

3 . Don’t judge a book by a cover — judge it by direct questions. I used to evaluate a lot on first impressions and appearance.. And be a smart ass about it.. It help me utilize first impressions but you can miss out on great people for that.

4 . Don’t try to fix people who don’t want you to

5 . Save more money. You don’t have to have everything.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

True value of a day of kindness… One on one… Help the person that doesn’t ask or know how but just be there. I’ve seen that change people.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

Wes Moore the Governor of Maryland — his book impacted me greatly. His insight and perspective from his life. Hugh Jackman — just his energy and his development story and I’d like to see if he is as engaging off camera as he appears.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I post regularly on instagram and facebook — Bill Alverson — showing many times living my life with my family — something I was told as a closeted bi-sexual could not happen.

Thank you so much for these insights. This was very inspirational!