Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig succeedwithpaul.com. NS
Answer
succeedwithpaul.com. 5 NS ns2.succeedwithpaul.com.
succeedwithpaul.com. 5 NS ns1.succeedwithpaul.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.succeedwithpaul.com. 5 A 74.63.249.18
ns2.succeedwithpaul.com. 5 A 74.63.249.21
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0