Jonathan Green: Build your business with intent with special guest Kevin Palmieri on today's episode of the ServeNoMaster podcast. 

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Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now. Then you've come to the right place. 

Welcome to ServeNoMaster podcast where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the south Pacific by bestselling author, Jonathan Green. Now here's your host. 

Jonathan Green: Hello everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of ServeNoMaster podcast. We have an amazing guest today. Kevin, who's gonna talk to us a lot about kind of internal workings of becoming an onshore tonne subject. That's really important to me because there's a lot of challenges we face that we think we're the only ones. I'm the only one who has the posture syndrome. I'm the only one who's dealing with confidence. I'm the only one who struggles with habits. And in fact, these are pretty universal problems and often the first step is just finding out, oh, other people have the same issue as me. So I'm so excited. Thank you so much for being here today, Kevin. 

Kevin Palmieri: Absolutely. I love it. I love the little pre-frame. I'm excited to, uh, to chat and see where we go today, my friend.

Jonathan Green: So I'd love to learn a little bit about your backstory, about where your journey began and kind of that moment where you said, oh, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. I'm gonna be in the pilot seat. What was that moment like for you? 

Kevin Palmieri: Yeah, it, it was interesting because for most of my life, Jonathan, I jumped from job to job. I didn't go to college. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And I ended up getting a job in the construction industry. And if you fast forward, 3 4, 5 years I ended up making a hundred thousand dollars doing this job as a foreman and for a 26 year old or 25 year old kid with no college degree, all things considered that's pretty successful.

But I remember having that moment where I opened my final pace stub of the year, I saw six figures and nothing inside of me changed. And I realized I found success, but I didn't feel very successful. Uh, after that things got really interesting because my job required me to be on the road. So I spent 10 months out of the year on the road, living in hotels, traveling every single week. I did it because of the money. And when I realized that the money isn't actually what I was after, I really started to loathe this job and. The year after I made the money that, that big six figure paycheck, I actually started a podcast. I started a podcast called the HyperConscious podcast because for most of my life, I had lived unconsciously. The opposite of unconscious was hyper conscious and that's how I wanted to live. So I started this podcast. I was being pulled between the podcast and my work, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And I was miserable and I was out of alignment and I couldn't hold down a relationship because I was never home and my mental health was suffering, my physical health was suffer, uh, suffering. And what really happened for me, Jonathan, is I woke up on a cold winter morning in a hotel room, six hours from where I lived, my alarm clock went off at 5:15. I sat up, I slid to the edge of the bed. I was Laing up my work boots and the best way to explain it is there was 10 televisions on, in my head at the same time and every single one was on a different station. One was saying, you're stuck at this job forever. You're never gonna make a hundred thousand dollars anywhere else. If you do leave, what will your friends think if you do leave, what will your family think? And do you really think you can do this podcast? Then it's probably not gonna happen. And in that moment, I felt like if I was to take my life, I would take my problems with me. I'm blessed because I have a very good, great, I, I wouldn't even say good, a great group, a group of humans around me. I sent a message to my, my friend and now business partner. And he said, I think you need to change your environment.

So that was really the moment for me, Jonathan, where I realized I found success. I didn't feel very successful and I needed to make some sort of shift. So I left my job and went full time into what we're doing today. And that's when I became an entrepreneur. 

Jonathan Green: So you brought up a whole bunch of stuff I wanna ask about, but then you brought up something very serious at the end, which I can't skip over. And there is this thing where, especially as men, I know some women feel it too, that we're like driven to push a career so far. Like I remember when my dad had his first heart attack at his desk. Right? And it's like to do the career that oftentimes we sacrifice this other part. And I think it's part of American culture, right. That we have to sacrifice. We have to suffer to have the good thing, and we get to these really bad places of mental anguish and it's very difficult to talk about. So I just wanna say it's very brave to bring it up because a lot of people won't and I think it's a big issue. I also think it's a huge issue for entrepreneurs. Which is that the first day you start working and you're by yourself. So you suddenly lose the human contact. And that could be really challenging. It's something I deal with a lot, cause I live remotely. I live on a small island in the middle of nowhere, which is awesome, except for nobody understands what I do for a job. And I can't talk to my wife and kids about it. My kids four years old, he's like, he doesn't understand what daddy does. He goes, oh daddy touches a computer. Money comes out of it. I was like, wish boy do I wish that was true. So that's a really good thing to bring up. I think it's important to realize that. Wow there's the business side. There's a lot of mental challenges that go into starting this type of career and just to feeling the need to perform. 

Kevin Palmieri: Hmm. Yeah. It's I, I, I say this all the time. People say, what have you learned the most about? I've learned the most about myself. Yeah. I've learned about sales and marketing and the economy and speaking and podcasting. But the thing I've learned the most about is Kevin as a human being Kevin's insecurities, Kevin's fears, Kevin's weaknesses, Kevin's strength. So I think if you really want to be a successful well rounded entrepreneur, you have to learn more about yourself than anything else and honestly transparently that can be a very difficult thing because when you're looking in difficult mirrors, you haven't looked in before you're gonna see stuff you might not necessarily like, and that can be painful.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. And it can be, it can be a surprise, right. Where it taught these specific ways. And you talked about kind of going through life passively. And what I noticed when I was 18 is my friends fail into two categories. You're going to college college, isn't on the table. And what was very interesting to me. One of my friends cried a high school working in a slaughter house. I was like, that is a tough job to me. That's one of the toughest jobs he's like, yeah, I kill a couple thousand pigs a day. I was like, whoa, that's a really tough job, long hours, but it's the union card, the whole thing working. And, and he immediately had to switch from childhood to adulthood.

There was no in between period, which college is a part of, but it's, we, most people, it's not an active decision, right? They're either going to college or not going to college, usually it's cause their parents, um, either tell them they either come from the not college parents or they come from the college parents or they're the group of people who they're gonna be the first people to go to college and their parents are really pushing them and we make that decision passively. So many people, go to college or make this big first life decision. And they get into hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt often. And they're not even sure why they went and that's why they end up with really weird majors that don't translate to an actual career. So I think that's really interesting to talk about how we go through life passively. And we end up in a situation where, how did I get here? And we feel like we didn't make any decisions. 

Kevin Palmieri: Yeah. See your point. I, I was very much in the, the second group where it didn't even seem like an option for me. Nobody in my family had gone to college. I didn't really have anybody to walk me through the steps.

I didn't know how I was gonna get financial aid. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. So very much to your, to your point. And. I like to say this too, because we hear so many success stories of people that didn't go to college and then end up being successful or people who went to college and end up being very successful.

There were many times in my life, Jonathan, where I was like, oh my goodness, that I make a, a mistake by not going to college. Now, yes, it all worked out. But there was definitely some, some dark nights of the soul where I was thinking, I think I may have made a giant mistake. I'm blessed. I didn't go at this point, but it didn't always seem now that.

Jonathan Green: I think that that's really powerful because I think the most important part is that for it to be an active decision, you know, where it's like, you go, oh, this is something I wanted. This is something I don't want. Or it comes part of like practice. Cause Mo I feel like most people college are not college or their first jobs is not really their own decision. I know my first jobs, I was like, cool. Hire me. I remember when I went to college, I remember they, they make this promise. They go, Hey, everyone who graduates from here gets a job. They skip over the part that's like, but it might be a crappy one. And I remember when I graduate, I was like, guys, I'm ready. You promise when I graduate, I'm gonna get a sweet job. I went into the jobs office at the University and I was like, did all of you guys graduate from here? That's my first thought I go uhoh, that's like a bad sign. I was like, are you all the ones who couldn't survive out in the world? And they go, um, here's a website it's called monster.com. They got a bunch of job listings, like good luck, man. You're gonna find a job out there. And I was like, wait, what? That was it. That was the entire, I was like, well, that was. Great investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars right. And that's, you know, now law schools are getting in trouble, cause it turns out, they'll say that all the law school students got jobs, even if it's at Starbucks or something, they still count it cause they're cooking the books. But that's the thing is that there's so much, I guess it's like false information out there smoke and mirrors that we have to dig through a little bit to make that active decision. If it's the right decision for you and same thing with choosing your career, we.

Most people bounce into their career. Just like you kind of did, like, it was the first opportunity that popped up. You know, my first job was at toys, Russ. Why did it work there? When I walked in, I turned an application. Someone had just quit. Like that was it. They're like, oh, someone just quit. You're the perfect candidate. Like that was what qualification do you have? You're in the building. And it becomes. Your first job, like you're, you're alive and put on this vest, here you go. And I was like, well, how does this machine work? Like, you'll figure it out. And it was Christmas. And that was like, I thought of working a toy store. Be magical. It's not people at Christmas are not happy. They're very mad cuz they don't wanna wait in line at toys of us, but we get, we end up on these careers and we're like, how did I get here? I don't know because it's so unplanned. So it's very interesting. I'd love to know more about this idea of conscious decision making and how someone can flip the switch or how you went through that process of growing? I want every decision to be intentional.

Kevin Palmieri: Mm. For me, it was very much asking myself questions under my decision. So I think what a lot of us do is we make a decision based on purely emotion. And that's what I did for most of my life. And most of my life, it was what emotion do I feel? That's the decision I'm gonna make. What really started to help me is I started to ask myself why? And it was, it was from a very insecure place when it started. It was one of the first questions I ever asked myself. Why am I so insecure, when I go to the bar? That was one of the first questions I dug into. And this is what I got to I'm five foot four, and I am not valuable in a bar setting.

Uh, that's not where I do my quote unquote, best work. Right. I'm a, a person who requires one-on-one conversation because I like having deep conversations with deep humans. That little breakthrough alone made me realize, okay, well, I've avoided the bar for most of my life. If I ever go, I. I have to be very, very drunk. What else does that mean? Where else is that insecurity hurting me in my life? Is it hurting me in relationships? Is it hurting me in friendships? You know, is it hurting me in the jobs I'm applying for? So yeah, that one question of why is this actually happening? That was the way that it started for me. And that's kind of how I live my life now. Why am I making this decision? Is it based on right now? Is it based on the future? Is it based on the past? I think, you can really only understand your decisions at the levels, you understand yourself. And so many of us are looking at ourselves today and who we wanna be in the future, but we don't realize that the person we are today is because of the person we used to be and what happened to us in the past. So I think that's where you got a go first. 

Jonathan Green: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And you talk, we talked a little bit about in the pre-interview about limiting beliefs, which is where we say, oh, I'm not this, or I'm not that like, I could never be. I could never start my own business. I'm not smart enough. I'll never be the attractive guy, whatever it is. We have this set of rules that sometimes they come from other people, like people picking on us in high school, our parents saying, oh, we're not the kind of fan where kids who go to college or the kind of family where you, everyone goes to college. It's not a choice. Right. You have that and so sometimes it's put upon us. And another example of this is like all rich people are evil or money is the root of all evil. And you have this thought and it goes, well, if I become successful, then I'm evil. And I've seen people who say things like that. And so they actively reject success because they don't wanna turn evil now.

That becomes so powerful. So how can we start to identify the beliefs we have that are holding us back? Like for example, I had a strong living belief. I go, my dad superstar almost. He was so successful in life. In all these categories always lived in the shadow. He was an almost wet professional baseball, almost became a lawyer for rockstar bands was like a rockstar lawyer for his whole life. All these really great successes. And I was, and really amazing with women, all that stuff before you met my mom. And I was like, I guess it's. I thought there's my belief. It skips a generation. I was like, maybe my kids will be cool, but I'll never be cool. And as long as I held that belief that it always held me back, I was like, oh, I'll it's, I believe that I would never have healthy and happy relationships. Now, of course, I'm married to someone who's way too good looking for me, have four kids. My dream life. I never thought my life would be this good. I talked to my landlord recently. He goes, what do you think of the house? Like I said, I don't, I never thought I'd live in a house this place, like straight up I'm living beyond what I think I deserve. Like all the amazing things happen to me, but it starts with breaking through that barrier going, wait a minute, just cause someone's always told you this. I had that moment where I realized I read this book and goes, it's possible to get better at things it's possible to get better at making friends. That's for me, that was a revelation. I had no friends until I was 17. And I, I said, wait a minute, what if you can get good at this? And I studied someone who was really nice. I said, this guy's so popular and nice. And I, basically, my personality is a photocopy of his, I just studied everything he did. I was like, wow, this is the kind of person I wanna be. And I became popular. I was like, wait a minute. And I think that's a really important lesson is that just finding out that it's possible to make things better? Cause so many of us, we think we can't improve our lives. We can't change our lives, whether it's an internal or external. Whether it's, I can't lose the weight. I can't go to the gym. I can't start my own business. So how do you kind of approach this of the metaphor of the living belief? Is it breaking through, is it conquering? Is it understanding everyone uses these easier ways of talking about it? Like, what's your thought on this?

Kevin Palmieri: To your point, I, I love the fact that you said when you learned it was an option, it became an option for you. I think that's the first step. There's a book by Carol Dweck called mindset, and it's all about having growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, a fixed mindset is you thinking that everything is the way it is and cannot be any different. A growth mindset is you understanding that everything is shapeable and human beings are unreasonably malleable, especially our brains. You can do so much with who you are as a human being. So I think it's the first step is actually understanding why you're thinking the way you're thinking. And I do believe it comes from a place of reflecting, Jonathan, you just said, you just gave the exact reason on why you felt the way you did, because you were comparing yourself to your dad and you assumed your belief was it has to skip a generation. So that all came from something in your past. Something happened to you sometime in your past, where that got downloaded into you. And you said, well, this is the way it is now. One thing I would say is for most people, I think it requires a level of action. And this is why the only real way to get rid of your limiting beliefs is to prove them wrong. And I think it's through small actions. I had a, somebody came to me and they said, I wanna be a speaker and I wanna be a podcaster. And I said, awesome. We have to get you taking action on that. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how outside of your comfort zone, is it for you to do a speech on Facebook right now? And she said 12 out of 10. I can do it. Cool. On a scale of one to 10, how outside of your comfort zone, is it for you to record a video on your cell phone and show nobody? And she said that's like a zero. Okay. On a scale of one to 10, how outside of your comfort zone is sending me a video and nobody else and I won't show anybody else. And she said, it's probably like a five. And I said, cool. That's where we started and she sent me a video. It was seven minutes long. She crushed it and now she feels more confident and that's less of a limiting belief. I believe action builds confidence and it also builds humility. So you have to figure what is the, the smallest available action that I can take that will help me knock down this limiting belief. I think it's good to understand. It's good to try to adjust your identity, but I don't know if you can really adjust your identity without new actions. So I would choose something small that might seem insignificant, but you never know how big of an impact that can have in the, in the long.

Jonathan Green: That's very interesting to me cause um, one of the lessons I learned early on when I was trying to improve in different areas is there's two ways you can say, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna try a bunch of things and you can say I failed, right? I didn't get the goal. And I always think of the guy walks up to girl in the bar, ask for a number. She says, no, goes back, head down, everyone, laughing at it and what you're training yourself. And this is the same thing you apply for a job. You don't get the job, walk out, head down and you train yourself to attach a negative emotion to trying. And so then you stop trying. So one of my most transformational moments, the reason I met my wife is because of this, um, went to a bar one night and I said, I'm gonna talk to people. And there was, I was surrounded by other people in college, all these beautiful, beautiful women. I didn't talk to anyone. I started crying, started crying in public. Okay. Not cool. Turns out when you're crying in a bar, no one wants to talk to you. I went home and I was like, that was the best night in my life because I did something I tried, I tried something hard. And from that night forward, my life every night, it got a little bit better. Got made more friends learned how to talk to men and women learned how to make these amazing friendships started meeting celebrities, all these amazing things happened, but it started with switching from I failed till I tried. And if we can catch a positive emotion to effort and it starts with small steps, that's why I think your lesson was really cool is that you do something that's a little bit hard, but still doable. And then you go, I tried, that's good. It's not about I shot the video, but I didn't shared to anyone. You could focus on the, you can always focus on the why didn't get, you know, the glass half empty. And that's really, I think that's where a lot of us get limited is we're trained to say. Yeah, but I only got second place. Right? Like, it's like, uh, you beat a thousand people. Yeah. But one beat me and you always were always living that way. And I think that's one of the challenges is that there's always someone a little bit better. And so you can always push yourself down. So that's really cool.

Kevin Palmieri: I, I agree. I think that's a great, I think that's a great point that I actually say that to people. I don't care about the outcome. I care about the effort and that's, that's what I'm trying to help them. Kind of adopt is if you go up to somebody and you get rejected, I don't care about the result. I want you to care more about the fact that you did something you never would've done. That's all that's happening. You're getting a result. You've never gotten because you're trying an effort that you've never tried and it may be, it happens to be the negative result or the negative outcome. But yeah, I, I second that very much. I think you have to focus on the effort and the progress for less than the outcome, especially early on so.

Jonathan Green: The most common message I get. For any type of person who's following me in my audience with a podcast, whether they wanna be an author or build a business, any kind is imposter syndrome. It's why would anyone listen to me? Because X and the best example I have of this, I had a follower who goes, Hey, I'm thinking about writing a book, but why would anyone be interested in me? He goes, I was a spy for the CIA for 30 years. Then I was undercover in the Russian embassy. And my wife was a ballerina who was undercover. And we went around Russia and I was like what do you think? Interesting means it was literally the most interesting thing anyone's ever said to me. And there's this thing, the more someone is hesitant when they go, I don't think when they say to me, I don't think it would be interested in the more humility they have, the more crazy interesting their story is. Another person said, Hey, I don't know if this is interesting, but I was driving a big rig truck and it flipped over and caught on fire and was heading towards the rail. And I thought I was gonna go off a bridge. Is that interesting? And I was like, have you seen a Jason born movie? It's fascinating to me that the more people think they're boring, the more crazy interesting their story is. So why is, and everyone has it. I think it's the most common disease. Everyone has imposter syndrome and everyone thinks they're the only one who hasn't. So how do people identify it and how can people start to?

Kevin Palmieri: Yeah, I think, I think it's been vilified as something that's bad when in reality. I believe it's accurate to have imposter syndrome at the beginning of a journey, because I think that's you, as long as you're not over hum, humility like over humbling yourself, but you don't know what you're doing yet. And that's okay.

I think that's an empowering place to be. And I think you have to make friends with the fact that I am a beginner here and I have emotions attached to being a beginner when it comes to the story. It's interesting because I wonder at times, if that is just a, a limiting belief that has been put into place, because that person doesn't wanna be seen or found out that's something I've seen often is people realize when they tell their story, they're gonna have to tell more and more and more of their story. And if they haven't become aware, comfortable and conscious of their past. I think that's very, very challenging. You never know what question somebody's gonna ask you based on your story. You never know what people are gonna believe, what people aren't gonna believe. So I believe it's probably judge . People are probably afraid to be judged for their stories because at the end of the day, other than our names, our stories are one of the most personal things we have.

Jonathan Green: It's very interesting. So I wrote my books or master in 2016, it was the first book I'd written under my own name. I'd done a lot of ghost written books, projects for other people for about six years and done really well doing that. And when I was publishing that, that's the fear I have. There's this fear. This is the second really common question is what happens if I get a negative review? And it's like, um, you're gonna, like, I'll tell you that right out the gate you're gonna, and it's gonna be mean. So, but there like if you look, Harry Potter has like 10,000 really mean reviews, like one star super. And that's like the most popular book.

Every book, every movie there's someone who hates it. And, but there's this fear of judgment, and this is something the phase we go through right. Of, um, like confidence building, where you go. And for me, it was an age thing. I wish I learned this when I was in high school. But you learned that other people's opinions don't matter that much. As I get older, I care less and less. If people don't like me, I'm at the phase now where I just assume everyone doesn't like me. And like, then anyone likes me. It's like a pleasant surprise, but you're so worried. And I had this revelation maybe when I was 27 or 20, I go, most people are extras in the movie and they don't get a speaking part unless I talk to them first. And when I had that revelation, I started to stop worrying so much and because, especially as you get to levels, like, I don't think of myself as a celebrity, but every once in a while I meet someone who does, who's like, oh, I've read 10 of your books and I've read, I'm a really big follower. I'm like, oh wow. I forget sometimes. And that's cool. That's very cool. It's like, makes me feel really good to know that someone's like really resonating with what I teach. But sometimes we cause my wife she's like you talking about like, you know, she sees me as me, but we, um, Sometimes we're so worried about that negative feedback because, and I'm not sure, but we all think it matters. Like why does a stranger's opinion matter so much to us when the people around us, we mean so much to them. 

Kevin Palmieri: Hmm. I think it's our, it's our biggest fear realized one of the best things that ever happened to me, Jonathan, I was coaching. I had been coaching for a while and somebody reached out to me in my DMs and it was like my biggest fear come true. He said, Hey, I don't mean this with any negativity, but like what actually qualifies you as being a coach. And I was like, oh my goodness gracious, what is happening here? And I thought about it. I sat there and I was like, what actually qualifies me to be? That's a great question. And I, I sent a, a very nice but thoughtful message back. And I said, honestly, that's a great question. Nobody's ever asked me that before. At this point, I've done 500 podcast interviews. I've interviewed some of the most successful humans on the planet. I've studied self-improvement every single day for the last three years. And I have done an, a measurable amount of work on myself and that's what qualifies me to be a coach is I'm helping people get to where I am and the person responded and said, oh, cool. Like, good to know. I thank you for the, the thoughtful response. And I think what that did was it actually helped me prove to myself that I was capable and worthy of being a coach.

So it's almost like in a weird way. You don't build the skillset. Let's let's use this analogy, your skin doesn't thicken, unless you get some of that. And then as it thickens, it gets a little bit easier and a little bit easier, but I think we're all afraid of that. I think that's, again, I think that's one of those things that's completely normal. One thing that's helped me, especially with. Negative reviews that are like anomalies. Sometimes you can just tell people are having a bad day. So I try, and I'm not always this centered and able to do this, but I try to understand that oftentimes it's the way people are feeling about themselves more than it is me. And maybe I'm a mirror and I triggered something in them. That's helped me understand it. And then I think tapping into understanding. Where do you get yourself worth from if you require other people's. Okay. And other people's, um, positive judgment on you to get yourself worth, that's gonna be a, a cycle that you're gonna have to break as well.

Jonathan Green: Yeah, it's really challenging because I have some of these reviews that I keep that are like the really positive ones. Like someone email me once Jonathan, your book saved my marriage cause I didn't understand my husband's business. I was gonna leave him. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. It's like one of my favorite ones and you don't get the good ones unless you get the bad ones. Right? Like you have to be put yourself out there and it is. There's this thing like that, we don't realize what we're capable of until we go through it. So it's like, there's people that have been punched in the face and people that haven't. And I had this remain when I was in my twenties, he was like, I never punched. He was so afraid of it. And I've been beat up by a Marine. Like that's a real beat up like a proper. I did not win that fight. I also didn't know I was in a fight until I was already flying down a flight of stairs, but it wasn't as bad as you think. like, it's it. Wasn't great. But we, until we experience something, um, we're, it's always worse in our heads until we actually do it.

And so that's why I think getting out there and trying things is so valuable, like. Everyone who says that to me, then they get their first bad review. They go, oh, I thought it'd feel worse. I'm like, exactly. It's not as bad. It's just part of the game. It's part of being in the arena. Every movie has a hater. Every TV show has someone who hates it starts to blog about how much they hate it. And there is this value to having these experiences that push us outside our comfort zone. We realized, oh, I can do things I didn't think I was capable of. And I think that's where a lot of confidence comes from a lot of it's experiential. It's like the first phase. I'm gonna try things that are hard and then you go, oh my gosh, I'm able to do this. I'm able survive this situation, overcome this challenge, endure things. And we discover. We're capable of so much more than we originally thought. And oftentimes our experience is so unique that other people don't understand it. So I'm going through phase right now. I was in, um, a tragedy that nobody understands when I try and describe it because it's the only thing you see on TV. I was in a level of sign five typhoon. My entire house was destroyed while I was in the house. The house flooded thought, we're all gonna die. Then my family all starved, then we all got Dary. I mean, all four kids are in the emergency room. When we get to the hospital, it takes five days to get enough money to get a boat today, us to the hospital, the doctor goes, oh, you would've been dead in about 12 day hours and the rest of your kids in about four days. So my entire family was about and nobody know, and you can't talk about it cause nobody knows. When I tell about the things we were ready to do to survive. People don't understand it. And, but what my family realized after was I was like, we could do anything if we can survive that we're capable of anything and it's, but there's, and everyone has something different. Everyone has the things they've overcome, or the challenges they've faced that they think are their weakness, but it's like, no, the thing you did, the thing you overcame is what makes you strong and that's where you that's like a really challenging lesson. That's why, when people come, they go, I don't know if anyone to hear my story's like, no, your story, the bad thing you overcame is the most important thing. And that's not what defines you, but it's kind of what draws people in it's why, when you watch American idol, it's 12 underdogs. You're like, wow, all 12 of these people are like, all 12 of them are on, there's no favorite in this competition because we all want the underdog to win. And they've really kind of figured that out. And I think that's so important because we're often afraid to a bad story or a challenge because we think it defines us. Or we think people will think less of us. And I've found, even when I tell people like stuff that's really specific, they think, oh, that doesn't seem real. I'm like, okay. And it kind of is empowering. I'm like, oh, I could say anything. And they won't believe me because it's beyond their, and I kind of, this is like took me eight months to get to this point. Like a lot of like, really challenging moment and same thing. I've always been like, I don't know about therapy, but when you have like super tier one PHST you gotta do it. And that was another challenge because men don't talk about therapy. And so I went through a lot of this stuff and kind of, I think it's important that I talk about it so my audience, he goes, oh, if John could do therapy, maybe I could do it too. Cause sometimes you done need it. And I was like, I don't know if this is a real disease. He was like, oh no, you've got like tier one. He's like, you've got the super PTSD. He's like, it's called, you know, natural disaster PTSD. It's a real thing. I was like, oh, I thought only soldiers get it. So it was like, All of these things that like limit us and like, oh, I can. Can do that. I gotta be this, the rock. I gotta be the dad, but we go through these phases where you realize, oh my gosh, if I can survive that, like I thought I was gonna die. So like, I'm not afraid of anything anymore.

It's like, you just lose everything. You're like, I'm already in overtime. Like all of this, this is bonus time for me right now. And it becomes empowering. As soon as you go, it's okay to talk about it. People will either engage with it or not. There's always gonna be someone who doesn't like your story no matter what you do. But when you think about. When I think about is what if one person who's in a situation like you were here's my story and goes, oh, you know what? I'm gonna get help. Cause I had a friend who didn't. I had a friend that's a big mom in my life where at a party next day he was gone and I wish he had told me, cuz I would've done anything.

To have 'em still round. And I think that's kind of why it's important for people who are maybe a little bit famous. Like I am like, it's a little bit famous, but if one person, and that's why it's worth the sacrifice, like if a hundred people hate on me and stop listening, but one person like makes a good decision, then it's worth doing and that's why I think exactly like I'm outside my comfort zone right now. I don't like talking about this, but I have to, because what if that one person is listening and this is the one episode they listen too. 

Kevin Palmieri: Well, it's, it's interesting too, because it's like, the more you talk about it, the more comfortable you get, you know, I've been telling my story for five years now. And at the beginning it was like, oh, are people gonna judge me? And they're gonna think I'm weak. And now it's very much the opposite of, well, look, I mean, I've come so far and so much has been built based on that pain. And I'm so grateful. I do talk about it cause I know I've helped people. And then even to your point, Jonathan, I think getting just to the, the telling your story and maybe people not liking it. There's two options. Either you try to please everybody, or you just be yourself and understand that some people will love you for it. And some people will hate you for it. And that's really, all you can do is be yourself. You don't wanna have to play a part. You wanna be yourself. One of my favorite quotes is if you want to attract your people, you have to be yourself and whatever that means to you, whatever that version of you is 

Jonathan Green: What's really interesting is once you start telling your story, that's the thing that attracts the most people. They go, oh, when you told that part or that part of your history, that's when I knew I wanted to connect to you. I'm like what the part I at least wanted to talk about. And it's very powerful. That's why, when I work with a, a writing client, I say first chapter, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you that you're want to put in a book because that's when people like you, people wanna see that, you know, how they feel. That's like the most important thing, cause that's why we look for someone who's been where we've been or has the life we want or has been through a challenge we've been through because they wanna go, this person knows how I feel. And it's like Oprah did it kind of weird where she's like, we speak your name, but that's the idea is that you want to be heard and you wanna feel like this person, whoever you're looking up to, or whoever following getting rice from understands your experience and they know. You and that gives you like a feeling of significance. And I think that's, what's really powerful. So that's a really, you know, sharing your story. That's a, that's a tough thing to talk about and it inspired me. I'm like, well, I gotta talk about it too, because you gotta, you know, you gotta, like, if for people seek rapport, right. Where we wanna be in alignment with somebody go, oh, you've had a challenge. I've had the same challenge. And suddenly it's like amazing how the thing did is the last thing we wanna talk about becomes the thing that really helps the most people. And that's why, like, it's so interesting when people say, oh, I don't know if I should tell this story about what happened to me or my challenge that I ever came. Like, no, that's gonna help people. Just the fact that you're talking about it, that's what people are gonna email you about a lot. And it will become, it's not about you. And once you tell your story, it's about, oh, it also, it allows them to tell theirs, even if they're only telling it back to you, like a lot of people tell me stories that are very similar to mine. Why because they aren't ready to tell the whole world and that's okay.

Kevin Palmieri: And it be, it can become your mission too. I, I believe that your, your purpose comes from your deepest pain. One of our mentors, Evan Carmichael said that the more you talk about it, the more you might realize, you know, what, how many people are dealing with this. Wow. I didn't realize there was as many people dealing with this and that might be a whole, a whole thing you can lean into. And then to your point about the storytelling. You hear people say this all the time, that really resonates with me. What does that mean? What does resonate mean? It means to be on the same wavelength. It's a be on the same frequency, that's what resonate means. And in order for that to happen, you have to tell your truth and somebody will say, oh, I've experienced that too. Now we're on the same wave length.

Jonathan Green: Yeah, I think it's often surprising to discover how many people have been through whatever you've been through, whatever you're going through, whatever your challenge is like, whether it's getting kicked out of college, your parents kicking you out of the house or getting pregnant in high school. It happens to a lot of people. And that's kind of the cool thing about the internet and the great equalizer is that now you have access to such a large audience. You can find a thousand people that have been through what you've been through and are passionate about what you're passionate about and that's enough to build a business.

So I just wanna say, thank you so much for being really open. Those are really cool episode. I never know what's gonna happen. You know, I thought we were gonna talk a whole bunch of different stuff, but there are a really cool episode. So where can people connect with you more Kevin, where can they learn about you and where can they kind of see what you're doing and all the amazing things you're helping people with?

Kevin Palmieri: Yeah. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And it, it was wonderful. I'm very grateful for the time. Uh, the best place for, for me is our podcast. Next level university, we do seven episodes a week and we're always talking about self-improvement. So that is the best place to learn more because we're there every single day in your pocket. And then the best place on insta, uh, on social media is Instagram. So my handle is at never quit kid. If you have any questions, you. Send me a message. You wanna share anything I'm more than happy to be in ear to listen. 

Jonathan Green: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Guys. Make sure to click. You're watching the video. It's right below the video. If you're listening to audio, it's in the show notes and thank you so much for being here, Kevin. That was amazing. 

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