Next Level University

#1660 - A Reason Some Of Us Are Afraid Of Success

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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0:00 | 30:26

In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss how feedback can be scary. It’s like being on a rollercoaster of emotions, especially when many people can see you. Being seen by more people can make a big difference, but it can also mean more people might say things that are hard to hear. They break down this tricky topic in a way that’s easy to understand. So, tune in, and let’s learn together! 

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For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇

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Show notes:
(2:21) The bigger you get, the more feedback you get
(5:55) Fulfillment only comes with growth and contribution
(8:11) Three types of feedback
(11:11) Feedback fuels growth
(13:39) Sail away from this
(15:13) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/ 
(16:23) The feeling of being unseen and the craving of being significant
(18:14) Steering negative comments and boundaries
(29:42) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Speaker 1

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode, episode number 1,659, the three things to track to level up your money. Today, for episode number 1,660, a reason some of us are afraid of success. So, as you know, we do a lot of episodes. We do an episode every day and now we're doing YouTube content.

Speaker 1

So YouTube has something called YouTube Shorts that are I think they're 60 second little videos and they are getting pushed by the algorithm on YouTube because it helps you grow and the more content people do, the more money YouTube's ultimately going to make from sponsors and advertisements and all that happy jazz. Why am I telling you that? Does any of that even matter? Yes and no. Yes, because since the algorithm is pushing those things, we get more views on those.

Speaker 1

And YouTube is drastically different than an audio only podcast, because if you listen to this and you only listen you know it's kind of hard to interact with us. The only way to interact is to send us a DM or email us or leave a review, but you can only leave one review and that's kind of it. So we've been getting some good traction with some of our youtube shorts, but that has also led to some not so nice comments. There is a user who thinks that most of your awards on your wall have been printed out from a printer and they are not real, and also some other potentially not so nice things, and I think, think, and I told Alan I said I'd like to do an episode on the heck was that my computer?

Speaker 1

Sounded like somebody removed a sword from a sheath.

Speaker 2

It does. And there it is again. Can you tell it to keep it down? So for context, I bought something that I refer to playfully as the Space Station, my keyboard. It's a super computer, I call it. It's a really expensive gaming computer and when you turn it on it has like crazy awesome sword noises. It's got blinky lights.

Speaker 1

It's got a rainbow keyboard. I saw it.

Speaker 2

And I updated it. I made the mistake of updating it right before this and we use our my zen book it's another laptop for recording because my other computer has windows 11 and windows 11 has an audio issue with audacity. So anyways, long story long to make that this relevant. That is why everyone heard sword sheath noises in the background.

Speaker 1

You have two laptops. I have one laptop from nine years ago and that is a Travis.

Speaker 2

You love your laptop, man, I do love my laptop.

Speaker 1

All right, let's get back into it. You know what I mean. Now that your laptop's done, making weird sounds, and I'm sure the blinking lights are done I told Alan. I said I think it would be a valuable episode to do, because the more eyes we get, yeah, the more we're able to impact people and the more we're able to help, but also the more we're able to get negative feedback that we don't really want, and I was thinking of this recently.

Speaker 1

Taylor Swift is probably one of the most famous people on the planet at this point. I mean, she's really crushed it the last few years but she's also one of the probably most hated people and I use hate not I don't mean people hate, hate, hate her but there's a lot of people who do not like her. During the football season they would. So she's dating a football player and she would go to a lot of the games and when they showed her on the screen, some people would cheer and a lot of people would boo, Because how dare you be at a football game and how dare people give you press? She's very famous, she's very successful, but the downside of that is there's a lot of people who know her that don't like her, and that's what I was saying to Alan.

Speaker 1

I said it's scary. It's a little bit scary for me to see how many views some of these shorts are getting, because I know they're getting exposed to eyes that have never seen us before, and if you've never listened to the podcast, you might not like us very much, and that's definitely a fear of mine, as I've shared Now. Hopefully the person who left those comments doesn't hear this and go off, but that's the risk of of doing an episode like this. At the end of the day, the let's put feedback into three buckets.

Speaker 2

First and foremost, Kevin and I have done podcast episodes in the past about feedback and I'll never forget him and I. I think we were in the studio at this point, but we watched a Brennan Burchard video where he talked about feedback and one of the reasons why people don't chase their goals and dreams is the fear of feedback, and he uses netflix as an example. Netflix has no feedback on you. It's not a mirror. So emilia and I are watching the show valhalla. It's like vikings. It's actually really good. The production value is amazing it's very violent.

Speaker 2

It actually isn't as violent as the other one with utrid again I don't know the name of it the last kingdom is the name of it, okay, it's. It's much more tasteful and, uh, the nature and it's awesome, the production values through the roof. So much, in fact, that I actually looked up some research about why they did it that way. Because it was emilia's show, quote unquote, like when we, when we would do me dates, she would watch that, and then I made the mistake of watching one with her and I love it, so I was like okay.

Speaker 1

You creep into the bedroom. Do you want to watch this? No, no, no, no, this isn't mine. And then you're sitting there. Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2

Oh, okay, then there, then there, and then it tons of adventure, there's tons of characters, there's character development. They're all on a hero's journey, a growth journey. They all are facing adversity, facing challenges, looking toward goals, trying to expand and grow. This and agree with very strongly is there's no feedback when you're watching Netflix. There's no feedback on you and your life. So you get to simulate mentally and emotionally achievement without actually doing anything. Netflix series, binging Netflix.

Speaker 2

You feel a little unfulfilled and we've all been there. You feel a little like, ah, I probably just wasted the day. The first couple episodes you're good. The first couple episodes is like this is R&R, this is great, I need this, this is great. But if you go too far, eventually you feel unfulfilled. And the reason why is because fulfillment, I think, only comes with growth and contribution and that can't happen when you're simulating.

Speaker 2

Now, what's my point of all that? The feedback that Kevin's talking about, I would put in one bucket. So there's three types of feedback. The first one is constructive, constructive feedback is hey, kev, you did this, this and this well at the speech, this not so well, and I think in the future, if you just say I'm a little less, I think it would be more powerful, or if you paused more for the audience to take it in, that kind of thing. And again, that's just hypothetical, I'm just making that up. But that's constructive feedback, meaning I'm not trying to hurt Kevin, I'm trying to actually help him, Okay.

Speaker 2

The second type of feedback is positive feedback. It's you did such an awesome job, holy crap, well done. And it kind of ends there. It's not super constructive because there's no like you did an awesome job because of XYZ Make sure you double down on that. But it's just positive. It's celebratory, celebratory feedback. When it's your birthday or when you're married for 10 years, or when you hit that wedding or you buy that new home, you get a lot of celebratory feedback.

Speaker 2

Now the third bucket is the one that sucks, and the third bucket is not constructive enough. Hateful feedback, negative, call it negative feedback. Okay, so you've got constructive feedback, which is really important for growth. So you want to welcome constructive feedback, positive feedback, which is just awesome. Sweet Congratulations on your birthday. Congratulations you had that new child, excuse me. Congratulations on that new promotion. Congratulations for burping on the microphone again.

Speaker 2

And then the third one is the one that we all struggle with. Now here's the problem. You cannot grow without feedback, you cannot learn without feedback, but you cannot put yourself out there and shine in the world, and I said this on book club on Saturday. I said you can't be a bright light shining in the sky, a bright star that guides people, without also being a light, a spotlight shining down on other people's insecurities. And when you have one belief that you share, people who have a different belief sometimes will lash out at you.

Speaker 2

And so if you want constructive feedback and positive feedback in the form of clients, financial freedom, listeners, social media followers, impact, growth, contribution, whatever you're also going to have to take this. So yeah, that person who thinks that my also going to have to take this. So yeah, that person who thinks that my uh awards that I spent years of my life investing hard work to to create, he thinks that I printed them out and signed them myself. It was actually george w bush who signed that one, was not me. I forged his signature jeff w bush yeah, jeff w bush.

Speaker 2

Number two, the third, uh, but at the end of the day, what I wanted to share on this episode is no matter what you're going to get the painful feedback and the negative feedback if you want the first two.

Speaker 1

Well, the growth that comes from feedback doesn't always have to be about you, and that's what I've tried to learn through stuff like this, where it doesn't necessarily mean anything about me. I mean, a lot of the comments were kind of geared towards you, unfortunately, so they weren't geared towards me. Maybe somebody will see this and it will be from there, but what I've tried to learn is it's not really a me thing. It's not necessarily my lesson to learn. It might be be. I'm guessing this person probably isn't super fulfilled. I don't if. If I've ever spent time on youtube or instagram or anywhere trying to find content and then leaving negative comments, I probably wasn't living my best life. For lack of better phrasing, excuse me, did you, did you ever do that?

Speaker 2

No, no See, that's the interesting thing. There are certain people who just don't do that. I've never done that either.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but.

Speaker 2

I don't know it's would you consider? And again, I don't want to. I'm big on buckets, so I shared this in book club. I also think our community struggles a lot with being disrespected. I certainly have. And uh Kev, maybe that guy also thinks your awards are fake.

Speaker 1

I mean I can send you. I can send you my resume. I just showed Alan I have a pretty, a pretty, uh, flawless resume If you want to take a look at it. And when I send this is a very big joke. I'm not serious.

Speaker 2

Yeah, no, it was awesome. I don't have any awards. Quick teaser two episodes from now. We're going to do an episode that talks about Kevin's resume. That I think is hilarious and awesome and has a really good lesson in it, but anyways. So where was I going with that? Hold on.

Speaker 1

You had a question. You're going to ask a question? I think yeah.

Speaker 2

You and I have never gone out of our way to like give hateful comments or negative reviews or negative comments, and I think that our community tends to struggle with bullies and feels disrespected, often Many of the people. I don't want to speak for everybody, but I certainly have felt that way and I always think to myself if you're going to be for something, you have to be against something else, and that is just a practical way of life. You can't be, you can't be for health and wellbeing and not against cancer. It's, it's very that way in in the world.

Speaker 2

And so for NLU, I've been thinking a lot about this who is our villain? What are we against? And I think being ignorant, not being aware, being arrogant, certain things like that, and we all have villains inside of us. But I think what it really comes down to more than anything, is bullies. Bullies are the one type of person that we just don't tolerate, are the one type of person that we just don't tolerate. I mean, we've only ever we have we've had a facebook, private facebook community for seven years now. One of the team members asked me yesterday uh, jerry ann showed up to jerry and she asked when nou was started. A hyper conscious podcast was started.

Speaker 1

I said march of 2020 no, I said march of 2017. Yeah, I think it was march, like the end of march, mid to end of march. I can get an exact date, I think okay, so march just ended.

Speaker 2

So seven years ago, yeah, the hyperconscious podcast was born. We had something called hyperconscious nation that evolved into next excuse me, next level nation. In the seven years of building a private community, there's only one type of person we've ever really kicked out of there, and it's people that were bullies. They were kind of toxic.

Speaker 1

Yeah, toxic is the best way to put it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I think that that's that's what I think NLU is against is bullies, and I would argue, whoever is commenting that stuff, whoever you are, I think you're a little bit of a bully, I would agree, and you don't even know me. So whatever, make your comments, do your thing and whatever, but I'm not going to invite you into our community or I'm going to try hard not to pay you much mind.

Speaker 1

It's easier said than For me. It's always the. I feel very unseen when people leave comments, Because you saw 30 seconds of a 20 minute episode, of one episode of seven, of one episode of seven of 1600 and something and it's yeah, it's just that that unseen. Somebody commented one time on my, on one of my posts this is a long time ago something along the lines of he's out here pretending he's saving the world or like actually helping people or something. And earlier that week I was on the phone with somebody who was debating committing suicide. Like, quite literally, I was actually trying to help someone save their life. This week when I got that comment and it just for me. It's always made me feel very unseen, Unseen where you're just taking one second of time and putting together some opinion. But I also, again, I also understand if you're not happy and you're struggling and you're not fulfilled. You're looking for a way to get significance and sometimes getting significance is tearing other people down.

Speaker 1

Instagram has become an interesting place where it's almost like the comment section has become a forum and there's like so many comments on a lot of these posts and a lot of them are negative. There's this person who has a. They have a coffee company and all of their posts are super positive, Super positive. This is the day in the life of a 27-year-old entrepreneur who gets to make coffee for a living and the comments are just super negative. Talk to me. This person is on a weight loss journey and a lot of people are making fun of that. It's just, yeah, it's almost evolved into like a like. This is kind of what you expect when you open up. The comments is just negativity. The person wears the negativity extremely well and they say nothing but positive stuff back, and it's awesome, but I can't imagine getting 15,000 comments of negativity every time I post something. My goodness, Imagine how, yeah, you could play it off, but what does that do to you behind the scenes? It's got to be more than they're letting on.

Speaker 2

Well, this is what it is right, they didn't start with 15,000. Yeah, I guess they started with one, and then two, and then four and then eight.

Speaker 1

I don't want that.

Speaker 2

And that's where we're headed. Quite frankly, kev, you know, the truth is you'll always get less than me. Well, that is that does.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that helps me sleep at night, but not really well, kevin and I talked about this behind the scenes before we did this episode and I said that I actually for me it's never been strangers that bother me a ton, and I think part of that is don't get me wrong, it I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't bother me, because that's a lie it bothers me just much less than people I care about. So I used to say I don't care what people think, which isn't true. I do care what people think, but I care. I used to say I don't care what people think, but I do care what people I care about think.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and so the people I care about most, when they are really negative and like digging into me, tearing me down, that's always really really gotten me and I've unfortunately gotten a lot of that. But like that guy, whoever it is with the certificate thing, that doesn't trigger me that much. What would trigger me tremendously is if I heard someone I really care about saying something not only wildly inaccurate but also just wildly disrespectful and unkind. And yeah, I don't know. It's interesting that and we playfully said this behind the scenes Kev gets more triggered by strangers than I do, but I get more triggered by past friends or being villainized by family or whatever. Being villainized by close people that were once very close to me that hurts a lot more than some random person on YouTube.

Speaker 1

It's understandable. That just was never really my experience. I wasn't really. The people around me were around me for a reason and none of them were negative. I had very few negative people around me I won't say I had none, but very few. And yeah, nobody really ever tore me down. Nobody ever really crapped on my dreams. That never really happened. So it's very new to me it's very new to me.

Speaker 2

It's very new to me Because it's almost like For the new listeners. I'm being playful. No, I know, I've always felt a little bit torn.

Speaker 1

I would never let that person into my life, but they get to be in my life in a way because of what we do, that I would never let you in my life. You're not my type of person and I would never seek you out to be in your life because you're most likely not my type of person and who knows, maybe you will be in the future.

Speaker 2

I don't know well there's the concept of emotional boundaries we were talking about. Yeah, I don't think. Sorry, my timer just went off my laptop, my timer I've got all kinds of stuff going on over here. I don't feel like I was ever good at the emotional boundaries stuff, boundaries in general. I don't think I was ever good at boundaries in general. So you probably were.

Speaker 2

You probably were like okay, that's who you are, I'm going to create some distance, and whereas I probably had the opposite response, which is fun when I feel unlovable or disliked or villainized, I'll like actually seek approval. It's like this weird thing. I don't do that nearly as much as I used to. I've fortunately learned. Learned that and for our listeners, if that's your tendency and you're on my end with this, when someone villainizes you, disrespects you, bullies you or is unkind to you, does that trigger your FON response Fight, flight, freeze and FON. So Kevin's is fight and then run away, mine is FON and seek approval and that was my natural tendency. I've since really broken that cycle, I think in my 30s. But some people I know clients included, some clients they will actually seek approval more when you don't approve of them. It's like this weird thing, whereas when people don't approve of you, you just are like okay, take care.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I don't really care. If you approve of me, I care more. If you don't like what I do, I guess I don't know. Yeah, or it's not cool to me.

Speaker 2

You know what you used to say. You used to say if you attack my character, I know you're wrong, it doesn't matter. Yeah, that's my belief. Yeah, where I feel like when my character gets attacked, that's what hurts the most, yeah. Whereas if you attack my work, my credentials, I know those are, I earned those, so that's not. You can't take that from me.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Whereas with you maybe you don't feel as competent in the work and career. So that makes sense. It's almost like you're certain about your character, I'm certain about my career and hopefully we can drive to five. And when someone attacks my character because I remember you asked me one time because someone was really really, really, really relentlessly not okay to me and they attacked my character and poisoned people against me it was this whole thing and Kev's like is there any part of you that is fearful that that might be true, like your integrity? When they poke your integrity and I had to sit with that and go, maybe on some deep level, I've allowed that in. But then I've worked through that of no, that's not, that's not true. I've worked on my character every day for nine years, since 26. Every single day, consciously, intentionally, as honest as I can be, as virtuous as I can be, whereas in the past maybe, maybe on some level, they poked something that I didn't believe in or something you know.

Speaker 1

Well, here's the next level nugget. This is my next level nugget. The wind gets stronger. The higher you go, the higher you go. If you're closer to the peak of the mountain, the wind, unfortunately, is stronger. It's the way it works. It gets colder and stronger as you get to the top, but it doesn't mean you don't want to get there. It doesn't mean you can't handle it. It doesn't mean the positive impact Again, all things considered, coming up on a million listens, we'll cross a million listens in the next month or two next few months.

Speaker 1

The amount of negative comments we've gotten has been pretty for me at least, has been pretty minuscule in comparison. So that's a really good perspective to have. We've had a lot of amazing people leave us a lot of amazing messages and we've coached a bunch of people and gotten a lot of kind words. Yeah, you're going to get some negative stuff, but I think the positive stuff definitely outweighs it, makes it way more worth it. And here's the thing if and I'm not 100% at this place yet, I'm trying to get there but if you can have empathy for someone who's going through it and you can get in their mind and say what you must be going through, something if you're seeking out positive content to leave negative comments on. I'm aspiring to get there where I can say look, whatever you do you.

Speaker 1

I know I've been in the struggle bus before. I know I've struggled to see people win. I know I've struggled to see people doing well. I know that I was jealous or envious. Maybe that's where this person is and, who knows, they might have a podcast in five years. It's all about positivity and self-improvement, who knows? So that's my next level nugget, Hoping to put empathy, empathy out there, trying to get to a place where that's the the response. But I do sometimes want to say, put, put up your dukes, put them up, put them up put up your dukes.

Speaker 2

Put up your dukes. Yeah, my next level, nugget. I've been thinking next level lesson a lot lately. Um, nugget, my next level lesson. Next level nugget. If you are out there and you are commenting negative things on kevin and i's stuff, uh, we're gonna approach a million listens quicker. Thank you kidding, uh, but seriously. But the the next level lesson really is what does that mean about you and what you're doing in the world? Or maybe the lack of what you're doing in the world, because fulfilled people don't hurt people and so very clearly, something's going on and you're not super fulfilled or pleased in your life and there's transformation on the other side of that, if you're willing to look at it.

Speaker 1

So I hope that you do I am going to print out what harvard is a good school? I've heard, I believe. So, yeah, I'll get myself a degree. Oh yeah, print it out four year how long?

Speaker 2

yeah, you can do masters or bachelors. Either way, I'll send you my canva printout masters, I'm gonna do masters, masters in. Uh, in what?

Speaker 1

fishing, uhishing, no, no Rocket science, I'd say probably.

Speaker 2

Nice.

Speaker 1

Nice, I don't have my glasses on, all right. If you are interested in getting around positive people and again, I know we made funnies in this episode, but it does suck, that was kind of the point of this episode is, the more positive impact you have, the more potential you have for negative feedback, unfortunately, but it doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I wouldn't do anything different based on that. If you're looking to get around positive people, if you're looking to surround yourself with people who are willing to look in the mirrors and are trying to be more fulfilled and trying to be happier and trying to improve their relationship with themselves and the people around them, next level group coaching starts on the 9th April, 9th, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. We would love to have you.

Speaker 1

The groups are always amazing, super humble people that are focused on growth. There will be no negative talk of you. You don't have to be a business owner. You don't have to be anything. You just have to show up and be yourself, authentically, you, even though sometimes that can be a challenge, but our goal will be to help you do that. If you enter code NLULISTENER, you will get 30% off and I think it ends up being $96.60 per month and you get four calls per month, so you get 12 calls. With this program it ends up being very, very, very, very affordable. You get six calls with myself and Alan and then six calls with our wonderful assistant coach Amy.

Speaker 2

Link will be in the show notes.

Speaker 1

Take it easy, I'm not done yet. Link will be in the show notes, if you're interested.

Speaker 2

I'm done now. Kevin's putting on his glasses now for those of you not on YouTube yes, so 12 sessions, 90 days Achieve your Dreams goals and no bullies allowed. By the way, there will be no bullies in the group, that's right. Okay, safe space. It comes out to less than $25 per session. So I just did the math 9660 times 3 for the three-month program divided by 12 sessions, $24.15 per session. You will never get coaching for less than that at this value. So we really hope you join us.

Speaker 2

And the other thing that I wanted to mention is for those of you in book club and or those who want to join book club, we are coming up on our last two sessions of the Courage to be Disliked, that book. A poll will be put in Next Level Nation this week yes, this week. Check that out, and we're also going to put a reminder in the WhatsApp chat as well. So if you're in Next Level Nation, if you're not in Next Level Nation, get in Next Level Nation. If you are in Next Level Nation, please vote for our next book. We have four of the books picked out. I don't have the fifth one yet, so I will let you know when we do.

Speaker 1

Tomorrow for episode number 1,661, can procrastination be good? I know a lot of us probably procrastinate things. We say I'll do it later, I don't feel like doing it now, and then eventually you get to the point where you say I have to do this now. If I don't do it I'm gonna get in trouble. Do it, I'm going to get in trouble. Can you turn that into something positive? We're going to talk about that. Reps are number 1,661. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow. Keep shining.

Speaker 2

Next level nation.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host