Next Level University

#1349 - What Part Of Your Childhood Is Still Running You?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros delve into the fascinating topic of how our childhood experiences shape our lives well into adulthood. They explore the profound impact that these early years have on our behavior, personality, and overall development, often continuing to influence us without our conscious awareness.

They emphasize the importance of understanding ourselves and the role our childhood plays in shaping our adult lives. By gaining insights into our past, we can uncover the hidden connections between our early experiences and our present behavior. This self-awareness allows us to identify and recognize the aspects of our childhood that we carry into our adult lives.
 

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Monthly Meetup #18: "How To Stick With Something For The Long Run" on June 1, 2023, 06:00 PM EST - https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sfuGopj0rH9BT_Utn_nq9Lk5-TtxeSpt4#/registration

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Show notes:
[1:37] From Kevin’s childhood
[5:03] Children are impressionable
[11:29] Tim credits Alan's guidance and the Next Level Business Solutions for the transformative impact on his business
[16:58] The correlation between your self-belief and who you surround yourself with
[23:20] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

And eventually you come up with the understanding that the oven was half the size when your great-great-great-great grandmother was cooking it, so they couldn't fit a whole turkey in there. And now you realize you've wasted half a turkey for however many generations just because people used to do it that way. It's a funny story, but I think that's what a lot of us are doing.

Speaker 2:

What number best represents your childhood We did zero, we did five and we did ten. We're reading a book called How Emotions Are Made. So it was from the frame of emotions. Did your family show all positive emotions? Did they show all drama, negative, toxic emotions of like suck it up, rub some dirt in it, or were they kind of neutral, kind of vanilla?

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Next Level University. I am your host, Kevin.

Speaker 2:

Paul Mary And I am your co-host, Alan.

Speaker 1:

Lazarus At Next Level University. we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for Dream Chasers.

Speaker 2:

We bring you seven episodes per week to help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from anywhere, for free.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Next Level University, next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we teach you how to level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode. It was episode number 1348. I am not the type of person that today, for episode number 1349, what part of your childhood is still running you? I'm going to change my story up. I had a story. I'm going to tell a different story For those of you who do not know.

Speaker 1:

My mother works third shift, so she works 11 at night till 7 o'clock in the morning, and I remember that when we would have people over so back when I was younger and I still lived at home maybe it would be a holiday, maybe it would be something, i don't know we'd have people over And my mom was never really around because she was sleeping, because if she worked the night before, she went to bed when she came home and she slept till 2, 3, 4 in the afternoon, got up and did it again For a long time. Alan, when I was younger, i did the same thing where, when people came over, i would just stay in my room. I wouldn't even go down and say hi, i would just hang out in my room and play video games and wait till everybody left. I did that for a long, long, long time. That was from my childhood. I kind of I'm going to say adopted that I do in a way, yeah, yeah, no, i've worked very hard on that, honestly, because that's not how Taren was raised. Taren's the opposite. Taren's very, very big on family and spending quality, quality time with family, where for me, that wasn't really. We stopped eating dinner together pretty early. Where I would go, i just watch TV upstairs diners, drivens and dives and I would eat my food. I'd watch King of Queens, whatever it is. My mom and grandmother would eat downstairs. That is something that I adopted from my mom. That's. That was a part of my childhood that was still running me.

Speaker 1:

The other story I was going to tell this might land better for me. That just came to me, somebody I know. I know this person fairly well. I know their family. I know this person well. I would classify this person as, going back to the previous episode, the type of person who just kind of always does the right thing, and when we were younger, there would be somebody that he would kind of kind of kind of know like three layers friend of a friend, of a friend of a friend, and he'd be the type of person that would go to the funeral. He'd go to the wake because it was just the right thing to do. It was just always that. Then, when you meet this person's family, it's very clear that they are the same type of people. They're just the type of people that just do the right thing. They're great humans. They're great friends to have, maybe to a detriment, where they take on more than they need to to make sure that they're good friends. That person is getting their life run by that as well. So that's kind of the goal of today's episode.

Speaker 1:

Where is your childhood still running you? Alan and I have our stuff right. We talk about it all the time on here as well as behind the scenes Clients. They all have their stuff. What part of your childhood is still running you to this day and have you identified it? Last thing, before I kick it to you, somebody asked me on a podcast what is, if you could, if you only had an hour and you could recommend what would change somebody's life the most. What would you tell them? And I told you this on a podcast recently. We talked about it, but I said therapy, here's why. This is the reason why I think therapy, counseling, whatever it is, is super valuable, because you're going to understand the things that you're doing. You didn't have a choice in a lot of them. A lot of them are just subconscious This is what I saw, this is what I do. Then I pass that on, right, so this is what I do and the next generation sees it. And then they do it rinse and repeat.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, that's this episode in a nutshell You are the most impressionable as a child, so impressionable yes so, so, so impressionable.

Speaker 2:

I This is a story that I'm gonna share that I Was hesitant to again, but I'm facing fears, so let's do it. You mean, i, we get sushi every weekend Not every weekend, but we love sushi Saturday. We get it enough to where we call it sushi Saturday. So that tells you anything. Love it ups like, love it, love it, love it. The place that we go to is nearby, it's probably ten minutes away, and we actually are friends with. We've actually gotten pretty close with the woman who works there on Saturday nights. Her name is Amelia, emilia's name is Emilia, but she spells hers with an A, and they met up. We have her Instagram and she's considering being on the evolved team. It's a whole thing very cool, but anyways. So it's next to a packy which is a liquor store And it's not in that right, there is a New England term.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, i think so. the packy, the package, okay so liquor store package store, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it's not that it's not in the nicest area. It's not a bad area per se, but it's not in the nicest area. But it's really good sushi, which places this Kyoto. That's not a bad spot. No, it's not, god your shelter.

Speaker 1:

Oh, definitely No no, no, no, it's not a bad spot, it's not a bad spot, but it's not super nice either man, i haven't been a minute. Yeah, i've been in years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's not super nice It's, it's? hey, it's going to hill around here a little bit. Kevin, honestly man, okay, real talk, but anyway. So this is north of where Kevin and I grew up for reference. But this is for the listeners, not for us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah so anyways there's a liquor store and it's late night, it's Saturday night, right, so most people drink on Saturday nights, i get it, and Kyoto is also a bar, so there's like a lot of people there that are drinking. And I see this, this man who is clearly wasted and He has a young girl in his arms and She's probably four or three or something, little cute blonde girl, reminded me of my little sister, my sister when she was little, my sister's older than me, but yeah, and I was sitting there waiting for you to get the sushi. She went in. Sometimes we switch off whoever pays, whatever, and I'm just sitting there and I had this really sad moment. This father, from my perspective, is not a good father. Now again, this could be a bad moment, this could be, but he brought her into the liquor store And while drunk, and came out with a brown bag of more liquor, right, and then got in his car and drove away. So this is not a responsible father and For me this was really quite emotional and I had a lot of Negative emotions come up inside of me. You see, witnessing this right, and I, and I said to you immediately when she got back to the car, i said that's so sad. I said, first of all, can we not park over here next time please? I have a history with alcohol and all that. And And secondly, you That little girl looks up to you should see the way she looks at her dad. She looks at her dad like he's, he's a hero. You can, you can see it, i can see it. And I Said to you, me, i said that little girl's in some trouble. She, her biggest role model, her hero is Irresponsible, drunk driving, drunk, going to get more alcohol, probably with money He doesn't have. And again, i could be wrong about some of this, but at the end of the day, i don't think that I am. I Just want to be truthful.

Speaker 2:

But I Grew up around an environment that had a lot of alcohol, and So that affected me more than it would have other people. I have a sister who's blonde, who also looks a lot like that daughter, and I know that when we're kids to my point of, kids are so impressionable. When we're little kids, we, we are so impressionable. We think I mean everyone's our hero, right? I mean I, i remember I Like my friends, dads would be like my heroes, because I didn't have a dad and I all of like I was how do you know all this? I used to think they knew everything and all kinds, and now it's like, oh my god, they don't know that much. Which, again, they still know some, but not nearly as much as I thought. That's okay, but when we're young, we are influenced so much by our environment and by our parents and by our parents. Friends and I often say this, bob Proctor actually shares this too If you were born in Shanghai, you'd speak Chinese.

Speaker 2:

If you were born in I don't know Massachusetts, you'd speak English. It's not because you were inherently supposed to speak Chinese or English. That's how impressionable our environment is, and that's just one thing. So, whether you put your right shoe on first or your left, that might be because your parents did that. Whether you celebrate Christmas or you don't, it's because your parents did that. Whether you, you know what, what you have at Thanksgiving I've heard of people having ham on Thanksgiving. It's like whoa, that's weird. It's like, no, it's normal for me. It's not for me, i don't have ham on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2:

But immediately I had a conversation when we first got together. We said we're gonna create our own rulebook. We're not gonna do all this stuff that we just Inherited from our families, families, families, families, families, family, right. And so do we want to do Christmas? I don't know. Do we want to do? you know, let's make our own rulebook. So I I digress.

Speaker 2:

This episode is about looking at your past from that lens. Do you drink because your parents drank, or do you drink because you consciously were like you know what? I think I want to drink? For me, it was not that way. I grew up in a drinking culture, drinking environment, and I woke up one day and I realized that I was running a paradigm that wasn't my own. I was making, and a paradigm is just a multitude of habits, it's a belief system And you get to choose. You can choose whether or not you want to believe in Santa Claus. You can choose whether or not your kids are gonna have Santa. You can choose what religion you want to do, if any. You can choose what school you go to. You can choose, but if you aren't conscious of it, hyper-conscious of it, you're not making a choice.

Speaker 3:

Hi, my name is Tim Melanson and I have a web development agency called Creative Crew Agency and I'm also a podcast host with the work at Elm Rockstar Podcast. I met Alan a little over a year ago, since he was a guest on my podcast and we had an epic conversation And I was just really impressed with his work ethic And so I decided to jump on board with him and it's been a little over a year now. My business has grown but, more importantly, i feel much less stressed and much more purposeful with what I'm doing in the direction that I'm going. So I definitely highly recommend Alan. If you're looking for some accountability, if you're looking for some tools, then look them up. Take them up on this consultation.

Speaker 2:

Last story promise before I let you talk again. Kev, no worries, back in the day I used to do some partying, which I made very clear in this episode.

Speaker 1:

You've done partying? I have, yes, you used to do beer.

Speaker 2:

I did. I did beer In liquor, i did yes. More than I'm proud of, but anyways. So random muck had a lot of fun but definitely wasn't my paradigm and definitely wasn't me deep down And as I've grown I've grown out of that. So I haven't drank in, probably coming up four years now. So anyways, back in the day Kev, we went to high school together and Kevin was not invited. No, i'm kidding, but we had the party house.

Speaker 1:

We were on a lake, i was not invited. that's serious. That was a backhand compliment. I was not invited to any of these parties. I wasn't proactively not inviting you, kid says, and I have kept the receipts. Previous episode Alan said Kevin was popular, didn't get invited to the parties. Hmm, interesting. Well, you didn't like me, i did like you for your. I would have liked you for your house and the parties. for sure I would have sucked it up man Fair assessment.

Speaker 2:

So obviously he's still salty that he wasn't invited, but anyways, so I did. I had an awesome party house for lack of better phrasing big yard, bonfire, summer, awesome, and it was fun. We had this rule where if you don't turn your tab on your beer and someone catches you, you have to chug it. Have you ever heard of that before?

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

Oh, kev didn't turn your tab, chug it And everyone would say chug chug, chug chug. Yeah, i to this day turn the tab on my Zoas.

Speaker 3:

I to this day, you've seen me do it.

Speaker 2:

You've seen me do it. Emilia asked me to pour one of her Zoas into her We have these little data bottles that track our water, because we're big on data And she turned it back And then I was like mm-mm you're gonna have to chug it. So I was chugging it, but that is the level of our conditioning. Now, could I choose to stop turning my tab? Yes, I've chosen not to stop doing it. I just do it. I do it automatically. But what else are we doing automatically? Right, and that's the power of this.

Speaker 1:

I told this story on a meetup once but and again. I don't know who it came from, but it's very appropriate for this episode. There's let's just do it this way Somebody is cooking a dinner Not necessarily turkey dinner, not necessarily Thanksgiving, not necessarily a holiday dinner But somebody comes over and they notice that let's just say, in this example they only cooked half the turkey, right? so somebody comes over and they're like where's the other half of the turkey? I only see half the turkey is cooked. Like why did you only cook half the turkey? And they're like I don't know, i don't know. My mom used to do it.

Speaker 1:

So that person goes to their mother. They say hey, why did you only cook half the turkey when we grew up? Any reasons particular? They're like no, no, your grandmother used to do that. Your grandmother used to do that. Okay, i'm gonna ask my grandmother. They go and ask their grandmother And their grandmother says I don't know, my mom, your great, great grandmother used to do that. And eventually you come up with the understanding that the oven was half the size when your great, great, great great grandmother was cooking it, so they couldn't fit a whole turkey in there. And now you realize you've wasted half a turkey for however many generations just because people used to do it that way. It's a funny story, but I think that's what a lot of us are doing. I really do think that the people who and I don't mean this toward you, i don't wanna include you in this, but the people who had the party houses I'm sure a lot of them ended up with drinking habits- I know several that did.

Speaker 2:

For sure, of course, several that did. No, i'm not offended at all, that's true. I just wanna make sure. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1:

I have never seen my mother drink anything ever. I've never seen my mother take a sip of alcohol There was. We didn't have alcohol in our house, which I'm very blessed because I think that is aided in the fact that I can just if I wanna drink. I will if I don't wanna. But if that was the case the opposite was the case I'm sure I'd probably have similar reactions in similar conditioning.

Speaker 2:

I would love to see the stats on that, Like if you had parents who drank, your extra likelihood of drinking. I'm sure there's a bunch of research.

Speaker 3:

But not just drinking.

Speaker 1:

but everything careers doctors, lawyers, engineers, all that kind of stuff Go ahead Something along the lines of if you're again, i won't quote it because I don't know the exact study, but it was something along the lines of if your caretakers are obese, i think you're 75% more likely to be obese And if they're not, and they're in shape, your the numbers asked like 1%, something like that.

Speaker 2:

Well, this all goes back to birds of a feather flock together. Other than self-belief, because that kind of dictates who you surround yourself with which, by the way, goes back to our last episode. So if you missed that, check that out It's about identity. Belief about self is number one. After that, it's who you surround yourself with And why, because it totally affects belief about self.

Speaker 2:

And I think that the hyper-conscious podcast prior to being NLU I think that's what that was for us It was us, with our listeners, contemplating who we are, who we used to be, who we want to be, why we want to be that way, and and trying to figure all that out. And Then you know, we obviously built a real business and, but we talked about character and improving our character for the longest time. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about Looking at our past. It's interesting. I'll be brief about this, but coaching is very future oriented, therapy is very past oriented and you really do need both. I have a therapist and I've had coaches and mentors, and When I'm coaching, i'm doing some past work and some future work. I Think that's what we were doing. We were talking about our past while building our present, while working toward a brighter future and we were Coaching each other but also doing therapy with each other, both on the microphone and off, and we also interviewed people. That was probably more coaching and then you and I as conversations.

Speaker 2:

We'd that replies about it for lack of better phrasing. And so if you're out there listening like, what were your parents like? right, wrong or indifferent, positive, negative, neutral, whatever? and this is what I did in book club. We did a poll in book club about your past and this was the Question what number best represents your childhood? We did zero, we did five and we did ten. We're reading a book called how emotions are made. So it was from the frame of emotions. Did your family show all positive emotions? Did they show all drama, negative, toxic emotions, of like, suck it up, rub some dirt in it, or were they kind of neutral, kind of vanilla, for lack of better phrasing? and We had one person who was all negative and one person who was all positive. The all positive person Still to this day, struggles to face difficult truths. They just brushed everything negative under the rug and I've coached a lot of people at this point.

Speaker 2:

That's a thing. It's like let's pretend nothing's negative, right, kind of like the Brady Bunch mentality sort of thing, like it's all good Even though it's really not. You're not dealing with your issues because you're not facing them. And then there's other side of the coin which is just basically like honestly pessimistic. It's, you know, all gloom and doom, nihilistic hopelessness. It's you know, just hardcore Realistic, right like it's. It's not rainbows and butterflies, it's very like harsh kind of, and and some of us had both, some of us had the roller coaster of everything in between. I certainly did right. You had the, the full range of emotions. So ask yourself that same question 70% of book club was the range, the roller coaster. 20% was all negative and the 10% was all positive and Right, wrong or indifferent. It will help you understand why you are the way you are. And now that you know how you are, now you are empowered to change it or shift it if you want to.

Speaker 1:

Well, said that, i was thinking of a good takeaway. I think that's probably the best takeaway I could come up with, either or also. So I think that's a good one. Thank you, brother, you're very welcome. You're very welcome. Yeah, it's interesting that this is one of those hard things to do by yourself. It can be very hard to do this by yourself because you kind of need somebody asking you the questions and Digging, and digging. So if you are in therapy or you have a therapist, you have a counselor, you're probably hopefully doing this already, but if not, it might be a good reason to seek one out, because it's the best It is.

Speaker 2:

I might call earlier and it was all about childhood.

Speaker 1:

It's how I've been talking. She said, hey, cuz I got health insurance recently. And she said are you gonna Start going back to therapy? No, it's again. I'm actually. I'm very much looking forward to it. Oh, it's awesome. Yeah, i'm very much looking forward to it because that's that's where so much of the stuff is so much of the stuff is very in the Past.

Speaker 2:

We just don't know. We should talk about that, maybe an episode at some point, because I think what I've noticed is men tend to have a bigger aversion To therapy and I think in some ways, statistically, men might need it even more so I would say yeah, and I think you and I leading by example in that will be really important. That's what Emilia says and I agree.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, next level nation. If you are looking for amazing people to have in your life, positive people, a Place where you can grow, a place where you can feel like yourself, you can figure out your identity. Going back to our last episode, please join our private Facebook group. Next level nation link will be in these show notes.

Speaker 2:

Our next monthly meetup is next Thursday, june 1st 2023. Is that facts, kev? that is facts first 2023 how to stick with something for the long run. We've talked a lot about past conditioning on this episode. On the previous episode, we talked about identity. Do you hold the identity of someone who can stick it out? life is a marathon, not a sprint, and We're gonna help you with that.

Speaker 1:

Technically it's this Thursday, because this episode is dropping on Saturday, this Thursday, june 1st 6 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Speaker 2:

The link to register will be in the show notes. We hope to see you there. Keep your camera off and microphone off if you want, or participate as much as possible. We are Very, very excited to meet you. We love meeting our listeners. We hope to see you there.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1350 another milestone 1350. How you feel about yourself is more important than what you have. I understand that can be a potentially What's the word I'm looking for? controversial title, but I promise we're gonna go into it deeply. 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.

Speaker 2:

Analyze your past so that you can go into a brighter future.

Speaker 1:

Next level nation thanks for joining us for another episode of next level University. We love connecting with the next level family.

Speaker 2:

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get ahold of us is in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host