Next Level University

#1356 - A Simple Way To Start Valuing Yourself More

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros dive deep into the fascinating topic of how we tend to treat ourselves versus how we treat others, like clients and other people. They talk about the stark contrast between these two approaches and emphasize the need for some serious self-reflection. It's all about realizing our self-worth and showing ourselves the same level of kindness and respect we readily offer others. They bring up those little moments when we do something awesome and encourage listeners to embrace those victories and actually feel good about them because celebrating those wins helps us build a healthier self-perception.

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Show notes:
[2:09] How you treat yourself vs how you would treat a client in the same situation
[8:08] Feeling good in the moment
[12:29] Kim thanked Kevin for going above and beyond in helping launch the Peaceful Productivity podcast 
[13:46] The perception is based on the standard
[16:28] Maximizing your potential
[21:23] Identity, process, and effort
[26:25] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

If you can imagine somebody else giving the same exact speech that you just gave and saying that was really good, it's you problem. if you don't like it, it's an inner thing.

Speaker 2:

I am proud of how far we've come as men. I'm not that proud of you know, our listens this year. I'm honestly not. I mean I don't. It's not that I think it's bad, it's not that I'm ungrateful, it's that I know we're capable of more. I know that I haven't done a very good job at marketing or social media. I haven't.

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 a very hyper-conscious episode. Episode number 1355. Changing your reality is easier than you think. Happy Saturday today for episode number 1356. A simple way to start valuing yourself more Somebody I I don't know if I would say I'm friends with somebody I know on social media. What are you smiling about, man? I'm moving my mic arm again. You're moving your mic arm For those, so shout out to Jerry-Ann who said sometimes that's distracting. I have ordered us new mic arms, Very high quality, Should be silent.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited. I'm excited Coming on Sunday.

Speaker 1:

They're supposedly Supposedly So. Next week, next Tuesday's episode, we should have new mic arms.

Speaker 2:

When Wednesday, right Tuesday, I think Tuesday Okay.

Speaker 1:

No, no, yeah, It should be Wednesday, but I don't know. We're going to find out. Okay, i somebody I follow on social media. I follow this person upon social media is where I follow them. They are a podcaster and they just crossed 150 episodes on their podcast and they just crossed 10,000 downloads And they did this post where they said I almost didn't celebrate this.

Speaker 1:

I didn't feel like 10,000 downloads was enough and I didn't feel like, in the sea of podcasts, that 150 episodes was that meaningful. And then I thought to myself, if a client of mine had accomplished what I just did, how would I treat them versus how would I treat myself and how am I treating myself right now? And I think that is a really, really, really good perspective shift because it kind of takes out any lack of self-worth or lack of self-belief we have in ourselves. If, if, okay, i think of it this way, if I accomplish something and I don't feel like I deserve to be recognized for it, i'm not going to celebrate myself. But if Alan accomplishes something, i'm not thinking about myself.

Speaker 1:

It kind of goes back to the episode about being self-conscious versus others conscious if you're kind of hacking that to give yourself the credit that you actually deserve. And I just wonder, if you're watching or listening, if that would be something beneficial to practice. Because a couple of things One, if you're a heart-driven human being, you probably enjoy complimenting other people. Two, unfortunately, many of us struggle to own our wins because we've been convinced that that makes us arrogant or that makes us insert negative connotation here. And when you're giving that love to somebody else, it's probably an easier way for you to hack it for yourself.

Speaker 2:

I'm trying to think of where to go with this. I do know that I tend to celebrate other people more than myself, and I'm trying to figure out if there is actual utility in that.

Speaker 1:

I think, your belief lends to the fact that you don't really need to celebrate that much.

Speaker 2:

As much As much. Yeah, i think it's not, like celebration is not beneficial. So I'm still always contemplating whether or not I should more, and we talked about this on the Goals versus Gratitude episode. Are you focused on what you've already achieved or are you focused on what you're going to achieve and finding five in the drive to five around that whole concept? What I would say is I think that when we celebrate other people, we're looking from a filter of wow, that's really impressive for them, that's really cool. I guess you're probably better to ask this question As someone who has 1,356 episodes. Do you feel the same way, celebrating us at 150, as that person?

Speaker 1:

Like retroactively.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we've had clients cross 100 or whatever it is, and I'm super big into celebrating them Because I understand how statistically rare that is What about when you crossed 150?

Speaker 2:

Did we celebrate that to the extent that you would celebrate someone else?

Speaker 1:

Probably not, because for a long time, i think, i adopted your celebration patterns.

Speaker 3:

Or lack thereof, yeah, or lack thereof.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So for a long time It was just like, okay, cool onto the next one, okay, cool onto the next one. And now I'm very much that way. Like I said, the next one for me will be 1500, then it'll probably be 1750, then it'll be 2000, like. Those are the ones I kind of celebrate now, but that's based on the fact that we've had a lot of celebrations, or perceived celebrations, up until this point. It's such an interesting perspective though I made.

Speaker 1:

On Wednesday Pop pop up came over. If you know, pop up, that is my father-in-law. We tell the cats pop-ups coming over and they're all about it. The one human pop up, the one human that fudge likes. That is a stranger Everybody else who's ever come over fudge is terrified of. He loves pop up, loves him, the cutest thing in the world. Why he came? why? Why Calm energy. Probably Cats know, animals know, animals know.

Speaker 1:

So he was coming over and Taran said hey, i got dinner, can you cook us turkey burgers? And I was like I give it a shot. You know, i will give it a shot. Get pizza on the line in case, because this could go horribly wrong. And I made turkey burgers and they looked terrible. I mean, it looked bad. You know they were not the sexiest. There was going to be no commercials of these. They were not sexy looking burgers. But bull taran and pop pop said damn, these are really, really, really good. And I Probably wouldn't have given myself credit for cooking really good burgers until I heard somebody else say it about them. That's the interesting thing.

Speaker 2:

Okay, do, let's say, taran was cooking them.

Speaker 1:

Of course would she?

Speaker 2:

Okay, she would have crushed it. She would have done better than you fair, Definitely Yeah definitely Okay. Would she have celebrated Herself as much as you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, she would, okay, she's good, she's good at that, she's. She's good at that, she's better at that not better at that than I, because it's not a competition but I just think I'm used to just like. What happens usually for me Is we do a lot of stuff. I start to feel Something. I'm not disconnected, but I start to feel like I haven't checked in with myself in a minute, mm-hmm. Then I'll go watch something like an old episode of us and I'm like, wow, we really sucked back then. We're the best, this is amazing. And then I celebrate myself and then You'll get some sort of message from me of, like dude, this whole thing is so weird man.

Speaker 1:

The last five years have been wild.

Speaker 3:

In that kind. I think that's kind of me Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's kind of me Figuring out in real time. I don't know. I'm kind of like retroactively getting the good emotions that I think I missed out on. That makes sense.

Speaker 2:

I think there's a there's something that I want to share here. I was on book club. Shout out to Bonnie Bonnie What's happening if you're listening.

Speaker 1:

Hello.

Speaker 2:

Bonnie's on book club and we were talking about Feeling good in the moment, and maybe we do an episode at some point on this. I'm not sure, but I want to bring this concept to the listeners because I think it's relevant. Feeling good in the moment, physiologically, so like how do you feel right?

Speaker 1:

now Zero to ten. my my back hurts probably like a seven, okay seven.

Speaker 2:

Cool, so not terrible, but not like over the moon, right. No all right now metacognitively and I'll explain How do you feel about Kevin? So what I mean by that is, metacognition is just a fancy scientific term for thinking about yourself as a whole rather than Feeling how you feel in the moment. So you feel seven in the moment. What do you feel about Kevin as a whole? when you think about Kevin?

Speaker 1:

My skill in one to ten. Yeah, like a nine. Okay, i love him.

Speaker 2:

That's what I'm saying. Okay, i would be willing to bet and I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. When you were in feel-good land back in pre-hyperconscious Kevin not into self-improvement days you probably felt 10 in the moment, but metacognitively you probably didn't feel very good about yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's probably fair. I'd say that's accurate.

Speaker 2:

Okay, And you made a joke one time of like. of course I would want to smoke weed and play video games. That feels good in the moment, but it doesn't feel good metacognitively if you do it too much.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I think that that's kind of a good frame for everyone to look from, because it's almost like it's very hard to spend your whole life feeling good in the moment and feeling good in the metacognitive sense, whereas if you do hard things, they don't feel good and they never will, by the way. So just get over that, right. Like no one's going to love kale I always say that because it's just not real And if it is, they learn to love it somehow and biologically they still love donuts and McDonald's. Like, of course, i can't get over that. I know it's like well, i can learn to love kale as much as McDonald's. I don't know, i don't know if that's true. So anyways, that's my own thing.

Speaker 2:

But if you do hard things, which you need to do to grow, then you're not going to feel good in the moment, but at least you will feel good when you think about yourself. You talked to me earlier, kev, about the rocking chair, 88 year old Kevin. Like what would 88 year old Kevin tell Kevin now? And 88 year old Kevin, essentially in this metacognition, said keep it up, you're on the path keep it up.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's feeling good about you.

Speaker 1:

That's alignment Right which you're calling Interesting, because when I had those thoughts I felt like garbage, garbage, yeah it's, i'm definitely hinging on. I won't say burnout, because I'm not, but I just I'm very, very, very tired and I need to come up for air for sure. So I think that's one of the reasons I was even having that. It was I was getting ready to drift off. Tara and I had just finished snuggling and I was getting ready to drift off. And you know how sometimes you like when you're right on the edge of dreaming you're like in a weird state.

Speaker 1:

That's where I was when I had that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, very cool, And that there's a certain brainwave. We're not going to get into it, but there's alpha beta right before Delta sleep and all that. Okay, Bringing it back to this episode, you go.

Speaker 1:

I just think it's a good. It's a good reframe. If you were to think of anything I always talk about speaking, because I know it's one of the biggest fears If you, if you can imagine somebody else giving the same exact speech that you just gave and saying that was really good. It's a you problem if you don't like it, it's an inner thing. If you, if you and I, were to listen to this podcast, this episode, and say, wow, that was like. Imagine two people doing that episode. Not you Like. That was a really valuable episode, but I might say this episode sucks.

Speaker 2:

But I think it's because your standards are higher. I would agree That's actually constructive.

Speaker 1:

But it wasn't always, Oh it wasn't always.

Speaker 3:

Hey, kevin, kim here Just wanted to send you a video to say thank you so much for your help on creating the Peaceful Productivity podcast. You know I couldn't have done it without you. I knew you'd be lots of great help with the technical aspects of getting the podcast going, but you went well above and beyond that. You helped me with the strategy and you gave me all kinds of really great support. You know, i think the key to success in business is a great attitude, and you have that in spades. You really walk the walk. So thanks again, take care, i'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2:

I want to tell this story briefly. Tell it Do you remember?

Speaker 2:

Hey, hey, tell it, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I remember there was two people who gave a speech And I'm going to tell this anonymously, although everyone's going to know what I'm talking about. Okay, let's use this example. So Emilia and Taryn both came on the podcast one time. Do you remember that? Okay, emilia had planned on being a world-class speaker. Okay, and Taryn doesn't. So Taryn, after the speech, was really thrilled about her performance And that's awesome, and she should be.

Speaker 2:

I called Emilia and I was like babe, how are you doing? And she's like not good. I'm like, i know, that's why I'm calling you like seriously, like are you okay? Like, are we good? I said zero to 10. How do you think that went? And she's like oh my God, i suck like maybe a four. Objectively, in the audience, anyone could have looked at Taryn and Emilia and said they did comparable effort. They did. They did both a good job. But the perception is based on the standard. So if Taryn isn't trying to be a world class speaker, she can say I'm glad I did it. I did it, it went better than I thought.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, and Emilia has to go and pick it apart because she has to go get better, and so I think that that's kind of what I want to bring to. This is what is the right amount of celebration for you that is constructive. And the last piece for me, kev, you go back and look at old stuff, i think to celebrate from the holistic metacognitive place of like Kevin as a whole. Look how far I've come. I am proud of how far we've come as men. I'm not that proud of you know, our listens this year. I'm honestly not. I mean, i don't.

Speaker 2:

It's not that I think it's bad, it's not that I'm ungrateful, it's that I know we're capable of more. I know that I haven't done a very good job at marketing or social media. I haven't. I can't pretend that I have. I know that I haven't done a good job. So I think that that's why the celebration thing messes with me is because I think it's all predicated on standards, goals, beliefs, identity, and I don't know what the most optimal amount of celebration is. But I do know that me celebrating someone who's brand new in fitness, going to the gym for a full week straight, is amazing. But I'm not going to do that with myself because I hold a different standard. But me in the beginning, a week straight, i would have celebrated the hell out of that of like I'm doing it. I'm actually doing it, you know.

Speaker 1:

I wonder if it is. It a balance of effort and competence, like the amount of effort you're putting in, based on your ability to put in effort.

Speaker 2:

One. Emilia shared this with me recently, which I thought was fascinating. I'll go quick with this. but I said how much are you maximizing your potential? And she said I'll never be able to actually say 100%. And I said I know same And she. so we did this. we named some names because we learned from people that we both know. And she named a name that we both know And I said how much is he maximizing his potential? She said, ah, probably 60%. And I was like, yeah, i came up with the same number, I think about 60%. Okay, this other person that we both know how much is she maximizing her potential? And she was like 30 maybe, and I was like, i know, right, like 30. Okay, but this is my favorite thing in the whole world. I'm going to share this briefly. I had a past partner who my favorite part about her was that she maximized her potential. She was less capable in many ways than other people, but she still did way more with it.

Speaker 2:

And one of my favorite parts about you, kev, seriously, is that you came from an environment that most people wouldn't have been able to create what you've created. To me, that matters more than someone who had every opportunity, and I'm thinking of two people. Right now, just in my consciousness, there's one person I'm thinking of I'll keep it anonymous who honestly had a great childhood, is brilliant, brilliant, but he's lazy. He's not maximizing his potential. To an extent, that bothers me. Okay, now, that's also.

Speaker 2:

My purpose is helping people maximize their potential. It's supposed to frustrate me. You are so much closer to your true potential than he is. It's not even close. And so, to me, that's what I celebrate. I try to celebrate people who are doing all they can with all they have, and I'm actually more proud of the people we impact Kev than I am of my own performance, if that makes sense, and I think that that's what I try to celebrate most, and that's why I have that folder of all the testimonials and all the people that have reached out saying that we've changed their life. I want this podcast to actually change people's lives. I care more about that than I do whether or not we have a paid speech next week, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and what I think. for me, the thing I understand is I try to. I want to celebrate the effort because the effort's harder than the result. usually, in a way Right, i'm way more likely to celebrate 150 episodes than 10,000 downloads just because the downloads are great, but the 150 episodes means you showed up every single time for 150 times. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's a good distinction.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's worth celebrating. That's worth celebrating, for sure. The 10,000 is too, but the 10,000 is just a result of what you did 150 times.

Speaker 2:

I know someone who has 10 times that with four episodes Right. So I think effort. I think effort makes sense to celebrate more than results. I do, i agree with you. I think results matter too, of course, but I think effort and maximizing one's own unique potential. I know some people who are doing amazing things with very little And I know some people who are doing almost nothing with very much. And to me, the people who do a lot with very little I have such reverence for.

Speaker 1:

Well, think about it this way If you don't celebrate your effort and you don't celebrate your results, when do you celebrate? Great point? you can't really, because it's very clear that this, this person in this example, didn't celebrate the effort, because if they celebrated the effort, it wouldn't have been so hard for them to celebrate the results. I don't think it was almost the way they and it was a very nicely written post The way they approached it was almost like I didn't even think about celebrating. It was almost like, oh cool, this is the thing, whatever. On to the next thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the reason I wanted to do this episode and I think it's valuable for the audience is because I know so many of the people we've talked to celebrate or struggle to identify wins, not even celebrate them. Identify them first, and If you're not giving yourself credit for the effort you're putting in, you're not celebrating that. If you're not giving yourself credit for the results you've created based on the effort you're putting in, you're not celebrating that. I think you need the good chemicals, you need the feel-goods To say like, wow, i'm doing something really positive, you're awesome. It's especially if it's, if it's more than you expected, if you made it further than you think. I think that's one of the reasons I try to celebrate. It's usually further than I Then I expected to get, so it's almost like I need to celebrate this because I didn't. I never expected to be here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the amount of celebration. I don't think you should feel bad. If you feel intuitively and you're out there listening you feel intuitively that you should be celebrating more, then you should, and I think maybe you're reluctant because you're afraid to seem arrogant or whatever. But if you're out there and you feel like, honestly, i don't know if Celebrating is what I really feel in my soul, i don't know if I feel proud of myself in this instance, then own that too and do better. I think you know it's like for you, kev, it's not like you're okay, you've been working out, crushing it lately but you're not like pumped About your physique, and the reason why is because you know you're capable of more and you know you've been letting it ride. So have I, you know, and I think I'm proud of us for getting a hold of that and then our progress since, really, the ownership we've had around that.

Speaker 2:

But I think this is you unique to each individual, and I think that one thing that I've found fascinating is a lot of people think I don't celebrate enough, but I wonder if I wonder if they're Putting themselves in my shoes and saying if I accomplished that I would be pumped, and I Wonder if that's an accurate way to do that, because so, for example, i have a friend who's way stronger than I am, probably stronger than I'll ever be. If I was him, i'd be pumped about squatting for 15, but for him that's not even anything to celebrate, in a way, you know. I mean So it's almost not even constructive from a growth frame For me to. But if he saw you do it he would be celebrating. But that's because it's a big deal for me, right and it should be a big deal for me.

Speaker 2:

And the analogy here as weird as it is, is it? you know, if the all-star player scores 10 points, the crowd's not gonna go nuts, but if a bench player does, it's like whoa, like where'd you come from? awesome, and I think that there's something to be said for that. You know, it's not like Leonardo DiCaprio is gonna have like a great performance and everyone's gonna be like, oh my god, i'm so shocked. Let's celebrate, you know, cuz. And that's the whole heavy lies, the crown thing, for lack of better phrasing, and I don't want to get into the crown stuff.

Speaker 2:

But very last piece, i promise identity process goals. Which one do you celebrate most? the identity is the metacognitive I'm proud of. Kevin, i think you do celebrate that. I know I do. That's the one that I hold on to. Who I became as a man is the one I'm holding on to like, and I need that too, because when we don't get the results which is often You, regardless of effort I need that one. So for me, that's what I hold my self-esteem to is who I am as a man, and That way no one can touch that because it's my own actions, right. So identity, process, effort, celebrate effort and then results when you get results. If you're only celebrating results, you're in a lot of trouble because now the external world is Is dictating your own self-esteem.

Speaker 1:

Deep episode, deeper than I expected always a good thing.

Speaker 2:

Hmm.

Speaker 1:

It's always a good thing. Next level nation. Alan And I met today to record our next course and we had this moment where we said, well, we did next level live. It's already in high quality video, the audio is great, the production value is just super, super, super high and we wanted to teach some stuff that we talked about. So this is what we're gonna do. We are going to Take next level live the live event that we did in April and we are going to turn it into a free course Again. I don't know when it's gonna be out, because there's some a lot of back-end work that has to happen, but it's the best event we've ever hosted. It's some of the best content we've ever spoken, so I'm very excited for you all to have access to that. I will keep you in the loop, we will keep you in the loop and we'll let you know when it is live.

Speaker 2:

So there's going to be hold on, hold on, hold on. There's going to be five videos. There's going to be an intro video and then there's three modules. Each have three videos within those, and then there's an outro video. So it's five main videos, three modules. Each module has three videos within it. There's going to be worksheets, without a question, you're going to leave this free course. The fact that this is free is wild, honestly, because this is our very best work that we've accumulated over the last six years.

Speaker 2:

And we put it all into one event and now into one course, and it's totally free. So please download that How to level up your health, your wealth and your love. There's going to be worksheets and it's just imagine this podcast, but fully curated and customized with worksheets that actually get you to customize and dig deeper. Um, i just cannot oversell this thing. I please download that. We'll let you know as soon as it's out. go to the website, check that out And we will see you over there. Kev, what was I supposed to plug? Group coaching July, july 11th. July 11th 7-eleven 7-eleven 11.

Speaker 2:

Mm nice 7-eleven 11,. 7-eleven group 11. Group coaching with Kevin. 7-eleven group 11 with Kevin and Alan and Alan.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

Jesse and Jesse. So group coaching is a well polished program 90 days, fully transformational process. There's six bi-weekly sessions and then there's office hours. There's a private WhatsApp group. You've heard a lot about group coaching. You've heard testimonials come through about group coaching members. Here's the thing. There's a promo code. It's less than $96 a month for three months for our listeners. If you are curious alan at nextleveluniversecom, kevin at nextleveluniversecom, reach out to us. We will give you the Instagram handles of the people that have experienced group coaching. You can ask them what was your experience? What was it like? Was it worth the money? That's how much we believe in this. Please reach out.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1357. I love doing episodes like this. Three questions to ask yourself to have more clarity. I do not know the questions yet because Alan and I are going to master mind about what the three best ones are. There's many questions, but it will be valuable, i promise. 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 celebrating Next up on nation.

Speaker 1:

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