Next Level University
Confidence, mindset, relationships, limiting beliefs, family, goals, consistency, self-worth, and success are at the core of hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros' heart-driven, no-nonsense approach to holistic self-improvement. This transformative, 7 day per week podcast is focused on helping dream chasers who have been struggling to achieve their goals and are seeking community, consistency and answers. If you've ever asked yourself "How do I get to the next level in my life", we're here for you!
Our goal at NLU is to help you uncover the habits to build unshakable confidence, cultivate a powerful mindset, nurture meaningful relationships, overcome limiting beliefs, create an amazing family life, set and achieve transformative goals, embrace consistency, recognize your self-worth, and ultimately create the fulfillment and success you desire. Let's level up your health, wealth and love!
Next Level University
#1357 - 3 Questions To Ask Yourself To Have More Clarity
What if you could level up your life, love, health, and wealth by gaining clarity on your core values, beliefs, and aspirations? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros emphasize the significance of self-reflection and introspection as key tools for gaining clarity. They discuss the concept of core values and explain how having a clear understanding of your own core values can guide your decision-making process and bring greater clarity to your life. They emphasize the importance of aligning your actions and choices with your core values for a more fulfilling and purposeful life. They also touch upon the idea that regret can be a powerful teacher, highlighting the importance of learning from past experiences and using them to gain clarity for the future.
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Show notes:
[2:27] The three core values
[7:54] Kim thanked Kevin for going above and beyond in helping launch the Peaceful Productivity podcast
[8:32] Clarity on your core values
[12:10] Regret is the best teacher
[15:01] Outro
What is your number one core value, Alan? what do you define, Or what do you yeah, what is a core value defined as?
Speaker 2:A core belief is something, but this is the way that I think of a core belief versus a core value. A core belief is like your mantra.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Next Level University. I am your host, Kevin Paul.
Speaker 2:Mary, and I am your co-host, alan Lazarus.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1:Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from anywhere, for free. 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, episode number 1,356,. A simple way to start valuing yourself more today. For episode number 1,357.
Speaker 1:Three questions to ask yourself to have more clarity. I said this the other day to somebody. I said clarity is a superpower. Alan and I are very blessed and very privileged to have the level of clarity we do, but I do believe one of the reasons we do is because we've been asking ourselves very challenging questions pretty much every day for the last six years almost, yeah, six years now. So I figured number 1, i love doing episodes where we ask questions. I think questions are just super powerful. Number two I love when we do three of anything three ways, three questions, three lessons. So I figured cool, why not? I was on a call yesterday with a client And again, i'm a podcast coach, but I do a lot of things, i wear a lot of hats on these calls And I said I knew that you and your co-host weren't gonna last I was very clear on that And he's like how did you know? And I said, because you had very different to three questions that we're gonna ask.
Speaker 1:And you had very different core values, you had very different core beliefs And you had drastically different core aspirations. There's no way that was going to work. There's no way It couldn't possibly work unless one of you remained suppressed for a long period of time. And I said honestly, it was you. You were the one who was suppressed, you were the one who was struggling, you were the one who was out of alignment. Your business partner didn't even know you were struggling. So the three questions and I cannot take credit for this. Alan got it from Emilia, i believe, correct. I wanna make sure I give credit where credit is due. If Alan wasn't here, i would take full credit for it. I wouldn't say anything about it. No, i'm just kidding. Number one what is your number one core value, alan? what do you define or what do you? yeah, what is a core value defined as A?
Speaker 2:deep belief in a concept, an idea, so a core value. I was on with a client earlier actually We were doing this His top three core values. One of them was fitness. One of them was I always close my eyes because I'm looking at the spreadsheet.
Speaker 1:I've been doing that lately too. It's rubbed off on me.
Speaker 2:When I close my eyes, I can see the spreadsheet. I'm very blessed with the photographic memory.
Speaker 1:When I close my eyes, I see you.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a photographic memory, because you're looking at me, that's very unfortunate, yeah, and there's levels to it, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking at the spreadsheet now and there's three core values for my client Fitness, resilience or no discipline, discipline and then potential. And they're defined as a deep belief in something, so a deep belief in consistently improving a strong and healthy body. That could be and I do this with my clients all the time. You don't have to pick a word and then define it based on Webster dictionary. You can pick a word and then define what it means to you. You know, i can say the word resilience and that could mean something different to you than it does to me, and then obviously, there's a universal definition on Webster dictionary. You can Google it, but that's what a core value is. It's a deep belief in something like a concept.
Speaker 1:Okay, number two what is your number one core belief? What is a core belief A?
Speaker 2:core belief is. As a matter of fact, i wanna share this The only a core belief, a core value and a core aspiration which Kevin's gonna get to surprise, ending here is all a belief. It's all beliefs. A core belief is something, but this is the way that I think of a core belief versus a core value. A core belief is like your mantra. I'll give you an example. My mantra is in a quote behind me. The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are actually the ones who do That's a core belief, that's a mantra.
Speaker 2:And what's another example? I was on the phone with a client earlier. We were doing this exact exercise, so this is synchronistic. But his mantra is proud but never satisfied. Proud but never satisfied That's his. It's what you believe, it's an idea that you believe in so deeply. You're think of all the ideas in the world, right, what's the one that you hold onto the most? And what's that quote that you talk about? The parts of your imagination, you hold onto the longest.
Speaker 1:I don't even know if I can recite it, My brain is so tired Your reality becomes. Your reality becomes the parts of your imagination that you hold onto and pour into the longest.
Speaker 2:Okay so that's Kevin's mantra, that's your deep core belief. Mine is the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do My client proud, but never satisfied. It's like a mantra, it's a core belief. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And the last one that you already gave away, but I think I also gave away in the very beginning What is your number one core aspiration? What is an aspiration?
Speaker 2:An aspiration, i think, is a goal that you're inspired to achieve. The reason why I use it as an aspiration rather than ambition which, again Emilia first, then me I used to use ambition, you used to like that word too I think it's ambition is more like pushing yourself to achieve something. I think aspiration is much more your soul is called to something. It's like a pull, it's pulling you towards it. So, kev, you're drawn to podcasting, even when you're not podcasting versus gardening. Right, you're not gonna. You'd have to push yourself to actually write every day or garden every day or whatever. And so I think aspiration is your number one Goal, that you're inspired to achieve. That that's probably the best way I'd describe it.
Speaker 1:The interesting thing about clarity is, in a way and it's not always this way, but oftentimes clarity can help you avoid regrets. I was talking to somebody I was on a podcast again, alan does a lot of coaching calls, i do a lot of podcasts and it was on with if he was a, a founder of several startups, and he was talking about how he He worked 16 hours a day, every single day, and he missed his child's first birthday and Later in life I don't know if it was six months later, eight months later his child fell and had a really bad cut on their head and he didn't even know about it until They were getting ready for bed that night and he said to his wife like why didn't you call me? not? he said why, why didn't you call me? I didn't even know. And And she said I did call, you didn't answer your phone. You never answer your phone when you're working.
Speaker 1:And that was an important shift for him because he realized his core value of Family is one that he had been putting off for a long time. But if you Think about it differently, if that person knew core val my number one core value is family Would they ever have started the business that they started. Don't know, don't know probably not.
Speaker 2:Or if they did, they would have Definitely approached it differently. That is a superpower.
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 1:Clarity allows you to avoid again.
Speaker 3:We're always gonna make mistakes, Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it allows you to avoid a certain level of regret because you can kind of see into the future. That Interesting, based on what I really value as a human and based on what I believe. This aspiration is not aligned. Alan, you and I had a conversation recently about Somebody that we know who used to tell us they had these massive goals, and I told you, i said that's not true, that I know that's not true. This is how, now more than ever, i'm starting to understand, because their core values are in direct conflict or aspirations, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not making that wrong.
Speaker 1:I think I just recognize that. Yeah, you can tell, you can tell because if your core value is Family and your core aspiration is now the most successful business of all time. You can't, you're not, most likely not gonna be able to get both in the way that you want. Yeah, yeah definitely not.
Speaker 2:I mean. So you know an Elon Musk who works a hundred hours a week. Right, it's, it's. It's very important. I want to share this. So you to the regret point that you made, and my point on this episode was your GPS.
Speaker 2:Core aspiration is a belief about what you'd like to achieve in the future. Core value is a belief in how you'd like to show up in the present. And core belief is really built from your past, usually the pain from your past. So Kev didn't think he would ever make a lot of money, so he desired making a lot of money. He had pain associated with no money, and so our core beliefs are kind of built through adversity, i believe, and or just whatever dogma we grew up in not necessarily dogma, but whatever family you grew up in.
Speaker 2:So think about what your family believes about life. Does your family believe that family is everything? You might also carry that belief until when you get older you start to realize you know what. Maybe that was never me, maybe that's not who I really wanna be, and then it becomes a choice, and again, i don't wanna go down the rabbit hole here, but a GPS has to know where you are now. It has to know where you wanna go and then it has to know how to get there, and I think that for me, my first 25 years of life were very core aspiration driven.
Speaker 2:They were very much about goals and dreams. I always had clarity on my goals and dreams. I wanted to be a professional gamer. I wanted to be one of the best Halo players in the world. I wanted to be a Fortune 50 CEO, like my hero, steve Jobs. I wanted to go to WPI and I wanted to. I knew I wanted to go to WPI when I was 10. That was like my dream since I was 10 years old to go to Worcester Polytechnic Institute and to be an engineer since I was 10. And then I did that, and then it was to climb the corporate ladder and be a CEO one day. And I have actually achieved that, which is wild in its own way, obviously a very different way than I thought originally, but I was always core aspiration driven which requires a lot of self belief, by the way. But I didn't have clarity on my core values, and that was a huge mistake And that's where all my regret came. So, when I was 26, when I got in that car accident, that's why I had so much regret, because I was living so far outside of alignment with my core values.
Speaker 2:Be careful of what you become in pursuit of what you want, because if you want this big goal, you wanna be an Olympic athlete, but yet you wanna also spend time with family every night.
Speaker 2:I mean, think of a professional athlete. If you're a professional NBA player who has to travel all over the country and yet your number one core value is family, you're in serious trouble Because you're gonna have to be gone nine months of the year or whatever. It is seven, eight months. And so I think that all of us, if you look back on your regrets in life, they're the best teacher, because it's gonna show you where you were outside of alignment with a core value, a core belief or a core aspiration. And I like to do core aspiration first, because I think top down, so like future. First core aspiration, but I would say that. And then core value is now, and then core belief is kind of like an amalgamation of your past And if you do feel regretful or you're not proud of self or you feel outside of alignment, it's most likely one of those three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think we did a good job of making it very simple. Obviously, figuring them out is complicated, but I'm telling you that is a level of clarity that most people just will not have And it allows you to make tough decisions easier. Last thing, before we go, because I have a coach in calling four minutes. But I told Alan this somebody close to me is having a birthday party tonight. As of recording this, and I message them and I said, hey, i can't come, like I have too much to do. I'm not gonna be done until late. I'm struggling to keep up with everything. I just can't do it. And this person messaged me back and he said yeah, dude, you're good. No worries, man, i actually think I have to work tomorrow, like on my actual birthday, like I'll be working tomorrow. So I completely understand.
Speaker 2:It's like it's because, of the core aspirations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is the entrepreneur life, but that's the core aspirations, the aspirations of having a successful company or being a successful entrepreneur, or making this podcast successful, whatever it is, you know. But it's that level of clarity that it made the decision. I guess it made the hard choice a little bit easier, because it was just a matter of how do I say this. I know this is what's right for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. And I know we gotta go because I got a coaching call in three minutes too. But Kevin, real quick. The thing that's fascinating about that is that it is based on regret. You will regret a little bit you not going, but you definitely would have regretted going and not getting R and R.
Speaker 1:I was sad when I sent the message. Of course, I literally had this moment. Maybe we'll do a deeper episode on this, but that is also the downside of having boundaries Of course. Is you feel like?
Speaker 2:I felt like shit, honestly, of course, and the downside of having goals. That's the truth, because if you didn't have any goals and dreams, kevin, you could go. That's the sacrifice part And maybe we do another episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, we got to hop out of here tomorrow for episode number 1358. Alan is going to interview me. I don't know what the title is yet because we haven't come up with it. We're probably gonna come up with the title after we do the interview, which never really happens. But we haven't talked a lot about our stories And we haven't had an episode about us in a hot minute. I don't want to make the show about us, but I think it's important for you, if you're an older listener and you've been listening for a while, or a newer listener, to reconnect with us and ourselves and all that happy jazz. So, as always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow, keep getting clarity next level 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.
