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
#1364 - Self Care Isn’t Selfish
Do you ever feel guilty for taking time for yourself when others around you are busy? In this enlightening episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros share personal struggles with prioritizing their own needs while others are hustling around. They talk about why taking care of ourselves is crucial for our overall well-being. They dive deep into the importance of setting boundaries in relationships and how our upbringing can influence our approach to self-care. It's not always easy to put ourselves first, but it's essential for living a healthy, balanced life. They reflect on their own challenges and offer valuable insights on overcoming guilt and embracing the importance of taking care of ourselves. They briefly tackle the concept of truth when it comes to our self-care practices, from facing uncomfortable truths to recognizing the significance of boundaries. This episode is packed with nuggets of wisdom on why self-care isn't selfish.
Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
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Website 💻 http://www.nextleveluniverse.com
The best way to track your habits is here! Download the app: Optimal - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/optimal/
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Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
- Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
- Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - https://bit.ly/3xffver
- Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
- Next Level Monthly Meetup #19: "3 Things Everyone Should Know About Their Intimate Partner" on July 6, 2023, 06:00 PM EST - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
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Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/
Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com
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Show notes:
[1:34] Kevin shares a story about self-care
[7:07] A boundary is a core value you are choosing to honor
[9:33] Alan share's a client's dilemma
[12:07] Nathan expresses his appreciation for the invaluable coaching services he received from Alan
[13:39] Backing out of activities that are not in alignment
[19:05] Understanding self-care
[24:22] Outro
4, 5, 6.
Speaker 2:Okay, alright, you got anything for this. You good, you need any clarity. Got any kind of clarity at all? Can't talk to me about what you're going to say. I'm going to talk about how for me, when it's very hard for me to not do something when somebody around me is doing something. So I remember, like when Matt and I would be doing stuff around the house, it was always super hard for me to relax when he was doing something, even if the thing he was doing was not related to me. I always felt like I was supposed to be helping.
Speaker 2:And the title is Self-care isn't selfish, If I have to say it again. I'm diving out the window Head first. I live on the second floor this time.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, you'll be fine, you can land on your feet. Maybe, What do you think about cat?
Speaker 2:Potentially. Okay, there you go, you ready, let's see what happens. You know what I mean. What are you plugging? I'm going to plug next elimination. Yeah, so you didn't expect to answer that fast. I got him. this time I've proved myself I belong here. Plug in the blog. You're going to plug the blog.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait. I'm doing that on the next one, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, i would say so. Book club. So you can say yes, if you're listening to this on Sunday, yesterday was book club. Make sure you join us in the next one. Come on, here we go. 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 1363, the three big things that determine who you become today. Today, for episode number 1364, self-care isn't selfish. So I told this story recently. But I have been able to connect dots since I told the story, so I'm just going to bring everybody up to speed. So a couple of weeks ago, i had maybe the worst headache ever of all time. I felt like garbage For some reason garbage.
Speaker 2:For some reason I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning because I couldn't sleep and I ended up just staying up and working and I had a really long day. And that night, pop-up, my father-in-law came over for dinner and usually when people come over we do like a quick clean. We make sure everything is clean and presentable. What are you doing over there?
Speaker 1:We have new mic stands. No, it's going to Jeff it, i'm not going to pick it up. Well, it is off right now.
Speaker 2:So we usually do some sort of quick cleaning of the house to make sure it's presentable for our company. And Taryn was vacuuming and I was like what do you want me to do? And she said maybe you could just quickly clean the sink in the bathroom. And I was like alright, i'll do it. She's like you look terrible. And I was like thank you so much for that compliment, i appreciate it. She said do you feel okay? And I said no, i feel terrible. I have the worst headache. I'm just extremely tired. I feel physically ill. But let me go hammer out this bathroom real quick. And she said no, no, i'll take care of it, i'll do it. And I said I don't know, i don't think so I think I'll do it. And she's like no, I really want you just to sit on the couch, i don't want you to do anything.
Speaker 2:And immediately I get this level of guilt of like hmm, hmm, i don't know, i don't like it, i don't like this, i don't like that. You're doing stuff and I'm not. So I reflected. It's definitely going back to our previous episode. So I reflected and I jumped back when I lived with my best friend, matt. Matt and I had very different goals when it comes to entrepreneurship. So Matt's in real estate. He owns properties, he flips them, he rents them out all of that. When I lived with him. We worked on a lot of projects together, but it was almost always we worked on his projects together. I worked on my projects alone, because I work on my projects with Alan Alan's, my business partner. Matt doesn't have a business partner, so there would be times where I would work my face off for NLU. I would get home and he would be doing some sort of project and I would feel super guilty if I wasn't helping.
Speaker 1:Excuse me sir. Yes, That was the hyper conscious podcast. My apologies.
Speaker 2:That's the time. My apologies, how dare I? How dare I? The hyper conscious podcast? Wow, yeah, i still got it. That is, i don't know where that came from. I don't know where that the guilt of somebody doing something and me not participating came from. But that really is what I want to dive in in this episode, because it might not seem like self-care, right. So me getting home after a long day and saying you know what? I'm going to watch television before I go to bed, instead of helping my buddy do whatever it is he's doing because I need self-care, based on the fact that I'm not putting a boundary up to say, hey, i'm super tired, i can't help you with this, because I'm more afraid of what the person thinks than I am of not taking care of myself. And that really is what I want to dive in for this episode. Does any of that resonate with you?
Speaker 1:Okay, i just wanted to check. Yeah, it's definitely okay, this will be a good one. Emilia and I have a dishwasher and there's certain items that she doesn't want. She's like, oh, we can't put that in the dishwasher. And I'm like, no, you can, you just throw it in there. You totally can, right? She's like, well, you don't put wood in the dishwasher, like wooden spoons and all that. I was like says who, you know what I mean? It's all good, throw it in there. We're going to hand wash this stuff. What are we doing here? But I said honestly, and it's okay, but your family had really nice utensils and they took really good care of their utensils. You and I bought these at Walmart and we're going to hammer them in the dishwasher and it's going to be just fine.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously I'm being playful, but a lot of it was conditioning from her upbringing, and so another thing that her family had is more hands, less work. That's like a mantra that they had, so everyone would pitch in And I think there's pros and cons to that. She learned to work ethic, she learned how to do projects, all that kind of stuff. But her and I have had to have conversations of like, babe, when I'm doing a project. You do not have to join me, do your work. Your work is way more important than this plastic staircase I'm putting together for Tucker downstairs. I had this little mallet Dude. It was funny this weekend. There's a picture of me. I don't think I've posted it yet, but it's me basically putting together this little Lego plastic set or whatever. Tucker has new stairs downstairs to go peas and poops. He has to do peas and poops.
Speaker 2:Of course, don't we all.
Speaker 1:He's six years old now. You know he doesn't want to have to take that huge leap into the rocks.
Speaker 2:You know he wants a couple stairs, it's all good.
Speaker 1:Although they are slippery when it rains, so he hammered right off one of them recently.
Speaker 1:You're gonna throw a carpet down on it. Yeah, i see you. I see you Now, i know, but anyways. So I wanted her to realize that she did not have to, like take self care, do your work, do your a core value? Immediately set this one's A boundary is nothing more or less than a core value that you are choosing to honor. I have a core value of time optimization. I am not going to hand wash these wooden spoons and this. We have these prongs that she's afraid are going to get rusty. And I said, babe, that's all just conditioning, it's okay, don't even worry about it, like it's all good, let's see. And then she reprocessed and she's like you know what, yeah, i don't want to waste time hand washing these.
Speaker 1:I'm like what are we doing? So the whole point of this we all have a ton of conditioning around what we should and shouldn't do, based on our upbringing. So I'm assuming you even said you don't know where that comes from. You want to be helpful, You don't want to be selfish, you don't want to be seen as lazy And there's two sides of this coin, by the way. Not only do you not want to be seen by Matt as lazy and selfish, but you also don't want to be lazy and selfish. So part of this is who you aspire to be. You're trying to stay consistent with your identity, aka. This happens all the time.
Speaker 1:I have clients that are that their identity is I'm a great friend. Their friend calls them and needs help. They'll be there. That is dangerous when you have 50 friends and a business to run. I was on the phone yesterday with this person that I coach and she said damn. She literally asked me a question. She said, alan, have you ever, have you ever had something like a gift that someone got you that you wish they didn't give you? and I was like I'm all yours.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a great hook.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great hook right, she's a strong communicator. and she said yeah, my parents they got me these concert tickets a year ago for my birthday and I don't want to go. And I was like perfect answer, ready, don't go.
Speaker 2:Now we were being playful, and here's the truth.
Speaker 1:She's like my. Their hearts are going to be broken. They're going to be so upset They're going to feel like they wasted the money. My mom's going to say we wasted money. I used to go to concerts all the time with them. I used to love music and go into concerts, but I've evolved since then and they don't know that. And I said here's what you do. You can tell them the truth and not go and deal with the discomfort of them being upset with you or them being upset in general, or you can go to the concert and do something. That's not aligned And there is a third option.
Speaker 2:There's a third option Talk to me You tell a little bit of a white lie of why you can't go. I know that's not what we aspire to. I'm not saying you do I'm always because it's easier. How I mean, how hard is it Have?
Speaker 1:you funny man, remember, i'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. It's not going to be a fair assessment. I appreciate your honesty on the show. I really do. I respect it.
Speaker 2:I respect it. We were supposed to have a guy on the show and we were like this, ain't it, we're not going to have him on. And I was like, dude, i'm going to tell him the truth. And I was like, dude, don't tell him the truth, please don't. Because the level of feedback we're going to get is not worth the level of the level of satisfaction you'll feel in your character for telling him the truth. Then he left us an F in bad review and he's never even listened to the show. Guy's not nice, he's not nice, he's not nice. But if you let me run a white lie which I've run before between you and I, the mixer's broken My microphone's down. We'll reach out in the future. Sometimes and I'm not saying you live in and that's what you use every time But I think it's a really good opportunity for you to at least stay in alignment. See how it goes. It's a training wheel, is what is really what it is. It's a crutch. I know Which, i'm okay with.
Speaker 1:I used it too in the past, but I decided I don't know, when You're braver than I am, you're braver than I am.
Speaker 2:Oh, i appreciate that And I also thank you, brother.
Speaker 1:It's the worst thing ever. Even the Grad Party episode we talked about it's like I didn't lie. That was my truth. I decided somewhere along the lines I don't know when, but I just decided I'm never gonna lie again about anything to myself or to other people. Now That's a whole, nother episode, so I won't go down that rabbit hole. But but there is that option and that's fair. You can say like that all four of my tires got slashed the last night.
Speaker 2:I can't go Well just down whatever as an example, as an example I'll tell this somewhat vulnerably Last year I think it might have been last year Taryn got me tickets to a concert For an artist that I really, really, really, really like, really like huge fan, and I was gonna go with one of my buddies. I told one of my buddies about it And I was like I have two tickets, like let's go, we should go, it's in Boston. And as the date got closer and closer, i started Consuming more content from this artist, because that's what you do when you're going to a concert You want to make sure you know everything, and I came across this documentary and it was like This person is not as aligned as I thought. I still listen to their music. I still love their music. I don't want to attend a live concert, though, because I know the vibe of that. It's gonna be uncomfortable for me. I don't really want to do it.
Speaker 2:He now here's the interesting thing luckily, as We got closer and closer to it, you and I booked a training on that day, and we had a big training, and I literally said it would be, it would be unaligned for me to cancel this training to go to this concert. That is the truth. Yeah, it's just not the level of the truth of like, yeah, yeah, it's not the level of the truth of look I am. I think I'm beyond The level of self-improvement of this person. I don't, i don't really want to be around a bunch of People that aren't. Maybe that's the truth, i don't know. I also think there's a part of me That didn't know exactly what the truth was. Oh, i, i knew I didn't want to. I knew I was uncomfortable going. I I wasn't a thousand percent sure. Now I think I am more certain of it, but I just wanted to share that example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, truth is a specter, but it's not zero or ten. Yeah, i mean it's not zero or one, it's zero to ten. So, like that was probably a level, i don't know six truth, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah before.
Speaker 1:But a Level one would have been like a zero would have been like a blade and lie. Yeah, who would have been like? honestly, i'm not really feeling. Well, you know, four would have been what you said and then ten out of ten truth would have been listen, i'm, i Don't want to go. I've made a mistake. I wish I never got these tickets. I Don't want to go with you and I know that's not the case.
Speaker 1:But, like, whatever it is, i wrote an article about this and I didn't plan on this, but it's called how to express uncomfortable truths. It is, i'm telling you, kev, that is, i Was good at success. I was good at certain things. I was so bad at this same. I was so bad at this, this expressing truth thing to myself. I was good at expressing truth. I'm actually. I think I'm strong at that.
Speaker 1:Ask yourself the listeners how good are you expressing truth to yourself, hard truth and then, more importantly, how good are you at expressing it to other people? and as a leader, and As you become a stronger leader and I consider every listener a leader Or a potential leader That truth dial is gonna have to dial up. But back to the original episode. Okay, in this case, the person doesn't want to go to the concert, but she's so afraid of the discomfort of other people and what they'll think of her and There's a part of her that actually does want to go to the concert. That's why this is so complicated, but anyways, she's gonna go. In this case and I said okay, that's the choice you are making, but don't tell yourself a story that you have no choice, because you do, you could face the discomfort of honestly. I appreciate this gift, but I've evolved and I'm not really into this anymore. And that would actually benefit her relationship with her parents, because then her parents would know the real her more.
Speaker 2:So I told Taren after, too after, because I I was kind of like working it through with her. I was like I wanna go and I love live music, but I don't wanna be at a venue at like 7 pm on a Thursday in Boston with a bunch of people that I know are gonna be partying. And again, no judgment on that, like you do you, But I don't know. I talked it out with her and I just said I think I'm beyond that, whatever that is Now seeing live music with Taryn.
Speaker 2:I'm all about. It's different. I don't wanna go. It's just different. Depends on the artist. There's a lot of things, there's a lot of things that go into it. So I just don't wanna. I don't want it to come out looking like I'm a liar and I just lie my way through it. I try to be a character driven man.
Speaker 1:Everyone on this planet has given white lies.
Speaker 2:No, of course, There's no one who hasn't been guilty of this.
Speaker 1:And to get back to the main point of this episode, it's guilt. We all are controlled so much by guilt.
Speaker 2:Well, self care is staying in alignment with what you believe is best for you. That's another frame. Of this is like I wanna help. I wanna help people, right, But I can't always think of it this way. Alan and I, I would say, are on the very high end of if you reach out to us, we will help you Right. If you DM me, I will help you as much as humanly possible.
Speaker 1:Sometimes to our detriment.
Speaker 2:Yes, and there were many times where I went way too far with that and burned myself out and did damage to myself. Now I have that understanding of me. Helping you is great. I wanna help every single one of you listening to this more than you can imagine, but I also can't crush myself doing that because if I do, i can't help you tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Can't help anyone. I can't help anyone. If I can't take care of myself, i can't take care of anyone. That's an important understanding to have. It's an important thing to realize that when you go and charge your phone and you're the phone in this example you're charging your phone based on the fact that you wanna be able to do stuff tomorrow with it And you have to charge it every single day because if you don't charge it it's gonna be dead And when it's dead you can't use it To your point any time.
Speaker 2:I'm doing a project like, say, we'll get a new piece of furniture and I'll be building it, which I do thoroughly enjoy. I love it. Huge fan Taren will say hey, do you want me to help you? And I always say no, no, no, you're good, go do you, you can go watch. Go do whatever you want. I don't care. Go watch Netflix, you can do whatever you want. I wanna build this thing Because for me it fills my cup. I enjoy working with my hands. There's a part of me that did that for a long time, but it's almost like, the more you understand how important self-care is for you, the better you are at allowing other people to take it when they're around you, the worse you are at it. Not you, but the collective you. I bet you the harder it's going to be for you to take it around certain people If they don't understand why it's so important. You're probably going to have a layer of guilt built in.
Speaker 1:And on some level, they'll never fully understand because they're not you. And it's interesting how fascinating it is, how, oh, you can't come. Oh, you had a family emergency, so that's okay, that's totally fine.
Speaker 1:Right. It's like someone who is like well, i have a wake. It's like all of a sudden there's no guilt And it makes sense because that's a big enough reason quote unquote in my consciousness or in other people's consciousness. That's gotta be one of the hardest things in the world. I'm glad we're having this conversation.
Speaker 1:We have our listeners, statistically speaking, struggle to not put others ahead of themselves. One of the reasons why peak performance tracking and my coaching has been so successful with our listeners is because they're doing it for me, not for them. There's a member of the NLU team who I'm making her and I'm not making her okay On her PPT. It's track your sleep. She got an aura ring and she's tracking her sleep. She's getting amazing sleep. She's got a better sleep scores than you and me man. Before she wasn't sleeping she was getting four hours, five hours a night. It was not good. She's not doing it for her, She's doing it for me and for the team. That's okay. I love the heart of that.
Speaker 1:Some of us are wired that way. We're service oriented. I don't think that's a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when you can't flip it and actually take care of yourself. If you're not gonna take care of yourself for yourself. You have to flip it in your head It's not for me, right Or you have to evolve and figure out how to be more selfish. Which selfish and selfless is a spectrum Very few of us are at five, i have an ex-partner who is extremely self-centered, wildly selfish.
Speaker 1:I was on the other opposite end, so I was always taking care of her. She was never taking care of me Genuinely, never to an alarming extent. Emilia and I are both on the selfless side, so we take care of each other constantly and we help each other take care of ourselves. Meaning last night was me date. Every week we have a me date And every other night is basically a. We date us together.
Speaker 1:She and I are very good at like babe, take, no, no, no, go take a shower, go do your thing, go watch your show, go, whatever it is. And the reason why is because, whereas in the past, if I was with a selfish person, they would like they energetically would have passive, aggressive like why aren't you helping me vacuum? Why aren't you with me? Why am I watching a show alone and you're not here? Like that kind of crap.
Speaker 1:Those tendrils go so deep Kev, especially in families and like intimate partners. This is like a thing we see at relationship talks coaching. All the time There are very, very self-centered, deeply insecure people that are basically using your need for their approval against you to get you to do what they want. And we've all been there. We all feel it. It's like intuitively. We're like why am I doing this? It's almost like you think you're crazy. It's called gaslighting. We're not gonna get into it any deeper, but for our listeners, you're gonna have to free yourself from the shackles of the discomfort of other people around you And you're gonna have to really take care of yourself if you wanna be the best version of yourself, and there's no way around this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, check in to where it comes from. Even the. I kind of did that live in real time. I was like, well, you know, i used to feel that when I lived with Max I wanted to help him. Like, where does that come from? I will do some reflection on that as well. I think that is always important. You have a coaching call in three minutes. If you are looking for amazing people to be surrounded by like-minded individuals who will value your self-care, your self-love, allow you to prioritize yourself, please join our private Facebook group. Next Level Nation. Link is in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Speaking of prioritizing yourself. Book Club is about you and your own learning How emotions are made by Lisa Feldman Barrett. Join us. It is an extremely wonderful, abundant, learning-oriented, growth-oriented group of people that get together every Saturday and the discussions are just awesome. It's like being on this podcast, but with a group of people privately, Privately. We hope you join us. The link to the landing page will be in the show notes. There's a little form at the bottom of the landing page that you just put your name and email. You put your first and last name and then it goes directly to my inbox Say hey, Alan, I wanna join Book Club. I'll get an email, we'll immediately register you and you can show up.
Speaker 2:Tomorrow for episode number 1365, the two most important things to know about yourself. This is going to be one of the most valuable episodes ever, of all time. That's my goal. That's my goal As always. Yeah, yeah, 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, take care of thyself.
Speaker 1:Thanks, alien.
