Next Level University

#1366 - The 2 Ds Of Consistency

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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What if designing your life could make all the difference in achieving your goals and maintaining your habits? Discover how design and discipline are pivotal components in our overall success. In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros dive deep into the two D's of consistency: design and discipline. Listen as they share practical examples during this insightful conversation on designing your life for success and mastering the art of consistency through design and discipline. 

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Show notes:
[1:44] Discipline
[4:04] Design
[10:58] Better designs helped Alan's clients
[14:00] Chad shares how Next Level Podcast Solutions transformed his podcast and provided invaluable assistance along the way
[14:44] Adjusting the design
[18:20] You can't improve a system that's not running
[22:52] More discipline leads to better design
[27:31] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

a little bit, but it's okay. One, two, three, Four, five, six. one, two, three. Four five, six.

Speaker 2:

Nice.

Speaker 1:

All right.

Speaker 2:

Ray you ready for this, hey? 0.1% improvement Storytelling Yes. All right, your intention is to better storytell. Better storytell, if that's a word.

Speaker 1:

Better storytelling. What are you plugging? Next elimination always the first one of the week.

Speaker 2:

next elimination Group coaching for me. Okay, My intention is to be present. be in flow.

Speaker 1:

Kid wants to be present. He wants to be in flow, ready. Next level nation. Welcome back to another very special 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.

Speaker 1:

It was episode number 1,365, the two most important things to know about yourself. Today, for episode number 1,366, we're talking about two more things The two D's of consistency Bump, bump, bump. So it was. What night was this? This was probably Friday night. I had a long day. Taryn had a long day. She was laying in bed.

Speaker 1:

I just brushed my teeth, got ready for bed and I walked in the bedroom and I said you know what's really interesting? Alan has practiced the same routine every single day for I don't know, probably like seven years now. And I said I was thinking about that while I was brushing my teeth and I had a breakthrough. I said not only is he a very, very disciplined human being so that's D number 1, discipline but he also has a really, really, really good handle on the design of his life. I said Alan's not exactly the type of person who is gonna stay over somebody else's house. There's not a lot going on. His life is designed very simply and it's designed for success. And I was telling Taryn I said it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

You can either be and this isn't the exact place I wanna go but you can either be really disciplined, you can have a really good design, or you can have both. And I think a lot of us when we feel like we're struggling with discipline, one of the reasons we're struggling is because we have broken the design. If you feel like doing something is really really, really easy right now, my bet is you're not drastically more disciplined, you just probably have a better design. Think about the times where you are the most successful with some of your habits. Was it the fact that you just hunkered down and said, okay, i'm gonna be super, super, super disciplined? Maybe that's how it started, but hopefully you got to the point where you were able to design that success into your life. And it's interesting how a thought I had when I was brushing my teeth can become a reality of an episode touching people all over the world.

Speaker 1:

Kev so what I designed. Yes, alan so.

Speaker 2:

First and foremost, i gotta turn my fan off soon for the next episode, for the next episode.

Speaker 1:

No, I just turned off right now. No, I turned it off, go ahead.

Speaker 2:

You're gonna hold Facebook.

Speaker 1:

I'll do the Jeopardy. Yeah, i'm gonna do the Jeopardy theme song Good, perfect, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do do. For those of you who might be the younger generation, there was a game show called Jeopardy, hosted by one, alex Trebek. It was a great, great, great show So much better. We're back.

Speaker 2:

So much quieter.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, because last time I listened to the episodes I could hear your laptop fan And you, emilia, and I. Emilia and I have a podcast as well. Kevin and I are sticklers for audio quality. We try to Kevin more than me try to be Okay.

Speaker 2:

So the second D of design, i think, is more important than the first D, and so the habit that Kevin's referring to is I have what's called a morning mindset workout. A lot of my clients have it as well and they all have their own. So pick a video anywhere from two to five minutes long and prime your mind first thing in the morning with it. Now, have I done it every single day without missing a day for, i think, eight years now. Yes, have I done it every morning? No, absolutely not. Sometimes it's the afternoon, sometimes it's the evening when I realize I've forgotten to do it. But my point is is that it's three clicks away.

Speaker 2:

Back in the day, kevin, when the iPhone first came up, i used to design user interfaces at an electronic computer engineering my bachelor's degree And I was doing this thing called UI design and essentially there's something called three-click satisfaction. One of the reason why everyone loves the iPhone is because it's so simple and so easy to use. So anything that you want to do on your phone should be three clicks away aka great design. So if you wanted to order Domino's, how many times would you have to click to get into the Domino's app?

Speaker 1:

To get into the app Yeah, Click the icon to open it. It logs in based on your face and then you click once to the menu.

Speaker 2:

And what they do on the Domino's app, which I know very well, is they have pre-orders. You're your past order, so do you have an order saved?

Speaker 1:

Like Terry Kevin's special or something. No, i do on Taco Bell. Okay next.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's click, click, click. Food is coming. And I did that with this morning mindset workout. So I open my phone. The home screen has YouTube on the bottom right. I click YouTube, clicked the library in the bottom right hand corner. I click morning mindset workout and I hit play. So that's four clicks. It's actually four clicks and it's actually playing. So this is the morning mindset workout.

Speaker 1:

Please don't copyright strike us, eddie.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so Eddie's a friend, and it's actually really cool story because when I first started doing this, i had been doing this every day for three years before I ever met Eddie. Hmm, and then Eddie became a friend. We co-hosted at an event. He became a client. It's just such a crazy story because I didn't even know him when this first started. He was like a hero of mine, you know, but anyways. So owed to excellence is the name of the video. It's three minutes long and If you really do ever want to be disciplined, you kind of have to choose something That is the least amount of friction. A Good analogy for this is James clear talks about this in atomic habits. He says there was someone who Wanted to stop eating so much popcorn. So what they did? they still love popcorn. They took the popcorn, they put it up in their garage and they had to grab a ladder to get to the popcorn.

Speaker 2:

Now, if they really want to get the popcorn, it only takes 60 seconds to go grab it. But he added resistance on purpose. They say if you want to stop watching TV, you need to unplug the TV and put it in your closet. If you want to start reading more, you got to put your books right by your bedside table. I Think I have three books four books on my bedside table, because I know that I'm not gonna get up at night Out of my bed, go grab a book and then bring it. I instead, i just want to be in the habit, and so the idea underneath this is just design your life around the things you want to do more of and, really more importantly, design your life in A way that makes it difficult to do the things that aren't good for you.

Speaker 1:

I thought that was a long, dramatic pause. No, no, no, that's it, that's okay.

Speaker 1:

Usually you, not you, usually you're nod your head when you're done. You have your tells, you have your poker tells that I I recognize I've cast tells a couple podcast tells. I was on a show the other day and they were mentioning the seven episodes a week. I we get a lot of love when we, when you go on other podcasts, people like wait, you do an episode every day and I said honestly It's not that, all things considered, it's not the most challenging thing in the world. We have a really good design where Monday you can't book on our calendar, no matter what. You can't pay us for something. I mean you, you could, we could move it, but you and I do not have anything.

Speaker 2:

You're thinking about it. Right, we'll reach out, no, but we don't.

Speaker 1:

We don't have any availabilities, right? So if I send you my calendar link, you can't book on Monday. It's not even an option. That's it. That's a really good design that helps. That makes things a little bit easier. Where, say, you and I had open calendars on Monday And we had to find time in between then? then it would be a lot of discipline.

Speaker 1:

Thinking back to COVID, you and I were really really, really productive when we were in the lockdown because the design was great. I can't go anywhere. I know there's nothing else. I cannot go anywhere else. It's.

Speaker 1:

It made things in a way, in one way, a lot easier. In other, many ways, many, many, much, much, much more challenging. But that's so. Here's the other thing. Okay, cool, covid happens. We can't leave, so we're at home working, awesome.

Speaker 1:

There's the design, but then there's the also the discipline of. Well, taryn was home too, and if she wanted to watch Netflix at noon, there's nothing that's stopping me from watching Netflix at noon, other than the discipline. So these two go hands-in-hand. It's almost like The more designed you are, the easier it is not to have to rely on pure discipline. The more disciplined you are, the easier it is to lock into design. It's almost like one adds a lot to the other one and vice versa. I was going to, i was going to say the 3Ds and the other one was going to be drive, because I was listening to The Art of Impossible and they were talking about drive. But I thought I really think discipline and designer the reason, the reasons most of us don't succeed.

Speaker 1:

Why is something so hard? Okay, let's do this. Why is something so hard in the beginning, but also so easy in the beginning? It's easy in the beginning because you haven't had to worry about breaking down your discipline yet. It's hard in the beginning because you haven't created a design yet. A new routine is challenging because it's new and there is no design, there's no muscle memory, there's no flow, there's no momentum. But it might also be easy because there's not a lot of discipline to start. You don't have a lot of negative reps with it, you don't have a lot of resistance around saying, oh, yesterday sucked, it's going to be hard to do it today. It's very interesting how the way you set something up determines how long you're able to actually do the thing. These are just connected very, very, very nicely.

Speaker 2:

One of the reasons why I've helped so many clients be consistent is the design piece. They don't suddenly have more discipline, but they do suddenly have better designs. I remember back when I was fitness coaching, whenever I was with a client who wanted to choose a gym, i would say these are the three most important things. Number one 24-7. Needs to be open 24-7. You ever show up to a gym on a holiday and then Of course, oh, it's the worst. You need to be able to Kev, you talk about this. It's like it's 11 pm and I can't sleep. I'm going to go get a lift. Need 24-7. Got to be.

Speaker 2:

Number two was proximity. How close to your home is it? If it's more than 20 minutes away, do not kid yourself. Do not kid yourself unless you are a really dedicated bodybuilder or fitness competitor. There's no way. There's no way.

Speaker 2:

Emilia and I have a gym that we don't even like that we go to. It's two minutes away. I spend six minutes a day in my car. That's it, one of the reasons I don't have a nice car, but the thing is there's a gym that I really love. I adore impact fitness in Auburn, adore it So good.

Speaker 2:

I will not do it. I won't do it. I'm not going to spend an hour a day in my car to get a little bit of a better workout, to be in a better energy. If you have a half an hour away, jim, you're not going to be consistent. It's just human nature. I think that discipline is literally going against human nature. I will not eat these donuts. I will not eat these donuts. I will not eat these donuts. That's going against human nature. Human nature is eat those donuts. There might be a famine or calories. You need calories to survive evolution. Discipline is going against human nature. Discipline is setting yourself up to go with human nature. You have to do both. If you don't have both, it's going to be extremely difficult to be consistent. If it's extremely difficult to be consistent, it's going to be hard to get any really, really good results.

Speaker 1:

I've talked. For some reason Your cadence is off today. When you finish your sentences, I can't tell I've talked a lot.

Speaker 2:

I don't know how to explain it. I don't want to go down this rabbit hole, but I just feel different. I feel, like I'm more grown. I've grown a lot lately, that's all.

Speaker 1:

I like it.

Speaker 2:

Whatever that means, i'm not sure, yet I'm sending some over my way.

Speaker 1:

I'm trying to grow a little bit.

Speaker 2:

I'm always down. I'm all right, brother, i appreciate it. You better have devolved. I'm not sure We'll find out.

Speaker 1:

This is the first of eight episodes we're recording today probably seven, realistically. But we'll find out as we get deeper into the week's episodes whether or not I can pick up on your tells. I have mentioned the alarm clock that I have. It's like a watch, but it's an alarm clock that vibrates. That came from me. What originally happened was I was getting up super early. My phone was waking Taryn up. Every morning. I was getting up and I was going and doing my stuff, which was great, but it was waking her up. It was like okay, the design is not working. The design is working.

Speaker 1:

Yes, not a great design. The design is working really good for my discipline, but it's not working great for my relationship. Okay, cool, what do we do? She got me a present. She got me this watch that vibrates.

Speaker 1:

The design was not working well because it would vibrate once and I would turn it off without even knowing. So then I set two alarms, so five o'clock and five o'one, and then the discipline increased, but it wasn't to the point where I some mornings it would feel like I just forgot, i just in my sleep, turned it off and then I just woke up like an hour later disappointed. I was like, oh no, now I set five. That's the third D disappointment, disappointment. I set five.

Speaker 1:

So let's just say it's usually now I'm at a cadence where it's 530. So I've been getting up at 530s and really, really, really good. So I'll do 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 535. So that's technically, i think that's technically seven. I never get to the seventh one. Usually I get up after the first one because I know the next one's coming, so I can't fall back asleep into a deep sleep. It's worked amazing. So the Design didn't work, so I had to rely more on discipline. The discipline didn't work, so I had to tap it back into design and then rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. This is why it's all connected, because when you do something consistently, the design improves, the discipline improves and you can actually figure out what's working and what's not. That is why consistency is so hard, because until you practice it, you don't really know what works and what doesn't. It's almost like until you practice it long enough, you only know what doesn't work.

Speaker 2:

In a way, One of my clients said, alan, i know that you think that the value of your coaching is the peak performance tracking and the reports and the peak performance reports and the data. but I want you to know your coaching is so much more than that And I said I really appreciate that genuinely, like thank you. I do know that, but you don't understand. I can't improve a system that you're not running. Like if Kev has a workout program that he's actually executing against, we can analyze his results and then improve the system, but if you're not running the system, i don't have anything to go on. I can't tell you that it's not working. I can't tell you that it is working. You're not running the system, so I can't tell. It's almost like the only way to improve is you have to be consistent, because and Kev, you and I talked earlier about 0.1% improvements compounded over time.

Speaker 2:

So, we're on the 1,366th episode And I'm quite embarrassed. I left my fan on. You'd think you'd figure it out, brother. Like every Monday, turn your fan off. It's not that hard. Now we should probably have a pre-flight checklist. We don't. I assume we're gonna do better and we don't. It is what it is. But the point is is I was looking at some of our old videos. I was on YouTube with Emilia this weekend helping her with her podcast, and we have improved so much On episode to episode you can't really see it. You really can't. No, no, like alarming. It's invisible. It is invisible.

Speaker 1:

It's invisible. it's invisible Or in a way you actually feel worse.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yep, you know, if you're listening to this just to make this concept land, go on YouTube at some point. Next level university. Check out our latest video. Okay, listen to two minutes of it. And then I want you to go 200 episodes prior. So go to I don't know 11 hundreds. Then I want you to go to 800s, then I want you to go to like the 300s. It is horrible. The show is so bad Genuinely. It's so bad Now in comparison, right in comparison to now. It's so bad compared to other shows. Back then Maybe it was decent. You know, whatever, the point that I'm trying to make here is we could never have improved something that we weren't running. You cannot improve a system that's not running.

Speaker 2:

Imagine Apple did an iPhone and then they were like you know what, in 10 to 15 years, let's just make a better one. No, no, no, no. They had iPhone one, iphone two, iphone three. I just got the iPhone 14 Pro Max. So, and the 15 is about to come out in September, the iPhone is the best phone on the planet because they stay consistent, because they are disciplined, and they stay consistent, and then they redesign the phone And then they learn from that, and then they redesign, and then they learn from that, and then they redesign, and that's what's called R&D, research and development, and we all have to do that in our own lives too.

Speaker 1:

I think about going through airport security or anything like that, where it's kind of there's a lot on the line. So, like anytime, i think, fear and there's a lot on the line. I think of airports and flying, just because there is a lot on the line at all times. Think about the designs they have, the systems, the design. Like you go through security the same way every single time. It's a design, it's by design, and then you basically have to be disciplined with the design. And that really is how.

Speaker 1:

Think of whatever your favorite restaurant is that you've gone to and then you left and said, wow, the service was really good. That is a mixture of discipline and design, training and staffing or whatever it is. I went, tara, and I went away. We went to lunch on Sunday and it was a really, really nice place And you can tell that there is a lot of discipline, but it's also a lot by design. You could tell just by the way things flowed. So you are no different, alan, and I are no different. That's why a good morning routine is awesome, because you start the morning with design. Can you give let's?

Speaker 2:

give some examples. Don't ask me about my morning routine, son. Let's give some examples No, no, no in general of things you've designed, Like anything simple, relatable, Simple relatable That you've designed in your own life. I'll give a simple one.

Speaker 2:

My yoga mat is right next to the fireplace because when, when it's warmer, your joints, ligaments and tendons are more pliable. So I'm purposely and it's always out And it's actually flipped up. I'm a little crazy. Okay, so it's also flipped up Because the yoga mat it's, it's Emilia's. So first of all, there's two yoga mats There's there's the cheap Amazon one that I bought that's underneath Emilia's nice one because I want the extra cushion, because I'm soft, and When you flip it over, there's a. There's a huge um, what's that bird? that's got all the colors Peacock, peacock. Yeah, there's a peacock feather. It's like really colorful and really nice, and my the housekeeper, cleoji, she flips it and cleans it, and I don't like the peacock side because I like symmetry and the design is not symmetrical, so I can't do my stretches as well.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

So I, like the other side, is like checkerboard and it's it's very good for me to know where my feet are placed to make sure I'm symmetrical in yoga. So that's by design. The fact that there's two yoga mats is by design, and the fact that it's right next to the fireplace is by design. And the fact that it's always out and I never have to unroll it is by design, because I know I'm not gonna do mobility. No, i'm not gonna unroll the yoga mat every day. Human beings are inherently lazy, myself included. If I want to do yoga, it better be right there and it better be flipped upright And it better be with the fireplace right there that I can flip on because it's cold in the morning. And and that's just a good example of a design. I think that People think I'm so disciplined and I'm grateful, but I'm telling you it's more design than discipline, i'm certain.

Speaker 1:

I'm just a little, but it's more design. Well, the more you do something, the more disciplined you are, the better you can design something. One one really good thing about having a home like a podcast home studio is everything's always set up by design. I The other day it was like oh, it's time for me to record podcast growth. You cool I. There's no barriers, there's no resistance. I turn the camera on, i turn the lights on where we're good to go. Another one I don't do this really anymore because I don't.

Speaker 1:

I don't drink pre-workout like I used to. Now I have. I drink zoas because I have them, but I used to. I would mix my pre-workout The night before. I put it in the fridge. I would. When I was bodybuilding, i would make my overnight oats, so it'd be the first thing I it would. They would be in the fridge So I'd go walk to the fridge breakfast pre-workout, off to the gym. Now I have my AirPods charging next to my phone in the office every night. It is a lot of it is. What can I do So I don't have to rely on pure discipline? You, how can I make this a little bit easier? How can I make this a little bit easier. A less friction. Less friction, more smooth.

Speaker 2:

Knowing that it will never actually be easy. Hmm, because, kev and this is the cool part you can share authentically that, even though your office is set up, you have the time available, you have the time freedom, you're your own boss, you, for the most part, you, it's all set up and it's frictionless. You still better believe before that PGU episode. Oh right, even if you have a topic and a title and it's all picked and it's and it's bulleted out and you know what you're gonna talk about And it's all set up, you still are sitting there like I don't want to do it Definitely, and then you have no excuse.

Speaker 2:

The other cool part about design is it gets rid of the excuses. Hmm, whereas before it's like well, i didn't have my stuff and blah, blah, blah, and whereas, if it's all set up now, you can't tell yourself a story. You just got to, you just got to do it. But I do want everyone to know, even though everything is well-designed, at the end of the day, there's still gonna be times where it's just like, of course, okay, let's bite the bullet.

Speaker 1:

So, if you're struggling with consistency, ask yourself is it discipline or is it design? if you've created a world-class, beautiful design and you still find yourself not doing it, maybe your discipline needs to come up. If you feel like, oh my, i'm just going against the current all day, every day, maybe we got to put some designs in place, because I think I'm sure there's way more to it. But I really think these are two of the big pillars When it comes to consistency, when it comes to success, when it comes to building self-belief in yourself and what you're doing.

Speaker 2:

Go ahead and I knew it. Hey, i knew it. I knew it that time. No nice, if you need help with the design, it's my favorite thing in the entire world. I'm an engineer at heart, always will be, and I love to design and Help people design for success. So if you need help, please reach out.

Speaker 1:

I am also an engineer. I did go to engineering school, a little school called the school of hard knocks and life experience. I don't know if you've ever heard of it.

Speaker 1:

Next level nation if you are looking for a group of like-minded individuals where you can be yourself. One of the interesting perspectives we have when it comes to people is people post different stuff on every platform. Facebook is different than Instagram, which is different than LinkedIn, which is different than TikTok Because a lot of us don't feel comfortable posting about our real lives, who we really really are, inside our private Facebook group, next-level nation. We'll make that safe. Please join if you are interested. Link is in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

What would your life feel like If you really knew, with a high degree of certainty, that if you stay disciplined and you keep designing that, your life is going to be successful? How much would you believe in your own future if you really were consistent? Group 11, july 11th. Group coaching is designed We've done 10 iterations of group coaching at this point and it's very well designed to help you succeed. You're going to track habits. You're going to have an assistant coach. You're going to have six bi-weekly sessions with Kevin and myself health, wealth and love. It is going to be extremely well designed to try to help you achieve what you want. So please sign up with the promo code. Reach out to Kevin and myself. Alan at nextleveluniversecom. Kevin at nextleveluniversecom The link to the landing page of group coaching will be in the show notes. Reach out and say hey, i want to join. I want the promo code for listeners of this show, only 30% off, which brings it to less than $96 per month. So reach out. We hope to have you in group 11.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1367, why you're not building self-belief. I was a very, very, very good baseball player, but I never believed I was because I was missing this one thing 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:

Decide, discipline and design Next level nation.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host