Next Level University

#1375 - Are You ON Track Or OFF Track?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Are you making progress on your goals or losing momentum halfway through the year? It's time for a mid-year reality check!  In this episode,  Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros share valuable insights on staying focused and motivated. They also talk about the power of accumulation and focus.  Learn how to balance celebrating your gains and acknowledging the gaps in your journey, especially if you've been struggling with self-belief or self-confidence.

Links mentioned:
Alan's Peak Performance Coaching - https://calendly.com/alanlazaros/60-minute-call-with-alan
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700

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We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram, or via email

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Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

LinkedIn ✍
Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/

Email 💬
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Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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Show notes:
[2:59] The concept of the gap and the gain
[7:53] Recognizing patterns
[14:13] Alex highlights how Next Level Business Solutions helped him optimize his time for maximum productivity
[14:52] Reignite the passion at the beginning of the year
[17:31] The number one lesson this year
[21:50] Everything accumulates
[27:56] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 2:

456 all right ready.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna plug next elimination. No man yeah, man, you plug blog, Excellenation blog A couple people. Next elimination last week. It's because the plugs And it's the only one we can actually measure, not the only one. But Tell me how you're gonna measure blog listens but blog views. I don't know, but I know, but you can't correlate it.

Speaker 2:

A little bit. I'm good with that though.

Speaker 1:

What are you doing over?

Speaker 2:

there, i have to send.

Speaker 1:

The ladies man 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 one thousand three hundred and seventy four, one thing so many of us want but aren't getting. Today, for episode number one thousand three hundred and seventy five, are you on track or off track? so, as you're listening to this episode, if you're listening on the day it came out, i believe there are one hundred and ninety two days left of the year, which means we are almost halfway through the year And I know Alan and I are very, very focused on the date because, number one, we record an episode every day. Number two, we track our progress day to day and quarter to quarter and obviously over the the year. So we're very focused on how many days are left in the quarter And I know not everybody is not everybody has to have that level of specificity to their daily tracking.

Speaker 1:

So I just wanted to do an episode on Where are you? What were your original goals At the beginning of the year? what has changed? What goals have you made progress on? what goals are you behind? What goals did you decide? You know what? I tried this for a while. I don't want to do it anymore. And what goals do you want to set? now that we're halfway through the year? I just kind of want it to be a a check-in episode where Alan and I are always doing this. Maybe you're not doing it as much as Would be valuable to you. If we can help you practice this a little bit more in this episode, that would be a a win for me.

Speaker 2:

One of my clients is a fitness competitor. I talked about her on the last episode and she checks in with her coach And she looks at where she was this time last year, where she is now, where she needs to be. It's called benchmarking. What I want to try to articulate here is something that I've come across in a book I'm reading. It's called 10x is easier than 2x and it is an extraordinary book, although you do have to be careful With any book. Don't take it as gospel, but anyways. So there's this concept called the gap and the gain, and the author of the book is trying to articulate That living in the game is better than living in the gap. I actually believe that you need to do both simultaneously. Let me explain. Living in the gap is Kevin and I had a goal of, you know, having 30 clients. So for me, i wanted to have 30 clients by the end of the quarter And I only have 27. So the gap is the three that I'm missing. The gap is focused on what you're lacking, what you're missing. Okay, i wanted to make $5,000. I only made $3,000. Now I'm I'm the gap, the. The gap is the $2,000 gap And it can be very bad for your self-worth and self-esteem. If you're always in the gap, if you're always up against what could be some perfect ideal, you're never going to feel good enough. You're never going to feel good about yourself. But if you only ever are in the game and in gratitude, you're not going to have as much fire in your belly. I don't think So. The second part is the game, and so in my people performance tracking system, i do my top three gratitudes, i do my top three milestones and I do the gap in the game. And so I'll give you a perfect example. One of my gratitudes is I'm so grateful for my 27 clients. One of my milestones is 30 clients by the end of the quarter. The gap in the game, the gap is three more clients. The gain is I've got 27 clients. Holy crap, you can do. Gain first, gap first, and this is what I recommend.

Speaker 2:

If you're someone who struggles with self belief and self esteem and self confidence, do not look at the gap more than the game. You need to look more at how far you've come this year, not how far behind you are. So with Kev, he's more motivated by looking at how far we've come. Look at how far we've come. Holy crap, three years ago this was like a dream. He's very motivated by that. For me, i need to look at the gap first. How far behind are we? But if I overly look at the gap, i'm going to have low self worth and feel like crap about myself eventually. So I think people who struggle with self belief need to look more at the game and then look at the gap, and I think people who have high self belief and high self worth need to look at the gap first and then the gain second. I'm going to go one layer deeper.

Speaker 2:

I have a team member at NLU who believes that I talk a little bit too negative about myself, and there's definitely truth to that. But what I tried to explain to her was this I said listen, a lot of people in their unconscious and their subconscious, the record that's playing is you're not good enough, you're never going to make it, this isn't going to work. You're full of it. This isn't going to happen. You're not good enough, you're not competent enough, you're not smart enough.

Speaker 2:

And I explained to vulnerability. I said my record isn't saying any of that. My unconscious record is saying you've got this, you can do it, you are capable, you are enough. You've got this, you can do this. Of course you can do this. It's literally like that. It's like of course you can do this. Why can't you do this? Of course you can, and I said so for me.

Speaker 2:

I have to consciously balance that out. I have to consciously say you know what Alan, this might not work. You know what Alan, you better work a little harder here. This isn't just going to work out. You know what, alan, if you're not careful, you're going to let your standards drop. You know what Alan, you're not nearly as far along as you could be if you weren't Jeffing. So she thinks I talk negatively about myself when in reality I'm actually trying to hit five, whereas most people I do realize they have negative self-talk running. Negative self-talk is not a super big issue for me. So if it seems like I talk negative about myself, it's to. It's to actually find five. And so if you're out there listening, are you on track or off track? If you struggle with negative self-talk, be very careful when you overly focus on how off track you are. If you Don't struggle with self-belief or self-confidence, you better look real quick at how off track you are, otherwise you will. You will not have the pain necessary to get on track.

Speaker 1:

Another interesting thing and I've noticed this about myself is We're at the point in the year where you can really start to recognize patterns. But what are the patterns that have been happening for you this year life, love, health, wealth, all of them when, maybe, hypothetically, i Do really good at saving money and then something happens and then I go spend a bunch of money, like, has that been your pattern? I save money for two months, really well, and then I do some reckless stuff Okay, interesting. I Watch what I eat very, very carefully Five days a week and then on the weekend I go off and I lose all my progress. Okay, interesting.

Speaker 1:

Whatever, whatever it may be, i am really consistent in one thing and then something comes up and I struggle. Or I've picked up a lot of new habits, but now I'm only doing 10% of each of those habits. I Really I look at it from that perspective, just because you have a concrete date to look back on I notice that I'll go through spurts of feeling really, really, really good about business and then things slow down a little bit, just because that's how it works. But now I'm trying to disassociate. The way I feel today is Shouldn't be directly correlated to the amount of results we have right now, because a lot of it's the long game versus the short game. So I'm recognizing patterns of myself. I Assume if you're out there you have patterns That you're creating or running. It would probably benefit us all to understand them at a deeper level.

Speaker 2:

Because you know, please, you're good. Okay, this is fascinating that you and I have learned about each other and ourselves. Kevin feels really good when we have money coming in, definitely. I feel really good when we have effectiveness going out and And what we figured out is leading indicator, lagging indicator, again similar to gap and gain. There was this one time we were reviewing our business and and we have metrics for each department. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole, but You know X amount of calls, x amount of podcasts that Kevin goes on, x amount of calls that he has, x amount of clients we ultimately Produce their shows and it's a growth rate.

Speaker 2:

I'm way more focused on the podcasts and the calls. I. I don't care almost at all about the third one, kevin. We had a really big. So we're doing the metrics, we're updating it and I'm like okay, how many podcasts? I think you said like seven. I how many calls? three. And then you're like, you're like no, no, don't be disappointed, though, Wait until you see the money. I'm like Kev, i do not care that. That's past calls. So the fact that we have low calls right now is is Indicating that future is gonna be worse than the now and again.

Speaker 2:

This is something to bring this and make this land for everybody. Are you more focused on Present Things coming in, like harvesting the fruit, or are you more focused on planting more seeds? For me, i give myself The self-esteem or the positive Emotions when we're planting. If we're planting well, we're gonna harvest well. I'm not worried about harvesting plant well, but I think that it needs to be balanced very well, because It's almost like you have to look at okay, are you on or off track ready?

Speaker 2:

What seeds were you planting at the beginning of the year that have, that have bared fruit, and then feel that, okay, but what seeds, most importantly, are you planting now, so that at the end of the year, you feel the same? Yeah, so maybe you feel bad right now because you weren't planting many seeds in the beginning of the year, but you're actually planting a lot of seeds now for the future. Great, maybe you planted tons of seeds and now you're harvesting and you might stop planting because you think you're winning, and That's the thing It's like. The the biggest detriment to future winnings are current winnings, because we talk about how we had a big month in 2022 February and you and I were like watching. I was watching house At like 11 am On a Tuesday and then, go figure, we had some tough months after that. Of course, right, you step off the gas when you're winning. That's not always good, but if all you're ever doing is redlining, it's dangerous too.

Speaker 1:

We talked about this. So we had our next level Hope Foundation event Sunday. So last the previous Sunday, if you're listening to this, and Alan and I were talking while we were having pizza I didn't have any pizza, you had pizza, but we were sitting at the table getting ready to eat And I said it's interesting how there's only like a few things that matter. You just you kind of gotta figure out the system. What works, what's the most important thing? Okay, then you run that, then you try to improve it as you go, and I think right now is an interesting time in the year where you might have been trying something for the last two months that doesn't seem like it's paying off, but you never know, it couldn't be the right thing. It might, just it might not be a long enough period of time. I had a client. I told Alan this the other day. I had a client who, well, a potential client. I talked to this person at the beginning of the year. I went on their show, i did a free call with them and they said, hey, i might like to work with you in the future. I sent them our pricing and I said, yeah, no worries, and I've been touching base with this person online, but nothing crazy. And they messaged me and said hey, i'm following up on this, i'd like to explore it. It's like, oh interesting, that was six months ago, it was the beginning of the year, and that's something that might come to fruition. It might give us fruit in the next couple of weeks.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, maybe, maybe not, but if you're listening to this episode, there's probably a bunch of stuff that you've got to keep doing. There's probably a bunch of stuff that just hasn't. It hasn't turned yet. It's not the right season. It's there, it's brewing under the surface, it's growing, the roots are spurting. It just hasn't come up from under the dirt yet.

Speaker 1:

On the other side of that coin, there's probably some stuff where you said, oh, i'll give it a little bit more time, i'll give this relationship a little bit more time, i'll give this job a little bit more time, whatever it is, and maybe it's time to start something else. This is the interesting thing. I can't tell you which is which. That's the challenging thing. I cannot tell you which is which. Intuitively, i think we kind of know, though. Maybe the relationship has run its course, the jobs run its course, the friendship has run its course, whatever The side, the thing that you were trying but you're not really that into, but maybe that thing where you're like I really think this will pay off if I can just stay consistent. All right, let's revisit that.

Speaker 1:

What can we do to reignite that passion that you had at the beginning of the year? Because now we are in, we're in between. Right now, the beginning of the year is everybody's fired up. When we get towards the end of the year it's easy to get motivated because you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Right now we're in the middle and it kind of sucks And it's summertime and maybe you don't feel like you're making the progress you want.

Speaker 1:

So I like to do episodes around certain times of the year. You'll get a goal setting one probably every year at the beginning of the year. That'll probably happen Around the holidays. We do a lot of stuff around family, setting boundaries, because that can be hard. Around the holidays. You're getting pulled in many different directions, so we usually do that. The summer is where a lot of people lose all the momentum they created Because the weather's nice. You wanna be outside, i completely understand, but you gotta make sure you do what got you here. My favorite quote when you stop doing what got you to the dance, you don't get to dance anymore. I just don't want that for you. If you're listening Now, only you know what you've been doing, only you know the level of effort you've been putting in. Only you know the effort or the level of results you're getting out currently. But I just think, anytime we can revisit, we can review and re-strategize, re-prioritize. It's a good thing to do at any time of the year, but why not halfway point?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what's one thing that maybe you've been running that train too long, maybe it's time to change it or get rid of it completely. And then what's one thing that you gotta give more time and keep consistent and see if it bears fruit. There's an incubation period for everything. Interesting analogy I was thinking of is like a lot of couples are trying to get pregnant and you won't really know for at least a month, and if you don't wait long enough, you won't know, and it takes nine months to actually have a baby. So maybe that's a good analogy Babies, but a lot of talk of children and babies.

Speaker 1:

Are you? what's going on? Anything we need to know about?

Speaker 2:

I've been thinking a lot about all the future and all that stuff Interesting. I mean, i'm a very long-term thinker, so but in the next five to 10 years, for sure I'm gonna have to work double time. Well, for some of the time, for sure I don't like that.

Speaker 1:

I dislike that strongly. What's the number one lesson you've had in the six months of this year thus far?

Speaker 2:

First, what I wanna share with our listeners is Kevin tends to dip too early, i tend to stay too long, and so we've helped each other a lot in that. You know, there's a lot of things that have worked out because we were patient, because of me, and there's a lot of things that have not worked out that we should have canned way earlier, and sometimes you won't know until just way later. But of course, all of us are on one end of that spectrum. You're either overly optimistic and you stay too long, or you're overly pessimistic and you don't give it enough time. That workout regimen might work and you just might can it too quick And for me, i'll run the same thing for too long, even if it's not working. The lesson that I've learned in the six months of this year, the biggest lesson for me, it's everyone has it's what we talked about earlier, kev Everyone has such a powerful strength.

Speaker 2:

There's something you are unreasonably good at, but you don't really value it that much because it's always come naturally to you And that comes with a huge weakness and a huge blind spot. So I talked in the interview with you for me, science, technology, engineering and mathematics It's just very much. Always has just made perfect sense to me. I remember I went to business school and I was like, oh, this is easy And it turns out that's not the case for everybody. I didn't know that. I just came from engineering and engineering was way harder but still also came fairly easy. So what comes really easy to you And then whatever that is the opposite you probably suck at.

Speaker 1:

We're going to do a full episode on that Tuesday.

Speaker 2:

OK, what about you, brother?

Speaker 1:

This is what came up for me, because I assumed you were going to ask me and I was thinking about it while trying to listen to you. At the same time, The way the calendar is set up is not really set up for success, because the fact that it's a new year, the middle of the year, the beginning of the year, doesn't really matter that much, Because it's not about the year, It's about how long you're doing this, for That's what came up for me is a lot of the stuff you're doing. You won't see momentum, true momentum, until two, three years down the road. That This year has been really really good for next level podcast solutions. It's been the best year we've ever had. But it's not because of this year, It's because, to your point.

Speaker 2:

It's because of An accumulation. Yeah, and can you explain that The accumulation? It's wild. We have a 17-person team. It's wild, but I was thinking about it. That's a huge accumulation.

Speaker 1:

We've had so many failures. We've had so many team members come and go.

Speaker 2:

We've had so many challenges. It's just. it accumulates Everything accumulates Go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Right now we have 43 clients. I think there's been a couple new and then we parted ways with a couple, so I'd just say like 43. The first year there was maybe three, and then the second year maybe there was I don't know 15?

Speaker 2:

Probably not even.

Speaker 1:

I'd have to look at the numbers 11,.

Speaker 2:

I think probably, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I'd have to look at the numbers. I probably can't give.

Speaker 2:

Second year was lower than 15.

Speaker 1:

Lower than that, Yeah probably It's just the best way to explain it is it feels like everything has happened in the last six months. That's really the best way to explain it. That's what it feels like to me. It feels like every single thing in business has happened in the last six months.

Speaker 2:

Well, none of that's true, would you? it's so interesting Because if you look at the last six months and how many new clients, that's probably more clients than in the entire previous, last year, in terms of new clients. So that's the thing that's hard to explain. But when we say everything accumulates, everything gets harder and everything gets easier simultaneously. We'll do an episode at some point about everything accumulates and it won't be titled that, but that is so important to know. Everything accumulates, like if you were really disciplined last year in fitness, you can get away with different things this year.

Speaker 1:

You can eat more pizza.

Speaker 2:

People look at me Emilia's family. It's so funny I'm at the lake house and it was one day. I'll be quick about this Labor Day weekend.

Speaker 2:

I wanna say Labor Day weekend And we went for a Sunday. We went there, we went on the boat, we went out and about and I am in pretty good shape from their perspective and I appreciate it. But they all made comments when I got my plate. I like eat a lot of food, i love food, i'm obsessed, i'm a big fan, big fan of food. I don't know if obsessed is right, but big fan And I also fast, right. So there's a lot of things they don't know. And I did say that I fast.

Speaker 2:

But I walk out onto the deck and everyone's out there and it's a beautiful sunny day and they're like look at Alan's plate and they all make a thing of it. It's like look it, like how does he little? do? they know I've been weight training, not every day, but almost every day for eight years. I couldn't. I can eat this much because I'm so consistent and have muscle mass and all that kind of stuff. But it's an accumulation And so you can't look at one moment. I mean we had a mentor that used to spend money like crazy. I mean he would spend thousands of dollars on very stupid things in my opinion, honestly I'm not even trying to sugarcoat it But he also accumulated wealth for 50 years And I just don't think people understand how powerfully things accumulate.

Speaker 1:

I was thinking of it from like a Lego's analogy. If you get one Lego a day, it's not that much, but when you get to the end of a year, two years, three years, you get a lot of Legos, but you can't really point to a single day. It's just every day, every day. I went down in the mailbox and there was a Lego there and I got the Lego and I brought it back And then the next day I did the same thing. It's just. I think that's a really good example. I wouldn't say analogy, but we are blessed where we have the opportunity and the necessity to check in on this daily, and we have meetings every week and every other week and every quarter. We're doing that. So I just think it's a good practice for you.

Speaker 1:

Take a second, sit down and say okay, how much money did I wanna make this year? How much money have I made? How many clients, how many dates, how many new friends, how many boundaries, how many fears have I chased, whatever? how many times have I meditated? How many times have I exercised? Whatever it is for you health, wealth, love, whatever it is for you Are you on track or are you off track? Here's the interesting thing If you're on track, keep going, because you might be able to do way more than you actually thought possible.

Speaker 1:

If you're off track, what's something you can do to get back on track? The unfortunate truth is some of us are halfway through the year and we're not gonna hit our goals, and whatever. I'd rather you know that six months in, because at least you can do something different, you can try something else, you can pull on new levers, you can get creative. So sit down and ask yourself that question Where do I feel like I've actually made progress? Where am I on track? Where am I ahead of schedule? Where am I behind And what can I do about it? That is my tactical takeaway for this episode.

Speaker 2:

If you're struggling with staying on track. That is what my coaching is. I had one client. She said, alan, you know the value of your coaching is not just the numbers, and I said I appreciate you, but for me it is the numbers. I wanna all my clients. Literally they get a report of whether or not they're on or off track every other week or every week or every month, depending on the run rate. I do weekly, i do bi-weekly and I do monthly, and it's way more affordable than you think. So reach out, say, hey, monthly is very, very affordable And you'll get a report.

Speaker 2:

Imagine having a report every month of exactly whether you're on track or off track towards your goals. We set goals, we set milestones which are quarterly, and then we do peak performance tracking and then I send you a report on whether or not you're on track or off track. It really is a full proof plan to achieving your goals And it's awesome having certainty. One of my clients is just so pumped. She's like I've lost 20 pounds. It's like well, of course, And I'm proud of you, so good for you. And she's the one who's doing the suffering, but it really has to do with every other week. I was just checking our numbers And that's really it's awesome. It's like okay, here's the train tracks, stay on them, and when you're off them, here's the proof, and then what do we do to get back on? And it really is a full proof plan to stay consistent towards your goals And I love it. So I hope that you reach out.

Speaker 1:

And if you are halfway through the year and you're thinking yourself, i really, really hoped by now I would have more like-minded friends, community members, people who helped me grow, believe in me and all that. please join our private Facebook group. Next Level Nation Link will be in the show notes Again. now is maybe the hardest time to find growth-minded people, but also the easiest, because you have access to people online. Please join the group and just make friends, send messages to people. Everybody wants to connect with people that know them, that like them, that understand them, that see them. going back to our last episode, so the power is really there, the opportunity is really there. Join our Facebook group and use it to your advantage. Tomorrow. for episode number 1,376, one simple question to ask yourself before you make a decision. Alan has used this analogy in the past, this example, this I don't know what it really is considered Like. what are the? it's kind of like a riddle, but it's not a riddle. Idiom is that a thing?

Speaker 2:

I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:

I think I'm gonna go with idiom. I'll find out what an idiom is.

Speaker 2:

Tomorrow we're gonna talk about that. It sounds too close to idiot for me. I know, I know. Well, you never know.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, we're gonna talk about that tomorrow. I'm really excited about that episode. I think it's an idiom. We're gonna say we're gonna use Alan's idiom tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

As always, alan's being an idiom.

Speaker 1:

As always, we love you, we appreciate you, Grateful for each and every one of you, And at NLU we do it out of fans. We have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow. Stay on track.

Speaker 2:

Next up on Nation.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host