Next Level University

#1380 - Are Your Weaknesses Getting Weaker?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Share episode

Have you ever realized that focusing too much on your strengths might actually be creating weaknesses in your life? In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros explore typical strengths and weaknesses they observed in the people they coached and met throughout their podcast journey.

Listen to their discussion on the importance of balancing strengths with self-awareness to navigate life more effectively and achieve goals. Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation – it might change how you approach your personal and professional life.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
To learn more about group coaching - https://nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/ 

______________________ 

Website 💻  http://www.nextleveluniverse.com   

The best way to track your habits is here! Download the app: Optimal - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/optimal/   

_______________________

Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume

_________________

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

Instagram 📷
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 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

__________________


Show notes:
[3:50] Creating blindspots
[5:44] Common strengths that come with bottlenecks
[8:41] Root-cause diagnosis is critical
[12:34] Tarryn host of The Business Of Happiness podcast shares her wonderful experience with Kevin and the Next Level Podcast Solutions team
[14:16] What is the root cause of your challenge?
[19:15] Some people are strong on the spiritual side, while others are good on the physical side
[26:31] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay. Um, i'm gonna do group coaching now.

Speaker 2:

You can do heart Just speak from the heart. That's the intention. Just remember, people don't care that. It's most of the things you do. Experience. What's the experience I would say is a good is a good way to go.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people were it's safe to grow around. They want to see you win. They want to see you succeed.

Speaker 2:

And if you listen to the show, if you listen to this show and you've never had a coach, this is the best place to start. It just makes sense logically.

Speaker 1:

Armin. Title of the episode Last thing.

Speaker 2:

Title of this episode is are your weaknesses getting weaker?

Speaker 1:

And the premises.

Speaker 2:

The premises strengths create blind spots that never get fixed because we never go back to wanting to look bad.

Speaker 1:

Let's do it, You ready? I am one, two, three, four five, six. Nice One, two, three four, five, six.

Speaker 2:

There 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 1,379. Are you using your imagination to your advantage? That was a very hyper conscious episode. I enjoyed that one very much. Today, for episode number 1,380. Happy Tuesday. Are your weaknesses getting weaker?

Speaker 2:

So, as I've mentioned before, i used to have a job where I made a good amount of money and I kind of sucked at a lot of the stuff. I did, believe it or not. So, just for for context, i was in an industry called weatherization. We'd work on the windows, we'd work on doors, we'd work in attics, we'd work above drop ceilings. The theory behind the entire industry basically is you keep the good air in the bad air out right Energy. If you're cooling down the air, the last thing you want it to do is go out the windows, because there's a giant gap between the window and the frame. So we'd cock the windows and there was a bunch of stuff. But one of the things we did was in these schools. Believe it or not, a lot of people might not think this. they're not think this, but schools have massive attics because above the hallways, above the classrooms, there's usually an attic, and these attics are mass, they're massive. I mean the ceilings are like 20 feet higher than the floor. It's, it's yeah, it's massive. So we would go in there and we would blow this insulation in. We had this big machine out in a trailer where and it was actually fun loading it but you would take these bales of insulation, which is like shredded up newspaper and some other stuff, you'd rip them out of the bag, you throw them in this machine. This machine would crush it up, feed it to a hose and it would fire it all the way up into the attic and you'd spray it in in the attic.

Speaker 2:

It was probably three years where I was with this company before I had ever tried to to do the blown in insulation in the attic. I had done a lot of loading of the hopper, as it was called, because it was easy, but I was always afraid to do the thing that I was weakest at. And here's the interesting thing, the second I decided you know what, i know how to do everything else. I know how to work on doors and how to work on windows, like I'm good, i'm good with all that, i'm not really worried about it. The weakness that I created actually got weaker because everybody else around me was getting better at it and I was a foreman So I had to learn this at some point. So eventually I bit the bullet and I went up in the attic and I said, all right, let me figure out how to do this. And it was terrible. And you're supposed to make the insulation level. It wasn't. It was wavy and mountains and it was brutal. It was brutal. There was a lot of peaks and a lot of valleys, much like our, our career here at Nexelov University And it. But it makes sense. It really makes sense why when you have a strength, you double and triple and quadruple down on the strength and you're actually creating weaknesses, or you're you're creating blind spots. That's the the notes that we had for this episode. The blind spot for me was I am getting worse at something I've never done because in my mind I can't do it cause it's a weakness. We always.

Speaker 2:

If you're in the fitness space or if you've ever known bodybuilders or you know, you know somebody who goes to the gym frequently you might hear, friends, don't let friends skip leg day. That's something I've said, that to Alan. It's just, it's like a meme in the in the fitness industry. One of the reasons why is many people they're really good at a different exercise, so maybe they're good at bench press or they're good at squats, or their legs aren't their strongest suit. So what happens? They stop using them. They don't. They don't go and do leg day because leg day sucks. Then they end up having weak legs and they get weaker and the rest of their body gets bigger and they end up being very, very top heavy.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of an analogy for this where if you have a strength and you double, triple, quadruple down in your strength, you're creating weaknesses because you're not working on the things that you could get better. At Last part. I understand completely why that is because when you're really good at something, the last thing you want to do is go focus on the thing that you're not good at at all, because if your self-worth and your self-belief and your significance is tied up in, i'm really good at this. Therefore I get attention. It's gonna be very hard to say I am not good at this. I might get attention, but it might not be the kind that I'm after. So I very much understand, but I'm as guilty of this as anybody else, especially looking back into the past.

Speaker 1:

Kev, all the people that you've coached, all the people that you've talked to, all the NLU community members, listeners you and I have met so many listeners over the years. What are some common strengths that come with bottlenecks For our audience?

Speaker 1:

Because the idea here is yeah the idea here is every one of us has a unique strength, so if you're listening to this, there's something that you are better than I am at and better than Kevin at No question. I've never met a human who isn't better than me at something, and that means usually that there's a weakness on the other side of that. So confidence is one. If you're very, very confident. Arrogance is most likely the weakness, so sometimes you're probably a little arrogant or overly confident, and so this is an inherent thing. But yeah, so what are some common ones that you've seen?

Speaker 2:

The biggest one is probably the strength is just unreasonable heart drivenness. That's a word, Just being a very, very, very character driven, heart centered human being who wants to take care of other people. The downside with that is usually boundaries. It's usually setting and keeping boundaries because it's just kind of hard to do that When you're super, super caring. It's hard to set boundaries oftentimes because you feel you can feel the discomfort when somebody butts up against your boundaries. It's a very uncomfortable feeling to have And we're actually going to talk about boundaries on Thursday.

Speaker 2:

So for episode 1382, we're going to talk about boundaries. That's one. The strength is understanding what fun and short term fulfillment looks like. I think the potential weakness or bottleneck that comes with that is not understanding, not having a long, long, long term time perspective. That was definitely me. I did not have a very long time perspective. We're also going to do an episode on that this week too, which is interesting. I think this is going to be a really good week of content. Those are a couple.

Speaker 2:

Again, it's interesting how almost everything boils down to one thing that is an umbrella of everything. Somebody asked me recently how do you do seven episodes a week without talking about the same stuff And I said we do talk about the same stuff very often, But it's from a different perspective with a different story and everything is connected differently. So if you have low self-worth, that's boundaries, that's toxic relationships, that's probably letting yourself down. Maybe your self-trust isn't high Time perspective probably isn't there. It's interesting how one thing can connect to so many other things. So, honestly, most of our community is very, very, very, very heart driven, super positive, probably the most positive person in their friend group, but they also have low self-worth And everything that comes with low self-worth.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what you just articulated there is why root cause diagnostics is so critical. So, whether it's relationship talks, coaching or peak performance coaching or business consulting, or I've started recently doing calling it CEO coaching, which is essentially the same as peak performance coaching, but specifically for CEOs, and all I'm really doing is problem solving in a unique way. So, really, what you're doing is you ask questions and you get information, you get data, you take it in And then you're finding the. You mentioned the umbrella. You're finding the umbrella point And then you're solving that. I'll give an example.

Speaker 1:

Okay, amy L sent me a. She's on the team, so shout out to Amy Linus. She sent me a picture and she wouldn't mind me sharing this. I have permission to share this. I like to make that clear, cause I don't want anyone to think I'm ever going to share anything that we talk about, but anyways. So she sent me a picture saying huge win. Today I think she said small win, but I'm calling it a huge win where she went out in a crop top and she was like pumped about her physique and her body because she's been I think it's 300 plus days in a row of exercise. It's unbelievable, and when her and I first started working on exercising consistently.

Speaker 1:

I want to bring you to the root cause of why we did that because exercising consistently was not the cure all. Let me rephrase it was the cure all, but the issue was self-esteem. Okay so, amy L, amazing leader, great communicator, bright, shiny, light, wonderful human being, heart driven, capable, competent, struggles a little bit with tech, amy, but you're coming up on that and you're aware of that, all good, but I'm sitting there like, okay. When I first met her it was like oh okay, low self-esteem, struggles with boundaries, blah, blah, blah. All we have to do is solve that. That's the one thing. And again, underneath that is low self-worth. But self-esteem, i think, is the daily version of self-worth. So if you're building self-esteem on a day to day, eventually your self-worth will be higher. So anyways, root cause analysis If self-esteem is the issue, why doesn't she have high self-esteem when she's so amazing? I see her as amazing. She doesn't see her as amazing, she does more now, by the way, amy. So if you're listening, i'm not projecting onto you, but I see her as more amazing than she sees herself, and I'm certain of that. At the time especially, i was like oh okay, so I think your value's here. You aren't seeing that. Why, okay, self-esteem Okay. Why is self-esteem low?

Speaker 1:

It's the umbrella concept. It's tied to body image. It was tied to letting herself down in fitness. So in my head it was like oh my God, here's the cheat code. All we have to do is solve fitness And then everything else is gonna proliferate. For me that was true as well. I talk about seeing Superman and then running to the bathroom and seeing myself in the mirror crying, pouring my alcohol out and then going back to the gym. My self-esteem issues were tied to body image. I wasn't in shape and I knew I was letting myself down. So fitness for me is what really brought me into the man I am today. for sure, fitness has saved my life as well as personal development, but anyways. So here's my point. All we did was work on her slowly but surely getting consistent in fitness. Now she's building self-esteem, now she's empowered. Everything else gets better now.

Speaker 1:

One thing that I think is fascinating to bring this back to the original episode every strength comes with a weakness.

Speaker 1:

Eml I would consider to be a powerful, positive, influential, empowered leader, female leader, and I think that a lot of people are intimidated and or find ways or reasons not to like her X, y, z, and so her being amazing is a huge strength, but it comes with a weakness, because her self-worth was low, because she gets mistreated often. Okay, and if you're listening to this show, you probably have been empowered at times and been lashed out at or knocked down, or knocked down a peg or talked poorly about or whatever right, which is why we're all so damn scared to be empowered, by the way, because it's just a thing. And so the weakness that comes with that is low self-esteem. How do you solve that? And so, if you're out there listening, what is your root cause of your challenge? And usually it's connected to something that's actually a strength for you. So, kev, for you, give me one strength real quick. I just want to live. Do this A strength of mine. Yeah, don't be bashful. What are you awesome at?

Speaker 2:

I'm the greatest mathematician to live.

Speaker 1:

I was speaking right after Mr Laplace.

Speaker 2:

I'm making people laugh. I feel like a strength of mine is making people laugh.

Speaker 1:

Okay, perfect, okay, good, good, there is a weakness that comes with this. Do you know what it is? He says patronizing.

Speaker 2:

People probably don't take me as seriously and or respect me as much.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the other piece of it is that you make light of things that actually are important to look at.

Speaker 2:

Especially for myself.

Speaker 1:

So yesterday I was in the ER with Tauriel so it's the vet ER in Tufts And I was uncomfortable. I made a joke with the doctor And I was like, yeah, we need to get some kitty kettlebells. We'll have her start working out with us just joking around. But I had this moment of like this isn't really a joking matter, Alan, You probably could have, And Tauriel's okay, by the way, all is well. But I do when I'm uncomfortable, I make jokes And while I think that's hilarious and also good because you don't want to only live in like, I think sometimes it can be really nice when things are rough, to be playful and fun, But sometimes it's a mask to avoid the deeper issues. And then, on top of that, you also might not be respected, And if you're not respected that'll affect yourself worth.

Speaker 2:

See how it all comes down.

Speaker 1:

There's a huge weakness in every single strength, and I have yet to find any case where that's not the case. Is there a way to recognize your strengths, be aware of the weaknesses that come with them and then mitigate those weaknesses. And I say mitigate because, honestly, is it possible to be super confident Without ever getting lashed out at or being disliked? is it possible to be super confident and then never have an arrogant moment? I don't know. I think if you, if you're super confident and optimistic and you shoot for big things, of course you're gonna get humble pie at times, and So there is a way to be self-aware and humble along the way, but you can't spend your whole life playing not to lose. Sometimes you got to play to win, and I think playing to win is is leaning on your strengths. Just make sure you're aware of the weaknesses that come with it.

Speaker 2:

I had a call with the client at the end of last week, last weekend, and This this client has a strength of of strategy, math, just like real-world stuff. They're like very good at real-world stuff but not so good at the spiritual side of stuff They're. They're almost like. Let me tell the story and I'll explain it. So this person said I've been listening to a lot of Deepak Chopra And I'm, you know, i've read this book. It's like the 50, no, the 26 things, where he has a letter of the alphabet And there's a word and it connects to something when it comes to abundance. And I was like that sounds cool. He's like what do you think about that?

Speaker 2:

And I was like I had a phase where I went through like a heavy spiritual phase where I was listening to Deepak Chopra and Sadguru And I was listening to all of that stuff. And I said I think it's really good to have a phase like that, especially if it's a weakness, but just make sure That doesn't become your strength to the point where your ability to take action, the real world, becomes a weakness. And I said I don't think that's gonna happen for you because you're like on the very, very end of taking action. I think this will actually be good for you because it'll balance you out a bit, but just keep an eye on it, because if you take it too far, you're gonna lose that very amazing unique strength you have.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of It's hard right, because the last thing you want to do is Alan's point. You do you want to mitigate your weaknesses and Strengthen them while maintaining your strengths Really, and that's what I said. I see you just gonna be very careful, because I know a lot of people who are really, really, really, really good at the spiritual side of things. They know themselves at a deep level, they understand spirituality, they know what their inner child is like, they have all that really really dialed in, but they've spent so much time working on that That they don't really have any external results. I I also know that, the polar opposite, somebody who has a ton of external results, but when you get behind the scenes you're like, oh okay, there's a lot going on in there.

Speaker 1:

You don't know yourself and you're not necessarily fulfilled, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so that's another way to look at this is some people are really good at bringing things into reality. You know, they're good at the physical side of things the real world, concrete, external stuff and there's other people who are really good at the internal, spiritual, emotional, feeling side of things, and I'm not making either of those wrong. It's just important to understand what, what strength yours is This person I talked to they need more of that. They need more of the spiritual side, because they are just hyper analytic. That's good for them. If they take it too far, it's not good for them. But if you take the hyper analytic too far, it's probably not good for you either.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's drive to five. Yeah, everything drives. A five is life. It is life grassroots and are you ready At at?

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 1:

What are you talking about? You do you will okay, at next level University. We believe that there's always a next level. We also believe That you can be healthy and wealthy but not in love, which is no good niche heat. You can be wealthy and in love, but not healthy niche heat, and then you can be. I Don't know what the other one is the other, the other two, which is niche.

Speaker 2:

The point is is you?

Speaker 1:

want everyone to. There's always a next level and You can be. We believe you can be healthy, wealthy and in love. We do believe that, but Or I should say and, and it's going to be really difficult because of this You're probably really strong in one of those three.

Speaker 1:

Everyone is Right and there's different chapters. I have chapters where fitness and health was world-class and then my wealth was not at all. I Have times when my wealth was world-class and my health was not at all, and then I have times when I was healthy and wealthy but I wasn't in love Right, and so it can be really hard. Not only do you have to know your strengths and mitigate the weaknesses and stay at five and recognize when you're not at five, you also have to do it in all these different categories. It's really quite difficult, and so if you are listening to this show, don't overwhelm yourself with. I have to be healthy, wealthy and in love right now. Instead, it's a ladder Climb to the next room In health, climb to the next rung in wealth climb to the next rung in love, aka the next level.

Speaker 1:

That's why it's next level. It's not The end level, it's not jump to level 50. You know, if you're only 24, don't expect to be on level 50. You're only 24, right, and I think that it's unique to you. It's, but most likely, if you have unique strengths, what you do, you're probably on like Way ahead of the curve in certain areas and probably very behind in a couple others Because of these weaknesses. And I think that if you identify them I think that's what a lot of what you and I have done honestly since we met Kev is we've kind of Learned what we're really really, really strong in and then what weakness comes with that, and then we've tried to drive to five. Hmm, and if you think about any arguments you and I have ever had in the past, or healthy debates or passionate discussions, usually it's one of us talking in a strength zone that we did or didn't know we had, or one of us Having weakness that we did or didn't know we had. You know, and Then kind of the discovery process through that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think we know ourselves very well compared to what we used to. I saw an email yesterday that was like whoa, it was from four years ago or three years ago. I was like, oh I have, i'm so different now I would never send that same email. It wasn't a bad email, it's just too complex and Complexity was a strength. Yeah, you know, making things simple is my new mantra, because simple is powerful. You know, it's just fascinating it is.

Speaker 2:

It's very interesting. It's very interesting. Last thing, before we we head out, i heard something the other day. It was something like you can take. You can take the elevator from floor one to floor 50, but you got it you got to go through all the other floors. You can't skip the floor. I think you can go buy it, but you can't. You have to go through it. You have to go through all the levels to get to the final level, whatever that means. I mean, maybe the level is a little bit quicker, maybe it's a little bit easier, maybe it's a little bit harder. I just thought that was a good analogy for life, because you can't really skip floors.

Speaker 1:

You got to grow through those floors.

Speaker 2:

You had to grow through the floors. Next level nation. If you Are listening to this podcast, we love you. Join next level nation or private Facebook group. I did a little love post in the other day just saying, hey, i'm grateful. I'll say it here too I'm grateful for everybody who listens because, again, at one point this was just a dream and it's still weird for me that we're All these episodes in. It just kind of gets weirder. But if you are looking for your community, if you're looking for a place where you can feel that love, that trust, that safety, please join our private Facebook group. Link is in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

If you have not yet, okay, maybe you're out there and you're like I've thought a lot about this coaching thing. I Want to get to the next level. I want to be healthier, wealthier, more in love and I've thought a lot about coaching, but I'm afraid I can't afford it. Or maybe I'm afraid or intimidated. Group coaching is nine other people just like you. Okay, at this point we've graduated a hundred people from group coaching.

Speaker 1:

This is group 11. This is the 11th group You and nine other listeners of this show, who are all gonna be courageous and vulnerable and just show up and Learn. The very group coaching is the very best of all that we've developed. It's the very best. Six sessions, 90 days, transform your whole life. That's really what it is. It's an experience with you and others, like minded like, like you, who are gonna support you and respect you, facilitated by us myself, kevin and Jesse Mm-hmm and it's the very best curriculum that we have to date and we've done ten iterations of this, so it is a very well polished product at this point and it's It's insane how much value you you will get for the money.

Speaker 1:

With the promo code, it comes to only 96 dollars per month. Reach out to Kevin or myself. Click the link in the show notes. All the information is on the landing page at the very bottom There's a little form that type in your first and last name email us, and Alan at nextleveluniversecom. Kevin at nextleveluniversecom say hey, i want in what's the promo code and we'll sign you up for group 11.

Speaker 2:

Tomorrow for episode number 1381. Are you saying no enough? We have talked about this in the past. Saying yes is amazing. I'm realizing, now more than ever, that I think saying no at the right times in the right places might be even More amazing and even more important, because it helps you stay aligned for where you should be going. So we will be talking about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and I know you. We did not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

Midachi through vacances. Next omination.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host