Next Level University

#1381 - Are You Saying NO Enough?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Ever feel overrun by the constant pull of distractions, of the never-ending "yes" commitments? It's time to harness the immense power that lies in a single word - "no."  In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros explore some potential roadblocks you may encounter in learning to say "no" to the wrong things. Have you ever felt lingering guilt after setting much-needed boundaries? Tune in and get some insights on the concept of saying "no."

Digital Asset: The Manifestation Equation - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f0TcA4-vfQvy5cU1Pg9UFejM3XRG-nde/view?usp=drive_link

Links mentioned:
#1317 - 4 Words You MUST Understand When It Comes To Your Goals - https://www.buzzsprout.com/742955/12717792
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/
Next Level Blog: How To Express Uncomfortable Truths - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/how-to-express-uncomfortable-truths/ 

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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

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Show notes:
[2:13] Alan shares a story that shows what it takes to hit goals
[4:55] Dreamlining
[6:50] Decisions vs. discipline
[9:06] Tarryn, host of The Business Of Happiness podcast, shares her wonderful experience with Kevin and the Next Level Podcast Solutions team
[9:54] The Manifestation Equation framework
[12:46] Wandering generality
[18:51] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Here we go, starting to thunder out. So that's not great. 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 1380. Are your weaknesses getting weaker? Today? for episode number 1381, happy Wednesday.

Speaker 1:

We are talking about a simple question, a simple but profound question. Are you saying no enough? I know when I started this journey, i used to hear people who would say something similar to that. They would say as you become more successful or as your time gets spread more thin, whatever it is, you have to understand the importance of no, and I was like I don't know. I feel like saying yes all the time is probably the answer, because you get more opportunities. You want to say yes to everything is to get more opportunities. But now I also understand at a deep level that no is one of the most powerful words you can use, because it helps you stay in alignment with what you believe is best, and sometimes the opportunities you're getting or the pressures that you're getting are not aligned for your short term and or long term goals. So that's what we're talking about today. Alan, you had a story for this episode. I'm going to kick it to you. No, okay, next level nation. We will talk to you tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

I just demonstrating the power of no and I think no, thank you is probably better, but anyways. So the story that I had for this is huge. Shout out to my client, bianca. She posted about this. She 22 and a half pounds, 22 pounds. She lost 22 pounds.

Speaker 2:

Nice 22 plus, crushed it, absolutely crushed it, and we were at the next level Hope Foundation event and she's one of the volunteers and there is always pizza at those events, because why wouldn't we have pizza at the event? Excellent pizza, okay, and I am a huge fan. I talk about pizza all the time. Kevin and I, both huge fan, love it. So, anyways, we're getting exercise with all the kids, we're doing arts and crafts, we're doing football, we're doing basketball, we're doing a wiffle ball What was the name of that Pickle ball?

Speaker 1:

Oh, we play pickle ball No.

Speaker 2:

Oh, the bat was like a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Oh, no, that was if we just didn't have a wiffle ball bat. Oh yeah, that wasn't. We can make it neck, we'll call it next level ball, but no, no, that's just a. It was just what we had a weird looking bat man. It was just an instrument for hitting the ball. We couldn't find a wiffle ball bats. We just call it next level ball.

Speaker 2:

So we're playing next level ball And Bianca's loving it, all good. And then eventually she said she wants to leave. And it was a little bit of an anomaly for me But I didn't want to get a drip I was like, okay, no worries. She's like, yeah, i'm just in this cut, i'm exhausted. And I said, oh, pizza's coming, pizza's coming. She's like, yeah, i'm like you're in your cut.

Speaker 2:

So she was two weeks left in her I don't remember how long I probably should know, since I was her coach in this whole process. She had two weeks left And she's like, honestly, i think I just want to speed up, i'm suffering too much. This sucks. And I said, okay, drop your calories by another hundred, let's do it in two weeks instead of three weeks. So she said okay, and then, as pizza was coming, she was really, really hungry And she just decided to leave. So she said, no, i'm not going to stay. And so that's really the point that I want to make with that whole story is one, to celebrate Bianca, but two and more importantly, that is what it takes to hit goals. You have to say no to pizza If you want to lose 22 pounds. And again, obviously you can eat pizza and lose 22 pounds. So I don't mean that literally, but figuratively speaking, whenever you have goals. So Q two is about to end. Q two finishes in five days, kevin told me today as of this recording as of this recording.

Speaker 2:

And Q three is about to start. Excuse me at the burp, excuse me Long one. Okay, production team. If you want to edit that out, feel free. If not, i totally understand. So Q three is about to start And in Q three I do this thing called dreamlining. I do it with myself, i do it with Kevin, i do it with all of the NLU team, i do it with my clients And it's a very simple process. We did an episode about it. If you want to go listen to that episode, you can, i think. Do you remember the title? Four words, i think it was four words you need to know.

Speaker 1:

And if you don't know.

Speaker 2:

I think it will come up, but anyways, the idea is very simple. You have your dreams, which is 10 plus years from now. Then you have your goals, which is your essentially what you want to achieve in 2023, this year. Then you have milestones, which is this quarter You want to achieve in the next 90 days. So Q three is July, august, september. So set some milestones towards those goals in 2023.

Speaker 2:

And then the last thing is inch pebbles the powers and the pebbles, as Amy Lenious once said, it next level live. Inch pebbles are what are you doing on a day-to-day basis to get to the milestones? The milestones are what are you doing each quarter to get to the goals? The goals are annual. And then the goals annual goals are to get you to your dreams. And so, to bring this all down to the original point of this thing is the moment that you have these inch pebbles, milestones, goals and dreams, you have to align with them, and what alignment means is saying no to anything that is a person-placed thing or idea outside of alignment with that. In this case, it was pizza's coming. Bianca doesn't want to eat extra calories. Pizza has a lot of calories, unfortunately and so she left the event. Totally understandable. I respect it And she hit her goal. And the question is for all of our listeners is would she have hit her goal if she wasn't willing to say no to pizza?

Speaker 1:

Most likely not. Most of the best stuff has a lot of calories. Unfortunately, i wrote this down on a napkin because I couldn't reach my notebook on a napkin right here You won't be able to see it, because it's very bright in here. It says decisions versus discipline. In that moment, bianca probably thought to herself I am really hungry. I don't know if I'm going to have the discipline to actually not have pizza. So let me make the decision to take discipline off the table completely. And I really think, when we come to, for a lot of us that's what saying no is, because saying no so, just as an example And it's interesting we're going to do an episode. We're doing an episode tomorrow talking about boundaries, so I'm very excited.

Speaker 1:

But Saturday I was going to see one of my buddies and Taren's family had a cookout. So I went to the cookout and I was like I'm not eating, i'm not going to have anything, i'm not eating, i'm saving all my calories for tonight. I'm saving all my calories for tonight, but that's just a level of discipline where I can't not go. Nobody cares that I'm dieting enough to say, yeah, you know what? No worries, you know, although it's somebody's birthday party, like, just don't come to stay home. You know we respect I'm sure they did respect my diet. Nobody pressured me, but it was that thought of. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Unfortunately, or however you want to look at it, i do not have the ability to make the decision not to be there. So I have to go into this with the understanding that my discipline is going to have to be higher than normal. I think a lot of us, when it comes to discipline, i hear a little tucky-wucky. When it comes to discipline, it's as important for saying no as it is for saying yes to the right things. I mean, think about that. if you say yes to all the right things and you say no to all the wrong things, you're not going to make any progress.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, then you would, you would make progress.

Speaker 1:

Make it so if you say yes to all the right things and yes to all the wrong things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, then you're not going to make any progress If you say yes to all the right things and no to all the wrong you crush it, make tons of problems.

Speaker 1:

You don't even need this podcast anymore.

Speaker 2:

And, if you think about it, when it comes to achieving something that's valuable to you, that is what it comes down to Can you? and then there's the deeper layer of do you know what to say yes to and what to say no to? I Think it's easier and this could just be me. And let me bring this full circle here for a second. We have an equation called the manifestation equation. At next-level University, we did a monthly meetup on it once. I will put the link in the show notes To this framework. It's a 10-step Circle cycle of how to manifest your dreams, and it's the best that I've ever come up with. And it's not just me. Kevin helped, emilia helped. It's been really just 34 years of trying to figure out how this all works, but one of the steps in it. I always go through this with my clients, and every single one of them has one that's they're just bad at and then, and then We find the root cause of why they're not achieving their goals.

Speaker 2:

So, for me, i was really good at the strategy part. I was really good at setting intentions. I believed in myself. Xyz. I really sucked at strict alignment. One of the one of the steps It's a 10-step formula. One of the steps is strict alignment, and you'll see that I think it's step seven and all as it is is being able to say no to the wrong person's places, things and ideas That are outside of alignment with your goal.

Speaker 2:

For me, i it wasn't self-belief wasn't the issue, i didn't not have strategy. It was that I was basically not able to say no to relationships that were not aligned. I was, you know, for example, i Have a fitness show coming up and I'm invited to the beach and I know there's gonna be a bunch of food there and alcohol, and I couldn't say no. I Didn't have boundaries. I struggled so much to say no. I think saying yes to the right things is actually easier than saying no to the wrong ones, and I think that when you get good at saying no, thank you, to the wrong person's places, things and ideas and Again, wrong is contextual, based on your goal obviously. Then I think it actually becomes way easier to be disciplined. I Would argue that I am pretty consistent and disciplined. I am, but it's because I've set up My life in a way where it makes it easier to be consistent and disciplined. And I'll give one example. So I talked on the last episode about how last night at 11 pm Tariel was puking. We took her to the veterinary ER and I was up until 5 30 in the morning. And today I have not been super disciplined. I didn't get good sleep. I'm struggling, but normally my life is very designed For discipline and for success and for alignment. So saying no gets easier because I've kind of designed it that way, whereas last night, i mean it was off the rails, i'm not, we didn't wake up. We didn't wake up until 11 30 am. So When you start to simplify your life by saying no more, it creates the space that you need to Get to know yourself, to grow, to learn to, to make the things that are that you value most.

Speaker 2:

And the last piece I'll share here is something that is Exeggler used to talk about and I it's one of my favorite concepts. In the entire world a Lot of people are what he referred to as a wandering generality. They don't know who they are, they don't know where they're headed, they don't know their core values, they don't know their core aspirations, they don't know their core beliefs. It's like someone driving around without a GPS They're Carefree, wandering, but they're lost. What he says is you want to be a meaningful specific, and I do believe that this is what Growing up is about.

Speaker 2:

When you're a kid, you don't really know who you are. You don't know what sports you love, yet You don't know what sports you don't like. You don't know what you're good at and not good at. You don't know whether you like you know The jocks or the nerds, or the or the whatever. You don't know where you fit in, yet You don't understand the world yet. Blah, blah, blah. And then eventually you get older, you get older, you get older and you're supposed to become More of a meaningful specific, which is someone who knows their goals, knows their dreams, knows who they are But, more importantly, knows who they're not, knows what they value but, more importantly, knows what they don't. And this is where it gets a little slippery, because if you're for the environment, that means you're against fossil fuels. Everything has a pro and a con. If you're for inclusivity, you're most likely, you know, against religions that don't let certain people come And everything has that, and so everything has its opposite. So the more meaningful and specific you become about who you are, what you value and what you want to achieve, the more you're going to have resistance to the opposite And the harder it's going to be to say no. But you have to do it. You have to do it.

Speaker 2:

If I could go back and talk to my younger self Kev this is it man, i'm telling you. I was saying this in the car yesterday. I was driving with Emilia I said I wasted so much time. I wasted so much time on friendships that really weren't even good for me. They weren't even good friendships. In hindsight. Some of them really weren't. Some of those people treated me like crap, quite frankly, and I didn't know that at the time because I didn't know any different. But, god, i wish I had someone to say listen, just say no to that stuff. That stuff isn't serving you, you don't even value it. You're doing it because you feel bad or you feel guilty or whatever, and do yourself a favor. Your future self is going to thank you. Say no to more stuff seriously.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, the other important thing to understand about the people you surround yourself with is not everybody is going to be super supportive of you staying in alignment.

Speaker 2:

That's the other thing, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's like when somebody you know, bianca, came and said goodbye to me and I was like, oh okay, i didn't know anything about the pizza thing, but I was like, cool Head home. Thank you so much for coming. Give me a hug, love. You See you soon. But there's probably other people that would have been like come on, i ordered pizza. You're not having pizza. Yeah, guilt trip, like I don't want to waste pizza. Can you hear the thunder outside?

Speaker 2:

It is like hammering out right now. It's alarming.

Speaker 1:

Fudge is probably I have to go. I'm going to go cuddle him after this because he hates the thunder, but you got to go because you're going to do stuff. Last thing, you said it, we actually talked about this in a previous episode It's design versus discipline. It's very similar to what decisions versus discipline. If you can design something where you have to say, no less awesome, if you can't, maybe go in with the understanding that I'm really absolutely in my discipline here, i think that's a beneficial thing to talk about. Next, love of Nation. As of July 6th, how many meetups have we have? I don't know. We've been doing it for what? 15 months, 16 months? Every single month, if you're a new listener every single month 19.

Speaker 1:

Jesus 19. Every single month we have a meetup and this meetup is something where we'll dive deeper into something we've talked about on the podcast. But it's totally private, it doesn't get recorded, it's not live streamed anywhere. It's completely private where we can build a really good sense of safety behind the scenes. So you can bring questions, you don't have to have your camera on, you can. You can participate, you don't have to. This month's theme three things everyone should know about their intimate partner. So we know a lot about our cell phones. We know a lot about social media. We know a lot about what's going on in the world, but a lot of us don't know what's going on around households. So we will talk about that.

Speaker 2:

It can be. I feel like a solid up bug man.

Speaker 1:

Did it. It was full.

Speaker 2:

It can be really uncomfortable when you first start saying no. Seriously, one of the biggest challenge, biggest challenge for me still is very challenging. I wrote an article specifically for people who struggle to express uncomfortable truths. So if you're out there and you're like I want to say no more. I want to create more space in my life. I want to align with my goals and stop wandering around with these other persons, places, things and ideas that are not in alignment with that. I want more discipline. I want a more simple life. That's more powerful.

Speaker 2:

This article was literally written for you. It was written for me because I needed it most, and now I'm deploying that with my clients and listeners. So the link will be in the show notes How to express uncomfortable truths. It's a how to, because a lot of people like, well, you got to get outside your comfort zone, yeah, i know, but like how, how do I do it? And so for me, getting outside my comfort zone was expressing uncomfortable truths When it's I don't, i can't go to the grad party, i can't go to that wedding across the country, i can't, i can't do X, y, z or I don't want to wear. That's not aligned for me, which isn't even more powerful truth. It's not aligned for me. And then how do you deal with the guilt trips afterwards? So how to express uncomfortable truths? The link will be in the show notes and thank you for dealing with the fact that I obviously cannot talk today.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1382, we're going to connect one to this. Didn't mean to do it, but it's the way the flow of the week has ended up, a helpful way to stick with the boundaries you set. So that'll go hand in hand with the episode that we had today. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and an NLU. We learn fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Well, keep in alignment next Sunday.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host