Next Level University

#1392 - Are You The Opposite Of Arrogant?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros unravel the intricacies of confidence and arrogance, dissecting the idea that arrogance is confidence without competence. They share that often-overlooked feedback is the secret key to truly understanding one's standing and building a solid belief in oneself. Confidence is not a trait one is born with - it's a skill painstakingly built over time. They discuss the significance of perseverance in the face of failure and the potential of small, consistent steps toward your goal. They also warn about the dangerous trap of comparison, sharing real-life stories highlighting the importance of individual action and its role in building confidence.

Digital Asset: Confidence - Competence Seesaw
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11aSfrC8jfYAvE5f27Rb-5amnUHPZUJ65/view?usp=drive_link

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Show notes:
[1:39] Confidence without confidence
[5:15] Alan shares a visual to understand the concept better
[8:58] The connection to awareness
[11:11] Exposure to an opportunity
[12:51] Janine Morris talks about how valuable Group Coaching is, what her takeaway is, and why she thinks you should take the leap
[13:32] Confidence is a catch-22
[14:48] Motivation is similar
[16:05] Persevering through failure
[21:14] Track the fears you're chasing
[25:55] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about why that is. Arrogance usually happens when somebody hasn't tried something. They haven't been humbled, really.

Speaker 2:

In order for him to see the whole water bottle, he has to ask me what I see, and I have to ask him what he sees, and I think that that's why we need feedback from all different places in order to actually see where we are accurately.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Next Level University. I am your host, Kevin Paul Mary, And I am your co-host, Alan Lazarus. At Next Level University, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Speaker 2:

We bring you seven episodes per week to help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from anywhere, for free.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Next Level University, 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 1391. Alan I told Alan to stop drinking his GD water right next to the microphone because we could hear it, and he just proceeded to slide away from the camera and drink it.

Speaker 3:

That's why I was laughing.

Speaker 1:

Our last episode was a reframe for new problems. Today, for episode number 1392, are you the opposite of arrogant? I was on a podcast recently and we were talking about arrogance. The person said what do you believe arrogance is? I said I think it is confidence without competence. If What's a good example of that? If you see me lifting weights and you walk up and say I could lift the amount of weight you lift even though you've never lifted before, that's probably confidence without competence. What are you smiling about, man? I mean.

Speaker 2:

I'm in a good mood, even though things have gone astray. Things have gone astray, yeah, because Kevin says that I have too many mouth noises on the podcast.

Speaker 3:

Alan has a lot of.

Speaker 2:

I'm moving my microphone away so that every time I need to clear my throat, every time I want to drink my drink. So for the listeners I'll do whatever it takes.

Speaker 1:

We're always trying to improve for you. If you're listening, i'm reviewing the episodes and I'm saying, okay, if I was listening, what would I say? I would say, alan, you have too many mouth noises Truth. Somebody asked me about arrogance. I don't remember the exact analogy or example or story I used, but I said it's almost like if you're doing something and you've been doing something for a long period of time and somebody assumes they could do it as good as you, what? Just happy. You're just happy We got to get this episode done, son. I think that's arrogance.

Speaker 1:

Arrogance is confidence without competence. Then I said you know what's interesting, i didn't say this on the podcast, when I said this to myself. What is the opposite of that? It is competence without confidence, which I definitely experienced in my past, and many, many, many of the people that I have talked to from the community, many of the people I've worked with one-on-one that's where they live. They're very, very competent human beings, but they've never locked in the confidence that comes with being good at something Interesting. What is that? I think that's self-deprecation. I don't think it's humility. I think humility actually is in between those two. Where you're confident with competence, you're confident at the level, that you are competent, yeah, that. I think that's what real humility is. So ready.

Speaker 1:

If somebody says you're a really good speaker, thank you so much. I've worked really hard. I know I'm the best in the world, that's arrogant. I'm not the best in the world, or no, i really suck. That's not true either. In a room with 100 people I'm probably towards the higher end Interesting. I think that's really humility. But my thought process for this episode is I want to talk about why that is.

Speaker 1:

Arrogance usually happens when somebody hasn't tried something. They haven't been humbled. Really, they haven't been humbled. Maybe we'll say self-deprecation. We can say that Why does that happen?

Speaker 1:

Because you don't try something, so you don't get belief. Because in your mind it's almost like what's a good analogy for this. It's almost like the wiring between what you're capable of and what you believe you're capable of is off, so you never try the thing that you'd actually probably be pretty darn good at And then you never get the feedback that oh my goodness, i'm actually better than I thought at that, and then that doesn't build your belief. If you resonate with that, we can talk about the confidence conundrum and we can talk about all that. But I really think that is one of the biggest issues is it's you don't feel like you're actually capable, even though you're way more capable than you realize, and you're looking at people who say they're capable but they're not that capable, and you get stuck thinking that you're the worst and you're not good enough and you can never do it, when in reality you're way better than you realize.

Speaker 2:

So three things came up for me. The first one is comparison. The second one is what you've already mentioned, which is confidence and competence. I had a visual that I wanted to articulate for everyone.

Speaker 1:

Is it a triangle? I?

Speaker 3:

mean we'll create a graphic for this Is it a triangle?

Speaker 2:

It's not actually, it's a triangle, as we saw. All right On the left side of the seesaw, you have someone who is on the low end of drive to five, who is a zero in this articulation. This person is competent without confidence. So they're very capable and competent, they're good at whatever it is, but they're not confident. Okay, that's self-deprecation. Then, on the far other end of the seesaw is someone who's bolstering themselves up. So imagine, on the seesaw there's the person who's keeping themselves down the heavier one in this and the other person's being bolstered up by the person who's keeping themselves down just had a breakthrough. That's why we're doing this. So now imagine someone on the far right who's being bolstered up, who is confident without competence, in some ways, maybe to compensate for the person who's competent and not confident, maybe trying to keep them small, unconsciously.

Speaker 3:

Again.

Speaker 2:

I'll connect this later. The middle, the fulcrum From physics fulcrum, big fan. Yeah, the middle is someone who is actually confident and humble, which is the drive to five, which is someone who is competent and owns that at the level they are actually competent. But the reason I mentioned comparison at the beginning of this articulation is because it depends what you compare to. If I'm only ever comparing to the best orators, speakers in the world, i'm not going to think I'm very good. If I only compare to people who are brand new speakers, i'm going to think I'm amazing.

Speaker 2:

Neither one is fully accurate. So far left of the seesaw is people who keep themselves down, probably because in their childhood they had someone who was bolstering themselves up constantly on the other end of the seesaw. And that's the analogy. If you were, if you had a sibling, a mother or a father or a caregiver who needed to be the top of the seesaw, who needed to be lifted up on the ego level, you probably purposely self-deprecate. And then, if you have ever been on the other end of the seesaw where you are confident but not competent, you need to go, take action and get in a room with some bigger fish.

Speaker 2:

And I think that for all of our listeners. Try your best to be accurate, empirically accurate, meaning you're looking at evidence not just from one place but from 360 degrees. Kevin and I used to do this when we were in person. I would show a water bottle and I would say I'm showing the back end of the water bottle on YouTube to Kevin. He can't see that it says hydrate spark on this side. In order for him to see the whole water bottle, he has to ask me what I see And I have to ask him what he sees. And I think that that's why we need feedback from all different places in order to actually see where we are accurately. It's interesting how everything is connected to awareness.

Speaker 1:

If you're aware of how capable you actually are, you'd probably do more action. If you were aware at how incapable you were, you would probably take more action.

Speaker 1:

Really, this is a very interesting episode for me because I'm having a lot of breakthroughs in real time, a lot of our team. So we have amazing people on our team, amazing humans. Many of them might have self-identified as not having a lot of belief in themselves When they come on the team. We're just always reminding them of no, you're way better than you think, you're way more capable than you think. You're way more competent than you think. Here's an opportunity. See what happens. Then they make a mistake, like we all do, and then we say no worries, fail forward, we'll get better as we go. Try again, boom, try it again, try it again, try it again. It's almost like we're in a real world. Try it again. It's almost like that is.

Speaker 1:

The benefit of being surrounded by people who have a ton of belief in themselves. Is they make you believe in yourself in a way, because they can recognize oh, you're just not taking that many shots. All right, cool, you know what? Don't even worry about taking shots with your own weapons or taking shots with your own social media. Come do it with us. You can take a shot, sending an email and see what happens, or posting on Alan's social media, whatever it may be. That's a very interesting thing where, if you care about what you're doing, a lot you're going to and you don't believe you can do it, you're never going to do it. But if somebody else gives you an opportunity I mean how many you know we've heard people say well, it's easier for me to talk about stuff NLU has going on in my own business. That's why. That's one of the reasons why, because it's not your thing It's.

Speaker 2:

the feedback isn't on you Yeah it's not about you. You think people on the team can easily send a message on my behalf, but it's not rejection for them, right, it's rejection for me. It's not rejection for me either, because I don't even hear about it, which is a win-win. We're fairly used to it at this point.

Speaker 1:

But you can see how, whatever sides you start on, it quite literally dictates unless you get exposure to an opportunity. If you So, confidence conundrum. This is the confidence conundrum in a nutshell. You don't believe in yourself, you don't believe you can do something, you don't believe you can create an outcome, So you don't try. When you don't try, you do not get any results. Nothing happens Right. You get the same results as you've always gotten. You might regret it, you might feel bad, whatever it is. When you don't get results, you don't get feedback. When you don't get feedback, you don't make a new plan and then you don't try again And you don't get a new identity.

Speaker 2:

You definitely.

Speaker 1:

That's the thing, right.

Speaker 2:

I'm not a speaker, right, i don't go speak. Proves to me. I'm not a speaker. Yeah, versus, i'm not a speaker, i don't think, but Alan and I have a speech. Oh wow, am I a speaker? Yeah, because you did better than I did on the first one. I appreciate that, of course, and so for you. You had to question your limiting identity because you were getting evidence to the contrary. But you wouldn't have gotten that if you didn't have the opportunity.

Speaker 1:

There's a gap. There's a gap between feeling confident in your competence and actually practicing it. There's that gap. And if, when you see that gap, you say I can't do it, that's the stuck point. That's where you get stuck. If you see the gap and you say I don't know, i don't know if I actually can do that yet but you try anyway, you're going to get exposure to something that you never would have got exposure to before.

Speaker 3:

So group coaching was definitely an experience for me. Getting to know the people was really, really cool. We were always kind of moving towards the same goal And I definitely started to see the value in what Kevin and Alan were presenting to us. Ppt for me, was something that was really huge. I was looking for a system to help me kind of keep track of the things that I had to do every day to make sure that I was productive. I feel like I got so much value out of it And I am so grateful that I took the leap and I decided to join.

Speaker 2:

It's so unfortunate that confidence is such a catch 22. So many of our listeners want to be more confident and they see other people on social media that they think are confident and, trust me, a lot of them are not. But that's neither here nor there. Everyone wants to be quote unquote more confident. Is that fair? I would say so. What sucks about confidence is that you need confidence in order to do something bold, but confidence doesn't come until after you do something bold, and so it's this catch 22 of just you're just stuck. It's like Amy Diaz at the mall with you, too afraid to talk to a stranger. Is you, which she wasn't too afraid to do? So? it's like there's the baby step asks you to go with her to the mall and talk to a stranger. Talks to a stranger. Feels confident after, not before. Feels confident after, not before. What if you're going to spend your whole life stuck in the confidence conundrum because you're not confident yet, when in reality, confidence only comes after action?

Speaker 1:

Like motivation. It's a very similar thing where motivation comes after you do the thing or after you start the thing. Usually it's not that. That kind of is how it is, because you have to lock in. That is something, and I was very, very guilty of this. I will be confident when, when I do my first speech on stage, when I get my first high paying client, whatever.

Speaker 2:

How's that?

Speaker 1:

going pretty good.

Speaker 3:

I'm the most confident I've ever been, but it's not.

Speaker 1:

it's not because of any one of those things. It's because of every one of those things, not anyone, everyone, every one of the little things I've done and a lot of stuff that nobody will ever see. Sending an email with boundaries.

Speaker 2:

What percent is the stuff? no one will ever see.

Speaker 1:

It's hard to say because we have a lot of content 90% probably.

Speaker 2:

If confidence comes from 90% of the things you're doing when no one ever sees it, these people that you listeners, that you see on social media, that seem so confident and maybe they are it's not like they just suddenly were confident. It's an accumulation of years, sometimes decades, of just failing forward. I'm convinced that confidence comes from persevering through failure. That's one of the reasons why I have such a positive relationship with failure is because it just helps me believe in myself more. If I do easy things and I always win, that doesn't build belief. They're just easy things, at least for me. I build belief when I am up against that point, that point in the workout or that point in the marathon or that point in the business where it's like I don't know if we're going to be able to do this, I don't know if we can do this. Then we find a way to persevere. That's where I get my belief.

Speaker 2:

Hmm and usually it's stuff behind the scenes that no one sees and I think that you have to start with the 15s And then go to 20s and then 25. That's a weightlifting analogy, obviously, but You can't start with 500 pounds. No if you do, you're gonna get injured, and then you're, and then you're gonna be out of the game, out of the gym, out of the Podcast whatever it is, that's the 90% behind the scenes.

Speaker 1:

It's almost like you. Okay, this is good. I had a client call yesterday and this was a different client. I know we talked about this maybe last week, earlier this week, but he said I don't feel. He said honestly, kev, i just don't feel confident posting on social media. He said I just want to be very vulnerable with you. I feel like a fraud. I don't know what to say, i don't. I just I don't know how to do it.

Speaker 1:

And I said, well, do you want to do it? And he said, yeah, i'd like to. And I said, okay, well, what's the smallest thing we can do? Like, quite literally, what is the small? and I said it doesn't have to be on social media, we don't have to do it on social media. Maybe that's the mountain, maybe that's the mountain for you. What are the small things we can do behind the scenes? and he said, well, how do you show up and How vulnerable are you and how vulnerable should I be? and I said you should never compare yourself to me, because what's vulnerable for you is not vulnerable for me.

Speaker 1:

I've said it so many times. It's not an open wound, it's a scar, and it is a scar, scar, scar, because I've said it so many times. Don't compare your Journey, your performance to mine. I've just done it so many times and I said listen, i really want you to listen to me for a second. I said do you know how many podcast episodes I've done? and he said I don't know that, like You have 1400. I said I've done at least 2000 minimum, 2000 minimum. Do you know how many videos I've done on social media? Yeah, thousands, thousands. You know any coaching calls? I've done at least a thousand Speeches, hundreds. I've just done this more than you. That's why I seem more confident. Yeah, you know the truth, i'm more competent currently. That's why I'm more confident. Mm-hmm, but it didn't start that way.

Speaker 2:

It's a new owner. You're more competent, is the reps?

Speaker 1:

hundred percent. Yeah, but I, because I started behind the scenes. So even the first speech I ever did that was It's almost like that's the championship game, but that's not the first game of the season kev.

Speaker 2:

Competence without confidence is Just as detrimental to your future as confidence without competence Con for our listeners. I think our listeners, statistically speaking, probably don't like arrogant people. That's probably why they struggle with me sometimes. I understand and I'm not saying I'm arrogant, i'm I would like to believe I'm at five most of the time in the drive to five. But I Think it's very obvious That someone to a lot of our listeners, when someone's arrogant, it's like oh, they're confident without any competence, like arrogant But self deprecating, is just as detrimental definitely.

Speaker 1:

Self deprecating, if not more, because sometimes arrogant people take shots. They never Do you just something. You didn't even see back.

Speaker 2:

You know which can be dangerous, but Yeah, they're gonna embarrass themselves or whatever. We had a mentor once who was like, oh yeah, i'm gonna crush it. It was like three people that showed up and you knew he was just very arrogant.

Speaker 2:

I've been arrogant too. You know one of my shows I talk about. You know I'm like, oh yeah, i'm gonna win. It's like no, i got crushed, i got stopped. And then the one I thought I'd lose, i won. So Confidence is critical, but it comes after action. Confidence is critical, but it comes after action. And If you're super competent and not confident, you've got to check in on that, because your future can't be bright without action. Hmm, your future can't be bright without action. Really hear that It can't be. There is I Just surpassed 4500 coaching sessions. The people who take the most action win, definitely. Period, hey, period. I know some people that are very, very intelligent But they don't take action. They do not win compared to some of the people that take action. Kev, you're a good example of that. It's unbelievable. I'm not saying you're not intelligent, but what I am saying is that you I know some people that are smarter than you.

Speaker 2:

Quite frankly, Yeah definitely, but they don't take nearly as much action. It's not close, yeah yeah so your future cannot be bright without taking action. Never, ever ever. Unsee that or unhear that.

Speaker 1:

My, my next level nugget for this would be I would start tracking This, the fears that you're chasing. One of the things I did early, early, early on is I track the numbers of fears I chased, and all that means fear chasing is just doing something that scares you.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

So a simple, the simplest analogy, a couple one holding I caught eye contact with somebody in the grocery store. Easy, simple. Most people don't like it. It's uncomfortable. We want to look down. Okay, next time you're ordering food, call and don't order online That type of stuff. That's just a little bit uncomfortable, even if it seems non-important or non-essential. That's the stuff I Recently I had a.

Speaker 1:

Send an audio message. Send an audio message, yeah, yeah. And again, you have to figure out what. What a level 10 fear is, what a level one fear is, and you got to find something in the middle. All right, don't do the level 10. Level one's probably not gonna facilitate that much growth.

Speaker 1:

Figure out something That's actually a reasonable personal challenge for you, a Reasonable and personal challenge. But that's that's. What really helped me in the beginning is I was tracking the numbers of fears I chased. It's like, oh, we interviewed somebody that was super successful, that scared me. But I want you to get credit for what you're actually doing that scares you. Not shy away from doing the stuff that scares you because It scares you. If we can rebuild the relationship in the understanding that avoiding the things that scare us at Times obviously is important, but most of the time It's not real. It's not actually gonna hurt you to hold eye contact with somebody or call for pizza. The person doesn't know who you are. You're never gonna see them again if you make a mistake and it's not that big of a deal. I'm sure there's another pizza shop down the store down the street that you could just order from if you want pizza.

Speaker 2:

Here's another big one set a boundary with a family member. That for me way more scary than giving some speech. That's a big one. That's a big one for a lot of our listeners as well. Kev, i want to share this real quick. I know we gotta go. Have you ever seen the first Jurassic Park movie?

Speaker 1:

No, Here's ago.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, i have but years ago like I could seen in the woods where he's Undoing the gun for the Raptors and he's like really doing it nice and slow and quiet. That's what I feel like with my water bottle now on the podcast. Just, i just had a moment for the listeners, if you remember the first Jurassic Park movie, when he's Unhooking and unhinging and setting the gun up but he doesn't want the Raptor to hear it. That's what it's like to drink my water now on the podcast.

Speaker 1:

I want to know. I got an idea. Why don't you just leave the cap open? problem solved, son.

Speaker 2:

I know, i was just kidding, i just thought that was hilarious. I haven't seen in a long time, so Another reference over my movie references man, i Could get a lot of fighting some fighting references man.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, lots of them, mm-hmm, lots of them. For those who care, titanic is on Netflix, in the US at least, so I figured I throw that out there. Okay, we got to go. What's your next other nugget?

Speaker 2:

Competence without confidence is just as detrimental to your future as confidence without competence, if not more.

Speaker 1:

I agree next of the nation. If you are looking for a safe place to lean outside of your comfort zone and Maybe you're afraid of rejection, you're afraid of judgment and you're just looking for a place That's kind of like training wheels. I like to think of it that way. Please join our private Facebook group next level nation. When I say training wheels, i just mean that there's not anybody in there that's gonna judge you, because if that happens they will get removed. We want an inclusive, safe group where you can actually Get outside of your comfort zone and do the stuff that scares you, figure out what that next level outside is and test it in there.

Speaker 2:

So link will be in the show notes in group 11, you will have the opportunity to fear, chase with other people and track it. So maybe you're out there and you've been hearing all these testimonials about group coaching. We've graduated a hundred people at this point and maybe you're scared. This is a perfect opportunity to chase a fear and it could change your life forever. Your future is not gonna change unless you do something differently. Make group coaching joining group 11. It is $96 a month with the promo code. Email Kevin or myself Kevin at nextleveluniversecom, alan at nextleveluniversecom Say hey, i want in. We will put you in group 11 and we will put you on some train tracks to make sure you're fear chasing towards your dreams tomorrow for episode number 1393.

Speaker 1:

I'm very excited for this one. When you change, everything else does too. Had a very interesting experience with a Podcast host recently that really brought some stuff up for me, so we'll share that in the next episode. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and an NLU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Keep fear chasing next one agent.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us for another episode of next level university. We love connecting with the next level family.

Speaker 2:

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get ahold of us is in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host