Next Level University

#1427 - Are You A Turtle… Or A Pufferfish?

Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Do you retreat into your shell or puff up when faced with tension or conflict? Today hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about trauma responses and the varied ways they manifest in our lives. They discuss how suppressing our true feelings in traumatic situations can often lead to emotional tumult - from depression to an unexpected emotional eruption. They also talk about how our reactions to uncomfortable situations could be a telltale sign of our level of security. They highlight the power of expressing oneself, acknowledging our reactions, and handling them in a healthy, non-destructive manner. They delve into how truly empowered individuals negotiate these situations, the importance of confronting our insecurities respectfully, and the potential for personal growth.

Links mentioned:
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Show notes:
[3:38] Responses to perceived danger
[10:04] Docile vs. dominant vs. empowered approach
[14:51] Helen praises Alan’s Next Level Business Solutions coaching for providing safe and empowering coaching services
[17:30] Too cool to ask questions and learn from someone
[21:28] Admit it
[27:09] Insecure people with a growth mindset
[31:16] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

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 1426. Discipline is much harder without this today. For episode number 1427 happy Sunday.

Speaker 1:

Are you a turtle or a puffer fish? Another frame or another frame for that, excuse me, is Is your trauma response to go docile or to become dominant? I didn't want to name that because I know some people might not know what docile means, or it's not a very commonly used word. Alan and I I Want to maintain anonymity we were spending time with somebody one time and and this person is very, very arrogant, so they were a puffer fish. So a turtle is somebody who Shells up and goes docile. They hide. A puffer fish is somebody who Puffs out their chest and says I'm the best in the world. I'm the best, and Alan will go more into this, but we were spending time with this person and they were a puffer fish for sure. Alan and this person Got into an kind of a disagreement and they were both puffer fishing very much.

Speaker 1:

I Went very, very docile, and when I say that I mean I was like hiding in the backseat. I don't want to be here, please get me out of here. This is terrible. Eventually I said, hey, can you guys just shut up, because you both sound like idiots. I Don't know where that came from, that's not like me, but I think I just got. I felt so sick of being unexpressed, I'm so sick of being docile and in my shell, that I wanted to Express myself in by expressing myself. I kind of had to become a puffer fish in order to get get my point across and say, hey, you guys are acting like assholes or whatever I said.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what it was. That's what this episode is about. Are you somebody who Goes into your shell and just avoids and lets people walk all over you? Are you somebody who, when you get triggered, you puff out your chest and you say I'm the best, I'm smarter, I'm better, I'm, I Can be. If I'm the loudest person in the room, I'll get the most respect, whatever your reaction may be? That's kind of the point of this episode. Alan, this was your episode. Tell me what I messed up.

Speaker 2:

These are responses to usually what your brain perceives as danger, usually in areas where you're very insecure. So if you are in a super insecure, let's say you're insecure about your intelligence and let's say a different scenario, kevin. Kevin, myself and one of my mentors have you talked about the? So this is a different person that we're referring to. But we went and interviewed Brent Panavidic. He wrote a book called the three minute rule and Kevin talked about how he got really insecure and he wanted to villainize us talking business, but instead he looked inward and transformed that pain into power and he said I don't know enough, I need to learn more. What book should I read? And we talk about that all the time on the show turning your pain into power. So he was insecure and he could have puffer fished and said, oh, you guys are XYZ. Instead he didn't turn inward.

Speaker 2:

If you are insecure about your intelligence level and then you're around a couple of people who are very, very, very intelligent, your tendency might be to shell up and not talk, or it might be to pretend like you know you're talking about when you don't. Neither one of those things are super useful. Neither one of those things add value to your life. What a truly confident and humble person would do is sit in the conversation, try to add value, but take notes, take it all in, absorb. Maybe you don't have to be the teacher here, maybe you don't have to shell up and say nothing. Maybe you can ask questions, maybe you can be courageous and vulnerable and say you know, honestly, I'm a little over my head here, but let me take some notes, let me learn from you too.

Speaker 2:

In the scenario that Kevin discussed though, that was probably useless banter that didn't have any real value. So he eventually expressed himself and said hey, you two sound like idiots. You know, cut the shit, which is good, because I have that quote that I always say. The suppression of self expression either leads to depression or explosion, and I always use the analogy. There's one of the Jurassic Park movies, kev, that the hold on, hold on, let me hold on, Let me.

Speaker 1:

let me turn on Alan's movie story music soundtrack. I'm going to create that. Every time you tell a movie story, I'm going to play it. I don't have it right now, but imagine your mind, Can it be?

Speaker 2:

the Jurassic Park soundtrack. Definitely we can't use that. I don't actually think we can. We can't use that. Yeah, yeah, due to copyright and or legalities. Yes, john Williams will be very upset with us.

Speaker 1:

I know a guy, I know him, you know, you know.

Speaker 2:

John. Talk to John. So talk to the man, the guy the Jeff. So Jeff Williams. No, so the Jurassic Park movie I forget which one it is, it's one of the ones with who's the guy from Parks and Rec, chris Pratt, chris Pratt, it's one of the ones with Chris Pratt, so it's one of the later ones. And there's a volcano that destroys the island. So spoiler alert, although I'm pretty sure it's in the preview and it's a really intense scene. But I always say that when you suppress for too long, suppress yourself, suppress yourself. Number one it creates depressive thoughts, sadness, you know, lack of confidence, lack of self worth. It's not good for you. But eventually you get so frustrated with your own suppression that eventually you explode. And I've been guilty of that, kevin has been guilty of that and in some ways he probably should have said and expressed himself earlier than that way he wouldn't be a dick in that moment of.

Speaker 2:

Hey, you guys are idiots or whatever. So we've all had imperfect moments. So this isn't against me, this isn't against Kev, this isn't against you. The point is is that if your trauma response, your stress response, is to suppress, then most likely, eventually that will lead to an explosion that will hurt people. I think of like a dog getting out of muddy water that shakes it off and gets mud on everybody. But if all you ever do is explode, express, express, express you're going to be the loudest in the room. I actually think the loudest person in the room is the most insecure usually, and I know that at times when I was insecure I was the loudest. That's just a trauma response.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking of someone right now who has an opinion about everything. They're the world leading expert on everything. At least they act like it. You know, and it's like you realize that you've never read a book on this. You're not. You don't lift. I remember one time he was like dude, you know, when you deadlift you really should. Xyz, my brother's a personal trainer. Like dude, you haven't been to the gym in a decade. Stop, stop, stop, just shut the hell up. You know, you know those people. You just want to be like shut the hell up you ever thought about just shutting?

Speaker 2:

the hell up. Yeah, if you, if that resonated with any of our listeners, that person's probably a puffer. They, they're deep down, they're insecure, and we know that bullies are deep down very insecure, otherwise there wouldn't be bullies. So you've got the turtles and the puffers and we've all been both in different scenarios, but we have a home. Which one is your home? Just like the song playing in your head. Usually, the song playing in the puffers head is I'm the best, I'm awesome, I'm great, I'm a winner. Usually, the song playing in the turtles is I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm, I'm a loser, whatever it might be. And again, I'm paraphrasing it. That might not be the exact song, but what we want to do here from a personal growth and self improvement, holistic self improvement perspective, is we want to identify which side we're on, which side is our home, and what to do about it.

Speaker 2:

I wanted Kevin to articulate this, but I'll do it. I've grown a lot since that moment. That moment he described at the beginning was years and years and years ago. I think that was probably five years ago. Since then, I've really come to, as I've become more secure in who I am as a man and who I am and what I am and how and my capabilities. I don't need to be super loud anymore and I also realized that there are certain scenarios where I actually go docile. So the two words are docile and dominant. The word that I want to encourage our listeners to become is empowered. The docile approach in the situation with me and Brandt talking business would be to just suppress and not ask questions and just kind of slink into the corner and villainize us.

Speaker 1:

That's what I did.

Speaker 2:

The dominant approach would be to try to pretend he knows what he's talking about when he doesn't, and try to dominate the conversation, even though he's the last person who should be talking. No offense, you back then. You back then.

Speaker 1:

Even to this day probably.

Speaker 2:

Fair. The empowered approach would say, hey, what's a leverage buyout? And get out your notebook. That's how Kevin would just learn and grow.

Speaker 2:

I try really hard to be a student when I'm around people who know things that I don't. There were a lot of students in Pittsburgh that one of them is a master in materials or getting their bachelor's in material science, the other one's getting their bachelor's in mathematics, the other one's a mechanical engineer. One of them the person sitting next to me the next day is in robotics and I was asking questions. I was asking about why do you think consumer robotics is taking so long to go to the mass market? He says, well, the legal issues. And then people are scared. People are scared of Terminator. But I now realize, by the way, if you ask questions all the time, some people think that you don't know that much.

Speaker 2:

I know a ton about robotics, but it might appear like I don't because I'm always a student and sometimes I do need to be more empowered in those moments and less of a student. But that's it. Are you docile? Is that your tendency? Okay, how do you get a little closer to five, a little closer to empowered? Are you dominant? And you always need to dominate in order to protect yourself. How do you get a little more humility? How do you get over to empowered, which is becoming a student when you should be?

Speaker 1:

We were talking about this in the ride home yesterday. I think there's a two thirds rule, so if you're spending time with two other people, I would venture to guess that either two of them are puffers or two of them are turtles is what I would guess.

Speaker 2:

Or if there's a turtle and a puffer, you tend to do the one that is most comfortable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's what I was trying to say, but I couldn't figure out how to say that in this scenario I just assumed there were three people and they were all something.

Speaker 2:

That's as far as I got in my mind, yeah tryouts.

Speaker 1:

There is somebody that was in Alan and I's life that I. Recently we were talking and I said I never really liked that person because that person's over, that person's a puffer fish and every time I was around them I don't want a puffer. So I would just go docile. I don't want a puffer. I don't want to live in that energy. That's weird energy for me. I don't like it. I don't like it.

Speaker 1:

There was another person in our life Alan and I's life where we were doing a venue tour with this person and this person had a big puffer moment. I don't remember. They disrespected the person behind the desk and Alan and I that was one of the last times we ever worked with that person because we weren't. I'm not about that. That's not nice. I don't want to do that. That's puffer fish behavior. If you ever leave an interaction feeling dirty and that's in quotations this could be one of the reasons why the person might have puffer fish tendencies. And we're going to go into this. Tuesday's episode 1429 is going to be a deeper dive into the type of people we're talking about. But if you've ever left a conversation, if you've ever left spending time with someone and you feel dirty and you feel like you couldn't be yourself and hold rapport. I am guessing it's because they are the opposite of what you are Most likely.

Speaker 2:

You've got to define, you've got to. Can you define rapport? Yeah, feel it.

Speaker 1:

R-A-P-P-O-R-T.

Speaker 2:

I'm good.

Speaker 1:

A language of origin, please. It's being connected to someone being on the same page as someone, having an energetic connection that says you're both there for the same reason.

Speaker 2:

Can you articulate for the listeners your experience going from the stage and being a very empowered speaker to the breakout sessions, because I know that a lot of the kids had the docile response, some had the dominant response and then some were empowered students.

Speaker 1:

It was a strange experience where many of so, when you're speaking, you're looking into the audience and oftentimes what you're looking to do is you're looking to find somebody who cares about what you're saying, so you can keep looking at them. You're just trying to find Let me find somebody who resonates with this. All right, let me keep an eye on them. Did they resonate with this? All right, you're looking around the room and you're finding faces and remembering faces. Some of the faces that seemed the most puffer fish. Maybe they're laughing or they're looking at their phone or they're just paying no attention at all. I assumed that when I met them in the audience, it was going to be, there was going to be conflict. This person's going to have an ego, this person's it's going to be bad. That was not the case. Most of them were. They went docile and what I told Alan is, I said I can imagine that is the response that police officers get when they pull over people who have never been pulled over. And I joked with Alan.

Speaker 1:

I walked up to someone and I don't Again, this isn't from a judgment thing, this is just a learning. I said, hey, how are you doing? He said good, you. And I said I'm great, I'm great, I'm great. What'd you learn so far? And he said I'm good, how are you? And it was deer in headlights. He wasn't there. He was internal thinking of oh my goodness, I'm going to look stupid. I don't know what's going on here Again. I've been there a million times. Insert brand pin-v-dick story. That is what I saw most. Any of the puffer fish was. I'm almost too cool to even try to answer the question. I don't even need to try to answer the question. It's not even worth me trying to answer. Too cool for school.

Speaker 2:

Too cool for school.

Speaker 1:

Too cool for school. That's what the experience for me was like.

Speaker 2:

I really want to make sure this lands If you're on the, too cool for school and you're not going to learn much because you're too cool to ask questions and learn from someone who is there to teach you. Kevin and I got paid to be there. We got paid very well to be there. We study personal development, self-improvement, holistic self-improvement every single day for the last six years, and we're both much older than the students. There's a lot they could learn from us. If I was in my early 20s, I would ask a thousand questions. I know I used to be the guy who asked way too many questions in every class physics and math and all that stuff. I would take advantage of that opportunity to learn as much as I could from people who knew better than I did, who have decades on this earth more than I do In this case, 14, 15 years. That's an empowered person. That's someone who's secure enough to ask a dumb question. That's someone who's secure enough to say I'm not too cool for school, but I'm also not too scared to ask.

Speaker 2:

And so both the turtle and the puffer let's go back to the original. A turtle when it thinks it's in danger, it hides in its shell to protect itself A puffer fish when a big fish comes along that is going to eat it. There's this little Netflix documentary called Puff. It's the cutest documentary ever and it's this documentary I don't know if it's a doc use series, I think it's a movie where it takes you through Puff's life from when it's a little tiny puffer fish, all the way through its life, and it teaches you about the habitat and the Great Barrier Reef. I obviously don't know much about it. Here's my point when it gets eaten, it actually gets eaten. At one point Spoiler alert I know a little puff gets eaten but and I didn't know this until after it puffs up in the mouth of the fish and it spits it out that. So anytime puff would be in danger, it would puff up into this big, bigger, dangerous fish with spikes.

Speaker 2:

Every time you are around other humans, you are either going to go docile or you are going to puffer fish If and that's natural that's human nature there is. No, you're not better, you're not bad for doing this. This is human nature. You have to recognize which one you're doing and then try to move towards empowered. In the gym when I walk by some of these younger men who are much, much smaller than me. I'm 6'2". I'm 185 pounds. I'm probably 16% body fat. I'm a bigger guy. Some of these guys are really small. In my gym it's a small town gym they either go docile and won't look at me, which is fine. I actually prefer that because I just want to focus on my workout or they do this huge puff shoulder thing. You know those people that if you were not to move, you'd end up bumping shoulders.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, yeah, I can't stand it.

Speaker 2:

I hate it. One of these times I'm just going to not move. But I want to be respectful. So I tend to move. But I also tend to go docile around puffer fishes, which is a whole other thing.

Speaker 2:

So what is your trauma response? What is your stress response Instead of trauma? Trauma is a heavy word. What's your stress response when you're uncomfortable, when you have social anxiety and you struggle? Do you puff up and try to be the center of attention? Or do you go docile and try to slink into the background? And when you find yourself doing one or the other, or whichever one, you flip-flop on, try to get closer to empowered. What's the empowered move? What would a secure person do? Because, at the end of the day, that's all it is. It's just insecurity. We all have them.

Speaker 1:

And it starts by admitting it to your point. I had another one of those moments when you, me and Eddie were working out and then we talked about business, Eddie Panera, we co-hosted an event with Eddie and in the gym, when we were working out, during the workout portion, I was 10 out of 10 confident. I don't think I'm a puffer. I mean, I guess I would have a puffer tendency.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no no you're not.

Speaker 1:

You're empowered.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, that's empowered.

Speaker 1:

What animal would that be?

Speaker 2:

A cheetah. That's a great point.

Speaker 2:

The animal would be. I use Simba as a reference to another movie, so throw on the music If you've ever seen the Lion King, the new one or the old one. Mufasa is a good example of empowered. He's the strongest in the room but doesn't have to show it, and that Remember when we interviewed Julian Nguyen, and he is such a strong.

Speaker 2:

I remember he was a docile in the interview. He was not a good speaker, no offense, I mean, he doesn't speak for a living. So I'm not trying to be unkind here, but compared to us we had a lot of reps and he was very mousy and he did a great job for someone in the beginning. But I remember after the interview he put on the gloves and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, oh my, this is his game. So he just played our game, this is his game. And I was definitely at a trauma response to that. I was like, oh yeah, no. And then you went in the ring with him, so he went from our ring to his ring and he doesn't have to puff. He knows he can kill you at any time he wants, so it's beat you whatever, at any time he wants.

Speaker 2:

No, he can definitely kill you if you want to If you want to kill you so he doesn't have to Versus someone who is at a bar fight and they're puffer fishing and they think they're so strong. They're not. They're puffer fishing, they're not actually strong, they're not actually dangerous, or maybe they are, I don't know, but you know what I'm saying. So the truly empowered person is the person who is truly competent, truly capable, truly confident. Everyone who's docile or dominant, overly docile or overly dominant is basically just compensating for lack of capabilities and deep insecurities. What's the animal? Lion?

Speaker 2:

I suppose Lion or lioness, though Lion or lioness, lion or lioness, lion or lioness.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate that. I appreciate that reframe. I was telling a story and then you interrupted me and you went off on a damn tangent and now I forgot what I was saying.

Speaker 2:

It'll come back to you, it's all coming back to you. You asked me a question.

Speaker 1:

I didn't interrupt you, I didn't ask you a question.

Speaker 2:

I did ask you a question, I think you did. What animal would that be? It was after the interruption. Yeah probably.

Speaker 1:

This is what I was going to say you and I were hanging out with Eddie yeah, 10 out of 10, confident when I'm working out lifting, then we're talking about business and I, my initial thing was to villainize both of you. And then I asked, I went inward, like you said earlier, and I said this isn't, this is a me thing, this isn't a them thing, this is a me thing. That gave me the awareness to at least say right now, they're not both puffer fishing, they're not a two against one puffer fish. I'm just very insecure about this. You were, I think you were both empowered and that empowerment to me was triggering at the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I want to share that.

Speaker 2:

I'm grateful that you shared that story, because sometimes people are just being empowered and you're taking it as arrogance. It's not. It's not the same and you can tell by the energy but in your. If you were insecure in that moment, you might be able to get your energy, and then what your response to that might be is to knock us down. Yeah, this is what humans do. This is why being empowered is so scary, because a lot of times, people take take that at. A lot of people want to knock you down. That's that's why, if you've ever really struggled with social relationships and you have deep pains associated with relationships, sometimes it's because you actually are amazing. Sometimes maybe it is because you're also puffing, but I think that's truly amazing. Empowered people. They get they get hated on a lot because of other people's insecurities, and so that's a different episode.

Speaker 1:

That is a different episode. What would your next level nugget be?

Speaker 2:

I think I should kick it to you. I think I should kick it to you because I feel like I've spoken a lot on this one.

Speaker 1:

You have, but that's okay, this was your episode, this was your okay.

Speaker 2:

You, you came with it. My next level nugget would be when do you puff or turtle due to insecurities? Just that awareness alone, that self-awareness alone, will help you become empowered.

Speaker 1:

Mine. We got a lot of questions. A lot of our nuggets are not nuggets, they're questions from a non, a non-judgmental place. If you had to identify the closest three to five people to you, are they more turtle or puffer fish? Understanding that, I believe, would help you understand the interactions you have with them and the feelings you have around them. I believe that would be very beneficial. Also, if everybody around you is a puffer fish and you have turtle tendencies, you're probably getting taken advantage of, almost certainly, and there's a reason they're surrounding themselves with you and vice versa. You just might not know.

Speaker 1:

Remember bold statement, but I want to throw it out there.

Speaker 2:

Insecure people don't like to spend time with people who are empowered, because it's such a big mirror, but insecure people who have a growth mindset and who are willing to be humble and vulnerable and courageous, they love being around empowered people. And remember that if you do have deep insecurities and your tendency is to go docile, puffer fish will find you. They find you because it makes them feel big. Most turtles are created from overly dominant caregivers early on who were arrogant and deeply insecure but overly dominant, and I've seen that a lot in coaching. It's like, oh yeah, your dad had to be right always and that is why you feel like you're always wrong. You're not always wrong, you're amazing. You're amazing. They just didn't want you to know that because they're so damn insecure they can't ever let you in at anything. So I just don't want anyone to allow a bully to keep you down.

Speaker 1:

Next level nation. If you are listening to us, that means in some way. Well, yeah, if you're still listening at this point, that means in some way you probably like us, hopefully, or maybe we add value to your life. I hope so. That's what we're aiming for. If you don't follow us on social media, please do. My handle on Instagram is at Neverquickid Alan is at a Lazarus 88, a-l-a-z-a-r-o-s 88. Send me a message, send me an audio, Send me a video. I will send you a video back. You're going to see my cats, which that, right. There is the reason. If for nothing else, you'll see the cats. You'll see the behind the scenes. You'll see me suffering in the gym every day, me watching UFC. So, yeah, if you don't follow us on social media and you want to get to know us at a deeper level, please do that, and it's also a great way to connect. If you have any questions or anything, you can always just shoot us a message on any social media platform. That's what I would say.

Speaker 2:

If you listen to our show, we work really, really hard to add as much value as we can to your life. We produce, at our company, I believe, 44 other shows at Next Level Podcast Solutions and Kevin has another podcast called Podcast Growth University. That podcast the same way this podcast is to help you get to the next level in your health, life, love and wealth. I think I said that in the wrong order, but that podcast, growth university that other podcast that Kevin does is to help you get to the next level in podcasting. So if you want to start, grow or monetize your show, that is the place for you. Check that out and the link will be in the show notes 57 episodes in.

Speaker 2:

Nice, so full year, more than a full year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it went by very fast because it's one out of eight episodes I do every week, so it just happens. It doesn't just happen, I have to do it every week. But you know strong work man.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and in the beginning, when you started that real talk you're like one of the most consistent people I've ever met. I was concerned that you wouldn't have the public accountability that you do on this show. I will do it just despite you.

Speaker 1:

I will never miss an episode. Just despite you. What if? That's why I'm saying it no. I said it. I said it. One of the first episodes I ever did was the importance of consistency. Yeah, yeah, that's all the public accountability. I can't be missing it.

Speaker 2:

But I do appreciate the gentle Plus all of our clients would be like hey, Kevin, you tell me to be consistent, what's going on here? So there's a lot of example is very powerful.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of accountability within that, but also, despite you, I'll never miss an episode. You, son of a B, perfect Tomorrow for episode number 1428. What if your success and success for those of you who are just listening is in quotation marks? Success means something different every one of us. What if your success is just the numbers game? Again, we had a lot of lessons from this trip and this is another example of that. I have really good story for this. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we turn to fans. We have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Go be as empowered as possible Next time on nation.

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