Next Level University

#1438 - A Simple Mindset Shift To Help You Find More "Success"

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Share episode

In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss how we perceive success and failure. They discuss the right mindset tools for achieving substantial success, including setting realistic goals and celebrating small victories. They talk about humility, self-belief, and benchmarking against your own identity. They emphasize that it is important to humble yourself and set smaller, incremental goals.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Monthly Meetup: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
Book a FREE Breakthrough Session with Alan: https://bit.ly/3Wr6clL 

______________________ 

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/

Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

__________________

Show notes:
[2:01] Three determinations of success
[9:01] Setting benchmarks
[14:57] Austin shares his top-notch experience working with Kevin under Next Level Podcast Solutions
[15:49] Why people don't build self-belief
[19:02] Benchmarking against your own identity
[22:20] You can't get the benefit without the detriment
[28:51] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Next level nation. Welcome back to another episode of next level university, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your well. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, episode number one thousand four hundred and thirty seven. What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses right now? Today, for episode number one thousand four hundred and thirty eight, a simple mindset shift to help you find more success, and successes in quotation marks. I Was in Vermont this past weekend. Terrence family, my family, now has a cabin up there on Lake Champlain. It is wonderful, it's beautiful, and I got up, went to the gym, I was on my ride back and I was listening to a book by Phil M Jones, who we actually had on the podcast Years ago.

Speaker 2:

At this point, a couple times, I think did you come on twice?

Speaker 1:

I don't remember.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, I'm thinking of someone else.

Speaker 1:

He came on once, came on once one of our favorite guests, an amazing speaker, somebody who is very, very aligned when it comes to teaching sales. There are a lot of people out there I just cannot listen to. He is not one of them. He is amazing. He was talking in this presentation about what we're gonna be talking about today. He said one of the Issues a lot of us have is we go into something with One determination on whether or not it was successful or a failure. So if I don't get a standing ovation from this audience, I failed. He said what I have found Helpful and I think the same way, which I'm grateful for, is creating three different pieces of success. So, just as an example, alan and I gave a speech in Pittsburgh recently. I did this before I even knew I was doing this, because I am so afraid of failure that I think I'm always trying to find success in it. So, as an example, number one might be we're gonna get through all the content and we're really gonna impact the audience. That's my number one Success point. We'll call it that. Number two I want to practice having more powerful pauses, which is a tough sentence to say. So that's number two. Number three I'm going to engage the audience more than I ever have before. What happens is, as you start to practice something, that can kind of become second nature. I'm not really worried about us getting through all of the content. I'm not really worried about us impacting the audience. I believe that'll happen because we've been practicing that for a long period of time. What I haven't been practicing is long pauses. So let me try that. I'm pretty sure the success point number one is gonna get done, because that's what we've been working on so hard for the last six years. But the powerful pauses I haven't been practicing. All right, let me try that.

Speaker 1:

That went really really well. I actually think I did the best I've ever done. Awesome. Third point engaging the audience. I did not do as well there as I could have, but here's what I might have done in the past. In the past I might have said Now that that speech really sucked. I wasn't good, I didn't do a good job. We probably didn't impact the audience. That's not true. I didn't Engage with the audience as powerfully as I had hoped, but I do believe the speech went really well. I do believe we added a ton of value and now I am more capable of practicing powerful pauses, which is another tough sentence, is a two out of three ain't bad 66%, you know 66.6%, I believe two out of three.

Speaker 1:

If you hit every, if you get a hit two out of three times, you're the best player ever to play the game in baseball.

Speaker 2:

So In baseball in baseball.

Speaker 2:

I told Kev before this episode I wanted to talk about this. Kevin and I, every marathon Monday, we record all of our content and Try. I've had people behind the scenes. I have one client, bianca. She asked me this how do you not feel like a failure constantly? And One of the best questions I've ever been asked and I said the first thing is I kind of do Feel like a failure quite often, but but on the micro, on the day to day, after today ends and Kevin and I record hopefully seven episodes, maybe five, maybe three. Well, this is only our second one. Am I going to go to bed at night feeling like a failure? Let me unpack this. Okay, we're shooting for seven episodes every Monday. How many times do you think we actually get all seven done?

Speaker 1:

One quarter of the time, okay.

Speaker 2:

So if we're shooting for seven episodes on Monday and that's the bar that we've set and we don't set any other bars we're going to feel like a failure three quarters of the time, because Kevin just admitted that we only get that done about one fourth of the time. That's not very good for your self-esteem, that's not a good way to live, and so you kind of have to have these levels of success. And again bringing that back to next level, university, not only is there a next level that you're shooting for, but there's levels that you're certain you can hit, there's levels that you're semi certain you can hit, and then there's levels that you're almost certain you can't hit yet yet. And that's what growth is. That's what the growth journey is. So to answer Bianca's original question to me on that coaching call, I said I feel like a failure on the day to day, but I know I'm successful long term. No one gets in shape from easy workouts.

Speaker 2:

So Kevin and I went into today, marathon Monday. This is episode number two of seven. We're shooting for seven, but if we get five done, I'm not going to consider today a failure. I'm going to sit there and go okay, it's better than three. It's not seven, but it's better than three. And then I'm going to go to the next layer. Was it good content? Was it well delivered? Did I get better at speaking? Did Kevin and I flow well? Did we get into flow? Was the audio quality good? Did I get into flow? Was the audio quality strong? Did I keep my mouth far enough from the mic so that I'm not, you know, having mouth noises and nose whistles in everyone's ears.

Speaker 2:

At the end of the day, kevin and I want to be so transparent. We used to say this all the time on the hyper conscious podcast I want to pull back the curtain. I want to pull back the curtain. So you all know we are still working on these things. Last story Kevin and I he already mentioned we give a speech in Pittsburgh. We had three and a half hours with undergrad students, 100 undergrad students, college kids, 19, 20, 21 years old, some a little older, some a little younger, I think. Three and a half hours.

Speaker 2:

So we had two 45 minute one, one hour keynote two 45, four excuse me one one hour keynote, two 45 minute keynotes and then two half an hour breakout sessions. When we left that night, we both said seven out of 10. It was probably seven out of 10 strong work. Okay, we've definitely done worse. We've also definitely done better, but we said 10 out of 10 for the content itself. The the Canva presentation was the best we've ever had.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so there's these little segments of success that you have to find within the quote unquote failures. The next day I attend the event and this is nothing against the host of the event, this is all good, but they were giving these scholarships out. I told the story. There was 12 to 15 different speakers who came up to not only receive scholarships but also give scholarships, and these people are not professional speakers. It's not like Philm Jones, who has done 2000 speeches and practiced oratory his entire adult life. These are just undergrad kids receiving scholarships and older people who are giving scholarships. Very inspiring, it was great.

Speaker 2:

But I was in the very seat the next day that Kevin and I spoke to and I'll tell you what sitting in that seat, I had that moment of oh, ours was 10 out of 10 in comparison. In comparison, ours was 10 out of 10. So it all depends on what you compare to, but it also depends on these benchmarks that you've set for yourself in advance. Maybe you want to go to a event and you want to get. You want to talk to 10 people. What if you only talk to three? Does that mean the whole event was for nothing? And that's just kind of a mind game. We all have to learn how to play.

Speaker 1:

And it helps you make sure you are recognizing progress but you're also recognizing the extra need for progress. So if it goes two out of three well, we keep the ambition of, but I do want to get better. If it goes one out of three, bad. So you do one thing well and two things what you think are terrible, you still have that one win. So it helps level the playing field for you a little bit more.

Speaker 1:

I told Alan this I did a what I would consider a sales call where somebody was jumping on the phone with me, zoom, to figure out whether or not one of our services was for them. And unconsciously, before I even heard this in the book, I had three things. One of them was I want to get this client. I want to get this client. The second one was I want to be the most confident I've ever been. And the third was I want to be very direct. I just want to be direct. I want to be just a confident, direct human being. And those two went really, really well. Did we get the client? Not yet. I think we will, but I remember in the beginning, alan, if I had An interaction like that and we didn't get a client. I would be very sad. That might wreck my whole day. Now it's just two out of three. I'm way better than I've ever been.

Speaker 1:

I said I said things confidently that I've never said before. That's huge wins. That might even be and this is the weird thing that might be way bigger than me. Even getting the client in the long run. In the long run, that is, in the long run, me feeling more confident, me feeling more capable as as a speaker, me having pauses that stuff in the long run is more valuable than any of the short-term stuff. Anyway, but making sure that you're saying, okay, this was the one big win, yeah, we dropped the ball in these two things Not ideal, but we'll get better next time.

Speaker 1:

Or these are the two things we did really well. But let's not forget there still is the opportunity to make a lot of progress. Let's make sure we don't lose sight of the Improvement point. I think that's a really good place to live where a lot of us Definitely myself in the very beginning, or not not even the very beginning in the beginning I was wired to only look for one of the two. So you either find the win or you find the loss. It's very. It was very hard for me to hold both at the same time right before this episode, I asked Kev about the last episode.

Speaker 2:

I said what was your most important win, what was your most important improvement? I used to make the mistake of only looking at what we could improve and my self-esteem and self-worth was definitely hurt. It was definitely hurt, it was hard to. It was hard to feel and to the point of the last episode as well, with the holistic, if you haven't listened, go check that out. But if you're trying to be successful in health, wealth and love and You're only looking at where to improve and never looking at progress, you are in so much trouble. So my question for you, kev, two things. The first one you mentioned how ignorance is bliss, but you had a different twist on it than most people do. Can you go into that, because I think that ties into this a little bit.

Speaker 1:

What did I say? Ignorance is bliss in the short run.

Speaker 2:

Because we were talking about how Podcasting has actually gotten so difficult, but I'm not not in a negative way. We're just more aware of all the nuances, whereas when we were in the beginning we thought we did a great job, but we didn't understand how bad we were.

Speaker 1:

That be pretty much explains it, I think okay, okay, yeah that was my, that. My thought around it was when you have more awareness, you have more opportunity and then you have more responsibility.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which we're doing an episode on. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I also that's. That's part of it too. I want to keep that kind of close to the hips.

Speaker 2:

I'll give away all that I see Kevin's given, you know, teaser teaser for that next episode That'll be this week.

Speaker 2:

My next question for you is how did you I was always talking about fail forward in the very beginning. If you were to listen to those first episodes, we weren't the strongest podcasters, but we had some good concepts. The one of the best concepts in hindsight, that I think made the biggest difference was fail forward. Now we call it Jeff and forward you out here, jeff, this idea that you're never going to be perfect. There's no point even trying to be perfect. You might as well just take massive action, take messy action, just break some eggs, and we're 1438 episodes in it.

Speaker 2:

We're still making mistakes. We're never not going to be making mistakes, we're just not going to hopefully make the same mistakes. So and then, the moment you're not making any mistakes, you become more aware of how to do better. And then now, all of a sudden, that's a mistake, whereas when we were unconsciously saying um, like, and you know a bunch of times, it wasn't on our radar, so we didn't know we were screwing it up. So my question for you is in the beginning, as someone who struggled with self confidence, how did you get through this failing forward thing without this, this level setting in advance?

Speaker 1:

I think I always built in a win of but you did it. That's probably the best answer I can give is even if this speech goes horribly wrong, you still did it, and that's something you never would have done before. Even if this networking event on the private island with a password doesn't go well, at least you did it. That's something you never would have done before.

Speaker 2:

Do you think it's possible to have that without humility? Emilia asked me something yesterday. This is I'll try not to make this a tangent, but it was very powerful. She asked me something along the lines of why people don't build self belief, and I talked about how they don't have enough humility, and what I really mean by that is if you're not humble enough to do what you just did of at least I showed up. Okay, let me provide context.

Speaker 2:

I have a new client. She's doing awesome. She's tracking six habits and she's really facing the reality of how hard it is to actually do six habits a day. And she's really upset with her percentages. She's getting 66% and 47%. And I said listen. I sent her a long audio yesterday. I said listen, I want you to understand something.

Speaker 2:

It's very hard at first for everyone to realize how incapable they've they've gotten at staying focused on habits every day. If you've never tracked habits before and you're listening, try tracking three habits a day. It will. It will be alarming for you to realize how hard that is, because we have this idea of self and then we have the reality of self and at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey I started tracking habits. Eight years ago I was in this little productivity journal and I remember having to face the reality of I can't focus to save my life. This is brutal. I can't seem to get my work done because when you set these intentions it's so hard to hit them, and if you don't have humility, you're going to set intentions that are way beyond your current capability. So for you, just showing up was enough. Do you think people can can feel that way without humility?

Speaker 1:

I don't. I think that's more of a belief thing than anything. Maybe I just had more two things. Maybe I had more belief than I originally thought, which is definitely a possibility. Right, I, I've stepped on stage and pretty much a man thong. That's a level of belief that a lot of people might not have. That was fitness, so maybe it's a different bucket. I don't know. That's one, yeah Among. And then I had a lot of necessity. I was kind of forced to do it. Not you didn't, you didn't say Kev, you have to do this speech. That wasn't, that wasn't there and I was, in a way, forced to do it. The goals, the intentions, the desires dictated what I had to do.

Speaker 2:

Well, you believed that if you didn't do it, you couldn't be successful, and that was unacceptable for you.

Speaker 1:

I signed up to be successful. That's what I, that's what I want. I didn't. I didn't leave everything behind to not do the things that I have to do, and I also Tried to take the advice that I was giving clients early on. One of my, one of my quotes early on was I do not care about the outcome, I care about the effort, I don't care if you get rejected, I don't care if they say no, I don't care if you get the client, I care that you tried, because in the beginning, that's all you should care about too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah you just need to get that momentum of. That's the first goal. The first goal is to try it. That's it. The first goal is just to try it. And if it goes well, that's why I was super excited after my first speech went better than I expected. Yeah, it exceeded my expectations, but I still did it. So I gave myself double. You did it and it went better than you expected. Here's the problem. The next speech I gave I Was. I went in with an ego and it was terrible. It wasn't a good speech.

Speaker 2:

You expected to be good and then you, so it's always your. We're always benchmarking ourself up against our identity. This is why the drive to five is so powerful, and if you quickest version of the drive to five ever zero to ten. Ten is someone who thinks they're better than they really are. Zero is someone who thinks they're worse than they really are. So if Kevin thinks he's not a strong speaker, gives a speech and then he crushes it in comparison to what he expected, he's gonna then think he's a good speaker and then the next speech he thinks he's a good speaker, doesn't prepare, doesn't do well.

Speaker 2:

Now, all of a sudden, it goes the other way. I think Everyone needs to if they want to build belief, if they want to build self-efficacy, if they want to get to the next level. You have to set Benchmarks that are accurate to your current capabilities. If you, if you're too far over or too far under you're, it's gonna devastate you. If you're, if you think you're gonna crush a speech in front of ten thousand people when you've never spoken, you're gonna get destroyed, you're gonna get crushed. But if you think you can't step on stage in front of ten people, you're probably wrong. You should at least try. You know that I think everything's come comes down to the drive to five. I'm convinced of it. It might go horribly wrong, but you'll never know if you don't do it, because that's another belief.

Speaker 1:

I know that Jeff me and the other people who are I know that Jeff me in the beginning was it. If it does go horribly wrong, I can't handle that. I won't be able to handle if it goes horribly wrong. Why? Embarrassment, fear of judgment? It would hurt my self-worth, all those things. Here's the truth, because I didn't really ever have that many public failures like that. I I I have a firm belief that one of the reasons we avoid failure so much is because we have so little of it, and when you haven't failed consistently it's. It's a lot easier for me to fail now than it's ever been, just because I've done it so much over the last six years. But before that it was almost out of bounds. Now there's a chance I could fail. I'm not gonna do that Now. The chance is always there. Always, the chance is always there.

Speaker 1:

A Quote by one of my. I won't say he's one of my favorite fighters of all time, but he was a very good promoter of fights. His name is Chale Sunen. I Don't know the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of anybody who tells you failure is not an option, is Delusional. Failure is the most reddled, readily available option at all times. It's always said, it's always he's. He's very, very well-spoken, he's a masterful speaker. It's always there.

Speaker 1:

I could fail on this episode, but failure is different now. The last episode, it wasn't my strongest. I told Alan I wasn't, as I feel like I was super serious. For some reason I was way more serious than usual. I didn't feel as much me compared to what I wanted to.

Speaker 1:

Now that's not a failure, but it's not a success to the level I desire either. So If you're, if you're really afraid of a level one failure, you're also holding yourself back from a level two and level three success For sure. You cannot get the benefits without the potential detriment. Unfortunately, if I could make a, maybe I'll make an app where you can only succeed. I don't know, but it wouldn't be very. It wouldn't be good for you anyway, because it would remove the necessity. There would be no. So Success is a gamble. At the end of the day, success is a gamble. There is an opportunity, there is a potential that you'll lose. You'll fail. Quote-unquote make mistakes right. Failure is only failure if it's final, if you show up and try again tomorrow. You didn't fail. You learned. You made a mistake. But I also understand it takes a Long time to get to that that point so the idea is set a, set a goal, a milestone, an inch pebble.

Speaker 2:

Set that next thing to be a little bit outside your comfort zone, to where you might fail, but you're not gonna fully fail. Yeah, it's, you're gonna fail a percentage. Maybe it's 80 20. So that's probably a good Okay. 80% of this speech went well, based on what I wanted and 20% we. We jeffed or or. And I told Kevin this we both have a mutual friend who crushed everyone in a bodybuilding show and I said he overcooked the turkey.

Speaker 1:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

You shouldn't win your first show. I Got stomped so I was on the other end of that but a same show, by the way but I basically said he should have been doing this years ago. He stomped everyone. It wasn't even closed, so obviously he can play at a different level. If all you're doing is winning, you need to go get better competition. If all you're doing is losing, you need to humble yourself and start setting smaller incremental goals. Last thing before we go that's your next level nugget.

Speaker 1:

My next level nugget is this when I was in my early 20s, I went to I actually put together a bachelor party for a really good friend of mine and we went whitewater rafting and it was the first release of the year where there was literally still icebergs in the river. It was freezing. It was brutal, it was absolutely brutal. It would not have been as cold, probably or that would not have been my relationship with the water If I was doing what so many people are doing today, doing the cold plunges. Now people quite literally just Microdose that type of stuff. They say, well, yeah, it's gonna be cold, but let me go do it. It's gonna suck, but let me go do it.

Speaker 1:

There's a Businesses, many businesses, built on that. I think failure is the same thing where, if you said, okay, I am going to Try to get rejected, today I am going to do something that I know I'm not 100% ready for, but I also know the downside isn't super high. So if it does go wrong, it's not that big of a deal all things considered. You'll have to decide what that is for you. It's gonna be personal to you, but that getting comfortable and familiar with failure is always a beneficial thing, because Then at least you know how you react to. It is what I would say you dig it.

Speaker 2:

I do strong work.

Speaker 1:

I.

Speaker 2:

Failing forward, of course.

Speaker 1:

It's your favorite thing in the world. It's one of one of your favorite things in the world?

Speaker 2:

It is top ten top ten.

Speaker 1:

One of my favorite things in the world is what we're doing our September meetup on nice, september 1st, 6 pm Eastern Time, dealing with the fear of judgment and rejection. Two things yeah right, I knew you would be two things. Two things I've dealt with a lot. I don't think you've dealt with them as much. You've definitely dealt with judgment and and rejection, but I don't know if you had as much of a fear as I did, or maybe your average person would.

Speaker 1:

Our meetups are Completely private. They're behind the scenes. They're totally free. They're not recorded. So this is something where you can come and join and you can have your camera on. You don't have to. You can participate All you want. You don't have to. The intimidation factor is very low. The Likelihood of you quote-unquote failing during this is non-existent. You just show up, be vulnerable, whatever that means to you. Showing up for many of you is vulnerable enough awesome, and Alan and I will talk about that will be very open. We'll be very honest and you will definitely learn things about us that you have never heard before. Because it's totally private, behind the scenes. Link will be in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

So a level one success in that case would be showing up, keeping your camera off, keeping your microphone off. A level two success might be Keeping your camera and microphone off but typing and engaging in the chat with the other audience members. A level three success might be Turning your camera on and asking a question live. And again, it's not a failure if you don't do that. Third one just showing up is Already if it's outside your comfort zone, a win in and of itself.

Speaker 2:

I do free breakout sessions, breakthrough sessions, rather, and and I do realize and this is the feedback that I've gotten from some of my, my clients, some of the listeners it's intimidating. If here's what I would say, you're never, ever, ever going to grow without getting outside your comfort zone. I Can promise you value. I Love to meet the listeners. I I'm not unkind, I'm going to help you and, at the end of the day, this is a good framework for the different levels setting maybe.

Speaker 2:

Maybe level one is just showing up and just getting to know me and me getting to know you. Maybe level two is we go deep and you're vulnerable and we have a really big breakthrough. Maybe level three is it changes your whole life. It's not a failure if you don't get level three. So I hope that you join us. I love to meet our listeners. When I meet our listeners, that's when I get to know what you're struggling with. That's how we make this show better. So shout out to many of the listeners that I've had Brianna, you're one of them. I'll only ever say first names and and I hope to meet you, so please book on my calendar and I'll talk to you soon if you are intimidated, alan poops, just like everybody else that's that's a helpful Thing to know no I don't poop, oh, never mind, you're an anomaly.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, everybody poops. Alan, I have to get going tomorrow for episode number 1439.

Speaker 1:

Adding one word to this question changes everything. Everything is all uppercase. So you know it's a serious episode. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't a serious episode. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Keep failing forward. Next explanation

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host