Next Level University

#1439 - Adding One Word To This Question Changes EVERYTHING

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Have you ever found yourself stuck in a rut, thinking you can't achieve your dreams? It's time to reshape the questions you're asking yourself to create opportunities and foster self-belief. Today, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about how this mindset shift can ignite innovation and creativity. They discuss the impact of breaking down dreams into achievable goals and discover how to transform dreams into realities. It's not about whether you can reach your dreams but whether you're ready to commit to the work that will get you there. They also discuss finding motivation in these situations and how knowledge and awareness are your most potent tools for overcoming obstacles. They also dive into the importance of understanding the fundamentals of life's complexities and breaking them down to make them less daunting.

Links mentioned:
To learn more about group coaching - https://nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
#8 - How to Become a Sales Star - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-become-sales-star-alan-lazaros

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Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

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Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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Show notes:
[3:10] One of the most powerful shifts you can make
[8:25] Alan shares a client's story
[13:34] The antidote to hopelessness
[15:27] Austin shares his top-notch experience working with Kevin under Next Level Podcast Solutions
[18:57] Believing that you can do it
[23:25] You're good at a lot of stuff
[28:00] It's directly connected to confidence
[30:25] 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 wealth. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, episode number 1438, a simple mindset shift to help you find more success. Today, for episode number 1439, adding one word to this question changes everything. Everything is all caps. So you know this is some serious business.

Speaker 1:

As I mentioned, alan, I went to wonderful Vermont last weekend and I had this very surreal, humbling moment. So at the cabin there is a picnic table on the hill and this cabin is right on the water. So you walk outside and there's this hill that goes down right into Lake Champlain, so probably 15 feet from the water, and this picnic table is up on the hill and you can overlook the water. This picnic table was where I worked four years ago when we first went up there. So Tara and I went there in 2019 for the first time ever.

Speaker 1:

I remember sitting on this picnic table, feeling the breeze, hearing the waves crash, tracking my finances, and as much as the breeze felt nice and the waves crashing sounded nice, tracking my finances, it was not so nice at that time. I didn't enjoy that very much and I remember having a conversation with myself saying am I actually going to be able to pay the bills? Can I actually pay the bills this month? Because I was in the negative and at that point you and I weren't. We were a business, but our finances weren't combined and there was a lot of things going on behind the scenes. We weren't the business that we are today. We had one client at NLPS. I was doing the uploading of the audio there and there was no Wi-Fi and I was thinking this is where in trouble. This is not good. This year I go and I have a new car and I'm going to Belgium in a couple of weeks. There's a lot of amazing things happening because the business has grown so much and we've been making money as a business and we have an amazing team and Tara and I are married.

Speaker 1:

Now it's weird. A lot of weird things have happened. A lot of things are just different. Life is very, very different, and one of the reasons why is because I started asking myself, or tried to start asking myself, a different question. You even heard it in the way I phrased it Can I pay rent this month? Can I afford to take Tara out? Can I get another client Adding one word to that how can I? Is one of the most powerful shifts you can make as a human. As a human, because it creates opportunity. There's belief in that. Can I suggest you don't believe you can? How can I suggest, yes, I can. I just need to find out how. What are you doing? I'm sorry? I'm sorry. Look, alan and I had a competition to see who could tell a better story at the beginning of it. Alan's over there trying to fluster me by dancing and smiling and laughing. He's trying to throw me off.

Speaker 2:

You know what it is. I'm moving my chair a bunch and I'm realizing that's going to be on the audio, so I apologize, audience, for all of the chair movements.

Speaker 1:

This is a new setup for me. This is a new setup for me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if you can't handle as a storyteller, as an orchard, as a speaker.

Speaker 1:

You make me laugh. Anybody else I'd be fine, but you make me laugh, so it takes me out.

Speaker 1:

That really is the episode. That's the effin episode. In a nutshell, that's it. That's the end.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if you ask yourself different questions, you get different answers, and it's a very scarce question to say can I? Now, here's the thing too. I just want to preface. Maybe right now you're in the season where you're still can I? That's okay, not the end of the world, I'm not making that wrong. That's where a lot of us start, that's where most of us start. What could you do to start asking yourself how You're capable of it? You're probably more capable than you realize. But even that question can I? You probably wouldn't ask yourself that question if the stakes were higher. So if your house was on fire, I'm sure you would say how can I grab my pets? Not, can I. How can I? How can I get out of this car that's on fire? How can I, whatever swim to the dock? How can I get to safety? Versus can I get to safety? I'm guessing there would be more abundancing the questions you would ask yourself because there's more dire straits. I know that's kind of dark, but I figured I'd add that as well.

Speaker 2:

Well, when your back is up against the wall and you don't have any other option, you have to get really creative. I know at one point you were charging one of your cards to get money and you get creative, you get innovative. You get innovative when you have to.

Speaker 1:

I'm not entirely sure that's legal. So thank you for airing that out. I appreciate that very much. Okay, thank you, there's nothing.

Speaker 2:

Stripe gets money for that. It's genuinely they want you to do that more. I know.

Speaker 1:

I'm just teasing. There was a time where I was like I'm gonna skirting some laws here or whatever it is. It's my money on all ends. But yeah, yes, go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Well, the point that I was making with that, kev, is you put yourself into a position of necessity. You put yourself I'm convinced of this, you've heard me say this before if you're a long-term listener, if you're a new listener, this is the first time. The dark holes that we find ourselves in in life whether it's your health, your wealth, your love in this case, for Kev, it was wealth Whether you're in a ton of debt or whatever those dark holes that you find yourselves in it requires you to innovate. It requires you to go get tools to climb out of the hole. It requires you to develop skills to climb out of the hole, and the tools and skills that you develop to climb out of that dark hole also build skyscrapers.

Speaker 2:

I know one of my clients was in $50,000 worth of debt after college and he hated the idea of being in debt and he had credit cards on credit cards and he was. He was screwed financially and he went and eventually hit rock bottom and he decided after that I'm gonna learn finance, I'm gonna. I think he learned from who's the big finance guy? There's like a one of the people in the industry famous for teaching people finance.

Speaker 1:

Chris Harder.

Speaker 2:

No, no, wasn't Chris. I don't think Chris was around back then. This is many years.

Speaker 1:

Teaching people. Finance? I don't know.

Speaker 2:

He's one of the famous guys that teaches people how to get out of debt.

Speaker 1:

Oh, dave Ramsey, Dave.

Speaker 2:

Ramsey yeah, dave Ramsey. So he went all the way back to basics and climbed out of that hole and now he has those skills. When you climb out of debt, you now understand finance at a better level, you know. So sometimes you gotta back yourself into a corner in order to get yourself to learn the skills and to learn the tools, and that's not uncommon, you know that's not uncommon. The story that I want to share for this episode, again, this is can I do it versus how can I do it? One of them is scarce and I don't know if I can do it and self-doubt and struggle. The other one is brainstorming, innovating, learning, masterminding. So I have a client it's a couple that we coach and they never believed that it was a possibility, but they would talk about this horsey ranch that they wanted to eventually live at.

Speaker 2:

But they didn't know how they were going to do it. A horsey ranch, horsey ranch, horsey ranch, horse mansion, horsey ranch in the mountains. As a matter of fact, this client, kev, had it as their desktop background.

Speaker 2:

I love that you know I love that Beautiful, beautiful horsey ranch in the mountains and they started coaching with Emilia and I relationship talks, coaching, rtc and Emilia and I if you've ever coached with us, we don't really do a whole lot of, can I? It's pretty much yeah, okay, that's totally doable. Let's dive into how. How Are you willing to pay? The price is usually the question. So we said, of course, you can, absolutely, you two can do it. And they're like, really, we're like, yeah, absolutely, let's go on Zillow, right. So we look it up. We look up a mansion that they want. It's a million dollar mansion in the mountains and I said let's just break it down mathematically. This is totally doable. You two are going to crush this. Don't even worry about it. And they're like not convinced.

Speaker 2:

Yet in this conversation I said let's break it down, okay. So new, new home buyers only have to put 3.5% down. So you're both new home buyers. So that's $35,000. So let's break it down, okay, $35,000. How much do you have to save per week In order to do that? I said you're not going to get the mansion tomorrow. And I'm convinced, I'm convinced that people are asking can I, because they're off on time, perspective, if you make $80,000 a year and you're listening, or you make $60,000 a year and you're listening. You could have a million dollar mansion in five years if you were really smart about it. It is mathematically doable.

Speaker 2:

Now whether or not you're actually going to do it is a different story. It's just like anyone can be in shape within reason unless you have really detrimental ailments physically. But it's not a matter of whether or not you can, it's whether or not you're willing to put in the work. And you know the recipe. If you want to make chocolate cake, you need a recipe. So I'm trying to give them the recipe. 3.5% down, that's $35,000.

Speaker 2:

I said how much do each of you have saved? One of them said like seven. One of them said 10. I said good, you're already halfway there, awesome. And then we looked up the mortgage. The mortgage is probably going to be about $6,500. And then homeowners insurance and there's some other things as well. But at the end of the day, could you two get to the place where you have $35,000 together and you make a combined, let's say, $9,000 a month, and If that's the case, you guys can go buy that mansion. And they looked one up that they wanted and they're actually on their way and they've each saved $100 every single week since then. That's $200 a week every week since that conversation.

Speaker 2:

We recently touched base with this, these clients, they have 30 grand saved. It really is just a matter of consistency over time now. We've done episodes about this in the past. I'll be brief. Could they buy a million dollar mansion tomorrow? Absolutely not. Could they do it in three months? Hell no. Could they do it in one year? Definitely not. Could they do it in five years? 100%. But a lot of people don't think five years out and I understand. But a lot of this can I versus how can I? It really is just stretching the time perspective and then doing the math equation.

Speaker 1:

It's almost like if you don't know how you can't in your mind, yeah, and I completely understand that I, I Was and I still am, the person who googles how, when I know how, I know I can, and I know it's not that simple, obviously, but that's why we Google how to, how do I, how do I know? How will I know, when you're googling how you're looking for the certainty that it's actually possible really is what it is. I've used this Thought before. Analogy, I don't know, example, riddle, whatever you want to call it. If you, if you were locked in it's not a room because it doesn't have a ceiling, but you were, if you were locked within four walls that, let's just say fifth, are 15 feet high, and I said there are all the necessities and all the materials and all the tools you need to build the ladder out of here. They're here. They're not together, they're all apart and they're strewn about this area, but they're here.

Speaker 1:

You wouldn't have to. Yeah, it's kind of an escape room. You would say. You wouldn't say can I? I just told you you can, it's 100, but there's many different ways to do it. It's how can I? You know there's a, you know the problem can be solved based on what you've been given. You just got to figure out how. I wonder if that's more Empowering I? That would be more empowering for me. Imagine going to a escape room that you can't escape from and then saying that how a lot of people feel in life.

Speaker 1:

Understand you understandable.

Speaker 2:

I was on the phone recently with a client and I said what is your what? What do you hate most in the world or what pisses you off or what frustrates you? And she said nihilism. She said hopelessness, people who feel hopeless. I said, okay, what's the antidote? She said knowledge, awareness, mental health. I think that a lot of people can feel like they're in an escape room that they can't get out of and All we're trying to do is teach you that you can and how to do that.

Speaker 1:

I Think that's probably now who is yeah, it's probably not as Complex as you might think. It most likely isn't as complex. Now I'm not saying it's not difficult and it doesn't require Learning new skills and being consistent at all, that I will never say it's easy, it's not easy and it's I guess it's simple in terms of the understanding. It might be simple. It's not super complex, but I think it's complex to learn it.

Speaker 2:

I think it's complex to. I Think life, living life is very complex, but I think that when you get older and wiser, you realize that it's actually pretty simple.

Speaker 2:

Hmm it's kind of like that. So, for example, you've been studying martial arts for a lot longer than I have, so it would probably feel really complex to me at the beginning, but you're at a place of sophistication where you understand it and it's fairly simple, if that makes sense like business. For me it's. It's very, very simple. It's not that complex. But that's the irony and the duality of anyone who's new to business it's gonna feel very, very, very complex. That's actually why our these episodes are so challenging for us. Not because it's such a challenging topic, it's because we're taking 34 years of complexity and trying to bring it in a tangible, simple way.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, when you've been practicing something, you have a lot of the fundamental blocks. When I say block, I just mean building block, not limiting belief blocks. That's the other thing too. If you know what north, south, east and west are, you know what northeast, southeast, you kind of the four things give you a lot more than just four things. You can say, well, it's not completely north, it's kind of north, it's northwest or it's northeast, and then you go. When you get there, you go this way. It allows for more context, I think. So I understand. You ever sail? You tell me. You know my life pretty intricately. Have I ever sailed? Probably not.

Speaker 2:

No definitely not. I only sailed once. Seems simple, it looks simple. It's not.

Speaker 1:

I can imagine.

Speaker 2:

It's definitely not. I don't think anything at a high level is, did you?

Speaker 1:

rig the boom arm by any chance? Did I swap the poop deck? Did you? Were you the gaffer?

Speaker 2:

I don't know if there's a gaffer right there. I think a gaffer is an audio person in film production. We'll find out, won't we Were you the gaffer Vastestern, you know? Yeah, no, I don't know what I did.

Speaker 1:

No idea. What did you learn from that I?

Speaker 2:

held the rudder. The rudder I held the rudder which there is a term for. Emilia used to sail D1 for her college.

Speaker 1:

I didn't even know that was a college thing.

Speaker 2:

She's good man, that's sailing, that's sailing. Yeah, real good, we're gonna have a sailboat one day.

Speaker 1:

I'm not. That's gonna be called the SS, jeff the SS.

Speaker 2:

Mino Johnson. No, I'm good, I don't. It's probably gonna, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

So really honestly offensive to me that you don't have it named already.

Speaker 2:

Of course I don't have it named already, sir, but again, how can we get a sailboat Right? We're on our way. We're on our way. But the point of the sailboat thing everything is more complex than you think when you've never done it and then over time, as you master it, it becomes so. For example, even that with the math equation, anyone, anyone. Let me rephrase If you have enough time and you save long enough, you could also buy a million-dollar mansion. It's a doable thing, you know. If you, I mean, think about it, if you have a decade, could you save $35,000 in 10 years. Would you get an income where you have disposable and an additional $6,500 with your partner? That's only $37.50 each. You can do that. It's a doable thing. So these people that have these results that you think are impossible it usually is just a decade of stuff you haven't done yet, yeah, and and it's the opportunity, Believing in the opportunity that you can actually do it If you don't believe you won't learn the stuff.

Speaker 2:

It's like if you're in a dark hole to my original analogy and you don't believe you can get the tools or the skills you won't. You won't look. It's called learned helplessness in psychology. You won't even try to get out of the escape room, you won't even look around, you won't even grab the flashlight, you won't. You'll just sit there and feel hopeless. Anyone out there feels hopeless.

Speaker 2:

I'm so like. I'm so scared to sound arrogant in these conversations, kev, but I have the answer, like a lot of the answers. I don't have every answer, but, kev, you've come to me behind the scenes like dude. How do we do this? Many times, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Brandon. He came to me recently. He said what is the number one skill that I need to master to help NLU grow? And I said sales. And he's like well, what do you mean? I said book club. We just need to build more relationships with people and get them into book club. And he's like oh, and I taught him the sales star. And he's like holy crap, this is way easier than I thought. I said I know it's actually very simple, but if you think sales is some crazy, esoteric, elusive thing that no one can learn. You're never going to master it.

Speaker 1:

No, and now more than ever I don't know, if anything is that there are things that are way harder to learn. For sure, obviously, right, but if you dedicate a good amount of time to learning something, you're gonna know more about that than most people. Oh yeah, definitely, really, think about what you know, whether you're watching or listening right now. I know a lot about fighting. There's a reason, I know. I mean, I've just studied it for the last. I've been watching that for a long time. I couldn't tell you how long I'm like. I was almost two decades. Is that wild? I've never said that before in my life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, probably close to two decades, and Kev is only ever talking, fighting with other people who value fighting. So think about it. If you talked about it with me, you'd realize very quickly oh, I know so much about this. What's another good example of this? So, emilia and Bianca, I'm helping them become stronger storytellers. I've been studying storytelling since I was a sophomore in college, which was when I was 19 years old, so I'm 34 now.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, it's been a long time Two and a half decades.

Speaker 2:

It's been a long time.

Speaker 1:

No, not two and a half.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, 15 years.

Speaker 1:

One and a half.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah one and a half decades, but that's 15 years of. I mean, we were doing a relationship talks virtual event last week and I brought her in my office and I said sweetheart, I'm just going to go into coach mode because she does content and I do delivery. We are kind of swapping that. I said, sweetheart, look at Kevin and I's last speech. It's 80% story, 20% lessons. The problem with RT is that it's 80% lessons, 20% story. We need to get some more story in here. So then we crushed it.

Speaker 2:

We ended up doing a really good job, but how could she possibly know all that she hasn't studied? It felt like if you've ever been involved in a filmmaking process, behind the scenes there's a storyboard, there's a. They don't just go make a movie, they first, they storyboard every scene and there has to be a three act structure and there has to be. There's a lot of fundamental components. And so, without boring everyone, the point that I'm trying to make here is that you are ridiculously good at a lot of stuff. You just don't know it because you're you're usually comparing to the best, or you don't talk about that thing with beginners, because why would you? You know, I was on book club and I said everyone in book club is way better than me at something. And I asked everyone in book club and they all participated, which is awesome. And I said we're reading limitless by Jim quick and it's all about the brain and how the brain is something called neuroplasticity and you can essentially mold your brain. All of our brains are completely molded based on what we think, what we do, what we believe, what we feel are upbringing all that. And I said everyone in book club, please put in the chat one thing that you are certain you're better than everyone else in book club at. And I said I know it's probably hard to do, but please put one thing.

Speaker 2:

One person put crocheting. Hmm, she's. I'm like well, how long have you been crocheting? I think she said 25 years, something like that. It's like if you and I crocheted together, I you would feel so good about yourself. You'd be like, oh my God, I'm amazing at this. And I'd be like, uh, no idea what I'm doing.

Speaker 2:

But the problem is is that we're we're evaluating ourselves based on these other things that are byproducts of something we're really good at. The people who are the most successful in our economy are the people who got really good at a couple things and then all of their success is a byproduct of that and that's a different episode. So I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole, but it's very important. They're doing the how can I in one area? How can I become a better podcaster? How can I become a better speaker? How can I become a better writer? How can I become a better songwriter or singer or dancer? How can I become a better director or actor?

Speaker 2:

These people, they're not inherently better than you. They're not there. They're staying in one lane that is really, really marketable. And they're asking how can I? Instead of can I? And, quite frankly, they don't believe in themselves. And I've studied these people, I've coached some of these people. They don't believe in themselves in every area. Comes to finance, some of these people have no clue what they're doing. That's why they just hire a financial advisor. They don't know personal training. I have a lot of multimillionaire, very successful mentors, clients, coaches. They didn't know anything about fitness. They were can I, can I get in shape, can I lose weight? But in their thing it's all. How can I? It's all just a matter of doing the equation. If you don't have the equation, you're not going to be able to succeed.

Speaker 1:

Next time a next level nugget. Next time you are faced with a decision, ask yourself, how can I? And try to dig through your awareness to come up with three to five things. But I do understand if you don't have the awareness it's very hard to come up with a how. A lot of people pay for the how. How do I start, how do I do this, how that?

Speaker 1:

But you probably have better answers than you give yourself credit for very much to what Alan was just saying if you sit with it. So if you had to come up with three to five hows, how can I get everything I want to get done today done? I want to clean, I want to do the laundry. I want to go for a run. I want to go boom, boom, boom. All right, let me figure out. How can I do that. Let me sit down and actually schedule out my day. Awesome. How can I also learn for 30 minutes when I do that? Well, when I go for the walk, I could listen to an audio book. So it's almost creating the opportunity for success instead of the scarcity of not being able to do it. It's a long next level nugget. That would be my next level nugget and if you don't, have the answer.

Speaker 2:

reach out to someone who does. Yes, I hurt my back recently. I've talked about that several times. Bianca hurt her back and has back challenges and I went right to her I said, hey, be you know, later tonight can I ask you some questions about after our coaching call, because we were scheduled and she immediately told me everything she knows so much. She knows so much because she's dealt with it for years. Anything that you've dealt with for years, you know really well. And if you, if you want to ask how can I achieve X, y or Z, there's someone out there who can teach you that there's. That's where books come in. You know how to books. And that's my next level nugget is if you ask how can I? And come up with nothing, ask the person.

Speaker 2:

I immediately, when I tweaked my back, I was like I'm going to talk to Bianca. I know she's had back challenges. I'm going to go to my chiropractor. I'm going to consider reaching out to a physical therapist I used to coach. I'm going to you. Just get really resourceful. How can I? As a very resourceful question, that's my next level nugget.

Speaker 1:

It's one of my new favorite questions. I do believe I've been doing it for a while now, but this is also and when I say a while, I'm not saying years, I mean maybe a year this is another good awareness to have before we get out of here. I think that question is directly connected to confidence. If you're, you probably become a more confident individual. When you say how can I, instead of can I, because how can I suggest you can, can I suggest you might not even think it's possible for you. So I would say, if you are finding yourself asking that of yourself more, you're probably becoming more confident. You might just not realize it. Next level nation if you have been asking yourself how can I level up my life, my love, my health and my wealth? I'm listening to the podcast. I'm in next level nation. I want more. I want more. I want more.

Speaker 1:

October 3rd 2023, our 12th round of group coaching stars. It is totally virtual. You're on Zoom with Alan and I. Every other week, there's a WhatsApp group. It is amazing. You will feel very supported and you will definitely get to the next level of your life. We have redesigned it completely to make sure everything that we teach is going to land, you're going to feel like you are included in part of it and, most importantly, you're going to feel safe. So link will be in the show notes for that. The landing page is live on the website. With the discount code we give you, it ends up being, I believe, $96.60 per month, a bargain for what you're going to get Very affordable and very worth it, we promise.

Speaker 2:

Remember those days when you were on a sports team and you didn't want to let the team down. So you stayed more accountable, you stayed more consistent, you worked harder, not just for yourself but for the team. That's what we're trying to replicate in group coaching. This episode was K and I versus how can I? The blog, the next level blog. There's eight blogs posted. We're doing them every other week. Every single one of them is a how to so how to become a sales star, how to streamline your dreams, how to fail forward, how to grow through adversity. All of those blogs are all how to so if you are interested in how to check that out, the link will be in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1,440. I was just updating the title the pain that comes with new awareness. We pride ourselves on talking about all the stuff the good parts of growth and not so good parts of growth, the great pieces of awareness, the struggle that comes with that awareness. So that will be a very real growing pains type episode. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we turn out of fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow how can you succeed?

Speaker 2:

Next explanation Boom.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host