Next Level University

#1452 - Something Important To Know Before You Share Your Truth

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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What if you could change the world with just your words? In today’s eye-opening episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros shed light on the impact and risks of speaking the truth. They traverse the fine line of truth-telling, acknowledging that our words can either empower or be perceived as villainous depending on the readiness of the listener. They delve into how withholding the truth can lead to resentment and the potential fallout of delayed honesty. Don't miss this conversation; it's a gateway to a truth we all could have learned earlier in life. Step into a world where honesty is the best policy and silence is not always golden.


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Show notes: 
[1:35] You will most likely be villainized by people who are not ready for it
[5:11] Truth is an opportunity to transform
[11:04] Kim thanks Kevin for going above and beyond in helping launch the Peaceful Productivity podcast
[11:43] Why telling the truth gets harder over time
[18:06] The next level nuggets
[21:24] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Sharing the truth is important and it's empowering if done in the right way. But if you share a level 10 truth with someone who only wants a level 5 truth, or you only have a level 5 relationship with, they're either going to accept it humbly or, if they ego up to protect themselves, they're going to villainize you.

Speaker 2:

If you do have someone who's level 10 into growth and they're not just saying it, but they actually are they will appreciate your level 10 truths and later on in life they'll actually thank you. If they have the humility to do so, they'll say you know what? Thank you.

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 help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, episode number 1451. The results you desire are hidden in the work, you don't? That was a hardcore episode, but a very necessary one. Today, for episode number 1452, happy Thursday.

Speaker 1:

Something important to know before you share your truth. So when Alan and I were in Pittsburgh and it's funny because Alan and I have talked about this behind the scenes and it was a real authentic conversation, but Alan is one of the people who is the most committed to truth I've ever met in my life and we were in Pittsburgh and he said hey, man, can I ask you something? Anytime you ask me that I know something's coming. He said is your dad bald? And I was like I don't know man, I've met him three times. He was bald when I met him, but I don't know if that's a natural thing. And he said, mm, okay. He said you notice any changes in your hair? Thickness, thinness. Lately I said no, no, no, not really. He was like I think you might be going a little thin up top. And I said, oh really, I haven't really noticed. And he said well, it's the first time I've seen you with your hair gelled in person in a minute and I don't know, it might be something to look into. Are you afraid of maybe ending up bald in the future? And I said, no, I haven't really thought about it. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. I don't think. I don't know. I'm a little reckless when it comes to that. And he said well, the reason I wanted to tell you because if you did want to do something about it and you do feel like your hair is thinning, at least I can bring you the awareness. I was like awesome man, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

And then we made a couple of jokes about it and we had our laughs. So I was out to dinner with friends last weekend and somehow we I don't know we were talking about something. And I said I don't remember how the conversation came up, what I was telling the couple we were out with. I said, yeah, my business partner he is. When it comes to telling the truth, he is the guy I mean. He is going to give you the truth. That's what he loves to do. He loves to deliver truth. I said he literally called me out and said hey, man, I think you're getting a little thin up top, I think you might end up bald.

Speaker 1:

And one of the people we were out with was like wow, is he? Is he mean? Was that a mean thing to say? And I said no, no, no, you got to understand. He and I have a number one. We have a very that's nothing compared to the things we've talked about. That's absolutely nothing. And we have a very truthful relationship. The level of truth in our relationship is very, very, very high. So the point of this entire story, in this episode, is something important to know. Before you share your truth, you are most likely going to be villainized by some people, especially people who might not be ready for the truth yet. If I was offended or if I was super self-conscious about maybe my hair getting thinner, I probably would have villainized Alan and said come on, dude, what do you mean? Come on, man, don't bring that up. I didn't because I don't really care. Will I care in the future? I don't know. We pulled out a bald filter on Snapchat at dinner and we were putting it around the table. I actually have pretty good bald.

Speaker 1:

I have a massive, massive head, though. So I don't know, things could get a little weird in the future, but that really is the goal in today's episode. Sharing the truth is amazing and sharing the truth is important and it's empowering if done in the right way. But if you share a level 10 truth with someone who only wants a level five truth, or you only have a level five relationship with, they're either going to accept it humbly or, if they ego up to protect themselves, they're going to villainize you and hope to see you on the nexticated episode of Tilted, tilted, tilted. While I aspire to tell the most amount of truth I can, I don't aspire to tell a hundred percent truth all the time, because I don't necessarily want what's gonna come back from that.

Speaker 2:

There's so many other stories that are that are coming up for me. I I wish that I had understood this when I was younger, because the first thing I want to share is the reason I told Kevin that is genuinely from a place of, if he is unaware of this trend line of his Potential balding potential balding, and it's not bad. You have a great head of hair on you. I just don't want to see it go. If you care about it, that's all I know. You think it's funny. You were surprisingly like I honestly don't care at all. I could totally be. I don't, it would be fine.

Speaker 1:

I don't really care, but who knows, I might, I might in the future, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Well, when I saw that, I had a moment, a moment of truth, let's call it and I was like, okay, do I bring this up? Do I bring this up or do I not? And then I had this moment myself of if Kevin wants to Prevent hair loss, he could start taking corrective action now. But he's not gonna take corrective action if he's unaware of it. I had a fitness coach one time who said dude, your posture sucks, you know. And in some ways I just was grateful for that because I started working on my posture after that.

Speaker 2:

For me, truth is an opportunity to transform If, if, if someone has self-belief, if someone has humility, if someone has the courage to face the hard truth. We did a team training at NLU and the very first opening to this training was when you come to NLU, you're basically signing up for this booth, and I've talked a lot about this meme on the internet that there's a booth that, above it, says comfortable lies and there's another booth where, above it, it says unpleasant truths. I would call it uncomfortable truths. Get outside your comfort zone, uncomfortable truths. Nlu all of you listening or watching this you know that NLU is is the second booth I Mean. You don't. You don't listen to NLU for fun. You definitely don't listen to NLU when you're down and out, and I think the reason why is because I think uncomfortable truths are how we grow, and so when you are, I Mean.

Speaker 2:

I'll tell this story briefly. We were in Toronto, and the reason I'm saying this isn't so that people think Kevin was being a dick, but when we were in Toronto, I was very pleased with the way in which my physique was trending up, or at least what I thought was trending up, and Kevin essentially said dude, you're fat. And he didn't say it like I'm actually fat. He doesn't think I'm fat, he. What he was trying to help me understand is that I am in less great shape than I thought I was. In other words, I was delusional. And on top of that and this is the important piece he's seen me when I was a fitness model, fitness competitor, fitness coach. He's seen me when I was at my peak, and so he wasn't being unkind, he was.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of like that tough love thing, but I think tough love can often be toxic. So instead of brutal truth or toxic truth or being a dick, it's more, if this person wants to transform their physique, I'm going to have to tell them the truth that they are less lean than they think, because someone who's delusional, the last thing they need is more delusion. If I was comfortable, if I was sitting in the comfortable lie that I was more lean than I really was, and Kevin brings me an unpleasant truth, or an uncomfortable truth, that that I'm actually not that lean, guess who's going to start dieting better and start working out more? Assuming I have self belief, assuming I actually take that feedback, assuming I'm humble enough to actually look in the mirror, metaphorically and literally in this case, and I figured out actually and I'll share this because I want to show the benefit of what Kevin did for me that day. After that, you better believe it, man, I was more, I was less delusional and I found out. So I have a mirror in my condo and it's Emilia's mirror. It's huge, big, big mirror and we have this skylight and the place I look. I look at myself in the mirror every single day before I shower and I take a look and I want the unpleasant truth. Honestly, the skylight is in a perfect spot where this lighting makes me look like a Greek God and I'm telling you it doesn't help my delusion when it comes to where I'm actually at in fitness.

Speaker 2:

So when you have a fitness coach, they're supposed to tell you the hard truth. When you have a business coach, they're supposed to tell you the hard truth. When you have a podcast coach, they're supposed to tell you the hard truth. And the reason why is not to hurt you. The reason is to help you grow, and we all kind of know when we're kids, when we're in second grade, we're not going to have our parents come to us and say hey, by the way, you know, if you don't work really hard, you're going to be screwed later in life.

Speaker 2:

That's too hard of a truth for a second grader to handle. But don't treat me like I'm in second grade. I'm 34 years old. You can tell me I look fat, it's okay. And again, I know that fat is the wrong probably label. So I don't want anyone to take that wrong. What he means is you're less lean than you think, and so I think vulnerable truth needs to be delivered in the right amount at the right time to the right person for the right reason, and I think that's really, really challenging. And I've been villainized a lot in my life for similar things, like the balding situation. But at the end of the day my true desire underneath it is to help Kev. But if it doesn't come off that way then it probably isn't really helping anyone, and I think that's where we can all kind of look in the mirror.

Speaker 3:

Hey, kevin, kim here Just wanted to send you a video to say thank you so much for your help on creating the Peaceful Productivity podcast. You know I couldn't have done it without you. I knew you'd be lots of great help with the technical aspects of getting the podcast going, but you went well above and beyond that. You helped me with the strategy and you gave me all kinds of really great support. You know, I think the key to success in business is a great attitude and you have that in spades. You really walk the walk. So thanks again, take care, I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1:

Two thoughts One truth is a recipe for different levels of truth in different ways, with different words for different people. I would never say you're fat to almost anyone else. Oh, of course, right, probably. I don't know if I could, if I could name one other person, I would say that too, other than myself. I would say that to myself. That's part one.

Speaker 1:

Part two is and I told Alan this I said, alan, nobody else is going to tell you this. I know Nobody else is going to tell you because you are in. Statistically, you're in better shape than than most people, but I know it's not close to what you want. I don't want you to lose yourself into thinking it is. That's not gonna do. And the other, and here's the other thing. One of the reasons I shared that with Alan is because I knew I was out of shape too. It wasn't me saying, hey, man, you, I'm the man, you're the worst. It was dude, I'm out of shape too. You and I have let it go. It's not. This isn't just a you issue, this is a me issue. I just come to terms with it a million times If anything you're like I'm fatter than you.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I was, I was, and I do think that said that Like you're in better shape than I am, but it's not close to where you want to be, and I just don't want you to delude yourself. So that's one thought. This is the other thing. This is why telling the truth gets harder over time, because eventually, so safe, something happens between Alan and I and I don't say anything. That behavior continues to happen. It continues to happen. It continues to happen. By the time I'm ready to share the appropriate amount of truth, which would probably be like a level one, let's start telling truth. That level one truth is already a level 10, and I can't tell a level one. The time has been too long. I'm starting to be resentful, I'm starting to be frustrated, I'm starting to have negative feelings. And then that's when you spew the truth and say, well, you don't, you've never been there, whatever, whatever it is, you've never been there for me, you don't know me, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1:

That's just that's why it happens, because the level of truth that we're giving is drastically too high for the amount of times we've given the truth. If it's the first time you've ever given someone a truth but you've been holding it in for two years, it's not gonna come out well, probably it's not gonna be well received and you're probably gonna be villainized. Where if you shared that truth two years ago and I just said hey, man, can I tell you something? It's kind of silly, but do you mind if I tell you something? When you say this, it makes me feel this type of way and Alan might say oh, I didn't realize that. Man, that's my bad, I apologize completely. It won't happen again. Or if it does happen, we can go back to that conversation. Versus me waiting two years and being like dude, you're such a dick, you always say dumb stuff. That's so, it's so different.

Speaker 2:

It's so different so yeah, that's really my thought.

Speaker 2:

And what ends up happening instead is you just leave the friendship or whatever it is instead of because the truth gets too big to where you just sail away Everyone here. Think about someone you sailed away from or someone who sailed away from you and you didn't know why. Most likely, there's a truth that they didn't wanna share with you. And there's two more pieces of this that I wanna make sure land, because I know we gotta go soon. The first one is everything is contextual to the goal. Kevin knew my goal in fitness was to get to a certain level, and this is the context. If I wanna step on a bodybuilding stage where they are literally judging you based on how lean you are, he has permission to give me harder truth than if I just wanna look good on the beach, and so it all is predicated on context. In other words, if I have a goal to reach the pinnacle of male physique natural male physique and he knows that he knows that the truth is actually gonna help me get my goal Okay, whereas if I don't have fitness goals, there's no reason for him to call me fat. That's not even. That's just me. That's just me right. It's like the cruel to be kind to get you to your goal versus just being me, and it's unnecessary.

Speaker 2:

The second piece of this is when people do sail away or you sail away from other people, usually it's because maybe there wasn't enough courage or vulnerability prior to that, because you and I have had some really, really, really tough conversations as business partners. If we didn't have those conversations, eventually this would have had to have gone our separate ways and we may never have known why. And Every time Kevin and I were growing apart, not growing together, we had to I and him both different instances stories we're not going to tell in this episode, but because they're too long, we actually have talked about these stories, but it was a tough conversation of brother. I've seen this before and I don't want this to happen with you. But if you continue down this road, I can't follow you there and I'm going to help grow you.

Speaker 2:

And Kevin has had a similar conversation with me in my late twenties about character and I was single. He was with Taren and it was, you know, I was headed down the single path, bachelor man, and you were very much toward the married path Bachelor man, bachelor man, bachelor man, bear Pig. But that was really really brutal uncomfortable conversations where both of us felt very hurt, and so growing pains. Part 15 is we've done a lot of episodes on growing pains. If you do have someone who's level 10 into growth and they're not just saying it, but they actually are they will appreciate your level 10 truths and later on in life they'll actually thank you. If they have the humility to do so. They'll say you know what thank you. My best coach I've ever had was the most hard on me and he in hindsight was actually the one helping me the most.

Speaker 1:

So well, you're the best coach I've ever had and you've been very hard on me as well, but not always the right amount. I would say the right amount of truth.

Speaker 1:

Good, but usually it's like oh, oh, you want to talk that shit? Okay, yeah, I get triggered too, and I think that's the important. That's my next level nugget, because I do. I have a podcast interview I got to be on in five minutes but my next level nugget is I get triggered too when Alan gives me truth. I've just learned not to. I villainize you for a couple seconds and it's like no, no, no, he's right, this is what you signed up for, this is what's best. I just try to sell myself on the opposite assumption. So that's my next level nugget. I get triggered when I get the truth too, but I asked for the truth. That's part of this Right, even with Taryn, sometimes I get triggered when she tells me the truth, but that's what I signed up for. I want to have the best relationship I can.

Speaker 2:

And if you villainize Taryn for that your relationship's in so much trouble, 100%.

Speaker 1:

I don't think the goal is to never feel any negative energy or feelings when receiving the truth. I think it's trying to get back to centered as fast as you can, If you believe that's what's best. Quick next level nugget.

Speaker 2:

The next level nugget is the truth will set you free, but not a fortune cookie phrase. You know, I think that you will reach the level. This is next level university. If you want to get to the next level, you're going to have to face a hard truth and uncomfortable truth in the present. And if you're going to deliver those truths to other people, be more conscious about it.

Speaker 1:

Next level nation If you do not follow us on social media and you're looking for more truths? Alan is a Lazarus 88 on Instagram, al A Z A R O S 88, and then Alan Lazarus on Facebook. I am Kevin Palmieri on Facebook P A L M I E R I. That'll be in the show notes, as well as at never quit kid on Instagram. So please do follow us if you want more of what we talk about here, as well as pictures of our amazing pets, slash families, you know, say anything.

Speaker 2:

Also, if you do, if you are like you know what. Honestly, I want more truth. I want more uncomfortable truth. I want to be told straight. That's what people pay me for in coaching.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to help you see yourself more accurately, and here's the cool part about that If you're seeing yourself as less than you really are, I'm actually going to do it the other way. I'm going to help you see yourself more accurately, meaning lift you up. I have many of my clients that have thanked me for helping them see their own greatness, helping them see themselves, because a lot of people are out there and they've been made to believe in many ways that they are less than they really are. And so I'm going to give you, yes, the tough truths that you pay me for, but I'm also going to give you the pleasant truths of, holy crap. You're actually way more than you think and you're way better at this than you think, and it makes other people insecure so they don't tell you. And so if you're looking for that book a free half hour breakthrough session we'll see if it's a good fit and we'll start to rock and roll.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1453, people pleasers, have you experienced this? I definitely have had people pleasing tendencies in the past, alan. I think you have to some degree as well. I think most people go through it in some way, shape or form. Somebody on the team shared something in one of our WhatsApp groups that I thought would be a really good episode, so we will talk about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Keep living in the truth. Next level nation.

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