Next Level University
Confidence, mindset, relationships, limiting beliefs, family, goals, consistency, self-worth, and success are at the core of hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros' heart-driven, no-nonsense approach to holistic self-improvement. This transformative, 7 day per week podcast is focused on helping dream chasers who have been struggling to achieve their goals and are seeking community, consistency and answers. If you've ever asked yourself "How do I get to the next level in my life", we're here for you!
Our goal at NLU is to help you uncover the habits to build unshakable confidence, cultivate a powerful mindset, nurture meaningful relationships, overcome limiting beliefs, create an amazing family life, set and achieve transformative goals, embrace consistency, recognize your self-worth, and ultimately create the fulfillment and success you desire. Let's level up your health, wealth and love!
Next Level University
#1458 - Are Your Expectations Creating Frustration?
How often have you found yourself frustrated in your relationships, confused by unmet expectations, or tangled in the web of communication? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about transforming these challenges into opportunities for growth by employing emotionally mature communication and understanding the role of our core values. They discuss another key aspect of managing expectations and frustrations in relationships: empathy. Empathy allows us to understand and share the feelings of another person. It helps us to see things from their perspective and to understand why they may act in a certain way.
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Show notes:
[3:48] Frustration comes from a core value in conflict
[6:40] Communicate vulnerably about your standards
[13:09] Nathan expresses his appreciation for the invaluable coaching services he received from Alan
[13:41] Frustration is the achiever's emotion
[22:05] Use empathy to close the gap
[27:04] Outro
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 1457. Hiding from something doesn't make it go away. Today, for episode number 1458, are your expectations creating frustration? It is pouring out right now, so if you can hear anything, it's rain outside my window, on my window pane, if you will. I Was hanging out with a couple friends the other night.
Speaker 1:Alan and I had we were having a conversation about being on time and One of the people said if I told you I was gonna be at your house at five o'clock and I showed up at 515, would you be upset? And I said I don't know if upset is the word, but I would be frustrated, most likely. And and she said that's so weird because if you were late coming to our house I wouldn't be offended at all. And I said well, you have to understand your standards, create your expectations. So my standards are I like to be on time. That's just the way I am. So I also have those same standards for other people, where if you don't care about being on time at all, you're not gonna care if I'm late because in your mind it's not something you value, it's not something you practice, just like. What's a good example of this if I Like my steak, well done, which I do, and I don't like steak. But if you're gonna cook it, burn it for me, and I assume Alan wants the same thing. You didn't see it if you're listening, but he Made a very egregious face towards me when I said that if I was to make your steak the same way I made my steak, that would probably frustrate you. But my expectations and my standards are if you're gonna cook it, you cook it and you do it Well, you do it. Well done. It's not really. I don't really like steak that much.
Speaker 1:Your Expectations of yourself are probably also the expectations that you're putting on other people. Sometimes they might not be realistic. So Alan doesn't value being on time as much as I do. He's doing other things where, for me, I reverse engineer my day on. How do I make sure I'm on time? Well, I'm gonna be off this meeting five minutes early. That should be good. Alan's not thinking that way. But Alan has also never said anything to me anytime I've been late Because for him that's it's not really something he thinks of that much, so I wanted this to be a hyper conscious episode. That would hopefully be valuable, but it would make you think are there places in your life that your Expectations are being put onto other people and that's creating disappointment that has never been communicated? It's been just created disappointment that isn't really I Don't want to say appropriate, but it's not appropriate based on the fact that you never communicated it. Do you have unrealistic expectations for yourself and you're passing those on to other people? That was my goal in today's episode.
Speaker 2:I believe all frustration Is a opportunity to improve. Emilia and I were talking about this yesterday. All frustration, two things. Number one all frustration, I believe, I believe, comes from some form of a core value in conflict. So, for example, if I'm late and Kev values has a core value of being on time, punctual, he might be frustrated with me if I have a standard of excellence for our work and For okay. So I'll give you an example Kev never updates his email signature Shots fire out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:I didn't see this coming shots fired.
Speaker 2:I have a higher standard for email hygiene, calendar hygiene, email signature hygiene, for lack of better phrasing. So whenever I'll notice and I'll screenshot, when Kevin doesn't update his email signature and I'll just say, hey, can you update this? I'm it's not. So two things. Number one all Frustration, I think, comes down to a core value in conflict. So obviously I have a higher standard and I value our email signatures just a little thing, but it's a thing.
Speaker 2:Kevin values, being on time both valuable things. If him and I are emotionally mature enough to understand that we are Projecting on our standards on to each other and we can handle it with grace. Here's what we do. I Say, hey, kev, can you please update your email signature. You say, hey, alan, can you please be on time? Now we both get better, versus emotionally immature people might lash out at each other or Bottle it up and then eventually blow up or just ignore it completely. And and if you do that third one and you just ignore it completely, you're really not looking Toward an improvement oriented future. So I Often joke with Kevin. I say I know I'm a pain in the ass and if there's any kids listening.
Speaker 2:I apologize for the swearing, but hopefully the pain in the butt is. I know that it is it's constructive. I'm not just gonna be a pain in the butt for no reason. I'm gonna be a pain in the butt in terms of helping us level up and you, where you've been a pain in my butt for lack of better phrasing with come, punctuality or things that you have higher standards. I've also improved, and so the two main things again are Every frustration that you have with a friend, with a family member, with an intimate partner, with a colleague.
Speaker 2:Try to find the core value that's in conflict. Maybe it's excellence I have a high standard of excellence for our work and maybe Kevin's excellence isn't as big of a focal point, but when it comes to punctuality, he has a standard of punctuality that's far above mine. So, core values in conflicts, standards in conflicts. The second piece is if you can communicate properly, effectively, vulnerability about these things.
Speaker 2:Now both parties have an opportunity to grow and I think that in an intimate relationship in particular, I live with Emilia, and if we weren't good at this, we would be in so much trouble because she has certain standards for the way we take care of our pets way higher than mine, and I have certain standards for the way we operate productivity wise in terms of our offices and our Wi-Fi and our technology. I have way higher standards with our tools for success and our technology than she does. She has way higher standards for the way the home is set up and the plants in it and the pets, and so if we weren't good at communicating our frustrations and then helping each other level up, we would be in a lot of trouble, and I think that there's a really good opportunity for everyone to coexist with other people more effectively and improve.
Speaker 1:Do you find that one of you is because this is how it's been for Tyrone and I and many different things one of you is piloting because your expectations that person's expectations usually end up in frustration because the other person is just. I don't want to say blind to it, but there are certain things where it's like I never would have thought of that.
Speaker 2:Ever Yep, 100%. What I've started talking about a lot is, in business, what's called a DRI, a directly responsible individual, and in your relationship, this would be very helpful for everybody. I am the DRI, the directly responsible individual, for the kitchen.
Speaker 2:I have higher standards, kitchen man, kitchen Exactly. I have higher standards in fitness, in macronutrients, micronutrients, nutrition, muscles are made in the kitchen and I know that and I have higher standards for what we do and don't eat. She doesn't really care that much about it and it's not a high standard for her. So I'm kitchen man, I'm I'm directly responsible for what we're going to eat tonight. I'm going to prepare the meals, I'm going to make sure it's the right macros, I'm going to make sure it's what she needs and what I need, and I'm going to make sure. But she's going to take care of the pets and feeding the pets and making sure the pets are fed.
Speaker 2:And so whoever has the higher standard, the higher core value in that thing, they need to lead. And by lead I mean pilot, co pilot. It doesn't mean I can't support her. I'm still supportive, I'm still making sure that. But. But if she's frustrated with me because something's not getting done with the pets, she needs to communicate that to me, because I'm not a mind reader.
Speaker 2:And if there's something that's frustrating me about the podcast, or about productivity, or about the kitchen and what we're eating and not eating, or the finances, I have to communicate that to her, because that's how we get better, and we all have this ladder that we need to climb, because the thing is is where Terin has higher standards, she also has higher capabilities, and where Emilia has higher standards, she also has higher capabilities.
Speaker 2:So what you have to do as a leader, when you're the pilot and the other person's the co-pilot is you have to be empathetic and compassionate for the fact that they can't jump 10 rungs and immediately be. She's had pets her whole life. I've never had a dog, and now I have two cats and a dog and I've never really taken care of, I've never been the primary caregiver of pets before. My mom and my sister always did all that. So I don't have the reps, I don't have the. Just like in business, I'm, I'm definitely ahead, and so I need to lead in business, she needs to lead in pets, and then we both need to get better and we have to be empathetic about where the other person is.
Speaker 1:So, again, terin and I didn't end up going on our trip. We're going to talk about that tomorrow. That'll be part of what we talk about. But when we were getting ready to go, it was a day or two before and we were talking about logistics. So we had that conversation of I'll when we're at the airport, I'll pilot, because I probably I think I've probably been to more airports than you, especially recently, so I'm happy to pilot. And this was one of the conversations we had based on our expectations. I said I'm used to traveling with Alan, where I kind of do everything I'm in charge of what time we leave, I'm in charge of gas stations, I'm in charge of Airbnb's, all of that stuff. Because we had a conversation about planning trips. I said sometimes it's hard for me to help you plan because I'm so used to just doing all of it myself that I, in my mind, you're just going to do it all yourself, because that's just that's my expectation.
Speaker 2:But what she wants is for you two to do it together.
Speaker 1:Yes, which I'm not used to doing. Amelia has felt that same way too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I'm used to you just doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nice, but there's a lot of things, but I enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Flip side. You know, of course, kevin and I in our partnership, we believe very much in the pilot, co-pilot thing yeah, of this podcast. He's the pilot and I'm the co-pilot. He's the host and I'm the co-host. When it comes to our business and running our business behind the scenes, I'm the pilot and he's the co-pilot. And that's why you'll hear him say things like well, what do you think about the business of this, this and this? What was it on the last episode that you asked me? It was something about business that you were. You were asked oh, on the team huddle, what's it? Most important win, most important improvement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:I'm running that stuff, he's running the show and we're both running the whole thing. So but at the end of the day To bring this back to the original point of the episode If you're projecting your standards, your expectations, onto other people, you have to be aware of that, because it's gonna hurt the Relationship if you're not yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1:It's a good opportunity for communication is if you say these, these are or these were my expectations, I just think it's a good opportunity to have a Difficult conversation. It makes a difficult conversation a little bit easier because at least you can understand and empathize where the person is coming from. It makes total sense that you wouldn't plan a trip the same way I would plan a trip. I just have way more reps doing it and if I'm doing it with you, I'm gonna do it. It's just I'm used to being the pilot, where that doesn't necessarily carry over to other relationships, other friendships, anything else. It's. Yeah, the expectation thing is Controlling way more of our outcomes, our moods, our frustrations, our triggers. I think I've ever given credit to I Said this recently.
Speaker 2:I think frustration is the achievers emotion, anyone who has Specific, clear goals. It's very easy to get frustrated because You're very much up like okay. So I'll use fitness as an example. If you have very clear fitness goals, you can't just eat anything. So when you go out to eat with other people, there's a lot of potential conflicts of hey, I can't, okay. Here's another example if you're a vegan and you go out with a bunch of friends who aren't, you're gonna feel like a pain in their butt, but that's because you have higher standards for what you eat than they do it.
Speaker 2:I think frustration is one of the main reasons why relationships fail, because we don't Realize how frustrated we are and it builds up and then eventually we spill over. I call it tea kettle link. All of a sudden the tea kettle just blows off the lid, because if you have an insta pot, you have to release the pressure valve before you open it, otherwise the lid will just pop right off and it'll hurt people. You could burn yourself. That's a good analogy, I think, for what happens in relationships all the time is we're frustrated, we're frustrated. We're frustrated because we have these expectations, but we're not aware of it because they're unconscious and they build up over time and all of a sudden you have this blow-up when you could have easily Release the pressure along the way with vulnerable communication.
Speaker 1:The first time you used your insta pot were you afraid it was gonna do bad things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sam, I'm shocked at how well there has been no issues, so I'm not the first time we did it.
Speaker 1:It was like you gotta vent this thing. I was like, okay, I don't know what that means, and then you flip the switch and it's just like and.
Speaker 2:I was thinking this is me on stage. Yes, it does.
Speaker 1:I was thinking this is absolutely reckless. Yeah, what we're doing here. This can't be right. We just wanted to have a little, a little tangent on that I definitely was Scared.
Speaker 2:same yeah, cuz it was right underneath the cabinet. Yeah, it's gonna burn my cabinet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, steam is probably cleaner, if anything. Let's get back. Let's get back to the topic. Are your expectations. Oh my goodness, fly on my microphone. Okay, that's okay. Are your expectations creating frustration? Is there anywhere right now between you and I that your expectations are creating frustration? Maybe we can do it live.
Speaker 2:This is a check-in live folks.
Speaker 1:That bug just may have flown right into your, directly into your mouth. Honestly, I saw it for a second, then disappeared.
Speaker 2:I don't think it did. I don't think it did, which is good. Do I have any? I Would say, the only one that comes up is what I already talked to you about today. So we've been proactive.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Kevin and I need to review the show more consistently. We've been very busy and it's been challenging and I think that you're more aware Than I am in some ways, of so, kevin and I You're the pilot, so I need you reviewing the show. Basically, I asked Kevin earlier. I said do you think the show is great? Do you know what can we improve? What can we improve? So I think that's that's it. It's just, it's hard for me to mastermind with you about how to improve the show when you haven't been listening and I also have been there too, so I get it.
Speaker 1:Fair.
Speaker 2:What about you?
Speaker 1:No, you're great, You're amazing. No, because here's the thing I think after a while depending on. We always talk about the late thing being late. My expectations have changed. There was a day.
Speaker 2:You had a rough day 10, 15.
Speaker 1:Groceries yeah, groceries on the way, and you were three minutes early, I think, I think. Then you texted me at 10.08, said Zoom link sent, cool, yeah, we're early. You had a rough day a couple weeks ago and my expectations around how often you and I, my expectations around is Alan going to be on every single meeting at exactly the time it's supposed to start, from now until the end of the time. My goodness, it's not realistic. That's not realistic. I have been late more often than I ever have because I have meetings that are back to back and sometimes I can't. Physically it's impossible, even if I tell somebody at the beginning of the interview hey, just an FYI, I got to be off the top of the hour, some people accidentally run over. So, if anything, my expectations have changed because my experiences have changed.
Speaker 2:I feel very seen in that. It's been really nice to, and there's some value in this in terms for our listeners as well. But I feel it's challenging in relationships when the other person has never experienced what you've experienced. Yeah, I think there's three layers of empathy. I think the first layer is I think I can empathize when I really can't. So that would be like me pretending I know what it's like to be a mother. It's just not. That's just layer one. That's not good, don't do that. Layer two is I know I can't empathize. I'm not a mother. I've never given birth, I have no idea, and I understand that I have pets, but it's not the same. So I'm not even going to try to explain that. You can't feel seen by me. At least you'll feel seen in the fact that I admit that. And then the third layer is you've actually experienced this.
Speaker 2:You've experienced what it's like to try to do back-to-back meetings, eight meetings in a row, every single day. On the day I have a client who he eats 6,000 calories a day. It's insane. He's 260 pounds. He's jacked oh my God jacked.
Speaker 2:And I said I can't empathize, but I've been at 4,200 and it's awful. He's like yeah, people think that's amazing. It's the worst. If you've never eaten that many calories, trust me, it would be awesome for a day. Maybe a weekend would be great, but every day it's just expensive and it's just hard, it's horrible. But if you've never eaten 6,000 calories a day, every single day, you just have no concept. I used to have to do a half dozen donuts every single day just to hit my calories. And so the third layer of empathy is actually experiencing it, and I feel very seen and heard in this. And to bring this back to expectations, it's almost like if you've never experienced what the other person's experienced, you almost can't be accurate with your expectations. But what you can do is say give me the benefit of the doubt because you don't know what it's like.
Speaker 1:No Empathize the gap, empathize the gap. That's fair. Yeah, that's going to be my thing. Don't take that, you, son of a B.
Speaker 2:Well, I may use it. Since it was born in NLU, it's technically ours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you own the piece of that. Yes.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess we'll see Empathize the gap.
Speaker 1:Empathize the gap You're not going to know. Your expectations very rarely are going to be actually accurate. I can't tell you how many times I've had expectations and it's not. Here's a really good thing. Next time you're planning on going somewhere, I want you to visualize what you think the place is going to look like and then, when you get there, see how different it is. We went to again. We went to Kenny Bunkport, maine. I visualized it being something. It was completely different than I expected. We we're probably gonna do an episode on this some point. I don't know. We went to this train museum. It was awesome. I didn't realize how much we like trains, but I know Tyrone loves history. It was amazing. It was like the best day ever.
Speaker 2:And history to that's been, I know, big thing you'd like this, you'd like this train museum.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, I'll send you the pictures, but my expectations was this is gonna suck she was a musician game. Stop trying to sell me on that movie.
Speaker 2:I'm just telling you you already Spoiled it. Don't spoil it for everybody else.
Speaker 1:You did spoil it for me a little bit. Yeah, you already told me the entire, the entire thing well, teran will love it.
Speaker 2:I think I honestly do.
Speaker 1:I could be wrong, but I don't think I we went to the train museum and my expectations where it was gonna suck, it was really good, so it didn't create frustration. Percrated admiration for trains excellent and you want to add before we get out here.
Speaker 2:My next level nugget is this if your expectation is higher Than the reality, you will be frustrated. If the expectation like Kevin just said with the train thing Is lower than the reality, you will be pumped. It's my, based on expectation.
Speaker 1:My apologies, my. My next level nugget would be use your expectations to create empathy and Use empathy to close the gap. That's what I would say. I think it's a great opportunity to have empathy. Your expectations are always gonna be different than other people's expectations Because your experiences are in your history with your expectations is different too, so it's a great opportunity for a constructive Conversation amongst friends. Parents love the ones, whatever it may be, that would be my next level nugget. Next, love a nation. One last thing my goodness gracious you.
Speaker 2:Okay, one more thing, promise, go on. I always say if you take your frustration and you transform it into Fascination, fascination, take your frustration, turn it into fascination and then turn it into transformation. So, Kevin is frustrated that I interrupted him. He could be fascinated. Why do you keep interrupting me? I am and then he Truly, and then he could have a vulnerable conversation with me, and now we both become better podcasters, because you turn that fascination into transformation, which, obviously, it was worth it, but that's it you can always tell.
Speaker 1:If you're a podcaster, maybe you'll understand this. If you podcast with someone else, you will. You can always tell when somebody starts down a path where they think they know what they're gonna say and they find a moment where they're like, oh my goodness, I forgot what I was gonna say. Alan had that. That's why I started laughing, but he pulled it together strong work. Next, levination If you have wanted to get into our group coaching program before and the seats have filled up the proverbial seats we have another group, group number 12, starting on October 10th, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time, and we actually we were gonna do it on October 3rd, but then we found out that shout out to Jerry-Ann for this that one of the sessions would be on Halloween and many of the members of our community are parents that might wanna take their little ones trick or treating.
Speaker 1:So that's why we pivoted it, so everybody would be able to do the Halloween celebrations. If they're gonna do it. It ends up being less than $97 a month. It is the best. It is quite literally the best it's ever been. We have really shined this program up, taken feedback really behind the scenes to try to make it the best possible. So maybe you've never had a coach before. This is a great opportunity to dip your toes in. We will have the link in the show notes. If you have any questions, you can reach out. We can answer them. We can send you the testimonials of other amazing NLU members that have done it. So please join us if you're interested.
Speaker 2:I was at the lake last weekend with Emilia's family and we were talking about group coaching, because Emilia's group coaching just closed, so she finished her first group. Awesome, awesome, awesome. And Emilia pivoted the conversation and said Alan's done 11 groups. And I was like, oh, oh, wow, oh. And they asked 11, holy crap, how many people? I said 110.
Speaker 2:They said what is it on? What is it about? And I said health, wealth and love. Health is physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Wealth is how you make your money, how much you make, and then what do you do with it. And then love is friends, family, intimate relationship, colleagues, mentee, mentor, colleagues, how to succeed in relationships.
Speaker 2:And I said, at the end of the day, it's really what we never learned in school. It's the most useful strategies and understandings that Kevin and I have accumulated, accumulated over the last six, almost seven years, and it's the very best of everything that we do, condensed into one six session hour long program. So if you want to do group coaching, please sign up. It is the value compared to the price is so, so, so big, so big. I am convinced of that. Okay, also, if you want something free and are not ready to pay to play, we have Book Club every Saturday, 12, 30 pm Eastern Standard Time. We're reading a book called Limitless by Jim Quick. The best way I can describe this book is it is all of the personal development fundamentals limiting beliefs, how to stay disciplined, how to stay motivated, what's your mindset, growth versus fixed. It's all of the simple fundamentals explained in a simple, powerful way, and we discuss the book every single week and I hope that you join. The link to register will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow for episode number 1,459, I feel like we've been in the 1400s feels like forever, is that true? Yeah, our episode tomorrow is how much do you trust yourself? I had a very challenging decision to make over the last couple of weeks and Tara and I, I guess you could say, and it fell on self-trust and I had to say how much do you trust yourself, kev, to make this decision? So we're gonna talk about that. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you at NLU. We do not have fans, we have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Transform your frustration into transformation Next up on nation. Hmm.
