Next Level University

#1460 - 1 Powerful Way To Overcome Your Fears

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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What if your deepest fears weren't hindrances but powerful tools for personal growth? In today's episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about how larger, more meaningful fears can effectively replace smaller ones.  They discuss the power of uncovering deeper layers of fear, which can often be linked to more profound, existential concerns such as fear of failure, success, or being left behind. Instead of perceiving fear as an obstacle, we can harness it to fuel our journey to success. We can catalyze significant change in our lives by transforming our deepest fears into powerful tools for personal growth.

Link mentioned:
Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - ​​https://bit.ly/3xffver     
Next Level Podcast Solutions- https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-podcast-solutions/

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Show notes: 
[2:55] Kevin talks about his fear of flying
[6:21] Alan shares a client's story
[11:41] It's easy to sweep things under the rug
[13:45] Nathan expresses his appreciation for the invaluable coaching services he received from Alan
[18:51] Utilize fears to find the fear that matters more
[21:41] Fear replacement
[25:55] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

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. It was episode number one thousand four hundred and fifty nine. How much do you trust yourself today for episode number one thousand four hundred and sixty? One powerful way to overcome your fears. Hey Alan, I don't know if I've ever told you this story. When I was I don't know I was probably Nine, maybe ten my mom took me to Disney World. So Well, actually we flew to Florida and we got on a cruise and we did a cruise to the Bahamas. From the Bahamas we ended up going to Disney World and I was so Afraid of flying home that I tried to convince my mom to drive home.

Speaker 2

It's like why can't we just drive home?

Speaker 1

I know we already got tickets, but I don't want to fly. The whole entire trip I was nervous about the flight home. I was so afraid of planes. I just, I just couldn't do it. I was so, so, so terrified, ended up not flying on a plane for many, many, many years after that, because I Didn't want to and I convinced myself that I was never gonna fly on planes. It didn't matter, it wasn't a big deal.

Speaker 3

Okay, real quick.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you remember when you and I we're in, I think, I think also Florida, mmm, and our flight got guts got.

Speaker 3

Our flight gets canceled yes and this is like three or four years ago, probably four years ago and you wanted to rent a car and drive home.

Speaker 1

Yes, I do Of course, I know, I know.

Speaker 3

I know, I know where it comes Actually looked up much that would be for rental. We were gonna find a hurt up in Providence and and and we were gonna drive 24 hours instead of waiting for the next flight.

Speaker 1

Yes, still my vote to this day.

Speaker 3

Yeah, but I just wanted to share that with those.

Speaker 1

I appreciate it. As you can see, I have a history of not wanting to fly and Eventually it got to the point where I am a podcaster I'm somebody who is speaking more, and I had the ambition to be a more successful podcaster and a successful speaker. And I remember thinking to myself if I'm going to be a speaker and I really want to get good at this and I want to have opportunities and take advantage of these opportunities, I'm gonna have to to get on a plane eventually. I Was so afraid of planes and flying and traveling, but I forced myself to come up with a fear that was bigger than that, a fear that Meant more to me, something I was more afraid of than getting on the plane. The thing that I was more afraid of was not actually being a speaker, not being a successful podcaster, not Having the opportunity to you travel, not have the opportunity. Eventually I know I'll be going to clients' houses to help them set up their studios. That's something that's gonna happen for NLPS. I've been talking about that for years and it's happened. I just haven't had to take a flight yet. That's what we're talking about today.

Speaker 1

One powerful way to overcome your fears is to replace your fears with something bigger, something more meaningful, something that has more leverage, something that is more aligned. We're all dealing with fears, every single one of us. We all have our own unique, specific fears, and a lot of us convince ourselves that we can't ever overcome them. What if you found something that meant more to you, the analogy or the example I've always used, and I used this on stage.

Speaker 1

One time I said to a young man, Hunter, his name was Hunter. I said I want you to imagine that your family is in a house and the house is on fire, or sorry, no, I want you to imagine there's a house on fire and I offer you $100 to run into the house. If you run into the house, there's a $100 bill in the living room. It's yours. Are you gonna do that? And he said no, definitely not. And I said all right, well, I want you to imagine your family's in there. If I ran up to you and grabbed you on your shoulder, I said Hunter, your family's in that house. You're not gonna think about money, you're gonna save them. Your fear of losing your family is most likely, unfortunately, going to be greater than your fear of that fire. In that moment, You're replacing one fear with a larger, more meaningful, more leveraged fear. That is what we're talking about today.

Speaker 3

Most powerful concept ever, so, so, so powerful. If you're a listener of the show, you know that I love fundamentals. This is one of them. We used to call this Y Power. Emilia Mbianca used to have a show, before of all ventures, called the Y Power Podcast. In other words, why you do what you do is super, super important. That's what he was talking about right there, which is no one's gonna go into a burning building for $100.

Speaker 2

No one would do that.

Speaker 3

But all of us would go in there for what we care about most. So I have a client who came to me and she said listen, I'm sick and tired of losing business. I'm sick and tired of being inconsistent. I keep sabotaging myself and I'm ready. I know I can do this. I know I can do this with you on my corner. Awesome, tons of humility, let's rock and roll. This person has tons of energy, but she's aware she always gets shiny object syndrome whenever she starts to win it turns out it's deeper than that.

Speaker 3

We're gonna get into it. So I'm coaching this person, and it's a couple months in now. At this point, as a coach who's done this for a long time, you start to realize that the root cause of the issue is different than what they originally thought. And different than what you originally thought.

Speaker 2

So this person has a marriage that is they've been married for, I think, 23 years, and at this stage.

Speaker 3

She has been playing very scared. She's playing not to lose in her marriage. She's not playing to win. I'll explain. So he works and he has his own business and she thinks that business is on its way out and I'm gonna keep this, of course, high level. She's afraid to tell him that because he's still hanging on, hanging on, hanging on and, quite frankly, it's in an industry that is going away.

Speaker 2

It's in textbooks. Textbooks, I think, are gonna go away Eventually. I think everything's gonna be online.

Speaker 3

You know it's definitely not a growing, booming industry like it once was. Okay.

Speaker 2

And she doesn't wanna bring this up.

Speaker 3

And they're having challenges and Every single time she starts to get really successful, she starts to crank she's doing workshops. She's got clients, she's rock and roll and she's doing challenges. She's in the fitness industry.

Speaker 2

All of a sudden she starts to self sabotage and the reason why I think and I talked to. Kevin about this episode.

Speaker 3

I think that all of us are afraid of failure and afraid of success. We all swing I talk about pendulums all the time on this podcast we all swing the pendulum, one of two ways.

Speaker 2

And picture a pendulum on the left. You have fear of failure on the right.

Speaker 3

You have fear of success.

Speaker 2

We don't want to be seen as a failure by our peers. We want to be successful enough to where we don't feel like a failure, but we don't want to be so successful that our peers start to ostracize us from the groups. Because our success is such a?

Speaker 3

big mirror. And so let's say you were to win the lottery All of a sudden, you have $15 million and all of your peers. While they're happy for you, they're actually sad for self. They're uncomfortable around you because you have a whole new lifestyle and they don't.

Speaker 2

It's kind of this unconscious thing of we all want to belong and so we don't let ourselves be too much of a failure compared to our peer group, but we also don't let ourselves be too successful compared to our peer group either.

Speaker 3

Okay, so back to this person.

Speaker 2

She's starting to be more successful than her husband and she's fearful of that and she doesn't bring it up.

Speaker 3

So there were little things in the marriage where she felt like he was sabotaging her success unconsciously. And I said you're gonna have to bring this up.

Speaker 2

You're gonna have to talk to your husband about it.

Speaker 3

You're gonna have to, otherwise, in my honest opinion, you're not gonna be successful. You're not gonna be able to create this magnificent, flourishing business without his support, and I've seen this before. You're not alone in this. This is a thing, this isn't a you thing. And so eventually, I had her do what's called fear replacement, and I've done this with many of my clients, and it's what Kevin articulated at the beginning, he replaced his fear of planes with a bigger fear, and the bigger fear is not being successful, not being a speaker not traveling, fear of regret.

Speaker 2

And so here's what I did.

Speaker 3

I said you have a choice right now and it's up to you. You can either talk to your husband with courage and vulnerability and tell him what's really going on and how you really feel.

Speaker 3

And she did want to do that because she was afraid she would get divorced and you can risk divorce or or five, 10, 15 years from now, you're gonna be in the same spot. You're not gonna feel successful in your business, your marriage is not gonna be flourishing, because you can't keep brushing the stuff under the rug and expect things to change.

Speaker 2

So here's what we do.

Speaker 3

We found out that her deepest fear was fear of divorce. We replace that fear consciously.

Speaker 3

on this conversation we replace that fear with fear of being unfulfilled for the rest of your life, fear of not being successful, fear of not achieving your dreams. Most importantly, fear of having a shallow surface level and this is her words, not my surface level marriage, where they don't talk deep about what's really going on. And I said you have that choice you can keep plain scared or you can have the courage and risk the divorce because most likely and this is what I said most likely you're gonna be pleasantly surprised with how well he responds when you start to bring these things up and be vulnerable.

Speaker 1

It's another good example of you either get the feedback along the way or you get it all at once at the end. Relationship check-ins are another good example of this, where when you do a check-in, you know and you're fearful that some stuff might come up.

Speaker 2

Definitely Right. But what's the alternative? The alternative is you just say well yeah, I'm afraid this is gonna suck. I'm just gonna push it under the rug.

Speaker 3

Excuse me, I swallowed my water wrong.

Speaker 2

Continue Kevin.

Speaker 1

Are you gonna make it?

Speaker 2

I think so, I think so. Okay, I just want to make sure you're gonna survive this.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's really in the moment. It's easy to sweep something under the rug if you don't think it's, or if you think it's gonna hurt If you think it's gonna hurt, you're quick to sweep it under the rug. Until we've been doing the check-ins?

Speaker 3

No, we haven't been doing our check-ins.

Speaker 1

We're not your Jeffin things are, couldn't, I was gonna say conveniently the best they've ever been. Coincidentally, it's not because we haven't been doing the check-ins, but relationship right now is ten out of ten. But no, you know.

Speaker 3

I brought that up because we were doing them now.

Speaker 2

Even though we've been Jeff and we've been Jeff for the last probably six months or so, but we did check, check in this weekend and it was exactly that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and I understand why people skip.

Speaker 2

I understand why the I Understand why people don't want to look at the bank accounts. I do for sure. I've been there. I was going through.

Speaker 1

So we were cleaning Stuff around the house and I was going through old boxes and stuff and I found a notice from 2019 when my car insurance got sent to collections. I literally got sent to. It was like I think it was the beginning of 2019 Because I didn't pay for my car insurance and I don't know what happened and they sent people after me to pay for it. I Understand why you don't want to look at your bank account I do. But if you had a bigger fear maybe the fear of Not being able to buy your children Christmas presents if you celebrate that holiday or whatever birthday presents or whatever, it may be Losing the roof over your head.

Speaker 1

Maybe that would be something that would allow you to take a new action that you had never taken before, because you have a new level of necessity now again, easier said than done For most of these things. Luckily, alan, you're there with your clients helping them go through this. If you're out there by yourself, it might be a little bit more challenging, but you're already under the influence of fear. How could we use the influence of fear in a more?

Speaker 1

Constructive way, I guess definitely right, no matter what, there's gonna be some fear. You might as well, of course, your advantage.

Speaker 3

This is why arrogance is so detrimental, because if you're, if you are in an arrogant state, you don't think you basically don't think you're afraid of anything, which means you can't really get leverage on yourself.

Speaker 2

So, for example, emily and I in our relationship.

Speaker 3

She realized that I had a very, very challenging childhood and she has done a ton of therapy.

Speaker 2

She started doing therapy when she was 13 and she still has a therapist.

Speaker 3

Her name is Christine and she said I think you're leaving a lot on the table by not doing therapy and she said my fear is that you're gonna hold back? Our relationship because because you're not doing the same amount of work as I am on the inner.

Speaker 2

Work and.

Speaker 3

I've actually shared the same fear with her about I'm afraid that our business is gonna succeed at a much higher level Because you're not doing some of the business work that Kevin and I are doing and so we now now both benefited.

Speaker 2

Now I have a therapist.

Speaker 3

That's been tremendous and she is actually coaching with me. She's really cool, but but it all stemmed from a conversation of Okay, okay, afraid of this, let me, let me bring it up and now that drove me to get a therapist. I didn't get a therapist because I wanted one.

Speaker 2

I Got a therapist because I was afraid that I wouldn't be a good partner for Amelia if I didn't.

Speaker 3

And again, that's relative. It's not like I was a bad partner or anything.

Speaker 2

So I want to make it clear.

Speaker 3

But Fear can drive you, it drives us all. I Tell the funny story of I was running around the block one time and it was, it was at dusk, dusk Hmm and when it got dark I started running faster because one of my neighbors had sent an image of a black bear in their backyard, right right near where I was running, like a couple days before that and I remember thinking to myself I was, I was timing myself anyway. Why am I running so much faster?

Speaker 3

because I wanted to believe, oh, oh you'll run just as fast when you're not scared of a black bear. No, you will not of course I was running faster. You better believe it.

Speaker 3

I was running way faster when it got dark than when it was light out, because that's extra motivation. And so, no, it's not the whole game, no, you're not just gonna scare yourself into doing things you don't want to do all the time, but you can leverage this. And Last last thing I'll share is I have a client who last week he's he's studying for a bunch of different financial certifications and he just isn't studying.

Speaker 2

And Last time we did a commitment device and he studied every single day for 14 days straight, and a commitment device.

Speaker 3

For those of you don't know, we've done episodes in the past about it. It's essentially listen.

Speaker 2

I'm gonna charge you double this time and if you don't study and trust this, be honest, if you don't study over the next 14 days, I'm gonna basically take your money, essentially and and never, never fails. He studied 14 days straight, no problem fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. A couple months later I'm like you're not.

Speaker 3

He's like no, and I'm like do you want to do another commitment device?

Speaker 2

He's like yeah so we did it again and I guarantee you, I don't have to check.

Speaker 3

I can guarantee you he's been studying every single morning. Why, cuz? You don't want to lose 150 bucks, you don't want to just lose money for no reason. Just because you're lazy, it's okay, and I think that this is.

Speaker 2

This is a powerful, powerful tool, and and it can drive you, and it can get you to do. You will do tremendous things. To avoid pain.

Speaker 1

Definitely, and it's another really good example of the goal is not necessarily to ever get to the point where you're not afraid of anything, where you don't feel judgment towards anything, where you don't have any insecurities. It's how you use those things that you're most likely going to have a connection to the rest of your life to your advantage.

Speaker 2

I think that's a really good, a Really good perspective, because it makes it seem more realistic.

Speaker 1

I never, I never.

Speaker 2

Resonated with. Just don't worry about judgment. I just let him judge you, don't worry about it. I Don't work for me. That's not the advice I need. The advice is People are gonna judge you, no matter what. Let them judge you for the positive you're doing in the world.

Speaker 1

Oh cool, okay, I can or be more afraid of your own judgment of yourself for not accomplishing your goals more than the judgment of others for actually accomplishing your goal or something like that.

Speaker 2

Something like that, rather than saying well, you're gonna get to the point where you don't really care about judgment.

Speaker 3

I don't know that's ever gonna happen?

Speaker 2

I Don't that's ever gonna happen not fully.

Speaker 3

Maybe it's um. That's not human right? I don't think right. Maybe in some fairy tale land it's gonna get.

Speaker 1

I don't know. But I think this is a really good episode that falls in line with that Don't expect to never, ever, ever be afraid of stuff. But how can we utilize our fears To find a fear that matters more, because a lot of our fears are?

Speaker 2

me, being on a plane is a surface level fear. I mean, I'm afraid of heights and it just doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 1

But when you start to be logical about how safe that's.

Speaker 2

That is. It's not that big of a deal.

Speaker 1

But if I don't have that in my tool belt I will not be as successful as I could be. That's a fact. That is a fact. I won't be able to ever speak anywhere in person.

Speaker 2

That isn't close enough to drive.

Speaker 1

We never would have gone to California. I never would have gone to Colorado.

Speaker 2

I've never Arizona, london, florida, wisconsin.

Speaker 1

I've never would have gone to most of the places I've been so. Yeah, there's a deeper layer fear.

Speaker 3

Under this that we haven't even mentioned yet. That I thought of when you open the episode and and it wasn't just your fear of not being a speaker. But even back then you were afraid that I would go speak without you and that I would leave you behind. Fear of being left behind can be a very strong motivator for improvement.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think it's one of the strongest.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. What?

Speaker 1

are the strongest. Also one of the second as well, definitely not a fan.

Speaker 2

Well, I like I said I I wouldn't have gotten.

Speaker 3

I want to believe I would have gotten a therapist anyway. I wouldn't have For years.

Speaker 1

Kid doesn't listen to me.

Speaker 3

I don't know, wasn't afraid that if I didn't get a therapist, you and I's relationship wouldn't flourish. It's at the same extent.

Speaker 1

Oh, that's fair probably and and also real quick yeah she sold me on it better than you did.

Speaker 2

I'm just saying well, you lover.

Speaker 3

That's, that's facts.

Speaker 2

That's the future mother. It's definitely not. She's not the same. Yeah, she's playing with cards.

Speaker 1

I'm not gonna be your cat, your cat friend, I can't so for failure.

Speaker 3

I Would say it's not a fair competition.

Speaker 1

I would agree with you.

Speaker 3

Next donation.

Speaker 1

What did you give your?

Speaker 3

Next level nugget either one of us did all right. What's your next?

Speaker 1

level nugget. Are you want me to go first?

Speaker 3

fear. Replacement is a powerful tool.

Speaker 2

But it requires you to be humble enough curious enough to really ask yourself what's the fear underneath this.

Speaker 3

What's the fear underneath this? What's the fear underneath this when you find your core fear.

Speaker 2

I keep holding up this, this rock, it's dragonite or something like that.

Speaker 3

But once you find the core of your deepest fear, you can work on replacing that with a bigger one.

Speaker 2

What would you be more afraid of in the future? It's usually in the future.

Speaker 3

It's well. I'm more afraid to get divorced than I am to get a therapist, so let me go. Let me go get a therapist, whatever it might be and and Fear of your placements are very, very powerful tool and it's very underutilized in my opinion, and it's been Super, super helpful.

Speaker 3

Very, very. Last thing I'll say is I think this is why a lot of people exercise before their wedding. I want to believe they're exercising because they want to look their best and be their best, but honestly, a lot of it is because they don't want their wedding photos to come out. Bad makes sense, it's okay. I'm not making that wrong. I just think you got to get leveraging yourself now. Imagine what?

Speaker 2

what's your wedding? What's what's that that you?

Speaker 3

can leverage consistently because you know, you know, obviously weddings don't happen as often. My next level nugget would be.

Speaker 1

Admitting a fear requires courage.

Speaker 2

Admitting the fear that's a layer below that requires even more courage so it's understandable why this is so challenging, because the baseline fear sometimes is simple to admit there's a lot of people that are afraid of snakes. There's a lot of people that are afraid of. Insert spiders wherever it is right, but if you have a desire or a necessity to get over that, you're gonna have to admit to yourself what you're actually afraid of losing because of that fear.

Speaker 1

That would be my next level nugget.

Speaker 2

Next level nation.

Speaker 1

As you know, we have a free course. We actually had Somebody downloaded it earlier today. It is the next level five to thrive. Alan and I said okay, we want to do a course, I want to charge for it. Alan said we should do it for free. I'm the money guy here. So we ended up doing it for free because we want to add value to you, no matter where you are in your self-improvement journey.

Speaker 1

And we said one of the top five things that have helped us over the last Five years, at the time of recording, we sat down on a Sunday in our custom podcast studio back when we had it and we did this course and At the time it was one of the best things we had ever created, and I think it still holds up in terms of the content We've done so it's on the website.

Speaker 2

We'll have a link in the show notes as well, totally free.

Speaker 1

It's five modules, it's probably like an hour and a half. Total is a lot of really good content in there and again, most people wouldn't give it away for free. But Let me just add If you download it, make sure you actually go through it going back to the previous episode, we did on.

Speaker 1

Put your money where your mouth is. That that style episode. It's free and you might not have skin in the game, but send it to a friend, whatever. Whatever you have to do to actually go through it, message Alan I on social media and say, hey, download the free course, help keep me accountable. Whatever it may be, just because it's free does not mean it's not valuable. But unfortunately, most people don't follow free, follow through with free stuff. So please do if you download it also.

Speaker 3

So if you want to Start your own podcast, like Kevin and I have done you want to start, you want to grow you want to monetize a podcast, build a community. Next level podcast solutions is the way we have. How many clients at next level podcast solutions?

Speaker 1

Wow, probably, it will probably be 50 by the end of this week. 50, 50 big 5-0 we produce 50 podcast and or coach.

Speaker 3

Produce and or coach.

Speaker 2

Kevin got asked this past weekend, you know, you know, not in a negative way.

Speaker 3

But why should I coach with you? Why do people coach with you? And the real, simple answer is we made tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of mistakes to get here. You can't skip the challenges that are gonna come from starting a podcast, but you can definitely get here a lot faster than we did with Kevin's guidance, with the production team, it doesn't have to take you so long.

Speaker 3

It doesn't have to take you 1500 episodes to get to a place where you have a strong, high quality production value show, and so and LPS reach out to Kevin. Kevin at next level, universe calm, and he will tell you all of the stuff and the things that you need to know.

Speaker 1

Show notes the stuff and the things to the landing page as well. Yes, the stuff of the things, and like most of the things we offer, I can guarantee you it's way cheaper than anything.

Speaker 2

Yeah yeah way more affordable. I don't like saying cheap, because I that suggests Low value.

Speaker 3

It's not low value. It's not low value, extremely affordable for what it is. So I want to definitely most affordable in the game.

Speaker 1

I, I would argue yes it is. I would put my money where my mouth is with that tomorrow for episode number 1461. What are your big three?

Speaker 2

I told Karen today.

Speaker 1

I said I feel really certain, very reassured that Over the last week and a half I haven't been spending as much time in the office because I've been visiting Mima and spending time with family, but things have been really rolling. Part of that is Alan is working behind the scenes.

Speaker 2

So it's not just me, but I've also been focused on my big three, the three. Things that I should be focused on in order to Move the needle where it needs to go, in Allen. So four things. So we're gonna talk about that tomorrow for episode number 1461 as always.

Speaker 1

We love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and L you either, fans, we have family.

Speaker 3

We will talk to you all tomorrow replace those fears next, next explanation, hmm that was good one oh.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host