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
#1466 - What Your Boundaries Teach You About Yourself
Setting personal boundaries can seem daunting in a world where societal expectations often override personal preferences. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about setting clear boundaries to create space for what truly matters to us. Setting boundaries can bring up guilt and shame, especially when it means saying 'no' to something or someone. They touch on the idea of societal expectations and 'social danger.' They challenge this notion, arguing that disapproval from others does not automatically make a decision bad. In fact, it's often necessary to go against the grain to stay true to one's values.
Link mentioned:
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Show notes:
[2:07] Saying "no" means saying "yes" to something else
[5:02] Boundaries are honoring a core value
[10:59] Bianca, the co-founder and COO of Evolve Ventures, talks about Alan's unwavering support as her coach and the profound impact of mentorship on her life
[11:56] We don't honor our core values because of fear
[15:02] Sustaining unsustainable relationships
[19:58] 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 one thousand four hundred and sixty five, juggling emotion and logic. Today, for episode number one thousand four hundred and sixty six, what your boundaries teach you about yourself Was perusing the gram, the Instagram, the other day and I came across this video that really caught my attention.
Speaker 1:It was this young lady on stage talking about and I always, I Always say I'm gonna figure out who did the video and give them credit and I was like well, I think this is a Ted talk. It shouldn't be that hard to find. I couldn't find it to save my life. I looked for like 15 minutes. I couldn't find it. There's been a lot of Ted talks about boundaries, but it caught my attention because she said I once Dated an entrepreneur and he was really really really good at saying no, he was really, really, really good at setting boundaries. He was really, really, really good at protecting his time. And she said and I think this is what she said, this is what I took from it. At the beginning it seemed very cold and calculated. But the more I got to know him and the more I saw what he was saying no to, I realized that his boundaries of saying no Were actually just him saying yes to things that he valued more. I Remember early in our journey our journey, alan I got invited to a bachelor party, and I think it was I Don't know if it was across the country, it might have even been a local, it was probably a couple hours away.
Speaker 1:But I got invited and I told my buddy. I said you know, I'm not gonna go to this, right, there's no way I can go to this. And I said it's more important to me to stay and work on the business. It's just more important to me. That's what I want to be doing. I don't want to be going to a bachelor party. This is the other thing too.
Speaker 1:When you have something that you love, at times it becomes a convenient excuse for you to set boundaries easier. It's very easy for me to say no, I can't. I can't go off the grid somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I have to record podcast episodes and if I don't have Wi-Fi I can't do it. That's a boundary for me. I can't just be out in the woods without Wi-Fi doesn't work, or I have to have access to my clients, that I have to have access to the team. I can't not do that.
Speaker 1:What if you were able to and again, this is something I think we're all working on, alan, I are working on this as well. But what if we were able to? To say to ourselves okay, it's very hard for me to set a boundary because I feel like I'm letting someone else down. But what if I was able to Build a new relationship with the understanding that every time I set a boundary, I'm actually saying yes to something that I value more? And you start to understand what you value more.
Speaker 1:If you you could either listen to an episode of NLU or watch whatever your favorite TV show is and you pick the TV show, that just means you value the TV show more than us, and that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. If you would listen to NLU over your favorite TV show, I would say you value self-improvement at a very, very high level. Understanding that is super important because eventually somebody might reach out and say hey, do you want to go to this concert? When you have a coaching call with Alan, you might regret it if you go to the concert or you might regret it if you do the call with Alan. It depends on what your boundaries are. More likely, the second one, based on what you value. So my early next level nugget in this one very early, very preemptive is your boundaries say just as much about what you value as what you don't. That's my early, preemptive next level nugget.
Speaker 2:When we were on the conscious couples podcast this is probably 40 or so episodes in Emilia said boundaries are honoring a core value. That's the purpose of a boundary. The purpose of a boundary is to honor a core value, and so if you're going to the gym instead of going to a barbecue, you are honoring your core value of fitness and if we look at it like that, we won't be as feel as guilty or feel as ashamed. I told Kev before this episode that I wanted to get to the belief system underneath why it's so hard for us to set boundaries. I think Kev is better at setting boundaries than I am. You know he didn't want to go to college when everyone was going to college. He didn't want to go to parties when everyone wanted to party. He was very different an odd duck from the outside world, duck from the get odd duck, and odd duck.
Speaker 1:If you see me shuffling over here it's because my laptop sounds it's going to take off. The helicopter turned on. So I'm trying to, yeah, I'm trying to remove the, the thing I have underneath the base. But I don't know if I'm going to do it, so I also just realized Kev.
Speaker 2:We have our mics on the different setting. So we did this. I think we did originally.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I think we didn't.
Speaker 2:On the other one that you.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter, the point is is we're still working through our audio issues. We will never stop fixing the problems.
Speaker 2:I told, I told Emilia we're going to better our old, best we have a specific episode that we think was the best audio quality.
Speaker 2:We're committed to getting better than that. So thank you, production team for dealing with us. Thank you, listeners for sticking with us. That said, I told Kev I wanted to dig into the layers of why it's so hard to set boundaries, because I've been I think I'm good at some stuff Success versus engineering, finish lines, things like that. I've never really been good at setting boundaries and I'm finally starting to get good at them, and so I think that you know I've been very, very guilty of not honoring my core values in the past to an alarming extent. When I look back and I think the core of it comes down to when we were kids I really, really do If you were in a in a childhood that got punished, think about so. So kids don't really know what's a good idea and what's a bad idea. When you're a kid, you don't really know much. So I'm going to tell this story.
Speaker 2:I I remember my buddy, kiki and I when we were very, very young. I don't know if I was like seven or if I was 11 or I was 13. I genuinely can't remember my exact age, but I remember we had this, this home, that I would. I would go out the top story window and him and I would climb to the top of the roof and we had this huge arc that overlooked the, the lake, and I used to, by myself, go up there and we would shoot BB guns, and we would not at each other, but we would like shoot. We'd try to hit birds and stuff just boys being boys, and in hindsight I regret some of that as well. But we were climbing the roof, we were a little bit reckless up there and I remember one time Kiki forgot to close the window and my mom came home and she found out that the window was open and then she put two and two together and she's like you guys are up on the roof Recently. I was a couple of nights ago. I was dreaming about about some stuff and I remember thinking back. I woke up after a bad dream and I remember thinking about like how reckless that was. I used to literally crawl and shimmy to the very end of that big arc. Have you been to my house? So you know the, the deck that's overlooking the lake, the big arc at the top of that. I used to sit at the top of that, just just overlooking during the sun, during the summer, when my mom was away, and the point that I'm making here is I got really punished for that. I got very punished for that.
Speaker 2:So I think what happens is you're a kid and you don't have good ideas. You have terrible ideas all the time, okay, very, very irrational, very Unintelligent, very reckless, very dangerous ideas, and you get punished for them and you get told no, no, no, no, no. Now you're an adult and you have great ideas, and you have. You want to start a podcast, and that's actually a good idea. And People, you're still so conditioned that if, if your parents don't approve of it, or your aunt doesn't approve of it, or your uncle or your grandparents don't approve it, or your friends don't approve of it, you're still so conditioned that that's that I must not do it. I probably shouldn't do it because I'm gonna get punished. I'm gonna get punished, I'm gonna get disliked, I'm gonna get judged.
Speaker 2:I think it's the same thing. We don't. You know we, if an alien were to come down and to meet us I know Kev likes the analogy to love it it's and we were to say, hey, we only do what we want to do, like some of the time, and the alien would be like, well, well, why? And we'd be like, well, you kind of have to show up to the barbecue. And the alien would be like, why? Well, people will be upset with me if I don't.
Speaker 2:And the alien would be like, well, so what, what? What if they're upset with you? What does that matter from? From a strictly practical place, from an emotional place, that matters a ton, okay, but from a strictly practical place, they're not. You're not gonna die. There's no real danger. Social danger isn't real. It's not real. Kev someone can be watching this right now Dislike me and you. There's no actual danger. They just move on with their lives. I got a negative comment on conscious couples podcast recently. I was really vulnerable and I was emotional and someone commented saying you're such a girl or something like that, and it's like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1:It's a very adult, very adult thing to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, extremely, yeah, that person. So I ended up commenting back. I said that's not very constructive, take care. Hmm, that was it. But here's my point. We don't honor our core values because we don't do what we really want to do, because we're scared of judgment. We're scared of being conditioned. Just like I got yelled at and punished when I left the door open because I was playing on the roof with BB guns as a little boy, we, we are treating it the same way. Well, if I don't go to the wedding, then I'm gonna get punished. I'm gonna get punished even if it's just energetically punished, even if it's just.
Speaker 2:I have three or four quote-unquote friends of mine that I didn't end up going to a wedding or a or a party or something that that haven't answered me.
Speaker 2:They haven't even gotten back. I don't know if they ever will and they just don't understand that I value this business and next-level University and my relationship with Emilia and building towards our goals and dreams more, and they can't get over the fact that I do value that more than whether or not I'm in attendance during their event. And to me I think that's a little bit egocentric. I really do. Again, I think that you know it's kind of like when we're kids it's like, well, you're not, you didn't come to my birthday party, it's. It's a little bit like that and again I do understand. I do because obviously I'm important to them and if I was important, if they were important to me, they believe that I should be there. But at the end of the day, I value fitness, I value my relationship with Emilia, I value NLU, I value this mission, I value this business more and I'm showing that with my actions. And so I've stopped pouring into relationships that I realized were built on me going outside of alignment.
Speaker 1:I understand, though I do understand why it's challenging for you whether you're watching or listening to not say no to certain things, because, even to your point, sometimes, when you set boundaries, other people set boundaries based on yours. So it's almost like, oh, you didn't come to my thing, I'm probably never going to look at you the same. So it's almost that when you set a boundary, maybe one of the reasons we don't set boundaries is because we know the reciprocation is going to be worse. If I don't go to this barbecue, am I never going to talk to this person again. And if that's running in your mind, I don't know Again, I'm probably not the person to speak to that, because I'm going to skip the barbecue either way. I don't want to go. I'd rather just not go, and my other thought has always been this Well, are you okay with them?
Speaker 2:not, it doesn't seem like the downside bothers you that much, because the downside, like you said for me again, the previous episode was juggling emotion and logic.
Speaker 1:This is hyper logical. The logical side of this for me is if you say you're somebody who has a lot of parties or barbecues or get-togethers and I say, hey, I'm not going to be able to make this one, and you get upset with me. You're going to get upset with me when I can't make the next six, so this it's probably not going to work out. Anyway, it's probably not going to work out. That is very logical.
Speaker 2:And I think that what you're doing essentially and this is actually pretty intelligent. Quite frankly and you taught me this probably a year ago you said, alan, you're trying to sustain relationships that are never going to be sustainable anyway. It's not like you're going to have more time in the future, when you have kids and when you have a family and when this business grows.
Speaker 2:Because one thing we've shared with you all at NLU is the next level doesn't make your life easier. It actually requires you to take a higher level of responsibility, no matter what it is, even if, if you want to get to the next level of fitness now, you have to work out more consistently, you have to stretch more consistently, you have to diet more consistently If you want to sustain that level. And that's, I think, the world's biggest lie is that success makes life easier. I say that tongue in cheek, but I actually think it's true. But you taught me that, alan. These aren't going to be sustainable relationships anyway, so it's important for you to realize that in advance, and otherwise they're just going to keep on getting disappointed. Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1:It's almost like if you have to make something fit and you really, really, really have to make it fit, you're going to have to make it fit. It's not super sustainable. It's almost like if if both people and I know we're talking about a specific instance but if both people in the relationship, whatever it is, are giving too much, it's just not sustainable. If you have to go way out of your way and I have to go way out of my way, we're actually way further away from each other than we were in the first place. Kind of it's just not sustainable. But I also understand that's very logical. But I've always had that thought of if you're going to be upset that I can't come out, if I can't come to lunch on Wednesday, we're probably not going to be friends that long, unfortunately not in the way you want us to be friends. I'm very happy to be friends in other ways, but it's more important to me to grow the business. It's more important to me to do the mission. It's more important to me to spend time with my wife. It's more important to record episodes.
Speaker 1:It just is so understanding that about yourself when you set a boundary, it doesn't necessarily mean you don't want to do the thing. It means you want to do something else more, and that's okay. Maybe you don't want to go to breakfast with somebody because you'd rather sleep. I don't know. I don't think you should feel guilty about that. Sleep's important. It depends on to Alan's original point from Emilia it's based on what the core value is. It's based on what your core value is, and I think beating yourself up over that is probably not going to be constructive long term. Anyway, what's your next little nugget? Because we got to go.
Speaker 2:My next little nugget is Son, if you had a childhood where you were told no a lot, which is understandable, because when we were kids, some of those things are keeping us from danger, I understand. I understand, my mom didn't want me on the roof. That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I can go on the roof now if I want. I'm 34 years old. You know what I mean so you can't act it the same way.
Speaker 1:You're pulling to your driveway. You're going to be sitting up on the roof looking Well, we sold that home. So I think you're probably arrested, most likely.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah yeah, the new roof, but that's exactly it. That's. My next little nugget is going on. The roof was dangerous when I was eight, but if I want to go on the roof as a 34 year old man, you ain't going to say anything about it. And I want all our listeners to realize that, because I'm telling you I coach a lot of people. This is the cheat code I mean.
Speaker 2:Well, honestly, I don't know. My partner's not going to really like that. I don't care. This is your life and of course, they're not going to like that. It's uncomfortable. They don't want to be uncomfortable. They're going to have to adjust to your new life, your new transformation. I would say that just look at your childhood and if you got, if you got abused or you got told no, a lot, or you got conditioned or guilted or shamed for when you did maybe do some things that were maybe irrational, check in with yourself emotionally and say, am I still running that same paradigm? Am I still running and conditioned? And break free from that. As an adult, you can make intelligent choices now, you know, and you're treating yourself the same way as you used to fire.
Speaker 1:Next level nation. Our 11th round of group coaching actually ended two nights ago. If you're listening to this group 12 starts October 10th. Everything you need to know will be in the show notes. But with the discount code ends up being less than $97 a month again a very, very, very affordable price for the amount of value you will get in the group. So if you have been waiting 10 rounds, maybe you said I'll do the next one, I'll do the next one, I'll do the next one.
Speaker 1:We are opening it. It's ready to go. The landing page is all good, so please visit it and sign up, if aligned tomorrow, for episode number 1467, a reframe on judgment. We had a very, very powerful breakthrough recently on one of our team calls and I think it would be a really good podcast episode. Alan doesn't know what I'm talking about yet, probably, but I think I do, you think you do. Well, you'll find out tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Keep setting strong boundaries. Next one
