Next Level University

#1469 - Who Is Going to Celebrate You If You Don't Celebrate Yourself?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Embracing change and personal growth is a challenge we all face. Whether it's overcoming our fears or acknowledging our success, the journey of personal development is often fraught with hurdles. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss celebrating individual achievements. While it seems straightforward, many people need help with this aspect of personal growth. The fear of appearing arrogant or negative, especially on social media, often hinders us from acknowledging and celebrating our successes. They discuss the importance of a strong support network, a community of people celebrating our victories with us. Through this positive reinforcement, we can maintain our motivation and continue our journey towards personal growth.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Monthly Meetup - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/ 


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Show notes: 
[2:40] Struggling to celebrate yourself
[6:48] Afraid to be villainized
[10:56] Why people can't celebrate others
[14:23] 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
[16:12] Trauma response
[20:03] Being knocked down
[23:20] Have someone to celebrate with
[28:43] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Next level nation. Welcome back to another episode of next level university, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed Our latest episode. It was episode number 1468. Where is your self-esteem really coming from today? For episode number 1469 who is going to celebrate you if you don't celebrate yourself?

Speaker 1:

A lot of stories from our team calls in this week's episode and this week's episodes, but we had a call I think this one was four weeks ago, so this is a little bit in the past, and I do think we touched on this at some point in one of our episodes. But we were talking about how many members of the team have some sort of either fitness streak or Mostly fitness streaks. That's like the really big thing going on at NLU and Love it, love it, ellen loves it, and you've been leading the charge on that and you said something along the lines of have you posted it on social media? I Don't remember the exact context, but you said something along the lines of did you post it on social media to celebrate that? And Most of the the team said no, no, we didn't. And I said to you Alan, I Don't know if it, if it's like you think it is, where a Lot of people would get villainized for something like that, for saying, hey, I've exercised every single day for 365 days.

Speaker 1:

Going back to what we were talking about with Brandon on the previous episode and I was thinking of if you Aren't able to celebrate yourself, maybe you're someone who struggles celebrating yourself and you don't have a community of people, you don't have a friend group, you don't have a family, whatever. It is co-workers that are gonna celebrate you. How do you deal with that? The other the other day, friday, I Was finishing up my day and Terrence at what time you done and I said what did I say? I think I said I was done at six and she said I'm taking up to dinner and I was like okay, cool, I'm in. She's like you've been working really hard, I want to take you to dinner, I want to celebrate, and that also reminded me that I would probably never really do that for myself and Would you get great what I got a pulled pork sandwich that had pickles on it, and oh my goodness it was so good.

Speaker 1:

Oh my goodness it was so good. So I might have eaten over my calories that day, but it was.

Speaker 2:

It was worth celebrating a fitness streak. I'm great I was to celebrate.

Speaker 1:

A guess, a podcast streak? I think that's the point that I really want to touch on in this episode is Number one Do you have people around you that will celebrate you? Number two are you Comfortable celebrating yourself, or does that seem like you're talking Too highly of yourself? Does that seem like something arrogant? Is that something somebody arrogant would do? And Do you have any fear around celebrating your, your wins, with your community?

Speaker 1:

Because if so, again, that's a really good question to ask yourself, for whether or not the people around you are actually serving you. If you have to hold In your wins and your successes and the high notes for your life, that might say something about the community around you. I would argue it probably says more about the community around you than it does you, because that just means you don't feel safe, and I always say vulnerability is truth. So one of the reasons vulnerability is so important is because it's living in the truth. If you're proud of yourself because you've exercised every day for 30 days, that's awesome, and if you don't feel comfortable sharing that because of the negative feedback you might get, that's a Thing worth discussing at least.

Speaker 2:

So I thought we should do it in the context of this, I Was on the team huddle and showed it to Jesse and Amy L. Jesse had surpassed 365 days in a row of exercise and I said something along the lines of have you celebrated that? Have you posted about that? Did you do like a one-year thing? And the idea underneath this, real quick, is if you want to inspire people, you're gonna have to share your wins and your struggles. But when you share your wins, you're also going to get potentially villainized to Kevin's point. And so Jesse said no, I haven't shared it at all. I said so let me get this straight. You exercised every day for a full year and didn't post anything about it. She was like no. I said have you told anyone? I don't think she told almost anyone. She didn't even tell the team. It's not like she was like oh, I hit one year and we celebrate our wins in the huddles. We start with most important win. We also started doing listener success stories, so we're looking for listeners who are winning and celebrating them behind the scenes as well. But I was like that's so interesting. I can't imagine someone exercising for a full year and then not sharing that on social media. That's so amazing. Look how amazing you are behind the scenes.

Speaker 2:

And Amy L was sitting there going I think I'm past a year and she's like I didn't share it either. And then that's when you illuminated for me a huge blind spot that I have, which is, apparently, when you share something like that, that's seen as arrogant or can be seen as arrogant and can be taken very negatively. And so what Kevin said on that huddle essentially was maybe the reason why they haven't shared it, alan, is because they're afraid to be villainized. And they both said yeah, which, again, I do think is a huge blind spot of mine. I'm always looking for people that inspire me with their work, ethic and things like that. So and we talked about that, but to the original point of this episode if you aren't proud of yourself and celebrating the constructive, amazing, inspiring things you're doing, you're not going to positively reinforce them. So think about when we're kids, right, you do something bad and then you get punished so that you don't do it again. When you do something good, you get praised so that you do it more. Human beings are very wired that way. Now, as we mature, eventually we overcome some of that carrot and stick stuff Carrot is you know. If you do this, you'll get this bonus at your job. If you hit this goal, stick is hey listen, if you don't do these things, you're going to be fired right. Carrot and stick motivates us all and obviously there's more motivation than just that. So I'm not I'm not just saying it's just that, but I would say you got to leverage that for sure.

Speaker 2:

One brief story here I this is vulnerable for me to share. I've shared it before. It's. It's now very clear to me why this happened, but at the time I had no idea why this happened. It didn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 2:

So when I got out of college Even before that, when my stepdad left at 14 I didn't know if I was gonna be able to go to college because I didn't have any money. Our family had very low amount of money, and so I got scholarships and financial aid and and I was able to go to a really expensive college. It was $50,000 a year when I went, so it and then I stayed for my masters as well. So I spent a lot of money on my education. Fortunately, I had financial aid and scholarships and I did very well. Now, when I got out of college, I was an $84,000 worth of college debt. I know many of our listeners have college debt.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I've been there and I remember we used to go for the 4th of July. Kev, you joined us one time, me and my old friends. We used to go for the 4th of July to the Cape every year and we would all camp for a whole week. It was awesome and also reckless at times, and I remember I got there and on my way there, I was so excited because I had just hit my goal. My goal was to pay off my debt in a single year. I wanted to pay off $84,000 worth of debt in a single year. It's an insane goal. I realize that now, in hindsight, that's not necessarily normal, but I really wanted to hit that.

Speaker 2:

That was, I drove a $5,000 car on purpose. It was a 2004 Volkswagen Passat. I had no expenses on purpose. I made as much money as I possibly could in that year and I just saved, saved, saved, and I just wanted to get out of debt. That was goal number one get out of, get, get out of debt. Goal number two was see goal one. And so I'm so pumped because I just did it. I got out of college, I got my six-figure job, I achieved my dream and I want to get out of debt. I got out of debt. I paid off $84,000 worth of debt in 2014.

Speaker 2:

And I get to the Cape where all my friends are, and I was like I'm celebrating. He's hey, what's up? I'm like, oh, tonight's gonna be amazing. I'm celebrating and he's like what are you celebrating? I was like I paid off $84,000 worth of debt in a single year. I'm debt-free officially.

Speaker 2:

He says, dude, he's don't fucking brag. I was like what, he's like pride? Like what's, what's the deal? I said I'm not allowed to be proud of my accomplishment. And he was like yeah, dude, pride is one of the seven deadly sins. It's like what? What would you? You don't even read the Bible. What are we doing here, right at the end of the day, all night? Now, I know he was in a lot of debt, he made very little money and he was just really, really jealous and really insecure and it's just a dick. Also, just saying, it's just a real dick.

Speaker 2:

And at the end of the day, I just didn't understand, kev, it took me 30 years to understand why people can't celebrate other people and To me, that was like a really cool, awesome thing. It's like I'm a little kid, like, oh my god, I did it, you know, and and you just get so, oh, beat up when you're like that and and don't let people beat that out of you. You know, I've always Tried to be really excited when I achieve good things and I think over time it gets beaten out of you. And I think when we're kids we get celebrated with trophies when we do well in sports and when we get straight A's we get Allowance from our grandparents, you know, and we get celebrated a lot as kids when we achieve, and when you get older, you just get kind of shit on and it's just gets weird.

Speaker 2:

I have a client who Was telling me about the the three million dollar mention that she bought and she invited everyone over and she wanted to share it with Her friends and it was actually a really negative experience for her Because they were all really jealous and I just think that sucks about the world. Personally, I Really do. I like to celebrate people. I think NLU is a place where we all celebrate success and achievement and growth and you know, a lot of this is born out of those painful moments, and that's only one of thousands, because I've always been Pretty loud and proud about my achievements.

Speaker 1:

I think it probably boils down to if it has to do with health, wealth or love. I Think those are all triggers I was thinking of. I was on this podcast one time and I do research before I go on a show and this guy is Jacked and just a stud. I mean, he is a Fitness model.

Speaker 2:

I know the guy you're talking about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah. It's like, oh my, how did you get all of this? He's a, he's a specimen. I Look up to that. It's like hell. Yeah, man, good for you, you are in way better shape than I am. I need to shame and you are an absolute stud.

Speaker 1:

But again, would I always feel that way? I don't know If I was 16 year old, kev, and I didn't like my, if I didn't really like my body and I felt weak? Probably not, but I think there's that admiration factor. And if you think about it, what are the biggest insecurities? My relationship is not as good as yours. So screw you for having a good relationship. That's a potential. I don't make as much money as you, or maybe I'm in more debt than you, or maybe you have a nicer house or a nicer car or whatever. You send your kids to private school, whatever it is. That's a trigger. And then your own body is a trigger to potentially. And I think those are the things that really really hurt us at the ego level. If you know someone who makes more money than you, maybe it triggers you because maybe you're not. You're not at the place where you're ready to get all of that feedback at once. I'm really starting to understand that, now more than ever, the ego thing, I'm really trying not to take personally Really.

Speaker 1:

Because I understand if, if, if I was down and out and I was struggling and I saw you, alan, I would probably get triggered. I would probably get triggered for sure. I'm sure I did in the past, right Back in the day I probably before you and I really reconnected and started working together. I'm sure, if I saw you and I didn't have enough, because what I saw in you was you had a successful relationship and you were in really good shape.

Speaker 1:

I was in really good shape too, so that I didn't villainize you for that, and at the time I had just gotten out of a relationship, so I didn't really villainize you for that. I knew you had money because you were just hanging out, so I was like this kid must have some money. But I was making really good money then too. The contrast wasn't big enough for me to villainize you. So I wonder if, if you can't see yourself in the position someone else is, you either villainize or you get inspiration. And I wonder if, obviously, belief and self-worth and past traumas and triggers, that all plays a role. But I also wonder if the contrast is too big, if that doesn't dictate it to some degree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, In hindsight it was a trigger and it was a trauma response, probably unconsciously yeah. Which is fight, flight, freezer fawn, and I think in this case it was fight Sort of knock me down. And as someone who's always really believed in themselves and encouraged others to believe in themselves, I can see more now than I ever have why, why that might happen, while simultaneously not necessarily thinking that that's optimal, certainly don't think that's okay. I don't really like bullies. I, I definitely don't. Actually, I think knocking other people down is my least kind of favorite people, my least favorite people. If you are someone who is knocking other people down, you're my least favorite people. I just don't think it's useful. I think it's completely useful. I think it's useful. I think it's completely useless. We can. It's not a poker game where Kevin has to lose for me to win. You know what I mean, man, I just don't get it. I don't, I don't, I don't think I can do it. I know you get it.

Speaker 1:

I can't even say, I just don't get it. I understand, I understand. I've never done that.

Speaker 2:

I don't think I've ever done that Honestly. You'll never see me, not, you'll never see me knock someone else down. You'll never see even people who are knocking me down. I don't think I'm changing, though.

Speaker 1:

Well, I don't know if you're. I don't know if you feel insecurity the same way I do. No, it's different now. Well, you've been on both ends of this so you can understand. Yeah, sure, okay.

Speaker 2:

Weird on this end where it's like why would you?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, it's very strange, can?

Speaker 2:

you explain that too, please, being on the end of being confident and no, well, that too but I think you've been on the end where you might have been insecure and maybe knocked others down unintentionally, but now you're on the end of people who have tried to knock you down, and now you're on the end of believing in yourself. So now it doesn't make any sense, right? It's like when you believe in yourself, it just doesn't make any sense, it doesn't click.

Speaker 1:

It's very challenging though, because nobody knocked me down before really. So to me it kind of does make sense. Nobody was knocking me down when I didn't believe in myself. If anything, they were trying to lift me up. So to me maybe that's why it makes more sense to me is because I started on the other end and nobody ever took wind out of my sails very rarely Now. We had some people that judged us and said some stuff about us in the beginning, but it was more Alan than it was me.

Speaker 2:

Do you think that's so? Now that you believe in yourself, though, are you getting knocked down? Not really.

Speaker 1:

No, because a lot of the relationships in my life I already have the people. I already have the people who believed in me when I didn't think I was going to be successful. So now, if anything, they probably just have more belief in me now that I have more belief.

Speaker 2:

That guy you're talking about, who was the stud in all that stuff? Yeah, oh he still is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Okay, what is a stud in all that stuff? Do you think he gets villainized a lot?

Speaker 1:

I would say so. Yeah, I can imagine if you just came across his profile and found him, you would think he's. If you were someone who had a level of insecurity, you would be like, oh my God, whatever insert, whatever word it is, this guy must be super self-centered. It seems to have a really good relationship. I mean, I've talked to him behind the scenes. He's just a good dude. He seems like a really good human Right, Really so. But yeah, I'm sure he probably gets villainized.

Speaker 2:

I'll share this briefly. I know Jesse and Emiya wouldn't mind me sharing this, but they've also been. They've expressed behind the scenes to me that they don't feel like other people want to see them succeed. They've been very villainized or knocked down or it's an interesting concept. So if you're out there listening or watching this, try to figure out which end you're on, because, to make this useful, I don't feel like I don't feel like Kevin does about people rooting for me and you got this, and that kind of that doesn't land for me. Maybe that's true for you if you're listening or watching, or maybe you always have been rooted for the underdog thing, but I do think it's important to know which end you're on, because if you're on my end of not really feeling fully supported and feeling like you got knocked down, just like that story I told about the cape if you feel like that's happened to you a lot, then you're most likely more afraid of success than failure. If you feel like you've been lifted up a lot and supported a lot and people believed in you more than you believed in yourself, most likely you're afraid of failure, not success, and I think some of us all of us to some extent are afraid of both. We want to be just successful enough to get love and acceptance from our peers, but not too much to where we get villainized, which is just. It's a little comfort zone. It's so scary, right, I just I think that that's again maybe not the main purpose of this episode, but that's got to be one of the biggest breakthroughs of my 30s. It's just realizing that everyone has this little pendulum of fear of success and fear of failure and as soon as your peers get more successful, you now have permission, kind of, to also be more successful. Whereas I always felt like I was trying to push the envelope, I was always trying to be more successful and I think I traditionally statistically speaking in hindsight was always a little bit more successful or in some cases, a lot of it more successful than my peers. So I guess it would make sense that I would be afraid of success, because if I always got lashed out at unconsciously, then that would obviously make me feel fearful.

Speaker 2:

It's a vulnerable place to be more successful because you do, you get a lot of criticism. You get a lot of you know to sit here and say I believe in myself. A lot of people don't like that, for whatever reason. You know. I remember we had someone leave group coaching because they said that I speak too highly about myself and I didn't even feel like I was doing much of that. I thought, if anything, I was dialing it down. But again it is what it is.

Speaker 2:

I hope everyone, at least behind the scenes maybe you don't have to post it, maybe you don't have to put it on a podcast that's a very vulnerable thing to say on a podcast is I believe in myself and I'm, you know, I'm great and all this stuff. I, you know. Don't say that it doesn't work, but what I would share is at least behind the scenes. I hope you think that. I hope that you celebrate the great things you do. I really hope you're celebrating them because if you're expecting other people to you are in so much trouble, it is way less than I ever thought I really did. I used to believe, you know, achieving great things was going to, you know, be a very positive thing.

Speaker 1:

Well, it has its. It has its positives and it has its negatives for sure, but you just got to. You got to have someone in your life who you can celebrate with. I think that's that's my next level nugget, because, to Alan's point, alan and I can celebrate behind the scenes. We celebrate all the time and with the team we celebrate, and Alan celebrates with Emilia and I celebrate with Taren, and behind the scenes there's plenty of that. There's, there's plenty of that. That might be one of the reasons why I don't I really don't celebrate that much in front of the scenes. I feel like I get celebrated enough plenty behind the scenes.

Speaker 1:

I don't really care to do it in front of the scenes, but that's another question too is what are you looking for when you do celebrate? Are you looking to inspire? Are you looking to get significance? Going back to, I guess that's kind of the theme of of this week's episodes. But my next level nugget is, if you are struggling to celebrate yourself, ask yourself is there anybody else in my life who I can celebrate with? Because I think it makes it a little bit easier and if you, if you struggle to celebrate yourself, you might be really good at celebrating those close to you, especially the people you love. You might be really good at lifting other people up because you don't feel like you're getting lifted up, so that's another thing, too is if you have that relationship with someone peak performance partner, whatever success partners, whatever you want to call it you could just you could say progress partners send them a message hey, I feel like I made a lot of progress today. I set a boundary and I stuck with it. I track three habits. I think that's a huge win where somebody else might say, yeah, good for you, I don't care.

Speaker 2:

I have a client who does that, and I think this is another value of just having a coach, because I'm just going to celebrate the hell out of your wins. Let me find this real quick Just finished two books down and then I think I said Two more awesome two down, two more to go, because her goal by the end of the year is four books, and it's actually three books down. I spent all day yesterday reading the secondary Potter book is what she said, but the point is is she's always, always reaching out with her wins. I Really like that. I don't.

Speaker 2:

I don't think she's arrogant at all, so it's just a misunderstanding, I think. At the end of the day and I'm starting to understand why it might come off that way, though, because I do think some people are actually arrogant when they're doing that there's there's some people who are overly. You know whatever that is, and, yeah, I get it, but and I get why it could be triggering as well. I've been triggered. I told the story about when I was 19, in a dark place and couldn't be in the same room as this other guy, but I think, at the end of the day, he inspired the hell out of me, so good for him you know, I Think it's cuz you had belief.

Speaker 1:

I think that's the big thing. No, really do. Next elimination as you know, every single month, the first Thursday of the month, we do a next level monthly meetup for month number 22, almost two years strong. Are you making these three relationship mistakes? So again, relationships are something that most of us are going to Take part in and experience, but unfortunately, many of us have not studied them yet and Oftentimes we study them after we lose a relationship that matters to us. That's when the necessity gets created. So join us. It is completely behind the scenes, it's not recorded. You don't have to have your camera on. You don't have to ask questions. You can have your camera on. You can ask questions Whatever you want. It is a private setting and that is what we're gonna be talking about relationships. It is October 5th, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. We will have the. Are we gonna put the link in the show notes or do people reach out for the link?

Speaker 2:

We put the link to the website, okay so it's on the website?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, on the way the link will be?

Speaker 2:

yeah, the link will be in the show notes to the landing page on the website, and then on the website there's a little form where you put your name and email and then we register for you. Yeah, cool, that's it, I'll do that. Do that also, as you've heard unless you're a new listener, in which case this is maybe the first time you're hearing this we are reading a book called limitless by Jim quick. The chapter that we're actually doing today today is actually Saturday when we're recording this Talks about your peer group and talks about a lot of what Kevin and I talked about today in terms of celebration and stuff like that. But anyways, so every every single Saturday at 12 30 pm Eastern Standard Time, we do book club.

Speaker 2:

Book club is a group of people who love to learn, who have enough confidence to Learn. We share wins, we share struggles, we share with each other, and no one is allowed to be bullies. It's a safe space to talk about and celebrate your progress, but also to vulnerably share about what you're struggling with in a safe space, while learning from great people, from great books. Really so, next level books with next level people. I hope that you join us. The link to the landing page will also be in the show notes tomorrow for episode number 1472.

Speaker 1:

Questions that will save you a lot of time. I have been asking my clients, especially my new clients this and it has Created a lot of interesting conversations and a lot of vulnerability. So make sure you tune in for that episode 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 celebrating those wins. Next elimination Boom, strong work, god. Those ones are so hard for me. Well, I think you.

Speaker 1:

I think you told the line well.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host