Next Level University

#1478 - Another Way Lack Of Belief Shows Up In Our Lives

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Investing in oneself is often the cornerstone of personal growth. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss how the pattern of lack of belief leading to lack of investment is not limited to material assets. It extends to other areas of our lives, such as relationships and personal development. They talk about the cyclic patterns where a lack of belief leads to a lack of investment, eventually resulting in feelings of low self-worth. These investments are not always financial; they can also involve time, effort, and emotional energy. They emphasize the powerful reminder of the intricate relationship between belief, investment, and self-worth.

Links mentioned:
Learn more about group coaching: https://nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/ Discount Code: NLULISTENER
Blog #11 - How to Create, Build, and Sustain Momentum: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blog-11-how-create-build-sustain-momentum-alan-lazaros/ 


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Show notes: 
[2:05] Kevin shares the story about his first car
[4:40] You don't invest in something you don't believe in
[6:50] Gaining and losing momentum cycle
[11:59] Low self-worth
[14:22] Alex highlights how Next Level Business Solutions helped him optimize his time for maximum productivity
[14:59] Why awareness is important
[22:23] Keeping promises to yourself
[25:17] 3 things that must be true before you'll take action
[28:20] 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, episode number 1477. Fitness doesn't have to be punishment today. For episode number 1478. Another way lack of belief shows up in our lives. This is gonna be a throwback flashback story of Kevin's first-ever vehicle when he was just a young man. So I was probably 17 at the time and I was looking for a car, and at this point, as many of us are at that age, I was balling on a budget. So I had about a thousand dollars to work with, and by that I mean I had one thousand dollars to my name. So I was talking to my mom and my grandmother and I said, hey, if you see anything about town in my price range, let the kid know.

Speaker 2:

Let me know if you see Golf cart for that.

Speaker 1:

Well, hey, if that was gonna be it, that was gonna be it. So my grandmother Just like to. She likes to go to the grocery store and she might go for a little cruise, might drive around town, so she might see something. So one day she came back and said hey, I found a car, I think you'll like it. And I said tell me more. And she said it's a white car, I think it's a Mustang, I'm not sure it's older and it's very, very dirty. But it's on someone's front lawn, five minutes from where we lived. And she said I think it's a thousand dollars. And I was like, okay, all right, let's go take a look at this thing. So we go and take a look at this car and it's an older gentleman who is selling it and it's a 1995 white Mustang v6.

Speaker 1:

For those who don't know, mustangs are sports cars, but the sports versions of them have eight cylinder engines. This one had a six cylinder engine, not as cool, not as a nice, not fast at all. So we make an agreement and I purchased this vehicle and the first thing I did with one of my buddies because this is my first car we took it to the car wash because it was filthy I mean Filthy. So we took it to one of the Self-serve car washes where you put coins in and you get to take it into the bay and you get to use a pressure washer and I think I had to go through like four times. I think I had to get four separate Sessions to actually get this car clean. It was absolutely filthy. So it gets somewhat clean. Cool, this is my new ride. I'm proud. I got a new car. I Didn't do much other than that With this car because I didn't know how long it was gonna last me.

Speaker 1:

I didn't believe I was gonna have it for a long period of time. I didn't believe it was worth me investing in this car because it was kind of a piece of crap. It had a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it and I didn't know how well it had been taken care of. So I didn't really know. That's what we're talking about, today's episode. Another way, lack of belief shows up in our lives. We don't you Invest in things and we're not talking from a financial set point. So Alan's gonna paint the picture after I finished the story.

Speaker 1:

But it wouldn't make sense for me to Buy a $2,000 sound system and put it, in this car I wanted to get rims and tires and stuff, but it didn't make any sense. I didn't believe this car was gonna last me a long enough period of time for it to be worth it. And it actually got to the point, alan, where I had a buddy of mine and when I moved on up in the world I bought another Mustang. After that I actually gave him that car for free. I said, hey, man, it's things a piece of crap. You need a car, it's yours for zero dollars. I don't want your money have this car. And that was it. That was my first car in a nutshell.

Speaker 2:

So Kev's trying to articulate there that it doesn't make sense to invest in something that you don't believe in. You didn't believe you'd have that car very long. You didn't believe that that car was even worthy of more investment. No, it's interesting. Emilia's old car was a Prius and it was a 2012 or 2014 2015. I'm honestly not sure. I don't really care a ton about cars, but I liked it. I was a big fan. And she got a new Tesla, the Model Y, and we actually are a little bit. We love the Model Y, but it's a little bit annoying to have to take care of it. I'm not able to put my drink on it anymore. You know we have to, like you know, make sure it's vacuumed and clean and you just have to take really good care of it. I actually have this will be funny for you so I'm driving the Model Y and Taking a right outside of a convenience store and there's a curb Hammered the rim.

Speaker 1:

No, yeah, not good, those rims are not yeah, those rims are expensive.

Speaker 2:

We looked it up it's gonna cost a good 400 bucks to get that fixed. But the point is here is that the the Model Y is such a valuable asset that it requires more time and more effort to keep it valuable. But the mentality here that's really important for people is if you have a, let's say, a hundred and fifty thousand dollar home which in my area is a very not nice home Okay, if you take care of it like it's a mansion though, it'll be worth 250. When you invest in things, they become more valuable. That's why they say what you appreciate appreciates. Meaning, if I appreciate the Model Y and we take better care of it and don't ruin the rim, then it'll be worth more money. Or it'll be technically not worth more money because cars depreciate in value, but it'll be worth more than if I don't take care of it right. So I want to share this story. I just wrote a blog about this. The link to the blog is gonna be in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

There's a cycle that is running all of us at all times, and I've been doing this with my clients all over the world. Imagine on the left there's a snowball and on the right there's a snowball, two different snowballs, two different cycles. One of them is called the gaining momentum cycle. Official term, the one on the right is losing momentum cycle. At all times, excuse me, we are in one of these two cycles. They are three steps each Step. One is believe more the gaining momentum cycle I'm gonna do first one is believe more in something, a Person, a place, a thing or an idea.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I'll use Kevin as example. I believe in Kevin. Okay, because I believe in Kevin, I'm going to invest more time and effort into Kevin and then, assuming that's working, kevin is going to grow. So step one is believe more. Step two is invest more. Step three is grow more. When I believe more in Kevin, I invest more in Kevin. When I invest more in Kevin, kevin grows more. When Kevin grows more, I believe in him more. And that's a cycle that we've been running for six years, and Anytime he slipped into the losing momentum cycle, that's when we had to have a harder, vulnerable conversation. I love those.

Speaker 1:

I'm those are the most fun ever of all time.

Speaker 2:

And so this is let me explain, the losing momentum cycle. Okay, so that that first one is called winning, and when I say like I'm just not winning in fitness, what I'm really saying is I Tweaked my back and I've got uncertainty, so I'm not investing as much time and effort, I'm avoiding it. Therefore, I'm not getting better, and that's making me what believe in it even less, and it's a downward spiral. So the first cycle is gaining momentum. Think of I in the blog I talk about the Hogwarts train, the Hogwarts Express. Picture that thing hammering down the tracks. Okay, that's the gaining momentum cycle, and you can feel it when you're in momentum. You can feel it, you know it. It's challenging, it's rough, it's not easy, but you know you're winning. Okay, you're headed somewhere bright. That's the gaining momentum cycle.

Speaker 2:

Think of a new relationship, honeymoon phase. You know that's a perfect example. Actually, picture someone you met and you believe in the relationship so much that you start to think about the future and meeting their family, and then meeting your family and your wedding together, and then so you invest a lot of time and effort into quality Experiences and you take them to dinner and all these amazing things, and then the relationship flourishes and grows. And Then you, that makes you what believe in it even more. So you're just honeymoon phase, honeymoon phase, honeymoon phase. It's just a wonderful thing. What happens, unfortunately, is sometimes you lose trust. Someone lies on accident, something miscommunicates. All of a sudden your heart is falling in love. So now you're playing a little bit more scared, now you're afraid to get hurt. So you slip into this other cycle.

Speaker 2:

I'm about to describe that the losing momentum cycle is the polar opposite of the gaining momentum cycle. Again, three steps instead of more belief, it's a little bit less belief, and Then a little bit less belief actually leads to a little bit less investment, meaning a little less time, a little less effort, a little less money. Okay, in this case, the Mustang. Kevin didn't invest in the Mustang because he didn't believe in the Mustang, because it was a real piece of shit With love, all right. So believe a little less, invest a little less, and then what happens? The Mustang doesn't get any better, the relationship doesn't get any better, the I don't know the house doesn't get any better.

Speaker 2:

So then what happens? Do you believe in it more or less? You believe in it even less, and then you invest even less, and then it grows even less, and then it you and you believe in it Less, and it just goes round and round and round. So on one end you have the gaining momentum cycle, which is what I call the upward spiral of success and achievement, and on the other end you have the downward spiral of failure, and what eventually happens is you hit rock bottom and Eventually you springboard back up to humility, and that's when you seek help, that's when you get a therapist, that's when you seek a coach, that's when you find next-level university.

Speaker 2:

Many of our listeners have told us we didn't find you until we were at rock bottom, because when you're at rock bottom, that's when you have no choice but to believe in yourself again, invest in yourself again and grow again, whereas before you were losing momentum but pretending that you weren't and you were on a downward spiral. And it wasn't until you really Realized it and hit rock bottom that you changed. And that's true for me with alcohol, and that's true for Kev when he got left at 26 from his partner. And that's the cycles that we're in At all times, and we just don't always recognize it.

Speaker 1:

Alan. I think this is another reason why self-worth is such a valuable thing to learn about. When it comes to yourself and just in general, the analogy I've used in other podcasts is If you have a and it's, I guess, we're just gonna go along the car route, but if you have a car that has four flat tires, the last thing you're gonna do is worry about the paint job. Yeah, that wouldn't make any sense and I think a lot of us, unfortunately, would identify as a car that's broken down. If you have low self-worth, you might have that feeling of I'm not worth it. Investing in it doesn't matter, anyway, it's not gonna work, it's not gonna be worth it, I'm not gonna learn anything. And that's why working on self-worth and we've done many episodes and will continue to do many episodes on that Is so important. Because if you don't believe you're worth investing in in terms of learning, in terms of coaching, in terms of whatever Lifestyle increases, whatever it is, then you're not gonna end up doing it. And then you get stuck in the cycle, the cycle of well, I Don't deserve to get better and it's not worth it, so I'm not gonna take action. And then you get stuck there, you get stuck there. You get stuck there when, when Alan and I rent cars, when we travel together, we we always laugh because when they say, do you want insurance for the rental, I used to say absolutely need it. We need that insurance. How much is it? $50 a day, maybe an extra 300. Let's do it. Yeah, I think we should do it. Do you think we should do it? And if you ask the person behind the counter, they're most likely gonna say yes, because their goal is to get you to believe in the fact that you need insurance because it helps the company make more money.

Speaker 1:

When Tara and I were in Colorado a loping last year we're getting married we were staying in Denver and we're in the super cool Airbnb and it was the last either the last night or the second last night before we left and there was this hail storm and I told Tara and I was like we really should have got insurance because if something happens to this car, we are gonna be jeff. Then I did the research and If you don't have insurance and your insurance covers it you just pay like you would if you were in your own car accident. If you're in an accident, you're not at fault. I don't think you have to pay anything because your insurance pays for it like it would. So it's really not that big of a deal.

Speaker 1:

I'm not gonna get insurance anymore when I rent cars, because I don't believe it is worth it. I don't believe it is necessary. I don't believe it's worth me investing the extra money. I like to think I'm a good driver and the odds of being in an accident are pretty low, so that's just another example of it. Quite literally, is the person behind the counter's job to make you believe you need the insurance, because if you believe in it, you'll invest in it, and if you invest in it, they'll make money. When you do your own research, like I had the opportunity to do, I realized, oh, I don't need that, I don't need to invest in that. It's not worth it. Okay, cool. So again, maybe I'll come up with another car example before we go, but I thought that would be a good example of this.

Speaker 2:

Kev, you just gave the base reason why awareness is so important. I'll never forget this is a little bit of a side tangent, but I'll never, ever forget the stat of there's 338 million Americans and only one per year dies in a shark attack. For me, I need that because I'm scared of sharks like very much, and every time I'm in the ocean I'm not even kidding, I even. As a kid we had a boat on like an ocean boat. I hated swimming in the ocean.

Speaker 1:

I would not. There is no way, not an F in chance. If you and I were out in the middle of the ocean and you said, hey, you want to take a dip? No, I don't. I'm not interested at all. I will sweat and burn up here, I'm not going in that water.

Speaker 2:

My stepdad used to jump in and just wade in the water in the middle of the ocean man, no right. And we saw whales and all kinds of stuff. So this is like deep ocean fishing, but anyways, I same hated it. But but me having that awareness is really helpful because I actually can overcome it. I mean, I swim in Florida. When me, you, bianca and Amelia were down there, if I didn't know that stat, I would have been more scared. Every little thing that brushed my leg I would have, you know, been more scared. The statistics help.

Speaker 2:

Awareness helps to get back to the original point of this, though Anytime there's uncertainty, you're going to take less action, you're going to invest less. So if you don't think you, if you don't believe in yourself, you're not going to invest in yourself. But to Kevin's point, if you don't think you're worth it, you won't either. That's why you think self-worth is everything and I think self-belief is everything. I think we both think both are everything. The point is is we've come to realize after all these years I used to think belief was everything I really did. I thought that was the cheat code. If you believe in yourself, that's the most important thing. What I was missing is self-worth is just as self-worth is just as important. Beliefing in yourself, believing in yourself, is like believing you can achieve something. Then you'll invest in achieving that thing and then you'll gain momentum toward that goal. That I have and I've always had that. I felt really grateful for that. What I didn't have is self-worth, which I didn't invest in myself Not as much as I could, not as much as I should. Self-worth is more. Do you deserve it? Kevin's Mustang is how a lot of people unfortunately feel about themselves. They feel like they're not worth it. They're not worth new tires. They're not worth new rims. They're not worth for cleaning jobs to get the dirt off.

Speaker 2:

What Kevin and I want our listeners to understand is that you are worth it and when you invest in yourself, you're going to grow, and when you grow, you're going to believe in yourself, which is going to make you want to invest more. I've noticed this trend particularly with group coaching members. When they start getting in the habit of investing in themselves, it shifts their identity to someone who's worth it, and a lot of them end up one-on-one clients and, eventually, team members, and the reason why is because I think they aren't used to being people who invest in themselves. There's something that shifts when you start to invest in yourself. For me, with a therapist, that was big. When you invest in yourself, it changes something in you. So I'm not saying to go invest $10,000 into some random person who's saying you can get rich quick. That's dumb. Don't do it Genuinely. I just don't believe any of that. But what I am saying is start investing in yourself. It can start with a book. It can start with investing in a coach. It can start investing in a therapist. It can be investing in. It can be something as simple as going to get your hair done or what's another good example of taking good care of yourself, getting a massage or getting a personal trainer. I have one client who got a personal trainer. There's something about investing money in yourself that makes you feel more valuable.

Speaker 2:

And the last piece of this is I used to say this quote that probably never landed. I think it will this time, thanks to Kevin's story. Let's take a chance and see. I said why would Warren Buffett invest in a stock that he didn't believe would grow? For those of you who don't know, warren Buffett is a financial investor and a stock is an ownership of a company, if you've never invested in a stock market?

Speaker 2:

Regardless of all that, why would you invest in a relationship that you didn't believe would grow? Why would you invest in a relationship that you didn't believe would be valuable? Why would you invest in? I mean, we've all been on a date and realized, okay, this is not, this isn't it. So we stop investing. Why? Because we don't believe in it anymore. We don't believe it will be a valuable relationship, and maybe we're right, maybe we're wrong, but I'll tell you what a lot of times the reason the honeymoon phase goes away is because someone breaches trust or does something, or you find out something about your partner that you didn't know and you lose certainty. So you stop investing. And when you invest a little less, it flourishes a little less, which makes you believe in it a little less, which makes it flourish a little less. It's this. It's this downward spiral, and hopefully my only goal is that you catch yourself in in that downward spiral quicker than you used to, because now you're aware of being in it.

Speaker 1:

Last thing before we go. You kind of just spoke to this. I figured I have a story for it I might as well share. When I crawled through the mud of getting my heart broken in my mid twenties when my partner left me, as Alan alluded to you earlier I definitely had very low self-worth and very low self-belief, I would say.

Speaker 1:

And after I crawled through the mud, after I dealt with a heartbreak, after I figured out stuff a little bit and I tried to start climbing upward, I remember I went shopping and I bought some new stuff, some new clothes looked good, feel good, act good, be good, whatever, whatever the saying is and I said you know what? I am going to try to do something I never felt like I had the courage to do. I'm going to go to the mall and I'm just going to approach strangers. And I don't know if I've ever shared this. This was long before the Amy story but I literally got dressed up in my new clothes, got a haircut and I went to the mall and just tried to start conversations with people in stores just to get outside of my comfort zone Buy yourself yeah yeah, yeah, because I felt like I hadn't invested.

Speaker 1:

For me, it was like I'm going to invest my time into becoming braver, because I don't believe I'm going to grow as much as I want to if I don't become more brave, if I don't have more courage, if I'm not more courageous. And I'm telling you I know it probably sounds stupid, but that definitely helped my confidence and my self-worth and it helped me invest in myself more. Would I be the person I am today if I didn't do that? I don't know, probably, but not in the same way. No, way, not in the same way. It's one of those.

Speaker 1:

It's the small keeping promises the keeping small promises to yourself. It helps you. You feel like you're investing in yourself. You buy a gym membership and you say you know what? Yeah, it's 20 bucks a month, but I think it'll be worth it. I'm going to give it a shot. Let me do this. Let me see if I can prove myself right here. Right, or you buy something I don't know. Whatever it is for you. I like weird stuff. I just bought a new office chair because I'm sitting in this thing for so many hours. I figure I should have a nice chair, and this one, isn't it. But whatever it is for you, well, it's not just that too.

Speaker 2:

Sorry to interrupt you, but you also, you and I have both been having back challenges because we sit a lot. We sit a lot these days, we work virtually, we work from home. Very grateful, but that's a challenge we didn't have in our 20s. We were constantly working out and standing and you know. And so it's not just that he believes it's worth it to get this great chair no-transcript, it was your back was having trouble recently. So all of a sudden it becomes worth it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's fair, and so sometimes it requires pain for you to take action towards something that wasn't worth it before. But now it's worth it because and I think that's a really deeper understanding there of a lot of people work out before their wedding because now it's worth it. But what's happening is the reason it's worth it is because you don't want to look bad in a wedding dress or you don't want to look bad in a tux, when in reality, what if you could flip the script and you said this one time Kev manufacture necessity. What if you could make yourself worth it, regardless of whether or not you have a wedding? And what if you could invest yourself in yourself all along the way instead of just when you're afraid to look bad on camera or whatever it might be, and that's just something I just wanted to bring up, but I digress.

Speaker 1:

No, no, you're good, my next level nugget. This is what I was trying to get to land and I appreciate it because it gave me more time to think about it. I think when people hear the words invest, they assume money when, realistically, you're investing energetically more than you're investing anything else. Every single second of every day, you're investing energetically in something I would say my next level nugget would be ask yourself what's the next thing worth investing in and how can you invest in yourself energetically more is that would be my next level nugget. Slash question what is yours before we get out of here, sir?

Speaker 2:

Mine is when you hear investor, don't think money anymore, Think time, effort and money. Where are you investing your time, when are you investing your effort and where are you investing your money? And Kevin and I have talked on previous episodes, so long-term listeners will recognize this. For those of you who are new listeners, I know we've had a lot lately, very grateful. We used to say there's three things that must be true before you'll take action. Number one is you have to believe it's possible. Number two is you have to believe it's possible for you. And number three is you have to believe it'll be worth it. Believing it's possible and believing it's possible for you, I think is self-belief. I think whether or not it'll be worth it is a lot of self-worth and I don't want anyone treating themselves like Kevin's Mustang. Treat yourself like the Model Y. The Tesla Emilia was. Really I thought, ah, the rim's probably good. We went and checked it. It was like, oh damn, that's my bad Whoopsies.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it wasn't my finest moment.

Speaker 2:

She was very sweet about it, but it was definitely a bigger hit than if we had ruined the rim of the Mazda. I have a Mazda, or of that Mustang Kevin's talking about Definitely.

Speaker 1:

At least they beat the crap out of that car.

Speaker 2:

Of course, right, but what if people are doing that because they're treating themselves? Don't treat yourself like a shack. Treat yourself like a mansion, and one day you'll live in a mansion. I think that that's really cool.

Speaker 1:

Don't devalue yourself. Don't devalue yourself. Next, salvation, if you are listening to this, on Tuesday, seven days from today, tuesday, the 10th October 10th we have our 12th round of group coaching starting. We are going to have you plus nine other amazing individuals who want to get to the next level. That is it in the simplest form. We have a completely redesigned curriculum that Alan, myself and the wonderful Jesse redesigned, so it is world class. If you've missed the previous ones and you want to get in this one, with the discount code, again, it takes 30% off the final price, so it ends up being $96 per month. I cannot imagine a more affordable, high value coaching program. So please join if you are interested. Everything will be in the show notes. But yes, seven days from today, we are rolling. We'd love to have you with us.

Speaker 2:

You have to believe in yourself and you have to believe that it will be worth it if you're going to do that group coaching program. So hopefully we've created enough certainty. Take a leap of faith. Join us. Your future self will thank you.

Speaker 2:

I came out with a blog blog number 11, about how to create, build and sustain momentum, and it explains much more in depth and much more detailed everything we talked about today. I'm going to read you just the first paragraph. I believe momentum is the most powerful force in the universe and, yes, that's a bold statement. The image that comes to mind is Hogwarts Express in Figure 2. Once the train is stopped, it takes enormous amount of energy to get it going again, but once it's got momentum, watch out. The goal with this blog is to help you identify where you're losing momentum and where you have momentum and how to sustain it. The link to that will be in the show notes. I think it's a less than 10-minute read. I think it's probably a seven-minute read. Usually mediumcom, where we post them, tells me how long they are. I think this is probably about a seven-minute read. I just haven't put it on medium yet. The link will be in the show notes. Check that out.

Speaker 1:

Also, you're doing an audio blog, is that true? I just haven't yet, never mind, alan's going to do an audio blog Also. The next level audio blog. Yes, it's going to be a podcast, right, correct?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I'll do a dramatic reading every other week.

Speaker 1:

Wow, make sure I unsubscribe to that show.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1479, one question to bring clarity to your relationship. As you know health, wealth and love I feel like we haven't talked about love in a minute. That's a look back. I don't know, but we're going to talk about love tomorrow, so make sure you tune in. We are excited to see you all. As always, we love you, we appreciate you. We are grateful for each and every one of you At NLU. We do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Believe in yourself Next time. On nation.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host