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
#1481 - What Really Motivates You?
Motivation, the invisible force that drives us, is critical to achieving success and fulfillment. Today, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about pursuing a particular end goal - and how this changes over time and with increased self-awareness. Success, we hear time and again, is a rented commodity, and the rent is due every day. But what does it take to keep paying this rent, and at what cost? They discuss how understanding our motivations can lead to fulfillment and prevent us from chasing empty victories. It's about recognizing what's important to us and how these priorities may shift over time.
Links mentioned:
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The best way to track your habits is here! Download the app: Optimal - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/optimal/
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Show notes:
[3:55] What is motivating you?
[5:24] What are you optimizing for?
[9:40] Kevin shares a coaching session about a client's motivation
[12:39] Alex highlights how Next Level Business Solutions helped him optimize his time for maximum productivity
[15:07] What is your paradigm?
[17:56] What are you motivated to avoid?
[22:58] 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 1480. Do you recognize how much you've grown today? For episode number 1481? What really motivates you? I have a wonderful podcast client who oftentimes we do not talk about podcasting at all. That has become a theme in coaching with Kevin and over the last two months or so of coaching, this person has come to me and said hey, do you mind if I vent for a little bit, because I work really well with verbally processing and then we'll see what happens. And I said, yeah, sure, why not? I feel like I'm a good listener, so let me just sit here and see what I can take from what you say. And therapist Kevin, therapist Kevin and this person that I'm working with is a therapist, so it's weird. Yeah, it's, I'm on the other end.
Speaker 1:It's very sure the therapist's therapist, therapist, therapist that is me. Put it on a business card with his new glasses, with my glasses. Yes, I look the part now.
Speaker 2:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 1:Intellectual Kevin Mm. Hmm, so we were digging and we were digging and we were digging and I asked I said why are you doing a lot of the things that you're doing? Why are you trying to do a course? Why are you trying to write a book? Why are you trying to do so many things? And she said Well, I've always been such a grinder, I've always been looking towards the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. That's just the way I'm wired. And I said, well, what's important is what's important to you now. What was important to you then as important to you. And she said, and she sat there for a minute and really thought about it, excuse me. And she came back and said, honestly, no, and I think that's why I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions. The thing that's most important to me now is being a present mother, far more important than achieving the level of quote, unquote success that I once desired, far more important than creating the external results that I once desired, far more important than anything else. And I said, okay, based on that new information, based on that new awareness, what do we do? And she changed everything. She changed almost everything in her life almost immediately based on that. What really motivated her was being a present, quality mother. What used to motivate her was a lot of external results and success. Now, this is the beautiful thing about an episode like this Her saying I don't want to work as hard or as much, or I don't want to do the things that I originally thought I wanted to do. I want to be a present mom. That's more important to me. That's really good for her. Maybe that's exactly what she needs.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're out there listening right now and maybe that was a season for you when maybe your children were younger, where you said I want to be a really I don't know why I'm losing my voice I want to be a really present, high quality parent. But maybe, as your children got older, they needed less of that. And then maybe you said well, what really motivates me now? Well, I'm getting a little bit older. What motivates me is being more financially free or learning more about this thing, whatever it may be. So that really is the topic of conversation today. Do you actually know what is motivating you? Because if you don't, you might not be able to leverage it the same. That's part one and part two. If you don't know what motivates you, you might go get all of the quote unquote results that you wanted and you might end up not feeling fulfilled, not getting happiness, not wanting to do more of that, because those might not actually be the results that you truly desire.
Speaker 2:All right. So in this analogy, your destination is a goal that you plug in the GPS. You plug in let's say, I plug in Kevin's address and it's an hour north of here. Now, the moment that I plug that into the GPS, the GPS is going to route me to Kevin's place and if there's a detour along the way, it's going to say hey, take a right here, take a left here, whatever, whatever. But the gas in the tank is the motivation. What is the motive for action? The goal is one of the motives for action, and so what I wanted to talk about on this episode is something that I'm constantly thinking about when I coach people, and instead of the word motivating even though it's very similar is what are you optimizing for? And I want to use my pets as an example.
Speaker 2:I know I've been talking about my pets a lot lately, but I'm telling you I'm learning some stuff from Tucker, tilly and Tauriel. Each of them are motivated by different things. They're optimizing for something different. Okay, tauriel, from the moment she wakes up, she's optimizing for food. She wants milk, she wants food. She is constantly trying to give love, to get milk from her dad. Uh, cause I'll. There's like this little saucer and I'll give her a little bit of lactose-free milk. All good, and she knows that if she, you know, comes near me when I'm in the kitchen, she's most likely going to get some milk, cause I'm a softy. So that's Tauriel's. What she's optimizing for is food, food and milk.
Speaker 2:Tucker is optimizing to be around his mom. So Tucker is six years old and when Emilia first got Tucker he was a rescue in a very negative spot and he was super, super attached to Emilia and he doesn't feel safe when Emilia is not around. He needs to always know where Emilia is, and so he's optimizing for certainty and his certainty comes from knowing where his mom is. So when, when Emilia was away last week, Tucker was very sad the first day and then eventually was like okay, she's away. Now I'm going to start optimizing for food. And I told Emilia he's very different when you're, when you're not around, and what I mean by that is when you're around. He's always just trying to be around you. He doesn't really care that much about being around me. He'll go for a walk with me, because I kind of nudge him to, but he would rather go with Emilia. He doesn't like to go for walks with just his dad when Emilia is at home. Okay. So again, tucker is optimizing to be around Emilia.
Speaker 2:Lily girl, tiger Lily, she is optimizing for love. Whatever she just wants loves, cuddles, snugs. She just loves love. So Tauriel wants food till he wants love. Tucker wants Emilia.
Speaker 2:I. Whether we like to believe it or not, human beings are also unconsciously driven and are optimizing for very different things. I know some people who are optimizing their whole life around comfort. How do I feel good? How do I feel good? How do I feel good? How do I get comfortable? How do I get comfortable? How do I get comfortable? I know other people who are optimizing for growth. Emilia gets uncomfortable constantly. She's doing uncomfortable things she's doing.
Speaker 2:Kevin and I were joking yesterday.
Speaker 2:We were struggle bus and it was like, listen, I don't want to do these things, but I know these are best for my growth, that I know that my growth is what's best for NLU and I know that NLU is what's best for the world and XYZ.
Speaker 2:So, and Then by the end of the night I'm optimizing for our and our, and then in the morning I'm optimizing for writing, and then in the afternoon I'm optimizing for coaching and podcasting. So all of us. We shift throughout the day and what motivates us is changing. It's it's dynamic. So the question that I want to ask Kevin's question is what motivates you? Mine is what are you unconsciously Optimizing for? When I coach people, it's very important for me to know where their GPS is headed. What, what destination did they plug in, and what you figure out is that a lot of times, people's goals Are outside of alignment with what they are currently unconsciously optimizing for. So if your goal is to lose 20 pounds but you are unconsciously optimizing for comfort, you are in some serious trouble because you're gonna have to get uncomfortable to lose 20 pounds.
Speaker 1:I'm sure Brandon wouldn't mind me using this story. So, brandon on the team, shout out to Brandon you're awesome, great, great man, one of the most balanced men you'll ever meet. He had a podcast for a while and he was super consistent he was. He was posting every week and he was working on doing more social media stuff. Decide and design. I love the name. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a really good name, and did you come?
Speaker 1:up with that, or was that him?
Speaker 2:I don't know, okay, I'm not sure, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:I can't say with confidence that I did. We were so when he was podcasting, I was coaching him on podcasting and I remember we had a conversation Around what motivated him to podcast. And he said impact. I want to, I want to impact. And I said, well, where do you want to be? Let's just say hypothetically, where do you want to be five years from now? And he said I want to do what you guys are doing. I was okay. I was okay, if you couldn't pick us, who would you pick?
Speaker 1:And there's a, an entrepreneur speaker Author named Gary V, gary Vaynerchuk. And he said I'd like to be like Gary V, because that's why I was shooting for at the time. And I said, okay, and we dug, and we dug, and we dug and I said, on a scale of one to ten, how important it is, how important is it for you to not only have a family, have children, but be present and let's just say hypothetically, get your kids off the bus and how important is that to you. And he's like oh, dude, it's so important. And we I kept asking questions like that and I said I Don't, I can't claim to know what it's like to be Gary V. I don't know. I know what it's like to have our quote-unquote level of success and I can only imagine what it's like to be him. But I said, brother, my fear for you is you're gonna invest the next three to twenty years of your life and You're gonna end up getting a result that you don't desire.
Speaker 1:If you want to get your kids off the bus, you're not gonna be an international speaker most likely. Now I wasn't trying to reign on his parade and I wasn't saying it's not possible for you. When we first started this, I I told Alan, I said I don't want to travel for more than a week out of the month and we I don't think we ever have so Right, will we get opportunities later to do that in life? I'm sure will we do it more? Maybe I don't know, but we'll see. So there is a way maybe to make that work.
Speaker 1:But the conversation we had was I think you are motivated by impact, but why can't you just stay on the NLU team and get more impact that way and still get the other things that you actually value in life, like quality time with your loved ones, starting a family, that type of thing? Because my fear is, if you go the route we've gone, you're, you might not have those opportunities, you might not be able to live the life that you want. Because you're optimizing for what I want, you're optimizing, you're setting up, setting up your life based on what we want. Because I wonder if you ever would have came up with that if you weren't on the team of podcasters. And he said, yeah, no, you're right man. And then he ended up stopping the podcast shortly thereafter, which some people might say, oh, that's sad. He stopped the podcast? Yeah, it is because he was, he seemed to be enjoying it and he was impacting people. But If it's not as aligned as him not doing it, then it doesn't make sense to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's gonna get stopped eventually anyway, once he realizes that, because once he has children he's gonna realize that it's a lot harder to to have that level of success and sustain that level of success. The best quote that I can. I love this quote. I heard this recently Service to others is the rent we pay for our place on earth. I Thought that was really powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I like that a lot, but I think that success is something that you never own. It's something that you can only rent, and the rent is due every day. Kevin and I we joke playfully like if you knew what this was gonna take, would you do it again?
Speaker 1:He's like I would, but I don't know, maybe not this week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rough week maybe not this week, and so the point that I'm making is you cannot. I don't say you cannot Because Kevin has corrected me in the past about that. I used to say you can't Want success and not everything that comes with it, and Kev's like no, you can, totally can. You can, you can want it, but in the reality and this comes back to the want, love, hate episode that we did a while back it's just a simple framework, w L, h and it's. If what Brandon wanted to was to have Gary V level impact what he loved was podcasting and impacting people. What he hated was not being able to pick up his kids on the bus every day that is gonna be misaligned. Yeah, it's gonna be misaligned, if that's a non-negotiable.
Speaker 2:Now, when you mentioned that, kev, the level of impact I intend to have, the amount of success, health, wealth, love that I'm optimizing for, that I'm motivated to achieve Am I gonna be able to get my kids off the bus? And and my practical answer is if I really, really, really, really wanted to, I probably could make it work. I'm not super concerned if I'm not the one getting them off the bus, I'm just not. And so it all comes down to what are you unconsciously optimizing for? What is your Paradigm? Is it family first? Is it fitness first? Is it Wealth first? Is it success first? Is it significance first? And I think that you have to have an honest conversation with yourself because, yeah, maybe when I was a teenager, significance is what I wanted, but if I'm still running that same paradigm as a 34 year old man, or that old pattern, I might be in trouble. So you got to recheck in. I now understand.
Speaker 2:Ever since I met Emilia this is a good example I Used to optimize for success over love. When I was in my early 20s and my teens, achievement mattered to me more than love, at least my actions to show that I'm not. I think deep, deep, deep down, love probably mattered more and I probably thought that achievement would get me love or whatever. But the point I'm making is now. There's no question Emilia and my relationship with Emilia is way more important to me than any short-term success, and fortunately I'm with a partner.
Speaker 2:I was just talking to her earlier because I have to move something from tomorrow, because Kevin and I are Going to record tomorrow, and I said thank you so much for being so supportive, because I'm very overwhelmed right now, and it's so nice to have another achiever, who's my intimate partner, because I'm free to fly. And those are the exact words I used, like thank goodness, you're an achiever too, because she gets it. She gets it, and Whatever was motivating you maybe a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, what if that's changed? And what if what you're doing and not doing on a daily basis is no longer aligned? And I think that, checking in with what you're optimizing for similar to Tucker optimizing for Emilia, tariel optimizing for food or Tilly optimizing for love which one are you optimizing for? Or are you just running that same old pattern, even though it's not aligned anymore?
Speaker 1:My next level nugget for this episode would be In my past for sure and definitely I'm sure, moments of presence you might find yourself Motivated by the fear of not doing something. So if you're, if you're motivated and it might sound counterintuitive but if you're motivated by not getting judged, you're never gonna do anything that creates the opportunity to get judged and you're gonna get stuck in this pattern of I am motivated by avoiding discomfort, pain, fear, whatever it is, and then you're gonna get Stuck there, unfortunately. So that's a really good place to start. What are you motivated to avoid? That would be my next level nugget, because that might, if it's for me.
Speaker 1:For a long time it was uncertainty, and I still don't enjoy uncertainty very much, but I would. I was very motivated to avoid it. I was really good at making excuses that would create the certainty. So if somebody said you want to do this and I was super uncertain, I might just say no. Um, I'm motivated to say no. I'm motivated to avoid uncertainty. I'm motivated to not look at those fears. So maybe that might be a good, valuable question to ask yourself. That would be my next level nugget For.
Speaker 2:Kev old Kev before this podcast, before the hyper-conscious podcast six years ago, I do think was unconsciously optimizing for certainty, to your point. Once we created the podcast, he was optimizing instead for impact, which required him to grow, and I think that can be a really good thing. So, yeah, a lot of times what we really want in life and what's going to fulfill us is on the other end of facing whatever that fear is. For him, it's uncertainty, it's risk, it's taking a chance, it's being judged, it's getting negative reviews, whatever it might be. My next level nugget would be life is a dance between your deepest fears and your deepest desires. A lot of times, what we desire most is going to force us to face what we fear most. And are you more motivated by the life you really want or are you playing not to lose and avoiding your fears, which is very similar to yours?
Speaker 1:Mine was better than yours.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:I shot my shot, so it's all good. No, it's all good. This is a valuable episode from the frame of just the awareness. The awareness If I knew what I was motivated by when I was 21 years old, I would have been able to avoid a lot of the dumb stuff that I did, oh yeah. Or I would have been able to get more results in the stuff that I actually wanted.
Speaker 2:That would have been more fulfilled, yeah, you would have gotten aligned quicker and I do think you would have grown more. I don't think you can skip steps. I think you can accelerate them.
Speaker 1:There wasn't a lot of growth in the early 20s. For you, boy. That's facts. That is facts. Next level nation, if you are somebody who is motivated by growth, if you're motivated by evolution, if you're motivated by becoming the best version of yourself. Our 12th round of group coaching starts. I don't know how many days it is from today. It starts next week, next Tuesday, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, four days from today. If you're listening to this episode, with the discount code, you will get 30% off the total purchase price and it ends up being $96 a month. So we have a payment plan where you can pay over the course, so you don't have to pay all at once as well. And we're going to talk about life overall. We're going to talk about love, health and wealth A lot of the things we talk about here on the podcast, but at a deeper, more specific level, because it's only you and nine other people. You will be safe, you will be welcomed and you belong there. So please join if you haven't had the opportunity to yet.
Speaker 2:Huge shout out to Michelle, who came to Book Club. I reached out to her on Facebook I said wonderful to meet you in Book Club today, Michelle. Thanks again for joining us. She said hello, alan, it was a real pleasure to be there. I had a lot of fun, it was insightful and I could relate to so many things you shared today. So many things shared today not that I shared, but that were shared. I will definitely be joining again, not next Saturday as I will be out of town, but hoping for the following week. Thanks again for being so inviting and for creating a very safe and comfortable environment to open up and share with the group.
Speaker 2:Awesome Exclamation point. Exclamation point. Exclamation point. That is exactly what we want at Book Club A safe environment to learn and to share. So if you want to join Book Club, it's every Saturday 12 30 PM, eastern Standard Time. I want to say Eastern Time, so I don't know why it needs to be Eastern Standard Time, eastern Time. The registration link will be in the show notes and I hope that you join us. And again, you can completely keep your camera off, you can keep your mic muted, you don't have to have read the book, you don't have to be all caught up on the chapters and all that. You can just join, share as much or as little as you'd like. It is a very safe space and we hope to see you there.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow for episode number 1482,. We will kick the weekend off because tomorrow is Saturday. The fear of missing out and what to do about it. We did an episode on FOMO years ago and a lot of people listen to that episode. So what I've been trying to do recently is look back at old content and see what you enjoyed as a listener, community member, and try to revisit that topic with our new awareness, to add more value, because maybe you were struggling with then, struggling with it then, maybe somebody else is struggling with it now, who knows? So that's what we're going to talk about tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Stay motivated. Next up on nation.
