Next Level University

#1483 - What's The Most Powerful Thing You Learned About Yourself Recently

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Do you ever feel like you're missing out on something better? That's FOMO or Fear of Missing Out. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about defining your core values and interests to understand what you want versus what you think you want. They discuss the 'the grass is always greener' concept, emphasizing that even seemingly perfect situations have their battles. They also point out how it's essential to consider if we would have FOMO for the process. This perspective helps us recognize the realities behind the seemingly glamorous outcomes and keeps us grounded in our journey.

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Show notes: 
[3:20] Kevin fears disappointing people
[8:11] Alan is affected by people who out at him
[10:59] Alex highlights how Next Level Business Solutions helped him optimize his time for maximum productivity
[12:00] Core wounds
[18:11] Self-awareness is everything
[22:00] 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 1482 the fear of missing out and what to do about it. Today. For episode number 1483 happy Sunday. What's the most powerful thing you've learned about yourself recently?

Speaker 1:

So, as I've mentioned in several previous episodes this week, this week has been a heavy one for me. Things have been growing very quickly and With growth there usually comes opportunities for feedback, and I've gotten a lot of feedback over the last four to six days and it got to the point where I started asking myself when someone comes to me and says hey, I'm disappointed in blank, why does that take me off the rails completely? It's really hard for me. It's. It's so incredibly humbling and it's really hard for me to Put on a smile and then go do the next thing. So say, I wake up to a message of hey, kev, I'm a little disappointed at the way something is.

Speaker 1:

That's like 7 am. I still got to get to 6 pm that night and that is really, really challenging to put on a smile and try to be Positive and add value and be inspirational and just be next level. It's, it's really, really challenging. So I started thinking about it. And then Alan and I, after the monthly meet-up, we always do a post meeting, usually with Jesse, but Jesse couldn't make it, so Alan and I just jammed together and we were just talking about all sorts of different stuff and Alan was talking about internal family systems, which is, it's, a modality of therapy. Is that correct?

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm and one of the things was the exile. I can, you can, you can go through it. But I Said, dude, I think one of the issues that I'm having is when people reach out to me and say I'm quote-unquote disappointed, that pokes my biggest fear, that pokes my my biggest insecurity, that pokes my biggest uncertainty point and it just takes me off the rails. And then we, I just thought about it and thought about it, thought about and I said, oh, my goodness, you know why I do so well with coaches? Because I don't want to disappoint them. The reason I did really well with a fitness coach is because I didn't want to disappoint them, and I've mentioned this story in the podcast before, where I dieted through like two birthday parties a wedding, my own birthday and the 4th of July for one of my shows.

Speaker 1:

And On the 4th of July, my partner and I at the time her family rented this mansion down in province town and for those of you who don't know, province town is a big, it's a beach town and we went down to the beach and there were people having bonfires and s'mores and I remember I had like two s'mores and a handful of M&Ms and I texted my coach. I was okay, man, I messed up. And he's like what'd you do? And I said I had. I had two s'mores and a handful of m&ms. And he was like, first of all, why did you tell me? And second of all, if you weren't, you I'd probably cut you as a client. So I did something wrong and I said I don't know, I felt like I had to tell you, I felt guilty, I had to tell you. So my biggest fear was disappointing him. I said, alan, how do you think I've made it as long as I have? I don't want to disappoint you. That's why I'm on time. I don't want to disappoint the other person. That's why I am anxious when I'm prepping for things. I'm not anxious prepping for things because I, I, I.

Speaker 1:

Level one is not because I want to do amazing. Level one is because I don't want to disappoint people. So I would rather over prep to the point where it's like okay, I think this will be valuable enough to get by and I'm just realizing how much that's running me and it's powerful. I feel really good about the awareness, even though the awareness is kind of heavy, but it does feel Like there's a lot of opportunity behind that awareness. So Long story short because we don't have a ton of time for this episode. That is the most powerful thing I've learned about myself recently, and I'm connecting dots that I never knew existed. Now I know that I'll be able to Move dots in the future, so I'll be able to connect them differently in the future as well. So what is the most powerful thing you have learned about yourself? That would be my next level nugget slash question.

Speaker 2:

Kevin, I have been doing this business together for six, coming up on seven years, and it's very clear now again, hindsight's 2020, especially with this new awareness, and I think that we've known this iteratively over time. It's not like this is Just a major breakthrough, where we had no inkling of this whatsoever prior to that conversation, but during that conversation it was very much a deeper understanding of that, of okay, that's definitely a thing. So for you, I think it's getting in trouble. It feels a lot like getting in trouble, probably, so probably when you were a kid, you associated a lot of pain, emotional pain, to getting in trouble.

Speaker 1:

I think it's the disappointment thing.

Speaker 2:

Because there was there someone. You get trouble. I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. Tara and I have been talking about me getting a therapist. So I think that's the next step and I'm not against it at all. I'm excited to do it. It's just been a time thing, a time thing, but I remember I used to, when I was in like middle school, my buddy Rob and I used to throw erasers around the room. We just like throw erasers at the wall and one time we got caught and I just couldn't stop laughing. When I get in trouble, I laugh. Usually that's just my, that's my trauma response. When I get, when I get, feedback of disappointment, I do not laugh at all it. I get this pit in my stomach and it's just everything is wrong and everything is broken and I'm going to fail. That's, it's different. It's different. Do?

Speaker 2:

you have any memories from childhood that where you had Someone say they were disappointed in you. That was like really devastated.

Speaker 1:

No, but I would probably connect it back to, I don't know, my my dad leaving, maybe. Maybe I thought he was disappointed in me, so he left. That's the the best I can connect it to you now. Yeah, not good enough.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, to stay like you weren't good enough.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, disappointed in who I was, even though I was literally pooping my pants as a baby. Wasn't a lot going on up here?

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

And, by the way, for the listeners, none of this is rational yeah and so Kevin asked me before this episode, what's the main thing that I learned about myself lately? And it's Something that I learned in general, but it's definitely something that I learned about myself. So I don't, I don't feel like I'm super concerned about disappointing other people. I feel like I disappoint people all the time. It doesn't seem to affect me a ton. Obviously it does a little bit, but what does affect me a lot is when people Lash out at me, or so there's this one person that Kevin and I both Witnessed, really, really, really attacked my character, probably a year or two ago, and he said do you think, on any level, the reason why you're so affected by that? Because it didn't affect you at all. And you also said, granted, she was attacking you, not me. So but do you really think that the reason why you, you know, allow that attack to affect you so much is because maybe on some deep level, you believe it, even if it's not true? And I sat with that for a while and it's intellectually. I definitely don't believe it. You know. I'm let's just think for a second like Alan Are you a good person? Intellectually, it's yes, absolutely. Spiritually it's of course. Emotionally, it's like and I told Kevin this. I said I Now realize that when I, when you have really high self-belief and I hope some of our listeners are starting to connect some dots here when you have really high self-belief and you're Really smart or maybe really good-looking, or maybe you really whatever, whatever you are, whatever your greatness is, whatever that is, whenever you're really a lot too much of something, I think that you poke the insecurities of other people's not good enough, and the way they handle that is either they attack you or they avoid you, both of which Affect me a lot, and I said this to Kev. I said, kev, it's hard to believe Sometimes that you're not Bad or whatever, when you've been attacked kind of your whole life.

Speaker 2:

And it wasn't until recently, the last, really my 30s, where I started looking around at these other people that are also so amazing, emilia being the best example beautiful, sweet, virtuous. I've never seen her do an unkind thing, literally. On Tuesday she said I need spider-man, like a funny joke across the house and she sent me a picture of a spider up in her A corner of her office and I had like a red shirt. So I came in spider-man. You know it's funny, I end up getting the spider, but she doesn't want me to kill it. Like that's the level of cute and sweet that she is. I don't kill the spider, just get him the fuck out of here, right? So, anyways, I end up taking the spider outside, all good, but that's the level of sweet that Emilia is. I've never seen her hurt an animal, a human, nothing like she's just the sweetest thing.

Speaker 2:

But yet she gets attacked and and I just couldn't understand it. It makes no sense to me, like why are these people so mean to you? It makes no sense. And Now I kind of get it. You can't do that.

Speaker 2:

Emilia is beautiful, she's brilliant, she's ridiculously hardworking, she's charismatic, she's all this amazingness. And if someone is insecure, whether it's conscious or not, being around her would be hard for them, and sometimes they avoid her and sometimes they attack her and sometimes they're emotionally mature adults who actually coexist with her and are okay with themselves. So I think that there's two main core wounds we all have, and I think Kevin and I have opposite core wounds, even though they stem from very similar childhoods. This core wound, I do believe, stems from not good enough and I think that underneath that is, you didn't really believe in yourself a ton. I don't think you believed you were amazing. I don't think you believed that you were better than I, don't think that you believed you were special or any of that. That's my Freudian analysis here.

Speaker 2:

For me I kind of had the opposite and for our listeners I hope you're thinking about yourself, not us. Mine is I always felt I don't. I don't feel like I ever struggled with self belief. I didn't. I didn't struggle with self belief. I thought that I was great. I thought I was smart, I thought I was intelligent, I thought I was capable. I really did. I, you know, right, wrong or indifferent, I still do. It's just what I believe now.

Speaker 2:

But I don't feel like I easily fit in. I don't feel like I'm easily likable. I don't feel like I feel like I've always been the guy that behind my back people don't like me. And Kevin is the opposite. He didn't believe in himself, but he doesn't feel he feels easily likable. He feels like you know he's a, he's a good guy. He feels like you know he can fit in pretty much anywhere. He goes into XYZ.

Speaker 2:

So I feel like there's two core wounds to my original point, which is either not good enough, meaning you just don't believe in yourself. So if you're out there listening and you and you think you're on this end, maybe you're not good enough, maybe you're not smart enough, maybe you're not attractive enough, maybe you're not hard working enough, maybe you're not, if any of that is resonating on the emotional level, remember, intellectually you can know you're good enough. This is emotional, we're talking about emotional things here. But if any of that resonates, most likely you're on Kevin's end of the drive to five and that's okay, but we gotta address that. If you don't feel like you're not good enough, you feel like you're good enough, smart enough, good looking enough, like you feel like you're super capable, you feel like you can do almost anything you really want to if you really work hard enough, too good, too capable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. If that resonates, you're most likely on my end of drive to five and most likely you feel deep down unlovable. And I think the reason why and I've broken down some statistics on this I think like 90 plus percent of the population has the core wound of not good enough Meaning. They just they've lived lives of what Freud called quiet desperation. They don't believe in themselves and they don't really know what to do about it. So when they're alone they're very unfulfilled and they're very struggling. They don't know what to do and how to. They want a better life. They just don't really believe they can get one and that doesn't resonate with me whatsoever.

Speaker 2:

When I'm alone, I'm like the happiest person in the entire world and I feel like I can just set my mind and do, within reason, pretty much whatever I want. I remember when I was 11 years old it was going to be lawyer, politician, president, or it was going to be engineer, you know, mba, ceo of a tech company like my hero, steve Jobs. That was my genuine thought process, regardless of anyone else. I wasn't saying that to be cool, if anything, when I said that I was ostracized, but I remember actually making the conscious choice when I was 11 years old. I don't want to be president, you know I don't think I want to. And then that really solidified after that court case when I was a lawyer. Look man.

Speaker 1:

I've watched a lot of court cases since then. I may have thrown the case. That's my bad. Now I know.

Speaker 2:

Kev was on the jury of a mock court case. He might have changed my life, but it's all good. I changed.

Speaker 1:

I just knew I was like 15 years from today, I might want to start a podcast. I'm going to need this guy. You suck as a lawyer. Don't be one. Yeah, yeah, don't be one.

Speaker 2:

I was in a full suit, so anyways, I was a too much or from the get man. I'll tell you what full suit in school. But that's the two core wounds. Mine.

Speaker 2:

I never really understood because intellectually it didn't make any sense. But I feel like I'm not an easily lovable person and whenever people take away love or they attack my character or they attack me, it does. It affects me a lot and I think the old me in my late 20s and early 20s. I don't feel like I wanted to admit that and now, as I have matured emotionally, it's very clear to me that my friends and my family, whenever they would really hurt me or attack me or make fun of me or whatever it really affected me a lot more than I thought. Unfortunately, now I have started setting boundaries and just staying away from anyone who's like that, basically.

Speaker 2:

But I think we all have one of two core wounds you either don't feel good enough and don't believe in yourself enough, or you believe in yourself plenty and you know you're amazing, but you just struggle to fit in unless you dial yourself down all the time and most likely you feel unlovable on some level because you don't naturally fit in If you do have high self belief and you are super capable, you don't fit in, you're on the minority.

Speaker 2:

It's a smaller percentage of the population. So you know, if you find yourself very, very and then some people are kind of both, you ping pong between both, and I think we all ping pong between both to an extent, but I think it's, I think it's one or the other. So for Kev, I think not believing in himself and not being good enough was his number one and then number two, he also struggled with self worth, whereas for me, I think I always believed in myself but I had low self worth, and so you kind of can have a percentage of each of these. So maybe you're 80, 20, 80% not believing in yourself, not good enough, 20% unlovable. For me it's 80% unlovable, maybe 20% not good enough. I don't think that's my percentages, but the point is, is self awareness here, and I hope that this resonates with some people.

Speaker 1:

Have you one today? Have you one today? But very necessary it's. Somebody asked me yesterday what's? Why is self awareness so valuable? It's like, how much time do we have? I'm nearly 15 minutes left in this interview. It's everything. It's everything because what's going to happen to you is going to happen to you and again, don't, don't focus too much on the words I say, but maybe hopefully the point will land what happens to you is going to happen to you, how you see it is going to be drastically different depending on your self awareness. So the next time somebody reaches out to me actually happened after I had this awareness. Somebody reached out with some disappointment and I said, okay, in my head, I'm feeling. I'm feeling some type of way, everything is fine. I am going to overreact, naturally, but I know, knowing that I overreact, I can try to level that out a little bit, and it was the best experience I've had with disappointment ever, probably. So progress happens when awareness happens, and then awareness creates an opportunity and then a commitment creates progress.

Speaker 2:

So if any of our listeners really, really want to be malicious reach out to Kevin and myself, email us, say Alan, you are the worst person ever of all time and Kevin, I'm wildly disappointed in that episode. This is this is my joke. We will delete the email and pretend it didn't exist.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I couldn't, I can't read it. I've been saying this on other podcasts. One of my, one of my fears is disappointing people. And I say that and I'm afraid somebody will meet me and say I wish he paid more attention to me, I wish he was kinder. And I always say if you think I'm six foot two, you will be disappointed. If you meet me in person, I'm 100%.

Speaker 2:

I'm five foot four.

Speaker 1:

Do not expect me to be taller than you if you're taller than five foot four, because you will leave disappointed. Okay, we have to go because it is 9 57 AM as of the time of this recording and I think we both have calls at 10. Next, all the nation. If you haven't joined our private Facebook group, next level nation, please do. This is a place where you can feel safe, and as safe as Alan and I feel when we have very deep, close to the heart episodes like this. I want next level nation to be that place for you. It's private, so you can feel safe, not so you can jump over a wall to get in. So link will be in the show notes. We'd love to have you there.

Speaker 2:

Group coaching closes on Tuesday, group 12. We've done 11 other groups. This is the 12th group 10 like minded individuals, 90 days, six sessions. Kevin mentioned self awareness a lot on this episode. You are going to become more self aware. You are going to become more others conscious. You are going to understand the world and how it works better. Therefore, you can make more effective decisions within it.

Speaker 2:

Group coaching Honestly, the. With the promo code, it's 30% off NLU listener. It will be in the show notes. You can lock your spot right now. Group coaching the value for the price point is genuinely insane. There is no I will put this out there. There is no place where you can get more value for less money than I've ever seen, ever anywhere on the internet. I have a course right now that I pay a ridiculous amount of money for. It's thousands of dollars. Group coaching is only $97 a month for three months. The value for the price point is genuinely insane. We do that because we want to see you flourish, so I hope that you join and we will see you on Tuesday.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1484, why being vulnerable is so hard. I've been talking about this a lot on podcasts and I have a really good analogy, I think, for why vulnerability seems impossible for some of us later in life and even if you're young. I promise we'll make the dots connect for you as always. We love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we can honor fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Self-awareness is everything. See you next. Love an nation.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host