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
#1487 - Make More Time To Practice Your Passions
Have you ever wondered why we sometimes hide our passions and hobbies from the world? Is it the fear of criticism or the terror of revealing our authentic selves? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about the complexities of juggling passions, societal expectations, and intrinsic insecurities. They discuss how embracing and showing our passions allows us to live more authentically and paves the way for personal branding, forming meaningful bonds, and discovering unexpected opportunities.
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Show notes:
[2:25] Some people don't seem to practice their passions
[6:20] Sharing our passions to the world
[9:01] Alicia offers a moving testament to the transformative power of group coaching and the significant personal growth she experienced
[12:19] Labels come with expectations
[14:52] We're afraid of failing the expectations
[19:06] 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. It was episode number 1486. Are you self sabotaging your own success? A lot of s's in that title today for episode number 1487? Make more time to practice your passions. So this is gonna be a quick hitter. I think we have, I don't know, twelve minutes, something like that, on the clock. I was thinking the other day, alan, I was.
Speaker 1:So you and I have a lot of conversations around Group coaching, as we mentioned the previous episode, and I was in my Facebook Messenger and I was going back to old messages, checking on people who said, hey, reach out for the next group. And I came across a conversation I had with someone I dated a while ago and I was just going through for nostalgia and and it's. It was always strange to me when you would say, hey, what are you into like, what do you do in your free time? What are your passions, what are you super passionate about? And Everybody would always say hiking.
Speaker 1:For some reason, everybody would say I love hiking, huge fan of hiking. Okay, then you get to know the person and they never go hiking ever. You've never seen them hike a day in your life. Or somebody might say I love painting, I'm deeply passionate about painting. That's awesome, I love that. But I've never seen you paint ever in my entire life. And it made me question one of two things one either they're just saying that because they think that's what you want you they, they think that's what you want to hear, or they just aren't able to make enough time for their passions. And I think from that frame we have an amazing human who comes in, has pretty much become the NLU photographer. Shout out to Melissa.
Speaker 2:Melissa yeah.
Speaker 1:Melissa clearly made time to practice her passion for a long enough period of time where, eventually, we saw her and we said we would love for you to Be the person who captures our amazing she posts new photos on Facebook all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why we know it's so smart, I wonder.
Speaker 1:So that that's an early next level nugget for me is Next time somebody says to you and maybe you're in a relationship and you're not single so you don't have these questions being asked often, I don't know but next time somebody says to you what are your passions? And you answer in your mind ask yourself a question of when's the last time I actually practice that passion. I Often say in other podcasts Wrapping, I love wrapping, I love mixed martial arts. Those are two things I'm very passionate about. I watch UFC every Saturday, every Saturday, every Saturday that's on pretty much and I wrap I don't know a couple times a month, depending on how busy I am.
Speaker 1:I'm not really that Pat white-spout about, I'm just happy. Okay, I'm great, I'm grateful, you're happy. I Don't really say that I'm passionate about Other stuff really, because I'm not in a way. So I'm very passionate about like a handful of things and I really try to practice those things. So that would be my early next level nugget is next time someone says, hey, what are you passionate about? And you rifle through maybe your three to five answers. A Good self-awareness task would be on a scale of one to ten how much time am I actually putting into the things that I'm passionate about and what I'd be more fulfilled if I was doing that?
Speaker 2:I Think that a lot of us are scared to share our passions with people. I Know a lot of people who are passionate for so. For example, one person in book clubs super passionate about drawing, painting and art but doesn't Is scared to show it. It's kind of revealing a part of our cell, like so I just recently started calling myself a movie buff. I've been a movie buff my entire life, obsessed. I absolutely adore movies, always have, but I don't share that. I don't know why. Maybe we're afraid to be judged.
Speaker 1:Maybe Maybe we're afraid that you have to share it publicly.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't think so. I just think that if we did, we would be fair. I my thesis on this episode is I think we're hiding behind closed doors. Me watching movies by myself is not gonna be ridiculed. So I think my thesis is that we hide true parts of us and only the people who live with us or know us really well really know the real us and I think that that's because we're afraid to be ridiculed and judged and criticized, and I think that's understandable, because we do. It's like if I'm a movie buff and I say I'm a movie buff, what's gonna happen? What's really cool is similar to Melissa with photography. Melissa posts photos all the time, so when we have an event and we need a photographer, we're gonna think of Melissa. It makes perfect sense. The law of attraction works when you do that.
Speaker 2:Ever since I've been calling myself a movie buff, I've had team members reaching out saying hey, have you seen this movie? Hey, have you seen this movie? You recommended Oppenheimer to me. When we share our passions with the world, we have a chance to get criticized, but we also have a chance to be branded properly. And people reach out to you about the fights mixed martial arts. No one's gonna reach out and say hey, alan, you excited for the card or whatever this weekend, the card, what are you talking about? But they would say hey, are you seeing this new movie coming out, or whatever it is?
Speaker 2:So that would be my next level nugget, which is are you insecure about your passions? The old me would have said no, or I wouldn't have. I may not have said no, but I would have definitely been like I don't think so. I don't think so. I do agree, I am. I think I am insecure about my passions for sure. I don't know why I still haven't figured that out. We'll have to do another episode or something, something at some point. But yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm reluctant to share that. I'm obsessed with personal development. I'm reluctant to share that. I'm obsessed with math and peak performance. I'm I'm obsessed with science, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, physics absolutely obsessed. We have physics books. I'm reading Einstein right now. I read, I'm reading a biography on Albert Einstein right now. I don't share that because it's weird. And so if you're listening or watching this, how are people supposed to know who to go to for your uniqueness If you, if you don't share your uniqueness? But I do understand that is weird I'm. I think there's a part of us that doesn't want to share it. I think there's a part of us that's insecure about it. I think there's a part of us that's afraid to be ridiculed or unloved or I don't know. Maybe there's a part of us that doesn't want other people to ruin it. You know, I haven't figured that out, but I would say I think almost everyone is insecure about their passions, unless their passions are popular. If you have a passion but movies are popular, why am I? Why is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't make any sense, yeah. I don't know, I'm working through this in real time. Maybe that doesn't resonate with you, kev, but you seem like someone who's always been sharing. I love mixed martial arts, I love rapping, I love whatever.
Speaker 1:Not always rap. Not always rap, I think, because there's a perceived element of performance. I'm nervous One of my fears when I'm on other podcasts and if I say like yeah, I actually enjoy rapping, that somebody will say, all right, cool, let's, let's hear one. It's like, well, no, that's not. I'm not trying to do that right now. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to do that right now. I'm not in the mood, I'm not in the flow. Like I can't. I'm not a rapper. Yeah you've done that.
Speaker 1:But it's different, it's different with you because you've I mean, you've seen me rap, you've heard me rap. You recorded Eddie and I in Florida when we were doing our song together. So, yeah, that's a piece of it. For me, though, is it's like all right, yeah, let's hear something. Well, no, I'm not. I'm not trying to do that.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, I just had a breakthrough. What do you got man? Kev Allen, kevin and I have joked behind the scenes about this. I'm obsessed with mathematics I always have been but I get simple math wrong sometimes. Yeah, it's that, I think it's that. It's oh Well, you're obsessed with math, but yet you can't add 15 plus 27. Why is Kevin quicker with math than you? When you're the math guy, I think that's what it is. It creep. When you get labeled, it comes with an expectation and then you can let people down. That is a thing. Oh, you're, you're passionate about drawing. Draw me a picture, yeah, yeah, and and you know what it does it builds up expectation. Oh, you're a movie buff. You must have seen boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh, I actually. You know, I haven't actually seen those. I mean, I'm a movie buff, but like, not for those movies. I think we're all just insecure?
Speaker 1:I think so too. I've had those moments. So one of one of my buddies, tony, he's, he's older and he's in his 40s and he loves old-school hip-hop, and last time Tara and I went and saw them, we were listening, so he had his portable speaker out and I was like, yeah, man, I'm just, I'm a huge fan of rap and he pulls up like five songs like you know, this one. I was like I've never heard this in my life. I don't know this is and he's, he's awesome. So he didn't. He didn't make fun of me or anything, but it was like you probably think I'm an idiot, don't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah that's what we do. Think I'm an idiot. You're setting yourself up for future failure. You are. If I say I'm a math buff and I love mathematics and then I get something stupid wrong, I Lose all credibility. It's almost like we're afraid to build ourselves up as, and label us as, these things. Because, because of that, because then someone might expect of us xyz, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1:Do you think one of the reasons is because oftentimes, with our passions, we're not that good at them Because we love them? Not because we're good at them, but because we love them? I Wonder? I mean, it's hard in your case because it's? You have a really good memory, you memorize mostly all the movies, so it's not like but, but here, think about that, right, this is so fascinating I am.
Speaker 2:I can watch a movie a couple times and memorize a lot of it. But if I say that now, you're gonna be like, oh, cote me finding me Doc Saints right.
Speaker 2:What do you got you know? Because I Think that there's truth to that. I I feel like our passions. We don't get good at them because we don't share them. So personal development and self-improvement we share on this podcast, because this is a self-improvement podcast and we're safe doing that, because we're of service to the listeners who also are into self-improvement. If you're not into self-improvement, you would not be listening to us. There are several other options that you could be listening to, but I do. I think that we, you, I think that we are reluctant to share our passions because we're afraid the passions will feel like work. We're afraid other people ridicule us, we're afraid that we'll have big, high expectations. If I say I'm so passionate about speaking, I'm so passionate about oratory and effective communication, I have a score that I do every week and I score myself am I getting better at all this? And then I say I'm 15 times and I give a terrible speech. Oh, I thought you were like the speaker, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Or how many have you spoken in front of like thousands of people before us? Well, yeah, close in total. In all the speeches. Yeah, in total, yeah, all of them in total, what's the biggest audience?
Speaker 2:you've spoken in front of 35. 35 people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you wanna do a part two. You wanna do a part two of this tomorrow.
Speaker 2:I would love to yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll do a part two, cause full disclosure, I don't know what episode we're gonna do next anyway, so tomorrow we'll do a part two of this. All right, we gotta go because you have a coaching call, so we're gonna do a part two of this tomorrow. If you have not joined Next Level Nation yet, please do. If you have a passion, this is a really and this is a really good segue and this is a really good opportunity. If you have a passion that you wanna show off to someone who will not judge you, a safe Facebook group is a great place to do it. Now I'm not saying join and try to sell whatever it is you're doing and we're not talking about that, but gaining support from a community about something you're passionate about. I can't imagine a more positive direction, and I promise Next Level Nation is filled with that.
Speaker 2:One last remaining Next Level Nugget before I do my plug here. I have a person that is trying to write a blog, and this person is super passionate about personal development, about spirituality, about inner work, about confidence, about staying in alignment, and she writes consistently, but she's so scared to publish it. And the reason why, I think, is because when you're so passionate about something and you love something so deeply, it becomes a part of you, and when you put yourself out there and it gets attacked, it feels like you're being attacked. And maybe the deep fear underneath all this is I don't wanna lose my passion. If I'm super passionate about snowboarding or I'm super passionate about basketball and then someone else expects me to be really good and I let them down or I get attacked or made fun of or whatever, it's gonna ruin it for me.
Speaker 2:I think we're afraid it's gonna ruin it. I think that's another fear as well. So my Next Level Nugget is you have to risk being ridiculed or being seen or being criticized in order to really live a wholehearted, fulfilling life of passion, just like we're. Yeah, that's it. I think this is. We hit something good here. This is interesting.
Speaker 1:All right, well, we're gonna do part two tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Speaking of passions, I was on an NLU team huddle. We were talking about something called the Next Level Dreamliner and it sounds like a cruise that you're gonna go on. It's not. It is. I know we gotta jump. It is a planner. I have all these productivity planners behind me that I used to use and it is a dream of mine and to have one of my own and we're having samples made right now and we're working on that right now and it's essentially how do you take your inch pebbles, daily habits, towards your milestones, quarterly goals towards your goals, yearly goals, and how do you climb the mountain towards your own success daily. There's gratitudes in there. There's most important tasks in there. We're very, very excited, so keep an eye out for that. It will be launching within the next month.
Speaker 1:Right on Tomorrow for episode number 1488, we are gonna do Make More Time to Practice your Passions. Part two Guarantee it'll be named that, but it will be an episode based on the episode we did today. 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:Live with passion, next time on Nation.
