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
#1497 - The Difference Between Growing Around It And Growing Through It
Fear is a universal human experience. Everyone, at some point in their lives, has experienced fear. However, the way we handle fear varies greatly. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about how understanding and confronting fear can alter our perspective and behavior toward others and ourselves. Much like allergy shots help build resistance, exposure therapy can shrink fear to a manageable size. The more familiar we become with our fear, the less intimidating it becomes. Self-acceptance is a vital tool for personal growth and is critical to overcoming fear. By accepting ourselves, we are better equipped to face our fears and make choices not dictated by them.
Links mentioned:
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Optimal Step-by-step Tutorial - https://youtu.be/twXmXFWG0Co
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Website 💻 http://www.nextleveluniverse.com
The best way to track your habits is here! Download the app: Optimal - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/optimal/
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Show notes:
[5:15] Dip your toes in the pool of fear
[11:42] The deepest pain people experience
[13:23] Nicole shares how Kevin and the Next Level Podcast Solutions team seamlessly help her with her podcast and provide a fantastic experience.
[18:30] Everyone is afraid to be embarassed
[21:30] Identify your fear
[23:46] 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 1496. Three phrases to avoid if you're trying to improve your fitness game today. Repso number 1497 happy Sunday the difference between growing around it and growing through it.
Speaker 1:I have spent a lot of time over the last six years, seven years, fear chasing and Trying to be very vulnerable with my insecurities and trying to be very vulnerable with what scares me, with the hope that if I become aware of what is holding me back, I can try to overcome it. And I've done a lot of work around that and it's been very challenging, it's been very Heavy, it's been very scary to do a lot of the growth that I've had the opportunity and necessity to do. And it's almost like when you, when you grow a lot and you face a lot of your fears and you start to understand your insecurities, you can really look at someone else and say, oh my goodness, that fear that you have is hurting you dramatically and Unless you face that fear, you're kind of gonna be stuck at this level forever. You're kind of going to be stuck Behind this fear for your entire life. Because Fears are this weird thing where you're either afraid when you think about it and you just stay afraid, thinking about it forever and it becomes a fence that you're not allowed to cross. Or you're afraid when you're doing it, but the next time you think about it you're less afraid because you have.
Speaker 1:You have experience with doing it, and when I was thinking about this episode, I wrote something down when it comes to fear, when it comes to insecurities, when it comes to uncertainty, you have two options you can either overcome it or you can stay under it. If you have an insecurity that you never face, that insecurity is always gonna be over your head. But if you overcome it, you become aware and then you can actually live your life with the understanding that, yes, this is something I'm afraid of, it is something that I'm insecure about, but I either let it control me or I let it coexist with who I am and who I'm becoming. I know in the back in the day, alan used to use the example of Horses that are afraid of cars and trucks. What they would do is they would tie them up by the highway, they would tie them to a stake by the highway so they could get used to cars going by them, and they would get what's called exposure therapy Exposed, being exposed to something that scares you in doses that are actually beneficial.
Speaker 1:So, if you think a bit, think of it from an allergy standpoint. What oftentimes what happens is, when you have an allergy is, in order to overcome the allergy, you get micro dose and micro dose, and micro dose and micro dose and micro dose the Used to actually do that.
Speaker 2:Did you do that? I used to get allergy shots, yeah yeah, and then I was slowly up the dose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so all that is is it's kind of a layer or a level of exposure therapy. It really is one time they gave me too much.
Speaker 2:I had to go to the ER the the campus, not the ER. We went to the campus ER, I guess you would call it and I had to get an epi-pen.
Speaker 1:Stay away from whoever was doing that. Thank you very much. Too much too much of the allergy big pass. Yeah, well, that's that.
Speaker 2:So I was like hmm, I don't know if this is good. I was already, my throat was Closing and I was well, that's that's your anxiety zone.
Speaker 1:So yeah, in exposure therapy you can go too far. For sure, you go from not thinking you can be a speaker to getting on stage in front of 15,000 people and that's probably too much. That's probably too much exposure, definitely not a beneficial amount, but it really is a simple thought, the reason I wanted to do this episode. A simple thought, but it's super powerful, unless you start dipping your toe into the pools of fear that are running you. You, unfortunately, you're gonna be stuck relatively close to where you are today, because many of the reasons we don't do things are Revolving around the fears that we have about those things. For me, for the longest time I had the fear of flying. I still do. This is the thing. If, if you came to me and said how did you overcome the fear of flying, I would say I haven't. I'm still afraid. I don't enjoy it. I'm nervous pretty much the whole time when I'm in the air. I don't like it. I get anxious when I'm traveling. I get anxious tonight before. I get anxious when I'm getting on the plane. It's just way less than it used to be. It's just way less because I'm more familiar with the feelings and when I think about it. I have a reference point. So Tara and I are going to Scotland next year. My reference point is I've flown to England before. It was terrible, but I've flown a lot of other places since then and I feel it used to be maybe a level 10 out of 10 fear. Now it's probably a level 5 out of 10 fear, but that's not because I didn't do it, it's because I did it enough to move the level down. That's really my thought for this episode.
Speaker 1:Fear is this weird thing where when we run from it, it's almost like it gets bigger. It's almost like the further away you get from the fear, the more you run from it, the more you try to avoid it, ignore it. It almost gets bigger, because it's that monster in the closet that isn't really a monster. We just have never opened the door, turned the light on, sat with it. We've never looked under the bed. As kids we think there's monsters under the bed when we're kids. So anytime you hear a noise, you think it's the monster. Anytime you see a shadow or something, you think it's the monster, when in reality, if we face the fear and looked under the bed, that would change our lives in a way, and that's kind of the analogy for this example or the analogy for this episode, sorry, go ahead oh my god.
Speaker 2:No, you're good, you're good. I keep interrupting kev this week on episode. Earlier this week you talked about batman. Doesn't batman correct me if I'm wrong the one movie kevin knows more than me? Okay, uh, doesn't batman Super afraid of bats? Like, turn that fear into power or something? That's kind of he exposes himself to it on purpose. That's why he becomes the Batman. Yeah, because his deepest fear is that cave with bats when he was a kid, and so, in order to overcome his fear, he becomes the very thing he's afraid of, to like you know, and he turns that against the villains. That's kind of a cool analogy, just wanted to add.
Speaker 1:That's all you have.
Speaker 2:That's. There's my next level, nugget nice nice, one of the team members reached out and said best next level nugget ever Batman.
Speaker 1:That was a plan, that was the plan. I don't know. It's just. It's one of those weird things where it it almost sounds too simple. It almost it almost sounds too simple. The only way to become more confident is to do things that you don't feel confident at and Then eventually, you feel a little more confident, a little more confident. A little more confident If you're growing around something. Maybe that's a good, maybe that's a good analogy or maybe that's a good frame for this. If You're growing around something, that means you're evolving and you're elevating, you're going higher and higher and higher and higher.
Speaker 1:The problem is the hole that used to be three feet is now 12 feet away because you're growing. But that hole never got filled in. So it's not like, if You're lacking confidence in a certain arena, if you're lacking Courage in a certain arena, facing other fears might not help. That fear or accomplishing Things that are easy for you aren't gonna fix the things that aren't. They mean. Really think about it. Your fear is a three-foot hole, three feet deep. Three feet deep, okay, three feet deep hole, the thing you're really good at. You're at five feet, so there is Eight feet between where you are in the bottom of that hole, the thing you get really good at you get really really good at. Now You're ten feet up. Now it's 13 feet between where you are in that hole. It actually gets harder to face that fear as you get more successful in other arenas. In this you think analogy.
Speaker 2:You and I have talked a lot about this. Do you think that's why sometimes, really, really, really, really Successful people who appear to have the best lives ever take their own lives?
Speaker 1:I don't. I think a lot of it is the external Think of someone like Robin Williams. It's almost like the way dead poet society.
Speaker 2:recently it's like Tyrone wants me to watch it. I haven't seen it.
Speaker 1:It's so good. I know she's with her on that. It's real good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know again remember it's in the 80s, like late 80s, so it'll be fascinating from that sense because it's not like a period piece here I am geeking out about movies again. It's not a period piece about the 80s. It's actually filmed in the 80s so you'll see the real what it was like back then. It's a really good film.
Speaker 1:I'm with her, yeah she wants me to see it. I'd say I know it's heavy, though it's serious. It's a serious film. I wasn't, I've been, I've been Halloween try. I watched Freddy versus Jason the other night. What a great movie.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, tonight I'm gonna have a me night.
Speaker 1:I think I'm gonna watch the most recent Friday, the 13th, I believe. I don't know yet. I don't know yet, but again, I don't very constructive yes, only I only watch educational content always. I have a soft spot for horror movies, for sure it's. It's hard to speak on something like that because I don't know what kind of Mental things were going on with with, like a Robin Williams.
Speaker 2:But it's almost like you said the external results are so much Different than the internal feelings. That's what.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's probably so hard to love yourself as much as other people loved him.
Speaker 2:He's one of the most loved actors, comedians, people, artists of all time yeah if you don't have that type of love for yourself, I imagine it has to be very, very, very triggering If you don't look at yourself the way everybody else, because the external world and the internal world are outside of alignment, and this is I'm not a clinician, but speaking from a clinician's perspective, with all the psychology I've studied the deepest pain that humans have is when the internal world and the external world don't match, and that's it's one of those things kind of like when you outgrow the small pot.
Speaker 2:So, for example, let's say you go, let's say you go on a 10-year journey and you grow and you evolve and you change and you read tons of books and you take tons of courses and you work on yourself and you have a great relationship, and it's just this unbelievable growth journey of challenge and growth. And then you go back to an old world and you go back to like your hometown, if you think of, like Forrest Gump when she went back to her hometown and she, like threw rocks at the place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of like imagine that you go back and now you have this new awareness and you're this new person, but you go back to an old environment that no longer is vibrating at the same level of where you are now. If you were to stay there, how could you not be depressed? Because you outgrew that place, you outgrew those people, you outgrew the the that environment. It's like if you, if you go all the way back to an old environment as an, as a new version of you.
Speaker 2:I had a friend who used to say you can be a tourist, you just can't move in. I really liked that. You can be a tourist, you can go back, for sure, and you can go vacation there, and and and I think there's benefits to that, because you really learn a lot about yourself when you go. I mean, kevin and I, on a father's day a couple of years ago, we went to fish at the old lake that I grew up on and I remember that was big for me. But if I had stayed there, if I had stayed in that environment for a long time, I bet you I would have gotten depressed because, I outgrew that place, you know it makes sense.
Speaker 1:There's. I think there's a lot that goes into it. I think there's a lot that goes into it. But the whole thought is you can either grow through something or you can grow around it, and if you grow around it, it doesn't make it better. It probably makes it worse in the long run. That's what I would say. You hear a lot about imposter syndrome. That's a question I get often on other shows, like how did you overcome imposter syndrome? I didn't. I just became more friendly with it. I still have moments of that. I'm going next week. I'm going to New Jersey and Connecticut to help clients set up their podcast stuff and there is a piece of me that's like nervous about that. I know, I know, but it's. It's what if I don't have an answer to a question.
Speaker 2:There's like a little tiny part of you that is afraid everyone's going to find out that you're not. You know what you, even though you are, but that's. I think that's your exile, that's, we all have an exile, which is our deepest fear, and it's the fear of not being good enough. Yeah, or disappointing Everyone's going to find out that you know, cav, you don't belong here. Blah, blah, blah, when in reality that's all just fear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but if I don't face that fear, it's going to run me. It's going to run me it. I don't know why it's set up this way. It just is. It's set up where the things that you're afraid of the most, the things that you avoid the most, the things that you want the least, are usually the things you have to get through to get to the next level. I know it sucks, it does kind of suck, yeah, it does kind of suck, but that's why growth is so hard. That's why we we're very heavy. If you look at the last episode, it's almost like if, if getting results when it comes to fitness and nutrition and exercise and health was easy everyone would have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there wouldn't be any confusion around it. Yeah, and there wouldn't be any resistance, there wouldn't be any challenge, it wouldn't matter. There was a. I saw something the other day where NASA just found this giant asteroid that has like gold, platinum, silver copper and it's something like 10,000 quadrillion dollars. If we were able to like, get this thing Nice and I'm on it.
Speaker 1:And it said everybody on the planet would be able to get at least a billion dollars, and the first comment was I know that sounds really good, but if everybody on the planet got a billion dollars, then there would be, it wouldn't matter. It doesn't matter, because that's just like we'd all have the same amount of money and the whole thing would happen again.
Speaker 2:I? I'll be brief about this, kev, because I know we got it. We got to jump soon, but when I was a fitness coach and I used to speak on fitness, I used to have the five fundamental pillars of natural fitness very, very sexy title and Sleep, hydration, nutrition, training and mobility. What a total shocker. Right? Secrets? No so, but I used to say this I used to say what's the most? And I did this with every client and I had dozens of clients and I said what is the most? Because I was trying to get through. You know, like listen, let's cut the BS. Like here's the truth.
Speaker 2:What is the most desirable aspect of a physique? Guess what? The answer was with every human, every single time abs, abs. I said here's why they're the hardest to get and even harder to sustain. They're the rarest. And they're the rarest because they're the hardest. I said what if and I did this on stage once, I don't know if it ever landed, but whatever I, I literally said what if, tomorrow, everyone woke up with ripped eight pack abs? Guess what? No one would care anymore, it wouldn't matter. No one would be filtering their photos to make sure they're Better. Someone would be filtering their photos for 12 pack instead of eight pack, because that's how you get quote unquote significance. So here's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2:The rarest things in life are rare for a reason, and it's because they're difficult to get. It's because they they require you to face your fears. They require you to do things you don't want to do. And so, kev, you're gonna go to that place. You're gonna go to that place and build that studio. But if you allowed your exile to run you, your fear, your, your fear of not being good enough to run you, you would avoid that for sure. You would avoid it because you're so afraid to be found out. I'm not good enough, I'm. They're gonna ask me a question that I'm not gonna know and I'm gonna look bad, I'm gonna be embarrassed. Everyone's afraid to be embarrassed. Everybody, everybody's afraid to be embarrassed. Some of us are just aware enough to go. You know what? I'm probably gonna get pretty embarrassed here, but I got to do it anyway because my dreams could require it. You know, I mean, the world is full of people that have made huge blunders some, some of them on national television, right but those people took a risk, and that's what it takes. And so the last piece I want to share here is I Think that all of us are deeply fearful.
Speaker 2:I never used to identify as someone who was deeply fearful. The truth was is I didn't identify as deeply fearful because I didn't have the same Fears as most people. I didn't realize that until recently. Kevin, I don't, because people would always tell me like I'm afraid of you know, buh-buh-buh-buh-buh, and it's like well, I'm not afraid of that stuff, I'm afraid of other stuff. Like, honestly, I'm afraid that everyone's gonna think I'm arrogant. Definitely. No one else said that. No one else is like I'm really afraid, I'm gonna come off arrogant. No one else ever said that. So I didn't think I was that afraid. You know, I am definitely.
Speaker 2:For the people out there who who are fearful that's everyone you have to identify what the fear is, because that messed me up for a long time. I didn't get it, I didn't understand. It's like, well, I'm not afraid of that. That doesn't mean I'm not fearful, it just means I'm not afraid of the same things as other people. And so, whether it's embarrassment, judgment, rejection, not good enough, unlovable, whatever it is, figure out the core, because then you're going to be able to take back control of your own life. But if you keep unconsciously running from something that you don't think you're afraid of, you're, you're going to be.
Speaker 1:Jeff, if you, you have two opportunities you either overcome it or you stay under it. I'm convinced of that. I'm convinced, a 100% convinced of that. You either live under the umbrella or you walk out into the rain and then look up and see what's up there. But you can't see what's up there if you live under the umbrella, unfortunately. And then the other thing is, if you're always living under the umbrella, you never get the sun either. When it stops raining and it's sunny, the umbrella blocks that too. So that's the beauty of fear chasing is you get opportunities, you get results that you quite literally never could get, because when you face the fear, it opens up a lot of other opportunities. I face one fear of flying. Now, how many things are possible? Oh, there's a speech here. There's a speech here. There's a client here. We're going to get married here. We're going to vacation here. It's completely different.
Speaker 2:You face the fear of speaking to different life.
Speaker 1:You face the fear of speaking. You can do social media content, you get to get different jobs, you can start a podcast and start a YouTube channel, whatever it is. The whole, yeah, your whole life would be different because of that. One fear can change a lot for you. What's your next level, nugget? Sir? That is my next level, nugget. You either overcome or you stay under fears and securities.
Speaker 2:My next level nugget is identify what the fear actually is, because it might be different than other people, and if you feel like you're not fearful, just try to be honest with yourself because you are. I mean, you just are. I've coached a lot of people at this stage and everyone's fearful. They're just fearful of very different things. Some people are afraid of success genuinely. Other people are afraid of failure. Figure out which end you're on and work from there.
Speaker 1:As always, if you have not joined our private Facebook group Next Level Nation yet, please do. If you're looking for a group of like minded humans who are into growth, they practice vulnerability and they want to get to the next level, that is a great place for you. As always, the link will be in the show notes and we would love to have you there.
Speaker 2:The other day this was Tuesday, I believe, or Wednesday Our app went down. We have an app called Optimal. It's a habit tracking app to keep you on track. It's a habit tracking app to keep you on track towards your dreams, and it went down. And the good news about that is that a bunch of people reached out and said, hey, by the way, hey, by the way, hey, by the way, which was cool for us Because it's like, holy crap, awesome, people are using this thing.
Speaker 2:So the app is back up, we have paid our bills and if you want to use the app, if you want to track habits, it starts you out at three habits simple, simple, simple. And it's green light, yellow light, red light. You get green if you kind of do the habit, you get yellow. If you don't, you get red. So, for example, 15 minutes of mobility is one of your habits and you do 10 minutes, you'd get, you know, a yellow. If you do 15 plus minutes, you'd get green. If you didn't do it at all, like me, you'd get red. A lot of red lights on my app. If you want to check it out, you can look at my Instagram story. I'm actually tracking habits every single day on the app leading by example, and I put a post every single day of what my habits are and hashtag habit tracking.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow for episode number 1498, an important lesson for perfectionists. I've been working with many perfectionists as of late and I've learned many lessons. I do not identify myself as a perfectionist. I do prefer messy action usually, but I do understand why not everybody is that way. So we will talk about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and an NLU. We do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Keep facing those fears Next up on nation bill.
