Next Level University

#1501 - The Thing That Makes You The Happiest Also Makes You The Saddest?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode. hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about the Happiness-Sadness Paradox, the impact of insecurities on communication, and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. These are fundamental aspects of human existence, often overlooked yet crucial in understanding ourselves and our interactions with others. Recognizing where we stand and how our actions impact others can be a significant step in maintaining healthy relationships and promoting personal growth. These discussions serve as valuable tools for understanding ourselves better and improving our interpersonal dynamics.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Monthly Meetup: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/ The best way to track your habits is here! Download the app: Optimal - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/optimal/
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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Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume

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We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram, or via email

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Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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Show notes:
[3:14] Feeling good yet feeling bad
[7:56] Levels of competence
[13:18] Be great where you are good at
[14:22] John talks about his phenomenal experience working with Kevin and the Next Level Podcast Solutions team
[15:15] Don't get cocky, and you'll be respected
[19:05] Overlooking the natural things
[20:12] Complement your weaknesses and celebrate your strengths
[21:44] Where are you insecure about being not good enough?
[26:37] 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. It was the 1500th episode, the top five lessons from 1500 episodes. Today, for episode number 1,501, we start going back up the hill again. The thing that makes you the happiest also makes you the saddest.

Speaker 1:

My wonderful wife and I, taryn, have been watching a show called Billions on Amazon Prime. I don't know if it was HBO before or Showtime, it's on Amazon Prime now. That's where we watch it. The show is about a very successful investor slash hedge fund owner. You don't really need to know about that, honestly, but he's very wise. He's also kind of arrogant and kind of a dick, but he's very wise in spurts. There is someone that works at this company and they are a genius for sure. They are very intelligent. They are doing more as an intern than people working there for 10 years have done. There's this chess tournament, and this new intern actually happens to be a chess prodigy as well. What a coincidence. And Axelrod, bobby Axelrod, is his name, the main character. What a name, right.

Speaker 2:

Bobby Axelrod.

Speaker 1:

He asks the intern to play in the poker tournament. Poker prodigy, not chess prodigy and less cool, but higher stakes for sure. I've never heard anybody talk about how much money they made in a chess tournament. Those prizes get up there, how much. I couldn't say nowadays Nowadays, what are you 90?

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, no, I read a book home when you were a young lad.

Speaker 1:

how much was it I?

Speaker 2:

don't know. I read a book called the Art of Learning and it was about Josh Whitskin who was a chess prodigy, but it was way back Well this was poker, poker's cool.

Speaker 1:

I used to play a bit of poker in my day as well, and when Bobby Axelrod I'm going to say it like that, just because it sounds cool asks this person to play, they said I don't want to play, I have a negative relationship with poker and every time I play I get super sad. And Bobby says well, you always get sad when you're doing the thing that you're happiest doing. And they said what do you mean? He said well, you're really good at poker and I'm sure you're probably used to winning, and every time you win that means somebody else has to lose and maybe you get villainized for that, maybe other people get triggered for that. Maybe you ask yourself what does that mean about you? The thing that you're really good at, the thing that makes you the happiest winning and playing and competing also hurts other people and makes you the saddest. And I shared that on the team call that we had last Saturday and it seemed to really resonate with everybody that was there and I was thinking back. I was actually telling Tara in the story not long ago.

Speaker 1:

I've always enjoyed martial arts, slash combat sports. I can remember back. I don't know how old I was. This might have been, I don't know, 10 years old, maybe I don't know. I remember my buddy and I were hanging out at his house and we were like we should have a boxing match, and he was a lot bigger than I was and we didn't have any gloves or anything. So we just put socks on our hands Just one pair of socks each. That was the boxing gloves. Wow, that's reckless, reckless. I won. I knocked him down pretty quickly and it made me feel really good, but also it made me feel really bad because I didn't. I'm sure he was sad. He was a lot bigger than me. He probably thought he was going to beat me.

Speaker 1:

I remember in high school we had this. I don't know why we did this, but we had a backyard boxing day where a bunch of my friends and I just invited a bunch of people over and we had boxing matches in the backyard and one of my good friends at the time, him, and I, were the first match and I beat him pretty good. I definitely won the fight and he got so angry after that he ran over to the house and punched the house and like knocked a piece of siding off and we were literally joking. If you just threw a punch like that at me during the fight, you probably would have won, but he was so angry and I was super happy. That's really the only thing I could connect to this, because I don't know if I was. When I was good at baseball. It didn't make me feel bad because I was playing with people that were good and the point was to beat the other team, so that that competition was there. So it's probably something that's closer to home.

Speaker 2:

I've never liked is there ever any insecurity? Sorry to interrupt you. Is there any ever insecurity about me interrupting? I'm kidding always. Is there is there any, ever any? Wow, is there ever any? 1501? We got this. Is there ever any insecurity from you about when you rap with people that think they're good and then you, you know?

Speaker 1:

I was.

Speaker 2:

Insecure to bring that out when I was with you.

Speaker 1:

I was. I was insecure to bring that up because I don't. I don't know how good I am.

Speaker 2:

I like to think I'm good, but I don't know but no, but I, I've been there With you rapping with someone who does it more often than you, and I've also heard you on a track with someone who I Don't think is it strong, who does it way more than you, and when you were talking about this topic and you said that you don't feel that way often, hmm, I Thought of that night.

Speaker 2:

That's when we were when you were rapping. I wasn't rapping, but you're the cameraman. I thought of that night. That's fair and I Wanted to ask you that question, if you're honest.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I would say, I would say if I'm honest, because it makes them feel bad.

Speaker 2:

It does right, makes them feel bad.

Speaker 1:

I remember we were. We were writing a song with someone because it's very rare that you have enough people in the room to Do a song together and have someone record it. And Alan had the video camera and this can be great and, yeah, I remember sitting down and I think I I was like, alright, I'm good, I'm done. And they're like what do you mean? You're done? I was like I got everything. It's written out, I'm ready to go, I'm good. And they were very, very surprised and I was like you're good to take your time, I'm not pressuring you, I just write really fast. When I hear a beat usually just happens and it comes to me and I Was just on that day. But I I did have that moment where it was like, okay, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I want to share with our listeners something that was in limitless from book club. Limitless talks about the four levels of competence and he actually adds a fifth kev. I wish I had thought of this interest because we're next level University right, there's four levels of competence. He had a fifth level.

Speaker 1:

Is it hyper conscious?

Speaker 2:

competence. Now, true master is what he called it. Damn true mastery. Okay, so the first level of competence is unconscious incompetence. In other words, you are unaware that you suck at something. Okay, and I just want to be very direct here all of us suck at stuff. Some of us are more insecure about that than other people. I think some people are really insecure about how good they are at things. I think other people are really insecure about things they suck at and I think we all are both. Again going back to the 1500 episode, where I said success and failure. Fear of success is basically being better than others. Fear of failure is being worse than others. So we all stay in this little box, this little comfort zone, this little pendulum swing. So, with rapping kev's a little insecure about how good he is Because it makes other people feel bad.

Speaker 1:

Transparenly, though. I just want to make sure I put this out there. I haven't rapped enough with people who are drastically ahead of me, so that is something I do need to do like. I need to get humbled. I need to be around someone who I remember when we had Justin Freeman on. Shout out to Justin Freeman back in the day. I messaged him and was like hey, man, I want to get on a track with you and he left me on red. He just ignored it completely, as he should have. Honestly, that was a little bit of an entitled thing to do, because he's Way ahead of where I am for sure.

Speaker 2:

But yeah.

Speaker 1:

I haven't been on with someone that can really really humble me and I think that's you obviously didn't see your clips. Yeah, well, he probably was like no, that ain't that, ain't it. He probably thought I was entitled to ask honestly which, yeah, I was in fairness.

Speaker 2:

Well, Going back to the levels here real quick. The first level is unconscious incompetence, in other words, you are unaware that you suck at something, and this is in the book limit list. Number two is conscious incompetence now you're aware you suck at something and Again, suck is a strong word aware that you're not good at something, okay. The third level is conscious competence, meaning now you're aware that you're getting better after you practice. And then the last one is unconscious competence, which means you don't even you're so good, you don't even know you're good. That's mastery. You're so good you don't even know you're good. And I want to share this vulnerably.

Speaker 2:

I Remember I was on I a coaching session with a team member on the production team and she was like blown away. She said I don't understand how you do it. I was like what do you mean? She said Kevin tells you the title and the topic and you figure out what you're gonna plug and then it's lights, camera, go. Whether it's my memory or it's my depth of knowledge or my expertise or whatever that allows me to do that, I don't storytelling, I don't know, but I do know it's a lot of reps. I do know that it's a lot of practice. I do know that I've been studying speaking for at least seven or eight years, if not longer. I've been studying storytelling since I was a sophomore in college, so there's a lot behind the scenes that people don't realize.

Speaker 2:

And I remember how insecure I was when I started a podcast with Emilia. I wasn't insecure because I'm not good. I was insecure because I was afraid to make her feel insecure at how much better I am at articulating points. But you and I have at that point we had a thousand episodes, more than them. We do events together. We do relationship talks, events. Kevin and I do monthly meetups.

Speaker 2:

My truth and this is for the listeners I want you thinking about your own life, your own insecurities. What are you bad at? What are you good at? What are you great at? What are you unbelievably competent at? What are you so good at that you don't even know you're good at it, that you feel bad and you don't know it. Emilia is awesome. She's like a really strong podcaster. She's excellent. Kev is a stronger communicator. He's a stronger speaker. He's a stronger podcaster, but he's also done 1,500 episodes plus 700 others, probably 800 at this point. So, of course and I do think that you are a natural communicator? I do. I do feel that way. I've been on enough podcasts. At this point you can kind of tell. I have one person I'm thinking of. She's gonna start a podcast, she's going to crush it. I mean, her launch point is so much higher than people who have been doing it for years and she has no idea. I told her I'm coaching her, I was coaching her, I'm not anymore. I told her. I said you are unreasonably good.

Speaker 1:

And I said I want you to know.

Speaker 2:

I don't say this to everybody and no one can tell you this, because maybe they don't know, or maybe they do know but they're insecure so they hide it. You are ridiculously good at speaking and communicating effectively. You use no filler words, you have powerful pauses, you're very articulate, you have great energy. You're beautiful. I just I like to tell people where they're great, because most people don't know. You're not gonna double down on something that you don't know is valuable. I said I coach podcasters all the time. You are gonna be awesome.

Speaker 2:

And I said I don't say that to everybody. I have another person. I'm thinking of that honestly. I had to say I don't know if podcasting is probably right for you. That's me trying to help this person. I would rather you just be honest with yourself and go do something that you are great at, versus try to become something you're not. That's like me trying to be a strength competitor, power lifter. I'm weak, honestly, I'm weak. I'm an ectomorph. I'm a long distance runner, build. I'm weak, seriously. I have no problem saying that. So, at the end of the day this episode, where are you happy that you're great but sad that others aren't? There's so much self-awareness, gold in that and I'm so grateful we're doing this topic.

Speaker 1:

I enjoy this topic very much. Anytime I can find a lesson in a serious show or something. I love finding lessons like that. I always talk about Parks and Rec and how I learned so much from that show, even though it's a comedy. There's lessons in everything, as long as you're searching for them.

Speaker 1:

The other important thing about this is if you, if you, intentionally slow down so it's almost a case of, okay, I'm going to go do this with someone who I believe I am better at this task activity than they are I want to slow down so they don't feel any type of way, so they don't get overwhelmed, so they don't get insecure, so they don't get hurt.

Speaker 1:

That sets you up for not being able to be your full, authentic self and another important thing it doesn't allow you to get the respect that you actually deserve. What if you let's just say hypothetically, let's just say it's golf or drawing, let's just say it's drawing you and your friend are hanging out and they say, hey, let's do some drawing. And you say, okay, yeah, sure, we can draw Anything specific you want to draw. And they say, no, no, you leave the charge and I'll just draw whatever you draw and you kind of just scribble something because you're afraid to lean into what you're really good at. What if that person looks up to you and they want to learn from you? Maybe they feel like you're not interested in helping them because you're not actually leaning into something that you're really really good at.

Speaker 2:

Well, they can't even know that you're someone to learn from.

Speaker 1:

Well, unless they already had that thought, maybe they've seen your stuff. Oh, okay, Like hypothetically they've seen your stuff, and then they sit down with you and then you draw a stick figure Day Jeff.

Speaker 2:

And they say that's not what I saw.

Speaker 1:

I didn't. That's not what you had on your wall.

Speaker 1:

So that's another thing, I don't know. I think it's one of those things where you kind of have to feel that you have to experience it. You have to experience the discomfort because until you do, you don't really know what to do with it. We did an episode last week, or a week the week before, where we were talking about another. I think it was another reason why taking action is so important or something like that and it's because you can conceptualize how something's gonna happen or what it's gonna seem like or how somebody's gonna react, but you don't really understand until it actually happens.

Speaker 1:

So say you did get that. Say that person came back and said, oh my goodness, I could never draw like you. And you know under that there's insecurity. You know under that there's sadness. You know they want to be an artist or they want to be what is a drawer called Illustrator Nice, go me. They wanna be an illustrator. Then in your mind you're thinking to yourself ah, you're in trouble. I don't know if you're ever gonna be able to do that, even though I could probably do that right now, even though I don't value it at the level you do. It's important, I think, to experience that.

Speaker 2:

I actually think typically we don't value what we're best at because it comes naturally. Yeah, it makes sense. The things that come naturally to you, you inherently undervalue because you took it for granted. It's almost like you don't know what it's like. I'll give you an example. So you grow your legs pretty easily. You're also shorter, so your squat form is dude. I have giraffe legs. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for me to have squat form like you? I can imagine. I can imagine my legs are so long. They're longer than my torso by a significant margin. Now and I'll share this as well I did a 5k two years ago with Emilia and I ran it backwards Because I wanted it.

Speaker 2:

We were like, oh, let's do it together, let's stay together. I wanted to stay with her and this is a perfect analogy for this and eventually it just got to the point where it's like You're feeling bad, huffin and puffin, I'm sitting here bored. This is stupid. I'm running backwards. Let me just go crush this last third. So the last third. I ended up going all out and I was dying and I still actually had a pretty good time. But long distance running for me, I'm I'm an ectomorph. I'm six foot two, all legs. I mean it's just easy, it's easy peasy. Now, I'm not a great runner because I don't practice it. Ironically, I'm in the gym doing the thing. That's not coming natural. But I Think that we tend to take for granted the things that we're naturally amazing at. We definitely do, and I'll share this quickly as well.

Speaker 2:

I have a brilliant, brilliant client that I coached once. Engineer went to college with him tech school. I Loved coaching him because he just understands mathematics at such a deep level that I could say concepts that I typically can't, and he just gets it. I mean, his deeper understanding of the way the universe works is so strong. But I had a moment when I really started to appreciate you and I more kev, because I had this moment of he has this awesome app idea, he has this great business model and I had this moment of you're in trouble. You are not going to be able to articulate your. You can have the best idea in the world, but he struggles to communicate. He has a really hard time communicating. Now this is not me beating him up. This person could be listening.

Speaker 2:

I'm a big fan and, by the way, partner up with someone who's good at what you're, not, because they need what you are. So find someone who complements your weaknesses and mitigates and Celebrates your strengths, complements your weaknesses and and celebrates your strengths. That is the best partnership, intimate and business. But I told him I said, listen, you have got to find someone who's a strong order. You have to find a strong speaker.

Speaker 2:

Kev, I never told you this, but I came up with something called the 25 impact points of effective communication. I didn't do that for me, I Did that for this client because he was asking me hey, even in college, you were always so charismatic, you were always so capable of articulating things. As far as engineers go, I think I'm on the higher end of effectively communicating ideas and I always have been. And he really gave me that and he wanted to learn from me. So I came up with the 25 impact points of effective communication off the cuff because I wanted to help him.

Speaker 2:

But I was super insecure when he was complimenting me Because I don't want him to feel bad. I'm sad for him. I really am. Your ideas great, but it's gonna die on the vine if you don't find someone who can articulate the value. I know people that are one-tenth as intelligent as this person, but they're gonna win because they can communicate.

Speaker 2:

Communication is a very powerful tool and if you don't have it it's very hard for you to succeed. So my advice to him is go find someone who has it, who believes in you and who you know isn't as intelligent, so that you two can team up and crush it. But To your original point of this episode, kev, for our listeners, where are you insecure about being not good enough? That's one list. Where are you insecure about not being smart enough, or not being good enough, or not being whatever competent enough? On the other side of that pendulum, where are you insecure because you're so good? You're so good that it actually triggers the insecurities of others. And if you have both of those lists, your self-awareness is Gonna be so much higher than the statistical norm, because I did not understand this until the last, maybe six months.

Speaker 1:

My attachment to that next level nugget would be I would venture to guess that a common insecurity is creating insecurities in others. So that's kind of what Alan is talking about there. So I think that would be a really useful Practice, a good action step to take after you listen to this episode, because if you're really good at something, you should be really good at it and you should practice it more if it feels good and you think you can do something with it. Who knows, imagine if, if that's your calling, that's what you're supposed to be doing. And the other thing, too, is when you're around the right and I'm not saying you're not around the right people, but when you're around the right people you have people who are ahead of you and you have people who are behind you. So Just because someone's behind you doesn't mean it's bad for you to be ahead of them. You got to be ahead of them if you're gonna get to where you want to get to.

Speaker 2:

Emilia, fortunately, has been extremely forthcoming with Alan. We're good, I'll just learn from you, but she's not a super insecure person, so and she has a lot of self-belief and so it's been really nice to have her slip into that student role in where I'm ahead and I do the same for her. But if you're around a lot of really insecure people it will be hard to shine. I just want to extend that olive branch.

Speaker 1:

We're talking a little bit about vulnerability in this episode. Our 23rd next level monthly meetup almost two years of Of next level monthly meetups is on how to communicate a vulnerable truth, something we talk about very often on here. I just got rid of the date. I'm out here, jeffing.

Speaker 1:

We talk about Communicating vulnerable truths a lot because number one vulnerability is the truth, but there's layers to that. When you tell somebody you're full, authentic truth, it's scary and there's a lot of fear around that. There's a lot of insecurity around that. What if they don't resonate with it? What if I Fall into a shame cycle? What if they judge me? So join us on November 2nd 2023 at 6 pm Eastern Time. Again, our meetups are Kind of like a live podcast, but not really. They're way more of an opportunity for you to take part. So if you want to come and ask questions and have your camera on, you can. If you want to be a fly in the wall and have your Camera off and not participate at all, you can do that too. They're totally private, they are never recorded and it's a great opportunity for you to explore yourself at a deeper level.

Speaker 2:

So this episode was about being a little bit insecure with sharing where some of the things you're good at, or being good at the things you're good at, or leaning into the things you're good at. There was one that An insecurity that was triggered for me that I was reluctant to share. But I've been tracking habits for a Little over eight years now about to be nine years. I used to use these little black notebooks that I carried with me. They're actually behind me. You can't see them on the video but because our frame is smaller now but I've been tracking habits for almost nine years and it has been. I actually remember being made fun of for it and One of my close friends actually said that's a terrible idea, which I strongly disagree with. I think that's very, very ignorant. Personally, it has been one of the most transformational habits I've ever done. The habit of habit tracking Will transform your life. It is One of the most powerful things you can do.

Speaker 2:

The entire NLU team tracks habits. Kevin's been tracking habits for Five years now five or six years and we have an app now called optimal. We have several people on it. I know that because it crashed and I had several people reach out and say hey, the app crashed, but you can start with three habits Green light, yellow light, red light. Three things, super simple. Did you do it, did you not? And it's going to give you some self-awareness of Crap maybe I'm not as disciplined as I thought or maybe I'm crushing. And If you track with consistency for two weeks you can bump to six habits. Another two weeks you can bump to nine habits and then we have a paid version for 12 habits. If you want to start tracking habits, I can promise you, if you stick with it, it will change your life. All my clients track habits. Optimal is the way. The link will be in the show notes tomorrow for episode number 1502.

Speaker 1:

We judge ourselves more than others judge us. I went to a wedding Last weekend and weddings always create stories and stories sometimes great podcast episodes so we're gonna do an episode on it. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and an L? You. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Keep shining. Next definition I.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host