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
#1503 - Your Deepest Fear Also Creates Your Biggest Strength…
Fear and insecurity, we've all felt them at some point in our lives. They are feelings that can hold us back, creating impossible hurdles. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about the concept of transforming these so-called weaknesses into our biggest strengths. We all have unique challenges and trials that we have faced in our lives. Instead of letting these challenges control us and bring us down, they share how to turn these trials into unique sources of strength. The key is to own our chips, embrace them, and use them to fuel our growth and success.
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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
- Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
- Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - https://bit.ly/3xffver
- Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
- Next Level Monthly Meetup: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
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We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram, or via email
Instagram 📷
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:
[2:20] The bright side
[6:00] Desires and fears are connected
[6:50] John talks about his phenomenal experience working with Kevin and the Next Level Podcast Solutions team
[8:32] Mastery and greatness
[9:30] Lack of pain is your pain
[11:38] Don't let the chip drive you
[12:42] 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 1502. We judge ourselves more than others judge us. I talked about my mad dance skills today for episode number 1503. Happy Saturday. Your deepest fear also creates your biggest strength. So this is gonna be a quick hitter because we have 10 minutes before it will, 12 minutes before our next meetings, so this is gonna be a quick one. So hang on.
Speaker 1:I Did a podcast pre-call with a wonderful human last week I do not remember their name, I wish I did and One of the questions they asked so a pre-call is just making sure that you are aligned with the show and a Lot of people just show up to the microphone and if you've never met them before, it can go off the rails. So a pre-call is hopefully to avoid that. And this person said what have you learned about yourself recently? And I said I Learned that disappointment is the biggest exile I have. I do not like disappointing other people. It hurts me, it hurts my soul when I disappoint someone, and you heard that if you listen to that episode recently and they asked a lot of follow-up questions after that. I'm super excited to go in this podcast, but the question that facilitated the thought behind today's episode was what are all the positives that have come with it? What are all the positives that have come with your fear of disappointing others? And I said I'm sure you Expect that question to probably catch me off guard, but I've been thinking of this so so much over the last week or so because this Awareness genuinely changed my life.
Speaker 1:I said a couple things. One, it allows me to have empathy when I do disappoint someone. There's always that ego that pops up when someone is disappointed in you, where you say, well, you shouldn't be disappointed, or I, my intentions were pure, or whatever it is. I'm very empathetic when I disappoint someone because if I disappointed you, I feel really bad, genuinely, I feel terrible about myself, I don't enjoy it. I think that's one of the reasons I try to be super kind and as patient as I can be, because I don't want to disappoint people. That's one number. Two, I Always try to make someone feel like they're the only person when I'm talking to them because, again, at my fear of disappointing them I do believe We've said this many times you're probably really good at Recognizing your deficiencies, but you probably struggle with recognizing your strengths. This is a very similar thing. You're probably really good, like I am now, at identifying my weaknesses and identifying my fears, identifying my insecurities, identifying the stuff that I'm afraid of when it comes to judgment. But there are positives that come with all of those things and if you can identify them, I think you can utilize them better. One of the other things this is a really good story.
Speaker 1:Wednesday I drove to New Jersey from New Hampshire. I got up at 330 and and my plan was to be there at nine. So I was like I have plenty of time, this can be fine. I go down, I get my car at 430 am and I turn on my GPS and it says you're gonna be there at 9 am. If you leave this second, you don't hit an ounce of traffic and you don't stop once. You're gonna be there at 9 and I was like how the hell did that happen?
Speaker 1:It said four hours, or said four and a half hours. Now it's Now it's five and a half. What's going on here? This isn't right and I drove straight. I didn't stop to pee. I didn't stop to get gas, I didn't stop to get anything. I drove straight five and a half hours from New Hampshire to New Jersey and I think I was like six minutes late and I was so pissed off that myself I was so pissed off even though that's unreasonable, you drive 430 to 9 I didn't stop to pee. I had to pee so bad You're sick. It just is what it is. But I didn't want to disappoint the clients. That was my focus.
Speaker 2:So there's a superpower.
Speaker 1:There's a positive that comes with that, but I also grind myself into the ground at time, so that's what I wanted to talk about quickly in today's episode.
Speaker 2:Well, I think again because we don't have a ton of time, but that's one of the huge positives is and I want to give you credit for this, kev One of the reasons we have so many clients that are so blown away by next level podcast solutions is obviously the amazing production team. But, Kev, you're really good at. I learned from a mentor of mine that you run to the problem and you walk to the order. It's actually Amelia's father said that you run, we run to the problem and we walk to the order. In other words, we are here to solve your problems if you are our client, and we are here for you. And, kev, you do a phenomenal job of that and I know part of that comes from not wanting to disappoint people. Definitely, the other part of that comes from fear of being broke, because when you were a kid you didn't have a ton of money and again, nuance there.
Speaker 2:But our desires and our fears are connected and I think that's probably the the olive branch that I want to extend. Everybody on this episode. If you think about what you desire most, okay, let's say you really want a Really big, nice house. Maybe you're afraid of Looking like you're poor or looking like you're not significant, or or maybe there was a time in your life where you felt insignificant and maybe your deepest fear is not feeling significant and maybe that's why you want a nice car. Maybe maybe you want to fall in love, maybe you want to have an amazing wedding, maybe your deepest fear is being alone. I just think our desires and our fears are really connected. So, whatever pain you have, whatever fear you have, whatever trauma you have from your childhood, usually there's a desire that's the polar opposite of that, the polar opposite of that you. So I'll use myself as an example.
Speaker 2:When I was in high school I've talked about this I hit puberty very late. So in middle school, no one had hit puberty. I was one of the guys. I was athletic, blah, blah, blah. In high school, everybody blossomed. People like Kevin got muscles and mustaches, you know, and I didn't.
Speaker 2:I was just a little prepubescent boy and my sister was the, a very, very, very popular girl in the high school and all of her Friends. I was like little Alan and they, they all pity danced with me. I used to call it pity dancing. They would. They would dance with me to make me feel better, when in reality I was just a little boy and they were grown women. So I have a huge desire to be significant. That was born out of that time when I was a freshman in high school and I was a nerd and all the athletes got all the attention All the football players and baseball players. They got all the attention and all the love and all the significance and everybody went through their basketball games and I just felt super insignificant because I was a nerdy video gamer and so I chased mastery and greatness. My mastery was born out of wanting to be more significant, my desire to be on point and to be excellent and all those things. So at the end of the day, I think most of our greatness actually stems from pain.
Speaker 1:I would say so, unfortunately, unfortunately, or I've seen it go in a different direction, where sometimes I had somebody say to me one time I feel guilty, that my upbringing was so much better than yours, and I said, while I I don't know, I don't know if I do appreciate that, because I feel like you're, you shouldn't have to ever say that Like that. What do you mean? It's not your fault, it's not your fault. You had a great upbringing when I had challenges at times Like I would never want you to burden yourself to get even with me. I don't want that, but I wonder if that guilt made them shoot for something that they might not have shot for as well.
Speaker 1:For sure, so, sometimes lack of pain is your pain. Yeah, believe it or not, I've seen that. I know you've seen that as well.
Speaker 2:I have another example of that as well. I have one client at one point that had helicopter parents and they protected her from everything. They made sure she was financially set up. They made sure she was educationally set up. They made sure that she was in her comfort zone. They protected her from everything. They did everything for her. They were overprotective, and I get it, some parents are underprotective.
Speaker 2:I definitely in some cases was in that situation, but unfortunately that came with pain later on. So her deepest pain is that she was overprotected. She doesn't know how to do anything and I don't again, that's an exaggeration. She knows how to do some things, but she had a really hard time flying away from the nest when she didn't have any of those skills. And so this is the way life works. You have painful things happen to you and you have a response to that, and the response to that builds muscles that other people don't have, and that's true for you too. So whatever your pains were and whatever muscles you built to overcome that, those are now superpowers. They're now skills that other people don't necessarily have.
Speaker 2:You know, I felt really insignificant as a kid. I really did, and I didn't have a dad and my stepdad and I didn't get along and I don't think he ever really wanted kids. So of course I'm significance driven and now I fortunately I channeled that into being really, really good at what I do and it later on becomes a really positive thing, if you understand it. And at least now and I told Kevin this early on, I know this is the last thing I know we got to jump, but Kev has a chip on his shoulder. He grew up in a tough environment. He grew up without a father. I have a chip on my shoulder too. Everyone listening knows that. I mean, they know that who does 1500 episodes right? Okay, we do. We have chips on our shoulder. The difference is now we're grown more mature, emotionally mature men who now realize that we have a chip on our shoulder and we don't let it drive us all the time.
Speaker 2:But I said this to Kev. I said don't take the chip off. I said drive the chip, don't let the chip drive you. And so my question to everybody my next level nugget is what is the chip on your shoulder? Is it because you were helicopter-parented and you were too protected and now you need to go off and rebel and find your way and prove that you can do it on your own? Or is it because you had so much trauma and you need to prove that you can overcome all that? Whatever that chip is for you, just make sure that you're running the chip and the chip's not running you, and make sure that you do all you can with all you have.
Speaker 1:My next level nugget would be strength comes from necessity, so the necessities that you have been forced to overcome or I guess the challenges that you had the necessity to overcome are probably strengths now, because it's something you had to practice for a long period of time, so don't be afraid to figure out what they are. That would be my next level nugget. All right, we get a hop because I have a call. You have a call Tomorrow for episode number 1,504, insecurities get worse when we hide them. I feel like we're on a theme of these type of topics this week, so I'm excited for that one. 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:Keep running the chip next level nation.
