Next Level University

#1507 - How To Turn Your Limiting Beliefs Into Empowering Ones

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Are you ready to change the way you think? The ability to break down barriers of limiting beliefs and foster a growth mindset can transform your life. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about how limiting beliefs can often stem from past experiences or perceptions about ourselves that are not necessarily true. By examining these beliefs and challenging them, we can transform them into empowering beliefs that fuel our growth and resilience. Also, coaching can play a pivotal role in this process. It can provide an outside perspective, help us identify and rectify limiting beliefs, and equip us with the tools to create empowering beliefs. This, in turn, can foster a growth mindset, leading to increased resilience and self-belief.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Monthly Meetup - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/

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Show notes:
[3:14] Success and struggles
[7:39] We all have it
[10:00] A belief that is holding us back
[12:51] Identify and rectify
[14:42] Janine talks about how valuable Group Coaching is, what her takeaway is, and why she thinks you should take the leap
[16:21] The Label comes with a cost 
[19:47] You don't believe it because you don't have it yet
[25:43] 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 episode number 1,506. A simple hack to cut down your phone screen time. Today for episode number 1,507, how to turn your limiting beliefs into empowering ones. So, alan, when we were masterminding, he said hey, I have what I believe will be a very good episode based on something that happened in Book Club. And I said again since I'm not invited to Book Club, they lock the doors on me. I don't even know how to get there. I don't know the location of it. I couldn't find it with the GPS. You're going to have to tell the story because I don't know what you're talking about. So the floor is yours, sir.

Speaker 2:

OK, you are in Book Club.

Speaker 1:

You're not even going to argue with any of those things I said about being locked out of Book Club. Definitely not.

Speaker 2:

It's a fact isn't it I mean you could probably get in if you really wanted to I know. You'd have to find the password and there's like a scavenger hunt that you have to do to OK, yeah, so it's a lot of work.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like a lot of work, not for you. Whether you're watching or listening, listeners can get in. This is a me thing, not a you thing. You haven't had any? Yeah, ok, perfect.

Speaker 2:

No, you just don't love. You like listening to books. You don't like reading hard copy books. It is what it is. Yeah, it's OK. I have a bookshelf, all right, so we're in Book Club.

Speaker 1:

I have a bookshelf.

Speaker 2:

That's fair. It's a fair assessment, go on. So this episode is about how Kevin can't get into Book Club. So another shout out to Amy Amy is on Book Club. We had a good showing. I want to say 15 people plus. I never really know the screenshots that we send privately in the WhatsApp group. Sometimes people come and go during Book Club, but anyways, it's neither here nor there.

Speaker 2:

Amy, the chapter was on memory. We're reading a book called Limitless by Jim Quick and the chapter is on memory. And in Book Club I always say this I've been saying this pretty regularly lately we celebrate successes here, we celebrate strengths here. You are safe to be great here, but you are also safe to talk about your struggles. It's no wonder why more of us aren't succeeding and more of us aren't overcoming our struggles when we're not allowed to talk about where we're successful because we're arrogant if we do, and we're not allowed to talk about where we're struggling because then we're losing credibility or whatever Bullied picked on, you name it. So none of that in Book Club, safe space.

Speaker 2:

So Amy was sharing her challenges with her memory and right in the middle of it and she wouldn't mind me sharing this I got permission. She started to actually cry and right after it I was like Amy, thank you so much. Book Club is a very close-knit group of people and it's a very safe space for everybody. And I said thank you for sharing that. And she's like holy crap, I didn't know I was going to cry. And there was a really big breakthrough in that. Two things One, I said this in Book Club. I said every person that I've ever coached, every person that I've ever met, including myself, has things they're struggling with behind the scenes that they're probably struggling with, maybe even more than they know, never mind more than other people know. Because Amy didn't know when she was talking about her memory that she was going to start crying. I don't think she realized how painful that is for her to struggle with her memory.

Speaker 2:

And so we did a poll in Book Club. It was who here believes that they have a great memory? Who here believes they have an average memory? Who here believes they have a bad memory? And it was like 33, 33, 33. It was 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3. And so I said can we hear from some of the people who think they have a great memory? Can we hear from some of the people who think they have a bad memory, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

And then I ended up telling a story about Emilia and I where, when we first got together, emilia would say I have a memory challenge, I have a memory issue, I have a bad memory, limiting belief, limiting belief, limiting belief. And I remember we watched the notebook together. I'll never forget it, because not only is the notebook a great movie and a tear-jerker anyway and typically people cry during the notebook but we were crying for that reason. But we were also crying for another reason, and the other reason that we were crying is that I was so scared because I had fallen in love with Emilia so deeply. By this point I mean, this is probably three, four months in and she was having memory challenges and her and I had an honest moment together of are you going to forget me one day, because at this point we wanted to spend our life together, and so that was like holy crap. And so I did.

Speaker 2:

What I typically do whenever I'm massively overwhelmed with emotions, and painful emotions in particular, is I have what I call helpless. I feel helpless, I call them my head between my knees moments, and I have them often not that often, but I would say once a quarter for sure where I just am like how are we going to do this, how are we going to do this, what can I do about this? Is there anything I can do about this? And so then I get frustrated and I turn that frustration into fascination, the fascination into transformation. And so I said, you know what, no, we're not letting that happen.

Speaker 2:

And so I ended up that Christmas this is near Christmas we met in October, so four years ago, october 27th four years ago, and by Christmas I got her a book called Memory Recovery. I got her a leadership series, four books that were on leadership, and the fifth one was her memory. And she still has it. It was actually on her desk just the other day, which is cool. It's this big, thick book and it's called Memory Recovery, memory Rescue. I'm sorry, memory Rescue.

Speaker 2:

I don't know the author's name, but I was committed. I was like nope, we're gonna get better sleep, we're gonna do everything we can, we're gonna take, we're gonna, you know, eat blueberries, whatever. Whatever we can do, we're gonna eat the foods necessary to make your brain better. Blah, blah, blah. So I had fortunately studied a lot of neuroscience by that point and Emilia recently, our four year anniversary was October 27th, which was this past week, and we were talking about it and she said thank you so much. You were the first person to ever really protect my sleep and you were the first person to help me overcome that limiting belief.

Speaker 2:

I didn't realize that saying I had a bad memory was actually keeping me stuck, and so, whether it's Amy or it's Emilia, or it's you listening, we all have limiting beliefs, and if you think you don't, that is your limiting belief. And the question is how do we transform those limiting beliefs? Because, yeah, no, you might have a worse memory than other people. You might statistically be on the lower end of whatever statistic I am to in certain things, but what can we do about it? What can we do about it? And there's always something you can do. And if you can't do anything about it, you can learn to accept it. And if you're out there listening, think about what maybe it doesn't have to be memory what is the limiting belief that's holding you back and how can we work on transforming that?

Speaker 1:

Far less serious. My analogy example for this when Tara and I moved in together, it was at the beginning of the pandemic and we were living in this small basement apartment that she had gotten for herself, and it was at a weird time where we were thinking well, this COVID thing is happening, am I going to get to see her? What is this going to look like? So I said you know what? Let's just move in. We're in love. This is the real deal. We're going to move in together.

Speaker 1:

And for a while she was asking me if I would try Indian food. And I remember I kept saying no, I don't like Indian food, I don't like Indian food, I don't like Indian food. And it just kept going and going and going. One day she asked me. She said do you want to get Indian food tonight? There's a place that I know is really good. It's like 10 minutes away. I'll pick it up. Do you want to get it? And I said I don't like Indian food. And she said have you ever tried it? And I said no, but I just know I don't like it.

Speaker 1:

I think that's kind of what a limiting belief is, in a way. It's a belief that we don't. It's a belief that's holding us back, that we don't we kind of know is holding us back, but we've never really tried to push back against it. It's almost. It almost becomes something that becomes real because we aren't willing to push it away. So for a long time I didn't like Indian food. Indian food is one of my favorite foods on the planet, but it could never be until I tried it. Yeah, you've been trying to convert me. Yeah, you got to have it. You got to have it. It's the best. But you have a limiting belief that you don't like it because you don't like spicy foods. And I tell you, it's not that spicy. They have a lot of mild stuff. Maybe one day you'll get it, I don't know. But that's the best thing I can think of for this episode, because for a lot of us, our limiting beliefs are things that happen to us or a season that we went through that we just kind of adopted.

Speaker 1:

We adopt that belief. You're shy. That's a limiting belief, especially if it's not a belief that you created for yourself. Maybe it's a belief somebody else created for you. Then you adopted it and then that just becomes your reality. And here you are, five, 10, 15 years down the line, when you were a shy kid. Now you're a shy adult, even though you were never a shy kid. You just maybe didn't want to talk to people you didn't know. When I was growing up, that was what you were told to do Don't talk to strangers. So maybe you weren't shy, maybe you were just listening to what your parents told you. So I think that's a really good example of a limiting belief, because for a lot of us, the reason the belief is limiting us is because we do not push it away or try to see what life would be like on the other side of that belief.

Speaker 1:

I know we've done a lot of episodes on fear as a fence. I think limiting beliefs are very similar. A lot of the things that I have the privilege of doing and the gratitude of doing day in and day out today were all things that I did not think I could do. They were all limiting beliefs. Starting a podcast there was limiting beliefs around that.

Speaker 1:

For sure Nobody's going to want to listen to you. It definitely was that way in the beginning. For sure You're not a good enough speaker. Oh, that you're not smart enough. Maybe I wasn't. So here's the difference Maybe I wasn't smart enough to add as much value as I wanted, or maybe seven years ago I wasn't smart enough to be where I am today. But that's drastically different than saying I can learn a lot about speaking. I can learn a lot about self-improvement.

Speaker 1:

The limiting belief is I'm not smart enough. The empowering belief is maybe I'm not as smart as I need to be, but I do know. With enough time and enough dedication and mentors and books and TED Talks and YouTube, I can improve that feeling of being smart enough. And I know I'm going to know more than I do today. So, even that, it's okay to not feel smart enough or good enough or maybe, like you, don't have a great memory. But the question after that is what have you done to turn that limiting belief into an empowering belief? And luckily Alan was on top of it and I believe the book is by Doc Daniel Eamon Doc Amon on Instagram. I believe he's a very well-known neuroscientist, maybe psychiatrist One of the two.

Speaker 2:

Memory Rescue. Yeah, the book, you looked it up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I appreciate it Gonna give credit to the author, because I'm usually the one who's saying I can't remember who's social media posts inspired me to do the episode, so I figured I could look it up for him.

Speaker 2:

So that's my thought for this episode.

Speaker 1:

Go ahead, sorry.

Speaker 2:

Limiting beliefs, one of the fundamentals. I'm actually coaching Jerry Ann and Amy right now on how to coach Next level certified coaching, and one of the biggest things that you do in coaching is just identify and rectify limiting beliefs. Beliefs Identity is a belief about self. So when you say I am shy, it's a limiting belief. That's in the form of an identity. You think you're a shy person. When, in reality? When did you decide that? So, for example, when I was a freshman in high school I've been talking about this I was really not popular and I used to get pity dances from my sister's friends and she was a really popular senior. At the time. I wasn't good looking, I wasn't attractive, I wasn't sought after by women. That if I decided permanently that I'm unattractive and now I looked like I am now and I never questioned that would I ever be able to ask you Amelia to be with me? Would I have ever messaged her? If I presuppose that she's gorgeous and I'm not, it's so limiting because it's locked in a point in time the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset. A growth mindset is I am unattractive right now, but I can get more attractive. I am out of shape right now, but I can get in better shape. I am not that intelligent right now. I made $7.25 as a cart kid and a bus boy for a golf course when I was 16 years old.

Speaker 2:

If I locked into the identity of being worthless which, by the way, I felt worthless I remember there was this girl I had a crush on. Her name was Jessica and she was dating one of the cooks there and I felt so insignificant. I felt like she looked right over me. She never considered me. She would never consider me because I looked like a little kid, I didn't hit puberty yet, and this dude was tall, jacked, he had a full beard and at this point I couldn't even get peach fuzz going and I just felt so insignificant. But I always remember thinking to myself like one day, one day I'm going to be able to be someone who you don't look over, who you notice. I'm gonna be a noticeable man one day. And luckily I didn't decide I'm permanently this way. And so if you're out there listening to this, watching this, what have you decided unconsciously Cause this isn't conscious, it's not like I. I mean I actually did consciously decide like one day I'll be good enough, or I'll be smart enough, or I'll be attractive enough or I'll be built enough or whatever, to get a Jessica In this case, way better, in my opinion. I'm living a lot of my dreams back then. That 16 year old boy who looks at my life now is like holy crap, that's your girlfriend. Like whoa, you did it, man. I hope that everyone feels that way.

Speaker 2:

You know there was a post in Next Level Nation recently where or no, no, no, this was actually a different post, but it was about would your childhood version be proud of you now? Maybe it was a next civilization? I forget where I looked at it, but ask yourself that question because if the answer is no, what? If? What if it's because you developed limiting beliefs of I'm not smart, or I'm not athletic, or I'm not attractive, or I'm not whatever, or or, on the other side, I am dumb or I am Short or I am Ugly whatever label you put on yourself, it comes with a cost. Kevin started saying I am a podcaster and then eventually, 160 episodes in. He's like I feel like a podcaster. That's the process of, of, of developing an empowering identity and an empowering belief system, and really a lot of coaching is just that. It's just. You have to hold the belief in advance, and it's so hard to do that I.

Speaker 1:

Saw one of my notebooks recently and I wrote down. I have an amazing relationship. I am financially free now. Again, writing it down is one thing. You still have to go execute, but it helped me. It helped me practice the belief. Did I believe it a hundred percent? No, but I got comfortable writing down stuff like that and then you get comfortable thinking it and you can practice feeling it and then you do the things necessary to get it. Obviously it doesn't work as simply as that, but this is this would be my next level nugget kind of an exercise.

Speaker 1:

However old you are today, I Want you to imagine that you're talking to a six-year-old and the six-year-old has the same limiting beliefs that you do. What would you tell that six-year-old? You'd probably, if a if there was a six-year-old that you were coaching or you were helping, or you were menswear, or you were babysitting or whatever, and they said, oh, I could never do that. I'm willing to bet. The next thing that you said would be of course you can. No, of course you can.

Speaker 1:

One of the beautiful things of, or about having a coach I say this on podcast, podcasts all the time. A Coach doesn't have your limiting beliefs. They don't see your limiting beliefs. That's why they can tell you things that Maybe you can't see for yourself. Well, I could never start a podcast. Of course you could. I don't have your limiting beliefs, I can tell you that. And the reason I don't have your limiting beliefs is because I had those limiting beliefs and I've worked really, really hard to get over them. That's the beautiful thing about having an outside perspective.

Speaker 1:

So imagine what would you say to a six-year-old who has very similar limiting beliefs to you. You would probably tell them what they need to hear so they don't have the same limiting beliefs 20 years from today. Now, again, this is a more of a that's an emotional exercise versus logically, it might not shift anything, but that perspective, that contrast, I think, is really, really important. If Alan came to me and said I could never and Alan believes in himself more than Anybody I've met but I could never do blank and I could think to myself well, why doesn't Alan think that? Why doesn't he think he's capable? And I asked some questions. Eventually we might get to the root of well, because when I was young, I happened once what was it about Having a successful relationship?

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's. I think that's the only time of ever I would say so. And kev said this. He said, no, you can. You've just never succeeded yet. So it makes sense that you yeah, don't think you can.

Speaker 1:

The only reason you don't believe in it is because you've never had it. You haven't had it yet Everything else you've you've been able to accomplish. But just because you have an experience yet does not mean you can, you can't, I. But to your point. I think it is the time thing. A lot of it's the time thing. It's almost A a the one of our video editors. He said you're. You used to say Interesting. Now it's now your new phrases. It's almost like. So I'm trying to work. There's always, there's always something there's always something always we, we get a hint of something.

Speaker 1:

Then that hint becomes something that we unintentionally practice, and then the thing that we unintentionally practice just becomes a Law in our life in a way. So for you, it was not being good in English. You're not good at English, you're good at math. I'm not good at English, but I'm really good at math. Do you want to do this? This related to English. Oh no, I'm not. I'm actually not really good at English, but I'm actually really good at math. And then it just continues and continues and continues, and then your limiting belief that is Kind of disguised as an empowering one is I'm really good at math, it's good to be really good at math, but not in replacement of being good at English or practicing English or whatever it may be. So yeah, I think it really is that it be. It starts as a very small crack in the ice and then over time we put we just ignore it and we ignore it and we run away from it and it continues to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and then eventually you fall through the ice and and you don't think you can do it, when in reality it's just. It's the same thing for me, as the fear is the fence. The fear of something creates offense and then we convince ourselves we can't get around it.

Speaker 1:

I Went to, so I went to my first. I went back to my first Brazilian jiu-jitsu class on Sunday and there was this, this gentleman there, this, this young man there, because he's younger than me, his name is Kevin. He's an awesome. He's an awesome dude and I was very proud of Kevin because he said I, mentally, I've been really working on Mentally and spiritually and emotionally, I've been really, really working hard on myself. And he said I feel like I haven't been doing as much physically and I need to get back into it, and as much as I'm intimidated to come to jiu-jitsu for the first time, I don't know how this is gonna go. It's something I need to do.

Speaker 1:

A limiting belief Easily could have been I'm not gonna fit in here, I'm not gonna know anybody, I'm not gonna be able to keep up, and the truth of the matter is some of those might be true. Maybe you're not gonna be able to keep up yet, maybe you're not gonna fit in yet. That's okay, it does not mean you can't eventually. Yet Can be a powerful word, but I think a lot of us forget to put it at the end of our sentences I Hope this will resonate.

Speaker 2:

And then I know we got a jump. I had a client very recently, this past week. She said I realized and this is the first time I ever had this thought she said I realized I Was in the gym the other day and I was watching this bodybuilder who's gonna compete and I looked at myself and I looked at her and I was like, holy crap, I think I could win a show. Hmm, I Said, of course, this person's in unbelievable shape and I said this. I said the fact that you realized that doesn't make it any less or more true than it was yesterday and I really hope that lands for everybody. Like there's a lot of things that are true right now that you just might not acknowledge. Kevin was always capable of this. I Always. I joke, but just because you didn't think you were seven years ago or six years ago, essentially when, when we first started doing this, doesn't make it any less accurate or more accurate. You, this was always possible. You just didn't think it was possible. Therefore, it's not possible and I just I hope that everybody. I Think the most empowering belief is the accurate one. I do.

Speaker 2:

I Joke about the marathon. I couldn't do a marathon, well dehydrated, in the hot sun, on a whim, three days notice. But the half marathon was easy. There was a video of me Arrogant in the middle of the half marathon going. I think I'm gonna try it in five and a half hours. Don't do that. By the end I barely made it across the finish line. It was walking dead. I joke. Here's my point. I was just inaccurate. I Was inaccurate but I tried. What could you do if you tried? You know, just because you make seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour in this analogy of me at sixteen years old doesn't mean that's what you're destined for. That just is the current blip in time. I Just don't want anyone to make a long-term decision based on a blip in time. I it's so important to zoom out every now and then and look and go.

Speaker 2:

Again. I'll end on this. There's a book called the art of impossible. Kevin and I interviewed Stephen Kotler many years ago and In that book he says you know, very little is impossible given a decade. And I think that there's. We overestimate what we can do today, and we do. We underestimate what we could do with a decade. We do, including myself, and I definitely overestimate what I can do in a day, every day. It's so alarming the rate episodes. Today we hit to, we did a lot of a lot of other stuff.

Speaker 1:

You you might not win the race, but if you take yourself out of the race, you won't even get to compete and you'll lose all the amazing opportunities and lessons that might come with it. You might not be ready to run the full marathon yet, but it doesn't mean you can't get a mile in and say oh, I learned a lot. Don't take yourself out of the race, don't take yourself out of the opportunity Long before you learn the lessons that come with it. Next up the nation, as I mentioned in the previous episode, so it'll be tomorrow, 6 pm Eastern time we have our 23rd monthly meetup. It is how to Communicate a vulnerable truth, whether it's in an intimate relationship, whether it's in a friendship, whether it's in a professional relationship. Oftentimes, the truth is actually the most vulnerable thing we can share, and maybe it's our truth, maybe it's the truth about how somebody makes us feel. There's a million vulnerable truths that we can all share. So we're gonna be talking about that tomorrow, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Speaker 1:

Our meetups are always totally private, so we do not record the calls. You can participate if you want. You can type in the chat questions, comments, concerns. You can raise your hand and come on camera, or you can leave your camera off and not participate at all. Whatever is gonna be the most comfortable for you. Maybe that's a good opportunity for you to test a limiting belief I could never ask a good question in front of people or I don't belong here. Whatever it may be, so I would challenge you to use this as an opportunity for growth. Link to the landing page will be in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

I Was actually gonna go look for the latest book club asset because I wanted to know how many we've done in a row and I can't find it. That's on me. I do believe it's 130 weeks. I believe we've been doing book club for 130 weeks in a row, but I could be off on that number. Either way, it's plus or minus a couple. Why am I sharing that?

Speaker 2:

I Can promise you a couple things if you come to book club. Number one you are going to learn things. You will. You will. You'll get a new perspective. We get perspectives from all different walks of life. Okay, one book, but all different perspectives on it. Number two we're gonna be doing it consistently, so you can count on it every week, every week, forever. What other promise can I make you?

Speaker 2:

Okay, in the light of this episode, I can promise you that it will get you to reevaluate your limiting beliefs, because no one else in book club has the exact same limiting beliefs that you have. And when they're sharing their experience and they're sharing their struggles and they're sharing their successes and they're sharing their strengths and they're sharing their weaknesses, you're gonna have breakthroughs about yourself and you're gonna go. Wait a minute. If they can do that, why can't I? Or if they're talking about their limiting belief, you're gonna go. Holy crap, I have that same limiting belief. I didn't even realize.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so we're reading a book called limitless by Jim quick. He talks about beliefs constantly in this book and it's every Saturday 12 30 pm Eastern Standard Time. You do not have to have read the book. You don't have to read every chapter. You don't have to read every word. We pick the big ideas from each chapter and we discuss them. You don't have to participate, just like monthly meetups, you can participate as much or as little as you'd like, and we hope to see there tomorrow for episode number 1,508.

Speaker 1:

I feel like the the first eight episodes have gone by really quickly in this 1500, so I might get to 1600 faster than I thought. One powerful practice to help with social anxiety. I had a interesting experience and, as always when I am living life, I'm trying to think to myself how can I use this story, lesson example, funny thing, embarrassment, whatever it may be to add value to the NLU family? So I will share that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Keep challenging those limiting beliefs.

Speaker 1:

Next termination Nice nice, that was a good one.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host