Next Level University

#1516 - ‘Seeing Is Believing’ Might Be Holding You Back

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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What if your beliefs are the barrier preventing you from achieving your dreams? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about the conventional approach of setting massive goals that we find difficult to believe we can achieve, often leading to disappointment and decreased self-belief. On the other hand, setting smaller goals that we can see ourselves achieving boosts our self-belief and provides a solid foundation for future goal-setting.

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Show notes:
[1:54] Set smaller goals or change your goals
[3:37] Have faith or loosen up and keep searching
[9:31] You don't know until you know
[14:48] Eddie expresses his satisfaction with Alan's support in his and his business' growth through the Next Level Business Solutions
[19:00] Everyone have a through line
[21:50] Don't let go of the one thing that brought you all the other thing
[27:48] 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 a giggly episode episode number 1515 juggling short-term and long-term and pizza, bagels and pogs and Pokemon cards. Today, for episode number 1516, seeing is believing might be holding you back.

Speaker 1:

Alan and I have done many, many, many episodes on the importance of belief and I know for a lot of us definitely 1000% me in the beginning it was very hard for me to Believe something if I didn't see it. It was very important for me to experience something, to realize that it actually was possible, and I think that's why a lot of us end up getting stuck, because we set goals that we actually do not believe or possible, and we never see the results of those goals. So it never locks in the fact that we should believe in the first place. So, alan and I you've heard us say this so many times I don't. Yes, I think it's noble to have giant goals that scare the crap out of you, sure, if you're the type of person that finds benefit in them, but I would much rather you say okay, let's just say seeing is believing for me and I need to see results in order to believe that I'm capable of furthering those results. It would be very beneficial for you to set smaller goals or Change your goals, but it would be very beneficial to say, okay, well, what do I actually believe I could see and Then set goals that way, get some level of that goal, get some level of result, and then be able to reset goals, reset goals, reset goals. That's kind of where I want to go in this episode.

Speaker 1:

I know Alan has a specific story, but I would ask two questions. To start one, do you find yourself saying seeing is believing, aka Maybe you don't have a super high level of self-belief and when you do something, it locks in the fact that that's actually humanly possible? Or maybe you're on the other end where, for you, you know, if you believe it for long enough, eventually you'll be able to create the thing and you'll be able to see it? I was definitely version or person a for a long, long, long time. Now I feel closer to version B. I know Alan's mostly felt like version B or person B, so that's where we'll start today.

Speaker 2:

And you can't give advice to person B For person a and vice versa. In other words, kevin and I are constantly assessing this. The advice that you give, the guidance that you give, needs to be customized to the individual, and that's why, on the podcast, we often talk about both sides of the coin, call it a drive to five, we call it duality. We we always try to give Both sides of the equation so that you can choose which side you're on and then what advice you take. And so I'm on with a client and this is last week and this is a client that I've been coaching for many, many years, and the longer I coach with someone, the more I get to know them at a Deeper and deeper and deeper level and the higher the levels they climb that, the levels of success. This person's been crushing it. You know new job, full-time career, many of her dreams she's achieved, and One of the dreams that she has not yet achieved is her dream relationship. So she has her dream career now, she has her dream body, but she doesn't have her dream relationship and she's having trouble.

Speaker 2:

And we had an honest conversation. As we do Am I coaching? I'm always trying to help people think as accurately as possible. And she said I don't know if I believe it's possible, the the type of person that I want to be with the dream partner that I want to be with the, the list that I have of boxes to check, so to speak. I don't know if they exist anymore, I don't know if I still believe.

Speaker 2:

And we had an honest conversation about it and ultimately I said this. I said, whether this person is out there or not, you have a choice. You have a choice. You can choose to have faith, which is belief in something you can't see yet, or you can lower the target and climb the ladder. I said my honest perspective and, again, I'm not all knowing, but this is my honest perspective. I believe that your person that you're referring to exists, but I believe it's gonna come in a different package than you think, and what I mean by that is it's not gonna look exactly the way you thought it would.

Speaker 2:

Emilia is my dream partner, by far above my wildest dreams, but it didn't come in the package that I thought it would. And this person has a phone background of her dream partner and it's really cute. Actually, it's this person and her wife and they're on the beach and they have a child that they've adopted or had together and it's like this really cute photo and it's a vision board phone background. And I said you can choose to believe that that is possible and possible for you and that you're gonna work hard to achieve it, and that comes with being alone until AKA, not settling for any less than that, or you can choose to, and that risks being alone. That risks being alone for five, 10, 15, 20 years. I don't know how long it will take to find this person that checks all of those boxes or you can say you know what?

Speaker 2:

I'm not sure this person's out there, so let me loosen up a little bit on my standards, let me explore and see if someone else might be out there that maybe doesn't look this exact way or act this exact way. And so that's kinda what this episode is is you have a choice. Your dream might be possible, and it's a genuine risk to assume that it's possible. It is. You know, kevin and I are trying to have the most positively impactful holistic self-improvement podcast in the world. Is it possible that we're delusional and that that never happens? Yes, that's possible. I don't believe that, obviously. Fortunately, kevin doesn't believe that, but we could be wrong. We're not all knowing it's possible to be wrong, and I'm not even kidding. I actually do hold that duality. I really do. I don't think we're wrong, but I do know it's possible that we are. But here's the thing I would rather go for that and fail than not go for that at all.

Speaker 2:

And so this person had a choice, and so I think that that's really what we're coming down to here is, you can choose to believe it before you see it and take that risk of being alone and maybe regretting it if you never find her, or you can lower the target. You can lower your standards and explore and you might be pleasantly surprised. And my truth is it's probably gonna come to a package different than your picture perfect background, but I also am grateful you have that picture perfect background. I'm just saying don't be too closed or too open. Too open means you'll settle for anything. It doesn't matter who it is Too closed is. You'll never settle, no matter what, unless it checks every box, and that's a quick way to end up alone forever. So you just gotta kind of figure this out for yourself.

Speaker 1:

I don't think anything really comes in the package you expect, or I don't think anything is what you expect, because if you don't have enough, you can't really have the awareness until you see it in a way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we didn't expect this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like you and I being business partners from over in high school, you hated me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I wasn't a fan. I wasn't a huge fan. Middle school I loved it.

Speaker 2:

Was it because I had a Razor scooter?

Speaker 1:

that was better than yours? No, you probably did, though you had Snowball wheels and stuff. I didn't have any of that. It's a fair assessment. I remember all I wanted was a dirt bike, just wanted a dirt bike. Never got a dirt bike Devastated. Well, still time I'm gonna have one, trust me. Of course I have to have one now, I didn't know that. Yeah, I want, yeah, yeah, I need some off-road vehicles.

Speaker 1:

Oh is that gonna say, who knows, we've been all over the place this week Just talking about pizza, bagels and Pokemon and Pogs and off-road vehicles and my hijinks.

Speaker 2:

This came in a different package.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because you were talking about how things will come in a different package than you expected, because your awareness yeah, you don't know until you know.

Speaker 1:

It's okay. Seeing is. Believing is what we're talking about. But you can believe, you can create something that you do not see yet and I think if you mix both of those together, eventually you'll get a lot of results you didn't see coming, but you might also feel a lot of the ways that you hope to feel. Right now I'm the most fulfilled, the most happy and the most holistically quote unquote successful. But most of the stuff that created that. I had no idea it was gonna happen. I didn't know Tara and I were gonna be together. I didn't know Alan and I were gonna be together as business partners. I didn't know a lot of the things. I didn't know where I was gonna live. I didn't know the business. I didn't know all of that stuff, the way that was gonna end up. But the result, I feel, is what I wanted. The journey was drastically different.

Speaker 2:

What did you do? Because I have that moment too of I didn't know, emilia and I. This is beyond what I anticipated for sure. I didn't know you and I would be business partners. It's almost like the true North. I knew, but everything along the climb was fluid.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I didn't necessarily know podcasting was going to be the vehicle. I thought I was going to be a speaker. I saw Tony Robbins Ted Talk and I thought I'd be a speaker like that. He's never been primarily a podcaster. And then eventually it was like I remember my coach at the time.

Speaker 2:

He said name all your dreams I've told this story and podcaster was one of them. Professional athlete, fitness model all my dreams, list, list, list. And he said OK, if you could only do one, what would it be? And I said, no, I'm going to do them all. Now I definitely understand what he was saying. He said no, no, just bear with me. I said podcasting. He said why? I said it's where I'm having the most impact and I don't have to ask someone to go practice speaking, whereas before I had to go give speeches at different schools and get administrators to see my value. It was hard for me to put in the practice, because I couldn't just go to the gym whenever I wanted, so to speak, in this analogy, whereas with podcasting it was Kevin and I could just practice every time we want. So the vehicle, you, a lot of the stuff is different than I originally thought, but the true north never changed.

Speaker 1:

That makes sense.

Speaker 2:

I kind of had the top of the mountain mapped out and then the bottom. I knew where I was and I just was like OK, we're going to get to the top of this thing, no matter how long it takes and yes, it's taking longer than I thought.

Speaker 1:

Seeing if you OK, if you just did what you could currently see, and that was it. Say for me it was podcasting, I could see podcasting, I did podcasting, cool, awesome. If you do what you can just see long enough and you occasionally do something you don't necessarily believe yet, I would argue that that might be a good recipe for a larger level of success. Yeah, it's almost like that's what your coach was saying Pick one what's one you can see.

Speaker 2:

That's what he said, is he said, if you go all in on that one, you'll be able to? Do podcasting, you can have all the rest. Yeah, and he was absolutely right about that. Great coach.

Speaker 1:

Same thing. Third, alex God Podcast Now led to. I told Alan I said I'm so grateful, I feel really good, I'm fulfilled, I'm happy, I'm so grateful that I could sign up to Jiu Jitsu and not worry, it's 160 bucks a month. Martial arts gyms are expensive. I remember when that was a bucket list thing for me and I didn't have to say, oh, you know what? We can't, I can't afford that off the way, in a couple of years or whatever. Whatever it may be, but that's a result of the podcast. Because of the podcast, that's what we're paying for.

Speaker 2:

The Mas Di, it's a car payment. That is a car payment.

Speaker 1:

That's because of the podcast, the rapping. I would never have gotten back into rap to the level I did if I didn't have all the equipment I needed to have a podcast. Never would have wrapped one of my favorite I posted this on my story the other day one of my favorite songs versus rap experiences I've ever had, I wrapped with Eddie Panero of your World Within when we were down in Florida. That never would have happened because we had him as a guest on the podcast. Never would have. Never would have found Justin Freeman, who is one of my most favorite guests we've ever interviewed. He's a rapper that inspired me to get back into rap. Never would have. I probably never would have gone back to Jiu Jitsu because we never would have interviewed Julian Nguyen, who had a martial arts gym in Worcester. That brought me back into the gym for the first time ever and I did a few sessions there.

Speaker 2:

And that's where Bianca met Emilia. Emilia was at that gym.

Speaker 1:

Muay Thai.

Speaker 2:

So it all came.

Speaker 1:

It's fascinating.

Speaker 2:

looking back, it's easy to connect the dots.

Speaker 1:

It's easy to connect the dots. Looking backwards, it's hard to connect the dots.

Speaker 2:

looking forwards, it's what I sound like tonight for sure.

Speaker 1:

That is going off of what I could see. That's all I can really see is we got an episode next week, Okay cool. We got a big guest coming up in a month. A lot of this other stuff is completely unexpected I won't say completely unplanned for, because I'm sure you were planning for it in many ways.

Speaker 1:

I did an episode on podcast growth you recently and I'll make sure it's relevant to you. I was talking about the top five lessons I've learned from hosting over 1500 episodes and one of the lessons was the podcast success is directly connected to what you do with the momentum you have of the podcast. Aka, most of the success of your podcast is not going to be because you were on the microphone. It's going to be all the stuff that happens around. But that's the thing I could see for the longest. So for you it's probably going to be this thing that you see that you do the most consistently is also going to create most of the belief you have and it's going to create most of the opportunities you have. Let's just say you see, the fact that you want to try to think of a good example I always do the dog shelter.

Speaker 1:

Let's just do it. You see the fact that you want to do a dog shelter. You've always had a soft spot for animals. You're very heart driven, you love animals, you want to take care of them, Excuse me. So you go to the library and you buy a book on charities, whatever it is, and you meet someone there that you've never met before and that person becomes a friend. Awesome, you got a new friend. Then you go to a class on small businesses how to start your own small business and you meet someone there that ends up working at the dog shelter with you.

Speaker 1:

And then five, 10, 15, 20 years down the line, this dog shelter has been the one through line of this entire thing, the thing that you could see most, but it has almost unveiled a bunch of other things that you just didn't see were there. They're on the outskirts of the dream that you're chasing. They're there. They're just not on the direct path, but they're right there, they're right off. That that is how I think of it. The podcast for us has been the through line, but everything else has just been kind of a roadside attraction. Oh cool, I'm going to speak here. I never thought that was going to happen. All right, cool, I'm going to have this opportunity. I never thought that was going to happen because I didn't see it Met this person.

Speaker 2:

One of the guests we had on, catherine Nash, showed it to Catherine Early on. That was fitness oriented, but it was. We had her on as a podcast guest and then we were in Florida with her getting Froyo and then she was like you should really have a podcast agency, you should coach podcasters. And here we are, years later 55 other shows that we produce. It's wild.

Speaker 2:

This is the analogy that I use with my clients and for the non. For the younger listeners, this might not land, but back in the day there was I think I don't know what year, maybe 1998, I think there was a film called the Matrix. I know everyone's heard of it. The second one was called Matrix Reloaded and essentially, without getting into too many details, it's a computer generated dream world and Neo is the main superhero character and he's flying through to save Trinity.

Speaker 2:

Trinity is the love of his life and he's flying through the Matrix so fast in this big, huge city that he's actually so fast that the buildings, the glass out of the buildings and the cars are like a vortex around him. And I actually have this picture saved because I pull it up and I talk to my clients about it, because that's what the podcast has been for us. But the point is is that everyone has a through line. Everyone, every movie, has a theme. Every human has a theme to their life. They have that one train that creates the momentum of every other train, and so Kevin's is being the person he needed at his darkest moment, which he articulated one of his darker moments recently and I, unintentionally, was playfully laughing.

Speaker 2:

I apologize in advance or in retrospect. Mine is maximizing my own unique potential. Helping others do the same, helping people achieve their goals and dreams, is what I was always doing, even as a kid. I just didn't know I was doing it. The podcast is the vehicle that allows us to do that. The podcast for the last six years has been Neo flying through the Matrix and all the stuff around it is the lifestyle and the car and the Emilia and I's relationship and Kevin and Taryn and all of the podcast was the one thing that never changed where. It was the vehicle for our purpose and our passion and our profitability that allowed all the other things to happen around it. And so that's the one train we've never stopped and we never will stop, and that's because we know that that's the train that that has brought so many of the other things. Last piece here meeting Emilia is the best thing, hands down, that's ever happened to me. It's not close. She's the greatest gift in my life. It's genuinely something that is beyond my wildest dreams. So a lot of the things we've achieved in business I did anticipate mathematically and believed in them a while ago, emilia, I never knew I this is way better than I ever thought I would ever have Now.

Speaker 2:

I met Emilia when she was close friends with a friend of ours that we met through the podcast, that we met through that Muay Thai gym, that we met through mutual friends on the journey of podcasting. She was a listener of the show and she reached out and suggested a self list versus selfish episode. She said can you guys do an episode on the hyper conscious podcast about this selfish versus self list? And this is a little side tangent. But behind the scenes, kevin, that was the only time Kevin and I recorded an entire episode without a guest and basically almost five about how he didn't understand the listener. Turns out he didn't understand Emilia and I did even before.

Speaker 2:

Knowing Emilia, fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. She becomes the woman of my dreams, beyond my dreams. Quite frankly. Now, without the podcast, would that have happened and here's my main point, this is vulnerable for me to share If I were to lose sight of the mission and the podcast and maximizing my own unique potential as the through line of my life, would I still get to be with Emilia?

Speaker 2:

Don't let go of the one thing that brought you all the other thing, and I think a lot of us make that mistake. We don't understand that it was actually being in the gym consistently that brought the self esteem, that brought the self confidence that brought the dreams. And if you stop the trains that are building your self esteem and your self worth and your self confidence and your self belief, I'm telling you, everything else comes to a halt. And that's what coaching is, and this will be the last piece I share In my coaching. All I'm doing is finding the one thing, two things, three things that are required for you to believe in yourself and for you to have high self esteem. And because if you keep those consistent, everything else circles around it, everything else harmonizes around it.

Speaker 2:

So what's your mountain? And if you can't see the top of it like I could, maybe you can see that next peak and climbed that next little peak and then you'll realize there's another peak and then you climb to that peak and then you'll realize there's another peak and some people start at the bottom and they say I'm going to the very top of Everest and that's a very rare thing but that's possible. Will Smith is a good example of that. Other people are like I don't know where I'm at, but I know I want to climb. I know I want a meaningful life and I know that I want to try a podcast. And then you know what? Maybe it's not podcasting, maybe I want to try.

Speaker 2:

You tuber, I want to be a you tuber instead. Okay, you know what? Maybe not you too. Maybe I'm a motivational speaker. You know what actually I like coaching. And then you kind of find your way up this mountain and realize, okay, maybe that cliff I don't really want to do, let me go over here instead. So One person looks at the top, climbs. The whole damn thing is like holy crap, this is even better than I thought or harder than I thought, or whatever. The other person is just going from peak to peak, to peak, to peak, to peak and eventually they look back and go holy crap, this is so far beyond my wildest dream.

Speaker 1:

I would argue that you would not have met Emilia if it wasn't for the podcast, because I wouldn't have, even at a deeper level. I lived in, as we talked about. I lived in New Hampshire and my buddy, matt, called me one day and he's like hey, man, I'm buying a house. I'm gonna buy a two family house and I'm gonna renovate it. You should come live with me. I know your lease is up soon. You should. We should do this together, like let's bro out, you and I live in together. It'd be awesome, chase our dreams together. You wanna do this podcast thing? You might leave your job soon. Awesome, let's do it.

Speaker 1:

My landlord conveniently that at the same time said I'll let you break your lease early if you want him selling the place. So I moved in with Matt in Worcester, went to the crunch gym in Worcester, I met Bianca and then Bianca and I became really really good friends. Then I introduced Bianca to self improvement. So I never would have known Bianca and I never would have known about the gym. And yeah, if I didn't move to Worcester, I don't know. Almost none of this would have happened, most likely.

Speaker 2:

And to give context there, and hopefully all the listeners are thinking about their own life too. Bianca is the one, emilia, when she first saw my Instagram profile this is back when I was fitness modeling and she was saying to Bianca nope, I want nothing to do with him, he's just. She didn't want another guy who was a body and not a mind, and understandable.

Speaker 1:

My Instagram did not best represent me at the time, a lot of undies, a lot of undies, a lot of undies photos in my modeling days.

Speaker 2:

If you ever wanna go to the laugh, you can go back. I think I took down the more risque ones, but anyways, here's my point. Bianca said no, no, no, you don't understand. You gotta listen to his mind, not look at his body. And she listened to the podcast and that's how that happened. So thank goodness.

Speaker 2:

But, it is, I think, that you'll find your person in pursuit of your calling, in pursuit of your dreams, in pursuit of your purpose. And if you don't know what those things are, keep searching, and we did an episode on that recently.

Speaker 1:

Next Love Nation. If you have not joined our private Facebook group yet, appropriately titled Next Love Nation, please do so. A group of growth minded individuals like you who love having deep conversations, who, unfortunately, don't always feel like they fit in around other people. I know talking about your goals and your dreams and your aspirations and what you're working through with your ego or your insecurities, your limiting beliefs. Whatever it may be, it might not fly in all circles, but it will always fly in Next Love Nation and among the communities that we have. So if you have not joined, please do. The link will be in the show notes below, as always.

Speaker 2:

My amazing executive admin, jeri Ann. Shout out to Jeri Ann she has this on her wall Whatever you are, be a good one. That is what Next Love Nation is about. Whatever you are, be a good one. You are welcome in there. No bullies allowed, no disrespect allowed. Own your weird. If this episode resonated with you, two things. If you're one of your climbs, your mountains that you wanna climb is I've always wanted to try starting a podcast. Reach out to Kev, please. Okay, it's a simple conversation. You never know what one conversation will do. I used to have a podcast, or Kevin says YouTube channel was called Conversations Change Lives. One conversation with Kev can change your life, so take the leap of faith.

Speaker 1:

Totally free. No money, totally free. Yeah, not gonna sell you anything, let's just chat.

Speaker 2:

Kevin at nextleveluniversecom, we adore meeting our listeners. Please reach out If you wanna start a business and that's your dream. We have a lot of podcasters who wanna start and build businesses. We have a lot of business owners who wanna start podcasts. But if you're either one of those, if you wanna start a podcast, reach out to Kev. If you wanna start a business, reach out to me, even if you're in the very early stages. I had one person I was on the phone with showed up to Danny and Danny's in the very beginning. He's just in the dreaming phase. He's like I think one day I might wanna do X, I might wanna coach, one day I might wanna whatever it is, alanatnextleveluniversecom, we'll do a free 30 minute call. Connecting with listeners is one of our favorite things. It's something we've been doing since the beginning and we will be doing forever. So please reach out.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1,517, it's called practicing gratitude. For a reason, it's actually gonna fall closer to Thanksgiving than I originally thought, but Thanksgiving is coming up. For those of you who celebrate it, we'll talk a little bit about gratitude. 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 will talk to you all tomorrow, try hard to believe it before you see it.

Speaker 2:

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

Host