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
#1518 - Start Planning Your Holiday Boundaries NOW!
While filled with joy and festivity, the holiday season can often come with its fair share of stress, mainly when it involves family gatherings. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about how setting boundaries during this season is not only possible but necessary for a peaceful and enjoyable festive season. By understanding your leadership style, being proactive in managing commitments and expectations, being honest with yourself and others, and having an accountability partner, you can navigate family stress during the holidays quickly and gracefully.
Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
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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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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:
[2:51] People and their expectations
[4:27] Hardest but the most needed
[7:50] Be more proactive in advance
[10:28] You're going to get more buy-in from other people
[12:12] Eddie expresses his satisfaction with Alan's support in his and his business' growth through the Next Level Business Solutions
[20:08] Reason that resonates and find an accountability partner
[25:32] 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 previous episode, yesterday's episode. It was episode number 1517. It's called practicing gratitude for a reason. Today, for episode number 1518 happy Sunday. Start planning your holiday boundaries now. I Was talking to one of our clients on a previous call last week and she is a licensed marriage and family therapist, but she is a leadership coach, but she goes into organizations and works with abrasive leaders and she said hey, the holidays are coming up. Can we do some content around? What that's gonna be like for my audience?
Speaker 2:wait, wait. Abrasive leaders. Abrasive leaders learning how to do empathy and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just her thing is your leadership style comes from your childhood.
Speaker 2:Often times, nice and she's awesome. Yeah, yeah, she's the sweetest shout out to.
Speaker 1:I don't think Bonnie's listening, but if Bonnie, if you're listening, you're the sweetest and that's so powerful.
Speaker 2:It's a really cool way to frame leadership. Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. It's amazing, but her audience tends to deal with family issues, especially around the holidays. So her other thing is how did my family? That kind of her tagline is how did my family get in the office, aka my? The way I was raised, my family life, that has Translated to my leadership style. So when her and I were working on content together, I was thinking I think this would be a really valuable topic for NLU in the community as well, because I think one of the reasons holidays are so stressful is because People are popping back into your life with different expectations than they have for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1:So even me I Actually message you this. I don't know if you got it yet, but I already made sure everything was canceled from Thanksgiving. I'm not gonna work on Thanksgiving. I'm not doing calls and stuff. I love Thanksgiving. I want to go eat and I want to be merry and I want to relax. Christmas is on a Monday. You and I usually do our recordings on a Monday, so we're probably gonna have to figure that out.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, the holiday season and again, wherever you are in the world, I don't. I am not cultured enough to know all of the holidays and all the celebrations and all the practices. So I apologize if I'm not touching on your holidays or celebrations, but it's almost like an extra level of guilt is able to be pulled. Well, it's, it's Thanksgiving. What do you mean? You don't have to work on Thanksgiving, or it's Christmas, or it's Hanukkah, or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:Nobody else is working, you don't? You're only gonna get to see your cousins this, this one time, or your aunt, your Aunt uncle, or flying in from California. You don't really get to see them. So I thought having an open conversation around this Would be valuable, hopefully with some takeaways of what you can do now. Transparently, this isn't really something I struggle with. The way I was raised, I kind of got to do what I want and I'm very grateful for that. I was never really guilted, so maybe I can bring a different perspective than Alan, but my goal is to give some tangible tactics by the end of this episode.
Speaker 2:I had a breakthrough while you were talking, which was when expectations are the highest, that's when boundaries are the most needed. Hundred percent. So whenever expectations are the highest, that's when boundaries are the hardest but the most needed. Put that on a post, a pamphlet, and send it off.
Speaker 1:Send it off to the world for the world.
Speaker 2:If you could, what one thing on a billboard for the world to see? What would it be that that might be one of them?
Speaker 1:Okay, it wouldn't it would be.
Speaker 2:Math is the way I'm kidding, all right. So I struggle with this tremendously. I told Kev that I he's like I didn't really want to do this episode and he's like why I Think it'll be valuable for the audience. I said I know I just am insecure about it. I don't want to talk about it, but I did say that I would probably not add a lot of value. I'm not exactly an expert in this.
Speaker 2:Emilia has been leading the charge in this. I have a word at the top of my whiteboard in my office right over here. It says proactive. She has something she calls proactive family leadership, which is essentially just planning ahead. Okay, okay, we are doing Thanksgiving here. I'll give an example. And she's always the one we're on walks. We do walks every other day and she'll always say, okay, what do we wanna do for Thanksgiving? And I'm my head goes. I have no idea. I haven't thought about that a single time. Right, I don't wanna do anything on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:Basically and I'm a little weird in that personally I'm not a huge fan of I do like Thanksgiving out of all the holidays because it's gratitude and it's quality time and it's food, and I adore those things, particularly food and gratitude. But here's my point Holidays force you into these aqueducts of expectation and you're expected to be at this place at this time and you're expected to be this way. And for us NLU weirdos globally, we like to be ourselves and we don't like to be put into boxes and labeled and told what to do. And many of us struggle with what's called an obliger and we will often do for others what we won't do for ourselves. So we struggle with this, guilt trips and the shame and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And so what Emilia and I have been doing is being proactive of okay. So my family asked us if we wanna go down to South Carolina for this event, do you wanna do that? And it's a simple conversation between her and I, first Versus what we used to do, which is we would wait for Thanksgiving. They would bring it up and we wouldn't have an answer and we wouldn't come with a united front. So we were dispersed. So I'd agree to something out of you just want to appease and get love. And she'd be like wait, you agree to that. And I'd be like I'm sorry, you know, it's like when we rent a car with Kev do you need the insurance XYZ for the extra. He's like yeah, need it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, do I? Now I know, though, now I know you don't, now Kevin knows Can't get me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just sign me up. Whatever it is, I'll deal with it later. You get a $500 bill because you coconut fell on your windshield, anyways. So I now with Emilia. Thanks to Emilia, this is not me. We are proactive in having these conversations way in advance, so that when these things come up, we already have a plan, we already have a game plan, we already have our own strategy, and I think that that's pretty much as much value as I can add, which is just be more proactive.
Speaker 2:Prior to whatever holiday it is, have a conversation with your intimate partner. Have a conversation after you haven't. There's gotta be like a line of command, for lack of better phrasing. So once Emilia and I are on the same page, then we get my mama on the same page, then we get her family on the same page, then we can all have a wonderful experience together, rather than everyone, last minute, figure it all out and try to shove it all together and then someone's gonna take the L when it comes to their priorities like fitness. So we're doing a turkey trot, so we're hosting Thanksgiving here, and we have a whole itinerary.
Speaker 2:Again, thanks to Emilia. This is not my strong suit and we have a whole thing planned out, and one of them is gonna be actually, I'm really excited for this. We have a gratitude journal that we bought when we first got together and our idea was everything's giving. We would have this journal out. It's this beautiful.
Speaker 2:It was like expensive I think it's like a $60 journal or something but it would be out on the counter so that everyone can go everything's giving and write down what they're grateful for, and so we would have a whole book eventually of all of our family's gratitude and everything all of us are grateful for on Thanksgiving, and it would be a tradition new tradition and so we have that. And then we're doing a turkey trot, which is just a walk hike. I think we have some other stuff planned. We're gonna get it catered, but at the end of the day, the only value I have is proactivity and planning and getting on the same page with the right people in advance so that when it times come, when it comes time to set a boundary, you're ready.
Speaker 1:I would second that. That was really my big thought for this episode. This is what works really well for me Plan something. It's almost like you go in and say, all right, cool, what time do we want to be there until? Well, we're gonna get there. It, we're gonna get there at 10. I think we're probably gonna eat around one. I want to be out of there at three. All right, cool, we're gonna plan something for four. So you and I have to leave at three if we want to get to our four o'clock thing. Now again, this is where Dinner with me, dinner with me can't miss that. Again. This is where White lie kevh Might knock on the door and say, hey, I have an idea for you. It's up to you, as long as it's morally and ethically aligned for you. Sometimes you just got to make shit up.
Speaker 1:I'm okay with that if it keeps you sane and it it helps you set boundary if it's a if it's, if it's the training wheels in the right Direction, hundred percent. Yeah, 100% yeah. Just because I think of it this way, I, I, I don't really like being back-to-back-to-back on meetings all day, but I always have a boundary.
Speaker 1:Hey just FYI, I have to be off at noon because I have another call. Hey, fyi, I have to be off at one because I have another call right off the bat. I'm setting my boundary, but a Boundary with a reason will always do better than a boundary without one.
Speaker 2:It's fire.
Speaker 1:So that's my, that is my. If I could add any value, that would be my heavy Next-level nugget for this episode.
Speaker 2:Kev, you got to tell the copy machine thing that you told in the meter I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm not good with studies and or examples. There was a, there's a book called influence by Robert Sialdini Nice, not bad right, and I have it over here somewhere. I'm not gonna do what Alan does and show it to the camera. That ain't me, and he I don't know. You could probably give the numbers and the stats better, but there were two examples. One somebody walks up to a copy machine.
Speaker 2:This is so fun for me.
Speaker 1:Hey, can I cut you and make a copy. That was person, one person to walked up and said hey, can I cut you? I need to make a copy. That was their. Their point, I believe, was I need to make a copy. That was it. Then they tested it again with hey, hey, can I cut you? I'm in a rush and I need to make a copy. And I believe every single One of those that had kind of an extra point or an extra reason Increase the percentage of people allowing them to cut, to get cut in line. Yeah, don't write up, don't write an article on it, because I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but it's Factual from my understanding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the study is awesome and it's essentially when you give a good reason. Yeah that other people can rationalize in their own head as to why you need to cut them or why you need to Comply with something. They're more likely to do it a ka. To bring it back to Kevin's original point hey, I have to be off by noon. I have another meeting. Him saying I have another meeting is the You're gonna get more buy-in from other people.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be easier to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's extra necessity to set a boundary. You, you got to have a reason. This thing, this kind of sucks. But you know how you said at the beginning it's like, oh, but it's Christmas, that that guilt that you're expecting. I remember it was the 4th of July. I'll never forget this and I I Do like to track habits and work pretty much every single day and that is who I am.
Speaker 2:I'm starting to own that more. I never used to, but I told Emilia I really do think I want to work pretty much every day For the rest of my life. I know most people don't. I love what I do. I want to get better every day. This is who I am. It's kind of who I've always been. Now I'm just a little more honest about it with everybody and I'm trying to continue down that path, being more authentic.
Speaker 2:So I was, it was 4th of July and I was like I gotta go and I didn't plan at all for this. I didn't tell anybody I should have. I sucked at this. Okay, seriously, I will tell you authentically when I'm good at stuff. I will tell you authentically when I'm not. I am so bad at this it's not even funny. So I was like, ah, you know, right in the middle of the day it's like three o'clock on the 4th of July I was like, ah, gotta go. And Emilia's dad was what do you mean, 4th of July? And I had nothing. It was just like you know business, you know, you're a business owner too, you know. And he was like all right, man, you know. And we left. But I was so embarrassed because it's I don't have a good reason other than I wanna go grind son Joking but not joking. So yeah, I gotta lift. Like that's not a rational reason for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, and because again, this is a misunderstanding he sees family, he sees quality time. We're at the lake. It's amazing, we have a blast. Why would you want to leave? So it's not like he's attacking me, it's much more just an honest conversation of why wouldn't you wanna stay? And underneath this is I wanna spend time with you, I care about you, I wanna spend time with you. So it's not all malicious, it's really actually quite wonderful. But I think that we butt heads with people when we don't prepare ourselves for these moments where I should have told them I'm gonna be leaving at three o'clock on 4th of July and it was one of those days where I think 4th of July was on a Monday or something. So, yeah, it was the 4th of July, but I think you and I probably recorded or something.
Speaker 1:Maybe not on the 4th, but I think 4th of July was a Sunday.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, but I knew we cranked on Monday, though I'm pretty sure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you were away and you knew you had to get home if you were gonna do the stuff you needed to do to actually have the Right, because usually on Sundays I prepare the next week and the week goes off the rails if I don't.
Speaker 2:So, but again, not everyone's gonna understand that. They don't know how dialed in you are or aren't. They don't know your goals. They wanna support you but they don't know how. So you have to communicate these things in advance, proactively, and you have to give reasons, reasons that the other person will understand. And I am trying to get to a place where I never, ever, lie to myself or anyone else ever again. And I've been working on this for years to the point where we got a bad review because of it. That's on me, my bad, but at the end of the day, I do wanna get to a place where I never, ever, ever lie to anyone about anything ever again. I think that that's a really good thing and in the future I'll just have reasons. I'll say well, my week typically goes off the rails if I don't get some back office time. I know you're a business owner too, so you understand 20 person team, you can articulate it in a way that they'll get it. I think that's my ultimate point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is my thought Holidays are probably like a level 10 reason not to work. Holidays are a level 10 reason not to be in alignment for many of us and the expectations on us. You have to figure out what is a level 10 reason that you can help someone understand why you wanna do what you wanna do. Because in an ideal world someone would just say, yeah, you do, you, it's all good. No, you wanna leave it three? Cool, and I'm not saying anybody's wrong for not saying that, but I understand okay. So this is my thought. If you had a wedding to go to, people would understand 100%. If you had a funeral to go to, people would understand 100%. If you were doing a bodybuilding show, people would understand why you had to go to the gym. If you were about to lose your business, if you didn't get a certain amount of stuff done in a certain amount of time, people would understand.
Speaker 2:AKA, always, always it is that.
Speaker 1:I think it's that balance, that juggling act of yes, christmas, let's just say holiday, insert holiday, family, get together, celebration time is a 10 out of 10 for the majority of us. It doesn't mean that the rest of my life isn't a 10 out of 10 for me. So going in with that understanding, I think, is valuable.
Speaker 2:Kev, you have a good example of setting a boundary Can you give the listeners? You went to a wedding and brought your meals, your prepped meals. I can't talk today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was brutal. That's probably not as relatable. Okay, this is one I did. It was Taryn's brother's birthday. This was like eight months ago. This was during the summer, not eight months ago, it was like during the summer. And she said, hey, I'd really love if you'd come to the birthday party. And I was like, yeah, for sure, I will definitely come, 100%, I'm all in, I want to celebrate your brother, let's do it. I scheduled a hang with Matt after that. Now, that was kind of already on the books, but when I went I told everybody in Taran already knew. But I said, hey, just an FYI, I get a bounce out of here at two because I'm supposed to be at my buddy's house at three. That's how I went in, with that understanding, and it works really well.
Speaker 2:Is it so hard when you have such high standards for being on time and other people don't?
Speaker 1:It's definitely challenging, but here's the thing, and this is where white lie Kevin comes in Because in their head they're like, who cares if you show up at 3.30?
Speaker 2:Who cares if you show up?
Speaker 1:at four. The thing is, I don't really care either, but I do need you to know that I already have an exit strategy. Yeah, I didn't leave exactly on the time that I wanted to, because I think we were playing bag toss or something, and Taran and I made an epic comeback. We were down like 17-nothing and we came home Ooh. And everybody was like you gotta play another game, you gotta play another game.
Speaker 2:And I was like yeah, all right, one more. Line them up, line them up, line them up, line them up.
Speaker 1:And then after that, I think we won.
Speaker 1:Kevin's never late, except for bag toss when I'm winning at lawn games. So that would be the value that I think you can take the action. The tactic from this episode is try to plan something else so you actually have a reason. In an ideal world, your boundary would be good enough, the boundary of saying, well, honestly, I just wanna go, I don't wanna be out super late, I just wanna go home and relax after a big meal. I'm gonna leave at three. Yes, in an ideal world, you'd be surrounded by people. That that would fly with Alan and I have that type of relationship. Whatever dude you go, do whatever you want, I don't care, you leave whatever you want, I don't. Whatever, it doesn't matter. If you can create a reason that resonates with other people, I think you'll be more successful because you'll probably get less pushback. That would be my next level nugget.
Speaker 2:My next level nugget would be find an accountability partner. Emilia went to South Carolina. I tell the story. I went off the rails watching too much friends, friends. I had to quit. I'm obsessed with the show. I always have been and I had to quit. It's like, well, friends is amazing, I said. I know that's why I had to quit. If it wasn't amazing I wouldn't have to quit, but anyways. So when she was away I had less boundaries.
Speaker 2:Her and I have rails that we stay on. We put the fur babies to bed at 10 and then we spend quality time, but we're in bed, no matter what a sleep, by 11. And when I was alone, I just went right off the rails. One, two AM just not good. So find an accountability partner. It is so important.
Speaker 2:We do weight training every other day and we do walks every other day. There's no way we could have done this without each other. I mean, we're coming up on I said coming up on 700 days. I misspoke when I think we're on 610 or something. But the point is is her and I have acknowledged we've always wanted to do this. We've never been able to. The longest I did with Audi, amelia was three and a half months and now I'm coming up on the two year mark in a couple hundred days. I don't know the exact amount, but we're gonna hit the two year mark and it's only gonna be because I had an accountability partner. The right accountability partner will change your life, kevin and I. 1500 episodes would never have happened if it was just us. We're accountable to each other and we're accountable to the listeners, so make sure you're using accountability partner.
Speaker 1:Speaking of accountability, partners and community, something I've been talking about a lot on other podcasts. If you have not yet joined our private Facebook group, next Level Nation, please do so. A really good place where you don't have to have white lies for your boundary. That is all I will say and again, I try to be the most honest version of myself. I really do, that's what I aspire to, but I also understand sometimes you need training wheels to get out of situations that do not serve you, so I will always be open and honest when it comes to white lies on this podcast.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting You're being honest about not being honest.
Speaker 1:How would a duality and who knows, I could be lying about.
Speaker 2:That's also true and also if people are toxic with their not respecting and honoring your boundaries, throw a white lie at them. Yeah, that's what I'm saying Give them a piece of their own medicine.
Speaker 1:It's better if it's gonna keep you in alignment and you're not gonna resent this person. I think it's a net positive Agreed.
Speaker 2:Fair, fair. So we just finished today actually Limitless by Jim Quick in Book Club, and if you go into Next Level Nation to Kevin's advice, click the link in the show notes. There is a poll at the very top, so this episode is dropping when Kev.
Speaker 1:This episode is dropping Sunday.
Speaker 2:Sunday okay, so tomorrow Sunday, if you're listening, it's still up. It closes Monday November.
Speaker 1:November 13th.
Speaker 2:Monday, november 13th at midnight. It's closing because I want to make sure everyone has time to get their books shipped. There are five options. I will read you the options very, very quickly. One moment, please.
Speaker 1:Voting for Harry Potter.
Speaker 2:All right, here we go. These are the five options. Number one high performance habits by Brendan Bershard. Indistractable by near yow. Flip the switch by Michael Burt zero votes. Yeah, that ain't no love For Michael Burt? All right, of course I had to throw it in there. The courage to be disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga I don't know how to pronounce those I apologize, great book it is right fire and then your erroneous zones by Wayne Dyer. That was actually the first book I ever recommended to Kev.
Speaker 1:It just talks about your sexual. I thought it was your arogenous.
Speaker 2:Like hey, what book should I read? I mean, no, so it's actually your errors in thinking, but not sexual not sexual. Right now, brendan Bershard is winning with, I think, 50% of the boat. The boat Wow, 50% of the votes. High performance habits by Brendan Bershard. Either way, join next level nation. It will be featured at the top. We are closing the vote on Monday at midnight, the 13th.
Speaker 1:I do believe if the goal of book club and whether you attend or not, if it is deep talks, courage to be disliked, is a great one. Shout out to Jenna. Jenna, I believe.
Speaker 2:Jenna recommended that book. She did out to Jenna.
Speaker 1:I want to make sure she gets the credit she deserves. Okay, agreed tomorrow for episode number 1519. One important lesson about vulnerability. I was on, alan, I'm sure you've had these experiences. I was on a podcast yesterday. It was just like I could stay with this person all day.
Speaker 1:It was amazing it was wonderful is a great conversation, and she had very many kind words to say about my vulnerability and I said again I've done this a long time and many of my stories aren't vulnerable because I've said it. I've said them so often and to such depth that doesn't really bother me anymore. But there was a very important takeaway that I had from that episode that I would like to share with everyone. So we will do that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and an LU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Honor those boundaries next to the nation.
