Next Level University

#1521 - Why A Lot Of Us End Up Feeling STUCK

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Have you ever felt like you're running on a treadmill, stuck in the same place despite all your efforts? It’s a common, yet seldom discussed, issue many of us face. Today, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about exponential growth and its impact on our lives. As we climb the ladder of success, life becomes more complex, with various responsibilities and challenges that may make you feel stuck. They discuss the barriers that could hold you back and the tools to break free. The goal is not just to help you overcome the feeling of stagnation but to enable you to harness the power of complexity and challenges to achieve exponential growth in all areas of your life.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Monthly Meetup - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/   


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Show notes:
[3:10] Being an adult is challenging
[9:30] Alan shares an analogy
[12:17] Amanda shares how Alan made her feel valued and supported during their initial consultation call, and how she appreciates his holistic approach
[13:58] More success equals more responsibility
[21:11] Focus on your improvement
[25:15] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

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. Yesterday's episode was episode number 1520. Being consistent is so much easier when you understand this Today for episode number 1521, why a lot of us end up feeling stuck. So what I say might be funny here, but this is how the episode came to me and this is what I thought of when I was figuring this episode out. Alan laughed at me. He said that doesn't really make any sense and I said nothing I really say or do does. So I'm just going to roll with it. I think one of the reasons a lot of us feel stuck are you ready? Please read it verbatim.

Speaker 2

Okay, and I quote this is in the notes for everyone, just so you're aware, when he sends me these, we have a shared Google Doc and he chooses episode topics. We do together sometimes, but sometimes he chooses them alone and sometimes I do episodes. Sometimes he does. He writes a little description. This is said description. So this is all I have to work with.

Speaker 1

Okay, right here and I quote, why a lot of us end up feeling stuck. And this is what it says Wednesday dash, number 1521 dash why a lot of us end up feeling stuck. Then I usually write out what the thumbnail on YouTube is going to end up being, and this is what I wrote for the breakdown of the episode. Because we get on track and then we fall off track and don't get back on. Get on track and then get back on track. All I mean by that is anytime we think we're done. I think we're setting ourselves up for failure. That's all. That's all I meant by that, if you. Why?

Speaker 2

didn't you write that?

Speaker 1

because that's just that's what I was thinking when I said it. I don't know. Tara and I had a conversation the other day. We were talking about the fact that being an adult is challenging.

Speaker 2

It's very very hard to be an adult.

Speaker 1

There's always something to do, there's always something going on, there's always something we're not doing fast enough, we're making a mess faster than we're cleaning up the mess and we're not even parents yet. Well, I'm a cat. No kids for this guy. No kids for this guy. Maybe adoption eventually, I don't know.

Speaker 1

Well, that's what I was referring to Maybe, maybe, I don't know, we'll find out Cats definitely, fur babies definitely, but they make a mess. And no, I'm not comparing cats to real human babies that you may or may not have, but if you do have them, I was talking to Jerry and the other day I said look, I don't know what it's like to be you. I get cats, but I know it's nothing like like what you got going on. So I all the grace and all the love, so I don't want. I want to make sure you know I'm not comparing the two, but I think that's life in a nutshell. We build enough momentum to get a certain result and then we are kind of stuck with that result until we build enough momentum to get another result and you feel stuck. Or you get all the benefits of your accomplishments upfront and then you feel stuck because you have to continue putting in the work to maintain the accomplishments. What'll happen oftentimes is we'll get well.

Speaker 1

Let me throw another thing. I think another reason we end up feeling stuck is because we get so many results in such a short period of time that we forget what it was like before we had the results. So, just as an example, we got 20 next level podcast solutions clients in the previous quarter, so in Q3. And I remember having a feeling of I feel like we're stuck at 50, some odd clients, or 52 or 53, when in reality we've only been there for like 30 days. We're not stuck. This is just a new level that I don't know what it all means yet.

Speaker 1

So sometimes feeling stuck can come from perceived lack of progress without having an understanding of the amount of time that's actually gone by. I think that's another one, but the one I really want to focus on is when we're on track. I think we assume we're on track forever. In reality we're not. You and I are never really on track. We're just more on track than we've ever been but way less on track than we need to be.

Speaker 1

And sometimes that can create a stuck feeling of how are we going to get all these episodes done? We never get them all done on Monday. I'm not calling us out, I'm not calling you on my call on us out, but we have 11 am to 6 pm on the calendar every Monday and we'll never get them all done again. Maybe we may never get them. Alan shows up today and it's you know it's 12 and he texted me and I'm running a little behind. It's like, dude, I need the time. Good, and then we're just BSing. Talking about stuff, talking about business. Alan was fired up today. He came in hot, real good, we'll get three done. We get three out of our required seven done.

Speaker 2

And I had that moment.

Speaker 1

Where I looked at my calendar for the rest of the week and I was like how are we gonna do this? So this week's gonna suck. It's gonna be a brutal week, Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2

But hey, three is more than when we started a hundred percent.

Speaker 1

That's the thing. We're way more on track than we've ever been, but we feel off track, so you kind of feel stuck.

Speaker 2

That's now, imagine, a new podcaster listening to that going. I only do one a week three and one day is wild, stay there.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Stay as long as you can yeah, it's funny Talk into the mic about the episode Okay.

Speaker 2

It's always funny whenever Kevin struggle bus.

Speaker 1

What do you mean? It's funny. My brain is clear. Poland Springs water clear, the, the, the finest natural Springs.

Speaker 2

Clear, I am flowing so a little behind the scenes here. I am now the CFO of next level University CEO slash CFO and I messaged Cav yesterday about what was it? Poland Springs water or something I.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we get. So when we had the podcast studio, that's when the we had a bubbler for the first time or a water cooler, I didn't realize, I didn't know that was a thing. And when Tara and I were talking about getting a water cooler I was like, babe, we got to get a water cooler number one because I drink so much water, but it's the best. They bring it to your house. You always have cold water again. I'm very privileged to have that, but yeah. So Alan wanted to take that away from me, said hey, man, like it's like 60 bucks or something every couple months, do you need, you really need that? 75?

Speaker 2

57? What was it, man? I think it's 75 something and well, that's.

Speaker 1

That's for six, so that probably lasts us a month and a half, maybe two months. Nice For clarity.

Speaker 2

I was not trying to take it away. What I was asking is from zero to ten, how much do you value this? He said 20 out of ten. 20 out of ten. I got confused. But the point is, I don't want us spending level Seven money on level three value right so? And we also have a filter here that got put in. So I thought to myself we could also always put in a filter for your tap. Well, I like, makes it taste a lot better.

Speaker 1

I like it and you know it's all good man.

Speaker 2

If you ever want to know what it's like running a business, imagine Kevin gets 20 clients in Q3 and I text him about how to take away his water. It's a good analogy for how to run a business. We're obviously being playful, it's you just. What's ironic is one of the reasons we can afford the lifestyle that we have now is because we've been so Dialed in when it comes to our expenses, so we're being pretty cool, frugal. So optimal, optimal, all right. So this episode.

Speaker 1

Add some value. Huh, I would like.

Speaker 2

I know I know.

Speaker 1

You don't know what the I can tell with the look in your eyes.

Speaker 2

You know we're talking about.

Speaker 1

I got you talking, why a lot of us end up feeling stuck.

Speaker 2

Yes, Do you. All can read it.

Speaker 1

I can read it again if you want. No, please don't I just make it. I can.

Speaker 2

That's what I had to work with is Sometimes we're on track, we fall off track. We should really get back on track. That's thank you.

Speaker 1

And that's it. That's get on track and then get back on track. Yeah, you're right, yep.

Speaker 2

All right. So this is the analogy that I have. Imagine you. So we have, we coach a couple that is rushing it. Show it to them. They know who they are. We coach several couples, but you'll know who we are when I talk about this.

Speaker 2

All right, so they are working towards a home. They're they're working towards a horsey farm home in the mountains, and we are mathematically on our way. It's awesome, and they're saving a certain amount per Month, and it's it's great, and they're working together as a team. They're on track now. Now, let's imagine fast forward into the future. They buy a home In, let's call it, a half million, so five hundred thousand dollars. Let's say, they buy this home, they, they move in and they're super pumped and they post a photo and they put it on Instagram and Facebook as they should, or should, not, depending, if they want to. And then they have a caption of we achieved our dream together and we worked really hard to save for three years straight, and, and we got enough for the down payment and we got the right real estate agent. We, we made it work XYZ. Now that is awesome. Okay, that is success in a nutshell. I mean, that's what we all strive for beautiful home. They got some land. Imagine, imagine, imagine, awesome, awesome, awesome. Now here's the part of the equation that I don't think is talked about enough, and this is what we talk about at NLU. You, I believe the world's biggest lie is that success makes life easier.

Speaker 2

Kevin mentioned earlier that him and Taryn have been talking about how adulting is really hard. Emilie and I same deal. We have three fur babies and home and three businesses between the two of us. Awesome, awesome, awesome, very, very grateful. But it's a hell of a mountain to climb and it never really ends. The work never really ends. And if you're an adult who has high responsibilities and who's going for a lot in life, I think responsibilities exponentially increase as you get older and then eventually, at the tail end of your life, you the responsibilities start to dwindle because your kids get older and now you have grandkids. It's that kind of thing. But it all depends on your goals. I digress.

Speaker 2

So let's imagine this couple that we coach moves into this new home, takes the amazing photo. This is the part that you're not seeing. Hey, now we have to either do our own landscaping or afford landscapers. Now we have bigger utility bills. We also have closing costs. This might get a little depressing, by the way, for anyone who wants to buy a home. Now our heating bill goes up. Now we also have to take care of the property, and we also have a roof that needs to be replaced within the next five to 10 years. The basement actually needs a new radiator or humidifier or whatever. I'm just making stuff up. I don't know houses. You know my point. Now we actually have to clean a bigger place. So now we need to redo the basement and we need to redo the kitchen and the faucets leaking and our toilet won't shut off and XYZ. And now we have a $2,000 per month mortgage payment. Maybe it's $3,000, actually in this case, probably more like $3,000. And now we also need homeowner's insurance and now also the taxes went up quite a bit, because now you have to pay taxes as a homeowner.

Speaker 2

So it's awesome to see the Instagram photo of this young couple, newly engaged, buying a home. That is success and that's awesome, but don't get it twisted. What's underneath? That is nothing but just absolute struggle, bus responsibilities, and I just you can't have one without the other, and I think that that's the world's biggest lie. I really do, and so the more success that you accumulate in life, the more responsibility you will have.

Speaker 2

And I coach a mom who is the mother of four, jerry Ann she wouldn't mind me sharing this and I've talked to her behind the scenes. I coach one of her sons. His name is Calvin and it's awesome, one of my favorite things ever. Honestly, genuine dream come true. Shout out to Calvin. But anyways. So she took a picture.

Speaker 2

Calvin graduated high school and there was this beautiful photo of their family together. And it was this wonderful photograph. And I talked to her behind the scenes and I said isn't it fascinating how that's such an enviable photograph? But the amount of work that goes into cultivating that family, I must be. I mean, oh my, it's a full time, full time, full time, full time, full time job, and that's the truth, though Everyone wants to have a magnificent family with a beautiful home and with four children and with, you know, graduating high school.

Speaker 2

That picture perfect moment is beautiful and I take nothing from that. But that is earned with struggle and with sacrifice and with sometimes suffering and with fear, and with vulnerability and with challenge and with growth and with opportunity and with I mean I could go on and on and on. And so, no matter what your success is health, wealth, love, like the picture on stage and the fitness show I've been there. I won a fitness show. That picture was awesome. Pretty much everything else that it took to create that picture and to get that trophy was really, really, really hard, and I just think that that's the most important understanding. It is it's the most important understanding about success, in my honest opinion.

Speaker 1

I threw my bodybuilding trophies away in a fit of rage. Well, that's that. That makes sense, considering I don't remember. I don't know if it was Matt or somebody. You don't want to keep them. I said no, these are dumb. I don't know what. Am I gonna put them on my? No, no, throw them away, save the weight. Throw them away, toss them Trash.

Speaker 1

I had a breakthrough when you were speaking. This is kind of what I was trying to say in my epic description of this episode. You start by juggling. You start by throwing up One ball, one pin. Whatever you're juggling Probably not a chainsaw at this stage, but let's just say it's a pin, you're using a bowling pin.

Speaker 1

Then you say I'd really like to get to the stage where I can juggle two bowling pins. All right, well, I have to keep juggling this one. I have to kind of learn how to juggle the second one and I gotta figure out how to kind of connect them. Sorry, now I'm juggling two. Hell yeah, I'd really love to learn how to juggle three. You have to learn how to juggle three while you're already juggling two. So it's almost like every time.

Speaker 1

So this is what I was trying to say with getting on track and then getting back on track. Every time you do something and then you wanna do something more. You are doing something more along with everything that you were already doing before, like that game. What is it telephone? Is it telephone where Alan tells me something and then I remember what Alan told me, and then I tell somebody something else and then they have to remember what I told them, that Alan told me and what I told them and eventually, by the end, nobody has any clue what the hell they're talking about, because you're 26 people deep and you're saying there was a zebra who went to the zoo and then he got on a jet ski, went to the boat, got hot dogs four of them, cotton candy, large dunk in from ice, large ice from dunk in, even though it's in the winter.

Speaker 1

And by the end it's just a tangled mess. I think leveling up as a human is very similar to that, so that is my next level. My next level, nugget, is juggling gets harder as you go.

Speaker 2

And by the time but you get better at juggling.

Speaker 1

You get better at juggling. But by the time you're good at juggling four pins, you're ready to juggle a fifth. Juggling four is still a full-time thing. Just because it's easy, or that it's ever been, does not mean it's gonna be easy to juggle five. That's my analogy.

Speaker 2

A lot of shout-outs to Jeri Ann on this episode. She also said that it gets exponentially harder. I believe it. It's not like having your third child is easier, because now you know what you're doing. It's actually exponentially more challenging.

Speaker 2

And what I'll share briefly on this is we were in Book Club and we were reading Limit List by Jim Quick, as I've talked about, and there's the eight different modalities of thinking. The chapter 15 was on thinking and we actually had everyone self-assess three things. I went through every single one. I read the description. It was really cool.

Speaker 2

Self-awareness club is what we joke Mirror club for Book Club and I had everyone say you're either great at this, decent at this or not so good, nsg not so good. And I had everyone write in the chat and eventually at the end I had everyone tally up their scores and I wanted to know the top three that you're great at and the top three or bottom three that you're bad at. For me my lowest one was musical. I'm not a very good musical person, not good at music. My highest was math and logic. Most people's lowest was math and logic Super fascinating. So my point here and for anyone listening if math and logic is low. Please don't shut off to this. I really wanna try to make this land. The layers of complexity are exponentially increasing. Kevin and I often joke as we have a 21 person team in 22 departments and we're doing a lot of stuff and we're juggling a lot of pins. In this analogy and I say you ever wonder what it must be like to run Apple?

Speaker 2

And he's like no, no, no, no, no, no. The layers of complexity at a company at that level must be insane. And so, whether it's going from two kids to three kids, or going from 18 team members to 21 or five departments when we started, to 22 now, it exponentially increases the challenge, but in tandem with that and this is my point you actually exponentially get better, because I was in Book Club and I was talking about how, even if Kevin and I improved by just 0.1% per episode for 1500 episodes, it leads to 100 plus times better. We've gotten probably about a thousand times better at podcasting, despite the fact that I can't talk right now. But that's the key.

Speaker 2

If you can improve incrementally along the way, yes, your life will get exponentially more challenging, but you will get exponentially more intelligent, exponentially more capable, exponentially more emotionally aware. There is a way to improve along the way and, quite frankly, I do believe this. It's very hard to sustain level five without improving to level six. So Kevin and I, let's say we're level seven competent, we're probably playing at level five right now, and so I think we're actually more capable than this. I think at times Kevin feels like the opposite. We definitely I dragged him to places he wasn't ready for for sure.

Speaker 2

But at the end of the day, if you focus on your improvement proactively, when you do get the success, it won't crush you because you're ready for it, you're preparing. It's just like with Kevin with Jiu-Jitsu If he's practicing Jiu-Jitsu consistently, when he does spar with someone who's good, he's not gonna get his ass kicked nearly as bad as he would if he wasn't practicing.

Speaker 1

I did get my ass kicked gently. I gently got my ass kicked. I have a quote that has nothing to do with this episode self-improvement, personal development, anything but I'd like to share it. I do think what a hook, right. I do think you'll respect it. Don't know where it came from. I think I made it up, but I think.

Speaker 2

I made it perfectly. I made it perfectly. I made a hook. I'm not so sure.

Speaker 1

You'll respect it because it has to do with belief. Any pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard and believe in yourself. Wait, wait wait wait, wait, wait. Any pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard and believe in yourself.

Speaker 2

What is the point?

Speaker 1

The point Point. You get a large pizza. You know how they make personal pizzas they're very small.

Speaker 2

They're made for you to eat by yourself.

Speaker 1

Any pizza could be that if you try hard and believe in yourself. Oh, pretty positive when you think about it.

Speaker 2

I like it. I respect it. I didn't know what you meant, because personal pizza I didn't visualize a small pizza.

Speaker 1

See remember when Subway started selling pizza.

Speaker 2

What are we doing here?

Speaker 1

I do not remember that and I probably do not remember that for a reason. Stick to the Subway. The Subs aren't even good, never mind the pizza. But I'm disc Next level nation. Please, if you have not yet and you would find value in which I do believe, you would join our private Facebook group, next Level Nation, a group of like-minded humans who want similar things out of life. We're gonna talk about fulfillment next episode. They value fulfillment, they value growth, contribution and just getting to the next level, and it's a safe place to be yourself. It can be authentic, it can be vulnerable and it can meet some friends. We all want more friends who are like-minded. So Link will be in the show notes, as always. We'd love to have you there.

Speaker 2

If you are like Kevin and I at the beginning of this growth journey, you're sitting there going. Why am I the only one so into growth? Why am I the only one who wants to read books and wants to listen to podcasts and wants to improve? And why am I the only one tracking habits or whatever it might be, if you feel that way? Monthly meetups, every single month, were created specifically to come and meet other people like you, other people that are into growth. So our 24th, next level monthly meetup this is two years.

Speaker 2

This will be our two year mark of doing monthly meetups. It's behind the scenes, it's private, it's not recorded. Nothing that you share there is ever going to leave there. What you share there stays there. And Kevin and I prepare the three things holding you back from your unique version of success, and we really do work hard on preparing. The last one was absolute fire. People were in chat. The chat was on fire. Amy L is now the facilitator, the director of that department, so she's in the chat. Kevin and I are going. We're talking, people are contributing. You can sit there with your mic off and camera off if you want, or you can contribute a ton, assuming that you're not driving while you're listening, but you can be as passive or proactive as you want while you're there. Please join us. The link to register will be in the show notes. Again, this is meetup number 24, two years in a row, three things holding you back from your unique version of success.

Speaker 1

Tomorrow for episode number 1,515, finding more fulfillment in your life. Alan and I were talking today about how wild this journey has been thus far, and one of the words we use most often is fulfilling. Challenging, yes, rewarding, yes, humbling, yes, but fulfilling. Fulfilling is always a word you will hear us using, so we're gonna talk about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU, we learn of fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow, keep after it, next sublimation.

Speaker 1

Oh man, all the best.

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host