Next Level University

#1522 - Finding More Fulfillment In Your Life

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss the complexities of living a life of joy, and how fulfillment can be about more than just happiness. Understanding the difference between pleasure and fulfillment is crucial, as pleasure doesn't always lead to a meaningful life. While pleasure provides immediate satisfaction, fulfillment is about more profound, lasting contentment connected to our purpose and values. A relationship based on fulfillment often demands more - growth, vulnerability, and investment - but also brings so much more reward. It's not about chasing materialistic success or money. Instead, it's about seeking more profound, more meaningful pursuits.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Blog: #13 - How to Create, Cultivate, and Sustain a Happy Life - https://bit.ly/3SFwWQf 

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Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

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Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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Show notes:
[2:03] What is fulfillment?
[6:55] The Triad of Happiness
[13:00] The happiness formula
[18:42] Amanda shares how Alan made her feel valued and supported during their initial consultation call and how she appreciates his holistic approach
[19:25] Kevin's analogy
[24:15] Unfulfilling relationships
[30:00] Easy isn't meaningful
[36:06] 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 yesterday's episode. It was episode number 1521. Why a lot of us end up feeling stuck today for episode number 1522 finding more fulfillment in your life?

Speaker 1:

I remember Alan and I were in his mother's basement and we had a whiteboard down there. This was our second ever podcast studio probably 2018, maybe 2019 and we were talking about fulfillment and I remember I didn't know what that was, I didn't know how to spell the word and I had no clue where to even go. If you said what is fulfillment, I probably would have said it's just happiness, probably just a different version of happiness, and we've talked about it many times in this podcast and I've talked about it many times another podcast and I've experienced it and I felt it and I've lived it and I think when we're anytime we're talking about fulfillment, I would argue and this will be an open conversation, obviously I would argue that fulfillment is something of meaning, something that matters to you, something that is deeper than Layer one. So I have used the analogy many times. Before my car, I have a BMW. When I get in it, I do feel happiness, I feel appreciation, I feel gratitude, I feel some. I feel many different emotions, but the car does not fulfill me. It's not deeper than that, it's not. Yeah, if I said the journey of getting the car was super fulfilling, yes, but there's so much more meaning and so much more purpose.

Speaker 1:

Going back to what we talked about, I think, last week, then just the car, volunteering, volunteering, is something that for many of us is very, very fulfilling Because it's not surface level, there's something that it's. It's deeply meaningful. It's meaningful for you to say you know what? I want to Impact this in this way. I don't want to say impact people less fortunate, because you can volunteer for many different things, but you're doing something that is meaningful, that's greater than you, it's deeper than you, it's more important than you. I think that's really what fulfillment is. It's something that matters in a meaningful way, not a surface level Activity. It's a meaningful pursuit or a meaningful, I guess a meaningful activity, I don't think sitting on. So Alan, in a previous episode, said for his birthday he wanted to watch three Lord of the Rings back to back. He said gonna be about a 12 hour day. Excuse me, sir. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, wasn't the.

Speaker 2:

Lord of the Rings, oh, hold on the hobbit the hob.

Speaker 1:

I apologize, that's my bad never will happen again.

Speaker 2:

Will not happen very similar, man same director. Yes, all good.

Speaker 1:

Mr Peter Jackson, I believe, is that is that him? Yes, I know stuff too, thank you. I'm gonna argue that that's not gonna fulfill you, but it might fulfill you more than it might fulfill someone else, because you have a special connection to the movies. But I would argue that it's going to make you happier. Then it does fulfill you. Mm-hmm Are you what are your thoughts around that?

Speaker 2:

Because I'm doing, I'm experiencing them with Emilia and I know that she loves them too and we are sharing that day together of quality time with quality food, with each other and other wonderful things together and Also with our pets. It'll be more meaningful, but, yes, it's not nearly as meaningful as our missions, our Dreams, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's, it's, it's more of a pleasure filled day than it is meaning, although, honestly, as far as pleasure filled days, I think that's one of the things I've tried to design well, which is, how do I create Fulfillment in the simple, pleasurable things that I do love? Because I've tried really hard not to live a Pleasure driven life which I'll get into, but try to live a fulfilling life, and I think that, as far as days off the rails go, I would say this is probably on the higher end of meaningful.

Speaker 1:

I Was talking to somebody the other day about Live events and I said really for live events, we do next level live and we have next level hope foundation. So those are kind of the two live events in person that we put on, and next level hope foundation isn't really a live event. It's not like we're Doing a speech or anything it's. It's not a hard day but it's deeply meaningful.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, because we're doing something far greater than us. It's it's a charity initiative for children of single parents. But I was talking about next level, live, which is our live event we do every March and I said it is one of the worst days. I hate it. I Hate it so much. It's so stressful the week leading up to it, the night before I don't sleep, but it is also one of the most fulfilling things ever, when we get done so lat.

Speaker 1:

This year, this past one, we did. We rented a really nice Airbnb on a lake and the team came in and we got. There's a place in Worcester called Wicked Wings and we got Wicked Wings and we went back to the Airbnb and I was super fulfilled. In the shadow of Accomplishment is what I would say. It was in the shadow of accomplishing something. That just wasn't a check the box thing. It was an experiential thing. It was all of the things that we've done to get us to this place that have led up to this. In connection to what has happened today, and I I've been of the mind that fulfillment and happiness do not even have to coexist For one, two. They don't have to coexist. One can exist by itself.

Speaker 2:

Let me, let me riff off this for a minute, because this is something that I've.

Speaker 2:

I just finished a blog on this and I will actually put the link in the show notes for anyone who's curious about going deeper. But I Wrote a blog and it's called how to create, cultivate and sustain a happy life, and it's built on a framework. It's called the triad of happiness, and that triad is consistent of three different things, and the three things that Kevin's trying to articulate here are joy, pleasure and fulfillment. So if you want most people say I want to be happy you ask a parent what do you want for your child? I want my child to be happy, and that's the goal in life. I often talk about the John Lennon story. I don't know if it's true or not, but essentially he had an assignment when he was a kid, apparently, that the teacher said who do you want to be when you grow up? And he said happy. And they said you don't understand the assignment because they were obviously talking about his career, and he said you don't understand life.

Speaker 2:

What I think is challenging and and Bother some, quite frankly is that we were never taught about fulfillment. We're taught about the pursuit of happiness. Everyone uses the word happy, but no one really knows how to create it, sustain it, cultivate it, design it. And I've spent my entire life For lack of better phrasing looking around me going. I don't see a lot of happy people and it I'm gonna speak very directly. But I do look around and get scared. There's not that many people who really are living rich, dynamic, positive, growth, oriented, contributing lives of deep fulfillment, and I know why. I know why because we weren't taught about fulfillment. We don't know what it is. We don't know how to design meaningful lives. It's not like we went to school and learned, imagine a course on how to design a meaningful life. We didn't have courses on health, wealth, love, relationships, communication, vulnerability, wholeheartedness. We didn't have, we don't have books or courses on that stuff. That's actually why I know you exist and so, growing up, I grew up in a very, I would say, an environment that was deeply unfulfilled.

Speaker 2:

I saw marriages that were awful. I saw Parents who resented their children. I Saw people going to jobs they hated to afford things they had to take care of. I saw drug abuse, alcohol abuse. Now, not all of my childhood was bad. So I want to make it clear I had some really bright spots in there. Okay, I'm gonna make that clear, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it either. I saw miserable human beings. I mean just wildly unhappy people and Deeply unfulfilled I should say. They weren't living rich, dynamic, positive, meaningful lives. They just weren't. And I know that that's common and I know that at the end of the day, we're all on a spectrum.

Speaker 2:

On the far low end, you have people that have no meaning in their life and it's mostly pleasure centered, and they're probably feel like they don't matter and they feel insignificant and they feel depressed, and I understand that and there's a lot of causes of that. And On that side I'll call that side not nihilism, and I've been there, okay. Nihilism is hopelessness. Nihilism is I don't know if my future is brighter than my past. Nihilism is how do I get out of here? How do I change this? What do I do? I don't feel in control of my own life. I don't feel in control of my own future. I don't feel like I can. I don't know if I'm gonna ever be in a relationship again. Am I gonna be alone forever? Nihilism, so we'll call that zero.

Speaker 2:

Ten is I Am deeply fulfilled. I enjoy my day-to-day life. I'm super grateful for who I've become. I'm super, super grateful for who I'm around, I'm super grateful for the work that I want to do in the world. And the work that I'm doing I'm passionate about. It's Purposeful and meaning-driven and I make a good profit and my quality of life is exactly what I've always wanted. Now no one's all the way on zero and no one's all the way on ten, and it fluctuates day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, but hopefully the trend line is up, hopefully over time.

Speaker 2:

I remember people used to say this to me. They used to tell me these are the best years your life. When I was in high school, I heard that all the time. And and I was. I worked at a golf course, I was a car kid in a bus boy and my life sucked. I hated my life so bad and Girls overlooked me. Guys treated me like crap. No one gave me any respect. I was prepubescent, short, unattractive. You know I feel like I put in a lot of work to be smarter, but no one cares if you're smart for whatever reason, at least when you're that young and and I just felt so overlooked and so miserable and so insignificant. My stepdad left and it was just. I didn't know how I was gonna go to college, I didn't, couldn't afford anything. I only made seven dollars an hour, and you know, in the US that's not a lot because the US price of living is insane, so especially in Massachusetts. And so at the end of the day, I just was so unhappy and so unfulfilled, but I didn't understand why I didn't get it. Now I understand.

Speaker 2:

People used to say these are the best years of your life, and I used to say, oh my god, I hope not. Oh my god, I hope not. If that's true, then screw this, I don't want to do this. And I didn't believe them. I said no way, I'm not gonna, no way these. And, by the way, they think these are the best years of your life because their life got worse.

Speaker 2:

The people who were saying that were miserable, broke, alcoholics, divorced, unhappy people, golfing to escape Not all of them, but a lot of them, quite frankly. And so I decided you know what? No, I will not tolerate this. I will not end up like these people. So I said I'm gonna figure out the formula to not end up old and miserable like everybody else. Now, obviously that was my young, arrogant version of please don't let my life end up this way. But at the end of the day now I'm 35, coming up on 35 on November 17th, which is this week, and I'm telling you I've got the formula pretty dialed in, I've got it, I wrote a blog about it I'm telling you fulfillment is the way and the happiness formula is this number one joy, number two, pleasure, and number three, fulfillment.

Speaker 2:

And the third one, in my opinion, is what you should optimize for. It's what you should focus on, because joy and pleasure will happen along the way, and so I'll explain each really quick, and then I promise, I'll let Kevin talk. Joy is when you're enjoying the present moment. So, kevin and I last episode, if you listen to it, 1521, we enjoyed the hell out of that we were laughing, we were having fun, we were talking about different stuff, we enjoyed that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so we were in the present moment, enjoying the present moment. That's joy, number one. Number two is pleasure. I'm not sure we were having a ton of pleasure, maybe a little bit because we were laughing, but at the end of the day, this is challenging work. So I'm hungry, I haven't eaten. I use pleasure, I use donuts. I love donuts, huge fan.

Speaker 2:

I think anyone who doesn't love donuts is probably lying. I'm kidding, but the point is is I love them but they're not going to fulfill me, and they're not. They're enjoyable and they're pleasurable, but they're not gonna. And you're going to get a sugar high and a dopamine hit, but they're not going to fulfill your life. You're not going to eat a bunch of donuts and then feel like, oh, I have such a meaningful life. That's not really how donuts work. So when you're late and Kevin's upset about it, bring him some. A half does eat donuts. That solves it All, right.

Speaker 2:

Number three is fulfillment, and fulfillment is meaning. Fulfillment is purpose. Fulfillment is service to something greater than myself. Fulfillment is the soul's recognition of alignment with its highest calling. It's about two words potential and contribution, maximizing your own unique potential. And, number two, using that potential to contribute in a meaningful way, whether it's volunteering or not. And so, in my opinion, if you want to live a happy life, it's. It's pretty complex and that's why most people aren't happy because we weren't taught how to be happy. We were taught to pursue happiness, but we weren't taught how to create it. We we didn't have a formula. We didn't have a map of roadmap or a GPS. We were just okay, go wing it, good luck. You know, engineers make money. Be an engineer. That was what I went off of, but I didn't have a formula. So hopefully this will help everybody.

Speaker 1:

I remember one of the hardest years, just in terms of pure output, is when I was working the job I was working.

Speaker 1:

That required a ton of travel and I was living with Matt at the time and we were renovating his rental property, his income property, and I would be on the road Monday to Friday, sunday to Friday usually, and then Saturday and Sunday I would help him work on the apartment Sometimes. Sometimes I remember I drove back from New Jersey. I got home at maybe nine o'clock at night and they were still working, so I just worked for a little bit, even though I'd been up for however many hours working and as much as that sucked, there was fulfillment in that because I knew that was something we were going to be looking back on in the future and saying remember those times. I think there is some fulfillment in constructive nostalgia. Now there are some nostalgic moments I've had in my past that are not constructive, looking back and saying, oh, I remember. I remember we used to get a pizza and we'd get so high I didn't remember what day it was Not necessarily fulfilling, not necessarily constructive, not necessarily productive.

Speaker 1:

Mostly focused on pleasure on that one, mostly focused on pleasure. But there are times where I look back whether it's Alan and I doing some of the hardest yards of this journey where I think back and say that sucked, but the thing that I was feeling, the pride in what we were creating, was probably fulfillment. I just didn't know it, or I just wasn't ready to recognize it because I felt like I was suffering so much. I think it's almost you're doing something that you know you're going to be proud of. I think that's a really good way to think of. For me, at least, that tends to. Is it rain true or ring true?

Speaker 1:

I think ring, I'm not sure it tends to be true for me, because I'll have a day where I look at my calendar and I say there's no way I'm going to be able to do this, there's no way. Back to back to back to back to back to back to back. And somewhere in the middle of the day I either have a super boost of energy and I say I'm so grateful I get to meet that person. That was awesome, or it'll just be I don't know if I have another three of these in me or I'll see Tara and when we're walking through the house and we just bump into each other and I'll say I know there's only another six hours to go, it'll be like one o'clock in the afternoon. It's like, oh, six hours to go, we're halfway home.

Speaker 1:

When I get to the end of the day, I'm always super fulfilled. Always there's that moment of today was hard and it was heavy and it was a lot and it was overwhelming and I'm so tired and I'm exhausted and I'm hungry. But I really feel like I move the needle on the mission. Not dollars, not clients, not none of that. The mission. I feel like I move the needle on the purpose. I feel like I move the needle on the impact. I feel like I move the needle on the goal, the giant goal, not the small goals that we create to get to the giant goal. That's really what I think it is. I think it is making progress in something that you know you never will accomplish. That's the best way for me. Again, I think Everybody feels it different in different ways, or maybe recognizes, recognizes it in different ways. That's what it feels like to me. It's, I know I'll be proud of myself.

Speaker 2:

I'll know, I know I'll be great.

Speaker 1:

There was a day where Tara and I Sunday, we were both tired and we said what are we gonna do? We should really go for a walk. We said we're gonna go for a walk, we should get out in nature. It's gonna be winter soon and neither of us wanted to do it. I said we don't have to do it. If we decide we don't want to do it, then we won't do it. But I do think a good piece of awareness to have is we will be more fulfilled if we do this. Nice, we will probably be happier and what we will be feeling more joy and pleasure, most likely if we just sit here and watch Netflix. We will be more fulfilled if we do the thing that we know will be, will be grateful for didn't do it, stayed on Sistine inside and didn't do it. But in order to do better, you must first know better and I felt like I knew better.

Speaker 2:

I have a Gerianne wouldn't mind me sharing this and a shout out for Jerry in this a lot of show show notes for Jerry in. She's crushing it. She said I always knew I was more than just a mom and she didn't want that to sound bad because she doesn't mean it a negative. She loves being a mom, loves it, crushes it so good. What I think she's really saying underneath that is I want to do all I can with all I have, and I know I have more to give. I know I can put more out on the court.

Speaker 2:

I think fulfillment comes From the growth journey, the growth and contribution journey. I Was not. I was achieving a lot before 26 In corporate. I achieved a lot, made a lot of money, but I wasn't fulfilled. And then I went from making a ton of money and not fulfilled, achieving a lot to achieving almost nothing, making no money, and actually was really fulfilled. And now I'm super grateful that we're actually More holistic in that, because neither one of those is sustainable.

Speaker 2:

Achieving nothing with fulfillment not super sustainable in today's economy. And then achieving a ton without fulfillment also not super sustainable, because you're gonna burn yourself to the ground, at least on the soul level. And so I Think that the practical advice I can give our listeners when it comes to fulfillment is try to aim at something. Aim at a worthy cause. Aim at a worthy cause that's aligned with the way you want to see the world the better world that you maybe. Maybe the better world is people have Access to food. Maybe the better. Better world is pets aren't treated as poorly. Maybe the better world is More healthy vegan choices. I had one client who started a vegan restaurant. It was called no bones it's the name of it and Right smart.

Speaker 2:

It's good, good, good title, good name of a company. But whatever it is, whatever that mission is, to Kevin's point doesn't have to be mission like heavy, heavy change the whole world. It can be change your community, it can be change your Family's future, but it has to be something where you aim at it and it forces you to grow and contribute beyond yourself. I really do think that fulfillment is a byproduct of that and then you'll have some joy and some pleasure along the way. For sure I do think you'll have less pleasure than if you are focused on pleasure. But when I was drinking a lot, partying, losing myself, doing drugs, those things that I used to Do, that were very pleasurable and that's the problem. They are pleasurable. That's what makes them so dangerous. If they weren't pleasurable, they wouldn't be dangerous. Okay, they're super pleasurable, but I was so unfulfilled.

Speaker 2:

I Told that story about being in the parking lot wanting to celebrate my girlfriend, but I couldn't go in without drinking some nips in the car After I parked, by the way, after I parked, and then going into Gillians and pretending to be happy. That was pleasure. I had fun and we played games and we played ping-pong and we played billiards and I was drunk and I had a blast and it was pleasure. But after that, you better believe, at that night I was like, oh, who am I and what am I doing? And I was unfulfilled. And so if you design your life around fulfillment, you'll end up with some pleasure and some joy along the way. I'll be at less Versus. If you focus on pleasure, you're in a lot of trouble, and that is my truth. My truth is, you're in trouble if pleasure is the focus, because there's a lot of really pleasurable things that are really really bad for us. I have.

Speaker 1:

We were walking out of the, the podcast studio back in the day and I was like I love Weedon Porn, love them. That's why I can't. I gotta take it easy. I love them. They're awesome, they're the best. That's why, that's why you get hooked on stuff, that's why they're dangerous, because it's the best. But yeah, it's, it's pleasure, it's all pleasure. Last thing we, we go. Uh, I wanted to share this. I wanted to ask if you don't mind sharing this.

Speaker 2:

So, kev, you've shared on this podcast many times the situation ship that you were in, oh boy. I think that's a really good analogy, if you're willing, because that was.

Speaker 2:

Pleasurable but not as meaningful. Yeah, and now you have a marriage that's meaningful and and I think that's a great analogy and and I think that's a great analogy because I think we've all been there I certainly have where I had pleasure but not meaning, because I didn't want to be with this person long term. This wasn't my person. Versus now, with emilia, everything's so meaningful, it's still pleasurable too, but that's not the, that's not the goal, that's not the purpose, that's not the focus, you know.

Speaker 1:

I said that I actually said this recently to turn it. I didn't. I don't give a lot of details. Obviously depends. It depends on the level of the conversation. But yeah, so there was a time where, again, the podcast was not successful. We were just starting to get pretty high level guests, so things were trending upward, not making almost any money with the podcast and I was just so.

Speaker 1:

I was super lonely, super lonely, thinking I was never gonna meet someone. I think I was gonna be single forever. Nobody was gonna get me and I don't know if I was trying to date at the time. But somebody messaged me. Somebody messaged me on Facebook and said something along the lines of hey, I saw your, your friends with one of my friends or somebody shared something and I think you're handsome. I was like oh, whoa, okay, what's happening here? And I ended up hanging out with this person and then we what I would consider dated, but I I never. I wasn't in it for the long run. I didn't. I wasn't dating this person because I knew or thought it was gonna be a deep, meaningful relationship, which you were clear about. I was very clear about it, yeah, I was very clear about it.

Speaker 1:

Now, this other person didn't necessarily again, whatever this, this other person was trying to Get me over that and say, well, we'll work it out, it's gonna be fine. And it was mostly just the friends with benefits situation is what it became. And and then I tried to break it off and said, hey, that you're gonna get hurt, you're gonna get hurt and I don't want to. I will feel so guilty. And this person said, no, I want to keep hanging out. And I was like, well, I'm getting physical needs met so fine, let's do that, let's just do that. But I felt terrible the whole time. I remember telling you I was like this, ain't it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm fulfilling.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I feel guilty and I feel wrong and it's, it's weird and I know there's an end date and I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what's gonna happen. So it got to the point eventually where I told Alan I think we had this conversation I said, yeah, I gotta end this. I can't. This person's gonna get hurt, I'm gonna break their heart. I don't, this isn't what I want. This isn't serving me. So I ended up quote-unquote breaking it off with that person and they were not happy with me. But I told Tara in this the other day and said one of the things I'm most grateful for about you is you have such high standards for me.

Speaker 1:

With certain in certain Relationships and situationships in the past, I could just show up. I don't have to get better. I didn't have to put in work, I didn't have to be intentional, I didn't have to be the best man I can be, and that wasn't required with Tara and I do. She doesn't care about the podcast success. She doesn't care about how many clients we have or how much money we're making. She's supportive and grateful and and Amazing around that. But that's not why she's with me. She's not with me.

Speaker 1:

For those reasons, my relationship with her is so much more fulfilling because it requires so much more growth and it requires. Honestly, it requires so much more vulnerability. I'm so invested in this, for this is my wife. I'm so invested in this relationship. That's fulfilling too. It's not surface level, it's meaningful. There's so much necessity, there's so much skin in the game. It's not just a high school fling and the person I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with that. That is the difference between pleasure Again, I was big into the friends with benefits scenario.

Speaker 1:

For a while that was pure pleasure, empty, very empty, but pleasure and joy in the moment, but no fulfillment. And now I have a relationship where look, sometimes there's days where it's not pleasurable, it's hard. We're doing real life together and paying bills together and figuring out all that stuff together and figuring out my traumas and my triggers and my family stuff, and in hers as well. So there's it's not always pleasure. It's not always pleasure, but there is fulfillment in everything that we do because we're doing it together and it's deeply meaningful and it matters more than anything.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a really good way to think of it. A Marriage is like a high wire act, like we're walking on the high wire at all times, like we are heavily invested. There is great risk, but there's also great reward where a situation chip might be. You know, maybe you're walking, you're getting wasted and walking on the beach Feels really good and the beach and the waves and you're drunk and everything's warm and the the wind. But when you wake up the next day you're like what, where am I and what has happened?

Speaker 2:

and what is my head hurt so bad? How much did I?

Speaker 1:

drink last night. That's my monologue.

Speaker 2:

So true, best articulation of pleasure versus fulfillment.

Speaker 2:

I might have ever heard Appreciate that real good real, real good and the only thing that I would pull out of that before we go, is Notice how one of them requires a lot of responsibility and a lot of growth and a lot of challenge, and the other one isn't challenging. It's not. It's not challenging, it's just easy. And I have been saying it for a long time. My mom, growing up, she used to say my grandma had it so easy, and she would say it as if my arms are going off. She would say it as if that was a good thing. And I remember thinking of myself I don't want easy. Easy isn't meaningful. That is one of the weird dualities of life. I mean in the moment Don't get me wrong we want things to be easier. I, you know, take this with a grand assault and it's a duality. Okay, I don't want my life to be extra hard for no reason, but the point is I don't want an easy life.

Speaker 2:

My grandma grew up in a rich family. She had butlers and maids and my grandfather he hit both his parents, passed away when he would. By the time, the time he was 15, he fought in World War one and he put himself through college and he worked A great work, ethic, actually went to WPI, my alma mater and night school, and she never worked. She never had to work, I think. I think she worked a total of one year her entire life, and my grandma was a sweetheart. So I'm not trying to take anything from that. But my point is and Obviously she raised kids, so I know that was challenging. So take all this with a grand assault. But my point is is I don't want an easy, super easy, non-meaningful, pleasurable life. I Want something that Challenges me to grow, challenges me to become more, challenges me to figure it out, challenges me to innovate, challenges me to Stretch more, become more, adapt more, evolve more, learn more, grow more, give more, contribute more. There's I'm so much more than I used to be, but I'm not as much as I'm gonna be, and I think that there's something in you that wants that too.

Speaker 2:

Bob Proctor always said this RIP. He said the soul is always for expansion. How tall will the tree grow? As tall as it can Human beings, for whatever reason, our egos, let us stay stuck. I've been stuck, stopped. Growing didn't contribute.

Speaker 2:

Drinking alcohol, you name it, partying. It was so pleasurable, so pleasurable like to a amazing extent. I went to LA once and we just partied and it was so much fun and I met a lot of cool people, which actually was meaningful, but I also. It was super, super empty. Some of it was really really empty and honestly I regret some of it and I'm grateful nothing bad happened, because we were reckless at times and now I.

Speaker 2:

My life can be boring sometimes and sometimes you know me going off the rails. Now is us going to see the marvels on Saturday? You know that was. It was awesome, oh my god. I got a full cow monster. We got a bunch of food and Swedish fish was awesome, but the point is is that it was meaningful and fulfilling. That was actually really pleasurable too. Swedish fish are not good for you, but it was meaningful because I was with Emilia and so you don't have to never have pleasure. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is don't design your world around it, because that's a quick way to end up wildly unfulfilled and that's a losing long-term game, even though it is a short-term awesome.

Speaker 1:

Have you won today?

Speaker 2:

Fulfillment Got to know that's where it's going to go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it's always. It's always fun to talk about. Last thing before we go this will be my next love and nugget. There's an old saying that money doesn't buy happiness, but everybody wants to find out for themselves. Again, that's a layer one awareness. Yes, money is money is really good for opportunity and it buys you opportunity and it buys you your time back and security, safety, a roof over your head. I think pleasure is similar, where everybody wants a super pleasurable life until you have a very pleasurable life and you realize you always feel empty and then when you find fulfillment, that's a suggestion that that may be a direction to move in Next Level Nation.

Speaker 1:

If you have not joined our private Facebook group, next Level Nation yet, please do. I would argue. Maybe one of the most fulfilled groups of people ever. That's what I would argue. Everybody in there is focused on growth, contribution, doing something greater, larger, more expansive than themselves. They are contributing to the world, trying to get better. If that's you, please join. We would love to have you. The link will be in the show notes, as always.

Speaker 2:

I have spent my life studying people and I can say this without a shadow of a doubt Next Level Nation is the most inclusive, kind and supportive and respectful community that I've ever personally seen. That I do believe it's genuinely the truth. I couldn't say it if it wasn't. I'm on this really big kick of I just want to be accurate in everything that I say. It's really challenging because obviously I'm not all knowing, but when Kevin was saying that, I do believe that Next Level Nation is the warmest, kindest, most supportive and, most importantly, most respectful inclusive group of people, so much, in fact, that anything that you say needs to be said with empathy. For a lot of walks of life. That has been a challenge for me at times, given where I grew up, but it's awesome and it's making us all better, so that's really good.

Speaker 2:

Also, this whole episode is about fulfillment. I talked about putting the blog in the show notes. I just did a blog Again. It's called how to Create, cultivate and Sustain a Happy Life and it's built on this exact framework of joy, pleasure and fulfillment. So if you want to dig deeper into that, check that out. The link will be in the show notes, keep in mind I have not done the final edits, so if there's spelling errors, that is to be expected.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1523,. You are so much more than the sum of all your failures Failures isn't quotes, because, as you know, failures are often mistakes that become lessons, not necessarily failures, quote unquote. So we're going to talk about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We are not fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Focus on fulfillment, next time on Nation.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host