Next Level University

#1524 - The 5 M's of Next Level Motivation

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Need help with motivation? Wondering which value to prioritize? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talked about the emphasis on understanding your sequence of importance for the five M's. It's about self-awareness, understanding what drives you, and making decisions that align with your values and goals. Ultimately, comprehending the interplay between these five and recognizing their value in your life can steer you toward growth and success.

Links mentioned:
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To learn more about group coaching - https://nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/

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Show notes:
[4:07] The trades Kevin made
[6:40] #1: Mastery/Growth
[7:40] #2: Mating/Romance 
[9:12] #3: Movement/Freedom
[9:50] #4: Money/Materials
[10:18] #5: Mission/Purpose
[13:46] Amanda shares how Alan made her feel valued and supported during their initial consultation call and how she appreciates his holistic approach
[16:11] The order of importance
[26:31] 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, episode number 1523. You are so much more than the sum of all your failures, and failures is in quotations. Just because, like I said, lessons, not failures. Today. For episode number 1524 happy Saturday, the 5m's of next level motivation. Also, happy belated birthday. So you said this. It's technically in the past, but it'll be in the future when this episode drops. Yesterday's episode was Friday. I should have said happy birthday on Friday's episode. So happy belated birthday. I missed it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, but I haven't missed it because it hasn't happened yet in real life. I get the best of both worlds here. Thank you, sir, the best. I really welcome the best of both worms 35, 35.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited for 35. I really am.

Speaker 1:

What's it like to be 35 years of age?

Speaker 2:

I I will say this lately I've been saying a lot of when I was your age. Oh, we were on. We do this out here at jeffing club, meeting side tangent every other Friday with the team. It's just a connection we all want to connect and we do trivia. It's cool. We did this movie game that I kind of co-created and all you do is you describe a movie. But you ever played the game taboo? No, okay, you, you have a little card and you, let's say, giraffe is love the thing you describe it but you're not allowed to say certain words.

Speaker 2:

You can't say animal, you can't say long legs, you can't say whatever. It was kind of like a describe a movie but you can't say the character's names. You can't. Yeah, it was awesome, but anyways, taboo is a 90s game and we have several team members that were born in 1998 or 1996, that kind of thing, and so I found myself saying when I was your age, when I was a few times so that is starting to happen and it's alarming.

Speaker 2:

Well, hey, ages, ages, but a number Just getting started, just getting started. I mean it yeah 35.

Speaker 1:

I'm getting started. Well, if you're gonna live to 120, you're only a quarter. What a quarter of the way there, maybe something like that. All right, I do believe that is possible. We're gonna transition out of talking about you because I'm sick of it. Okay, let's do that.

Speaker 2:

We're gonna talk about me, let's talk a little bit about me.

Speaker 1:

No, not really. I don't want to talk about me, but that's where my story comes from. One of the questions I get asked most common on podcasts you had success, then you kind of lost it, and then you regain quote unquote success, and then you were miserable and then you left all that and you did this podcast thing. Why do you think all that happened I said a lot of it, I think is internal growing up without a dad, growing up without money, not knowing enough about myself, not having a deep level of self-awareness I think that plays a giant role in it. But I also think one of the things that really really affected me was I spent so much time living on the road to make money that I wasn't getting a lot of my other needs met. I wasn't getting a lot of my other motivators met. I just didn't have. So this is the best way to explain it.

Speaker 1:

I'm somebody who I like to be able to do what I want when I want, and I'm someone who really enjoys an aligned, fulfilling relationship, but I'm also someone who enjoys money. In order to make the amount of money I made, I had to live on the road, so I had no freedom quote, unquote because I was stuck in a hotel room, sharing a van with the person I was working with, and I was six hours away from home on a very strict schedule. You're here at this point. This is when you work, it is what it is and I was literally only home for one night a week two nights a week if I was lucky. So I couldn't really hold down a relationship.

Speaker 1:

So I traded in a relationship healthy relationships, relationship with friends and I traded in the freedom to do what I want when I want for money, and I think that's one of the reasons I was so miserable because I traded two things that I valued for one thing that I valued a lot, and that really is the thought behind today's episode. I think when we think of motivation, we think of getting jazzed up to do something. Motivation is the motive for action. So anytime you hear motivation in this episode, just think of it as an internal driver for why you do what you do, and my story will make sense when we go through them. I have them written down. You want to go through them. You're usually the framework guy.

Speaker 2:

I'm a huge fan of this. If you're listening to this, please assuming you're not in a car please write these down. These will change your life. I use these in my coaching all the time. They are really, really, really powerful from a self-awareness perspective, because if you don't imagine being in a car and you don't know where the gas station is, or maybe you got a Tesla and there's no chargers around, you don't know where the supercharger is. You only know where the regular chargers are. I think that's a good analogy. And, kevin, by the way, you trading in two of these that you really value for one that you really, really, really value. That sounds very holistic.

Speaker 1:

So actually, I probably traded in three for one Docs me. Well, you got to go through them first. Okay, we have to give them, and then we can dissect accordingly.

Speaker 2:

Number one mastery slash growth. They all begin with M, but there's a slash, because mastery and growth, mastery slash growth. Number one this is someone who really, really wants to get better. Getting better is very important to them. So my executive admin, shout out to Jerry Ann a lot of those lately. She's very mastery driven. She doesn't want to just edit my blog, she wants to do it with mastery, she wants to do it really well. She's my editor, by the way. So shout out to Jerry Ann If you listen to the blog audio blog coming out or you read it, it's edited by her, which is awesome. It makes me way better. Okay, mastery slash growth is someone who cares so deeply about getting better. Now, remember, I want everyone to be very honest with themselves about this, because I know a lot of people that really don't care that much about being better. They just don't, and that's okay. Don't, I'm not making that wrong. Whatever you are, be a good one, all right. Number one is my biggest by far. Number two it's actually my second biggest, but we'll get to it. Number two mating slash romance.

Speaker 2:

One time I was on the phone with a client and we were going through these and this was at the bottom of the list and, by the way, I want everyone to order these. So we're going to tell you what they are and then I want you to list them out, but I want you to list them in order of most importance, not what you wish was true, but what is actually true. Trust your intuition. So we were on the phone and we were talking about these and mating slash romance came up and she's like I don't really care about that, but it was with ego and it's no. I think you do, because her deepest fear was ending up alone. This person had been single for 28 years. She really, really, really, really, really wants a loving, magnificent relationship, and this happens to a lot of us. The one that we associate the most pain to is the one we usually avoid. In this case, this is actually her main motivator, but she was pretending it wasn't because it's so painful. Mating slash romance mating slash romance is someone who I would say Taryn. That's her number one motivator. She wants to have a magnificent relationship. So Kevin's wife, taryn, she reads relationship books. She brought a lot of new awareness to me prior to me meeting Emilia, which was super helpful. John Gottman's work also. So I would say, mating slash romance is very, very high. So I would say, in Kevin and Taryn's relationship, in my opinion, I think she's kind of leading the relationship and I think you're leading more on the business and success side. That's my truth. You can, okay there.

Speaker 2:

Now number three is movement slash freedom. This is someone who wants to do what they want when they want as much as they want, and they need to be able to make their own choices. These are the entrepreneurs among us. For me, working for someone else was always really, really, really, really difficult for me. Okay, some people don't mind it, it's totally fine. And again, depending on how strict the micromanagement is of your leader, there's also something called intrapreneurship, which I would argue. The NLU team are intrapreneurs because they get to kind of make their own schedule, do their own thing, but within NLU as a whole. So okay.

Speaker 2:

Next is money slash materials. These are people that like cars, boats, homes, bags, clothes. I don't know, this is not mine. I would say they love money, they love stuff, they love nice cars, nice things. That's that. But remember these are all connected because if you love movement slash freedom, that means you also have to love money, because money buys choices. Movement freedom.

Speaker 2:

Okay, number five mission and purpose. This is the rarest one. This is the one that I don't think a lot of people understand or go all in on, and in my opinion, if you go all in on this one, you actually get all the other four, but it's also a way more challenging life. If you would like to refer back to the fulfillment episode two days ago, that would be very clear if you listen back. So, mission slash, purpose is someone who is doing this for something bigger than themselves.

Speaker 2:

Kevin and I were talking yesterday behind the scenes about some of our past friends that we grew up with and how we don't think that they're doing it for impact as much as they might have thought, and how we would never have done this if it wasn't for impact first, because mission first, because we were broke for the first couple of years. Why would you continue working so hard, pouring more and more time, effort, money into something, if you weren't actually doing it for impact? If we were doing it for money, trust me, trust me, trust me, trust me, this is not what we would be doing, because a lot of people we had a comment once I'll go quick with this but we had a review that said we're money hungry and we take advantage of people that are hopeless and directionless and all this stuff. When I read that, I was so angry. You could not be more inaccurate. You think we're doing this for money? Are you kidding me? There's a lot of ways to make money. This is not the highest one, but that's okay.

Speaker 2:

So mission slash purpose is number five, and this is if you do a lot of volunteer work, if you do a lot of charity work. I would also argue that your wife, taryn, is a lot of this as well, because I know that she took a pay cut to keep doing something that was purposeful, which I think was really powerful. So these are the five. All of us have all five, but we have a big two. Two of them are really driving it. If you understand that, you can motivate yourself. Well said, Well said.

Speaker 1:

So that's why, when I opened with the story, I was so focused on money that I traded in movement and I traded in mating and romance. Really, mating was there, but romance wasn't. I was getting needs met, but it was empty. And again you can go back to the fulfillment episode there. I also I wasn't super inspired, motivated by my mastery and growth, but I was definitely missing out on that too, 100%. So I traded almost everything for money and I was making really good money, but at the expense of all these other things where, when we started this podcast, it was mission to Allen's point, there was no money. That wasn't a focus, and now that's kind of become.

Speaker 2:

Figuratively or literally. What no money? Figuratively or literally? Both yeah, both no, there was no money, but there was no money Also.

Speaker 1:

But think of a lot of the stuff we do. We do a monthly meetup that's free. That's gonna be forever. I mean, we started it, so I don't anticipate us ending it anytime soon. The podcast will always be free. There's a lot of people who are charging for their podcast. That's never gonna happen. We're not gonna do that. That's just the through line of this whole thing is. It's about the mission. It's about the mission. We try to do as many things as we can that are most sustainable for the audience, not necessarily most sustainable for us. So that's a mission focus. But now everything's Allen's point. Everything has leveled up. Allen and I both have amazing relationships, which I'm super grateful for. We're getting a lot of our motivators met, but we didn't for a long period of time.

Speaker 1:

The reason I always like doing this episode is because, yes, it's a self-awareness sheet code to know these, but you have to be very careful with what motivates you, because when you lose what motivates you, you might lose momentum. I've always used the example of. There was someone I know who, when they had a love interest, they were crushing it. They were crushing the gym, they were taking care of themselves, they were reading more, they were getting their haircuts, wearing nicer clothes, all of that stuff. They were super ambitious, but the second this love interest left, they would fall pretty hard, unfortunately. Now I'm not saying being motivated by mating or romance is bad, just the self-awareness around it is super important. I'm very motivated by money, but it doesn't mean I won't do something that doesn't directly lead to money.

Speaker 1:

I mean, a lot of the stuff I do doesn't directly lead to money but, I'm also very motivated when we get a new client, or we just got four new clients the other day. That's super motivational to me. So self-awareness and understanding how to leverage your motivator, hopefully to get all of them. Ultimately, if you can live a life that's filled with these five M's to the degree that you want them to be in the right order, I would argue that you're gonna have a very holistically successful life.

Speaker 2:

Imagine a life where you have tons of growth, tons of romance, tons of freedom, tons of materials and money and a lot of purpose and meaning and mission. That is a magnificent life and that's challenging for sure. But you're never going to do it if you don't know the order of importance. So let's, kevin and I, lead by example what is your order of importance? And remember, this kind of can evolve over time, but I think it's more uncovered than anything. I really think you kind of uncover it. So, whatever you are, be a good one and let's figure out what your order of importance is.

Speaker 1:

So go ahead, gov, this is a hard one, because there's a part of me that thinks it's money first. There's also a part of me that thinks it's mission first, because I would never have done this if it was just about the money.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if you take away the money, would you still be doing this? Yeah, I'd have to find a way to pay the bills, then that means it's mission. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course that means it's mission. So mission first.

Speaker 1:

Mission money? I don't know Mission movement, money Meeting mastery. I'm not necessarily someone who cares a ton about getting better. I just have to get better. It's not.

Speaker 2:

I've been very To get the other four you have to Right, right, I've tried to be very honest.

Speaker 1:

You have to get better. You have a great relationship with Teran.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have to get better to be better for NLU.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

You're getting better for the mission, not because it's naturally who you are.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, everything else motivates me Ever since you've owned that it's been really cool. Go ahead. Yeah, I think everything else motivates me to be motivated by growth, because I know I need that for everything and to the last episode.

Speaker 2:

If you did listen or watch episode number 1523, which was about not the one on fulfillment, this is the one we did yesterday. I talked about Kevin finally not worrying so much about rejection or failure or fear. He stopped playing. I think that's when you started to actually play for the mission which required you to face your fears, which required you to grow, and then you started getting the other ones.

Speaker 2:

Yes fair, you started getting the. I remember you. I've shared this before, but I will go quick. Kevin and I were heading to the gym. We get Chipotle. We're up in New Hampshire.

Speaker 2:

This was way before this is even before the hyper conscious podcast. He had met Taren and they had hung out, and this is before they reconnected. And he's telling me about Taren and all this amazing things. He's like do you think I screwed that up? Do you think I closed that door too quickly? And I'll never forget it. We're in his Subaru and I said yeah, it honestly sounds like you really fucked that up. I don't know. Does she know that story? I don't know. I'll tell her. I'll tell her tonight. You literally said did I close that door too quickly? Yes, definitely, but really, what's underneath that is, kevin didn't feel like he was growth oriented enough to be with her yet. And then, years later, he's like I think I want to reach out to Taren. I feel like I'm not going to get that anywhere else. I know that feeling and it's really cool, just hindsight's really cool.

Speaker 2:

So for you, what's the order? My order is Mission first, mastery. Second, movement third, mating fourth, money and materials fifth. But what's tripped me up, and Kevin can attest to this, because earlier in our business, whenever I wouldn't have enough money to master our craft to keep going on the mission, immediately I would shift entirely into money, like, okay, what do we got to do for money? So we're a good team because we have Yin and Yang going on with these. So between the two of us we have a really good syntax, and I would say the same is true for Emilia and I, taryn and you. But at the end of the day, you've got to know your order, mission and mastery first.

Speaker 2:

Every single syntax, every order has its strengths and weaknesses. So, for example, if growth is high, growth is a strength, but money is going to be. I have a couple clients that are super, super, super growth oriented. They love getting better, but they're not focused on money. And I have to get them to focus on money. You need to focus on money. I said I have Kev. Kev is the chief sales officer for a reason he knows how to be profitable. If it wasn't for that, I'd have to be doing that myself. So you guys have got to shift this. So you have a huge advantage with growth first, but it's also comes with a detriment. Everything has a strength and weakness attached to it, so try to understand what yours are and this would be my next level nugget.

Speaker 1:

Before we go A holistically successful next level life. You probably are going to need all of them. You're not necessarily going to need to be motivated by all of them, but you're probably need, you're going to need to get the results of all of them the growth, self improvement that materials and money. If you want a mission, you have to put let's just say money. You have to put money into the mission. Obviously, having money helps in a relationship, makes life easier. You can do more things and it helps with movement. It gives you the opportunity to do what you want potentially when you want.

Speaker 1:

So they're all very, very, very connected. It's just to what level can you overcome your fear of the ones that you don't think you value? Fear or resistance, Maybe it's not fear.

Speaker 2:

I know we got to go, but which one did you not think you valued? And then, once you owned that, it opened you up. Which one were you afraid to own?

Speaker 1:

I mean money for a long time. Yeah, I didn't. My fear was people would hear my fears. People would hear me talking about money and then leave a review like that when in reality that's not that, ain't it.

Speaker 2:

No, no, that ain't it.

Speaker 1:

I am motivated by it. But mating too. Mating was a surprise for me because I there was a time in my life where I got to the point where I was like maybe I'm just going to be a bachelor and maybe I'm just going to be the cool uncle, just be a podcaster, cool uncle guy. I don't know, I didn't know what was going to happen. So that was a pleasant surprise.

Speaker 2:

That was the one that I didn't know was so important to me. I told myself a story of I don't care that much about that one, when in reality that's the one that's unlocked so much for me when I met Emilia, for sure. But you don't always know until later. And then you're like, oh, this is what I've always wanted Well it changes. I didn't, of course it changes. I think you uncover it.

Speaker 1:

I feel like.

Speaker 2:

I had dirt over it. I feel like we uncovered it and then, when you live in the truth, you can double down on the truth and you become a brighter version of what you really are. I think when we tell ourselves a story that oh yeah, I really love mastery, listen, just own it. No, you don't, and it's OK. And, by the way, you don't know you don't until you're around someone who really does, who's willing to grind for 12 hours in a dark room for no money, that's OK. I think whatever you are, be a good one.

Speaker 2:

I love that quote. I know I've been saying it so, so, so, so, so, so much. I'm going to keep doing that because what I've come to understand in coaching is all I'm doing is helping people own who they are More A very complex process, but that's really and as you and I have grown, it's like I think I'm like Kevin. I'm not like Kevin. Ok, I think I'm like Alan. No, I'm not like Alan. We're just figuring out who we really are and once you dial that in, everything opens up in your future because you stop pretending OK, rice paper, no, no, hey, no, I got that Daughter.

Speaker 1:

No, next Level Nation. If you have not yet joined our private Facebook group, next Level Nation, it is a great opportunity for you to find aligned humans on a similar journey, a similar mission, maybe not doing the same things, but aspiring to a new level of self-improvement, a new level of self-awareness. All of that happy jazz and it's just positive people, a positive place for positive people. So link will be in the show notes, as always. We would love to have you. Please join if you have not yet and you want to.

Speaker 2:

Group 12, growth Gurus shout out to all of you they are crushing it. They just surpassed their third session. Session four is going to be this upcoming Tuesday, because this is dropping Saturday. That is correct, that's true Saturday. So this upcoming Tuesday will be session four. Group 13 is going to start at the beginning of the new year.

Speaker 2:

Now here's what I want to tell everybody. Number one reach out to Kevin or myself if you want in. There's a promo code and it's very, very, very affordable With the promo code. If you're a listener, alan at NextLevelUniversecom, reach out to me. If you're a listener who wants to do group coaching, I'll give you the promo code 30% off. It comes to less than $97 per month for the three months. That's $97 per month for three months.

Speaker 2:

What we've found in the past? We've learned our lesson. A lot of people don't have a lot of spare capital, spare money after the holidays. If you want to join group 13, start saving some money now. Maybe it's $20 a week, maybe it's $50 a month, whatever it is, start putting aside some money now so that you can join group 13. Group 13, talk about starting the new year off with like-minded people towards your goals and dreams. Habit tracking, assistant coach Kevin and myself in your corner, group coaching is coming up on seven years of curated content of the very best that Kevin and I can possibly cram into one program. I cannot emphasize enough to please do this. If you've been itching to consider it, please do, and reach out to me via email, alan at nextleveluniversecom.

Speaker 1:

Technically it's 14 years because there's two of them, son. Yes, that's fair. How dare you try to take my seven years from me?

Speaker 2:

I said you and me over the last seven years, so it's kind of Again. 2024 will be our seventh year, but semantics, really, what's some respect on my name?

Speaker 1:

I do. That's my thought. Tomorrow, for episode number 1,525, we were talking about positive people in Next Level of the Nation. Tomorrow we're talking about attracting more positive people into your life. Again, it's unfortunate, it's heavy, it is a challenging reality, but one of the reasons a lot of us don't accomplish what we want is because the people in our lives are not making it easier, they're making it harder. Sometimes they're making it impossible, or at least it seems that way. So we're going to talk a little bit about that tomorrow for a little Sunday NLU episode. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you. At NLU, we learn of fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Stay motivated. Next Level Nation Boom, good one, not here or remember, don't worry.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host