Next Level University

#1528 - You're Wasting More Time With Shortcuts

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Want to know why shortcuts can be a deceptive path to achieving your goals? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about understanding how shortcuts may not lead us to our desired destination and may slow down our journey. Instead, they advocate for the constant grind and consistent effort. It is through this dedication to the journey that actual progress is made. Shortcuts may seem alluring, but they often lead to unsustainable results. Mastering fundamentals and consistent effort lead to practical and with a higher probability of success.

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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Show notes:
[1:34] Kevin's analogy
[7:02] The power of fundamentals
[13:31] Understand the basics, and you'll identify the shortcuts
[16:28] Rebecca praises Alan's coaching and the effectiveness of the Peak Performance Tracker in keeping her consistent and moving toward her goals
[18:18] Supplemental
[22:15] Alan's cheat code
[28:15] 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 1527. Who, excuse me, who is it time to let go of? I'm losing my voice for some reason Today, for episode number 1528, you're wasting more time with shortcuts.

Speaker 1:

So when I was younger lad a younger lad that I am today there was a show on Discovery Channel called myth busters, and this show Would take two Scientists pretty much I think they were close to scientists. I don't really know. We'll just say they were scientists for the sake of science. Well, they, they use the scientific method. I think that's fair. Close enough, right, close enough.

Speaker 1:

And they would just go through and say, okay, these are myths, these are urban legends, these are things that people have been talking about. We're gonna test whether or not this is actually real. So, just as an example, one of them was what an awesome premise of the show. It is one of the best. Did you know maybe you didn't know this, whether you're watching or listening, maybe you didn't know this that Jamie and Adam did not like each other in real life? They were not friends in real life. They did not get along at all in real life, really, really. The founders of the show, founders of the show yeah, the two people Jamie and Adam know that they did not like each other.

Speaker 1:

So now you know. Interesting anecdote, yeah well trivia. If you ever a trivia, it comes up now, you know, and the more you know, okay, that's the episode, that's the episode tomorrow. So one of the one of the myths that they busted or they tested at least was Running through the rain. You actually stay drier than if you walk through the rain because in theory, you're in the rain For less time, so you should theoretically get less wet. I don't think. I think they busted it.

Speaker 2:

Great myth buster episode. Yes so I remember hearing about this. I don't know if you told me this or not, but I'm excited because I know that that was busted. It was what I give it away Sorry.

Speaker 1:

No, no, this is completely different. It's a different one. One of the ones that they tested was Driving on the highway. One person stayed in their lane the entire time. The other person weaved in and out of traffic and just was driving like like an ass. One person was driving very calmly, the other person was driving like an ass and the thought was the myth was, if you weave in and out of traffic You're gonna get somewhere faster. Or the myth might have been Just staying in your lane is the most efficient travel. I'm not exactly sure, but we'll get there. So they do this myth. I Believe their headquarters was in San Francisco or it was in California somewhere and the California highways. We have many Community members that live out there. I'm sure you know better than I that the highways were terrible.

Speaker 2:

I lived in LA for a short time I did. The GPS For walking said seven minutes and I think it took me 40 minutes to get there. That's yeah, so it was. It was awful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, la traffic is famous for a reason, so their thesis was One of us is gonna stay, or their test was one of us is gonna stay in one lane and that's it. We're just gonna go with the flow of traffic. The other person is going to weave in and out of traffic and we're gonna leave at the same exact time and we're gonna see exactly how long it takes us to get there and then what the difference is.

Speaker 2:

Did they do this several tests or was this like a one? I believe this was.

Speaker 1:

I believe this was a one-off. Okay, so maybe not as a real study.

Speaker 2:

you're gonna have to have a placebo group and yeah, it wasn't different times a day, maybe they did.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, I could have done more research, but let's just say, for the sake of argument, they didn't. I believe the car that swerved in and out of traffic got there like 30 seconds Faster than the other one. Why am I telling you about Mythbusters? Because that is what today's episode is about. I was on a podcast recently and I said I've had this thought recently and I said I don't know if it makes any sense, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 1:

I'm convinced that if we just decided I'm not gonna try to take any shortcuts, I'm not gonna search for any shortcuts and I'm not gonna invest any of my time into shortcuts, I'm willing to bet we would get to our destination faster and with a higher probability, because all the time we're taking looking in the opposite direction of where we're going is not going into us getting to the ultimate goal, and it's very similar to what happened in Mythbusters. You might say well, there's a shortcut here. Let me buzz in between these two cars, let me ride in the breakdown lane. It's only saving you 30 seconds. It's not really a shortcut, especially if you're at a higher risk of quote unquote failure. So are you more likely to bump into the car in front of you or get re-arrended or get pulled over because you're driving like an ass, probably. So that shortcut might not actually get you where you want to go at the required amount of time or with less time than the original route.

Speaker 1:

So that is my story for this episode and that's my thought, I think a lot of us, if we just did the unsexy fundamentals and we didn't. Let's just say you get your car up to 20 miles an hour and then you start slowing down, looking for a shortcut, and then you get off and then it's a dead end. You gotta turn around and you get back on the highway or you get back on the street. You get back up to 20 miles an hour and then you see another shortcut and you turn off and it's another dead end. And you rinse and repeat that. If you just stayed 20 miles an hour on the street that you were on for a long enough period of time without getting off, without making mistakes, with these shortcuts, I'm willing to bet you would achieve your goal a lot faster and it would be with a higher likelihood of probability. That's my thesis.

Speaker 2:

I have found that to be accurate. I could not agree more. I might be the world's biggest believer in fundamentals. I am always trying to figure out the fundamental things in each endeavor that matter most. On my peak performance tracker I have the seven fundamentals of fitness, and seven is a stretch because I wanted to keep it to five but I couldn't all hardly do that. Sleep is number one, hydration is number two, nutrition is number three, number four is training, number five is mobility, number six is breath work and number seven is supplementation, and they are in order of most importance. And I have on my PPT just the first letter of each of those. So it's like S for sleep and I don't try to do anything crazy fancy. That doesn't mean I don't ever do anything fancy, but the difference is I'm not looking for fanciful stuff.

Speaker 2:

Kevin and I early on we used to interview a lot of different people on the show. We've interviewed 100 plus people over time. Some of those interviews never saw the light of day because they weren't focused on the fundamentals and some of them were lying or not character driven or whatever. I remember Kevin and I used to work out with people all over the world and all over the world, all over the country, all over the country and Canada too. So, yeah, but anyways. So we would meet these people, we would see what they were doing, we would see their brand, we would see their podcasts, we would see their Instagram following. They would see, we would see their social media and then we would see behind the scenes of how they actually operate. And I remember it was very alarming for a long time because I didn't understand a lot of the people that are motivational or inspirational or fitness influencers. In particular, they're showing you videos on Instagram that are of workouts that are not what they're actually doing behind the scenes. It's almost like I remember going in with some of these fitness models and we would do a shoot together and I would record for them, they would record for me. I remember back in my fitness days this was common and it's almost like after we were done shooting, then we would go get a real workout in. There was never okay, let's record our actual workout. It was more like here we're gonna do the first half is gonna be just content get the perfect video with the perfect lighting, with these weird exercises that are gonna get views, and then let's actually go workout. You remember that, kev? Of course, yeah, the thing that's the problem with that is that the things that are getting the most views on TikTok and Instagram are not what people are doing to get those physique, and I know tons of competitors that post these videos online of their workouts, but behind the scenes they're doing steroids, and it's just so detrimental to anyone who has a real, genuine interest in getting in shape, because no one's just upfront and honest of like listen.

Speaker 2:

When I was a fitness quote, unquote influencer and model and competitor and coach fitness coach I would just tell the truth, and I would. I would have all these clients, and I'm using fitness as an analogy here, because fitness is probably one of the biggest fugazis. Everyone wants to be in better shape, whether they admit it to themselves or not, and there's just so many scam artists out there that are just trying to basically take advantage of your low awareness, and I was one of the very few, I think, who was just talking about the fundamentals. I would give a speech, and I remember people being like well, what else? Though? Like, no, no, that's it. Well, so just sleep better, yeah, yeah. If you sleep better, you'll perform better. If you perform better, you'll eat better. If you eat better, you'll get in shape. Like there is no secret here, this is there's no quick tips of shortcuts, or there is no, there isn't you know, and then most of the people you admire are actually taking steroids, not telling you about it and then giving you some morning routine that has nothing to do with why they got in shape. So and then the last piece I'll share here is I used to coach people in tandem, doing speeches and stuff.

Speaker 2:

I wonder why I got out of fitness right At least the fitness industry and I would just coach these clients and when they came to me and I would set them up on a peak performance tracker and get them sleep, hydration, nutrition, training, mobility, and we would we would get them on the rails and they'd be losing weight, perfect. It's like oh my God, I lost 20 pounds. Of course you did, obviously. Who doesn't lose 20 pounds?

Speaker 2:

When you just do the fundamentals right, losing 20 pounds is not that hard If you actually do the fundamentals. I know that sounds, I should say it's it's a lot of suffering. So it's hard from the sense of this sucks, but it's not hard from the sense of complexity. It's not like complex to lose 20 pounds. So one of my clients is like I don't understand. I've been trying to lose weight my whole life. I just lost 22 pounds. I said, yeah, you just finally started doing what actually works. And she's like, well, how does no one know this? And I said, because of this problem, because everyone is looking on Instagram for solutions that aren't real. It's, they're sexy, but they're wrong, they're inaccurate.

Speaker 2:

And so Kevin and I are the world's biggest believers in fundamentals. Every other quarter we're like, hey, back to basics, and we just do the fundamentals over and over and over and over again. And if we ever go viral, that'll be great, but we're not. That's not the goal. The goal isn't to go viral. The goal is to grow and impact others in a positive, meaningful way, which is a fundamental and hopefully one day that will continue to compound and pay off.

Speaker 2:

And it is. It actually is working. We're way more successful than we used to be and that's awesome. So we just kind of stay to the true fundamentals, because I think myth busters wise. I think I was a success myth buster in some ways. My entire life I've been trying to study these people and study what works and doesn't work and you realize as you get older I'm 35 now a lot of it is all just a fugazi of fanciful sexy storytelling, when behind the scenes, what really did it was consistent, sustainable fundamentals that no one talks about, and a lot of times it was their spouse that did it more than they did, and that's a whole nother conversation. But ultimately, kevin and I just want to see you win, and the only way we're going to help you win is get you to start doing the things consistently that really do move the needle, and we're trying to do that every single day.

Speaker 1:

I feel like, instead of the shortcuts, we should just be looking for the fundamentals. It's just set up in a different way, where it's almost a thinker. This way, if you're aware it is high enough to understand the fundamentals, you would know most of the shortcuts are a lie Because they would directly go against the fundamentals which they kind of do. They kind of directly go. It's like, let's just say, a pound a week. You want to lose a pound a week. That's sustainable for most. And people are saying you lose like 30 pounds in 30 days. That's not sustainable for most. No, and it's not usually real. And can some people do that? Yeah, if you're very overweight or you do, you cut all your carbs. There's a way to do it. Probably you cut water, you could definitely do it, but it doesn't mean it's healthy, it doesn't mean it's actually getting you the result you want. So that's my next level nugget. My next level nugget for this episode is you cannot identify a shortcut until you first understand the fundamentals.

Speaker 1:

Are there shortcuts to some things? Potentially, just as an example, let's just say podcasting. If you understand the fundamentals a shortcut you could pay $5,000 to be in a very big podcast. That could be perceived as a shortcut. Say, somebody reached out to me and said, hey, we have an opportunity, give us $10,000 and we'll bring you on Joe Rogan. Like, okay, we're doing everything else, we're doing all the fundamentals. This is kind of a cheat code. It's a shortcut, a little bit costing money in this analogy, but I'm gonna have to keep doing the fundamentals anyway. So it's not like it's just gonna bring me a level of success and then everything stops.

Speaker 2:

So hypothetically there is a way, Because you're doing the fundamentals. It actually would be a shortcut, but if you're not, it won't.

Speaker 1:

That's the interesting thing.

Speaker 2:

It's almost like if you're already practicing fundamentals, shortcuts might actually amplify that.

Speaker 1:

They might reveal themselves and you might say well, I thought it was gonna take 10 years, now maybe it's gonna take seven. Yeah, okay, by definition that's a shortcut, but I doubt it's gonna go from 10 to one. I can't imagine a world where that's actually sustainable. So when you find this will be my next love nugget when you find the fundamentals, if there are real shortcuts, real sustainable, aligned shortcuts, they will reveal themselves to you. That is my belief, because we've had a lot of opportunities to take potential shortcuts and we just haven't done it.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying there are other people who wouldn't have benefited from the shortcuts that we've passed up, and I'm not saying it didn't make our lives harder, as it probably did in some ways, but that's just what we decided on For you. You can make your own choice, but focus on the fundamentals first. And if there are shortcuts, if there are cheat codes, if there are Mario Kart boosters as Alan often uses the analogy for they will reveal themselves to you because it'll make sense. You'll say, well, this is the way I've been doing it. Ah, that speeds it up a little bit. Okay, but if you're starting from that place, it's very, very, very dangerous, because you don't even know what works, nevermind what doesn't.

Speaker 2:

I have an analogy that just came to me. All right, you're playing Mario Kart and you're already a strong Mario Kart player at steering the kart. If you get one of those mushrooms that lets you just hammer shortcuts in this analogy, then you're gonna be able to steer in a good direction.

Speaker 2:

But if you're not good at steering, those mushrooms will hammer you right off the edge of the level, and over and over and over again, and you'll actually be better off having not gotten the mushroom, so to speak. And I do totally believe that it's so fascinating to have some of the people that we have come across in this industry that we disagree with their approach. They're searching for every shortcut, and my client bought this plane, blah, blah, blah. It's fascinating because we have deployed certain tactics or strategies that have helped us, but they've only helped us because we already were mainly focused on the fundamentals. I don't think that ever landed fully for me until now. Because so this is the analogy. I'll go quick with it.

Speaker 2:

Emilia and I are doing something now called the nucleus, and every single week we write three things that are what we really want to do. So there's one for me, there's one for her and there's one for the we. So three things a week. We're allowed to allocate time for just us, meaning it's not for anyone else, it's not serving, it's not mission, it's not goals, it's not dreams, and the way that she persuaded me to do this, because I thought that was a bad idea I'm concerned that if we put our R&R first, that's not optimal.

Speaker 2:

I think most people forgive me for this, but I think most people are overly focused on what is short term R&R at the expense of their own future. That's my truth. That is what it is. But I said, oh for us, we spend all day, every day, optimizing for the future. So us actually prioritizing the now is actually the Mario Kart booster. Oh, so I think that that's the analogy is, if you get good at the fundamentals, all of those tips and tricks that you were looking for before actually will work. But productivity hacks and journals are not useful if you don't use them. So journaling is a fundamental. Getting that next level planner or Bren and Bershard high performance planner or that's not going to be useful unless you focus on the fundamental of journaling consistently. So until you can journal in a regular notepad, don't get some extravagant planner, and I think that's a really good analogy.

Speaker 1:

Fundamentals first. Who knows, you might get to the place where you're so used to fundamentals that you don't want shortcuts. That's the other thing, that at least it gives you the opportunity to get enough results where you say, well, I'm actually enjoying the journey, even if it might be hard, even if I'm not taking shortcuts. You never know, you never know. I always say I'm very glad, I don't really want us to ever go viral, I don't really care, I don't. That's not a desire I have. I want us to reach more people, but I don't want to go viral for the sake of going viral, because I think that's a shortcut and I'm going to learn so much more if we don't.

Speaker 2:

Now, while I run it because in the beginning you were trying to go viral 100% I spent an entire day.

Speaker 1:

There was a snowstorm. I spent an entire day making a video of me doing a front flip off of the porch into the snow and I was like this is going to be it, this is going to be, this is going to be, with your shirt off, freaking a protein shake Of course, nothing.

Speaker 1:

No, didn't go viral, but in retrospect I would have missed out on so many lessons. If it did, I wouldn't know a quarter of what I know. So that's my, my hope for you is, if you do find yourself searching for shortcuts, I would argue that if you have the fundamentals understood, shortcuts will make a lot more sense. And remember, and we've said this a million times, when you have high enough level of awareness, people can't BS you on stuff.

Speaker 1:

I've seen so many different fitness. I have to unfollow people all the time. I just can't do it. I can't do these detoxes and all this garbage. That isn't real. But that's because I've studied fitness and I've studied nutrition and I was a personal trainer and I've been doing this for a long enough time. I know what the fundamentals are. But when you see, for those who are maybe in the fitness know, or you understand, supplements, when I hear something about creatine, oh, interesting, that's kind of a little bit of a shortcut. It's a supplement that will help me. It's not gonna fix everything, it's not gonna make it easier necessarily, but it is supplemental to my growth. Shortcuts should be supplemental, not the main course. That's my next overnight, that's absolute fire.

Speaker 2:

I know we get a jump, but I wanna share this vulnerably with everyone. I went on a podcast, a pre-call, recently and it was super unaligned and this is nothing against you, laura, if you're listening. Laura gets us on shows. I appreciate you and all the work you do. This is not on you and this person. I audiod them after I said listen, that was just a pitch fest. I'm not interested, I'm not gonna pay to be on your show, xyz. I'm just here to serve and here to practice my craft and that's very clearly not what you're about. So I'm gonna. Good luck, take care, thank you, but no thank you.

Speaker 2:

And I was kind but stern and I had this moment thinking like what a scam artist. And I'm not kidding. I mean I've read Influence, I've read Presuasion, I've studied every cognitive bias. I mean this dude is nothing short. And I'm just gonna say of an actual scam artist. I mean it was masterful what this dude put together and I mean anchored me. I mean I can go through all the biases. I could probably check off almost every single one, so much, in fact, that I was like studying what he was doing while he was doing it to me going. This is never gonna work. You know why this isn't gonna work. I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing, but I had a moment, kev, where I was like, if I wasn't, 1500 episodes in this would have worked.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it makes sense.

Speaker 2:

I know this industry and I know you're lying through your teeth. I know it, I have the data. We produce 55 other podcasts. You're not gonna hoodwink me, but he doesn't know that and the people who normally go on his show are not people like you and I, kev. So I can see why that works, because people with low awareness will take advantage of you. People with high awareness will take advantage of low awareness. Let me rephrase People with high awareness will take advantage of low awareness, and a good analogy that everyone can relate to is you go to the mechanic and you don't know about cars and all of a sudden you spend too grand and then you find your friends saying listen, they scammed you, you didn't need a new carburetor or whatever. I always just say a part that I know. That's like the only part in a car I know. But the point I'm making is you cannot.

Speaker 2:

Emilia, before we purchased this house, she had me on the phone with the loan broker because she said you know numbers, I know, with you listening in on speakerphone, I won't get hoodwinked. I said, trust me, you definitely will not. And I was there and I was asking the questions and we made sure that everything was buttoned up, but that's because I have mathematical awareness, whereas if you don't know the math underneath the interest rate and the loan and short-term versus long-term amount down all that, you can get hoodwinked so quick. And so awareness is the cheat code and just keep learning and focus on the fundamentals. And, honestly, emilia might as well have just said Alan, I need you on this call because you know mathematical fundamentals, that's it.

Speaker 2:

I just know all the fundamentals of math, genuinely all of them, as arrogant as that might sound. So when it comes to finance, we're good, kevin, we're gonna be fine, it's all good. I know what's a reasonable price, I know what's not. I know the interest rate, I know the mathematical, I know the compound effect. That's just simple. Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, pre-calc Simple to you sir.

Speaker 2:

Fair, that's a fair assessment, but the point is is the fundamentals will protect you as well as equip you, and that's my third, next level, nugget.

Speaker 1:

Shout out to Mr Syvestri for pushing me through algebra two when I had no-. I had no Barone used to talk to the board man. I don't remember much of him because I was genuinely mostly cheating to get through that class, I believe. So I had no business graduating algebra two. Shout out to Mr Syvestri for getting me through it he used to talk to the whiteboard.

Speaker 1:

Look, I respect it. I'm sure there was nobody in the Most of the people in the class probably weren't listening. They're a bunch of hoodlums not listening to our teachers, so I understand. Okay, we gotta go because we have a meeting. If you have not yet joined our private Facebook group, Next Level Nation, please do so. Again, I don't really believe in shortcuts, but I do believe one of the Mario Kart boosters to your future success is the people around you. If you have amazing people around you boosting you up, you are more likely to get to your goals. If you have people that are holding you back, unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Please join our private Facebook group. If you have not yet, the link, as always, will be in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

I'm just gonna share anonymously some of the intentions that came from Book Club on Saturday, because I realized that the book that we are doing is called High Performance Habits and I realized that some people might not identify as high performers. So that's where we started. Who here identifies as a high performer? Some people said no, some people said yes. I said are you open to learning about high performance even if you don't identify with it? And then everyone said yes. So we're off to the races. So here are some of the intentions from Book Club. Intention look for moments to embrace my areas of knowledge and follow through Intention focus more on becoming a high performer with workouts. Intention journal twice this week See simple.

Speaker 2:

Love that Intention? Two guesses who's this? One is Kev. Focus on celebrating others for their high performance. It is clear to me that that is uncommon and likely something people need desperately Probably you. That one's mine. I wanna admire people and share with them that admiration with high performance. If you're a high performer, if you're excellence driven, if you're doing great things in the world, I'm gonna celebrate the hell out of you. Intention continue to optimize for fulfillment. Where can I take this further in certain areas of my life? Intention for the week is to become a high performer and completing some of my tasks. I just don't want to do Almost done here. Intention figure out where I am leaving growth on the table so I can start performing at a higher level.

Speaker 2:

Intention identify why this Book Club poked me and what the feeling underneath it is. Actually, that's the first time I'm reading of that. Yeah, I knew that person was poked a little bit, but she's actually a client and I'm excited to unpack it. That's what Book Club is about. That's what Book Club is like. You do not have to start there, you don't have to participate, you can just listen in. To start, you do not have to be a high performer, you don't have to have read the chapter. You don't have to be perfect by any means. Book Club is a safe space to be who you are and to participate as much or as little as you'd like. The registration link will be in the show notes Every Saturday, 12.30 pm, eastern Standard Time.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1,529,. What if and this is one of Allen's favorite questions slash quotes. What if what's best for you is what's best for everyone around you? I think you say what's best for the world. I changed it up a little bit. The world's heavy, so I figured people around you will start there. So that's what we're gonna talk about tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

We'll talk to you soon. Next up on Nation.

Speaker 1:

Did what I wrote.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host