Next Level University

#1536 - A Simple Practice For Increased Positivity

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Share episode

Have you ever wondered how your life would change if you consciously assessed and altered the influences shaping your decisions? Today hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss the importance of evaluating influences, making conscious choices, and cultivating personal growth. By identifying and adjusting the positive, neutral, and negative inputs in our lives, we can align our actions with our values and aspirations, leading to better outcomes. Whether navigating away from toxicity or embracing positive change, the journey of personal growth requires continuous self-awareness and conscious decision-making.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
To learn more about group coaching:
Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

______________________

Website 💻  http://www.nextleveluniverse.com   

The best way to track your habits is here! Download the app: Optimal - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/optimal/   

_______________________

Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume

_______________________

We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram, or via email.

Instagram 📷
Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

Show notes:
[1:45] A valuable exercise
[5:04] 2 different cycles in life
[9:29] Growth and awareness
[12:16] Helen praises Alan for providing safe and empowering coaching services with Next Level Business Solutions
[14:25] Negative habits for positive change
[18:43] The power of realization
[23:12] Align with your highest self
[25:54] 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 our latest episode, yesterday's episode number 1535. Is there a way to use comparison in a positive way today? For episode number 1536? Happy Thursday, a simple practice or increased positivity?

Speaker 1:

We did many episodes back in the day, alan, where we would talk about the people around you. We would talk about the content you're consuming, we would talk about what's on television, we would talk about the music you're listening to. And I Was looking I don't know if I was looking through our old episodes, I don't know where I came up with this episode, but I thought it would be a valuable exercise to say okay, people places things, ideas, tv movies, social media, everything. Let's sit down, let's take out a piece of paper not if you're driving and let's make three columns on this piece of paper and we are going to do positive, we're going to do neutral and we're gonna do negative. Positive this thing is Positively influencing my behavior. It's motivational, it's inspirational, it's teaching me. It is a net positive. It's good for me, it fuels me, it does not drain me.

Speaker 1:

Neutral, I don't know if anything really is neutral, honestly, but for the sake of this exercise, something that you don't feel like you're getting anything out of, but you also don't feel like it's taking anything from you, hypothetically and Then negative, what is something that is draining you when I go to the gym? For some reason, I don't know why, but at least three of the televisions on at the gym are on the news. Oh, it's so frustrating and I just I'm not a big, I'm not a big news guy. It's not, I don't. For me, that's not positive, for me that's negative, it's draining. It's there, it's if there's too much going on, and it's always about the negative stuff and it's just my choices to not watch the news Plus in the gym?

Speaker 2:

it's very distracting.

Speaker 1:

Well, when I'm doing my cardio there's like six TVs, so sometimes they'll have a movie on or love sports on, but in the morning it's usually news and that's pretty much. It's on like half the TV. So it's yeah, it is. It's definitely distracting, but I would consider that negative for me. That would go in the negative column. A Lot of the the people that I used to follow and you've heard us talk about this very often over the last few weeks or months a Lot of the people that I followed in the beginning of my social media journey. The reason I was following them weren't necessarily positive reasons, so now it's a net negative. So I think it's a very powerful practice. It's gonna create a lot of awareness. It might create you saying oh wow, I didn't realize that this was so positive or this was so negative, or I thought I was getting more out of this and I'm actually not Awareness as an opportunity and I think this is a really good awareness building exercise all right.

Speaker 2:

So Every couple years, I think I kind of do this almost every year actually, so I Can't congruently say for sure that I do this every year, but I would say this is a rolling theme in my life when I'll go back. I told Kevin this. I went back through my entire Facebook so I was trying to find. I'm actually writing a blog right now, ironically I guess not ironically, but Excuse me. It's actually about Person's places, things and ideas, and and it's a simple formula. It's called the formula for immediate life change and it's a simple New inputs equals new choices, equals new results. And You're talking about the inputs right now persons, places, things and ideas. And so I'm actually writing a blog. It's blog number 14. How to change your life immediately is the name of it. It's not out yet. I will let you know in coming episodes when it's out.

Speaker 2:

But the idea underneath it is this very simple thing of there's two different cycles that you can be in in life. You can have better inputs, which create better choices, which create better results, which then often lead to even better inputs. That's the upward spiral of success, so to speak. Or you can have worse inputs, lead to worse choices, lead to worse results, which then makes you feel bad, which makes you crave even even lower vibe inputs, even worse inputs. So Kevin and I have grown over the years and the last time we traveled I think this was the last year this time I just remember it was cold and we were up in Toronto, or maybe this was in Milwaukee. Either way, we tried to go back and watch Superbad.

Speaker 2:

So Superbad is a movie that's a comedy that came out when Kevin and I were I think it was 2007 or 2008. We had just graduated high school. We were transitioning from high school to either college or whatever, and the movie was hilarious to us back then. But that was because we didn't understand the vibe. We didn't. We were just young guys. We didn't understand how low-vibed that movie was. When we tried to watch it together, thinking it would be funny and to blast from the past, kevin basically sat me down and said listen, I don't think we can watch this movie anymore. You know, I don't wanna finish it, and I agreed 100%.

Speaker 2:

And so the idea here is, those old inputs might have made sense back then because we didn't understand. We didn't understand the effect of them, we didn't understand how toxic some of those jokes are. We didn't understand how womanizing a lot of that stuff was, and we've just outgrown it. So what happens is you grow, you grow, you grow, you grow and you outgrow certain person's places, things and ideas. And I think when it comes to things, aka movies, it's simple to go okay, we've outgrown Superbad, that's fair, no problem, no big deal. But it's way harder to say, ooh, have I outgrown one of my best friends? Or have I outgrown my family, or have I outgrown XYZ? So when it comes to people, I think that's the hardest thing. And the idea here is new inputs creates new choices. New choices create new results and hopefully that's an upward trajectory. So write three columns positive, neutral and negative. Superbad would go in the negative column. For us and this is unique to you it's based on your core values, it's based on your core aspirations, it's based on who you aspire to be, because, based on who we used to aspire to be back when we were graduating high school, it wasn't as misaligned as it is now, because now that movie is no longer aligned with who we aspire to be, and that's what growth is. And this is painful. And so one thing I would recommend for everyone and just do this with caution.

Speaker 2:

And I told Emilia that I did this.

Speaker 2:

But I went back through my entire Facebook.

Speaker 2:

I went back through all my old photos.

Speaker 2:

I was actually trying to figure out which day I quit drinking and I knew that it was my grandma and grandpa's 60th anniversary.

Speaker 2:

I knew we were in West early Rhode Island, but I couldn't find any photographs. I wanted to figure out what day it was and it was 1600 and 13 days, 1600 and 15 days ago I actually checked earlier and so that's 4.45 years. But I went back through every photo over the last 4.45 years to try to find this date, this picture, and wow, when you look back, it's not just super bad, that isn't aligned, it's a lot of other things that used to be quote unquote aligned. I now have a higher understanding of I would never spend time with that person again. I would never spend time at that place again, I would never do that thing again. I would never surround myself with those ideas again, and that's what growth is. And so growing pains we have done many episodes about and I think that if you were to do that, exercise and go back and make these three lists, I think it might be painful, but that's also where all the opportunity lives.

Speaker 1:

And I would definitely say you and I are trending on to be on the higher end of this. So again, maybe you wanna hang out and watch Superbad. We're not making that wrong for you. It's not that. It's just that just isn't the vibe for me anymore. It's just I feel dirty. A good frame that I try to have now is would I be embarrassed to show Tarot?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a really good.

Speaker 1:

That's been a good one for me because I value her character at a very high level and it's like, ah, that would be pretty uncomfortable to watch that movie or I think, a music. Music is something that used to matter. It does matter a lot to me, but a lot of stuff I used to listen to there's no way.

Speaker 2:

Well, you've outgrown it. Yeah, I just, it doesn't.

Speaker 1:

You've matured yeah, it doesn't do the same for me as it did. This is another good thing or another good frame. Maybe Would you be proud. Thank you, it's easy to do with a movie, but would you be proud to recommend it to someone else? Yeah, I recommended Oppenheimer to Alan and I would say on the it's a heavy movie but it's not negative. It's not a negative movie. It's. There's a lot about history and you learn about the human condition. I would say, all things considered, it's pretty a pa, a more positive experience.

Speaker 1:

But there are certain movies that I would watch that I would never recommend to Alan because I know it's like, yeah, that's not going to land, maybe it's super violent or whatever. It may be Right that that might be. That's a really good thought. I love, I enjoy violent movies. I don't know, it's the sicko in me, I, I like that kind of stuff. I don't think it's negative for me, but for somebody who, for somebody who doesn't enjoy violence or doesn't enjoy violent movies, that's probably negative For me. I would say it's it's either neutral or positive, or maybe I'm just kidding myself into thinking that. I don't know. That's another, another layer of conversation. But I do watch humans fight every weekend. So I would say a movie about violence is probably not nearly as potentially triggering to me as maybe someone else.

Speaker 1:

But the whole point, the whole goal of this episode is awareness. Maybe you've never done this, or maybe you did this five years ago, maybe you did this 10 years ago. A gentle, friendly reminder to sit down and do it again and see what's changed. Because you probably have, and maybe your environments have it, and maybe that's why you feel dirty after you spend time with someone or you feel invigorated when you spend time around someone else. At least getting to the awareness level of why that is can be painful. The island's point growth can be painful, can be triggering, but I do believe you'll be better off having the truth at least.

Speaker 2:

One of the reasons, kev, I love film and I think this is again another good example is that a lot of times what happens is a character goes on a journey where they become more virtuous, and I think that we're all on that journey, right. I mean, even in Superbad, for example, if you've ever seen the movie, by the end the friends kind of realize that they were full of it, they realized they were womanizing. They grow, they grow, and every character in every film that's deeply meaningful, usually the hero, I wouldn't say every film horror films are a little different, but I like the films where the character grows through challenges to become a more wholesome, more virtuous man or woman, and I believe that that's what the journey we're all on, but it's all unique to us. I mean, if you like rap music, hardcore rap, where there's slurs and stuff then that's your choice. I think the only thing that I would say is Are you doing and listening to and exposing yourself to higher vibe things? I think we all inherently know what vibe means you, if you've ever heard someone say, oh, that person's vibrating really high right now. Yeah, we think of high energy, but we also think of high vibe as virtuous. And so Picture someone who's drunk all the time, doing drugs all the time, who who's, you know, surrounding themselves with toxic people in toxic places and I've again, I've been there, definitely and then think of someone who is drinking deeply from great books and who is Exercising consistently and who is hydrating their body and, and you know, eating salads.

Speaker 2:

All of us are in between those two extremes. All of us are constantly trying to grow especially listeners of this show in to higher vibe, more, more incredible versions of ourselves, and so no one's perfect. And so, obviously, you know, I talk about how I've done drugs. I talk about how I had an alcohol problem. I I'm not perfect by any means, but what I can say is that, looking back at my old photographs, it is alarming what I used to surround myself with, but of course, I'm gonna feel that way because my standards have increased and that's growth, and and so you either look at your past and go, wow, I used to be so great and maybe you've digressed, or you look at your past and go, oh, my god, that's, that's my bad. And so I've shared this publicly and I have no problem sharing this. I think in in the past I've been very emotionally immature. I Didn't know that I was, because you don't know what you don't know. And I think, ironically too, if I'm admitting that I don't think I was any less emotionally mature than other men. I Just think you know, in hindsight, obviously I'm gonna feel that way. So it all depends on your goals, it all depends on your standards for yourself, and what I will say is that that when you do this exercise, I did this years and years and years ago and I put all my positive habits in a column and I put all my neutral habits in a column and I put all my negative habits in a column, all of them, and I.

Speaker 2:

It was pretty intense and I used to do this with my fitness clients as well. And I remember a year and a half later I looked back at the list and there wasn't any. I didn't do anything in the negative column anymore. It was, it was wild. It was like, oh, I changed like 17 habits. Whoa, that's crazy. And Most of what I do on a day-to-day basis now I I Never used to do those things obviously there's.

Speaker 2:

I still shower, I still brush my teeth, like there's those ones. But I don't drink anymore, I don't ever do any drugs. I. I Don't watch low-vibes movies, I. There's so many things that I've just eliminated and my life has gotten so much better because of it, and so it's up to you. And don't get me wrong, I still eat Swedish fish, I still love pizza, like. There's still certain things that I've chosen not to get rid of, and they're more neutral or negative, but I think the key is to just be honest with yourself and hopefully it's trending in the right direction one of the best ways to Build positive habits is to stop negative.

Speaker 1:

I say that on podcasts all the time. A lot of us have convinced ourselves I'm not good at habits, whatever that means to you, and usually it's. Humans are good at habits. It's just usually the habit. That's the habit of least resistance. It's usually the negative habit. Unfortunately, going through the drive-through is a habit. Getting a? What did I used to love? I used to love sausage, egg and cheese McRiddles. Oh my God, are you kidding?

Speaker 2:

me, oh, yeah, man. Maybe the best with a hash brown, you were the one who introduced me to those. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:

I never had a.

Speaker 2:

McRiddle before K-Palmeri.

Speaker 1:

My sincere apologies.

Speaker 2:

No, it was awesome. There's no going back from that.

Speaker 1:

But that's a habit, a habit of hitting the drive-through, a habit of getting that certain thing to your point. If you went through, this will be my next level nugget. If you went through and said, okay, positive, neutral, negative, if you only worked on eliminating the negative ones, you'd be better off, even if that was your focus for the next six months. All right, you know what? I have 15 things on here, 15 inputs. Let me try to eliminate five of those, or let me try to invest less time, energy, effort, focus into five of these. I'm willing to bet by, just by the relationship of doing that you're neutral and positive are gonna increase and your life is gonna increase.

Speaker 2:

That's my next level nugget, it's gonna create so much space and when you eliminate person's places, things and ideas that are toxic and I think that's where you start right. The word toxic we all kind of know, and if someone came up or something came up, you know the answer. We all know, all of us have done toxic things. We've all you know. I was actually talking on the phone earlier today with someone I coach and she was talking about how, for 2024, she doesn't wanna drink anymore and I said alcohol is blank. And she said poison. I said boom, you're gonna be higher vibe. It's great Now.

Speaker 2:

I used to drink for years. I'm not judging you. I get it. I'm just saying that if you wanna be the highest-vibed version of yourself, you're not gonna poison yourself regularly, and I do personally regret poisoning my brain and body. So at the end of the day, this is not a guilt or shame thing. No one else gets to tell you how to live your life, and I don't think they should. But I do encourage everyone to check in.

Speaker 2:

And my next level nugget is hopefully you are surrounding yourself with more positive person's places, things and ideas than you used to, and I think that that's the point of life. I think that you just consistently and sustainably improve over time and then your life will improve as a byproduct of that. It's unique to each of us. There's so many toxic things out there that will grab you and hold on to you if you're not careful. And we protect our kids from negative influences, but we don't always protect ourselves, and I'm not saying that as a parent, I'm just saying I remember as a kid it's like well, don't watch R rated movies. Well, maybe as an adult, we should check in on some of the movies we're watching too. That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

I don't think I ever got that as a kid. Don't watch R rated movies.

Speaker 2:

I was watching. This is not exactly a poster for this episode, but Emilia was fascinated by the psychology underneath Hannibal. Have you ever seen Silence of the Lambs and all that?

Speaker 1:

I believe so.

Speaker 2:

Hannibal, the second one, so it's a trilogy and the second one is like really dark. Have you seen it?

Speaker 1:

I don't remember it specifically enough to. If you cited it, it would make sense.

Speaker 2:

It's fascinating, for sure, but it's dark and Emilia's like wait. What age did you see this? And I was like I don't know 11, 12. She's like are you kidding me? I was like, yeah, I had an older sister. She had all the movies the horror flicks and stuff. I remember I saw you remember Urban Legend, of course.

Speaker 2:

You call that a horror flick Son dude, I don't know, but I was like I was very young, somebody on a podcast the other day said what was your first dream you ever had, the first dream you remember?

Speaker 1:

And I said I was getting chased down the hallway by the Chucky doll from Child's Play. That's the first memory I have of a dream I was watching. I watched that movie when I was seven years old. Straight up, straight up.

Speaker 2:

No man, not good, not good not good, not good, not good.

Speaker 1:

I've been a lot of unconditioning. I do wanna say this quickly I want to pile, I pile parallel what Alan said. It's totally up to you. I don't know if I'll ever not have a whiskey. If I wanna have a whiskey, I don't know. I don't know if that'll ever happen. I'll tell you, when I was in my, when I was 18 to 21, I was binge drinking a lot. I very rarely drink. I don't know if I and this is hopefully this lands in the right way. I don't know if I aspire to ever get to the place where I don't have a drink. I don't know, I'm not sure. Yet.

Speaker 2:

I'm not sure if I and if you do, you'll know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, You'll know, and that's up to it's up to you. Like Alan said, Alan never messages me and says hey, Kev, I don't think you should have a whiskey tonight, or don't talk about that on the podcast. Just like for you, you should do whatever feels the most aligned for you, and you know you know whether you wake up and regret it, or you know whether you go to sleep and regret it, or you know you know you inside of you know I say that to clients all the time. You know the answer. You just want to hear me say it too. You know the answer. You know what you want me to say or you don't want me to say, so you know.

Speaker 2:

The inner voice. That's my next level, nugget. The inner voice will tell you what's aligned for you and for me. It was years. I hated it. It was.

Speaker 2:

It was you need to quit drinking. It was. You know you need to quit drinking, you know. You know this isn't optimal. You know if you want to maximize your potential, you have to quit drinking.

Speaker 2:

It's like this inner voice that just keeps nagging you and if you want peace of mind, I honestly believe that's the only way to get it is align with your highest self, and your highest self is telling you what to do and what not to do. I'm telling you and we're all toxic to ourselves when we, when we don't align with our highest self. So take that for what it is. I could probably do a whole nother episode on that, but that's my next level, nugget, is listen to that inner voice that tells you what you should and shouldn't do, because at the end Of the day, the whole world is gonna try to tell you how to be, and that's everyone just projecting what they think you should do on to you and the people that are the wisest, I think, don't do that, I think they they say what do you think you should do, and then they kind of guide you along the way.

Speaker 1:

That's what I try to do, although sometimes I'm like definitely projecting if your inner voice is telling you to get around more positive people, please join our private Facebook group, next level nation. There is something going on in there every day, whether it's a positive post or a funny post or an inspirational post or whatever it is, and it's a great opportunity to be around like-minded people like you. As always, link will be in the show notes. We would love to have you there.

Speaker 2:

We had a listener reach out and say thank you so much via email to Kevin and myself. She emailed Kevin at next level universe and Alan at next level universe and she also already locked her spot for group 13. If you would also like to lock your spot for group 13, just email me. Alan at next level universe, comm. You can copy Kevin if you'd like. Kevin at next level universe, comm. Say hey, I want in on group 13. I can send you the first invoice. It comes to $97. That would lock your spot because we don't have the landing page done yet. We will soon.

Speaker 2:

But if you want to kickstart 2024 off right January 2nd at 6 pm Eastern Standard Time, bi-weekly from there, there's also bi-weekly connection calls with the assistant coach, amy. It's a very, very, very, very, very well polished program. At this point We've, at this point we are almost through with our 12th group and we've been improving this thing ever since it started. And I was just talking to my executive admin earlier, jerry in, and she was actually a part of group 3. Then it was wild to talk about group 3 tribe of abundance. So it's been a hell of a journey and we hope that you join us tomorrow for episode number 1537, detach from the outcome and what that actually means.

Speaker 1:

I've heard that many, many times, I've been told that many times from mentors and read it in books and I never really understood what it meant and, truthfully, I still might not fully understand what it means. But we are gonna have an open conversation about that and hopefully you can take some lessons away. So that is what we're gonna talk about tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Sail away from toxic Next overnight boom.

Speaker 1:

Sail away from.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host