Next Level University

#1540 - What Does It Mean About You If You Disappoint Someone?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Fear, disappointment, and self-worth are interlinked and profoundly impact our decisions, actions, and perceptions of ourselves. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about understanding and navigating these challenges for personal growth. We should strive to transform our fears into a driving force and manage disappointments with robust character and effective communication. In doing so, we can elevate our lives to the next level.

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Show notes:
(3:06) What does this mean about me?
(8:47) Fear of disappointment 
(15:22) Bianca, the co-founder and COO of Evolve Ventures, talks about Alan's unwavering support as her coach and the profound impact of mentorship on her life
(16:22) What's your deepest fear?
(22:49) Disappointing people and yourself in achieving your dreams
(28:30) 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. It was episode number 1539, yesterday's episode. Should you focus more on your strengths or weaknesses? The jury is still out today for episode number 1540.

Speaker 1:

What does it mean about you if you disappoint someone? I received a six-minute audio message from an amazing member of the NLU team the other day and I'm gonna leave them anonymous because I don't. We didn't talk about this, so I don't want to air them out without talking to them first, but it was about the fact that they were doing something for a client and they didn't really feel aligned with that client anymore and the discussion that we had was no worries, I'll just take it, I'll just take, I'll take over with a client, I'll make it work. It's not a big deal at all. And the six minute audio message was a response to that, saying hey, I just want you to be very honest with me. I feel like I disappointed you and I definitely don't want to disappoint you. I Want to make sure I'm not making your life harder and I know how hard you're working. It was just all this amazing heartfelt verbalization and I sent an audio back and I just was given all the love and no, you're the best. And and no, no, you're not disappointing me at all. You're not. There's no disappointment. I think this is probably what's best. Anyway, I appreciate you having the courage to share your truth, just all that. I, no, no, you're not disappointing me. And I had a moment where I Understand, as someone who is so afraid to disappoint other people, how afraid that person must have been of disappointing me, because at the end of the day, I think a lot of us have this to some degree.

Speaker 1:

But the question and the through line for this episode is what does it mean about you? If you do disappoint someone? Why do you actually have such a fear around that? Now, obviously, I'm sure it goes back to past stuff and childhood and Parents and traumas and triggers and that type of stuff. But I think, at the simplest form, it's usually because we think to ourselves what does this mean about me?

Speaker 1:

Anytime I Let a client down, or NLPS lets a client down, or NLSM lets a client down, anything I'm a part of lets a client down, which it's just a byproduct of business happens right, it's just gonna happen. I Immediately feel bad about myself because I think they're always gonna look at me differently. The person who we let down is not gonna trust me anymore and they're gonna think I don't know what I'm talking about and maybe I've been lying this whole time, whatever it is for me. So that's my question. That's my early next level nugget. I guess maybe it's like a next level roadmap for this episode is what does it mean about you? Maybe it's not the fact that you're disappointing someone. Maybe it's the fact that you think disappointing someone is Going to make them feel a certain way about you, think a certain thing about you, change the way they look at you, change the way they interact with you. So that is the jam for today's episode the.

Speaker 2:

The inner question that I would ask myself and everyone watching or listening is what does this mean about me? What does this mean? Actually not even about me. What does this mean? So, for example, this person, kevin, is disappointed. Let's say hypothetically he wasn't, but hypothetically. What does that mean? That means that maybe my future at NLU isn't as bright. That means that maybe he will see me less positively. That means that maybe he will give me less opportunities in the future. That means that Maybe I'm not the right fit for this team. That means that maybe he will think I'm not a team player. That means that maybe he will think I'm not willing to grind as hard as him. That means that maybe he'll tell Alan that and then I won't be seen as as positively as I am and that might mean that my future Just got less.

Speaker 2:

Again, that none of that is true. So if this person is listening I know this person listens so none of that is true whatsoever. But that's where our mind goes in the blink of an eye. And you know, kev, when you've disappointed employers in the past, I'm sure you were like what does this mean? Does this mean I'm gonna get fired? You talk about the story where you Basically wasted like three thousand dollars or something like that, yeah, yeah, can you please tell that story? I mean we were.

Speaker 1:

We were doing a job in a Stockbridge Massachusetts which is like Western Western Massachusetts, matt, oh my goodness, western Massachusetts, these are my favorite stories super beautiful place we I was actually working with someone, a mutual friend of ours, who I had gotten a job, yeah, at my company and yeah, we go down and we're supposed to blow in this insulation. So if you've never heard of cellulose insulation, it's not the fiberglass stuff that's super itchy, I think. It's pretty much just ground up newspaper that's treated with something and you take these bales of it and you put it into this hopper that chops it up and it sends it through this giant hose and somebody's up in the attic spraying it. I was up in the attic spraying it because I had more experience.

Speaker 2:

And the idea is keep the heat in, keep the heat in Right, or the cool in, yeah, yeah, the cool stays in the attic, the heat stays in the home or the building or whatever.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, it sets you up for that. So I look at the floor plan. I'm like, cool, cool, this will be not a bad day. This is an easy job, I can listen to music. This is pretty good. I mean, this is, I don't have to talk to anybody. This is going to be great. How long did this take you, by the way? Oh, probably like four hours, four or five hours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, four or five hours.

Speaker 1:

So I get to the end and we finish, blow the last bag in there. It's like, all right, cool, we'll wrap this up. And I went down and looked at the floor plan and I was like, oh shit, oh shit, I blew it in the wrong attic. We weren't even supposed to put anything in there. I put all the stuff in the wrong attic, oh my God. And I had that initial thought of, ok, is there any way to lie about this? I'll be very honest Is there any way for me to lie about this? No, no, no, there's no way.

Speaker 2:

That sentence has never been said before. I'll be very honest about this. Is there any way I lie about? This You're being honest about lying. I love it. That's metal. I try to be real. No, I'm good.

Speaker 1:

So no, I'm not going to be able to take this and shovel it from one side, no, we've gone too far. So I message. I called my project manager and I said, hey, man, I F'd up. And he's like is everything like everybody OK?

Speaker 2:

And I said yeah, nobody's hurt yet Nobody's hurt yet.

Speaker 1:

But I blew an entire pallet into the wrong attic. And when I say a pallet, like when you go to Home Depot and you see a pallet of like fertilizer that's like six feet tall, I mean we're talking. This is a lot of products, thousands of dollars, probably $2,000 to $3,000, if I'm guessing. And I was actually pleasantly surprised at the response. There wasn't anger or anything. He just said OK, not ideal, We'll contact them and let them know we screwed up, we're going to have to order more material, but next time just make sure you double, triple and quadruple check your floor plans, Because it wasn't like me to make a mistake like that.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, it was the same thing of now. I'm always going to be walking on eggshells. These guys know they're going to think I'm an idiot. Every time it's going to be like hey, kev, make sure you blow it in the right place this time. Hey, kev, make sure you go to the right building. They never did that, but that was my thought. My fear of disappointment is not good enough. I'm incompetent. If I disappoint you, I'm incompetent. I had another quick story. Another quick story. I used to work when I was a forklift operator. I am not proud of this. I didn't lie about this, but I like knocked over an entire pallet of ceiling tiles because, I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I was so afraid of getting in trouble because I was like they're going to fire me or they're going to think I'm an idiot, so I hid it.

Speaker 2:

I hid the pallet. Well, here's the thing. Right, you hid the pallet. Luckily, no one listened to. This is a future positive.

Speaker 1:

The other thing too is maybe I'm lying about all of it, maybe this was a figment or a pigment in my imagination. In case anybody is listening A pigment, what is it? A pigment, a fig, newton, I think so A fig Newton?

Speaker 2:

Those things are gross man yeah. I know Straight up, no, not good, not good. So to get back to the original point of this episode besides Kevin's blunders, it's like wow, star employee. But the point of this is disappointing people and, more importantly, what I would ask you to ask yourself is what would that mean? Does this mean that you're incompetent? Does this mean that you are?

Speaker 1:

It would mean that my limiting beliefs are right.

Speaker 2:

That's what it means.

Speaker 1:

Oh no, no, I have been right about myself all these years. I am a failure. That's what it means. I just made a giant mistake. So much stupidity how You've been singing along to Huba Stank in the wrong attic for the last four hours. What the hell are you doing, sir? Just jam it up there. No, wrong, wrong, so.

Speaker 2:

What would you suggest to that, Kevin? Seriously, because, dude, fail forward. Right, it is what it is. There's no such thing as not making a mistake, I don't care who you are. There's no. That's not real. No one on planet Earth has ever not made a mistake. The difference between you and other people who make mistakes is that you talk about them on this podcast. That's the only difference.

Speaker 1:

I would try to logic it to the fact that, okay, how many, how many jobs like that did you do, and how many of those mistakes did you ever make? It's almost. What do you think the numbers are? That was the only time I ever made that kind of mistake, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so how many jobs?

Speaker 1:

I mean, I worked there for like four years.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and you only made one huge blunder.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, maybe a couple.

Speaker 2:

Look at Kevin's face right now. If you're on YouTube, if you're not listening on YouTube, you might want to check this one out on YouTube, maybe a couple. Kevin's trauma response is to laugh and smile. I'm also in a really good mood. Pain behind those eyes.

Speaker 1:

I would just try to logic it. That's it. I would try to logic it. You have done this so many times that you've made a couple of mistakes.

Speaker 2:

Did you think of another story?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but it's not nearly as good. It's not. A lot of it was circumstantial. That's not as good Care to share. I'm trying to think of if I actually have like a good story to share. I mean I've definitely made mistakes. It's not good, it's not a good one. It's just some things got missed that shouldn't have been missed. But it wasn't necessarily my fault because I was training somebody who shouldn't have been there in the beginning. It's just I was set up for failure. That's my truth on that Plead. The plead the fifth on that.

Speaker 2:

But I think it's just.

Speaker 1:

it's just the fact that our biggest fear is happening, so we forget all the other times our biggest fear didn't happen.

Speaker 1:

That you know at this point, we've served hundreds of clients with NLPS. 99.9% of them have been very, very happy and if you, whether you watch this or listen, you've heard testimonials from those clients. But there's been people that haven't. It just hasn't worked. I messaged you I don't know if you listened to it yet I did.

Speaker 1:

Somebody messaged me last night and they said, hey, they paid like eight months ago to start and they were. They were kind of all over the place and and things changed in holidays and traveling. And they messaged me last night and said, hey, I'm not going to start the podcast. After all, I am making some business changes and I'm not going to start the podcast. But I already paid. So what do we do?

Speaker 1:

And I sent them an audio back and I told Taren today. I said this is how I know my self worth is starting to starting to get to a really good place. I sent them a message back and I said look, I want to figure out whatever a win-win is going to be and I want to make sure you feel valued and you feel like whatever we do is fair. From my perspective, I think we're even, because we've spent hours on zoom. I spent hours messaging with you. My coaching rate is this. I would say we're paid, what do you think? And they sent me a message back that wasn't my favorite and it wasn't really there wasn't a lot of ownership being taken, but whatever, it is what it is. I wasn't thinking really nearly as much of. I don't want to disappoint this person. I don't want him. I want to be fair, of course, I want to be fair.

Speaker 2:

There's a big difference between wanting to be fair and then being super afraid to disappoint other people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, normally I would have just punted it and said, yeah, no, I'll send it all back, because the last thing I want you to do is not like me. I don't want you to be disappointed in me, but I'm all.

Speaker 2:

What does that mean? This is the point, right. What would it mean if she doesn't like you?

Speaker 1:

I failed, I failed, I didn't. Yeah, I mean, that's that potentially looks bad on my character. You know, he's just just what. Would what would that mean? That I'm sleazy, I'm a sleazy, sleazy business guy.

Speaker 2:

But you, okay, and this is the reframe, you know that's not true. Logically, yeah, but emotionally logically.

Speaker 1:

I do.

Speaker 2:

And this is what Kevin and I have run into a few times, because Kevin would notice that when people would attack me, I would get very hurt, very hurt when they call me arrogant or whatever he's like. Is there any part of you that's afraid that that's true and logically it was? No, not even a little bit. I actually think I'm really quite humble. Behind the scenes, I ask the team more questions than they ask me, you know, but emotionally, yeah, I'm probably afraid of that for sure, and I think deep underneath it it's it's whatever your deepest fear is. Some people it's being alone. Some people it's not mattering. Some people it's being unlovable. Some people it's being broke. Some people it's being useless. That's a big one. One of our team members has that as their core of if I'm not useful, then I'm not valuable and if I'm not attractive, then I'm not worthy.

Speaker 2:

Like all these little things, these narratives that we have in our heads, and all of this comes from when we were kids. It's called scripting in psychology. When you're a kid, you just assign meanings to things. That makes no sense. So, for example, you know, oh, I cheated on a spelling test. I used to cheat on my spelling tests in Mr Smith's class back in the day, kiki and I. I'm not proud of this, genuinely I'm really not. But Kiki and I would have, you know, a little cheat sheet in our pocket and I remember one time it was brutal.

Speaker 2:

I think I've told you this story before Kev. I didn't make my cheat sheet the night before. So we're taking the goddamn test and you know how, in a spelling, not a spelling bee vocab test, I'm sorry, vocab test, and I don't have the words malign was the word malign, m-a-l-i-g-n. And I didn't do my damn cheat sheet. The night before we were up late playing Twisted Metal great game, twisted Metal 3, classic PlayStation, didn't do it. So you and I are sitting there going we are screwed, right, and I wanna get straight A's. In high school I haven't ever gotten a B except once, 89. And Kiki and I are sitting there like we are screwed. So you know how they give you the word and you're supposed to define it, but then they give you the word in a sentence to provide context. Yeah, so Mr Smith gives the word in context and he said went fishing last weekend, malign broke. I was like that is useless information sir, he was out there.

Speaker 2:

Mr Smith, he was out there.

Speaker 1:

That is this type of thing, he would say.

Speaker 2:

But what was the point of that? Does that mean I'm a horrible person Because I cheated on a vocab test in high school? Okay, if that's the case, right Now you can take it too far and say, oh, that doesn't reflect anything on my character. No, no, no, it says something. It says something about my morals. It says something about my ethics. It says something about my character. It does, but that doesn't mean I'm an awful human being, and so you gotta take back control of your own self-meanings. You gotta take back control of what these things mean. And I also wanted to tell that story because I think it's hilarious.

Speaker 1:

What does malign mean? I feel like it's gotta be. Is it like banana? It's malignant, I think.

Speaker 2:

Malignant. If a tumor is malignant, it's cancerous type of thing. I think malign. Yeah, but instead he just said some sentence that has nothing to do with it.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, you were in trouble there.

Speaker 2:

Context clues. I was in trouble, I did not get that correct. Context clues. There was no clues in that, but it was hilarious.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's been a really good story time for you and I in this episode?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it has.

Speaker 1:

You have any next level nuggets or yeah, I think it hurts more because it's our, if it's your deepest fear, you're gonna remember it more. I'll always. I'll remember the people I disappointed more than the people that I over-served probably forever. But I also, honestly, I also think that's a superpower. I really do, if you can contain it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if you can use it in an empowering way. So, for example, you don't wanna disappoint clients, that's a good thing, definitely. But if you disappoint a client, here's where it becomes a negative thing, when you stop going to get clients because you're so afraid to disappoint. You see what I mean.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

These things. Life is not so easy in the sense that, whatever it is that you're, if you're afraid to disappoint someone, that's good if it helps you show up on time or it helps you go to the gym when you promise your spouse you're gonna be there, but it's not good if you never commit to anything because you're so afraid to disappoint people. Yeah, I commit to a lot of things and I am disappointing people constantly, but I'm also adding more value to people than I've ever added value. I was late I mean I had seven or eight back to back today and I was late to at least four of those because they were back to back no bathroom breaks.

Speaker 2:

It was really challenging for me but I still showed up and over delivered, I think, on every meeting today, which was not the case yesterday, Because yesterday I took a heavy L in the afternoon. I had to reschedule some stuff. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of people, out of their fears, they're not shooting high because they're so afraid of that exile being poked, that fear being poked. If you're afraid to disappoint people, you should never start a business because you're just gonna disappoint people regularly. You know that's been a tough awareness.

Speaker 1:

That's been a tough awareness to the point where I don't know if I said this on the podcast after After I had a rough week a couple weeks ago and I went and looked at a Like to find an IFS therapist that week because I was, I remember, thinking I get it. I don't ever want to lose the paranoia the productive paranoia around disappointing people, but I can't let it. I can't let it take me off the rails for an entire day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, especially since, as you grow I mean to interrupt you have, but when I know you grows, I mean think about it You're impacting Dozens, hundreds, thousands of people a day. Now, how many of those people might you disappoint I don't even want to think about. Well, dude, I know when it's million, when it's millions, if Kevin is afraid to disappoint the thousands now, what are the chances he's gonna shoot for the millions. Fair, and so you, you're gonna have to. I Do believe this to be true. This is my next level nugget. Last thing I'll say I promise, if you want to achieve your dreams, whatever those dreams are, you're gonna have to crawl through disappointing some people, and that includes disappointing yourself, and that's a fact. There is no way around that. How you handle that With humility, vulnerability and courage is is gonna make the difference.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think the look, the thing that I've really been learning recently is there's a big difference between a Lack of communication or a lack of delivery Disappointing someone, and then your, your character, disappointing someone that's. I can deal with the first two, but that's been a very, that's been a very powerful thing recently is, if things have come up, it's gone better than I expected at the end, because I try to go in with the most positive character I can. I Don't. I try not to let the fear of disappointing other people change the character. So that would be my next level. My next level nugget, can you?

Speaker 2:

give us an example of each real quick, like what would be a character disappoint versus a you know business to say.

Speaker 1:

If someone, just if someone felt like I just took their money and didn't give them anything, they just, yeah, I just took advantage of them financially, that would be like a character thing for me.

Speaker 2:

So what do you think of the review we got saying we take advantage of people?

Speaker 1:

I mean, for me it's this is important, it's it's no. For me that's more comical than anything. It's like alright, I, you must be really, you must be struggling if you're taking time out to that. For me it's it's. It's a fine line of not having the ego of like if you knew what I sacrificed over the last seven years, you would never write a review. There's no way.

Speaker 1:

This yes, that's, we're not doing this for money. We would have done other things, well, done other things, if I was. You know how hard it's been to make money and, in this business, been very challenging to grow this from the ground up and and stay aligned and not do misaligned things and not do Dumb content that doesn't help and not have guests on that everybody else in the industry does, we there, we would be taking a different approach. So for me, that's one of those things where it's like whatever, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. There's no part of me that when somebody says that there's logical or emotional, I know that's not true. I know that's not true, but it's the things that we're afraid are true percent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, so that's.

Speaker 1:

That's it in a nutshell.

Speaker 2:

I would say so, for the listeners, what do you believe might be true?

Speaker 1:

that people are poking, and how do you, you know, overcome that, just like our insecurities we're insecure about stuff that we're super afraid that other people are going to notice Me being short. I mean, that's kind of unavoidable, right. Unless you've never seen me in person, you might not know. For you it was your nose. For a long time I never noticed your nose. I'm not looking at your nose, I don't care what your nose looks like. Our big insecurities are the things that we're super afraid everybody else is like hyper focused on all the time.

Speaker 1:

You know, and it might be one of those things where if I look at Alan like this for a second, he might be like oh, he sees the right side.

Speaker 1:

But in reality it's like I'm looking at that award behind you. What is that award? A fishing trip. So yeah, that's my next one. I don't know, it could be anything that the one on to the left of the WPI thing kind of looks like a fishing trophy If you're watching this on YouTube, or a fishing plaque. If you have not yet joined our private Facebook group, next Love Nation, please do. There's a lot of good conversation in there. Not a lot about what we talked about today in terms of our weird wild stories, but there is a lot of valuable conversation about growing and evolving and ego and all that stuff. So if you're looking for a positive place to lean into your authenticity, a little bit more link will be in the show notes, as always.

Speaker 2:

So, as you know, if you've been listening to last week's episodes and this week's, we have Next Love a Hope Foundation event coming up December 10th. What's been really cool at NLU is how generous our community is. It's unbelievable. We put up the GoFundMe, we put the first $500 down to match to $500. We already hit our goal. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. When we hit our goal, I messaged Kevin. I talked about how fascinating it is how our community is so generous, but sometimes I think they're generous with others more than they are with themselves, and I said that sometimes I think it's hard for our community to invest in themselves. And so, while I appreciate how generous you are for these kids, genuinely, wholeheartedly, 100% what I also want to make sure you're doing is investing in yourself.

Speaker 2:

Group 13, I actually just talked to shout out to Jay. I was on the phone with him earlier. He was in Group 11. And at the end of Group 11, we give a free coaching session to everybody, and I just had mine with him actually now, earlier today. So shout out to Jay. He's been in group coaching several times. Whether it's Jay or other members of Group Coaching, most of the team, the NLU team, was at one point group coaching members. You just never know what can happen when you get around the right people. So January 2nd 2024, Group 13 is launching it's bi-weekly, it's six coaching sessions. Amy is doing connection calls in between, so that's 12 hour long sessions that you get for $97 a month. If you're a listener of this show, email me, because the landing page I don't think is finished yet. Alan at nextleveluniversecom, we've already had someone reach out and they have already locked their spot for Group 13. If you want to lock your spot, email me, alan at nextleveluniversecom, and we'll make sure that you start 2024 off right.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1,541, I don't know. It will be good. There will be stories, there might even be laughs, tears, maybe I don't know, it's been a long time since we've had tears, but maybe. Maybe the cats will make an appearance, maybe Alan's creatures will make an appearance. I don't know. Maybe it's possible. All of this is possible, alan. You just froze and you came back. Anything you want to say before we go. It's weird, kind of weird way out of this episode.

Speaker 2:

So my Wi-Fi has been having challenges, so I apologize to everyone. If that's the case, do we need to redo the ending?

Speaker 1:

then no, no, all is fine.

Speaker 2:

All is fine. This is how we live.

Speaker 1:

All good. Thank you for everyone who listened. I'm going to do the normal outro.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, are you ready for?

Speaker 1:

me to do it. No, here's the thing when I go out of order, I forget it. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you. Nlu, we do not have fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow. We'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2:

Excellent explanation.

Speaker 1:

Good work. Couldn't get it. I could tell so many things.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host