Next Level University

#1549 - It's Not Your Responsibility To Fix Anyone

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talked about the challenges of witnessing potential in others that they may not see in themselves. They also explored the intricacies of navigating such situations, prompting us to reflect on our relationship roles and the balance between helping others and preserving our well-being. This discussion serves as a reminder that responsibility starts with self. It's about taking control of our lives, decisions, and growth. It's about acknowledging our potential, embracing our development, and navigating the complex dance between selflessness and self-preservation.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Monthly Meetup #25: "Creating Clear Foals For 2024" on January 4th, 2024, 06:00 PM EST - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/

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Show notes:
(1:50) Old friend
(4:26) Watch out for the trap
(6:21) Reflecting on the past
(9:40) You're responsible for the choices you've made
(12:26) One of Kevin's pivotal moments
(14:43) Austin shares his top-notch experience working with Kevin under Next Level Podcast Solutions.
(18:02) Letting go of responsibility for others
(20:33) Unless you want to
(22:22) Take responsibility for your future
(25:21) 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, episode number 1548 an open conversation about Expectation. It's got a nice little flow to it. Fortunately, I didn't know that until now. I would have done it for the actual episode today. For episode number 1549. It's not your responsibility to fix anyone, unless you decide I'm gonna start with that. That's not the title, but I want to give that away early.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I have mentioned many times on this podcast that when I was traveling for one of my jobs, my family so my mom and my grandmother Mother moved from one of my childhood homes to another place, and this place was only a two bedroom and it was at this point in my life where I had to find another place to live, and I was probably I don't know how old I was, but I was of an age where I could do that wasn't old enough to party. I was old enough to party and I liked to party also. So the issue I was having was I was never home, so it didn't make any sense for me to go find a nice apartment and pay however much it would be, because I was traveling. I was on the road every single week. So I went to one of my family friends this was the sister of my best friend growing up and I'll I'll get into that and I went and saw her. Her and I were really close and I said, hey, you think your family would let me live with them? Like well, I'm in between places? And she said, yeah, I'm sure let's. Let's talk to him. I talked to him that night and they said, yeah, you can come live with us, you can live. You can stay in her room because she has a house. And yeah, it's, it's yours. You can come and go as you please. You don't have to pay us anything. Maybe help out with the groceries every once in a while. I said, yeah, I'm in, okay, cool. So at that point I had a.

Speaker 1:

I had not talked to that best friend for years. We had a pretty large falling out. He got in trouble with the law, he was going through some drug and alcohol stuff and we just lost touch and didn't talk anymore. And One night I was. I was there because I was living there. I was staying there and he was hammered.

Speaker 1:

He came home drunk one night and it started off with us having a good conversation, a respectful conversation, a loving conversation about the past, but it quickly transitioned to him blaming me for everything he had been through and abandoning him and all this stuff, all this stuff. And I remember saying something along the lines of I I Tried and I tried and I tried and I tried to help and I put myself into some potentially negative Situations to help you, but it got to the point where I realized that it was my job to take care of me and it wasn't my responsibility to fix your life. Unfortunately. I tried, I wanted to trust me, but it almost seemed like everything I did you had an answer for and you didn't want the help. And that was a very freeing conversation for me to have now. Maybe dangerous at the time to say that to somebody who's under the influence of alcohol heavily, but I trusted this person enough to know nothing would happen.

Speaker 1:

And I think we fall into this trap where we assume if there's somebody we care about, it's our responsibility to fix them, whatever that means to you. It's our responsibility to help them, to save them, to get them out of the dark to get them out of the rough place that they're in. If you wanted to be your responsibility, I admire that and I think that's extremely noble, but you don't have to. You don't have to decide that you're gonna be the one that gets them out. Now, I understand this is a hardcore topic and very, very close to home, but at the end of the day, I always want you to know that you have the option to make the decision. Would it benefit you to help this person? Maybe Would it be to your detriment to help this person? Maybe At least being honest about that, because I think a lot of us we take on responsibilities that we don't want to take on, and sometimes that's circumstantial, and I think that is life.

Speaker 1:

But if you have the opportunity to admit to yourself, you know what. I've been doing this for a long time. I've been trying this for a long time. It doesn't seem like this is ever going to go the way that I want it to. I am going to relieve myself this responsibility because I believe that will be what's best for me long term.

Speaker 1:

That's really what I'm talking about in this episode, and I know it's challenging and I can imagine the challenge for you. I don't know it specifically, but I can tell you letting go of that situation while it was one of the hardest things I ever did really, really, really challenging. I remember being back then questioning everything what do I do? How is this going to affect my life? This is my best friend. It was one of the best decisions I ever made because, unfortunately, there wasn't a lot I was going to be able to do anyway. I wanted to do everything I could, but I didn't have that much influence over this person, and the responsibility that I put on myself really could have taken me off the rails if I stayed focused on it and stayed committed to it.

Speaker 2:

There's so many ways to go. In this episode and I'm reflecting on my past here I hope every listener is doing the same. Because you care so deeply for people and you fall so in love with people and intimate relationships, I think sometimes we see potential in others that other people don't see in themselves. I had a client ask me last week. She said how do you deal with this? How do you deal with seeing so much potential in so many people and they don't see it in themselves? And this person's referring to one of her clients anonymously. And this person, her client, has tons of potential, but her client just doesn't see it at all. She's in an abusive relationship. She's being treated like crap. She's allowing herself to be treated like crap. She's taking on the responsibility for the family and for the kids. And my client wants to shake her client, wake her up and say you need to stop. You're being abused. You have so much potential. You're such an amazing human being. You need to take control and take back control of your own life and you need to stop letting these toxic people keep their claws in you. What Kevin is articulating in that story is that night this person was under the influence of toxins, poison, alcohol and was being toxic to you, and I think all of us have experienced that.

Speaker 2:

No-transcript and I think that the story that I can share that I think would be relevant here is when I was 14, my stepfather left and I unconsciously took responsibility for my family and I was the quote unquote man of the house, whatever that means. Unconsciously. I was none of this was conscious, but when my stepdad left, I definitely felt responsible for the future of my family and I went to California in my early 20s to work in show business and I was getting calls from my girlfriend at the time crying, getting calls from my mom at the time crying. There was some family stuff going on with my sister and I ended up coming back and I tell that story about how I had an interview at SpaceX that I canceled, and SpaceX is Elon Musk's space company. I'm sure many people have heard of it, but I chose and this was my decision and I take responsibility for this decision, by the way. I chose to come home. I chose to drive back home. I didn't drive, I flew back. It took me two hours to get from my apartment in LA to the USPS store because I had all my stuff shipped home and the LA traffic was so bad that it took forever. But I went home and I stayed home and after that I job hopped corporate, corporate, corporate money, money, money, get out of debt. All that stuff and a lot of that was to save my family in hindsight and I take responsibility for that.

Speaker 2:

So if you're out there listening or watching this, you are responsible for the choices that you've made up to this point. I actually, just recently, was talking to Emilia about someone that I've been working with that I don't want to work with anymore, and she was so upset with this person because this person, I do think, has mistreated me in some regards and disrespected me in XYZ. And I said, emilia, the truth of the matter is I chose to work with this person. That's on me. I chose to continue working with this person even though I knew better. I knew this was going to happen and it is what it is. It's on me.

Speaker 2:

I made a poor choice. I had a past partner who I think was not good and was toxic. That was also my choice, and so not choosing is sometimes choosing. If you're in a toxic relationship and you're not choosing to leave and you could leave. Trust me, I understand there are dangers, I understand it's risky, I understand that you're scared. I have clients who are scared of sometimes the worst things happening, but it doesn't change the fact that if you are choosing to stay in a toxic environment with toxic people, that is a choice, and there are extenuating circumstances, of course, but for the most part, 90% of the time, that's a choice and so you need to take responsibility.

Speaker 2:

This is my thesis.

Speaker 2:

I will speak for myself and hopefully the listeners will think about themselves. I need to take responsibility for my choices and I need to take less responsibility for the choices of others, and that's been something that I've matured through a lot in my 30s, a lot when it's. You know, I really can't save anybody else. I can definitely help them build a bigger, better, brighter future, but not unless they want my help and not unless they're willing to put in the work, because I can guide you all day. You can reach out and say hey, I want you in my corner, I want a coach, please help me build a business, please help me build a career, please help me with my resume, please help whatever.

Speaker 2:

But what I can't do is do the work for you and I think that that's a very mature thing that I definitely did not know in the past. I mean, I used to literally do my friends resumes. I can, I can count so many instances where I literally threw one of my friends into a job position that I backed out of last minute and I realize in hindsight that's just not sustainable. It's really not sustainable. And, honestly, that person actually came to me a couple months later saying I can't do this, I'm awful, I think I'm going to quit. I brought them to a place that they didn't earn and I didn't know that at the time, because I didn't realize that that's what I was doing, and so, while it might be noble, it's definitely not sustainable. So cut that shit out. I'm kidding.

Speaker 1:

One of my exes gave me some of the hardest I don't know if it's feedback, it was some of the hardest stuff to hear. This was the partner I was dating when I had done the bodybuilding show and this is the partner that left me and when they left. So, just time context, I did a bodybuilding show and we were together for the bodybuilding show and I was miserable, I was depressed, I was anxious. It was terrible, it was brutal, and in retrospect I didn't realize how bad it was. And probably two weeks after the bodybuilding show. So I won my division, I got a couple trophies Okay, I'm not dieting anymore, awesome.

Speaker 1:

Two weeks after that, my partner left me. So she sat me down at the table, said hey, I'm not happy, things aren't changing. I'm going to do my thing. I think you should do your thing. And she said I was going to tell you. I would have told you this a month ago, but I thought you would kill yourself. I was afraid you would kill yourself because that's how miserable I was.

Speaker 1:

But in retrospect, and again, yes, everything went well. So it's not like there was a tragedy or anything terrible happened. But in retrospect, that person doing what was best for them was the thing that they should have done. They shouldn't have stuck around and tried to nurse me back to health, necessarily At least I don't believe that Not to the detriment of them. I don't think that's fair to them. I don't think the way I was living my life should have determined the way that they were living theirs. And just to the responsibility piece, it was my responsibility to figure my stuff out. So in retrospect maybe at the time I wasn't clear enough to admit this, but in retrospect that was one of the best things that they could have done, not just for themselves, but it helped me take a look in the mirror as well, and circumstantially maybe I was ready for that. But I don't think that's a story you hear very often.

Speaker 2:

And after that you got into personal development. Yeah, and you transformed your whole life.

Speaker 1:

That was one of the pivotal moments for me. Now maybe I did something different than a younger version or a different version of Kev would have done, but I'm grateful it happened, because all of the things that have happened since that I'm grateful for as well.

Speaker 2:

Well, this is the age-old question of how much do you coddle for lack of a better phrasing a child in their development. Too much adversity and it will be destructive to the child's development. You can study this in psychology. But too little and they end up learned helplessness is the psychological term. It's a clinical term called learned helplessness, where when a child everything's done for them because you're trying to save them, they end up very helpless and now they don't know how to do anything on their own. Versus someone I talked to yesterday at the event, their dad left them when they were 11, their mother died when they were 12, they were all over the place, bronx, new York City, came from Jamaica originally and they just had a really tough upbringing and it was a fascinating story and this person obviously made something of themselves. So it was really wild to see how far they had come. But this person I'm sure has tough days, but I'm sure they're not anything compared to what they went through to get to where they are now and there's some strength that comes with that but that also might have crushed someone else. So it's hard to know what the line is. When do you tell philosophically your kid that Santa's not real. If you tell him too young, is that detrimental? If you tell him too old, should you have ever lied in the first place? I don't know. These are all the questions we have to determine for ourselves. But what I will say is that, in hindsight and this might be unique to me, I think it is because of self-belief but I grew through a lot of the adversities that were thrown my way and the tough truths, and your girlfriend gave you some tough truth, but you grew through it, yeah, whereas if she had enabled you and tried to save you and stayed and coddled you, you might not have ever been this man. You know, and again, I still think you would have eventually. But would we have met with? This podcast exist? I mean, these are the tough questions.

Speaker 2:

So what I will say is Whatever you're doing right now with these people and I am the most guilty of this I wanted everyone to win. I, my friend group, I brought my high school friends to my college. Some of my high school friends and my college friends got along and I wanted us all to achieve our goals and dreams. I you can say a lot of things about me. Mistakes, you know, unkind at times, you name it, but I have always wanted everyone to have a bigger, better, brighter future, and I have been goals and dreams all the way. That's one thing about me that's never changed and it never will.

Speaker 2:

And I tried to bring my high school friends and my college friends and and my hometown friends, and I tried to bring everyone to our own goals and dreams, and in hindsight I realized that Not everyone wants to climb these mountains, not everyone wants to come with, not everyone wants to grow, not everyone wants to grind, and a lot of that was me Trying to save them, quote-unquote from a life that maybe I don't want. And the truth of the matter is and this is the duality I'm holding some of them are gonna end up very miserable. That is the truth. Some of them have ended up very miserable, and I did know that would happen. That is my truth. But some of them are probably more fulfilled than I thought they'd be and they probably want that life more than I maybe thought.

Speaker 2:

And so I think that all of us have to figure out whether or not we're the Victim, the villain, the hero or the guide and I'll go quick with this. But the victim is someone who takes no responsibility for themselves or others. The villain is someone who basically villainizes other people and They've been a victim, so they decide that they hurt others and tear others down to make themselves feel better. The hero is someone who's trying to save everybody all the time, and that was where I lived a lot of my 20s and teens. And Then the guide is someone who says listen, I can help you, but only if you do the work and I'm. I didn't become the guide until my 30s, genuinely and and for a reference that I think most people will get although Kevin might not, at the end of Harry Potter, go real quick with this, but Harry Potter's parents died when he was really young. He was the victim.

Speaker 2:

The villain is Voldemort and Voldemort is inside Harry and Harry has to kind of face that spoiler alert has to kind of face that and say, oh, I've got some villain in me. And Then Harry becomes the hero when he's 11 and goes to Hogwarts and he faces the villain and then, after he defeats Voldemort, he breaks the elder wand and he throws it away. He is now worthy. He doesn't. He's the guide now. He doesn't have to prove himself anymore. He is enough as he is. He doesn't need the elder wand anymore.

Speaker 2:

And I get the chills when I tell that story because I think that's the journey we're all on. I Don't have to save all my friends. I don't have to make sure everyone wins. I used to have to. Now I get to. It would be nice if everyone listened to my show and everyone tracked habits and everyone was financially free and successful and influential leaders and Transformational and growth oriented and everyone was fit and happy and healthy and fulfilled. Of course that's the world I want to live in. That's the world I'm fighting for, but I'm leading by example and I'm taking responsibility for making sure that I am those things and other people. If they want to come with us, they can.

Speaker 1:

Come with. This will be my next level nugget. It's up to you to decide. It doesn't. You don't have to to fix people unless you want to, unless you're willing to do what it takes to do that. And it's a. It's a process that is challenging and it's hurtful and it can, it's potentially harmful. It's up to you. Just that permission, just that understanding of I'm allowed to let this go if it's no longer serving me. Now Again, easier said than done, I know. Even in the example I said it was a friend, it wasn't a family member, it wasn't a parent or a spouse or a child or whatever it may be. But I do think there is a lot of power in the understanding that it's not my responsibility.

Speaker 2:

Zero to ten. How hard was it for you to let that person? Leave that person behind for lack of a prison nine, nine.

Speaker 1:

It was brutal. It was very, very, very, very challenging, like a like a brother to me. This person was like a brother to me. It was very, very challenging and I felt guilty. But I'm I'm very grateful I did it, because I things could have gone a lot worse and I could be in a very similar position to that person and I just realized, look, it's not my responsibility, I want to do it, I want to help, but eventually, when I got to the place where I said this is now detrimental to me as a human being, it's not my responsibility. I am deciding to opt out of this, regardless of the outcome and whatever comes with it. I am opting out, just like when I signed up for the responsibility in the beginning, I opted in and said, well, I'm down to ride and see what happens here. When I wasn't, I get off the ride and accepted whatever came with it. So that is my next level nugget.

Speaker 2:

And that's the same thing your girlfriend did to you, yep, and the difference is that transformed you. Yeah, my next level, nugget, is accept responsibility for what you say, think, feel, do and believe and how you react to things that happen to you. Try really hard to be a bright light for others but at the end of the day, they make their own decisions and I think we all have a personal responsibility to become all we can with all we have, and beyond that, I don't know if taking on more responsibility than that is even a good thing. Be the change you wish to see in the world that famous Gandhi quote, and if you're doing that, I would say you're a hell of a net positive. And that's my next level nugget.

Speaker 1:

I think Gandhi and I would have been boys.

Speaker 2:

I think you would have gotten along.

Speaker 1:

What do you think? We would have been boys, though?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I would say probably.

Speaker 1:

I would agree. I would say, yeah, probably it was a heavy episode we had to throw a little humor in it.

Speaker 2:

Quickside tangent we had a Gandhi book that we gave out to the kids. It was a child's book.

Speaker 1:

Did it get?

Speaker 2:

taken? I actually don't know.

Speaker 1:

But I know that was one of them.

Speaker 2:

We had an Albert Einstein one, we had Gandhi, we had Oprah Winfrey.

Speaker 1:

We had. I expected Gandhi to move pretty quickly and I was hanging around.

Speaker 2:

It was hanging around. I don't think anyone took Gandhi, you know Well next event I will have it Next level nation.

Speaker 1:

I have to say it's probably at your reading level, so that's good I listen to audiobooks son, so I don't even it might be ahead of my reading level, honestly.

Speaker 2:

I'm joking.

Speaker 1:

I know, of course, if you have not yet joined our private Facebook group and you want to. You want to be around growth-minded people, you want to have deep conversations, you want to be the most authentic version of yourself. Please join. The link will be in the show notes. It is appropriately named. Next level nation.

Speaker 2:

Also, we just surpassed our two-year mark for monthly meetups. We are starting 2024 off with a bang. It is on January 4th. January 4th, our monthly meetup is going to be creating clear goals for 2024. Is that true?

Speaker 1:

That is a correct title.

Speaker 2:

That is a fact, creating clear goals for 2024. If you want direction in 2024, do not miss that meetup. We did it at the beginning of 2023 and we had a huge showing. It was awesome. Please join us. Start 2024 off. Right, it's free, you can keep your mic off, you can keep your camera off, you can just join in and listen in. You do not have to participate. If you want to participate, that's awesome Creating clear goals in 2024 on January 4th, 2024. Join us. The link to register will be in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

Tomorrow for episode number 1,543,. Are you too selfless? I'm sure you've heard the question are you too selfish? We're going to go in the opposite direction and we will see where that takes us. 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:

Take responsibility for your own future. Next up nation.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host