Next Level University

#1565 - One Reason Many Relationships Burnout

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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When crafting harmonious relationships, understanding and boundaries are not just buzzwords; they are the bedrock of lasting connections. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss the profound exploration of how non-negotiables and personal boundaries shape our interactions and, by extension, our lives. This conversation guides understanding how clear-cut expectations and boundaries can cultivate compatibility, clear communication, and emotional maturity, leading to relationship and professional success. It's a call to embrace the transformative journey of personal development while recognizing the importance of preserving our core attributes amidst this growth.

Links mentioned:
To learn more about group coaching, https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
Discount Code: NLULISTENER
The 25 Conscious Love Languages: Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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Show notes:
(1:34) Relationship expectations
(3:45) Transparency from the onset
(6:43) Importance of setting boundaries and expectations
(8:36) Relationship maturity
(10:58) Honesty and sustainability
(13:34) Kim thanks Kevin for going above and beyond in helping launch the Peaceful Productivity podcast.
(14:12) The power of alignment
(16:21) Compatibility and communication
(18:05) Have those courageous conversations upfront
(19:10) Love languages
(24:12) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Next level nation. Welcome back to another episode of next level university, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode, episode number 1564. Sometimes going backwards isn't actually going backwards. Today, for episode number 1565. One reason many relationships burn out out.

Speaker 1:

So Taren and I were at her mom's house for Christmas Eve and her mom just got a little kitten, missy, and Missy is a monster just running around all over the crazy. But we had an old cat tree that we brought to mom's house because we got a new cat tree for the boys for Christmas and we were talking about how it's weird, how I've become the cat dad the boys for context for the new listeners budget, budget, ace, our two little cats, not human boys, thank you. Thank you for that. We were talking about how strange it is that I'm now the ultimate cat dad quote unquote, because I never really liked cats. I used to be allergic to them and now they are. I love my, my two little kitties, more than anything other than Taren. And Then Taren said to her mom and this was funny to me because I remember this in the very beginning of our relationship Taren said if, if you and I are gonna be together Long term, I need you to know that I'm going to need cats If, if you and I are gonna be together for a long period of time, there will be cats that exist in our household. And it wasn't in a mean way, it was just. This is kind of my. This is a deal breaker for me. I'm all for having dogs and I'm all for having pets, but but for her cats, that was it. I have to have cats.

Speaker 1:

And Then when we when we were very new still, and we were talking about this is kind of what I expect my life to look like, based on the podcast and the business we had very honest conversations around the fact that she didn't want me to travel too much, because I didn't want to travel either, so that was super aligned. She said If you travel for one week out of the month every month, I feel like that would be a good amount, but anything else, I think, would be a lot. I said I agree on that. And the thing I told her is, if you ever try to take the podcast from me, I'd have to leave. I. This is. This is my thing. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is my my purpose. If, if it ever Came up where you wanted me to leave that and go get some other regular job, I would have to.

Speaker 2:

Just it wouldn't work and this was a very honest conversation we had in the beginning.

Speaker 1:

One reason many relationships burn out there aren't proper expectations set in the beginning.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm and if you don't set expectations, everything comes as it could. I won't say everything, but many things can come as a misaligned surprise and One of the reasons I think we did really well this holiday season. We were on a team call and everybody said it was the most aligned holiday season that they have had ever had. I think it's the boundaries that we have set around our expectations and it was very similar to our and I this year. She said I want to see these family members. That's important to me.

Speaker 1:

I said one of my expectations this year is I get a day to relax. I don't get really other than Sundays. I don't really get a day to relax. And Christmas day I want to sit on the couch and do nothing. And that's what I ended up doing Christmas Eve and the day before the day before Christmas Eve we went and did a bunch of family things. Christmas day I sat on my butt on the couch. Well, I want to do that next year. I don't know. I think it was. I think it was overkill. I think I probably could have taken a half a day. I don't. I don't know if I need a full day like that but a lot of that was foods man.

Speaker 2:

We got Indian.

Speaker 1:

Nice yeah, we get Indian very very, very good.

Speaker 2:

I know you love it so I support it, but I appreciate not a fan person.

Speaker 1:

You've never had it.

Speaker 2:

When you come on Monday, I Think we should switch from. Well again, emilia. I had what doesn't like Nikos as much as you and I do.

Speaker 1:

Uh-huh, what is she thinking?

Speaker 2:

She. I just basically was like, yeah, no, that's fair, cuz she the fried chicken for her, or broasted chicken. It's not fried broasted chicken delicious. What are your thoughts on Thai food?

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's gonna be not to be like an afternoon thing, of course. Yeah, no, no, I'll be farting at the store.

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna be farting in the studio. You don't like Pad Thai?

Speaker 1:

Worst case, I'll just get Nikos for myself.

Speaker 2:

We can't have that. What do you mean? I need some broasted. Well, we'll figure it out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2:

If you're listening and you have no idea what we're talking about.

Speaker 1:

No worries, it's not super important, it is important to my belly. So that's the goal in today's episode. It's the expectations In the beginning of any relationship. Anything. If you get a new job, you get expectation set. These are the hours, this is the job, these are your roles and responsibilities. That is really what we're trying to talk about in today's episode is, in a new relationship, you have to set your expectations and let the other person know Do it in an aligned way, don't do it in a toxic way, but do it in a way that allows the person to understand what's important to you and why. In a way, you always know what the barrier is. We don't go past that because that's the expectation. It helps you know what's important to someone. Really. That's it at the end of the day.

Speaker 2:

When Kev told me about this episode, I remember thinking what's the value that I can add? And the real value is how poorly I've done this in the past. I told Kev that it took me. I mean, I've said this on the podcast as well, for the new listeners I'll repeat it it took me 30 years to figure out how to succeed in an intimate relationship. I don't think that I was ever traditionally very good at relationships in general. In hindsight that's been really hard to see. I think I was emotionally immature more than I thought I don't think any more than most men statistically, but definitely more than I thought and I don't think I was super good at relationships. I felt really good at achievement. I felt really good at reverse engineering, finish lines, really good at success, really good at productivity and all that kind of stuff. I don't think I was ever very good at relationships. And so anyway, saying that, one of the reasons why was I never set expectations or boundaries up front. I didn't do that well at all.

Speaker 2:

All of the NLU team to Kevin's point on the NLU team huddle we do them every other week and they're an hour and a half. The first half hours connect and talk about the wins and the improvements for the weekend. The win for most people was the most aligned holiday they've ever had. And then I kind of stopped the whole thing. I said, wait a minute, is there anyone here who didn't have the most aligned holiday they've ever had? And then Riley, one of the other team members, came in late. I asked her everyone most aligned holiday they've ever had? And it was like why is that? And Kev said boundaries, it's boundaries and expectations setting. I think that all of us and I actually had a moment too.

Speaker 2:

I want to give a shout out to Emilia At my other company, the we. Emilia is teaching me so much and teaching our listeners so much. We have a podcast called Conscious Couples Podcast for those of you who don't know, but we do events. We've done 30 monthly events for the last 30 months in a row and a lot of those events she's bringing in research and studies and all that kind of stuff. One of the reasons your wife Taryn came to you and did these things up front is because she used to study relationships all the time. I'm sure she still does, but I didn't know any of this stuff. Man, I was reading peak performance books and productivity books and business books. I was not reading relationship books so I didn't understand how important this is. So what I told Kev was number one is Emilia came up for me on the huddle of if it wasn't for Emilia teaching me the things she's taught me and I know some of this is Taryn and you as well, for sure, but that's leaked into the team. A lot of the team has gone to those events and now they're learning how to set boundaries. We just did an event called how to Set Relationship Boundaries During the Holiday and how to Honor them.

Speaker 2:

We opened with Home Alone. We showed a clip of you. Remember the scene where he's trying to get cheese pizza and everyone ate his pizza that whole front first scene. For those of you who have seen Home Alone the first one it's like an S show at the beginning Everyone's running around like crazy. There's tons of people and there's a ton of boundary violations in that clip that we showed and Kevin's boundaries were really violated like a lot. Look what you did, you little jerk, and people were pretty toxic about it.

Speaker 2:

But anyways, the point that I'm making here is number one. When you study relationships, you learn these things and you can actually implement them. Number two is learn from my mistakes. In this case, which is in the past, I used to get into a relationship and I used to spend a lot of quality time up front and not realize that that was a losing game, because as an achiever I've always been an achiever I have to focus on my goals. I've always been very goal-oriented and I have very large goals, and the larger your goals, the larger the responsibilities. And I Would set the precedent of oh, I can hang out all the time unconsciously, and Then all of a sudden it would have to be less and less and less and less and less. That's like buying someone a brand new BMW for a hundred thousand dollars and then Two weeks later being like, hey, can you trade that in for, for you know a little bit lower of a model. And Then, hey, two weeks later after that, well, can we also downgrade again? Ah, you know what, a month later, actually, toyota Camry, are you game with that? And then eventually it's like we're gonna have to walk to work. That's how my old relationships kind of work, because my ambition went up, not down, and so I would go into the honeymoon phase of all relationships, with tons of dates and date nights and quality time and all stuff. No, I cannot sustain that, absolutely not. My goals are gonna increase, not decrease. So hopefully that's resonating with some of our listeners of do not Do something that you cannot sustain and, if you can be, if I was just honest and up front, of like listen.

Speaker 2:

I did this right with Emilia. I told her I wanted children, I Want to be a father. I didn't have a father. I want to be a father, not my father passed away. I did have a father, but I had that conversation up front. We even had the monogamy conversation. I want a monogamous relationship. She did, too, like we had those conversations up front, but I never used to do that very well. I kind of would just stumble upon whatever and I would never really succeed and that's why, in hindsight, I just didn't. I didn't set priorities, I didn't set boundaries, I didn't communicate courageously, you know, with Emilia I told her I have huge goals and dreams. I'm never gonna stop. I, you know I want to grow every day for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2:

I actually this was the hardest part and then I'll I'll shut up and let Kevin talk, I promise, but this was really really, really hard for me she is like dude, you're fine, but for me this was hard for me. Telling Emilia that I don't ever want to take a day off was really hard for me. On Thanksgiving I woke up, I did an hour and a half jam session and we even hosted Thanksgiving. So I'm never gonna not work. There's never gonna be a day where I don't I don't track habits. There's never gonna be a day where I don't learn anything. There's never gonna be a day where I don't at least do some improvement or productive work towards my mission, the goals, business.

Speaker 2:

And that was really scary for me to share, because in my head, in her head, it's like well, wait a minute, what about? They can make it, we're gonna travel, but I'm gonna travel kids, all that stuff. And I told her, I said I'll be available in the mornings and the evenings during the work day I'm going to be working and We've had days where we spend 70% of the day together where I'm not working, but I still get that 20% or 30% or 10% in and I always will. So, whatever you are, whoever you are, you be honest with yourself first and then have the courage and the vulnerability to actually share that and that way you don't end up five, ten, fifteen years down the road going oh, this is not what I signed up for.

Speaker 1:

And it goes back to the episode we talked about the two types of vulnerability. This is part of that. Sometimes expressing your expectations or your needs is vulnerable and scary. It was definitely scary for me to say look, if you ever said to me specifically, you have to leave the podcast and the business, I would have to go, I couldn't stay with you. That's a challenging thing to talk about. Now again, we're not going to do an episode on this or this isn't what this episode is about, but there are certain times that have these conversations. You have to feel out the relationship. It's probably not a first date conversation.

Speaker 2:

It's deeper when there's Listen, brother. I don't even know if I want to have a second date. Right, you know?

Speaker 1:

yeah, of course, Just so you know, if you did ever ask me to choose this career or another one, I'd have to stick with the podcast. Just so you know.

Speaker 2:

It's got to be the right time.

Speaker 1:

It's got to be the right time. There has to be investment from both parties, but it just allows you to make sure you're in alignment. A good partner is going to try to help you stay in alignment and your alignment is based on your expectations. Unfortunately, if you don't share expectations with them, it's harder for them to help you stay in alignment. It's Allen and I have had conversations around. He doesn't want to work past 7 pm. We do some things past 7. I don't want to work past 6. We do some things past 6, but my goal when I'm with Allen is to get him off by 7 and his is to get me off by 6. Those are just the expectations that we've tried to set for one another. It doesn't always happen.

Speaker 2:

Off-of-front-facing yeah. Anything like on camera, yeah.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't always happen, but at least we're on the same page and we can speak to those expectations. Yeah, my next level nugget for this episode would be it can be scary to share your expectations, but you're doing yourself and your partner whoever your partner is in this scenario a service by doing that, because it helps both of you understand each other at a deeper level and it gives the other person permission to share their expectations as well.

Speaker 2:

I had a question that came up, which is what happens when there's a aspiration or core value in conflict.

Speaker 1:

What happens?

Speaker 2:

if there is a deal breaker, yeah, what do people do then?

Speaker 1:

What would be an example? Just for context.

Speaker 2:

Well, fortunately for you and I with you and Taryn and Emilia and I, because I was concerned, I remember saying, with the children thing. That's like the only thing that would have been a deal breaker for me is I don't want to say the only thing, but if she didn't want children, that would be really hard for me. So, yeah, I guess that would be an example. Is like what if she didn't want children and I did?

Speaker 1:

You have to have a very honest conversation with yourself about how important it is. If it's a 10 out of 10 yes for her and a 10 out of 10 no for you, it probably isn't going to work, it's a deeper conversation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

If it's a 4 out of 10 no for you and a 10 out of 10 yes for her. When Tara and I were talking about children in the beginning I was in between I said I'm open to it, but it doesn't have to be. And as we got deeper and deeper in the relationship, it got to the point where we said, honestly, I don't know if we do, we want to have children. And then we both landed on no, we don't want to have our own children, maybe we'll adopt in the future. And that was a 10 out of 10 for both of us. And then so it can change too. But that's one of those hard conversations of look, love doesn't conquer all, because sometimes what I want and what you want are completely different things, and I'm going to resent you if I go your way with this decision and you're going to resent me if you go my way with this decision. We might be better off not doing this together.

Speaker 2:

We were actually at your wedding party and we talked to someone who had been married for 20 years, and Emilia and I. Whenever we're with someone who has a high, statistically rare level of success in anything health, wealth or love we always ask question. And so Emilia asked what's your advice? 20 years, whoa, what's your advice? And he said compromise. And her and I talked later and we said that's terrible advice.

Speaker 2:

The truth is, if there's a 10 out of 10, yes, with a 10 out of 10, no, there is no compromise, but there is a lot of integration. If it's a four and a six Like if you're with someone who it's a six out of 10 to have children and you have a four out of 10, no, then probably have kids, have one kid, give it a shot. There's integration. Like Kevin and I right there with food Okay, he's going to get Nikos, I'm still going to get Thai food with Emilia it's integration, it's all good versus okay, I'll get Nikos because Kevin wants it. There's a way to integrate most things. Very few things are non-negotiable. Last piece of this we have something called the 25 conscious love languages and we've brought tons of couples through this and what you do is you rate how important each core value is, each love language is to you, and we have couples do this Zero to 10, how important is quality time to you, and then there's these misfires. What you find is there's a couple that are really aligned when you do this analysis and then there's a couple that are really off. So, for example, if there's a level 10 important core value so if fitness is level 10 important to me and only level two important to Emilia, that is going to be really hard to integrate and it doesn't mean you can't, but it's going to be really hard.

Speaker 2:

And I had a relationship in the past where fitness was a two and for me it was a 12, it was a 10, but it's really important fitness model, fitness coach, fitness competitor and I remember that was brutal. It was like I'm such a pain in your ass I don't mean to be, but I need to track this food and you have no support in that and I'm sitting there resenting myself not honoring my core value of fitness. And so that's the last thing I would share, which is, if you want that PDF, just reach out Alan at nextleveluniversecom. It has 25 love languages on it. I promise you there's ones on there that you would never have thought of. There's ones on there I never would have thought of Emilia has and you might be missing each other.

Speaker 2:

What if your level 10 is their level two and they are never doing it? There's a conversation that can help that come up and it will make your relationship so much better. I mean, again, we coach couples, so I've seen this work time and time again and if there's five or six or seven 10 out of 10s where someone else has a zero out of 10, you are not compatible and you should break up. And again, that's a deeper discussion, but I think it's really powerful.

Speaker 1:

And maybe that's another, an extra next level nugget the most important expectations to communicate are the higher numbers, the 10, the eights, nines, 10s. If it's a one, it might never even come up hypothetically, or if it does, it might just be a small conversation. So that's another next level nugget. Friendly reminder, and shout out to those who have already joined group 13 of Next Level U Group Coaching it starts on January 4th.

Speaker 1:

Second Tuesday, tuesday, january 2nd Tuesday, january 2nd, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. January is a tough month for most of us because we're setting goals. Make sure you're setting the right goals with the right people who can support you. Group coaching will help you do that. If you want to have the most successful January, holistically health, wealth and love we can definitely help you with group coaching. There are still some spots available, but do not wait until the last minute because we've had we have people do that every round and they end up missing out and we don't want you to miss out. Link will be in the show notes. Choose the promo code NLUListener and you will get 30% off and I think it ends up being $96.60 per month for three months and you end up getting 12 calls. So 12 calls, four calls per month for $96 per month, like $24 a call. It is a bargain, nice job.

Speaker 2:

I just did that on my calculator.

Speaker 1:

It's $24. I can tell you are doing it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's $24.25 per session.

Speaker 1:

Even getting a call with Alan and I one week and then with Amy, our assistant coach, on the other week as a check-in call with the community for $24.25. I don't know anything that affordable. I don't want to hunk our own, what is it? Ring our own bell, hunk our own horn, whatever it is, kick our own tires, but please join. If you've been waiting, now is a great time to do it. January is the month to get after it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, group coaching is one of the best things we do. We've done 12 groups at this point and we've worked so hard to improve this program. It is unbelievable. I hope you decide to do it. Nlu listener. The link is in the show notes and that's it. Yeah, we hope you join group 13 and do not wait. Seriously, do not wait. Invest in yourself. Invest in yourself. There's something that happens to your self-esteem and self-worth when you actually invest in your own personal development. I've bought courses, I've bought countless books, I've had tons of mentors and coaches. It changes you. It will help you, I promise. Take the leap of faith.

Speaker 1:

Take the leap of faith Tomorrow for episode number 1,566,. What don't you want to change about yourself? Obviously, self-improvement is improving yourself, and we talk about how to get better and how to improve this and how to get to the next level, but what are the things about you that you just don't want to change? I'm sure there's some. Alan and I have talked about ours. I feel like it's worth a deeper discussion, so we will talk about that Tomorrow. It will be on Monday.

Speaker 1:

As always we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you At NLU. We don't have fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Have those courageous conversations up front. Thanks a lot.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host