Next Level University
Confidence, mindset, relationships, limiting beliefs, family, goals, consistency, self-worth, and success are at the core of hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros' heart-driven, no-nonsense approach to holistic self-improvement. This transformative, 7 day per week podcast is focused on helping dream chasers who have been struggling to achieve their goals and are seeking community, consistency and answers. If you've ever asked yourself "How do I get to the next level in my life", we're here for you!
Our goal at NLU is to help you uncover the habits to build unshakable confidence, cultivate a powerful mindset, nurture meaningful relationships, overcome limiting beliefs, create an amazing family life, set and achieve transformative goals, embrace consistency, recognize your self-worth, and ultimately create the fulfillment and success you desire. Let's level up your health, wealth and love!
Next Level University
#1576 - One Reason We ALL Need To Avoid Fake Confidence - Part 2
In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros tackle the complex issue of authenticity in the realm of self-confidence. It's a journey many of us are on—stripping away the layers of fake bravado to discover the bedrock of genuine self-assurance. This conversation goes beyond the surface, allowing listeners to explore the depths of genuine self-efficacy and align their inner convictions with their outward appearance.
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Show notes:
(2:48) Personal anecdote
(5:02) Difficult but doable
(6:50) Unveiling the reality of fake confidence
(8:33) Confidence is depth
(14:19) Authenticity and self-confidence
(17:41) Chad shares how Next Level Podcast Solutions transformed his podcast and provided invaluable assistance along the way.
(20:10) Toxic ego?
(25:14) Actions over words
(28:18) Navigating relationships and building confidence
(35:20) Outro
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. My apologies for Laughing like a hyena in your ears. Alan and I are Having a day today, on this Monday recording day. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode, episode number 1575.
Speaker 1:One reason we all need to avoid fake confidence, as we spoke about on that episode, we are gonna do a part two today, number one. It was obviously an episode that hit very close to home for one, alan Lazarus, and you obviously have experience with that Way more than I do. I would say. We said we were gonna do a part two because that was a shorter episode and I figured If you have dealt with it, well, you've definitely dealt with it.
Speaker 1:I can imagine that's probably something that a lot of people have, because If you want to be more confident, one of the things that you might have done in the past is surround yourself with people who you think are confident, and I know I was guilty of this for a long time. I used to think everybody who Came off as confident was truly confident, not fake confidence. But now, in retrospect, looking back, you and I have had conversations by the scenes when we look back and now it is abundantly clear that that person was living mostly in ego. And I've had my, I would say in my mid 20s I probably had a lot of fake confidence. I would never intentionally put someone down, but it was really hard for me to root for someone To win when I thought I was gonna lose.
Speaker 1:Yeah talked a little bit about that in in yesterday's episode.
Speaker 2:So when do you think you started the Fake confidence? Because I would. I would argue that Kevin and I for the new listeners we went to high school together and when I was growing up, I think I was naive in terms of not knowing that other people weren't confident. And we've talked about the self-belief piece and If you have self-belief, which is known in psychology as self-efficacy, you basically just believe deeply in your own abilities, you believe deeply in your own competence, you believe that you can achieve what you want to achieve. That's really what it comes down to, and I think that when I heard other people talk with fake confidence, I thought that was real. Yeah, because mine was Not all of it, but some of it was. The only time I can think of when I had fake confidence was in my mid 20s, when I was really miserable and I was drinking too much and too often. I was not doing fitness, I was just I don't know if toxic is the right word I would say I was as close to toxic as I've ever been, where I was kind of Putting on a show. I was putting on a show and in reality I was very Insecure and not fulfilled. And now I realize that most of my life I lived from a place of high self-belief and not knowing that other people were, were faking it, and I'll tell this story very, very briefly. And then I want to. I want to ask you some questions, kev.
Speaker 2:I was on the phone once with a past NLU team member and I remember she was having a really hard time achieving her fitness goals and I said something along the lines of because we coached together for a while and we got her to her goal weight, her dream weight, she was at like 127. That was like unbelievable. That was. That was beyond what she ever believed was possible. But back then, when I first was coaching her as a fitness coach, I had no idea she didn't believe it. I didn't even know that other people don't believe in themselves. I was so naive to this whole thing Because I remember when she first came to me I'm like, yeah, that's totally doable. And when I said totally doable, I meant mathematically, mathematically, we can get you there, that's, that's no problem. And I think that I unintentionally kind of like lessen the hardship of it when just saying it's going to be no problem when in reality it'll be really difficult but it is doable. Okay, fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. She ended up gaining a lot of the weight back.
Speaker 2:All of the weight back actually, and she was very, very vulnerable and very sad about it, which I appreciated her honesty and her vulnerability and I said Okay, so, underneath all this, let me get this straight you, you just don't believe you can get back there. And it was hard for her to share this. But she said no, no, I don't, I really don't think it's possible. And I said but we did it once before. We did it once before, so obviously you can do it again and this is me speaking mathematically, like there's no reason you can't do that again. From my perspective, it's just an honest conversation. And she totally could. By the way, whether or not she will or believes it is another story. So I said can you please do me a favor and just just pretend for me like you think you can, because I said zero to ten, how certain are you you can get back to 127. She said I don't know too. I said can you pretend like, can you act like You're at 10? And she literally put on this like front and she's like yeah, no, I could, I could totally do it. And I had this moment where I was like oh, you sound like me. Does everyone think I'm full of it? Oh, I had this real. That was such a humbling moment for me because she sounded like I do when I say we're gonna blah, blah, blah, do blah, blah.
Speaker 2:You know, I genuinely I was wrong about the marathon, but I really I actually thought I could do that. I obviously was wrong and I was dehydrated and it was 95 degrees and I was on a track, so I made a lot of mistakes. But when I said I would do that, I actually meant it. Mathematically speaking, I thought that I could do it and obviously I was wrong. But it's not like I was wrong by a huge margin and if I trained I certainly could do one. And whether or not that comes off icky to people, I think self-belief when it's real is very hard to distinguish from self-belief that is being faked and that fake confidence thing. I would say it's almost always fake.
Speaker 2:From a statistical understanding, now that I'm 35 years old and I've coached so many people, seeing the contrast between behind the scenes and what people post on social media is nothing short of absolutely drastic, and Kevin and I do this too.
Speaker 2:So I'm not making humans wrong for this, it's just the facts, and I can think of several people who really, really, really, really struggle with self-confidence, who you would think, based on their social media, are like the most confident people on this planet, and I just think it messes with all of us and I just want to hopefully for our listeners, can we just opt out of this, this misunderstanding, so that from now on we can build something that is tried and true and real, instead of feeling like this person, where she, on deep down, doesn't believe it's possible to get back to 127 but yet kind of has to put on the show that it is in order to feel secure in herself or whatever. So I think what's ironic is the people that are the most inner, inwardly secure are actually the least, the least concerned with what other people think. It's like this weird thing.
Speaker 1:I think it's a layering. It's. When you were talking, I was trying to think of an analogy, as I do. I love my analogies, and what came to mind was someone who is truly confident, and I don't. I'm definitely not the the foremost authority on confidence is something I've been working on for a long time, but I definitely still have my moments. Something happens in a public environment how, what is the difference, what is the drasticness of the difference between the way you react in person when it happens and the thoughts you have later about it?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really good. I remember one of the. This is very telling. This is a very telling time in my life.
Speaker 1:Middle school I was dating. I'll just use one word. I had a girlfriend at the time, very popular in our school one, amy. There was an E me, okay, and again, this is like second grade dating, so this doesn't count, this is real nothing, yeah, nothing. Yeah. Maybe we like wrote each other notes or something, I don't know. But I remember I was coming back from gym class and one of my buddies was like yo, do you hear Amy's breaking up with you? I was like, dude, I don't even care, I don't even hair. Man, I was devastated. I was absolutely devastated. Again, was I gonna go on to marry this person? This was like middle school. Maybe we were Valentine's or something, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But that's a drastic difference between the way I reacted and the way I felt. I didn't feel that I wasn't confident to the point where I said that's gonna be fine, it's not a big deal, maybe she found someone else, whatever. I think that's a really good way to look at it, because I think confidence is depth, the same way. The same way you react when it happens is the same type of energy you have about it later when you reflect on. It's not different, it's the same. It's like it's the the internet thing of somebody will reach out and say something mean to you, but then when you see them in person it's different it's not the same.
Speaker 1:It's not that you're not the same where there are some people who will tell you something online and when you see them in person they will tell you something to your face. That's different. I kind of think of confidence. The same way, where it's very easy surface level to put it out there, but behind the scenes, when you're in other environments, when you put your head on that pillow before you go to sleep at night, is it the same thought process going on? Problem is nobody gets to see that. That's the, that's the challenge about it. We only see layer one and that's usually the layer that we decide we want people to see.
Speaker 2:I want to show both ends of this, because what Kevin's saying is that there's a there's a large difference between what you show outwardly and what you feel inwardly. I think that I've been guilty of the opposite, where I I'm just gonna share this, even though it's actually genuinely so scary to share this. So the half marathon was really easy. I wouldn't say that outwardly typically because I would be afraid that it would sound arrogant. So, like I didn't train, I just showed up and I did a half marathon and it was pretty easy Like more easy than I thought. The full marathon was alarmingly difficult and it was high noon and 95 degrees and I was dehydrated as hell, so it was also unintelligent. But the half marathon was easy and inwardly I would say that that's my truth. Inwardly, my truth is the half marathon was easy and the full marathon was way harder than I thought. That's my inward truth, but outwardly I normally wouldn't say that. It takes a lot of courage to say that, and the reason why is because my inner truth is actually better in some cases than what the outer looks like. So the outer looks like I just was destroyed by that marathon and that I was completely humbled and that it was super difficult and blah, blah, blah and that's all great and that's fine and that's. But inside me it was really, really humbling, the full marathon. But the half marathon was shockingly easy for me and I know I could do that again and whatever.
Speaker 2:But I think that while some people are portraying to be more than they are like you with Amy it's like, oh, I don't care at all, and then inwardly you're so hurt. Sometimes it's the opposite, where inside I'm not, I have no one in that shadow of a doubt, but outwardly I'm pretending to be doubtful because I don't wanna be seen as so arrogant. And I think that that's been really hard for me, particularly when it comes to business or fitness or things like that. And I'll give you one example, because some people actually are like this. So Emilia is the most confident person I've ever personally met and it's been fascinating to sort of study her because inside of her it hasn't actually been that difficult to exercise every day for almost two years and that's her genuine inside truth. Like inside of her it's yeah, I mean, it's not been that tough. And I was honest with her and I said for me it's been pretty hard. Honestly it's been like a lot like. Sometimes I just really, really, really don't wanna do it. I mean, we went for a walk in the snow last night at what? 10 o'clock at night. I mean I just sometimes I just really hate it For her. She was honest, she's like I don't know, it's not really that difficult, that's her truth.
Speaker 2:But if she were to act like that outwardly, I think a lot of people would get triggered by that, and so we're all sort of conditioned to be either less than or more than we are. If you are not that much, you almost have to pretend you are, and if you really are that much, you kinda have to pretend you're not. And it sucks because you have to pretend. And that's what I really want this second episode to be, rather than me just crying on the last one. I just think I'm done pretending with everything, like I'm not great at X, y, z, but I actually am like really good at Y, w, x or whatever. I wanna just be in the truth. I don't wanna inflate or deflate, that's what it comes down to. I just wanna be honest. The half marathon was easy, that's my truth. The full marathon was brutal, that's it. I just wanna live in the truth and I hope that. I think that that's where fulfillment lives.
Speaker 2:Personally, don't pretend you're better than you are it doesn't help. And don't pretend you're worse than you are, cause that also does not help. It's kinda like this weird let's distort the reality of what is and we're either pretending to be modest when we're not or we're pretending to be better than we are when we're not, and I think just owning who you are is what true humility and courage and vulnerability is, because it is vulnerable to share that. A half marathon on a whim was easy. That is like super scary Cause, like what a dick. Right, I just don't care anymore. And I don't say that. I don't say that like I don't care because I do. I do care what our listeners think, but I've decided in advance to be okay with it. I've decided in advance that I just it's not worth it to try to pretend that it was harder than it was or to pretend that you know, the only reason the marathon was hard was cause of the sun. Like I just am done pretending and that's hopefully useful for everybody.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it connects to the point that we really wanted to make. I think that's beautiful and I think that's wonderful and I think you'll grow from that, as long as you're willing to face whatever mirrors come with it. And that's the whole point of these two episodes. If you're surrounded excuse me, if you're surrounded by people who have fake confidence, you're gonna get villainized and it's gonna be worse. Unfortunately, that, and that's just that. I really want that point to land. That would be my next level nugget, the through line for my next level nugget in the next two episodes. Sometimes the hardest part about being ourselves is only hard because of the people around us, and it's not always. I'm not going to say it's, oh, it's their fault. I'm not saying that. But you and I can talk about you and I have this will be behind the scenes. When we log on to meetings, one of us is flexing at the other one almost every time.
Speaker 2:And it's a running joke for us at this point.
Speaker 1:But I don't think you're arrogant for that. Well, it's because we're playful. Yeah, but some people, I'm telling you not everybody. I have times where I'll do that on the team calls and it's like I hope nobody thinks I'm an idiot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they know you're being playful too. Everybody knows I'm my own career, but here's the funny thing and I want to share this with our listeners. So, kev, that's a you thing and I've adopted it and I think it's hilarious. But someone who's insecure about their fitness would probably think that that's arrogant.
Speaker 2:One time I did that with a friend of mine, who is really out of shape, and he was very, very upset about it. He thought I was wicked, arrogant. But I was like, oh, that's right, you're not a bodybuilder. Me and my bodybuilder friends do that all the time as a playful thing. And then there's one more layer to this Kev, some people do that and they actually mean it. You're being playful, I'm trying, I'm trying.
Speaker 2:I have one old friend of mine who when he did it, he actually was being ego. See, there's a difference between playing with your ego and then your ego actually running you. And I think that when we're flexing, we're being playful with our ego versus actually it really driving. And I think that you and I have had trouble in the past with certain people in our life when we would be playful with our egos and they would actually match it with real ego. And I'm just starting to understand that layer. Recently, as I've been reflecting on the past, I mean, I looked at a lot of old photos. I think people actually thought we were being serious.
Speaker 1:I wonder. I know when we went to the Brennan-Bouchard events, a lot of times you and I would be flexing in our pictures, but not again. That's just because that's kind of who I was. I was a bodybuilder, so I'm not expecting people to look at me.
Speaker 2:That's not why I'm doing it, I know, but other people definitely thought that that was arrogant, yeah, but that's exactly what this whole point of this is. You are looking okay. If you're not insecure at all about your physique and you see someone flexing, you're going to think it's fun and playful and hilarious. But if you're deeply insecure about your body, like a lot of men are and a lot of women, everyone, a lot of people are insecure about their body. That might be seen as like a really negative thing, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Tara and I went to dueling pianos this weekend for a date night and I had a moment and this was a good character study we got tickets late, so we were like way back, like second to last row, and there was a bunch of people who were running up and like dancing near the stage. And I had this moment where I was like I wasn't looking down on them but I was definitely trying to understand them. Like, are you dancing because you want people, you want the significance, or do you just love it that much and you're that level of confident where you're just dancing because that's what you want to do? And there was a little, there was a piece of me that I was envious, there was a piece of me that was envious that I wouldn't do that. But I think the natural tendency first is to villainize, like oh my God, that's what are you doing? Like when in reality there's probably a piece of me that wishes I was confident enough to do that 100%, so 100%. I think that speaks to I remember you've done a lot of photo shoots, but I remember I did a photo shoot back in the day with one of my partners and the photographer said do you have any shorts?
Speaker 1:Because it was at the beach. I don't think I brought a bathing suit. I was like two weeks out from my show. I was riding the struggle bus this is the last thing I should have been doing and I said, no, I have compression shorts underneath. And she said, well, you don't want to take pictures of those? And I said I don't care, I'm in really good shape. I wasn't even thinking about it, but now in retrospect there was a lot of people looking at me and they probably thought I was a fool. For sure. Here I am standing, you know you could see some stuff, the outlines of some stuff, in compression shorts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been there. You could see it. I know you have, so that that's another yeah, I wonder this.
Speaker 1:This will be the again last, next level nugget for this, next time, next time you see someone doing something that represents what you think confidence is. I thought I fixed my chair, but I didn't ask yourself Am I villainizing this? Right before this, I have the drill and everything. I fixed it. I don't know what's going on with my chair now. Certainly is driving me crazy.
Speaker 2:We'll have it done by the end of 2024.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by this time next year it'll be done. Is it the fact that they are more confident than I am that is that is triggering me? Is there a little piece of me inside myself that wishes I had the confidence to do what they're doing and rather than admitting I don't, I'm going to make them wrong for it?
Speaker 2:Or is it toxic ego? That's why this is so hard, because some people are faking it. And this is the question when you see someone who is seemingly super confident, are you triggered because you're jealous of the confidence they have and you deep down want that confidence yourself, or do you know intuitively it's fake?
Speaker 1:For me it's the first one.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can tell. I can usually tell pretty. I mean, you know me, I have a pretty good tell on people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're definitely Okay. So how can you tell?
Speaker 2:Can we just talk about that for a second? How can you tell, like, how did you know that mine I mean, you're one of the very few people who didn't consider me wildly delusional yeah, why, what I saw. How can you tell?
Speaker 1:I saw the way you operated behind the scenes. It was different. It was different. You. I remember one of the this will be fun. This will be when you and I first started working together. I remember we were in Worcester, where I was living at the time, and you did a social media post and you spent like 25 minutes writing the caption and then you deleted the whole thing and I laughed at you hysterically. And then you laughed for like a minute and you're like, oh shit, gotta do it again. And I was like you're going to write the whole thing over again. And you're like, yeah, man, I have to. And it's like, oh, you're different, okay, cool. So everything you say is probably real. And it's the. It's the different.
Speaker 1:I deleted it by accident. Something happened, I think maybe you closed your phone or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah you didn't.
Speaker 1:you didn't delete it and say like I'm going to write it over. Something happened or there was an error and it didn't post. Yeah, facebook will Jeff you sometimes, or you did the whole thing over again and then you're like oh, I'm going to write it over again. Yeah, behind the scenes you showed more than you talked about publicly. That's what I would say, and there are some people that I've been around that it's just. It's not like that, it's the opposite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the opposite Most people can't see the behind the scenes, though. That's the.
Speaker 1:That's the unfortunate part. Well, that is.
Speaker 2:So they can't know that I'm not all talk, which is whatever, and again, it's not about me. I mean this concept Are you walking more than you're talking? Here's the problem Most people will never see the walking.
Speaker 1:If you do it long enough, I think they will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1:And then the results will catch up and it becomes a whole thing If you do it long enough. I think they will. I was listening to something that made me think of that. I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 2:I wanna. The older I am, the more mature I get, the less I mean I talk for a living, so everyone, please keep that in mind. But I think I care more about walking more and more every day, almost to a detriment, like I don't like marketing that much, I don't like social media that much. It's nothing against it. I would rather just do real work. I think that as you get older, you just I care much more deeply about the work. So I have a blog, blog 14. I worked so hard on that. I mean seriously 20 minutes a day every day, for I mean I haven't missed in 2014. It's only been eight days, but what is that? Eight times 20? How many hours About a blog.
Speaker 1:Almost three yeah.
Speaker 2:I worked really hard and, again, I started a long time ago, so I only probably a third of it. So eight times 20 times three is how many minutes I spent on that, and that's alone in a dark room, and it's brutal too. It's not easy. So at the end of the day, I just I hope that our listeners know that too the walk matters more than the talk. I think that the talk matters too. Marketing matters too, social media matters too. You got to connect with people.
Speaker 2:But I know some people who spend their whole day just with sort of being on and shifting social media and then they inherently kind of have to talk more than walk, because that's what everything's built on.
Speaker 2:It's like a foundation. I like the pyramid analogy, because there have been times in my life where the foundation was so bad and I was up near the top and pretending to be something that I wasn't. And that whole pyramid will topple if you let the bottom erode, if you let your health erode, if you let your relationship erode, if you let the fundamentals of expenses, like tracking and making sure you're dialed in. That stuff is what will always matter, the fundamentals. And yeah, you can totally do fitness shows and that's awesome too, and post the photos, that's great. But if you forget about working out, if you forget about your supplements, if you forget about mobility, you're going to get injured. It will all topple, and I think that the walk needs to be first and then the talk needs to be second. And I now realize later in life that most people will never see the walk, they'll just see the talk and the results which is making me actually want to talk less.
Speaker 2:To be honest, it's kind of this weird thing I talk more than I ever have because I'm on so many podcasts and stuff, but I'm not as interested in it. It's almost like a waste. It feels a little not a waste of my time helping people is everything but it doesn't feel like the best use of my time anymore, whereas in the past I think I was always trying to give everyone confidence. I feel like I used to be like a dealer of confidence. I don't fall for fake confidence like I used to. I don't portray fake confidence as much as I used to. I don't think, and I think that that's the growth journey in a nutshell the more and more you actually grow from the inside out, the less and less you're going to portray fake confidence, I think.
Speaker 1:And just another reason to try not to be around. It is because you don't get to have conversations like this. Really, you're not going to be around people who are going to give you the ups you deserve when you do something really well, the credit you deserve when you do something really well. That's the best part of this. All this whole episode, this whole sequel of episodes, I suppose, or duo of episodes came from the understanding that on the NLU team it's really cool for you to track your habits and congrats to you for doing exercise every day for a year or two years or running a mile every day for over a year. That's awesome In our specifically on the team, but in the community you'll never be villainized for that, because that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And if I had fake confidence which again I'll just tell you what I'm insecure I try to do my best of that If I had fake confidence I might villainize someone for that, and there's a lot of communities that do that. And again to Alan's point, it's part of the growth journey and it is challenging and it is brutal.
Speaker 2:And the reason you think they would villainize is why? Because doesn't it take confidence to actually not villainize, in a way?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's very hard to be happy for someone. It's very hard to be happy for someone's success when you're not happy for your own or you can't take responsibility for your lack of your own success or whatever it may be. But there's a lot of people that, when you talk about your relationship with Emilia, most likely will get triggered. One of two things will happen. They'll say, wow, I really hope eventually I can get to the place where I have my own unique version of that. Or will this guy just shut up, stop talking about his relationship every episode? There's a couple, there's a couple different versions of that. I mean, we've got reviews before from people saying remember somebody said that one time Like they only talk about their partners. It's like, yeah, my wife, I'm going to spend the rest of my life with this person. God forbid, I talk about her. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:Also it's our show. Who?
Speaker 2:am I supposed to talk about?
Speaker 1:I don't have any, I talk to like five people, you know.
Speaker 1:But now more than ever. I know we laugh about it. I understand Like there is a piece of me. I'm not. I am not at the place where I am so balanced that I just go there first and say you know what? I empathize with you because maybe you're struggling, maybe you just got out of a relationship, maybe you just lost the person you loved, maybe you've been searching for someone. You've been struggling to find them. I try to find empathy because I think I can understand. I've been that guy. I've been that guy who has seen people in nice cars and said I must be nice and I have a nice car.
Speaker 2:But the difference is, is you weren't?
Speaker 1:a bully? I wasn't a bully. That's the difference.
Speaker 2:You weren't a bully, so I'm with you on the, if you villainize but don't attack, I'm with you, but the bullies man I can't.
Speaker 1:I can't be okay with it.
Speaker 2:I understand, I understand, I think that's the difference between our community and other communities. There's no bullies. You know, bullies are insecure, deep down, truthfully, and that's why they're bullying people.
Speaker 1:If there are bullies, they're going to bully us more than anybody else. They're going to start with us. That's the sad truth.
Speaker 2:Well, luckily you're training.
Speaker 1:I'm glad we did these. I'm glad we did these. These are I know this was a couple episodes that are a little bit different, because it was there was a lot going on just in terms of conversation, but I think this is one where you and I were both exploring and, whether you're watching or listening, think about it. Think about the people in your life who are truly confident, who they are, the same behind the scenes as they are in front of the scene, whatever that means and think about the experiences you've had with them and the interactions you've had with them. And then try to think of other people. I'm not trying to make anybody right or wrong, but just for the, for the experience and for the understanding and for the self-awareness, I think it would be a very, very valuable thing to do. We are surrounded by people. We have coworkers. We don't necessarily get to choose. We have family. We don't necessarily get to choose. Just understanding these, these things, these dynamics, has been super, super helpful, for sure.
Speaker 2:My next level nugget is true humility, I think, is never overly inflating your own importance and I think it's seeing yourself accurately. I think true confidence is not contorting yourself for approval. I think that's what it is. It's one of the most challenging things in the world because when you're in a room of people that are insecure, it's easy to shrink. When you're in a room of people that are amazing, it's easy to villainize. I think the true confidence and true humility is where you're centered and that's the drive to five. If anyone wants the asset for the drive to five, by the way, you can email me, alan at nextleveluniversecom. My executive admin, jerry N, just recreated it in a new, better way for a course that's going to be launching soon. Alan at nextleveluniversecom, if you hear us talking about the drive to five all the time and you want to understand where you're at in it, I can send you the PDF or the PNG via email.
Speaker 1:What does that stand for? Png?
Speaker 2:I genuinely don't know Picture something.
Speaker 1:Say portable network designs, when I'm going, I think it starts with portable.
Speaker 2:I would say the G is probably graphic.
Speaker 1:Portable.
Speaker 2:Non-graphic Next level At some point.
Speaker 1:We should probably at some point we could talk about this off air but have just a boulder of resources, of all the stuff we talk about. We say a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:We're on it. We're on it. I like the emailing me because I get to connect with listeners. I know.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:So you're out here, Jeff and me.
Speaker 1:I know I knew I was Jeff and you, so I said we'll talk about it offline. But then you aired it out in front of everybody.
Speaker 1:Well, it's all good man, If you have not yet joined me, if this episode resonated with you because of the community aspect trying to find an aligned community where you can be yourself, where you can be celebrated for your wins and you have the support you need to look at the potential losses or mistakes you're making. Join Next Level Nation. It is a group of those people, positive people, who are growing and evolving and trying to get rid of the negative ego and increase self-awareness. It's awesome. It's awesome. I had a moment where we were doing that episode where it was like I can't believe this is my job. This is wild to me. That's Monday at four o'clock in the afternoon, 3.30, whatever time it is, and this is what I get to do. Just super, super, super grateful for that. Tomorrow, for episode number 1,577. Is that accurate? It is Six questions that will help you understand yourself so much better. This is actually something that I taught Alan, so make sure you tune in for that tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Overwhelming title, six questions, holy crap Look if it was up to me, it would be three questions, but it's not up to me, somebody else made it, so I have to go with all the questions. It was not me who made it, no, it was not Alan who made it, and you'll hear about that a little bit more tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I taught Alan it so he'll be able to bring a unique perspective. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We are fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Stay humble and confident. Next elimination.
Speaker 1:Boom, all right, yes.
