Next Level University

#1586 - 1 Way To Be Real About Your Priorities

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Share episode

Prioritization is often heralded as the cornerstone of successful personal growth, yet many of us need clarification on a 'lack of time' with a 'lack of priority.' In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros deeply dive into this issue, shedding light on how we can shift our perspective and realign our actions with our aspirations. 

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Book Club Registration:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMkcuiupjIqE9QlkptiKDQykRtKyFB5Jbhc#/registration

______________________

NLU is far more than just a podcast, and we have so many more resources to help you achieve your goals and dreams.

For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇

Website 💻  http://www.nextleveluniverse.com

_______________________

Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - ​​https://bit.ly/3xffver
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
Next Level Monthly Meetup:  https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/

_______________________

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

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

Facebook ✍
Alan: https://www.facebook.com/alan.lazaros
Kevin: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.palmieri.90/

Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

_______________________

Show notes:
(2:10) If-then statements
(3:14) Priority issue
(5:33) Too many priorities will destroy your self-worth
(8:32) G3 target
(12:42) Alex highlights how Next Level Business Solutions helped him optimize his time for maximum productivity.
(13:40) Acknowledge and praise yourself
(15:45) Prioritizing
(17:18) Create or change your target
(20:15) Prioritizing goals and making honest choices
(27:16) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin:

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, yesterday's episode number 1585. Is your regret real? I enjoyed that episode very much, helen. Same Today, episode number 1586, one way to be real about your priorities. I think one of the best places to get in terms of growth is where, instead of saying I don't have time, you say it's just not a priority. Now again, there is a fine line to that.

Alan:

Yeah, that can make someone feel bad at times it definitely can.

Kevin:

It definitely can, and that's not my-.

Alan:

Hey Kev. Yes, Right now, you're just not a priority.

Kevin:

It's. People don't like to hear that. People definitely don't like to hear that. And this is again what I really appreciate about the way we approach things. Very strange thing to say about yourself is the fact that sometimes there just isn't enough time. If you have 15 things, you can't prioritize all of them the same truthfully right, can't? It just doesn't work that way, but-.

Alan:

Mathematically impossible. It doesn't work that way, right?

Kevin:

What I want to talk about in this episode is an if-then statement, which has helped me in the past. Just say look, I just am not prioritizing this at the level I should. If so, let's just say right now you're struggling to. Let's say you're an entrepreneur, you're a dream chaser, maybe you make art, maybe you make stuff and you sell it on Instagram or you sell it on TikTok or whatever it is, and you're just not messaging people or you're not posting whatever it is. If I was scrolling on social media I would do it, but I'm not doing what I should be for my small business. That is a priority issue. I say this all the time. I don't have time to post on social media, but I'm on social media for 25 minutes scrolling. That's a priority issue. It's not a time issue.

Kevin:

The one I really like that I use with Alan behind the scenes is there's probably a lot of us who struggle to get up and go to the gym, hypothetically. Now, not everybody wants to work out in the morning, I understand. But if you struggle to get up in the morning and do your morning routine, but every time the new iPhone comes out, it's easy to get up and go wait in line. Black Friday in the US you're waiting in line at five o'clock in the morning. Christmas morning Christmas morning you wake up early. Thanksgiving morning you wake up early. It's most likely more of a priority thing than it is a time thing, and I remember thinking of this early in the entrepreneurial days because I would see people do things. They would get up and they would drive an hour into Boston to go to a sporting event, but they wouldn't drive 15 minutes to go to the gym and get a workout in. Now I don't want this to be a super hardcore episode of beat yourself up and all that, but I think this is a very valuable question to ask yourself.

Kevin:

If the thing that I am avoiding was blank, would I do it? If the gym was the bar, would I do it? If the coaching call was a movie, would I do it? If the personal training session was a movie, would I do it? A concert, would I do it? Just because at least it can help you get the understanding of what your priorities actually are and then from there you can work on the identity stuff around it, scheduling it, all that stuff.

Kevin:

But I think just the baseline awareness of right now I'm not prioritizing this at the level I should is a good place to be, because it can be empowering when you understand that and then, if and when you don't get certain goals, you know exactly where to point. I got out of shape at the beginning of last year. I think I was not nearly as good a shape as I wanted. I was not prioritizing fitness, I just wasn't. Did I have time to exercise? Yeah, I could have gotten up and gone. I just didn't prioritize it at the level of the goal that I desired. So that is my jam for today's episode.

Alan:

Yeah, I think that's a good belief to adopt, which is you will only succeed in any area to the extent that you prioritize it. And the problem with priorities is that there's so many things, particularly for us on this podcast. We wanna be holistic, so health, wealth, life and love. It's very difficult to have high standards in all of those Like exponentially more difficult. I actually wanna break down the math for people, so I did this in book club. Let's just say, hypothetically, you wanna be the top 1% in health.

Alan:

That's one out of a hundred. Let's say you want to be the top 1% in wealth and you also want to be the top 1% in love. Let's just say, hypothetically that means it's one over a hundred times one over a hundred times one over a hundred. And so what's a hundred times a hundred times a hundred? I'm not the one.

Kevin:

A hundred times a hundred thousand. Hold on A hundred times a hundred. No, yeah, a million. Yeah, it's a million.

Alan:

So that's one in a million. So if you are top 1% in health, wealth and love, you're one in a million, that's how the math works out. What did? You say You're one in a million, oh thanks, brother I can't tell if you're being playful or not.

Kevin:

It's been a day for Alan and I. It's a late one as of the time of this recording, but no, I'm very serious. I'm very serious.

Alan:

I appreciate it, man. It feels one in a million hard. Yes, I would say so. I was joking. Earlier I was on with Brandon. One of our longest team member actually is Brandon. We looked at NLU birthdays a couple of days ago and Kevin and I have a joke behind the scenes that we say we start a business. They said, and Brandon is just like, yeah, man, that sounds pretty easy. He's just laughing, you know, because it's eight o'clock at night. No, it's seven o'clock at night and we're still crushing, trying to work.

Alan:

But anyways, my point is too many priorities will destroy your self-worth. It happens to me probably once a quarter, maybe twice, maybe once a month, I'm not sure. But when you have really high standards in many different areas, it can be so detrimental, it can be really hard. So how do you level up each one of your priorities? Where I like the tripod analogy, we'll use health, wealth and love. In this case, you can only unlock one of the legs and lift it up at a time. It's not like you're going to unlock all three legs simultaneously and lift the camera up. I mean, maybe you could build that off, but I can't MacGyver that. So I think that's a good metaphor for priorities, and so I try my best to condense my life into a couple priorities.

Alan:

I've been talking a lot about the Dreamliner lately, but in the Dreamliner there's the top three most important tasks and you write them first thing in the morning. So I woke up this morning and I look, I wrote down my top three gratitudes, I wrote down my top three most important tasks, and so far it is seven PM. I've been working pretty much all day, not in a negative way but in a positive way, towards the dreams and goals that I value, and I've only gotten one out of those three done. So I'm only one third done with the tasks that were my quote unquote priority. But we've recorded several episodes, I've been on several other podcasts, I've done several coaching calls today, so it's not like I'm just sitting around doing nothing.

Alan:

So the point that I'm making is this If you are spread too thin, no matter what, it is a priority issue and there's got to be a way to reprioritize. And so I like this little system that I kind of created called the G3 target, and we do this at NLU with all the team members, and the reason why it's the G3 target is the G stands for genius. Whatever your genius zone is. Now, don't take that too far. Don't think I have to be a genius in this in order for it to. That's not my point. I just called it the genius zone because ideally I want everyone on the NLU team to be in their, in their genius zone. That's kind of the idea, but don't look too far into the genius word.

Alan:

Okay, but the target is the cool part, because the the target is you want to stay on target, you want to stay on target. You want to stay on target. So we can share Kevin's in mind and then you can create your own. But yours is going to look different than Kevin's and I's because you have your own unique core values. You have your own unique lifestyle. You have your own unique career. You have your own unique goals and dreams.

Alan:

So I'll share mine first. So mine is lead people is the center of my target. So picture just a target with three circles. The center, the bull's eye, is lead people. The next layer is improve systems and then the next layer after that is track metrics and that's it.

Alan:

What I'm trying to stay on target and do is those things. So, yeah, my most important tasks. I've only gotten one out of three done, but I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. I have 26 checks in the lead people you know team clients, emails, messages, podcasts. So I have 26 checkmarks in lead people. So do do this if you, if you're interested, if you're not driving, draw a target, three circles and then just write the three priorities that you need to stay focused on in 2024, or maybe just this quarter. For the next 90 days, you're going to focus on these three things. Maybe the first one is fitness, maybe the second one is my relationship, maybe the third is your career, I don't know. You got to categorize it based on your life and if you need help, reach out Seriously, email me. I will help you with this. I do this all the time. If you have struggled with priorities, if you struggle with priorities, if you have trouble speaking.

Alan:

Email me, alan at nextleveluniversecom. But seriously, I will help you. So that simple the inner circle is G1, the next circle is G2 and the third circle is G3. And then just track it. My executive admin, jerianne, does this. She I think she had something crazy like 90 checkmarks the other day, I think it was like 87. And I think she's listening. So shout out to you, jerianne.

Alan:

But one of her circles is family and she has four children. She's a husband, so she's taking care of her family. She gets a lot of checkmarks. I mean, do the dishes, check you know whatever it is, and so you can give yourself credit for the things you're doing, because you're probably doing a lot more than you're giving yourself credit for. And when you start to do these checkmarks, you start to realize like wow, I had a hell of a day. Even right there. I was feeling maybe not that good about today until I looked and 26, that's a lot of needle moves, that's a lot of progress. So I think when you track, you might realize that you're actually doing more than you realize.

Kevin:

I think that's a good habit to get into, whatever it is. I like Alan's perspective. I like the G3 target. I don't really track mine. I should probably, but I don't. I just moved on with my life Like I'm done. Now I'm going to go do something else, but I could probably track them.

Kevin:

So I can't say that because I don't practice what I preach when it comes to that. But I just think the portion of giving yourself credit for the stuff that you're actually doing is huge, because what's going to happen? You get to the end of the day. You don't feel like you accomplish anything. You're probably not going to be super motivated or inspired the next day, but in reality you probably got a lot of stuff done. Did you get everything you wanted done? No, but I don't know if you ever are.

Kevin:

Maybe we have those rare days where we say I got everything I wanted done, okay, but I would argue those are probably more the exception than the rule. I have days where I get a lot done and it's like hell, yeah. I also have days where I get like three things done, but those three things are the most important. Okay, last year we were so behind on our taxes. It was the worst and it would stress me out every single day One weekend. I'm going to do all of our expenses in one Saturday. That is all I'm going to get done. I will get nothing else done. It will take me eight hours or it'll take me 12 hours to do it. That will be it, but that's going to be a massive accomplishment. It probably doesn't seem like that much, but it's something that I'm willing to sacrifice and prioritize a day for.

Kevin:

And I think Progress is personal. You've heard me say that before. Progress is personal, but you have to know what progress means to you. And then, last thing I was gonna add, I was gonna say something else. Oh, one of the hardest things is if you have a family, if you have pets, if you have a full-time job, if you have a side hustle, if you have a fitness goal, if you have a money goal, it's really hard to prioritize all those. That's why I like juggling versus balance juggling. I like the phrase juggling Because, in theory, when you're starting your fitness journey, that's when it's really really really hard.

Kevin:

It's never easy, but that's when it's really really hard because you're building momentum, eventually going to the gym or going to exercise class or spin class or whatever it is. Hot yoga, it might be easier. There'll be less resistance because you've done it for long enough. Hopefully Then you can start a new habit. Then it's like all right, I'll start tracking my finances. Now I got the fitness thing down. I'm weighing myself. Awesome, I'll start tracking my finances. All right, cool, I'll put in extra time at work so I can make more money. All right, cool.

Kevin:

When you're putting in extra time at work, you might find that you go to the gym a little less, or hot yoga, maybe you miss a class a week. And then, when you put in relationship, I want to do a date night every single week. We want to stay home and cook dinner. All right, then maybe you're not able to go work extra hours that week. It really is. It's this constantly evolving, moving thing. But the thought is, then your relationship increases, so then you're able to put more time into the second thing, and then your fitness decreases a little bit. So you gotta go fill that cup up. It's almost like it's three cups. Every single one has a very, very small hole in it and you just have to go back and refill, refill, refill, refill, refill, but eventually the cup is bigger so it takes longer for the cup to drain. It's always draining at the same rate but there's more in it eventually because you kind of have momentum.

Alan:

So hopefully that land and you can pour more in too there. So as you get more and more skillful, it's like a bigger pitcher that you pour into, so not only can you fill it back up quicker love languages is a great example of this. When you know your partner's number one love language, you can refill the cup of the relationship that's the analogy we use much quicker than a bunch of things that don't really matter that much. So, emilia, she doesn't care about gifts like at all, but there's a couple things that if I do them, it'll mean the world to her, and so if I focus on the things that mean a lot, it's like pouring a lot more water into a bigger cup that drains slower, and whereas in the beginning of the relationship you don't really know each other that well, so you're just kind of winging it. I'll give you a tiny example.

Alan:

I used to get her flowers. Often I would go to this convenience store near her house and I would buy her a flower like just for no reason, just show up with flowers, and she eventually had the courage to say I appreciate it, but I don't like plants that die. So instead of getting me flowers, can you please get me a plant? Which is just a tiny example of. I didn't know that. I thought you know flowers, but it was actually not a good thing, because now she has to watch these flowers basically die versus a plant that can actually grow and flourish. And so back to the priority thing I have to reprioritize instead of flowers, get her a plant Done. Deal Now. It fills the cup longer, better you know.

Alan:

And the same goes for everything in life. And then this goes to another thing, which is shared responsibilities. With your intimate partner or your family or whoever you live with, are you able to divvy up the responsibilities so that it's not all on your shoulders? And in business, that's an even deeper conversation of who's supposed to be responsible for what, because as you grow and scale, you just can't do everything yourself, whereas in the beginning, kevin and I used to do everything ourselves. And then, as we grow and demand increases and we're grateful for that we just have less and less and less time and more and more and more responsibility.

Alan:

So you have to learn how to focus on the right things, and the main thing is to keep the main thing. The main thing is kind of a famous quote, but there is no world where you can only do one thing. So just you know there's a book called the One Thing and blah, blah, blah, and I study productivity a ton and I teach my clients about productivity all the time. The lowest I could get it down to is three. So Kevin is responsible for three main things right now, in 2024. I'm responsible for three main things in 2024. Christina is responsible for three main things in 2024.

Alan:

And it trickles to the whole rest of the team and all of us have our main priorities. That doesn't mean we don't do anything else. We still feed our pets and eat our food and cook dinner. But the proactive focal point is the target, and so I think that's super useful. Create your G3 target and then in a week, if it's not working, just switch it up. Change it up. Switch it up and you'll find that the first target that you created it actually ends up changing.

Kevin:

Often that changes often. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alan:

Yeah, 100%. Seasons, different chapters.

Kevin:

Yeah, I don't know. Mine already changed a couple times this year. I think we're only two weeks in, so next level nugget for me would be Priorities. It's a simple word that gets thrown around a lot, but there are a lot of layers to this. There are a lot of layers to priorities. Even, okay, prioritizing your relationship is one piece of it. Then prioritizing the things that move the needle in the relationship, it's different, like you could say, right now I want to prioritize my relationship. All right, cool. To Alan's point how do you prioritize it the most effective possible with making sure you're doing the right things? Okay, cool. Then, like with finance, I want to prioritize my finances. There's a million different ways to do that. So don't get overwhelmed when you think about priorities, but just try to be as honest with yourself as possible. Some of us don't have that much more time. That is 100% accurate. I don't always think that's an excuse. You and I have very little time. There's just not a lot of time.

Kevin:

So our priorities are super important, but if you find yourself having that little moment where you say, yeah, yeah, I know I say I couldn't do blank, but I did scroll social media for 25 minutes, okay, I guess blank is just not as much a priority, as I said. Or I'll get up and go to breakfast with my friends, but I don't want to get up and go to the gym or whatever it is. Go do some extra work whatever.

Kevin:

Maybe it's a priority issue more than something else. That's all. That would be my next level nugget.

Alan:

And my next level nugget would be just be honest, If something is not getting your attention, I'll do this with writing. I'll share this example. So for 2023, I kept saying I was going to write and I struggled with it. I know a lot of the listeners know that because I talk about it often and now I've prioritized it. Finally, and I've written every day for 17 days, so I haven't missed in January.

Alan:

Yet Now here's the thing I had to have this honest conversation with myself at the end of 2023 and say, Alan, you either yeah, I could make all these shoes, I don't have time 21 person team, 20 plus clients, you know all this stuff. Yeah, excuse, excuse, excuse, true, true, true, fair, fair, fair. But at the end of the day, do you want to write or not? Is this going to be a priority in 2024 or not? Because is this important to you or not? You have to have that honest conversation with yourself and go okay, Alan, 0 to 10, how important is it that you write each day, 10. Okay, well then, you got to find a way. You got to find a way. So I went from 30 minutes to 20 minutes and I've been consistent thus far and hopefully I'll be able to keep it up, but it's been really challenging to keep up with and I easily could tell myself an excuse. So, but there have been things in my life where it's like you know what, who cares?

Alan:

I don't care that much, like whatever, I'm not going to do that every day. Breathwork I want to do breathwork every day. I genuinely do. I love breathwork. Breathwork is super powerful.

Alan:

If you want, we actually did a podcast episode back. I think it's 402. I know that it's 402 because I use this same YouTube video over and over again. We had Samantha Skelly on the podcast for episode 402 and it's on YouTube and you can reach out to me. I'll send it to you, or you can just look it up on YouTube. 402, samantha Skelly hyper-conscious podcast, and the last 10 minutes is a breathwork exercise that I adore. She picked the perfect songs. I love this and I've told myself I want to do breathwork daily. Dude, eventually it gets to the point where it's like you know what? Honestly, I don't care, I'm not going to do that, I can't do that, but I stuck with writing. So my point is my next level nugget is decide for yourself Is this going to be a priority right now or not? And if it's not, just let it ride. You have to learn how to get rid of it, because otherwise you're just taking self-esteem hits all the time and it's not good for yourself.

Kevin:

If one of your priorities is to grow in 2020, 2024, excuse me. Please join our private Facebook group, next level nation. The link will be in the show notes, as always. Obviously, having a supportive, growth minded community will help you grow and it'll help your goals.

Alan:

As you can tell, Kevin and I are cooked, yes, very tired, but we're still here. We're here for you For a yeah, okay, one sec. So we have been doing I can't even talk We've been doing book club for 150 rounds in a row, 150 weeks in a row. It's awesome. And we're about to finish high performance habits by Brennan Burchardt. So we put a poll in next level nation to what Kevin just talked about, and these are the five books that are available.

Kevin:

I gotta get on there and vote right now.

Alan:

Actable by Nir Eyal. We interviewed him. Indistractable by Nirya El. The Courage to Be Disliked by. I don't know how to pronounce this. Ichiro Kashimi great book, though, shout out to Jenna. Jenna recommended that book. Your Aronious Zones by Wayne Dyer.

Kevin:

That is-.

Alan:

Not about sex. It's not about. It's a book not about sex the Infinite Game by Simon Sinek and then Identity Shift by our friend Anthony Trucks. So I voted for Identity Shift. Right now, the Courage to Be Disliked is winning. So if you want to tip the scales on and vote for Identity Shift, I support it. If not totally understand. But at the end of the day, please go vote if you intend on joining Book Club over the next couple months.

Kevin:

I thought your Aronious Zones was your Arogenous Zones and then I read it and I was disappointed that it's not about sex writing. So that was one of my first-.

Alan:

That was the very first book I ever recommended to you.

Kevin:

You know that? No, I think the first one ever was Rich Dad, poor Dad.

Alan:

No, no, I didn't recommend that one though.

Kevin:

I found that on my own, I think so yeah yeah, yeah.

Alan:

The very first personal development book I ever recommended to Kevin was your Aronious Zones by Dr Wayne Dyer In Worcester. It's Just Errors in Thinking, which you had several.

Kevin:

Yeah, well if you want to talk about Error in Thinking quickly before we go to talk about tomorrow's episode. The first audio book I ever listened to is Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and I would listen to it while playing PlayStation 4, MLB the show. So I'd be hitting home runs and listening to how to save and make money from Robert Kiasi.

Alan:

Talk about multitasking a little habit stacking at his finest.

Kevin:

All right tomorrow for episode number 1587,. One of the biggest things holding us back from great Could be anything. Could be the wind Holding us back from what?

Alan:

Great, great, yes, greatness.

Kevin:

Like no great, Like greatness without the nis, just great, Okay. Okay. Like cheese, great Grated cheese, but different. That's what we're gonna talk about tomorrow. Okay, Perfect, Are you all right with that?

Alan:

Yeah, yeah, I think I'm on board. All right, cool Figured out.

Kevin:

All right, well 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.

Alan:

Connect soon Next subnation.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host