Next Level University

#1593 - What Ball Are You Dropping?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Finding the perfect balance in life can often feel like a never-ending battle. With the constant juggling of health, wealth, and love, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros delve deep into this topic, providing listeners with a personal narrative and a blueprint for navigating life’s tightrope.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Group Coaching: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Monthly Meetup #26: “3 Words You Need to Remember if You Want a Next Level Relationship” on February 1st, 2024, 06:00 PM EST - https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrf-6vpj0jHd3dtDOIDDagugoZEJ2Zz14I#/registration

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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

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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/

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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

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Show notes:
(1:50) The juggling act
(4:01) Visualize and strategize to harmonize
(7:20) Grace and self-grace
(8:33) Identify, get back, and figure out
(10:33) The probability
(13:58) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.
(15:05) Challenges, comparison, and just trying a little better each day
(20:05) Circumstances are going to affect us
(27:40) 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 of your health and your wealth. I see you smirking over there already. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode. Is your vision, or are your vision and your goals aligned again grammatically? I don't know what's correct. So you heard us giggling at the end of the last episode. That's why we're giggling today's episode, because it's a funny title what ball are you dropping? It's not that funny, but my inner child wanted to have a giggle about it. Yesterday's episode.

Kevin:

One of the most common questions I get, alan, and I'm sure you probably do too when I go on other podcasts, is how do you balance business in life? Or how do you balance this and this and this? And Usually I say and I try to say it as kindly as possible I don't really know if there is any such thing as balance. I Don't really think of it that way. I think of it as a juggling act, and it's a juggling act for me of health, wealth and love. Health, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. But let's just say in this analogy we're talking physical health me going to the gym or me going to Brazilian jujitsu. Wealth is the business, the day-to-day activities, alan and I doing the episodes, coaching clients, getting clients, all that stuff, business meetings, cool. And then love is family. So, specifically for me, taryn, since I live with Taryn at all times one of those is Probably doing really well. One of those is probably kind of in Potential maintenance mode and then one of those is most likely trending down. If I had to imagine and I would say right now, and the reason I wanted to do this episode right now I'm coming off of the shingles, so I wasn't in the gym, that was hard, but right now I would say NLU is One, fitness so health is two, and then my relationship is probably the thing that's dropping. I Would say right now.

Kevin:

When I had the shingles, I was sleeping in our guest bedroom. I slept in the guest bedroom for like two weeks because I just couldn't fall asleep at a reasonable time. I was tossing and turning, I was waking up through the night. So I haven't slept in the same bed as Taryn in almost two weeks. Last night was the first night, so that, obviously, when we're used to sleeping next to your partner every night, for however many years, that can create some distance. So yeah, which of the three do you feel like you're doing I don't want to say the worst in, but which of the three do you feel like you're losing momentum in? And I think we all Intuitively know I've been crushing the gym, I've been prepping my meals, I haven't been having fast food, but I Haven't been as focused on work as I need to be or whatever it may be. So, yeah, which of the three you feel are dropping?

Alan:

So this is what you million, I do, kevin and I do clients and I do zero to ten. Ten is the best it's ever been, zero is the worst it's ever been. Simple, simple, simple. Health, zero to ten. Wealth, zero to ten. Love, zero to ten. And then, once you rate them, then you ask yourself which way is it headed? Is it headed up? Is it headed neutral? So it's green, yellow, red. So zero to ten. Green, yellow, red, simple, simple, simple.

Alan:

So you can size someone's entire life up Very, very quickly and then you can go to work on what needs work. So let's say your health. Well, I'll use myself for as an example. Try to lead by example here. Health, if Best I've ever been, is a ten, probably seven. Wealth ten, best it's ever been, love, probably nine. And I actually asked you, me the last night Where's the we? Yet we call the relationship the week and she said nine. I said where's it headed up or down? She said up. That gave me the reassurance that I needed. So my fitness is seven, probably neutral. So seven and yellow, meaning not going down or up. Hopefully tonight, leg day, it's gonna go up. Wealth, I would say, is 10, up, headed up, green, and then love is probably 9 also headed up. As a matter of fact, emilia sent me a really cute text today thanking me. I made it into her gratitudes for her journal and I don't think that's uncommon.

Alan:

She told me last night that I'm basically in every single one. She's in mind as well. But the point is, is that To Kevin's point, are you gonna be able to be 10 out of 10 in all of them and green in all of them all the time? Like on what planet is that gonna be doable? So what you can try to do is this juggling act, or what I call harmony.

Alan:

How do you harmonize these things?

Alan:

So, for example, we have something that Emilia calls the quantum chasm in the corner corner of our bedroom, because a lot of times I would leave the bedroom and do my morning routine either up in my office or Out in the living room, and Emilia really likes to wake up together.

Alan:

So now I do my writing in the quantum chasm, which is in the quarter of our bedroom, so that when she wakes up we're together. So I'm doing my writing, which is wealth with future, wealth, nothing, nothing short term, but wealth, career and Mixing that with love. And so that's what I mean by harmony is you can stack these so that they feed each other and and contribute to each other as Strategically as possible, knowing and getting them as perfect as they can be, knowing they'll never actually be perfect and Perfect is probably the wrong word but progress. You're progressing and improving each one health, wealth and love Toward the life of your dreams, knowing that none of them are always gonna be 10 or all of them will never be 10, but they can all be incrementally growing and then, every now and then, you're gonna have one that's falling, and then you just have to kind of be aware of that and and pivot over time or ask for grace in advance.

Kevin:

We'll do that a lot. We have next level live coming up in March. That's gonna be heavy. Live events are always heavy and We've never done a live event with the size of the business we have, so it's gonna be the heaviest. It'll be the most challenging live event We've ever done.

Kevin:

I will ask for grace before that, say, hey, same, just an FYI, the next month is gonna be a little bit crazy. That's how I'm trying to operate. And then it's itself grace to have you just had shingles. You couldn't go to the gym. Of course your health is down. Could I have gone for walks? Probably yes, but I was in a lot of pain. I don't want to do it. I kind of shut down when I'm, when I'm going down in health, I just let it kind of go. You go for walks and stuff.

Kevin:

During COVID you were doing exercises in your closet. I was doing exercises on the couch, so I kind of just folded my cards. So, yeah, could I have done stuff? I don't want to make the excuse and say I couldn't have. Yes, I could have. I could have walked on the treadmill, but I didn't.

Kevin:

The wealth one I'm usually very focused on that. I'm always trying to stay focused on that. But there have been times when I travel I'm not working as much on the business as I usually am, so that takes a little bit of a hit. And it's just how fast can you identify? And then how fast can you get back and figure out? Okay, how do I make up for this?

Kevin:

Might be a conversation with your partner. Hey, it's the busy season it's coming up. I just want to make sure you and I are good. I know I might not be present. I know I might not be at dinner every night. I know maybe I won't be as present with the kids, I won't be able to tuck them in, but I promise when we get through busy season I'll be back. That might be a conversation. Or maybe you're renovating your house right now and you're not gonna be able to get to the gym or hot yoga or spin cycle if that's spin, whatever it's called as often as you want. That might be the cost of doing business right now. Well, at least you're moving your body when you're renovating your house. That's exercise. It might not be the same level as you want, but I just think having those inner conversations with yourself or having those conversations with your partner is very, very, very important because you can be proactive versus reactive.

Kevin:

You and I have definitely made our mistakes in the reactivity with our relationships. I know that for certain. I remember some tough conversations early on in the relationship with Taryn. My goal is to avoid that now with the new knowledge I have and then hopefully. But don't feel like to Alan's point, don't feel like it's ever gonna get to the level where you're 10, 10, 10. Maybe that's a disempowering or a limiting belief to have. I don't think it's possible. I don't think there's enough time. We did an episode on priorities recently. You're most likely gonna have to prioritize one over the other two, but if you do harmonize them together, you go work out with your partner Health and love. Alan has a business with Emilia wealth and love. So there are ways to do it. It just depends on your unique circumstances.

Alan:

Well, even if I just wanna break the math down quick. If you wanna be one out of 100 in health, one out of 100 in wealth, one out of 100 in love meaning 100 random people in a room you wanna be the healthiest, the wealthiest and the most in love, which is definitely a goal I think we should all strive for. Again, 100 random people, you can do it. You listen to NLU, it's possible. But if you look at that statistically, that's one in a million. One 100th times one, 100th times one 100th. That's how probabilities work. It's one in a million, and so I hope everyone's shooting to be one in a million. I hope that you believe in yourself and obviously we're trying to help you become one in a million, but you better believe it.

Alan:

It's very difficult, super, super difficult, and that's why most people aren't holistic. A lot of people you know I've coached. I do say you know a lot so interesting. Sorry about that. I coach a lot of people in all these different industries and everyone is one in a thousand in something. Everyone's maybe even one in 10,000 in something. I've never met someone who's not unbelievably good at something. But very, very, very few people, understandably, are really really, really, really strong in health, wealth and love simultaneously. It feels impossible.

Kevin:

It does, doesn't it? It feels impossible. I had a moment today I was at the gym crushing it and it was just I don't wanna be here and I don't wanna do this and I should be home. In my emails and I said that's Taren. I said it was so weird for me you and I had a conversation about this today I'm really working through being busy versus being productive. That's the season I'm in and I told Taren I said it felt so weird for me to be at the gym at nine o'clock or eight thirty because I've been getting up early, working and then going to the gym, because my body, when I first wake up, it's not ready for the day, it's.

Kevin:

I'm all, I'm stiff as a board when I get there Shingies, but well, the shingies as well.

Kevin:

But I feel I feel it's hard to do that because I feel like the business is losing when I'm at the gym, when in reality, I woke up and did all the things I needed to do for the business so I could go to the gym, and then, when I get back from the gym, I go back to business.

Kevin:

So it's just figuring out how your emotions connect to it. There's so many different layers to this and again, yours is gonna be different than ours, because maybe you're not a business owner, maybe you don't work from home, whatever the details are, but you have an opportunity for health, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual wealth, how you make your money, how much money you save, where you invested all that stuff. And then love, whatever level of relationship you have, whether you're married or you're single, family, extended family but with yourself you can always have self love. We all have opportunities to practice these, which means we all have opportunities for some to get really, really good, and they're 10 out of 10. And other times there might be the laggard, that's a six out of 10, and then we have to level that one up. But as we're leveling that one up, unfortunately one of the other ones is most likely coming down at a similar rate, potentially.

Alan:

And this all depends on your standards. If you have really really high standards in every area, you're gonna feel like it's impossible. I told my executive admin, jerry Ann shout out to Jerry Ann, she's probably listening. I said don't compare your productivity to mine. I don't have four children. Compare your productivity to other mothers of four. It's not fair. Otherwise we're reading a book by Brendan Burchard. I talked about this high performance habits. We just finished it in book club and it's called high performance habits and I had to keep reminding everyone in book club listen, brendan Burchard does not have kids and he is climbing a different mountain than all of you, and that's okay. Just because you're not as successful as Brendan Burchard doesn't mean you can't be more successful than you are now. And it's not like Brendan Burchard's a bodybuilder. You and I have been in a room with him. There's just Kevin and I.

Alan:

It's not fair for me to compare myself. I saw some old fitness photos of me recently when I was in my bodybuilding days fitness model, fitness competitor, fitness coach my whole world was fitness. It's not fair to me to compare to that. I didn't have a home then. I didn't have a relationship then. For some of it I didn't have three pets, I didn't have a 21 person team, I didn't have one 10th of the responsibility that I have now, and so it's not fair to compare that level of fitness to this level of fitness. It's not apples to apples, and that's a quick way to crush yourself. Worth is to constantly compare yourself unfairly, and so what I've tried to do is compare my level of fitness to not only number one my best, my current best, not my past best but also other business owners. If I compare my fitness level to other business owners, I'm gonna feel a lot better than if I compare to me in my mid-20s, when I had quit corporate and everything in my entire world was fitness related.

Kevin:

Yeah, if you compare to the people you competed with on stage versus you today, you're not gonna feel very good. No, no, yeah, there's no way.

Alan:

Which is gonna what Help or hurt my fitness?

Kevin:

journey With you. I never know, it might help it in a weird way it depends.

Alan:

Sometimes it motivates the hell out of me.

Kevin:

For most people, I would say that's probably a one-way trip to the disappointment tone.

Alan:

Yeah 100%, 100%. So harmonize, juggle and realize that balance is BS. You're not gonna 50-50 anything. And I also think work and life are becoming more and more integrated. I mean, I'm very, very grateful. I thought about this earlier. My commute is 30 seconds. I'm so pumped about that. That's awesome. But there's not a lot of separation between this and my home life.

Kevin:

Yeah you shut the door behind you when you leave the office.

Alan:

Yeah, that's it. And then you need to take a minute before you go downstairs and bring all that stress into your relationship or into your home life or whatever. It's tough, it can be difficult, but you're not alone in this, this 21st century pros and cons. Maybe you have a commute to work, maybe you don't, maybe you work from home, maybe you don't, but no matter what, there is no 50-50 perfect balance. Harmonizing it's almost like try to harmonize and juggle the best you can, knowing you're never gonna be perfect juggler. You're never gonna be a perfect harmonizer. And especially the moms and dads I can only imagine.

Alan:

I have several clients of mine. Some of them have four children. Jerry and I already mentioned it has four children. What they go through and grow through is tremendous. I mean, I don't have that.

Alan:

So it's just important to realize that sometimes I'll tell this story privately. One of my clients earlier today she's like I'm so sorry, I'm late, my bad. She's in the car, she's on Zoom, and she's like I had to bring my kids to school and I got a call from the teacher saying that one of my kids forgot their boots and the boots are sitting in the back of the car. And she's like I'm so sorry. I'm like I didn't say dude, she's a female, you're good, you're good, that's totally fine. All good, no worries, five minutes, we're gonna make up the time. It's all gonna be fine. The point is is stuff happens and life can feel chaotic. And as long as you're getting a little better, a little better, a little better in each of the things that matters and not having 10 out of 10 standards and everything, I think you're gonna be good. But I think health, wealth and love is the way At least that's our formula and just try to get a little better each day.

Kevin:

This is my next love of Nugget. I'm understanding that really all we're trying to do is create advice that will help you. Whether you're watching or listening, drive to five. If you have low self-belief, we try to lift you up so you have more self-belief. If you're over with self-belief and you're not taking action, we try to give advice based on okay, take action and it'll humble you and then you'll be more accurate, realistically.

Kevin:

My next level nugget for this is as much as I'd like to say circumstances don't matter. For the vast majority of us they do. So don't allow your circumstances that create a lack of results to affect your identity too much. Now, again, you could go the other way with that. My shingles are still. They hurt a little bit, but I'm ready to go back to the gym. I've rested enough. It's time. I know it intuitively. I'm going to be fine. Let me go back to the gym.

Kevin:

The circumstances are no longer going to affect me, but when I had shingles, I was still trying to get up early and work. It might have affected fitness in a really negative way, but my goal was for it not to affect business as much. So just understand that Circumstances are going to affect us. I think it's not a real world to say no matter what happens, keep going and circumstances shouldn't affect you. I don't think that's real. I don't think that's real. I think that's terrible advice that's given by people who are just way too disconnected. So that's my long, long, long next level nugget.

Alan:

You can't have 50 non-negotiables. You can't have 50 non-negotiables. I have a couple non-negotiables and it's been really hard to stack those. My next level, nugget Kev, mentioned earlier.

Alan:

I don't know if it's a disempowering or empowering belief to say you can't have 10 out of 10s in health, wealth and love. I often ask a question it's one of my favorite questions for clients, emilia Kev what is the disempowering belief that has disguised itself as empowering? And I am convinced that you believing that you can have 10 out of 10 in health, wealth and love all at the same time and sustain that and grow that. I am convinced that's a limiting belief, not an empowering one. And the reason why is because if you really do believe that's possible, you're going to keep thinking something's wrong when it's not happening. In a rich, dynamic, positive world where you have all these different things going on kids, pets, homes, weather, economy, job, boss, team, whatever no way. I think it's practical and tangible to say you know what sometimes life's messy and that's okay and I'm going to improve in health, wealth and love either way, knowing full well that they're never going to be 10 out of 10 forever and they're certainly not going to be 10 out of 10 at the same time every time, and I think that's super empowering and I think it's super practical.

Alan:

And I used to be the guy who didn't understand and used to want to understand what I call a super growth mindset. You can totally do it, you can shoot for it, 10 out of 10 and everything. As I've matured. That's just BS, it's not real, it's not true. And if it was true, it was back when I had no home, no family, no pets, no responsibilities. I could be 10 out of 10 fitness, 10 out of 10 health right, when I had no business, no team, all that stuff. So as you get older and older and you mature, you start to realize that even those people that are barking that stuff in those motivational videos, they're not in great shape. Sometimes their marriages are a mess. Sometimes it's important and it's empowering to realize that these authors, kevin and myself included, are not perfect.

Alan:

They're so much farther You're going to be one day.

Kevin:

You're not going to consider an author now. No, no, no, nice, I'm going to say it. I don't even have to write the book.

Alan:

I'm an author, I've written works, the podcast playbook by Kevin Paul Mary. It's the mythical creature that will one day exist. But these people that we've interviewed, I'm telling you 10 out of 10 and something, never 10 out of 10 and everything. Please remember that I was in the bookstore very last story. I promise I had a really cool moment in the bookstore.

Alan:

You know, I went into our skydiving and we went up to New Hampshire and it's really kind of the border of mass, but we had this beautiful day and we love the bookstore. So we went to Barnes Noble it's actually near Kevin's place and this place is awesome bookstore, Love it. And I had this really cool moment in the business section and in the personal development section where I was like, oh my God, I met that person. I met that person, we interviewed that person, we interviewed that person. I had this really cool moment of wow, we really are earning our stripes in this industry.

Alan:

A lot of these people I'm like friends with. It's just a really cool, weird moment of whoa. That's really awesome. But the point is is I've met these people, Kevin's met these people and they are just as imperfect as you are, just maybe in different ways. And so just just please know that the goal is not to be better or worse than anyone else. The goal is to be better than you used to be, and in health, wealth and love, knowing that you'll never be perfect in any of those areas ever, because perfection is not real or they're just further along and perfectly.

Kevin:

Yeah, I think we think. Oh, once I get to a mythical result, everything will be perfect.

Alan:

It's the same thing.

Kevin:

It's just you just have different struggles, that's all. Different struggles and different circumstances. If you have not yet joined our private Facebook group, appropriately named Next Level Nation, please do so. If you're looking for peak performance partners, if you're looking for perspective, if you're looking for a positive place to start your morning, next Level Nation is the place. Amy is in there posting every single day. The team is in there commenting every single day, so we want to help you get a little bit better every day. We can do that with a community as well. Link will be in the show notes, as always.

Alan:

Also also also Meetup number 26,. February 1st 2024, 6pm Eastern time. Be there Three words you need to remember if you want a Next Level relationship. So I have something called the Triad of Transformation that is built on these three words, and I do not believe anyone can have a magnificent relationship without these three words, including myself, because my past relationships would have flourished had I known this. So it's the Love Month, it's February. I hope you join us. You can keep your camera off and participate not at all, no worries, or you can participate a ton. It's entirely up to you. The link to register will be in the show notes.

Kevin:

Please participate a ton if you want. We love it we love it when you do. We love it when you do, but you don't have to. But you don't have to. And it's not recorded. This is one of those rare things where we don't record it. It's totally private. So you'll see a different I don't want to say a different side of us, but there's certain things we won't say on the podcast just due to whatever it may be privacy, family. We don't want to offend anybody.

Alan:

Deeper dive.

Kevin:

Tomorrow, deeper dive. Remember scratching the surface. I do, oh yeah, shout out.

Alan:

Back in my hyper-conscious days.

Kevin:

I miss those. We had scratching the surface, five minute clinic Five. Uh, what small talks. Small talks. Yeah, we had a thing. We had something going. We did, we had something going back in the day Today.

Alan:

legacy, Legacy. What does it mean to you? You know.

Kevin:

We're going to hit you with another episode of small talks. Today, for small talks, we're going to talk about legacy. Alan, you have the definition and Alan would read the definition we just go off. Weird times, but nostalgic times. Tomorrow, for episode number 1,594, is your success sabotaging you? I don't know if we mentioned this recently. Getting your unique level of success, getting the results you want, is only one piece of the equation. You have to maintain and sustain them in order to continue to get the results you want. And oftentimes we get a certain level of quote unquote success Again, whatever that means to you, and it stops us from continuing the pursuit. So we're going to talk about a story that showcases that tomorrow, as always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and an NLU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan:

Hit them with a talk to you soon.

Kevin:

Next up on nation.

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

Host