Next Level University

#1595 - Month 1 Check In

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Have you ever questioned your progress on your New Year’s resolutions by the end of January? You’re not alone. In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros peel back the curtain on the early-year reality check, sharing their stories of triumphs and trials and introducing practical tools to keep you on track. Whether you soared through the month or stumbled, this conversation reminds you that the year’s outcome isn’t written in the pages of January alone.

Link mentioned:
Next Level Live - Saturday, March 23rd, 2024 (10:00 am to 4:30 pm) https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-live/

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Show notes:
(2:24) Assessing the progress made
(5:53) 1/3 or 1/12
(7:56) How’d January go?
(10:02) Alan’s system: “Next Level Five to Thrive”
(12:56) Two essential juggling distinctions
(15:44) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.
(17:30) Everything worth having is uphill
(26:09) 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 yesterday's episode. Episode number 1594 is your success. Sabotaging it today for episode number 1595, month one check-in. What does that even mean? Right now, as as of the recording of this episode, it is the 25th of January, so this will be dropping on Sunday. So that will be. Fred is at her son at 28th, so we'll be coming up on the end of January, so we are roughly one 12th through the year.

Alan:

Sunday a I.

Kevin:

Told Alan that I want this episode to be a drive to five episode where Maybe you have had not a great start to the year. I had several clients who said I can't believe the this month is already over. I feel like I accomplished nothing and I didn't get off to a great start. I've had other clients. I had a client yesterday who has had 60,000 downloads this week Whoa. So this this month is the biggest month they've ever had for their podcast, by far. It's not close. Nice work, wrong work shout out to Elliot and Way to go. That's the best they've ever done.

Kevin:

But it doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna carry on forever. Neither of these Necessarily you're gonna carry on forever. I Know we put a lot of pressure on ourselves not to miss a Monday, to start strong, to start the year strong. I know that. But I also know that at this point many of our New Year's resolutions have probably unfortunately died. Maybe we've gotten overwhelmed, maybe we've changed our priorities, whatever it is. So yeah, I want today to be a drag to five episode where maybe the the month didn't go the way you want Doesn't mean the year can't. Maybe the month went the best that ever has. It doesn't mean that if we don't continue doing what brought us that success to Last episode, that we're gonna continue to get it. And then maybe Alan and I'll jam a little bit about what the first month has been for us and the team and and all that stuff.

Alan:

I Quick question sure Elliot looking for a guest, or I'm.

Kevin:

I was already on.

Alan:

That's why I say just joking, people don't know yeah.

Kevin:

You know, well, that's why I see, that's why it's it's not really a joke, because it's possible.

Alan:

I Didn't actually think it was. I really thought that was gonna be funny. I.

Kevin:

Worked on it. It's all good.

Alan:

I'm doing my comedy rounds. I frequent the comedy shows.

Kevin:

I've seen you. I've seen you on the bill. I'm on the comedy circuit. Yeah, you have seen Jeff Lazarus.

Alan:

And. I'll have a is that what that? Is that what they do? I think that's.

Kevin:

I think that's uh, the bill is like this show lineup, I think.

Alan:

If they have a personal development Comedy section. That's what you're gonna. I would do that. I have one joke forever, I'll go quick with it, there's a meme. Imagine this meme. What people think personal growth is like oh yeah, you know this is coming. What people think personal growth is like? And it's Leonardo DiCaprio on the front of the ship saying I'm king of the world. And Then what personal growth really feels like? And it's him on the side of the door freezing to death, Sinking to the abyss.

Alan:

Obviously it's a joke, but the point is, I think I would do well in the personal development Comedy circuit, which, by the way, in and of itself is a joke.

Kevin:

There's layers to it.

Alan:

There's some reason, jokes Okay, so I told Alan this.

Kevin:

For some reason my eyes are leaking. I'm not sad, I'm happy, but my I'm just like crying. I don't know if you if you're on YouTube right now, you can see, I think, because this eyes like super itchy. But if you're listening, I just wasted five of your seconds and I do apologize for Right after I waste yeah, not a strong start for this episode. Hopefully we can turn around.

Alan:

We're testing the listeners to see how long they can last Before they jump to Elliot's show. All right, All right.

Alan:

So this is about the year and January is over. Holy crap, it is Sunday, january is at its end. How we doing one-twelfth of the way into the year, two things, and I think this is where Kevin was kind of trying to go with this if you are crushing it, don't step off the gas If you aren't crushing it. I heard this quote once. I don't know if it's good or bad. Whatever, this is what I thought of. Messing up your diet for a day and then saying screw it, I'll start tomorrow is a lot like getting a flat tire and slicing the other three tires, and I just don't want someone to have a bad month and to say, screw it, I'll try better next year.

Alan:

And again, none of this is conscious, but I read a book called the 12 Week Year. Shout out to Bradley, my client, who suggested that I love the concept. Now, is the book world class or anything like that? No, but the concept is super powerful and the idea in that book is what if you could accomplish as much in 12 weeks as someone else does in a year? And the idea is quarter to quarter, and we created Dreamlining based on that and we have a Dreamliner journal that I've been talking a lot about. So, if you're a new listener, we have this journal Achieve your Dreams 90 Days at a Time. But in the context of this episode, is January 1 third of the quarter towards your 90 day goal, like we do in group coaching, or is it one 12th of the year goal? And it's really both? But I think quarter to quarter is a cheat code, because I think a year out is a little bit too far for it to be relevant and I think that focusing on just tomorrow is probably not far enough to be strategic.

Kevin:

I think. First of all, I love the plug for the Dreamliner. Any chance you get to throw that bad Larry on, I'm in, I'm in for it. I got mine over here as well. I already showed his.

Alan:

But sounds like a cruise. It does sound like a cruise it is.

Kevin:

It is a cruise to your unique next level of success in health, wealth, life and love. A lot of this started when I messaged you. We were halfway through January and I said are we already a 24th through the year? Because I was driving and I was thinking it's when you break it down like that, maybe for you it depends. I guess for me it makes it seem like the year really isn't that long. We've already done measurable damage to the year. It's already a 24th. That's wild. Okay, Now we're a 12th, my goodness. But in the reality there is a lot of time to go. There is a lot of time. So I think it depends on what side of the spectrum you're on.

Kevin:

I would probably, in the past, be the type of person that said, if January wasn't successful, things probably aren't going to go that great this year. But in terms of January, for me it was not very successful. Had shingles, didn't exercise for the first like two weeks due to shingles, and I had goals set for I wanted to have X amount of weightlifting sessions and X amount of Jiu-Jitsu sessions. I am behind and I'm going to have to play some serious catch up. Next level live is coming up. I will be starting a diet soon. I haven't been great with my diet, so I am in the camp right now of 2024. For me, is not off to a great start personally. The podcast is doing great and the business is doing great and that's all awesome. I'm talking about specifically the things that I'm thinking about measuring as a human on a day to day basis. What would you say your 2024 has started off like? Is it a dumpster fire? Like?

Alan:

mine, no, no. This goes back to the episode we did recently. You ever talk so fast that you think people are going to think it skipped.

Kevin:

No.

Alan:

That's what that was. For me, it's like a two, two quickly. I didn't think it was that.

Alan:

But anyway so you didn't think so. Maybe it's just fast in my head, who knows? No, it's not a dumpster fire, but it's definitely not been perfect. One thing that I will say that's been really cool is 2023. I talked a lot about how I felt like such a failure as a writer, because I wanted to do a blog every other week and I ended up doing only 12. And so I ended up getting half. I 50% failed, 50% succeeded, and I would say, about half the days that I wanted to write, I ended up writing, but I got 12 blogs done. So there's two ways to look at that. Did you fail or did you write 12 blogs, a blog a month? You know congrats. And again, I do think they're really high quality. So I'm proud of the quality, not of the quantity.

Alan:

But the cool part about 2024 thus far there's a point to this is that thus far in 2024, I've been very successful on what I'm calling my next level five to thrive. So not to be confused with our course, the big five to thrive that I'm using is exercising every day, number one for 30 minutes. Writing every day for 20 minutes. Mobility every day for 10 minutes. Dreamlining, as you've heard the dreamliner, the journal every single day, for again, it's probably around 10 minutes, sometimes more, sometimes less. And then the last one was what I'm trying to do WhatsApp every day for 20 minutes. I have not been successful at that one yet, but that's my new system and I created that actually today. And the first four that I said I've done it every single day for all of 2024. The fifth one, the WhatsApp for 20 minutes batching messages. I've only done, I think, yesterday and today.

Alan:

That said, 2024 is off to a really good start, but it's been a little bit rocky. In terms of quality time with Emilia. It's been a little bit rocky. Not that we're great, but I haven't had a ton of time. I've also had a hard time keeping up with the back-to-back. So in 2023, I'll go brief with this but I had these 15-minute buffers in between meetings, in between podcasts, in between meetups, in between coaching, group coaching, all of that and I got rid of those because I knew I had to level up and that's been really hard. Being on time has been really difficult, having no bathroom breaks in between, that kind of thing. That's been tough. And so my back office work hasn't been great. So, not a dumpster fire, but definitely not perfect, but I would say probably the best I've ever done. On the personal side, I would say the opposite of what you said, which is on the business front. I think it could use some work.

Kevin:

You always say that and you probably always will say that that's a fair assessment. But I agree. But I'm just thinking of what started off this year started off much better than last year, I guess, I don't know. I don't know, I think so. Yeah, I think so.

Alan:

Yeah, I think we've gotten a lot better. I do.

Kevin:

I don't know. I know, going back to, we did the episode recently on how do you make decisions. It was emotional decisions versus logical decision making and I know emotionally it can feel like, yeah, what's the point? We're already January, I don't have any momentum, that's the point. But there is a lot of time left. But I also want to temper it with you might have had the best month ever, there's still a lot of time left. So it doesn't mean it's just going to keep going the way it's gone, and I just think that's a very important distinction, and I was thinking about this the other day. I don't know if I mentioned it, I don't know if I've been dreaming of podcasting or what, but we were talking about how, every episode, the goal is to create some sort of drive to five. Did we talk about that?

Alan:

Yeah that you did say that out loud, not just in your mind. Who?

Kevin:

knows at this point, that's really. This is one of those episodes. This is an example of one of those episodes where you most likely are on one end or the other. Let's just make sure whatever end you're on is as constructive as it can be, and a lot can change in a month. A lot can change in a week. A lot can change in a day, who knows? Especially if you feel like you're riding the emotional roller coaster of results versus the logical roller coaster of results. I think those are just two very, very different feelings and two very, very different approaches which create two very, very different realities. So that's really and maybe this won't be a super long episode, but you and I are doing check-ins every day for the month, throughout the entire year.

Kevin:

So this is something that you and I are very, very focused on.

Kevin:

You mean, with habit tracking, with habit tracking and looking at where we are today versus where we want to be for the rest of the quarter or whatever it may be, I'm trying to do the best I've ever done with yes right now, these are my goals. It's my job to try to hit these goals, but just because I don't hit them in the first month does not mean I can't hit them in month two and month three. I'm trying to really understand that. I know it seems like a lot to do in a very short period of time, but the juggling act of a month is a long period of time. A quarter is a long period of time. A year is a long period of time but also, as long as I'm doing the right things, it's a long period of time. If I'm not doing the right things, it's probably a pretty short period of time because I'm gonna lose that time if I'm not investing my time correctly. So that's really the juggling act that I'm trying to accomplish with this episode.

Alan:

It comes down to time, effort, money and I guess everyone my next level nugget would be everyone asked themselves a simple question. Kevin mentioned like well, we're doing better than we did last year. Of course we've gotten better and I'm not saying that arrogant, I say that with humility of we're still far from perfect and we're, jeff and all over the place, but less than we used to.

Alan:

I do believe that to be true, and here's what I mean by that. I think we're investing our time more effectively our effort and our money. Now, based on what you said at the beginning of this episode, I think maybe you're investing your time not as optimally as what you would want, but again, isn't that always gonna be the case?

Kevin:

I think so. I think so, but it does seem like getting shingles. At the beginning of the year my shoulder was hurt. That it just. It seems like in the physical realm. It was really hard to imagine a positive turn.

Alan:

In my coaching sessions I always ask people zero to 10, how fulfilled are you? Zero to 10, how dialed in are you? Zero to 10, how on point are you? And I say 10 means the best you've ever been. And usually they'll check in, they'll close their eyes sometimes, sometimes not and they'll say yeah, yeah, 10. A lot of the time they say that Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they'll say and then my next question will always be well, when was it at 10? And they'll say you know, honestly, last summer I was just dialed in on fitness. And then I go okay, what do we gotta do in fitness? So, for everyone out there listening or watching this, if 10 is the best you've ever been, holistically, health, wealth and love, and I say zero to 10, how dialed in are you? How fulfilled are you? How on point are you? Does 10 come up right away and go yep, 10? And if not, that's okay. But what's the gap? Because that's what you can go to work on. So for me, I'll just lead by example.

Alan:

I said nine and the reason why is because of my relationship. I haven't spent as much quality time. It's been a grind, honestly, and, the truth be told, those four things I've been consistent on every single day in 2024, it has been alarming and humbling how difficult it has been and what else that's taken away from it has been really. I mean, there have been many nights where I've said, sweetheart, I didn't do my writing. I promised myself in 2024 I'd write every day. So I need to siphon 20 minutes out of our quality time and that sucks. And she's been really supportive. I'm very grateful, but it really does suck, and so I want to let everyone I hope that people hear me with this and I hope that I hear myself with this Every now and then I have these moments.

Alan:

I'm sitting there going, this sucks. I do that often. Oh yes, like behind the scenes, by myself. I'm like, ah, this really sucks. And then I have the second moment, and the second moment is of course. Of course, I mean, the future is bright and big and you're climbing.

Alan:

It's a climb. If you're a hiker, you know it blows, it's supposed to suck, but the top is awesome, right, the view is amazing and it's worth it, but the climb make no mistake about it, climbing sucks. And I think that, if we can, just I say this to Kev all the time behind the scenes Now they're nailing the structure. Now they're nailing the structure. Now they're nailing the structure. Keep doing the hard things no one wants to do. That's why I say that every time, because, number one, we're building towards something or climbing towards something, and number two, if you want results that other people aren't going to have, you've got to be willing to do things other people aren't willing to do. And that's just the facts. So, whether it's fitness, relationship, health, wealth, love, no matter what the climb, I mean, the Dreamliner literally has another unapologetic plug apparently, the Dreamliner has a mountain on it. There's a mountain on the front. This is not a coast. Everything's uphill, baby. I don't know why I said baby, everything's uphill, you're leaning into that comedy thing.

Kevin:

That's what it is You're leaning into comedy.

Alan:

Everything's uphill, baby. Yeah, everything is uphill and everything worth having is uphill, and I really do believe that's so deeply so. That's the last I've got, and there's a mountain on the front cover for a reason. So the year's not over. We've got 11 more months and it's going to be uphill, but it's going to be worth it. And just make sure you're climbing your mountain, not someone else.

Kevin:

Very well said. That is what I was going to add. I was going to add just choose your mountain wisely. Choose your mountain wisely. Something sustainable, Sustainability, longevity those are very, very important things in the self-improvement game, because you can't improve yourself to someone else's goals. It has to be to your goals. If it's somebody else's goals, it's not sustainable. Next Elevation Alan mentioned this in yesterday's episode but next level, live 2024. Is it March 23rd?

Alan:

It is March 23rd 2024. It's a Saturday. Super excited for this 57 days out 57 days out.

Kevin:

We're doing a venue that we did for our first ever, my first ever speaking engagement, our first ever speaking engagement together in Groton Mass. It is a beautiful, beautiful place. It's called the Groton Inn. It is scenic, that's the best way I can explain it. There's fields and there's mountains and hills. It is beautiful. They took this place and they put it in the middle of a beautiful area.

Kevin:

We're going to be there. You will have lunch presented. It is included in the ticket price. Alan and I are going to be talking about what we talk about Life, love, health and well. A great opportunity to come see us in person if you are local. If not, we have a virtual option as well. The majority of our audience, obviously, is global. We realize that not everybody is going to be able to attend live. We said, all right, this is the year we're going to do a virtual ticket as well. That is something we will have live on Zoom and there will be breakout sessions. I'm just super excited. I'm super excited to be in person and be on stage again and get to see all of you.

Alan:

It'll be very different than the first time, I sure hope so. For you and for me as well. Yeah, Alan did his presentation in the bathroom on the first one.

Kevin:

It went well. It went well, we made it work.

Alan:

We made it work. So this is an in-person event, full immersion event with 30 other next level individuals focused on holistic self-improvement, relationship, expertise and designing a life you love. That is what we are about this year. We are offering a virtual option. If you are not able to be there in person, you will still be able to see all of the amazing content and join 30 other next level individuals virtually and continue to learn and grow. So that's six groups 30 virtual, 10 people each, 30 in person, 10 people each group. So six groups total. The ticket price for in-person is $97, which includes lunch. We cannot feed you lunch virtually, so that will not be included in the $47 ticket price for the virtual ticket.

Alan:

This is what you're going to learn how to understand yourself at a deeper level. Part one. Three parts. Part two how to succeed in your most important relationships. Part three how to create your own unique version of success. But the real reason to come let's be honest is because you're going to get a free Dream Lantern at your spot for the in-person one. For those of you that are virtual, we are sorry, that's only for an in-person thing, but it's going to be workshop. You're going to leave with a guidebook and a Dreamliner. You're going to leave with tangible takeaways to make the rest of the year extraordinary. And you will leave different and, more importantly than anything else, you're going to get around other amazing listeners.

Alan:

That's been the best part about this journey is Kevin and I surrounding ourselves with other growth-minded individuals that are all trying to achieve goals and dreams together, and it's better together than it is alone. Both can be super lonely and you can meet some amazing people. You can meet some so many amazing people, not just virtually, but you can connect with them. Obviously virtually in Zoom, but in-person too, it's going to be different. It's going to be different. We're going to be there, you're going to see us. We're going to engage with virtual as well as in-person. It's going to be workshop-esque, it's going to be different. So I hope that you join us. And the last thing I'm going to say is this I told Book Club this Listen, if, for whatever reason, you buy a virtual ticket and for whatever reason, you somehow absolutely hate it which I seriously doubt Kevin and I will give you your money back. Okay.

Kevin:

So I'm in, I'm in, I'm excited. It will be awesome. I never end up eating when we host events because I'm running around, so I most likely will not have an opportunity to test out the food, but I know I heard good things about it last time we were there. Stuffed chicken, stuffed chicken. I think we're going to have a vegan side, a vegan option as well, where all of our vegan community members are out there All right. Tomorrow for episode number. Oh, I'm excited for this one. 1596. What we wish we knew about relationships sooner. I had a breakthrough recently, a breakthrough thought, and I said, oh, I really wish I knew that early. I really wish that's something I had at my disposal when I was a younger man. So that's what we're going to talk about tomorrow. 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. Talk to you soon.

Alan:

Thanks for the nation.

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

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