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
#1598 - 2 Questions To Ask Yourself When You’re Down
Navigating the treacherous waters of life's missed opportunities can be a harrowing experience that tests our resilience, accountability, and capacity for personal growth. In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros delve into these themes, providing a raw and candid exploration of what it means to embrace setbacks, take ownership of our actions, and relentlessly chase our dreams.
Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
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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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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Email 💬
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Show notes:
(2:06) A relatable tough moment
(4:56) Ask these two
(7:38) Pain to change
(11:38) Embracing the power of ownership
(14:57) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.
(16:23) The importance of learning from setbacks
(18:05) Drive To Five: Take the right amount of ownership
(22:03) Take responsibility
(27:02) 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. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, yesterday's episode, episode number 1,597, three places your money is going Three places. Your mula is going Three places. Your cheddar is going. Today for episode number 1598, two questions to ask yourself when you're down.
Speaker 1:We tease this a little bit in yesterday's episode. I'm going through it a bit and here's why we are working with. How many specifics do I want to give. We're working with someone who owns a lot of businesses we're talking 15 to 20 businesses a very, very successful entrepreneur. We are doing their podcast for them and we are doing their social media. We're also doing all of their companies not all of their company social media, the majority of their company social media. This is a very big client we have. Something is happening and there's a really big opportunity. This person's going to build a podcast studio and they want us to do the production for all the clients and all of these amazing opportunities. I'm talking to this person yesterday and they said, hey, did you get my email? I said absolutely not. No, I resend it for me. Maybe it got bounced. Maybe you didn't use the right email. Resend it got nothing. Went to my spam folder. My goodness, there are several emails from this client in the spam folder Not ideal Tough moment, tough moment, yeah, not good.
Speaker 1:One of them was something that was very time sensitive and it was pretty much an interview to get this new opportunity. I saw that and I messaged him and you and I were doing this together. Pretty much this all happened when you and I were supposed to be recording. I explained what happened and I took ownership and said that's on me. And Alan said dude, you got to check your spam. And I said F you brother. No, you're right, I do have to check my spam. I was off, I was very much off and it was very hard for me to move forward with recording the episode that we did yesterday. That's why, if I was off at all energetically, that's the reason why I stayed up until 10 o'clock last night doing the work that needed to get done in order to hopefully quote unquote win this contract, for lack of better phrasing. Now it's kind of in the wings of whether or not that's going to happen. In the wings, in the wins.
Speaker 2:I think rolling with it was good. I wouldn't have questioned it.
Speaker 1:Okay, I appreciate that If you say something in confidence, people tend to believe it Something I've learned, so pick that for what it's worth.
Speaker 2:It's up in the air.
Speaker 1:I don't know right now, because the final decision hasn't been made yet.
Speaker 1:It's in the wings, it's in the wins. Here's the hard part about this. This is a potential and again, I don't say this in an ego, I want to brag way. If anything, it's quite the opposite, because I might have lost this forever. But this is something that's worth potentially. Let's just say, $30,000 to $50,000 a year. This is a really big opportunity.
Speaker 1:So just for context and the weight of that so Alan and I were talking at the end of the night and I said I'm just going to stay up and do whatever it takes, because that's what I need to do. Let's record an episode, let me get after this. I said I think it would be valuable to do an episode on this because it's this, this is the stuff that sucks about dream chasing when you get an opportunity that you want so deeply and something happens and it gets Jeff, and it's super disheartening and I think that's why a lot of people say you know, this isn't for me. I can't handle this. I can't handle the constant up and ups and downs of dream chasing. I can't handle heartbreaks of dream chasing.
Speaker 1:So the two questions to ask yourself when you're down and this is what I did, and I think Alan is really the one who taught me these, but it's Did you do everything you can with what you have? Did you do everything you can with what you have? You made a mistake. You try to clean up the mistake and then you try to fix the problem to the best of your ability and give it everything you have. Did I do everything I can with it, with everything that I have? That's question one. And then question two is Did I learn the lesson and did I change because of it? I'm gonna be checking my spam folder a lot more often now. Oh, you'll never miss again. Let me tell you that'll be the end.
Speaker 2:You'll never miss a spam folder again.
Speaker 1:Yeah because of that, because of those.
Speaker 1:Those are two really. Now here's the thing. I realize it doesn't seem probably super empowering when you are down on your butt and you're saying, well, did I do everything I can with everything I have? But the point is, sometimes it's not gonna work out. Sometimes you're not gonna get the call back, or you're not gonna get the job, or you're not gonna get the person that you want to date. Sometimes it's not, it's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1:But one way you can hopefully limit the amount of regret you have is by saying did I do everything I could with everything that I had? If so, you gave it your best shot. But you know whether or not you gave it your best shot? I had moments last night where I said it's nine o'clock. I've been up since 5 30 working. I don't want to continue doing this. Well, there's more to do, there's more to do, there's more to do. I feel like I gave it everything I could.
Speaker 1:So, regardless of what happens now, I Am okay with the effort I put in. Will I be more excited if we get this? Yes. Will I be disappointed if we don't? Yes, but I'll be less disappointed than if I said yeah, it's good enough, let me, let's not worry, worry too much about that. If it's meant to be, it'll be. If it's meant to be, I will do the work necessary to hopefully get the, the result that we desire. So, sharing that with the hope that Next time you're down, you're not down and out. Next time you're down you can sit back and say alright, what did I learn from this that I can put into practice? Did I give it everything I had? If so, I would say you should be a little bit easier on yourself.
Speaker 2:That's what I would say. I think that, uh, the first thing I want to make clear is when I said you'll never mess that up again, I'm not saying that From a place of making sure Kevin never messes it up again.
Speaker 2:I know Kevin well enough to know that he's never gonna let that happen again, because the pain was so great that I know you'll never forget that again. There's certain things in this journey of dream chasing that Without pain you're never gonna change them fully. It's what's a good example of that. In this case, kevin will probably. If I had to bet on it, if I had to bet on it, kevin will never miss checking his spam folder again. The reason why it's because of how painful this is, hmm, and and I do think that sometimes you need pain to change, I'll give an example.
Speaker 2:This is a really hard one for me. I've told the story before, but for the new listeners it's a tough one. I'll go as briefly as I can with it. But essentially I used to have a dog named boo and Boo had a doggy door and I went out for a run one day. I was in my own head, I was very frustrated, I was Upset and I went for a run around the block Way back in my late 20s and I forgot to cover the doggy door and Because I was just in my own head, I was careless. That's the truth.
Speaker 2:And I got back from my run, I did the two miles around the block and there was these three cars. There was a golf course back where I used to live and and there was three cars that were really close to each other and I they were like going really fast. They ended up passing me and I thought that was really weird. They were like bumper to bumper, they were very clearly drinking or partying or whatever. I Thought nothing of it. I kept kept running and then I get back to the top of my driveway and I thought there was a plastic bag, like a white plastic bag. So at this point it's dusk and I could, you know, barely see and it was boo. It was boo and boo had, you know, again trigger alert, boo had been killed and One of his arms was completely, like almost off and it was just one of the most horrible things for me. That was one of my toughest moments in life, for sure, and so I was no way like there's, no way that just happened.
Speaker 2:You know, this is my dog of 12 years and he was such a member of the family and he was the best dog, and so, anyways, I end up calling my mom, my sister, my girlfriend at the time, and it was just an awful situation. We buried him the next day together and I Think in some ways it made us all closer, but it was just terrible. The whole thing sucked. There's not a lot of good that comes out of any of that and my mom and my sister were super like oh, you know, boo knew better. Boo, boo knew better. Like he knew not to go to the road. And I had been saying for years I'll just be honest with everybody, like I had been saying to everyone for years he's gonna get hit by a car. He trusts people too much people coming down the driveway and he would run right up to the car. You remember boo boo would run right up near you.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, I always tried my best to keep. Whenever I knew you were coming over, I'd keep the doggy door closed so that he couldn't get hit, so maybe by then I don't know if I- ever saw this before?
Speaker 2:boo, yeah, yeah, I think so. You never knew boo? I don't think so. Boo boo yeah, that was his name was boo boo, okay. So, anyways, I tried my best to make sure whenever people were coming over, I would cover the doggy door and I told my mom and sister, like he's gonna get hit one of these days. I've seen him almost get hit so many times, so many times, and they're like no, he knows, he knows cars are dangerous, he knows he doesn't know. So, anyways, my mom and sister trying to let me off the hook, let me off the hook, let me off the hook. Boo knew better, boo Not knew not.
Speaker 2:It's not your fault, it's not your fault. Here's the truth. This is the truth, whether whether anyone likes it or not. It was my fault, because we want to tell ourselves a story that we couldn't have done anything different, and I know in my heart of hearts that that's bullshit. I Should have and could have covered the doggy door. I knew boo loved to come on runs with me. I knew he was dangerous around the road. I knew that he almost got hit by a car many more times. As a matter of fact, he did get hit by a car when he was, I think, four or five, and we rushed him to the ER. Unfortunately, he was alive. I Knew better and I didn't do better, and that's facts.
Speaker 2:Now, this is an extreme example of ownership, but it is the truth. And the point of this is not just to beat myself up, but I'll tell you what. I am so unbelievably hyper conscious with Tucker. There's coyotes in our neighborhood right now and I'm always watching when he's outside. I Am hyper vigilant to make sure that I'm not careless again. And that's a really extreme example, I know, but that is what the power of ownership is, because if I did what most people wanted me to do and just relinquish all responsibility and no, I couldn't have known better. And oh, it's not. You know, boo knew better. Boo's a dog. No, the truth is, I knew that I needed to cover the doggy door before I left and I didn't do it because I was careless and I will not be careless again. And Bad things happen in life.
Speaker 2:People make mistakes. That was a mistake. I'm not saying that I should beat myself up forever for that. What I'm saying is I should effing change it and Tucker will be alive longer. The probability of Tucker being safe will be significantly greater because of boo and because, more importantly, I took responsibility for it. So again, trigger warning because obviously it's tough, that's not an easy thing to do. Taking responsibility at that level it's not easy. But when you do that, you have the power to make positive changes. My kids will be safer Because I'm less careless because of that experience and that's the truth, right. I mean Tragedies happen, bad things happen and in comparison, it's not that big a deal now with these clients.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say I'm not exactly sure how to follow this up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, literally in my mind like I don't know where to go from here, but at the end of the day I think that's what it is is, kev, you fucked it up.
Speaker 2:You forgot to check your spam folder and you'll never let that shit happen again. Just like me, I'm never gonna let that happen again. And we do have more control than we want to believe. It's easy to just say no, it's no one's fault. Bad things happen. No, the truth is there's a lot of responsibility that needs to be taken, and that doesn't mean that you can control everything. It doesn't mean beat yourself up and get stuck in shame for 30 years. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that did you do all you could with all you had? And if not, why not? And what are you gonna do differently in the Future? And that's the most hardcore I can be, but it's the truth and I think you know that's. That's a heartfelt lesson for me and you know, I think it's one of the most powerful lessons I've ever had.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it's, it's heavy for sure, and it's a. It's an extreme example, but there is empowerment in taking responsibility, because Someone said this to me One time, I think it was it, I think it was a Tony Robbins quote but when you give away responsibility, you give away opportunity that somebody else's, you give away control. If it's somebody else's Responsibility to make you happy, you're never gonna know how to make yourself happy. If it's somebody else's responsibility to Make you money, you're never gonna understand how to make money for yourself. So it yeah, it does. It kind of puts you, it handcuffs you in a way. It handcuffs you in a way and it's yeah, it sucks, it's, it's not making mistakes.
Speaker 1:Again, not necessarily to the level that Alan's talking about. That's a very heavy mistake, but I'm sure we all have our own unique version of that. Maybe it's very hard to take ownership for that because I think we're worried about what are other people gonna think? What if I admit that I made a mistake? Everybody is everybody gang up on me if I admit that. So even again, another Connection to the importance of the people you surround yourself with. We always talk about it at NLU on the team. We don't really care if you make mistakes, maybe to a detriment at times, it definitely mess it up. Whatever go, mess it up. It is what it is. It's not the end of the world, but I'm not. I'm not cool with that for myself. To some degree I am. I'm all for making mistakes, but not a mistake, not a mistake that's careless. There's a difference between making a mistake because you're trying something you don't know how to do yet and making a mistake because you're Careless yeah, especially when you knew better I, because we did have that happen.
Speaker 1:We, yeah, we did that happen in the past Good yeah.
Speaker 1:Evan. Evan Carmichael's team reached out to us and said hey, you want to come up and interview Evan in the studio. We're gonna have cameras and we'll do. We'll take care of all of it love, mics, cameras, chairs, everything will be set up lights, camera action. And for some reason it went to my spam account and I was sitting on the porch where I lived in Worcester one day Just going through my. I was cleaning out my emails and I was going through my spam and I remember seeing that I was oh my god yeah how that?
Speaker 2:first of all, how did that get here? But how many, how many weeks did we sit on that? Did we catch it?
Speaker 1:to maybe yeah, it was a minute. Yeah, it was a minute. I mean that that was another opportunity that could have been lost. Well, that's the hard reality.
Speaker 2:Opportunities are not there forever. Yeah, and again, it's a duality. So I want everyone to understand like there is, you can take this too far. You know, if I never forgive myself, if I shame myself constantly, like that's taking it too far. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not. I don't think I'm a horrible person for making a mistake. That's not what it is. But I do think that I'm gonna be less careless in the future because of that and I'm gonna make damn sure of it. And I think that that's we call drive to five. You know, I think everyone's on one end or the other. You either take too much ownership or too little, and I'm trying to take the right amount of ownership.
Speaker 2:And the truth of the matter is is I was in my own head and I was being careless and selfish, and I remember that night. That night was about me. It wasn't about boo, it wasn't about anyone but me. I was in a bad headspace and, honestly, I was in a relationship I shouldn't have been in, and that's the truth. And had I had the courage to leave that relationship, boo would probably still be alive. So there's layers to this. Don't get stuck in the mud of shame, you know, but definitely, definitely, definitely understand the, the Empowerment that comes from taking responsibility. It is Kevin's. If we don't get that client, whose responsibility is it Right? Right, my fault, that's my fault, and now you have the opportunity to make sure that never happens again and our future will be bigger and brighter because you had the courage to take that ownership. And it feels terrible in the moment.
Speaker 1:But it's a powering long term. Yeah, yeah, I hate it. It's the worst. It sucks. I lose sleep over it. It's I get anxious over it, I ruminate over it. It's. I hate it. I absolutely hate it.
Speaker 2:There's a part of me that wants to say well, I should have told you to check your spam folder, because I have Jerry and check in Mine every every week.
Speaker 1:I just didn't even think of it I. It's like I thought the Evan Carmichael thing was an anomaly. Yeah, that'll never happen. What are the odds of that happening? What were the odds of that happening in the first place?
Speaker 2:Pretty slim, I can't imagine that there's not a lot of useful stuff, and I don't know if your spam folders is as terrible as mine, but no, no, you're a jerry and mine's not. Yours is pretty wild. For some reason. I got an email way back.
Speaker 1:I'm not getting any mail?
Speaker 2:enhancement emails or any of that, or Sugar mama emails. Back in 2008, gene, I got my Gmail when I was a freshman in college. That's 2007, 2007 2008.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I probably didn't have an email until I.
Speaker 2:Don't know. I mean you probably had working or whatever right, no, but you know.
Speaker 1:You know they don't give you an email at the gas station, son, nobody's emailing me. You know what I mean, you funny. Nobody's emailing me at the hospital no, no, no, no, no no, I was never in a position. Good, I was gonna say I was never in a position where anybody wanted to email me.
Speaker 2:You know it's again. This is side tangent, but it's so interesting to hear that email is such a critical part of our lives now. Back then it wasn't remember the flip phones and all that it blows my good old days, oh my mind how we used to do all this. You know yeah.
Speaker 1:You remember, you remember trying, and again, yeah, we were off the rails here. You remember trying to take a picture with an old flip phone. How bad it was, it was just like so bad, just like 10 pixels Brutal that could be Alan All right.
Speaker 1:This is my next level nugget. My next level nugget is next time Things go wrong and you don't get the result you want. Ask yourself those two questions Did I do absolutely everything I can with what I have and what did I learn from it? This is a really good lesson for If you're an entrepreneur out there as a dream chaser, if you're trying to get clients or whatever it may be, understanding that sometimes you can do absolutely everything right. You can say all the right things and somebody's just not ready to buy. That's one of the most empowering things I tell clients at all the time. Get that through your head immediately that you're not. You're not gonna have a hundred percent Rate of everybody you talk to works with you because not everybody's ready yet. So that's one of the best things in the world. If you're not an entrepreneur, put that into practice for yourself.
Speaker 2:But I thought it would be valuable to add that it's a great next level nugget. My next level nugget would be Take responsibility for your own future. Take responsibility for putting yourself on the highest probable end of whatever success you're shooting for. You know, are you doing all you can with all you have and are you making every day and every dollar count? Again, these are not just phrases, and and remember, everything is easier to talk about than to live, and I think that's really important as a podcaster to say, because I was saying that earlier on a show I was on. This all sounds really great, but that's.
Speaker 1:It was awful.
Speaker 2:It was so bad. Like telling the story is easy, mm-hmm, living through it was so bad. Think about, think about the story I just told that was hard to tell but it was way harder to live. And so in real life, this stuff is not easy, no matter how easy people make it sound. And I think that's always empowering to realize, because you know, anyone can go on a podcast and talk about stuff. Who can actually do it on a day-to-day basis when no one's watching? I think that's what I always come back to, especially the responsibility thing.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why sometimes it's hard to come up with episodes, because I'm only doing so much and only do so much. It's only so much to do, right? Do you know what I mean? I do? There's only so much. There's only so much. There's a level, there's an amount, a specific amount. That is just so much. There's only so much of it. But then there's a next level. There is a next level.
Speaker 1:Speaking of next level, if you are looking for a next level community to surround yourself with, we talked about the importance of community. I think for a lot of us, community is make or break. If you're afraid to tell the people that you surround yourself with your goals, I think you probably need new people to surround yourself with. And if you don't get the support from the people around you, I think you need more people, at least. I'm not saying to replace everybody, but you deserve that. You deserve somebody who believes in you. You deserve somebody who pours into you. You deserve somebody who values you. Please join our private Facebook group, next Level Nation, if you were looking for that. It is super positive. There's posts every single day. It is a wonderful, wonderful, heart-driven community.
Speaker 2:If you've ever talked about a goal or a dream that you wanted to achieve, big or small, and been made fun of, if you've ever been disrespected or walked on, if you've ever been afraid to share your truth, I promise you that this room will not have any of that. That's the one thing at NLU that we make sure Everyone needs to be respectful, everyone needs to be inclusive and there's no bullies allowed. So Next Level Live 2024 is 52 days, 15 hours and 42 minutes away. We have in-person tickets for anyone who's local. So if you're within a two-hour radius of driving, the ticket is $97. You're going to get a free Dreamliner at the event. You're also going to get lunch, buffet style. It's going to be delicious, stuffed chicken and a vegan option. And for those of you who are not local, we have a virtual event. Buy one ticket for $47. So $97 for the in-person ticket includes a Dreamliner and lunch. That's why the higher price point and the virtual ticket is only $47.
Speaker 2:Kevin and I have talked behind the scenes. If, for whatever reason, it's not an unbelievable experience and you somehow hate it I don't think you will we will give you your money back for the virtual ticket. So please book now. The landing page is ready. People have already booked. We've seen these come through. We're only taking 30 in person and 30 virtual total. Six teams of 10 because there's breakout sessions. It's going to be awesome. We do this every year. Please do not miss this, because we're not doing this again for another full year.
Speaker 2:So the link will be in the show notes. Check it out. All the information is there. We've got all the photos from the last event. Just keep in mind. At the bottom there's a new venue. You will be different, I think much better personally, than last year. So there's a promo video as well that shows all the awesome stuff from last year. Talking trash about the previous venue, huh.
Speaker 1:I like this one much better. There is nostalgia the first speech Allen and I ever gave together, the first speech I ever gave. There's definitely still some of my sweat on the floor because of how much I was sweating that day. So if you want to go back to a little nostalgia with us, we would love to have you do that with us Tomorrow for episode number 1,599. Almost there One of the keys to long lasting friendships we talked a little bit Allen touched on this point in the episode about the number one thing.
Speaker 1:We wish we knew about relationships sooner. So I moved this episode. It was supposed to be the next one, it was actually supposed to be 1597 and I said we'll move it a little bit because I want to make sure it doesn't seem too close to that other episode. But I think it's going to be a super valuable episode and I think it's something that a lot of us really struggle with, especially with family members. So friendships and family members We'll talk about it tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow. Take responsibility, thanks everyone.
