Next Level University

#1598 - 2 Questions To Ask Yourself When You’re Down

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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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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Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
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Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
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We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on Instagram, Facebook, or via email.

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

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Kevin: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.palmieri.90/

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

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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

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Speaker 1

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 .

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host