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
#1603 - Why Quitting Your Job Is A Mistake
Transitioning from a stable job to pursuing your passion full-time is a bold move many aspire to, yet it's not without its perils. In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros shed light on the reality that there's no direct jump from a mundane day job to a fulfilling passion project without wading through some "mud." The discussion offers a realistic perspective on the journey from personal passion to a profitable business, emphasizing the need for financial stability and understanding the scalability of a profitable pursuit.
Links mentioned:
Next Level Dreamliner - https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA
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
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:
(1:39) Choose your mud
(2:54) Maintain a source of short-term for long-term
(4:15) Metaphor of two trains
(8:38) Don't quit yet
(11:47) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA
(12:39) Understanding scalability in business
(14:07) It's a struggle in the beginning
(15:49) There is some level in between
(20:15) Run it in parallel
(22:03) 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 yesterday's episode, episode number 1601. New awareness can change everything. It's very hyper conscious. Episode today for episode number 1603 why quitting your job is a mistake, potentially.
Speaker 1:I was on a podcast and Someone said that they said it's so amazing that you found quote-unquote success and you quit your job and you went all in on this and I said it is amazing now, but it was not for the first several years. And I said you have to figure out and you've heard me say this before. Probably if you're a new listener, this might be brand new you have to figure out what mud you want. Choose your mud, because very rarely are we gonna jump from brown grass to green grass. So in this example, brown grass was my old job that I absolutely hated. Green grass was being a successful podcaster who could pay the bills with the podcast. The mud in between for me was being so broke that I couldn't get my car fixed. So broke that I couldn't buy Christmas presents for taran one year. So broke I got sent to collections because I couldn't pay my car insurance.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was my mud brutal.
Speaker 1:It was some of the most brutal times of my life. That was my mud. I know it sounds really good to say I'm gonna quit my job and go all in on my thing and I want you to be able to get to that point as a dream chaser. That is what we're all after. But sometimes you have to do something to pay the bills While you build the thing that's gonna pay the bills long term.
Speaker 1:I have so many clients who say to me I don't want to do one-on-one coaching, I want to do this in five years. How are we going to survive long enough to get you five years down the line if we don't do the thing that's going to pay for the bills in the short term? So that's kind of the the view of this episode and this was allen's idea the thing that you're doing now. It might not be the thing that you love, but it might sustain you paying the bills long enough to Build up momentum for the thing that you love. So maybe you have a day job that you don't like, but on the weekends you go out and take pictures and you build up your portfolio and you make connections and you hone your craft and you get better and you understand more.
Speaker 1:Then I don't know, you do that for a year and then A year down the line you work four days at your job and then you work three days On your side hustle, but you're still paying your bills with that full-time job. That's really what we want to talk about today. I know quitting your job when you hear it in a story probably sounds super sexy, but for most people I don't want to say for most people for many people it can be a recipe for disaster Because you lose the gasoline to power the vehicle to the next Station for lack of better freezing.
Speaker 2:So I have two clients in particular that do this. I mean, in some ways, all of us really do this but think of two trains that are in parallel. Okay, I believe that everyone needs two trains in parallel at all times. This is my belief, having coached people from all different industries all over the world. At the end of the day, one of the trains is called short-term profitability and the other train is called long-term wealth, and I've never found an exception to this rule. Okay, what the problem is that Kevin's describing is that a lot of times, you see people like Kevin and I who are seven years into this journey and we've allowed the train of long-term wealth to start surpassing the short-term profitability that got us here. And there's a lot of mentors that we had in the past that were dream chasers that we would interview and when we got behind the scenes and we realized their true story, they were super famous and XYZ and they were super successful, multimillionaires genuinely. But what we found out is, early in their journey, their wife was actually bootstrapping the bills, keeping the lights on, keeping the kids fed, that kind of thing, and so a lot of times, someone that you see that's super successful, you don't know if they inherited the money, you don't know if their wife or their husband is bootstrapping the enterprise and you really just don't know. And what I do know is this principle always applies Every household, every business, has two trains. They have short-term profitability that keeps the lights on and keeps the cash in the bank account, and then they have a long-term wealth play. So YouTube is a perfect example. I have two clients that do YouTube. I've actually had one client in the past who did YouTube with 50 million plus views. So I know YouTube. I understand how this works. Youtube is a good example, because I think that's what a lot of people say I wanna be a YouTuber. Right, that's like a very common dream these days. Very cool. So I have one client. This person will know who I'm talking about, so shout out to you, brother.
Speaker 2:He's a physical therapist and he works at three different clinics and that is short-term profitability. He does physical therapy for a good amount of money and it's immediately into his bank account. Okay, it's paycheck, paycheck, paycheck. And in tandem, he's also building a YouTube channel. Now, the important piece of this episode Health, wealth and Love we're talking about wealth today is without being a physical therapist and that, paying the bills, he would not be able to succeed on YouTube because he wouldn't be able to sustain it long enough to succeed.
Speaker 2:Youtube is a long play. No one blows up on YouTube overnight, and if they do, it's very rare. Okay, that does happen, but it's very, very rare. So here's what he does. Physical therapy is his main A, so we'll call that train A Short-term profitability. Pays the bills, money in the bank account, pays rent, pays food, pays utilities okay. And then B is the YouTube channel. And as long as he sustains momentum, I think of it like a rowboat you have to row with both oars simultaneously. If you're only rowing with one oar, you're just going in circles, okay. So you're in a rowboat and you need to row simultaneously.
Speaker 2:Now the cool part is that the YouTube channel is also about physio. It's his name on YouTube is the athletic physio, so it's about physical therapy, but bodybuilding. So it's like being athletic and non-injured, injury-free. Now, youtube is not making a ton of money. Physio is making good money. Physio is paying for YouTube. The train of YouTube could not continue without the gas being fed. Again, I know trains don't take gas, but forgive my metaphors here and I just realized that this is such a fundamental misunderstanding that people don't understand Even NLU, our business. This podcast is free, thank you. We've done 1600 episodes for free. We've never made a single dollar from this podcast.
Speaker 2:And it's not free yet directly, which I'm going to get into in a second. Okay, we have a production team that does this show. That's not free. Now that I'm CFO, I really know that to an extreme degree. But my point is is that we don't make any direct revenue from this podcast. All right, we do make direct revenue from coaching, from producing podcasts, from doing social media. We have a bunch of stuff, okay, so our train B is this podcast.
Speaker 2:Our train A is actually the things we're doing behind the scenes to keep the lights on, and what happens and this is where everyone gets tripped up is at this point you and I. Kev. Train B is surpassing train A and so it makes it look easy, because when you're 1600 and three episodes in and you're getting 600 episodes, 600 listens a day, it gets 10 times easier, and then people lose sight of. For a long time, you and I had to grind for every dollar every day, and now we have a 21 person team and now we have more success and we have a successful business. And now the train B that was actually what I would call a money pit. Okay, something you invested in that makes no money back has now become the main train. And then that's when you see people really winning, and that's actually very misleading if you're not careful, because in the beginning it was actually the opposite. In the beginning, it was do whatever you have to do to make rent. Kev literally lived with his friend and painted on the side to like renovate the house, to rent for lower rent, and it's very important to realize that that's what dream chasing takes. So my synopsis is simple Train A always has to stay running, and that's the one that puts money in your bank account quickly. Its action is taken, money is in bank account now. That's why I recommend Uber Eats, doordash drive for Uber drive for Lyft Logs. Sit on the side those things.
Speaker 2:I have one client. She's in her 60s, she's literally an executive, and she still cleans houses and cooks food. She's just making an extra 300 bucks, 400 bucks, 200 bucks it all adds up because she's doing her own business on the side, and she's an executive as well contract executive. So the point that I'm making, though, is the first train has to stay the first train, and you cannot quit the first train until the second one has momentum, and you and I did it very differently, but even then we were bootstrapping. I mean, there's a reason. Our studio was in my mother's basement and it's very important for people to realize that we could never have survived if we weren't willing to keep the lights on along the way and go into some debt.
Speaker 2:What's the word DEBT?
Speaker 1:Yeah, DEBT.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had to do some of that.
Speaker 1:They let you go. They'll give you. They'll let you go. They'll let you go right past zero Wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can keep digging. No, they will turn it off eventually.
Speaker 1:They will Trust me, I know how much you can go over your credit card limit before they turn it off. Yeah, I think of it almost as a pendulum for scalability. When we say scalability, all it means to be scalable is. Well, you could probably explain it better than I. What does it mean to be scalable? What does scalability mean?
Speaker 2:It means one more unit of your time can eventually create 10 times more outcome.
Speaker 1:See I would have said something much dumber than that, so that's probably good that I kicked it to you. This is kind of how I think of it In the beginning. It's not scalable to do 40 hours and then 20 hours. I mean you could if you really really really really wanted to and circumstances allowed it. If you have a family and a household, it makes life a heck of a lot harder Eventually. So, just as an example, I was on the phone with one of our clients yesterday and this client was going to get rid of one of our services. So Jesse the amazing Jesse has left Jesse's going to do her own thing, so we wish her nothing but the best, all the love, so grateful for the time that we got to spend together.
Speaker 2:Jesse, thank you for everything you did for NLU. You were 100%, nothing short of an absolute rock star 100%.
Speaker 1:We are very blessed to have that time together that we did. He was doing social media for this client. When this client found out Jesse was leaving, they said I think I'm just gonna do my own social media. And I talked to them yesterday and I said can I just get feedback, like what's that about? And this client said I'm just nervous somebody else won't be able to find my voice. And I said what if I could guarantee they do? And she said who's gonna do it? And I said I'm gonna do it. And she said why are you gonna do it? Aren't there? She said aren't there better uses of your time? And I said no, this is next level social media is the next next level podcast solutions, and that's kinda how it works. I was doing very unscalable things in the beginning for next level podcast solutions and now I'm gonna do the same for next level social media and eventually they'll be whatever next level painting solutions. Well, I'll come to your house and paint your house or something. Who knows?
Speaker 2:Kevin, you and I didn't know this in the beginning, but we could never have succeeded in business without each other to this extent, because you basically do things that aren't scalable and I'm entirely focused on scale all the time and I'll be really quick with this but this podcast is scalable. We do one episode. It could get a thousand people impacted. That is scalable. What is not scalable is one hour coaching session with one person. But one of them is profitable.
Speaker 2:Usually, scalable in the beginning is not profitable and that's what people get messed up. There's this whole thing about passive income, financial freedom, you know, and what the problem is that you pay if you wanna be financially free. The truth of the matter is, mathematically that means at least a decade of like consistent investing in something right. I know some of my clients that client that you're referring to, she's financially free. Financially free means you have a big enough nest egg where the money that that produces is more than enough to live on.
Speaker 2:But that takes. I mean, she's in her late 40s, you know she's married to a surgeon and they were broke for their 30s and 40s, 30s, late 20s and 30s. But it's very important to realize that train A is the short-term profitability. That's the thing that puts money in the bank account and that's the thing that is not scalable. Train B like a YouTube channel super scalable but no money out of the gate. You're not gonna make any money out of the gate, no money. And it's very important for people to realize that I had a YouTuber who is wildly successful and he was only making like six grand a month in the beginning and now I think it's way more than that, which is great, but in the beginning he was struggling for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just. It's a very challenging understanding, I think, because we wanna jump from something that we dislike to something that we love and you can do that, but you're not gonna bring the results with you. If the results are money and you're making $100,000, let's just say you're making $50,000 at your job, whatever your job is, it's very hard to make $50,000 in your own business as a dream chaser, whatever your business is. That's not.
Speaker 2:it's not an easy feat. Can you go into that Like, how hard is it.
Speaker 1:I mean you gotta either find 50 people that pay you $1,000 a year. Just if you think of the numbers and I know you might be thinking well, that's only 50 people. Trust me, in order to get 50 people to pay you, you have to talk to 5,000. It's just the ratio. This is another one of those things on social media where I don't wanna say people are intentionally lying. Some people are intentionally lying, for sure, but I think some people like to make it sound easier than it is. When somebody says well, if you wanna make $100,000, all you have to do is sell. Make $350 a day, that means all you gotta do is sell $10, $35 programs. Selling 10 programs a day means you gotta reach I don't know 150, 200, 500 people a day. It's just really a numbers game. So it's yeah that it's very, very hard to make $50,000 on your own.
Speaker 1:If you're really focused on living holistically and aligned, I'm sure you could do it in many other ways that might. Maybe they're more aligned for you than they would be for me. I don't know, but it's challenging. Just don't lose sight of the fact that you've built up so much momentum in this one arena and you're jumping over to another arena. You get to take all the skills but unfortunately you don't necessarily get to take any of the money. Your new dream chasing thing has no memory of how much money you used to make. It doesn't matter. I went from making a hundred that I used to make. The most I ever made at a job was $120 an hour. So I made $120 an hour on one of the jobs and the key with that is that's full time, that's 120 times 40 every week on the week.
Speaker 2:And I know that it's like, but that's the other thing, it's not just $120 an hour, it's $120 an hour, 40 hours a week every week.
Speaker 1:It's $960 a week, but it's not the same, because it's.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm not coaching eight hours a day, every day.
Speaker 2:So that's the other misunderstanding people don't have of. Well, you make $150 an hour. It's like, yeah, but it's not every hour. You know, and so, anyways, just something to continue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's very important to have discussions like this, just because I don't know. You've worked with so many people. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of podcasters at this point, and all these podcasters are dream chasers. They start their podcast because they want it to be a full time thing and I always tell them this is not to Alan's quote, this is not a you problem. This is the way it works. It's not that you're not successful. You're 50 episodes in. That's not that much time. I know it's a year if you do an episode every week. I watch this and then we got to go because you have a call.
Speaker 1:I watched this YouTube channel last night of this guy who go. He lives in Alaska and he goes out in the wilderness and builds like igloos and he basically lives off the land for days at a time and he said I've done this every single. I've uploaded a video every Saturday for five years and I've never missed. And I was thinking, and he says it takes me anywhere from 70 to 80 hours a week between coming out here and doing this and doing all the content, editing it. Imagine getting three days of footage and editing it into a 20 minute video. My goodness, dude, that must be and shout out to all the amazing video editors out there.
Speaker 1:We have several on our team. We don't have that much content, but you can imagine at a deeper level than I can. So, yeah, next level nugget, so we can get Alan out of here, because Alan has a call. Don't expect to jump from dead grass to green grass. There's going to be some level of mud in between and I think the more accurate you are and the deeper understanding you have of that mud, the more likely you are to succeed.
Speaker 2:Two, two, seven rule. Learned it from Brian Tracy. I never used to believe in this. I do deeply now. Any new endeavor takes two years to kind of fail and learn, go into debt. The next two years you kind of break even and start to get it, and it takes seven to actually succeed on a level that anyone else will ever notice. So as hard as that is if you love it and you're passionate about it. I'm not saying, to say it, a job you hate. What I'm saying is do not start a podcast and think it's going to pay your bills for the first year. The podcast needs to be in parallel with whatever is profitable and that is the practical truth. That is going to be super awesome for you, especially for young people. So I still want you to dream chase. I still want you to do it. I want you to run it in parallel. I don't want you to fall for the four hour work week crap, because none of that is real, I promise.
Speaker 1:In the wise words of one of our, he wasn't a mentor, he was a friend. He said the only person there's a book by Tim Ferriss called the four hour work week. He said the only person that's ever gotten rich off the four hour work week is Tim Ferriss, the author himself.
Speaker 2:So again, take that for what you will. Tim's never worked four hours in his life. He works 60 hours a week, every week for 20 years, most likely.
Speaker 1:Most likely so if you have not yet, please join Next Level Nation, our private Facebook group, and friendly reminder that we have Next Level Live 2024 in person and virtual March 23rd in Groton Mass and streaming over the interweb via Zoom. Tickets in person or 97. You get a buffet style lunch and a free Dreamliner and 47 virtually. We would love to see you all there tomorrow for episode number 1600 and four, the difference between high self-worth and entitlement Another one that's a little bit close to the heart. So it'll be. It'll be a serious discussion, but again, I think those are some of the best episodes to grow through. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and an NLU. We run it fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Run it in parallel Next Level Nation. Thank you.
