Next Level University

#1628 - Control = Confidence? - Freestyle Friday

Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros explore various themes ranging from self-awareness to the impact of relationships on our sense of control and emotional intelligence. They shared personal stories of overcoming insecurities and evolving emotionally, highlighting the role of past experiences in shaping their behaviors and beliefs. The discussion turned to the impact of geographical context on destiny and the interplay between intuition, fate, and chance in shaping one's life experiences.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Dreamliner - https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA
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 more than just a podcast; we have 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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Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/   

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


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Email 💬

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Alan@nextleveluniverse.com


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Show notes:

(2:13) Perceived lack of control
(4:55) How do you increase your 'Locus of Control'
(9:49) Face insecurities head-on
(15:41) Coaching and Therapy
(17:34) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA
(18:22) After 18 years: 'The Break-Up'
(21:27) Certainty
(23:50) Contemplating
(30:35) Outro


Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

I saw a dad playing with his kids and it hurt me and I haven't felt that in a long time. It hurt me. It was like number one. I was like I really hope he's a good dad. That was my initial thought. It's like, ah, that's cool, like good for them, I really hope he's a good dad. But then there was that little piece of me that was like ah f. I never got that. I never had that.

Speaker 2:

So it's like this weird ladder that you climb and I think people get stuck because they feel so uncertain and out of control that they don't set goals. And what's ironic is that the only way to increase your locus of control is to set goals and then go fail forward until you learn how to get them.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin Paul Mary, and I'm your co-host, alan Lazarus. At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for Dream Chasers.

Speaker 2:

Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life love health and wealth.

Speaker 1:

We bring you a new episode every single day, on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits and defining your own unique version of success.

Speaker 2:

Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from anywhere, completely free.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Next Level University, 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 1627, self-sabotage versus self-survival. Today, for episode number 1628, we're going to do, as previously spoken about, a freestyle Friday. My guess, alan, is I will never have the actual title of the episode to do live. It most likely will get added after we're finished. I'll add okay, what was the main point, and that'll become the episode title.

Speaker 2:

What was the through line? What was the?

Speaker 1:

through line in the episode as we say in the biz.

Speaker 1:

This was a thought I had. So I did a Next Level live in our Facebook group. Oh yeah, how'd it go? I saw that it was awesome. It was awesome. I love it. I was so tired before I did it. It reignited me. I was ready for the rest of the day. It was awesome.

Speaker 1:

But Amy and I were talking about why self-awareness is one of the, if not the most important thing, and after I was thinking and just wondering, I'm going to talk about our freestyle Friday. What am I going through? What am I learning All of that? I believe one of the things that we're all struggling with is perceived lack of control. One of the things that I feel more confident in now is my ability to succeed at things. I feel like I'm in more control of my future because I'm in more control of my ability to control the present, and I believe that's what we're all after.

Speaker 1:

I think we're all after the ability to control our reality 100%, but the hardest part of that is the only real way to get perceived lack of control is to go through the bouts of not, or to get through. It is to go through. It Is to understand there are certain things that you have control over. There are certain things that you could have better control over, but you don't have the skills yet. Maybe hypothetically. There are some things that you have very little control over. But as you work on yourself and you evolve and you grow, I think that's really what confidence is. A deep part of confidence is having the certainty that you know you can figure it out Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And if somebody was to say, kev, why are you more confident now than you were before? It's not because of my results. I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think it. I won't say it doesn't have anything. It helps in the momentary bouts. But when my back is up against the wall, the things that normally in the past would cause me to say I don't know how I'm going to get through this are now God, this really sucks, but I can do blank, blank, blank and blank, and that is a completely different world and I want that world for each and every one of you watching or listening. But that that's kind of the direction I wanted to go in in terms of the thought I had. Again, I don't really want to have a direction for freestyle Friday. We'll see how it goes, but that. Have you ever had that? Have you that? That's part two. I think one of the reasons you're so confident is because you have perceived control of everything Kind of.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So the question becomes how? How do you? When you're a kid, you don't have any control over almost anything. That's fair. And you don't get to choose your parents. You don't get to choose where you're born, you don't get to choose where you live. You don't get to choose what you drive, because you don't drive. Most likely, as a small infant you shouldn't be. You can't control much of anything. It's called a locus of control if you study the literature. But how? How do you increase your locus of control? And there's a lot of answers to that question. One of them is skills. So, for example, when Kevin and I first started this podcast, he was trying to manufacture certainty, and so was I, and if you were to listen to early episodes, you would sense ego, and by ego what I mean is insecurity built on our inabilities to know what the hell we're talking about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2:

So we would manufacture certainty to present confidently that which we did not understand yet. And we didn't understand it, but we kind of did, which is why we were sort of manufacturing confidence. That's what I call that. So skills is number one. When you develop really good skills like if you and I play basketball one-on-one, you're going to feel less in control than me because I've played longer, I'm taller, I'm better. If we were to grapple, I would feel less in control than you because you've done this before. So you have a better skill at grappling, I have a better skill at basketball. And so, for the listeners, think about what you have high skills at and what you don't.

Speaker 2:

We did a group coaching episode, a group coaching session, session five, with group 13 last night, and some people in that room had felt very in control of the financial future. Some of them didn't at all. And it all depends on your skill set, your skill. I think earning money is a skill. Learning how to earn money is a skill. Do you understand it? Do you know how to do it? Do you know why to do it? Do you have the skills that are monetizable, that are valuable in the marketplace, that kind of stuff. So skills is number one. So that's, if you're very skillful and you've developed a lot of skills like leadership and effective communication and business and finance, you're going to feel more in control of your own future, and I think that's one of the reasons you feel more in control of your own future.

Speaker 2:

I would say so the other one is relationships when you develop. So I'll give you a perfect example. So, emilia, I think about this all the time because I used to be semi alone, even when I was in intimate relationships. I always felt like I was more responsible for our future than they were, and one of the reasons why and I used to be bashful about this and I used to not want to share this because I was not only cowardly but afraid to be villainized, which I think is the same thing ultimately I just had higher skills and I was more marketable in the economy.

Speaker 2:

So our future, our financial future, our career and our careers and our future was more on my back than theirs, because whoever has higher self-belief, higher skills, higher capabilities, higher potential is actually the one who has to put the team on their back, so to speak. So in this analogy, if you're the best basketball player on the court, the team is relying on you more than the bench players, and that makes sense, and that's why they're paid more, because you take on more responsibility and, technically, your responsibility that you take on is in direct proportion to your potential. But here's the problem If you don't take on responsibility, you won't develop your potential. So it's this weird sort of cycle of I don't think I have high potential, I don't believe in myself, so I'm not going to take on more responsibility. Therefore I'm not going to develop my skills. Therefore I'm not going to learn.

Speaker 2:

Remember one time you said, alan, I don't understand how you know all this. And I said, kev, I had to know this. I had to know this in order to achieve my dreams. But I wouldn't have had those dreams if I didn't believe in myself, and I wouldn't have believed in myself unless I had developed up to that point.

Speaker 2:

So it's like this weird ladder that you climb and I think people get stuck because they feel so uncertain and out of control that they don't set goals. And what's ironic is that the only way to increase your locus of control is to set goals and then go fail forward until you learn how to get them. And then, when you do get them, you self assign it and go look, what else can I do? What else can I do? What else can I do? I mean getting one client. You got a client today. In the beginning that was like that would have changed your whole day. You would have celebrated for a whole week. And now you're like cool, awesome and it was good. It was a moment, still celebrated, still important, but it's not life changing. It's not to the way that it used to be, because inside of you you know you can do that now.

Speaker 1:

It's very strange how the thing that you run from is the thing that you need to spend the most time in. Yeah, it really is. You want to be more comfortable with cold water. You have to sit in cold water.

Speaker 2:

It sucks.

Speaker 1:

You have to be it kind of sucks. Yeah, it kind of sucks. We're talking. Also today we were talking about the one awareness. I asked Amy because I like asking questions, even when I'm getting asked, I just I like to ask questions. I said what was the number one awareness that shifted the most for you?

Speaker 1:

And she went into hers and I said I think for me there's two thoughts. The more you try to run away from an insecurity or go around it, the worse it gets. I think that's one because you don't get to the root cause of actually dealing with it fixing the insecurity, whatever that means. I won't say fixing it, but coming to terms with whatever that means. And the second one I said is I, for most of my life we'll say, excuse me. We'll say, physically I've been in shape pretty much my whole life and I think I've probably looked confident. I think if somebody saw me they'd probably say that kid is confident, he's a confident guy In the gym. If you, yeah, yeah, in the gym. Or if you saw me at the beach without a shirt on or whatever right Stuff like that Stuff where you could see my physique particularly, I used to think you were way more confident than you really were, for sure.

Speaker 1:

I think everybody did. I think everybody did. But what I said to Amy was I didn't realize how wildly insecure I was. I didn't, I didn't. I thought everybody was that way. I thought everybody, I thought everybody had the same experience. I did where everybody thought you were different than you felt, and maybe that is the case, I don't know. With a lot of people I would say that's true, that's what I assumed, I assumed. Well, of course, I need to showcase the skills I have. I was always the we have the running joke. I was always the guy, the second.

Speaker 1:

If somebody spilled a drink at the party, my shirt was off before the thing even flipped over completely. I get it, I get it. I get it. I get it Because that's what that was the value I felt I could add. I was in good shape and I knew that people. I didn't want to make people jealous or envious, but I knew that was something that was respected. That's pretty much all that was my calling card. That was my party trick. I'll just take my shirt off. It's going to be fine. Oh, we're going to a country concert. It's 48 degrees out Dump, dump the shirt off. Not a big deal. Not that big of a deal, but the truth is. So what if you just showcase the things that you're most comfortable with, so you don't have to showcase any of the things you're uncomfortable with?

Speaker 2:

And then, ironically, you don't get more comfortable with those other things.

Speaker 1:

Because you never face them Exactly, you never, ever face them.

Speaker 2:

That's why fear chasing and exposure therapy are so important. That's why I always make the joke playfully, but it's got truth underneath it, which is why I think it's funny. I've been saying it on other shows and it's validating.

Speaker 1:

You've been getting laughs.

Speaker 2:

I have evidence I have. I have. I always say if you want a coach, you probably need a therapist. If you want a therapist, you probably need a coach. And underneath that all it is is, if you want a therapist, you're probably already fairly emotionally intelligent and you've faced a lot of traumas and you're more mental health conscious, most likely. But you might struggle with success and the economy and business and finance and all that stuff. And I wanted a coach and I needed a therapist. That's very clear in hindsight Because of course you want a coach when you already feel competent in your abilities to perform and to be capable in the economy and professional. And I always think of it as professional development and personal development. And personal development is internal and professional development is external resume, cover letter, articulation, vocabulary, communication, all that stuff.

Speaker 1:

So anyways, I found my resume today from 2014. Did you really?

Speaker 2:

I'm going to send it to you. I would pay money to see that I'll send it to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll send it to you.

Speaker 1:

I would read it. There's no point in me. I don't think it would do justice. I had a moment this morning where I was like going you ever go through old emails? Yeah, is that something? I had a moment today where I was like just crashing and burning. Let me read you something real quick. Please, let me read everybody something. My screen shot it because I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So this was a message I sent to my therapist.

Speaker 2:

I had which just to drive that point home, you had a therapist.

Speaker 1:

When you and I first met.

Speaker 2:

you already were convinced therapy was the way and it's great yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I wasn't, but I had coaches and mentors yeah, you were convinced of the value of coaches and mentors. I wasn't convinced of the value of therapists. Now we both do both, which is great, and I do believe so strongly in that. If you are convinced of the value of coaches and mentors, you need a therapist. If you're convinced of the value of mental health and therapists, you should get some coaches and mentors, because they're. Usually. It was way more uncomfortable for me to see a therapist than it was to coach with somebody.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Or to have, and for you it was kind of the opposite. I mean, you used to freak out before our coaching sessions with David Meltzer, evan Carmichael or whatever.

Speaker 1:

I love therapy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I loved it, it's so interesting, I'm like excited to go back.

Speaker 1:

I'm genuinely excited. I'm not. I told Tara and I was like I know, I know. I said I was going to get this rolling and I haven't. I said I'm not nervous or I promise I'm not avoiding it, I just I've just been busy and it's unfortunately hasn't been the priority it needs to be.

Speaker 2:

That's so fascinating because I feel the same way with mentors and coaches and success. You love the episodes where we talk vulnerable stuff.

Speaker 1:

I love the episodes where we talk about peak performance.

Speaker 2:

I feel very capable there. That's exactly what it is.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I have a lot of control. I feel like I have a lot of control and vulnerability.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly the point. We all need to be ambidextrous, and what you wanted was what you needed. You'd already have it. I think that's, yeah, continue. What are you going to read us?

Speaker 1:

Shakespeare, yeah yeah, it's Shall. I compare thee to a summer's eve. Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Nice work, Is that something?

Speaker 2:

Nice work.

Speaker 1:

This is a message I sent to. This is the second therapist I had. I had a therapist in Boston and then I moved from Boston to New Hampshire with my partner. I guess I was going to therapy when I was with my partner. Yeah, I was At the end of my bodybuilding. Things were bad, october 11th 2015. Hey, jennifer, I left a message yesterday. As of right now, I'm working first shift Tuesday, so I can't do 1 PM. Do you have any later appointments, like 6 PM Blank, and I broke up on Monday. So this week has been very challenging and I want to make it a point to see you this week. Thanks.

Speaker 1:

At this point in my life I had it looked like I had everything and everything, and this is one of the times I was 100% struggling the most. 100% Go ahead. I was just going to say just to, for context, the person that left me, the person that broke up with me, literally said I waited until after your bodybuilding show trigger warning because I was afraid if I left you during it you would have killed yourself. Like she literally said that to me the day or the day, and it wasn't in a mean way, it wasn't like a you're terrible and it wasn't that, it was just more. That's how long I've been unhappy and I remember thinking like, ooh, what a tough spot, what a tough place to be for you to be in that position. But it's just wild to look back and that was only nine years ago. Nine years, I mean it's a long time, but it's also not it doesn't feel like nine years the fact that I saw that it was 2014,. It was like, or maybe 10 years. Whatever I said, 2014, 2015.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's wild. You ever hear about something in the early 2000s and you're thinking, oh, that wasn't that long ago, and then you're like wait a minute.

Speaker 1:

We are closer to 2050 than we are 1990.

Speaker 2:

Hello, hello, hello. Nlu listener. Thank you, as always, for listening to Next Level University. Real quick. I just want to jump in and let you know about the next level dreamliner. This is a journal that I use every single day. Leave your dreams 90 days at a time. It breaks down your dreams into goals, milestones and daily habits. We hope you enjoy it. The link will be in the show notes. I this is a little side tangent, but Emilia and I are we do relationship talks, events similar to monthly meetups every month. Luckily they're not on the same weeks because I would burn to the ground, but the next one is on the four, so your wife Terrin would know about this. John Gottman had the four horsemen of relationships contempt, resentment, stolen walling.

Speaker 2:

There's another one, but we're doing it. We're calling it the four relationship killers and we watched a movie called the breakup. You remember the breakup? Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn yeah, that's the one. We came out in 2006. You and I were juniors in high school and I hadn't seen that movie in 18 years. It's a good movie. It was hilarious. But I'm so much more aware now, Whoa. I mean, they burnt that relationship right to the ground At the time, when you first saw it, did you side with Vince Vaughn?

Speaker 1:

Yes, not anymore. I probably did two back then.

Speaker 2:

Dude, 18 years later, I'm watching this movie with Emilia. We are doing research for the event. The four horse contempt stolen, walling. There's other ones.

Speaker 1:

What were you eating?

Speaker 2:

I don't know chicken rice, Maybe, I don't know, Domino's, I don't know. I don't know. Dude, I thought we were gonna have to watch the movie and I knew intuitively, like this is the movie that's gonna be. The four relationship killers will show up. I promise you they will show up. And I was telling him email you that, Dude, first 15 minutes. All of them done. They crushed, they destroyed the relationship right out of the gate and they had no idea that they did Again. It's a movie, but when I first saw it back when I was 17 years old, I had no idea what was happening beneath the surface of this iceberg, so to speak, and they basically were in love and made every mistake you can possibly make in a relationship. And yeah, when you were talking about 2014, I was thinking about 18 years ago I didn't know what I was doing in an intimate relationship compared to what I do now.

Speaker 2:

And going back to your locus of control, I never felt in control of success in my relationships. I always felt in control of success in my academics and in my career. I still do. I still feel very in control of that. Like, obviously things happen and economy, all that. It's out of my control, but whether or not you and I succeed at this.

Speaker 2:

I used to sound so arrogant, Like we're gonna have a really successful podcast, and people be like how do you know that? Well, someone asked you. I just I know that we won't quit. I know we'll get better. I know we'll add value. I used to say this to Kevin maybe this will end, but I used to say this all the time you can't add that much value to that many people for that long without eventually winning. That's not like a thing. The company that adds the most value ultimately wins. And it's harder than I thought, for sure, but I'm just very confident in that. But I never felt confident in relationships. I didn't feel like I had control of it. You know, I didn't know what I was doing.

Speaker 1:

We've had that conversation before, where you'll be like how do you know if that friendship is going to last and I always say it'll last, that I want it to Exactly.

Speaker 2:

That sounds arrogant to me. Yeah, it is to. I didn't call it arrogant because it actually just sounds confident. To be honest, it feels arrogant to say it feels.

Speaker 1:

arrogant to say that.

Speaker 2:

You literally would say yeah, if I want it, to it will. I never felt that way.

Speaker 1:

I think it's just certainty, it's just. But here's the other thing too Not in intimate relationships. I know often you say, like you were good at intimate, I was not that good. I think I was ahead of the curve.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

In terms of.

Speaker 2:

You also. Let's statistically compare you to other American males.

Speaker 1:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

I would say you were ahead of the bell curve on that.

Speaker 1:

I think I was ahead of the curve where I was always. I won't say I was always. I always tried to be as respectful and as supportive and as emotionally intelligent as I could. I never wanted to be toxic.

Speaker 2:

Well, let's say this too you and I both were raised by women, so I think both of us were ahead of the curve more than we realized.

Speaker 1:

I would agree with that.

Speaker 2:

I've coached a lot of men at this stage, more women than men, but a lot of men and the shadow of their fathers is very apparent to me. At this stage it's very clear that they have something that I don't on the plus side, but there's a sneaky downside to that. That's been fascinating. That's a whole other conversation, for another time. But not having a father has definitely been a unconscious win long term that I had never expected. When it comes to vulnerability, emotional intelligence, I went on one podcast. This dude couldn't cry if I. I mean, there's just no way he could ever cry. He was so unable to be vulnerable to a drastic extent.

Speaker 1:

And I cried yesterday. I cried yesterday. I cried twice yesterday. Did you burn your nachos? No, I didn't burn my nachos.

Speaker 2:

Remember that podcast? I told you that is cry worthy, though let's be honest, that is definitely cry worthy.

Speaker 1:

There was a podcast. I went on months and months and months ago with this gentleman and in the middle of the interview he's like hey, I have to tell you something. And I was like, oh, he's like yeah, I broke one of my rules when you were coming on. I did it and I got nervous. I was like, oh my God, this guy hates me. What's going on? He said I did, I did a bunch of research. He said, honestly, I thought you were going to be this like super alpha bodybuilding guy and he's like you were one of the most. I don't remember what it was like warm and gentle, and it was like I was crying my eyes out. I listened to the replay yesterday because he shared it with me Nice, same thing. And I also had a moment and this was this was tough for me and I know we have to go. You have a call, but this was really tough for me.

Speaker 1:

I saw a dad playing with his kids and it hurt me and I haven't felt that in a long time. It hurt me. It was like number one. I was like I really hope he's a good dad. That was my initial thought. It's like oh, that's cool, like good for them. I really hope he's a good dad. But then there was that little piece of me that was like Ah F. I never got that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure Same, and I know, I'm sure you, I'm sure you get that the fishing thing, fishing with your dad like to me that's, that's the pinnacle of what would be awesome. Yeah, Something about fishing with your dad that I never got, that.

Speaker 1:

And I also know my stepdad didn't.

Speaker 2:

Really, I have this image of me in my head. We talked about this in therapy. We might therapist tonight, seven years old or something around then, and I'm sitting at the slider door and he's fishing by himself. And I had that. Why don't I remember being a kid? Why don't you want me to? I love fishing, I want to fish, I love to fish and I still do. I always have more than I even thought to. I miss it. You and I used to fish all the time.

Speaker 2:

No, all we do is business, but I didn't realize how much that affected me either. But on the other side of that, I know that I'm different than a lot of guys who do have dads. I just don't know if I fully get why, but there's definitely a, and a lot of the women in my life have said that, and most of the NLU team is incredible women and they've said that it's a different energy about you and I being on this team. It's like a different energy. I don't know what that means yet. So that's another same again, another conversation.

Speaker 2:

But I know that you and I I knew this intuitively. There's no way. Two things you and I would never be business partners if one you had any entitlement whatsoever and if you didn't grow up in adverse, challenging circumstances. So if you grew up with a silver spoon, I knew no way this would never work, especially the first few years when we made no money. The second thing is I knew that one of the reasons this works is that we both didn't have dads For sure, and I still think that's something that I'll contemplate, probably forever. But and I didn't get along with my stepdad you had hate for your dad for leaving and all that stuff, and there's definitely something, and we both I was raised by my older sister, my mom, kevin was raised by his mom and his mima and which is his grandma. There's something to that that shapes you differently than someone who does have maybe that male patriarchal figure.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, I guess talk about a freestyle Friday Didn't anticipate talking about that, but Last thing before we go, one of the most wisdom filled quotes I've ever heard in my life. Tyrone and I are watching a show called Jack Ryan. Great show, great show. They're in the jungle, they're somewhere. They were in Syria somewhere. They were in somewhere in the Middle East and one of the characters, who is a he's a very intelligent former Marine, like genius, was kind of judging the occupation of another gentleman who was kind of like into prostitution. And he was judging that. And the guy said well, who knows, in another world I might have ended up like you. You have to understand that geography is destiny. And I said that to Tyrone. I said isn't it weird how, if I was born in California, I wouldn't know you or I wouldn't know Alan, I wouldn't be doing probably any of the things I'm doing. And she's like well, you could have met Alan. I said, yeah, I could have, but I couldn't have gone to middle school with him like I did.

Speaker 1:

And I couldn't have gone to high school with him like I did. I couldn't have played spin the bottle in middle school with him and the popular girls there were girls there too, popular girls. I couldn't have done that and I said, babe, the only reason I know you is because when I lived in New Hampshire the first time and I was on whatever app I was on you were close enough for me to see you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. That's the deep conversations that we talked about in a couple of episodes ago, where those contemplative deep conversations of existential questions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, too much episode.

Speaker 2:

That's the stuff I love, I love that I'm also a fan of that. You gotta think about that again. I don't wanna project that on anyone, but I think about that stuff all the time. I spent 30 years looking for Emilia and she happened to be 30 minutes north. I know it doesn't make any sense but it also makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1:

So that's the value, but it depends on what you believe. Yeah, either it makes all the sense in the world or it makes no sense.

Speaker 2:

and it's a wild coincidence, Boris Gump are we just the feather in the wind or is it destined? Is it all random chance or are we destined? He said I think it's both. I think maybe it's both. I get the chills when I talk about that because I feel like is it your intuition or is it destiny or is it random chance? What if it's all true simultaneously? And that's definitely a whole nother conversation. What a strange episode. I liked it. What did you think of it? Strong to semi-strong, I enjoyed this very much Same.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's good, it's good to get out of the again. It's still self-improvement, still trying to add value and wisdom. But it's different. We don't have to stick on more.

Speaker 2:

Did you improve thyself in thou ways To met?

Speaker 1:

no scale.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I know thyself. I know thyself.

Speaker 1:

All right, we gotta go. You're already two minutes late for your meeting oh no Next level nation.

Speaker 1:

If you have not gotten your tickets yet for next level live 2024, please do so. It's March 23rd. It's in-person as well as virtual. The in-person venue is beautiful. I'm actually going I don't know when over the next couple of weeks I'll get some content, so I'll share that next level nation. But if you're a local to Massachusetts, we'd love to see you. It's an awesome opportunity to meet other people and if you wanna talk about getting a little kick in the butt, getting outside of your comfort zone, an event like this is a great way to do it. Also, the virtual side of things you'll have an opportunity to meet other people. There'll be breakout sessions, so Link will be in the show notes. We would absolutely love to have you Tomorrow for episode number 1000, 629.

Speaker 1:

Did we already do this? Could you be overwhelmed because you're not doing enough? I had a moment today, alan, where I was like the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go to the gym, cause I'm just like exhausted and I'm tired, and when I got back from the gym I was like that actually probably created less overwhelm than anything else I could possibly do. So sometimes less isn't better. So I wanna do an episode on that. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Keep contemplating Next level nation.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the next level family.

Speaker 2:

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get ahold of us is in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

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