#1650 - 1 Important Thing To Understand About FOCUS…

Navigating life’s relentless rush of opportunities and relationships can feel like an overwhelming dance that often leads us astray from our proper focus. In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros reveal an anecdote nearly derailed by the dazzling distractions of success, illustrating the delicate balance between seizing chances and sustaining the drive that got us there. Within this discussion, they strip back the layers of that struggle and offer an intimate look at how purpose evolves and strengthens through the continuous journey of personal growth.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Group Coaching - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
Discount Code: NLULISTENER
Blog Article: #6 - How to Streamline Your Dreams - https://bit.ly/496loKv
Next Level Dreamliner - https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA

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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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Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
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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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Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

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Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

LinkedIn ✍
Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/

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Show notes:
(2:05) The exciting thing about focus
(4:17) Focus, momentum, and opportunities
(7:37) Mission and purpose: Focus fuels success
(11:22) The impact of creation on the self
(13:37) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/f1

🎙️ 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.

Transcript

Kevin 0:00

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 1649, freestyle Friday the Growth Journey. We talked about many things, but mostly the growth journey, so that's what we appropriately named it Today. Episode number 1651, important thing to understand about focus. There are many books, probably many quotes, many mentors that say saying no to misaligned things is just as, if not more important than, saying yes to aligned things. And the interesting thing about focus is when you focus on something for long enough and you really dedicate yourself and you put in the work and you do all the necessary things, you start to get results. Unfortunately, oftentimes those results create opportunities for you to lose focus on what you were doing in the first place to ultimately get those results. So that is what we're going to talk about today.

Alan 1:09

So I have a client who I've been working with for several years now super on point, always tracks habits, very dialed in, particularly lately. Wow, you know who you are. You are just crushing strong work. You will know who you are when I tell you this Anonymously, and I honestly think this person wouldn't mind me sharing who they are. But just in case, I'm not going to so this person would fall for a trap that many of us have fallen for. I think all of us have in some ways, maybe in different circumstances, and I'll explain.

Kevin 1:39

Just Alan, fyi, if you, I'm going to be taking off my sweatshirt. I know sometimes that distracts you because I'm all over the place, but I just want to give you a heads up.

Alan 1:46

Oh, thank you, brother. Oh good, okay, if you interrupt me again, though you know I'm good.

Kevin 1:52

No, you can't say it. At least you can do it. It wrecks the joke If you say I'm not kidding at the end.

Alan 1:58

I disagree. I still think it's funny. No, maybe not as funny. All right, I'm going to take off. All right, take off your sweatshirt or take off in general.

Alan 2:08

Okay, so this client deals with this thing where they get super, super focused. They're doing their peak performance tracking, they're tracking their habits, they're rocking and rolling. At this point, right now, this person has five jobs. They work at two clinics physical therapist, they are doing physical therapy at home with certain clients. They are also working in a gym and doing physical therapy in the gym, and then they also have a YouTube channel and they have a membership program to help people with pain-free bodybuilding.

Alan 2:42

Okay, crush and crush and crush and rock and roll. This person has dialed in to an extent that I've never seen them dialed in before, and I said this to them earlier today in WhatsApp. I said you are on fire, keep it up. You're on fire.

Alan 2:56

Now, the thing that this person has fallen victim to or been trapped by in the past is something that I think we all kind of have. You get focused, you get momentum and you rock and roll and you're focused on the fundamentals, focused on the fundamentals. You're dialed in, you're doing it, you got your calendar going, you're tracking your habits, you're on point. You're on point where you were just rocking and rolling and all of a sudden you start getting new opportunities. I call this shiny object syndrome. Maybe everyone can feel your momentum All of a sudden you're getting new opportunities, new opportunities, new opportunities.

Alan 3:30

So unfortunately and this is the cycle focus creates momentum, momentum creates opportunities and opportunity. Opportunities, if you're not careful, destroy your focus and then you start to fall. And so in this person's case, what's happened is they're starting to rock and roll, they're starting to get fulfilled, they're starting to be on point, they're achieving their goals and they'll be attractive to a potential partner. And then what will happen is they'll have a partner, a potential partner, come into their life and they'll lose focus. And so I said to him earlier today actually I said, whatever you do, just I can tell you're in it, you're feeling good about this potential partner, like things are good.

Alan 4:14

But whatever you do, don't lose focus, because, remember, it's the focus that created the momentum and it's the momentum that attracted her in the first place. So I'm not saying not to focus on making a better relationship. You always have to do that, but not at the detriment of your goals, and I think a lot of us have fallen for that I certainly have in the past when if you focus on your goals, you'll get momentum. If you focus on these other things, you might lose your momentum and you might actually lose the relationship as well.

Kevin 4:46

We've talked about it many times where, if you're motivated by something, what happens when you get that something?

Kevin 4:52

So, if the reason, you're, imagine you go, you get a new job or you get a promotion, you're in the gym, you're crushing it, you're starting to see changes, you're tracking your finances, you're learning all the time because you're trying to attract your dream partner and eventually you get to the place where you find this person and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but if it works, you still have the focus to continue that stuff, because we've seen that we know people personally that really, really struggled with that.

Kevin 5:25

I was listening to a book that you have on your shelf not the one right behind you but off to your right and it's called Beyond Entrepreneurship, and in that book he was talking, or one of the authors was talking about the difference between a mission and a purpose. I believe was the phrase that they used. And the mission is the mountains that you climb. The purpose is the star that you never get to, and the mountains that you climb are a result of the mission Sorry, of the purpose, because the purpose is so far away that you climb over this mountain that you never would have climbed over and then there's another mountain behind that when you climb over that one. I think that's a really good way to think about something like this, where maybe one of the missions is to get an amazing partner, but the purpose is probably what created the opportunity for you to get that partner in the first place.

Alan 6:25

Well, I want to use you as an example, because I think you're a perfect example of this.

Kevin 6:29

I thank you. I do appreciate the perfection and I do think that I haven't been getting the credibility or credit I deserve, so I do appreciate that very much. Now is your moment. Thank you so much. Now is your time. It's your time.

Alan 6:40

Thank you when I first met Kev. It's going to go negative quickly, here we go.

Alan 6:47

He's very lonely. He had been left by said partners, which many of you have heard that story and for the new listeners, I'm sure you'll hear it again soon Definitely no, I'm kidding. There it is again, I'm kidding, anyways. So very lonely and definitely wanted to attract your dream partner for sure. Okay, and you and I were both pretty lonely at the beginning of this journey. All right, both wanted to attract our dream partners.

Alan 7:13

The mission when we started the hyper-conscious podcast changed the way you think, changed the way you act, changed the way you live. Shout out to the OG hyper-conscious podcast. We was to bring self-improvement to the masses, bring self-improvement into the lives of other people's lives and to improve ourselves. We used to say character over everything. We used to focus on self-improvement, self-improvement, self-improvement and eventually that evolved into NLU. On that mission, aka that climbing of that mountain, you met Taren and you had already known Taren prior, but you kind of screwed that up for lack of better phrasing. You can tell that story if you want to. I'll go quick with it. Kevin and I were in a car. He said does it sound? He told me all about Taren and he really lit up when he was talking about it. He says does it sound like I screwed that up?

Alan 7:56

I closed that door too quickly and I said, yeah, yeah, it kind of does honestly Sounds like you kind of screwed that up. You said you f that up is what you said, yeah, exactly. And then years later you said you reconnected with Taren and fortunately she was still available, because you really could have screwed that up.

Kevin 8:12

She wasn't. When I first started creeping on her, she was in a relationship.

Alan 8:18

And then, that ended, and then you reached out. Then I reached out. Okay, so I think in some ways Kev wasn't maybe ready when they first met, and then he grew toward the mission.

Kevin 8:28

I didn't have the mission yet. I didn't have the mission or I didn't have the purpose when we first met. Well, there you go, that was it. I didn't. My goal was not to be the best man I could possibly be At the time, I just wanted I want to be a bodybuilder, I wanted to be in really good shape and I wanted to make money. I didn't have a mission or a purpose at that point, or I didn't have a purpose.

Alan 8:50

Just to be super direct I, Kevin, is a byproduct of the mission 100%.

Alan 8:57

This version of you. You know, learning every day, self-improvement every day, business acumen, emotional intelligence all the things we talk about on the podcast. This isn't just for the listeners, but we're leading by example in this too. And so, emilia and I, and Taryn and you, that relationship in many ways is a byproduct of who we are, and who we are is a byproduct of the mountain work line, definitely, and the purpose, the reason why we're climbing it and that's really what you're trying to say there, I think which is, whatever goals you're after, who you become to achieve those goals.

Alan 9:43

I remember Anthony Trucks, one of our friends that we interviewed in the early, hyper conscious days. He had this quote on one of his speeches we went to a Brenda Burchard event and he we interviewed him the night before and then the next day he crushed his speech. They got the only standing ovation out of all I think there was like nine speakers crushed it and in his presentation he said what you create creates you. I think that's one of the most powerful things I've ever learned what you create creates you.

Alan 10:09

This podcast that we've created also is creating who we become. That presentation we created for next level live made us better, gave us deeper distinctions helped us become better speakers, better men, better partners, right, okay. So if what you create creates you and what you're creating is based on your goals, well, you want to keep focused on your goals, keep creating, and then the relationships that come in your life, the opportunities that come in your life, need to be a byproduct of that. And if you lose focus, aka if you stop climbing, you might lose the very thing that attracted your dream partner in the first place, and I've seen that happen a lot of times I really have, you get disconnected from the power.

Kevin 10:55

It's almost like you're connected to something. Let's just say you're connected to the battery and the battery lets you operate and you move and you do this and you do this and then you, because of that connection and all the momentum you have and who you've become, you find something or someone and then you disconnect from the battery and then you go all in on that something or someone and you don't have that pole anymore and that that's the. That's the hard thing to explain when it comes to and I don't want this to sound airy and I don't mean it in that way but the only reason we're sixteen hundred and fifty episodes in is because of the, the purpose. We're not doing this to get to seventeen hundred or eighty, I would at some point we're just going to lose count. It's going to be I mean, right now, I don't. If you asked me, I would say like sixteen, fifty. Probably I wouldn't. I never know the exact number.

Alan 11:46

It actually is, I know I know right now it's.

Kevin 11:48

it's very coincidental, but that's a byproduct of the the ultimate purpose I don't. I always tell people I don't expect you to do things the way we do them unless you have the same purpose as we do, which you probably don't. You have a different purpose. Yeah, you can't. I can never tell someone I can get them the same results we've had unless they have the same purpose we have. And they don't, because nobody has the same exact purpose.

Alan 12:41

Well, think about it this way too the conscious couples podcast. The purpose of that podcast is to help people flourish in their intimate relationships. All we talk about is intimate relationships. Yeah, so that podcast. The purpose of it is to help people in their intimate relationships and for Emilia and I to flourish in our own relationship, because everything we talk about we have to learn and master ourselves, to lead by example, or at least be honest that we haven't mastered it, and then eventually master it, because we're talking about it, what you talk about, you, you. It's like I remember back in my fitness modeling, fitness competitor fitness coaching days and I saw a video of us recently, kev.

Kevin 13:22

It hurt.

Alan 13:23

Remember the the video at Top Notch Live that Emilia took of the shirts that we opened, that Taren and Emilia got for us the hyper conscious shirts.

Kevin 13:30

I did not know. There was a video of that.

Alan 13:32

Yeah, there's a video of that, that moment.

Kevin 13:34

Can you send that over?

Alan 13:35

Yes, definitely, please Dude, we were in shape.

Kevin 13:39

Yeah, yeah, definitely much better shape.

Alan 13:42

Whoa. Now, when I saw that video because we've been in the event fields, we're coming up on an event and we went back to Top Notch Live and your world within live and next level, live 2022, next level, live 2023 and now it's next level, live 2024 and who was there and who can we invite and all stuff so that video came up. Oh, my God, I was in better shape. Whoa man and Emilia is like. I didn't want to send it to you because I knew you were going to see. It's like oh my God.

Alan 14:11

but here's why my whole world was fitness, fitness coach, fitness competitor, fitness model. My career was fitness. Everything's evolved since then. I'm much more emotionally mature.

Alan 14:25

now I'm we're we're more holistic than we ever were back here, focused on way more things, exactly 100%, and I think and we've also talked about this recently too At next level university we've lost a little bit of focus because we have a lot of departments and we're trying to win at too many things simultaneously. So after this we're going to pivot and refocus on some stuff, but this is something that we're all guilty of. At times We've all been on point and then we've gotten success, and then what do we do? We lose focus and then inevitably, we start that downward cycle of oh crap, what happened? I lost focus on fitness.

Kevin 15:01

Well, that's why what happens? I love when, when I'm talking to someone, when you ask how long have you been doing this? And they give you an answer Well, how long have you been, like, super focused on it? Because there's a difference between doing something and focusing on something. Yeah, doing something is just checking the box. Potentially focusing on it is just observing it, and I don't want to say obsessing over it, but putting a real time, energy, effort and intention in and saying, well, how did that go? Yeah, it's just different. It's different. If you're focused on your fitness, you're trying to improve it in so many ways. You're probably trying to go to the gym more often, or whatever your form of exercise is. You're probably carrying around a bigger water bottle than you ever have, you're probably packing your lunch, or maybe you have some sort of delivery service to use. Whatever it is. Versus yeah, I mean, I go to the gym every once in a while.

Kevin 16:00

You're just not as focused, or I'd really like to save more money and be in a better financial position, or I am super focused on it, where I track my finances and I know I don't need Hulu and Apple TV and Macs and this. It's just more focused. The more focused you are, the better results you're ultimately gonna get. But then you have to refocus on the thing that brought you the results, and that's really challenging. It makes sense why you wanna get off the train, but the train is what created all the results in the first place and if you wanna keep getting results, you gotta stay on the train. That's the hard part. You can bring the amazing things that you pick up on the way. They can get on the train and come with you. But if you disconnect, if that train goes off the tracks, you lose all of the momentum you have and who knows what's gonna happen.

Kevin 16:57

It's sad to see someone who is just crushing it, but you know, like I've had friends in my past who really struggled with this and it sucks. It sucks to see Cause it's really hard to help. It's really really hard to help someone with this, but when they had a love interest in their life, they would be crushing it, crushing it, and maybe that person would either be in a relationship or they'd get in a relationship, or they'd say you know, this relationship that you're looking for with me just isn't what I wanna do. You could see it, leave them, and it was-.

Alan 17:31

They're like disconnecting from the power source. Yeah.

Kevin 17:34

It's almost like, oh, that's not gonna happen, and then they gotta find, unfortunately, another partner or another potential partner or something that really cause. That's the thing is. The mission is not to be the best version of you, understanding that the best version of you will attract the best version of everything else you want. It's more. I wanna improve myself to the place where I can get a partner and those are just two very, very different ones. And then, when you get a partner, there goes the power.

Kevin 18:04

Yeah, you're not in control. You need to be bigger.

Alan 18:06

You're not in control, one of the biggest challenges we have, but also the biggest strengths, the biggest benefits, the biggest fulfilling things about this, this podcast, this mission, this business. It's so much bigger than you, it's so much bigger than me. It's bigger than every team member, and we say that on the team. It's like this is not. This is bigger than Brandon, this is bigger than Amy, this is bigger than Kevin, this is bigger than me. It never ends. It's an infinite game and the byproducts are impact, profitability, community, a great team, a great company, a great brand. So everything's a byproduct of the ultimate goal, which is the collective betterment toward a bigger, better, brighter future. And it's such an unsung hero it's hard to see that.

Kevin 18:58

It's very hard and it's very hard to replicate.

Alan 19:02

Like why would you do 6,650 episodes just to like do episodes? You wouldn't. You'd have to have something to some North Star, that's always there.

Kevin 19:13

You can't, yeah, it can't be about achieving something, because the second you achieve it you lose that motivation. Like, what do you do when you get to the end of a video game? That's it. You can't play it anymore, you just can't. You can't play it because it's done. You got to the end of the mission and that's it. There is no purpose in it. The purpose is to get to the end of the game. Kind of the purpose, kind of is the mission for that. So that's a unique example. Next level nugget for this it would probably be. There are a lot of things that are going to get you further to a next level, to a more I don't want to say ideal version of yourself.

Kevin 20:04

Let's just say, to a next level. There are a lot of things out there that can do that. You want a new car, you want a new place to live, you want a new partner? Awesome, those are all missions. Those are all missions and they're all achievable.

Kevin 20:17

If you don't have a purpose that's greater than all of those, it's going to be very hard to continue that when you get those things. If your purpose is to have an amazing relationship and one of the things that you value is quality time, be very careful not to just say, okay, well, I got what I want. I'm going to put all my quality time into this relationship and forget about what got me this in the first place. That it's that unique juggling act of the purpose allows you to do the things that you love. But if you only go do the things that you love, the purpose doesn't really exist anymore, unless you work it all together where the purpose is that. That's a deeper conversation. That's not. Maybe that's a thing I don't know.

Kevin 21:09

The more results we get, the more I have to focus on making sure that I'm going to the gym and I'm making sure that. I said this recently. I said I just We've been spread so thin and we've been grinding so hard. I just want to have Friday nights where I can go out to dinner with Tara. Every Friday we go out to dinner. That's our thing, that's our routine, that's what I want. That's a mission. That's a mission. The purpose is the thing that's going to allow that. But I also have to make sure that I stay in alignment with the purpose through the missions, if that makes sense. Hard to explain.

Alan 21:46

Well, I think the label's mission and purpose might be Fair Confusing.

Kevin 21:51

Fair.

Alan 21:52

Yeah, I would say my next one I'm not going to be as simple as humanly possible, which is the purpose is why you're doing what you're doing. What is the greater future that you're working toward? Collective future I have it written on my desktop background to build the most positively impactful holistic self-improvement company in history. Why? Because Kevin and I, growing up, didn't grow up around a lot of self-improvement and we know that self-improvement saved our lives in many ways, and so we want to provide that accessible for free, every day, in your pocket, from anywhere on the planet, completely free Self-improvement, holistic self-improvement. That's why we do what we do Now. The last piece of the next level nugget is goals. The goals are in alignment with that purpose, and then, when you achieve those goals, you up the ante and set another goal, and so at the end of Q2, we're going to do this with the whole team we're going to set Q2 goals. Q2, we call milestones that lead to goals.

Kevin 23:03

At the end of Q1. At the end of Q1. At the end of Q1. Yeah, sorry, no.

Alan 23:08

At the end of Q1, beginning of Q2, we're going to reset new milestones toward the collective goals at the end of the year, and so I know this has been a little bit confusing. If anyone wants help with the goal setting thing, I have a blog specifically.

Alan 23:20

It's called Streamline your Dreams and it's what the Dreamliner is built on, and I'm going to put the link to that blog in the show notes and it's how do you take your ultimate dreams which is your purpose and break it down into annual goals, break it down into quarterly milestones and then break it down into daily inch pebbles, which is your habits.

Kevin 23:42

Beautiful, wonderful, I said, and thank you for the clarification. I heard it in the book and I was like let me do this, but I could have probably played it out before doing it here. So I appreciate the simplification of it.

Alan 23:54

Of course, brother, it got to a good place.

Kevin 24:00

The food was edible. The food was edible.

Alan 24:02

It was edible.

Kevin 24:05

We definitely did eat it. We brought it to a good place.

Alan 24:07

We brought it to a good place.

Kevin 24:08

That's all that matters. If you have not yet joined Next Level Nation, please do so. A group of like-minded individuals. We all want more positive people in our lives. I know that. I know that to be true. We all do. It's some way shape or form. I said this to Alan the other day. I said I have a podcast client who we don't even talk about podcasting and he said well, they value the fact that they can have deep conversations with you. And I said, yes, it's awesome. So if you're looking for that, next Level Nation is a wonderful place. We'll have the link in the show.

Alan 24:37

We hope you join us. Next Level Nation is a safe community. No bullies allowed. Uniqueness is celebrated. Also, we have group coaching, so group 14. Shout out and congratulations to group 13. Team Breakthrough you all crushed it. Amy, shout out to you for being the assistant coach and leading that group to victory. For lack of a better phrasing, group 14 is starting on April 9th Tuesday, april 9th, at 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. The link will be in the show notes. If you want to join group coaching, email me right now, alan at nextleveluniversecom. You can check out the link in the landing page. You can lock your spot right now. Just make sure you use promo code NLUListner. It doesn't matter if it's capitalized or lowercase, it should work. And that comes to $97 per month for the three month program and we hope you join us.

Kevin 25:28

Tomorrow for episode number 1651, the two types of courage. Alan and I were talking about that today and we said that's a that would be a really good episode. So we're going to do that tomorrow. 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.

Alan 25:50

Stay aligned with your goals. Focus on your product motherfucker. Stop셛опimo March 2019.