Next Level University

#1656 - Freestyle Friday - Experience Is Everything...

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Coaching can feel like a mysterious adventure. As we transform into guides, it’s both daunting and exhilarating. This dance of personal evolution demands more than just knowledge—it’s about unwavering commitment. We learn from every experience, whether it’s a high or a low. In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros explored self-improvement and the path to true expertise. It’s not about local acclaim; it’s about daring to compete globally. Personal growth is an ongoing odyssey, each plateau a stepping stone to greater heights. This discussion is a treasure trove of knowledge, where persistence meets the willingness to experiment, and every step forward is a lesson learned.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Dreamliner - https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA

______________________

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

_______________________

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 Meet-up:  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/

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

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

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

_______________________

Show notes:
(2:47) Experience from insights and wisdom
(5:08) Accountability VS Knowledge in coaching and consistency
(10:09) You can’t relate
(14:05) At NLU, we want you to win! So, we’re giving tools and resources to ensure your success. Join our Monthly Meet-up every first Thursday of the month at 6 PM. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
(15:14) Unconscious competencies and reverse engineering
(18:09) Navigating the unknown

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 yesterday's episode, episode number 1,655, the four relationship killers and what to do about them. Today, for episode number 1,656, it is Freestyle Friday. Happy Friday if you are listening to this on the day, but it's Friday in next level land, because that's when Alan and I are recording this, and this is what I was thinking of, Alan. I was thinking of this today. Tell me, Kevin, I'm going to tell you Alan. I will tell you what's your middle name? Alan Higgins, right. Correct, I see I know things. What's your middle name? Alan Higgins, right.

Speaker 2

Correct.

Speaker 1

I see, I know things. What's my middle name?

Speaker 2

H-I-G-G-I-N-S. Hold on Edward.

Speaker 1

Nice.

Speaker 2

Nice Strong word my man Kevin.

Speaker 1

Edward, kevin Edward.

Speaker 2

Kevin Eddie. Kevin Eddie as my mom. What do people usually say?

Speaker 1

Palmieri Depends Somebody. Yesterday it was Kelvin. I got Kelvin again. It was Kelvin Palmieri yesterday on a podcast. If I ever was to have a child, I suppose I would have to name them that, because maybe they'd mess up and call him Kevin.

Speaker 1

Who knows, I was talking to somebody recently and I said it's really hard to account for experience. I was, so I told them. I said we had a lot of success with podcast coaching and that was super weird. It was weird to have like a department that grew a lot. And I said I just went through a phase where we had a lot of clients that put their podcast on pause or stopped completely or went in a different direction. And I said it's weird because I've never experienced that before. I never experienced the high. And then once I experienced the high, I was like, oh, that's what that's like Interesting. Then experienced, continued high and it was like, oh, that's awesome, cool.

Speaker 1

And then we had what is normal in business. You know, some people decided to do other things. Some people just said I need a pause it for right now I'm going to go in a different direction, whatever. And that was the first time I'd ever felt that it's really hard to explain something that you've experienced to someone who has never experienced it before. And that's why it's so important to try new things or try things for a long enough period of time, because it's almost like level one is.

Speaker 1

I'm excited about this thing and I'm going to start this thing and I'm going to see what happens. Level two is you start putting time, energy, effort and focus into it. Level three is maybe you get frustrated and nothing happens, but eventually you get results and then that process starts again for the next level of those results. So, if we're talking about exercise, I'm exercising different than I ever have in my life and it feels completely different. But it makes me think did I ever really know what I was doing to the level I know what I'm doing today? And the answer is no, because I didn't have the level of experience I have today. And imagine if you did, imagine if I did.

Speaker 1

Then you have the conundrum Well, you can learn insights and wisdom from external sources, but insights and wisdom don't really. I won't say they don't matter, they don't matter as much until you experience them.

Speaker 2

Yeah, they don't fully ingrain or land until you experience them.

Speaker 1

Yeah, somebody can tell you exactly what to do. You cannot learn how to swim from a YouTube video.

Speaker 2

What percentage of coaching do you think is accountability versus knowledge?

Speaker 1

It depends on the goal. I would say it depends on the goal and it depends on the goal. I would say it depends. It depends on the goal and it depends on the person. Some people just want accountability to keep going. Other people, I think, really want strategy and wisdom and experience the the clients I we did a episode recently on emily. Emily messaged me and sent me a three-minute audio asking me a bunch of questions. Today she wants wisdom and she wants wisdom. She doesn't need accountability, she wants wisdom, she wants lessons, she wants coaching, but other people it's more. Yeah, I just want to check in, make sure I'm not going off in any bad directions, and knowing that you're watching what I do helps. So I think it depends.

Speaker 2

I used to say this Anyone can get you to exercise. No, no, no. Anyone can teach you that exercise is important. Very few people can get you to do it. That's fair, and so I just wanted to jump in there with that, because a lot of the reason to coach or to have a community of people or to do group coaching or whatever it is, is just the accountability piece. A large part of it is If you're socially motivated.

Speaker 2

Most people are socially motivated. That's why, when they're on sports teams, they tend to flourish in fitness. Because you practice soccer all the time, no one wants to let the team down. You come to practice, you hang out with your soccer players after practice, and so anyone can Google how to lose weight, but not a lot of people can get into your mind, body, heart and soul and get you to actually do the execution consistently enough to to lose weight. To your point. It's easy to say track your calories, eat in a deficit, track your weight and make sure you exercise daily. Anyone can say that yeah, yeah, but doing it is a thousand times harder than saying it, if not a hundred thousand times well it's.

Speaker 1

I think it's just one of those things where I think some people are really good at being consistent. Just whatever it is that they're doing, they're really good at being consistent with it, and I think you and I are are good examples of that Not to toot our own horns, but to toot our own horns a little bit. You've gone to the gym every day? I definitely haven't, but I was always somebody who I was super consistent with exercise. I was super consistent with a lot of the things I did. I was very consistent in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1

Not always the best ways, not always in positive ways. I did a post about that. Momentum goes both ways. It goes uphill and downhill. Uphill of okay, we're getting closer to our goals, we're building momentum. Things might seem like they're getting a little bit easier. Every input gives me a little bit more than it used to. But it's also the opposite, where negative behaviors create momentum probably faster than positive ones unfortunately.

Speaker 2

Yeah, they gain momentum way faster.

Speaker 1

Because you're not fighting gravity, in a way.

Speaker 2

It's like swimming downstream versus swimming upstream.

Speaker 1

I don't know if I've ever swam, swam, swam, schwammy, schwammy. I don't know if I've ever schwammied downstream before you do a lot of river swimming in Uxbridge Massachusetts.

Speaker 2

No, but I have. I have a story. Yeah, go on, I was camping back in college, yeah, and it was the first time I learned about ebbs and flows in rivers. The rivers have ebbs and flows. We were drinking and I was swimming up a storm, and I've grew up on a lake. I'm strong swimmer, I love swimming up, I love the water.

Speaker 2

don't like snapping turtles except for snapping turtles, except for snapping turtles. And I was swimming with a friend of mine, a college roommate of mine, and I was racing him as we would do with our drunk antics, and I said ebbs and flows, call me flow rider, or something like that, while I was swimming, and it was. He laughed so hard that I won the race because I said it better than that. But saboteur, yeah, that's just a useless story that I wanted to share I don't swim very well because I sink like a rock.

Speaker 2

That's fair. I swam with you once at 3 am. I almost died.

Speaker 1

There was weeds. Yeah, there was weeds in there. They got me I was scared.

Speaker 2

I had a moment of panic. I had no idea that you were scared.

Speaker 1

Well, that's good, yeah, if I was going to go down, I was going to go down without anybody knowing it. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's smart. I was going to say that was ego.

Speaker 1

That was ego. Now I would say hey, hasselhoff, I need you.

Speaker 2

I need you Throw me the ring or something.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's funny. It's so hard because you don't know how you're going to react to something that you've never experienced until you've experienced something similar to it. And then it almost becomes a card in the deck that you know, you understand. It's like oh, oh, yeah, we've been through this before. Yeah, yeah, no, I remember two years ago this happened and this is what we did to combat it, and now that doesn't happen anymore and it just becomes a list of experiences where you know when you get a result, hopefully you know the cause of it, and then you know what to do with the cause to change the results, and then eventually that doesn't happen anymore and then eventually you forget that it happened and then it happens again and it's just this cycle of rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat forever. But the only way to ever get to the place where you understand it is to go through it.

Speaker 1

Podcasts are so weird because anybody can start a podcast now and you can just hop on here and you could just recite quotes from somebody else. I want to say this because you and I you and I had a really good conversation about this, One of the reasons we stopped having guests, not because we didn't love guests. I thoroughly enjoyed having guests. I miss having guests. I might have guests on my other podcast Podcast, Growth U, at some point.

Speaker 2

You got to do it, man.

Speaker 1

I have the pull, I have the feeling.

Speaker 2

And the reason why, too, is because you won't have this same issue. Yes, yeah so what is thy issue?

Speaker 1

Thy issue is when you have somebody on your podcast let's say you have an hour spot so you want to interview somebody for an hour you run out of their area of expertise pretty quickly, especially if you're holistic and you want to.

Speaker 2

Yeah, there's only so much trying to learn health, wealth and love from the same person every time. Yeah, that was not smart in hindsight, yeah that's not everybody's, that's not everybody's jam.

Speaker 1

So here's the thing. I'm not saying the guests were wrong for that. I think we got ahead of it and we stopped having guests when we realized I think we're entering kind of a dangerous territory here. Expertise and then that person might unconsciously start talking about other things that they don't really know that much about. But since they know so much about the first point, you take everything that they say like facts and I also have the credibility of the pedestal.

Speaker 2

A hundred percent, a hundred percent and it can be.

Speaker 1

And what you and I said is I don't want to have the responsibility to have to know everything that they're going to talk about and make sure it's all sound, and a lot of what they're saying I might not know the answer to. So I can't just assume they know heavy fear of mine that somebody was going to get on here and give terrible advice based on their experience or lack thereof and being on other podcasts. I understand why that happens, because when you get to the end of an hour and a half interview and we've already talked about so many self-improvement things and might ask me a question at this point, I say that's just not something I speak on because I haven't studied it enough to intelligently speak on it. I can't add value to that. I don't. It's not something in my, in my focus.

Speaker 1

But I understand in the beginning I probably didn't say that I probably just made something up. Honestly, if somebody asked me about money, I might. I might just make something up, I don. If somebody asked me about money, I might just make something up. I don't think I really ever did because my fear was always not knowing. So I tended to just try to be honest and just say, like, that's just not my area of expertise. I've said that a lot, but I also I understand why people might not say that.

Speaker 2

One other thing that makes this even bigger of a challenge is that a lot of people who? And when I go on other shows, you get asked these questions. I have a leadership show tomorrow. It's different than it used to be, because now I'm leading every day. Yeah, I used to know leadership principles, even when we had a smaller team, even when I was just leading myself, and maybe you and vice versa.

Speaker 2

So here's the problem a lot of people that you interview, you ask them questions and they don't actually know how they did it. That's fair, that happens all the time because they stumbled upon it. So, hey, how did you so? You built this unbelievable, this book that took off like, how did you do that? Oh well, I made sure I got the right publisher, I I made sure that the marketing was right, the title was right. Some people actually don't know. Well, you just got to put yourself out there, give 110, it's, it's. Oh, you really don't really know. And and a lot of times people were just following their intuition some people just got flat out lucky. That's absolute certainty. They just got flat out lucky. Other people have unconscious competencies, aka skills, charisma, personality that is unconscious, that they just it's like a freak athlete that just wins at everything but doesn't really know. Aka skills, charisma, personality that is unconscious, that they just it's like a freak athlete that just wins at everything but doesn't really know how they're doing it.

Speaker 2

Well, how did you do that? Well, I've been dunking the basketball since I was 12, and I just kind of do this, I just dunk it. You know why can't you do that, versus? Hey, I used to not be able to dunk because I was this tallanky six foot two guy who used to see these other people, these monsters, dunk on the court and it bothered me. So I, I actually worked on my, my vertical and, and so I started wearing a weighted bag and I, I started going to the gym, I started doing calves and squats, and heavy squats really is what did it and then I could dunk. I actually know how to do it, because I didn't just do it no-transcript with my clients.

Speaker 2

I'm reverse engineering finish lines all the time, and Emilia mentioned this at Next Level Live. If you were there, you'll know what I'm referring to the tail end. So it was three thirds. Each was an hour and the last part of the last third was reverse engineering a finish line. So take your big dreams, break them down into 2024 goals. Take those goals, break them down into 2024 goals. Take those goals, break them down into quarterly goal uh, quarterly milestones and then break those milestones into inch pebbles for me. That was not anything I ever learned. No one ever taught me how to do that, I've just always been able to. Earlier, I was on a coaching session with a client and I was showing him, you know, that video with all the dominoes that we used to use all the time. Okay, so he started a YouTube channel. Shout out to him Awesome, he's 11 videos in already has almost 100 subscribers. Just crushing it. Shout out to him.

Speaker 2

Strong work, yeah, strong work, and some of his videos have 8,000 views. It's awesome. Showed him the domino video and it's just this video and I, right on zoom, I draw a graph because the dominoes that are knocking over look like an exponential growth curve. And I I was talking to him and I was showing him okay, because I said, are you playing the long game? He said yeah. I said okay, he said yeah, but I want to accelerate it, like isn't there a way to do it quicker than that? Because I was like okay, 10 years, you're going to be this domino right. And he's sitting there going I want to be quicker than that. Okay, of course you do, but anyways. So I said yeah, but the difference between this curve and this curve is the area under the curve.

Speaker 2

And I said I stopped myself right in the middle of all this. I said, brother, did you take calculus? And he was like no. And I was like, oh my, I was just going to calculus all over this guy. I don't know what it's like at all to live in a world where I don't understand calculus. You don't know at all what it's like to not be able to tell when someone's emotionally off. You just you don't. Okay, being funny.

Speaker 1

You just have been doing it since you were what?

Speaker 2

eight't. I don't even remember when I was eight. So if I were to interview you on hey kev, how do you, how do you be funny? You always say the same shit and sorry but you're frustrated.

Speaker 1

It's just a little deep, deep seated frustration under there we did the last episode on contempt.

Speaker 2

That's what that is, but you always say the same thing, which is it's all about timing, man. Thank you for no good information.

Speaker 1

No, I could give you a lesson, it's just, it's sometimes, it's just not worth it. Just like you could give a lesson on calculus. It depends on it's like you don't. You don't care, you're not going to do what I say, it's not worth your time I I would ask if I really wanted to know. So that's fair, I would have dug if I really wanted to which apparently I do actually want to know unconsciously.

Speaker 2

No, I was being playful with that. That's why I was purposely like that yeah yeah, because you do. You say the same thing every time. Oh, it's all timing, it's just about timing?

Speaker 1

Well, I think it's one. Knowing the audience is another Momentum. Is he finding and again, I'm not a stand-up comedian, so please do not take this as like facts. This is what works for me. I make people laugh occasionally.

Speaker 2

Is there anyone you know who makes people laugh more than you?

Speaker 1

Ah, that's a tough question. No, no, I would say no Same. I'm more of the like on the team. I'm definitely the comedian. I'm the comedian of the team, for sure.

Speaker 2

Hard for you to own that. You don't want to sound cocky, is that fair?

Speaker 1

It's that, but I also know it's one of those things where it's like I'm also on the team, I'm the martial artist, but in the grand scheme of martial artists I'm nothing right. It's that. It's the duality of yeah, I might be funny, but I'm not a stand-up comedian and I know.

Speaker 2

That's why it's so hard to know what you don't know and to know what you do know definitely but the only, the only way to uh, go ahead, you can finish, talk more about the fact that you're humble about your comedy. Okay, when you and I were super into fitness, we were in really, really really good shape, especially looking back now. Yeah, okay, but back then we didn't think that I didn't we didn't. We didn't have anything else to compare it to except for the people way ahead of us or the past past you fair.

Speaker 2

But when you get really deep into any expertise, the more I've studied communication, the more I realize I suck at communication. It's this weird duality where I thought I was a strong communicator. If you talked to me nine years ago, I was, statistically speaking, on the higher end, but now I don't think I'm that strong of a communicator. It's this weird thing because I'm comparing to Steve Jobs, I'm comparing to Barack Obama, I'm comparing to the greatest that ever lived and I know how many nuances there are. Now, just like you with martial arts, in the beginning of a journey you think you're pretty good because in the small pond you are, but when you compare to the best in the world, you would get destroyed. And this is this weird thing, because beginners think they know stuff.

Speaker 1

See, I see, I never did oh, a lot of people fall for that yeah, I never, when I started martial arts I knew I was gonna get smashed it's. It's because it's almost like when it comes to right now for me, and this is why I'm very I'm not hesitant to speak on certain things, but I try to. I try to just be honest. When it comes to rapping, when it comes to martial arts and when it comes to comedy in my circle, I might be good, but my circle does not have any comedians, it doesn't have any martial artists and it doesn't have any rappers in it. So of course I'm going to be on the higher end, but when I go into those rooms I have to understand that, kev, just because you're good where you come from does not mean you're good where you're going. Those are two drastically different understandings. That's a fire quote.

Speaker 2

Put it in the book. That's a real good quote. Just because you're good where you come from doesn't mean you're good where you're going 100% 100%.

Speaker 1

That's always the duality of yeah, and you know what. You only know what it's like for me to be funny around you. I might not be as funny when I'm not around you. To other people it depends. I know you so well, but I understand why it can be really challenging for people. Because imagine if you said, kev, you should be a comedian, screw this podcast thing, say we were in the beginning, you should really be a comedian. It's like, yeah, maybe to you I'm funny, but maybe you're weird as hell, I don't know. Maybe you just think I'm funny and nobody else does. But that's again that ties in nicely and this will be my next level nugget. That's why you have to try, because when you try, you get lessons that you can't learn through imagination. There are certain things you can imagine, but you can't imagine the result of that. That's the hard part. You can imagine what it's like to go do something, but you can't imagine the feelings after you do it, until you do it Not accurately, not completely accurately. That would be my next level nugget.

Speaker 2

I was on with a team member earlier.

Speaker 1

Just FYI time. You have like a couple minutes before you have to bounce.

Speaker 2

Good call.

Speaker 1

That's why I wrapped up. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

The first part of it was I don't know if it'll be worth it, and I won't provide any context because I just want to. What's the?

Speaker 1

context it's too much context.

Speaker 2

She just stopped her long career and she's starting a new one. She doesn't know what's going to be worth it. She doesn't know what's going to pan out at this stage. Okay, fair, that's enough context. Okay, the first step was will it be worth it? Question mark. Then that brings you to what Uncertainty.

Speaker 1

I have no idea.

Speaker 2

And that brings you to what? Well, I'm not sure if I should really try then, which then brings you to what I don't know if it'll be worth it, which then brings you to more uncertainty, which then brings you to I'm not sure I should try, which then brings you to will it be worth it? You never find out if it's worth it because you never try. And here's what happens kev, someone tries and they don't get good results in the beginning, because no one does, not. Everybody starts a youtube channel two weeks ago and has 100 subscribers and a video that has 8,000 views. Of course you're going to keep going to my client Shout out to you. Of course you're going to keep going because you're winning. Well, that's a 1% result.

Speaker 1

I know that's the thing is like no one knows that I know, but it's almost like strong congrats to that client. This is not a normal outcome, just so you know.

Speaker 2

And by the way, it might not continue getting up.

Speaker 1

You went to the casino and you won five times in a row. That doesn't happen to most people.

Speaker 2

But the person who won five times in a row comes home and tells everybody I know I know, everybody tells everybody, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

And then everyone has that weird expectation and then they go and get stopped and then they never try again. And so that's my next level. Nugget is if the goal is to learn, you're going to stay consistent. Follow your curiosity, Learn, Grow. If the goal is to grow, you'll keep doing it. If the goal is to get a specific outcome, you're in trouble when you don't get it. And if you don't believe in yourself, you really need to focus on facing the fear more than getting the result.

Speaker 1

Strong work Next level nation. As of the dropping of this episode, we are nearing the end of Wait. Is we already? Is it Q2?

Speaker 2

I have no idea. I think it's the 28th or something like that. Yeah it's the 28th, so Q2 is in A couple days, three days.

Speaker 1

If you haven't got your next level dreamliner for Q2, and you're doing it, if that's how you're doing it, you're doing it in those 90-day segments. It is time. Grab it on Amazon. We'll have the link in the show notes. The paperback version ships. What? Two days, yeah, two days Inside joke. The hard copy takes. Hardcover takes longer Two weeks, unfortunately. So get the paperback one.

Speaker 2

I have the hardcover.

Speaker 1

It is worth it, but yeah, If you're in a hurry, get the paperback one, so link will be in the show notes for that, and the tagline is achieve your dreams 90 days at a time.

Speaker 2

It is we got, as a matter of fact. Let me read this real quick. I know we got to jump Super fast, Super, super fast. I have a spreadsheet now that has.

Speaker 1

Just what we need more spreadsheets, More spreadsheets is the way.

Speaker 2

Huge fan, I'm a huge fan of spreadsheets. Okay, here we go, here we go, here we go. I've been using the Dreamliner for the last two days. It's been a big help, especially at night when I have those lingering thoughts. I write them down at the end of my day until my busy mind is empty. 10 out of 10. Nice.

Speaker 1

Nice.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that was a. I got permission to share that and that was someone's experience with the Dreamliner. The goal of the Dreamliner is let's not do 50 minutes a day, let's not do an hour and a half a day. Kevin's showing it on YouTube. Look at it. Move too. It's going to keep you on the rails. That's the point. It's going to keep you consistent and it's going to keep you on the rails so that you have the certainty that you need to keep on building on tomorrow for episode number 1650.

Speaker 1

Alan and I didn't discuss this, so maybe it'll change, but I don't think so. I think it'll be a good one. Sometimes you need to cross the line to find it. You've said that many times in the past. This was years and years ago. This was like hyper-conscious days, so I figured we could do an episode on that, based on something that I am growing through. As you know, we always try to share what we're growing through behind the scenes, so tomorrow we'll talk about 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. Keep trying.

Speaker 2

Next explanation.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host