#1663 - Freestyle Friday - What Is LOVE?

In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss a lesson in being open and having goals. It encourages us to accept both our lives emotional and goal-oriented parts. It’s about finding happiness when things are easy, and we overcome challenges. This topic isn’t just another self-help talk; it’s a sincere conversation about living a good life by accepting love and tackling challenges, which can lead to a deep sense of success and satisfaction, looking to grow personally and professionally in today’s world.

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Show notes:
(2:37) What is love?
(7:22) Having the courage and trust
(9:49) Dreams and self-worth
(13:31) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
(15:32) The power of self-belief
(17:06) What are we doing for significance?
(20:59) Being a human being and being alive
(22:53) Resistance
(23:53) Fear and perspe

🎙️ 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

Speaker 1 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 1,662, doubling Down on your Strengths or Working on your Weaknesses. Today, for episode number 1,663, it is Freestyle Friday, and this was my thought, alan I was. I came across a post the other day and it was something along the lines of what is love? We say I love you to things.

Speaker 2 0:37

What is?

Speaker 1 0:37

love, baby, don't hurt me. What is your definition of love?

Speaker 2 0:43

No more. My definition of love.

Speaker 1 0:44

No more my definition of love Like under 30 seconds, and if you mention the global economy in it, I'm going to have to turn this off.

Speaker 2 0:53

That's a candy episode. I think love for me is micro and macro. Economic Love is A deep reservoir of positive emotion created from a relationship with someone or something.

Speaker 1 1:14

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:18

Early on in my relationship with Emilia, we had a very healthy debate. We always debate things discord, whatever you want to call it. It was. We always debate things, discord, whatever you want to call it. We would always contemplate together and her and I at the time you and I were talking about grateful dissatisfaction a lot back then how can you be grateful for what you have while also dissatisfied and striving for?

Speaker 1 1:43

I like grateful ambition.

Speaker 2 1:45

Okay, grateful ambition.

Speaker 1 1:46

Grateful ambition.

Speaker 2 1:48

Sorry, no, you're good. So her and I had a conversation early on because our whole relationship was really built on just contemplative conversations Seems to be a trend in my life, but so we were contemplating whether or not aspiration or love mattered more. What matters more aspiration, your goals and your dreams, or being in love In your particular life or just in general? We were talking about in general and in our own life, so micro and macro Economics, I'm kidding. So Jim Rohn has a quote. He says Better to live in a tent on the beach, completely broke with the person you love, than in a mansion by yourself Typical Jim Rohn fashion.

Speaker 1 2:36

I don't agree with that, yeah no, neither do I.

Speaker 2 2:39

It's like, why not live in a mansion in love, right so? But that's kind of the contemplative question. And I answered aspiration, and so did she. And then later that night, and I was already falling head over heels in love with emilia. Later that night I watched a movie called the last samurai, with tom cruise crushed that film real good if you've never seen the last samurai.

Speaker 2 3:03

It is, I'm telling you, world class. It's world class, it's life-changing. I think japanese culture is fascinating and apparently it's pretty historically accurate and culturally accurate. I have actually asked someone from japan when we went to toronto the little mastermind group, remember the woman from Japan.

Speaker 2 3:24

Yes, I asked her about that movie to see how accurate it was, because it's one of my favorites. Anyways, I also had a call with her. So my point of all this is, after I watched that movie, at the end I'm bawling my eyes out. This movie gets me. It's about honor and deeply meaningful lives, like having a life that's deeply meaningful, standing for something, standing for something bigger than yourself, even in the face of adversity, right? So I'm bawling my eyes out.

Speaker 2 3:54

That night and I texted her. I said no, it's love, you know. No, I said this. I said one is empty without the other and I tell you, amelia, that all the time. I actually said this to her yesterday because lately been grinding and I'm trying to do my big five to thrive and I'm siphoning time off our evenings because it's just back to backs all day and I'm grateful for the demand. So I'm very, very grateful.

Speaker 2 4:15

But it's been challenging and I'm like, should I just can this big five to thrive thing? She's like I don't want you to have to do that. This is your dream. If anything can something else that's really important to you, right? Like what do I can? I don't know.

Speaker 2 4:29

So, anyways, I said this to her last night. I said I don't want to be at the top of this mountain, not in love. If it was up to me and I had to choose between getting to the goals and dreams or being in love with you, I would choose being in love with you, but I want both and so let's do both. And so I asked for reassurance. I said, like I know I've been taking a lot of time away from us. I just need reassurance that we're good because I need some time to get back to where my evenings aren't terrible, terrible, playfully.

Speaker 2 5:04

And she said we're good and all that, but at the end of the day, that's what love is is how do you, how do you, fall in love, sustain love, build love, cultivate love, create love in your friendships, your relationships, your intimate relationship particularly kids, pets and also love yourself and also achieve your goals and dreams. And I don't know if you can truly, genuinely authentically love yourself without achieving your goals and dreams. I can't. Anyways, I've tried, I've. Maybe that's a me thing, I don't want to project on anybody, but it seems to me like if you really want to be fulfilled and love yourself authentically, I I'm writing a blog about this right now. You kind of have to do both. You have to become someone that you're proud of.

Speaker 1 5:55

See, my definition would have been having the courage. Having the courage and having the trust to give someone everything you are, even though they could destroy it all, like just being so vulnerable to the point where somebody could really devastatingly hurt you. But when it comes to self-love, I don't. That doesn't really work you know, because it's not about.

Speaker 1 6:34

I think I was thinking more like what is love in a relationship, because I had a lot of. I told Taryn this not early on in our relationship, but at some point I said I don't think I've ever really loved someone until you.

Speaker 2 6:47

Well, you don't know that you didn't until you really, really, really really do, Because it's a spectrum.

Speaker 1 6:52

But I didn't even know what it meant. Like I don't, I didn't really have a good definition. This chair, pardon my French.

Speaker 2 7:00

I love this chair.

Speaker 1 7:01

I didn't really have a good definition of like I love you. What does that mean? I love you too, brother. Yeah, thank you. This is what it used to be.

Speaker 1 7:14

I had a friend of mine who had children and at this point in my life I didn't really have much going on. I definitely didn't feel like I had a brighter future. I didn't feel like any level of any success was going to happen to me. And I remember saying and I was very serious about this I said if, if anything ever happens and it's like me or your kids, like just let me go. Like I would rather die than your kids die, cause I know how much they mean to you these are your, these are your children Like I would rather die than your kids die Because I know how much they mean to you, these are your children. That, to me, was love. That was like I love you so much that I would never want you to have to lose one of your kids and I would gladly take the bullet. Now I think part of that was me feeling the significance of saying that and I meant it. I was very serious about that.

Speaker 2 8:03

But again, you also didn't value your life a ton back then.

Speaker 1 8:05

Well, that that's the other thing. I didn't really love me. I didn't really love me. So it was like, well, what value can I add? I can add the value of sacrificing myself if that ever came to it. And again, it's very easy to say that in a conversation. Maybe not very easy to say if things were happening in real life. I don't even know if I would have the courage to do whatever that meant. So I don't want to sound arrogant when I say that Go ahead.

Speaker 2 8:29

When you were a young Lad, young lad, I was At one point.

Speaker 1 8:34

I was.

Speaker 2 8:34

So recently I was watching. Every now and then I'll go back and watch movies from way back when I was a kid, and recently I stumbled upon I think it was Netflix. I have me dates once a week and I'll just stumble upon some old movie where I can shut my brain off and just reminisce about what my life used to be. And movies used to be an escape for me when I was a kid. When things weren't going well at home, I would just escape into someone else's life. Right, and I'm not the only one who does that. I think a lot of us escape into netflix. But anyways, so bring it on. I watched that movie. Interesting, interesting to re-watch that movie, because that came out in 2000 or 2001 or something like that. It's a cheerleading movie and it's just fascinating to see how much things have progressed. But one of my I had like these, these crushes when I was a kid. I always playfully joke.

Speaker 2 9:29

My first love was Natalie Portman in Star Wars Episode II. I went to see that movie five times in theaters. She was just like oh my God, if I could one day right. So Natalie Portman, jennifer Aniston, jessica Alba, eliza Dushku and Jessica Biel were my five that were like my dream woman, right and again, it's so interesting to watch that film as a 35 year old man and to be like, oh my god, emilia is so much more beautiful than like all of you. Now, again, I'm biased, but whoa right. So so it's cool to have achieved some of your childhood dreams in a way and to actually surpass them. And it's very different than it used to be, because now we're adults and now we're podcasters and we have our own tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny version of fame. And it's just not what it used. It's like if I ran into Natalie Portman, I would just be like Natalie, oh my god, you were my hero when I was a little kid. And she'd be like, oh okay, hello, tall man, you know, and it would be whatever, we'd have a conversation.

Speaker 1 10:30

You're weird, I'm weird with that yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so, yeah, I think people aspire to have someone to look up to Well. I think, you have less now than you did.

Speaker 2 10:45

I would say I used to look up a lot and I think that's good. I think as a kid you should do that. I think that's inspirational, I think that's aspirational, I think that's great. When you do get older and you start to manifest your dreams and goals and you start to become the person that you always dreamed of being, the world gets flatter. You're not like, I'm not as impressed.

Speaker 2 11:07

I don't know if I know how to explain it. It's like oh, eliza Dushku is just some girl who acted really for a while, and she may or may not be even reasonably successful, I don't even know, and who cares right, but it's so weird because as a kid was like way beyond my wildest dreams, because I was so insignificant. When I was a kid, I, I and I want to ask you about this too, kev, because this goes back to you taking the bullet thing I used to have dreams sometimes and I don't know why, but this was like actually in my dreams. You might want to call them a nightmare, but there'd be like a really popular girl that I'd have like a crush on. That I knew I had no chance with, because it was just. I was just such an insignificant prepubescent, if you think I look young now, imagine me at 15, in high school. So I would have these dreams where someone I would like save one of the girls you know, and then she would like fall in love with me because I like took a bullet or something with like some sort of a shooting. Again this dark nightmare here. But when you feel super insignificant, you the only way I could ever cope with that was just dream bigger and work harder.

Speaker 2 12:23

And now that we are more significant for lack of better phrasing and we're very grateful to have we we are in a place in our life now where a lot of our needs are met compared to back then. You know we a lot of people want to. It's so interesting. It's like I don't other people like they. I don't want this to come off wrong, but I remember there was a time in my life where I felt so insignificant that I would have loved for I don't know a girl to text me. You know what I mean. And now I don't feel that way because I'm very grateful. People message me all the time. That's great, it's awesome, we've added a lot of value and that was my dream.

Speaker 2 12:59

So I'm not making that good or bad or wrong or anything, but it is one of those things where how do you find a way to love yourself by manifesting the life you actually want? I don't know if you can fully love yourself in a fake way. I don't think you can say to yourself in the mirror. I don't know how much I believe in affirmations I think they're helpful but I think your brain and I'm reading a book right now called the Art of Impossible. He talks about how your brain knows you're full of it. You can't just say he, he, this is the from the book, so don't villainize me for this.

Speaker 2 13:32

In the book he says if you work at walmart for minimum wage, you can't say I'm a millionaire, I'm a millionaire, I'm a millionaire. Your brain knows you're full of it. But you can say one day I'm gonna work my way up to eventually be a millionaire. Your brain doesn't call BS on that because it is possible. Now, I know that might be unique to me because of the self-belief thing, and if you do have low self-belief, you can build it. We've done episodes on it. But my question for you, kev, is did you ever have wonky dreams like that?

Speaker 1 14:08

I told Taryn you know the movie. Friday, the 13th. Yeah, I had a dream about that last night. I wasn't killed, but I was definitely stabbed badly many times in my dream. Oh no, that's weekly.

Speaker 2 14:21

Oh no, yeah, weekly. What would Freud say about that? Honestly, I don't know. If I want to know, I think it must be. Each one of those knives is a YouTube comment I have a lot of dark dreams, many, many, many dark dreams. Dreams are weird, man, it's usually me getting killed.

Speaker 1 14:38

That's usually my dreams. So no, I don't no, I didn't have dark dreams like that here. This is the thing If you struggle with significance. I watch this YouTube channel. It's called Coffeehouse Crime and it's about people that commit heinous crimes. I don't know if there's a better label than that. One of the reasons they commit crimes like they do, whether it's murdering somebody or whatever, is because they don't feel significant, and in their mind, one of the best ways to feel significant is to take someone else's life or many other lives, because they know that they'll get talked about. They'll get talked about, unfortunately, more after they're gone than they did when they were alive, and I think for them that's like significance. So I think for me that was the thought process I was having was well, I don't really feel significant in my day-to-day life and as a human being, but if I was to save children, even if I was to perish doing it, people would look at me in a positive light and again, can we go back to the psychology of why?

Speaker 2 15:51

so it's hard to go back there, but I remember there were times where I felt completely insignificant and and you did as well, and I think I think that's more of a male thing. I could be wrong, but my sense is that women tend to not care about significance as much as men. Typically, I think, like status and muscles and money, I don't know.

Speaker 1 16:21

Well, you've got to think of purses and stuff like that, that drive significance. I don't know yeah.

Speaker 2 16:27

I know that there's that too.

Speaker 2 16:28

Yeah, yeah yeah, but some of the early days I researched a lot of Tony Robbins stuff and he says that men will die for significance, women will die for love. That's what he used to say. Now I think that's a gross over-exaggeration and I think that the lines have blurred quite a bit, and so I'm not going to go down that road, but I do. I do think that, particularly for young men you and I, without dads, feeling insignificant, was like the worst, yeah, and so how do you get your significance? Do you bully people? Do you work harder in school, like everyone has their thing right? So for it was being an athlete in baseball and mixed martial arts and not going to college and getting in really good shape.

Speaker 2 17:14

And for me it was get smarter than everybody else, and we don't realize that that's the drive underneath it until we're adults, and then it's like, oh okay, so I got smarter than everyone else and I'm still not super fulfilled. So this is not working. And so I guess the practical question here for all of us is what are we doing for significance? What makes you feel unique, what makes you feel special? What makes you feel like what you're doing in the world matters? I think that's what really matters underneath all this Like why don't I want to be at the top of the mountain, not in love? Because meeting Amelia was the best thing that ever happened to me. I will not screw that up. If I screw that up, I screw up the very best thing that's ever happened to me.

Speaker 2 17:56

Hmm, my life sucked so much worse before Emilia and, dude, maybe this is off the rails. I don't know. I think life kind of sucks. I do. I think that I think life kind of sucks, and I think we all know it. Dude, I'm not even kidding, I don't care if you're like, maybe my life has just sucked. You know, I think at the beginning it was definitely adverse, but my point to that is. I would much rather you have a baseline of life kind of sucks for everybody, but you can make it meaningful if you learn to love yourself and create a life that actually fulfills you. That's much better than this like why does my life suck? Why does my life suck? Why is today so hard? You woke up today. You didn't want to work today.

Speaker 1 18:46

No, neither did I.

Speaker 2 18:47

No, but dude, it's better than not working and being a lazy slob.

Speaker 1 18:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:52

And again, I know I'm hardcore with that I think life is challenging.

Speaker 1 18:59

I think if you feel like, oh my goodness, life is so hard, why is this always happening to me? Maybe you're statistically less lucky than someone else and maybe you've statistically had more adversity than someone else. But yeah, to your point, I think there is a baseline being a human being and being alive is really hard, Really hard.

Speaker 2 19:18

Thank you so much for that. Yeah, yeah, it's not easy. Some people don't actually believe that. I think some people unconsciously don't want to believe that. So, every time life is challenging, they think something's wrong.

Speaker 1 19:29

Well, I think we used to have a mentor that said suffering is an option, like if you're suffering, you're choosing to suffer. That's bull crap, man. I understand what you're saying and again, that's that getting to a place where you are so like. So what's the word?

Speaker 2 19:44

I'm looking for. I want to put him on a Stairmaster next to me and see who can suffer longer. I understand, but the truth is suffering's not an option. On the Stairmaster.

Speaker 1 19:54

I know, but it's just the transcendence of you can get to the place where you're on monk mode and nothing bothers you.

Speaker 2 20:01

I just don't think you can't transcend human pain in the neurochemistry of the brain.

Speaker 1 20:07

That is some BS stuff, I know, I agree. But all I'm saying is and why isn't he in shape?

Speaker 2 20:11

by the way, if suffering's an option, yeah, apparently it is an option.

Speaker 1 20:15

If you want to believe in that, then that's what you're going to chase, and if it doesn't work, you're going to assume you're doing something wrong and that just Can you be in shape without suffering. What's your truth? It really depends on how you define suffering.

Speaker 2 20:31

I think it depends on how you define in shape. Well, that too, but I do, I think it depends.

Speaker 1 20:37

Can you have a successful relationship without suffering? I don't know. It depends. You can't have a successful relationship without suffering.

Speaker 2 20:42

I don't know, it depends. You can't have a successful relationship without risking hurt.

Speaker 1 20:46

I think resistance is the best. That's the best frame I've found. I do not believe you can improve your physical condition without resistance. I don't know if you can be in a truly deep, meaningful relationship without resistance. I don't think you can succeed to a higher degree than you are right now without resistance. I don't think you can succeed to a higher degree than you are right now without resistance. The faster you go, the more resistance there is. That is a law. We gotta go because you have an interview in one minute.

Speaker 2 21:15

Damn, I had such a good thing.

Speaker 1 21:16

I'm sure you did. We'll save it for next time.

Speaker 2 21:17

This was for the listeners. I just want to be very transparent with all of you.

Speaker 2 21:24

I, I, kevin and I are trying to be fully ourselves we're trying to figure out who we are, yeah, this version, and I think it created a really cool dialogue, so I'm not going to apologize for that. I think there's a lot of value in this, but I do. I do want to be vulnerable. In some of the things that I share, I am sometimes I don't want to share them because I'm afraid that. I think what is my real fear? I'm afraid to be disliked. I'm afraid to be villainized.

Speaker 2 21:54

Yeah, but I think underneath that is I'm afraid that if I don't, if I say things that are triggering, even though I do think they're true and helpful, I'm afraid we're going to lose listeners. I don't want to lose listeners. My goal is to help more people, of course, but I'd rather lose listeners than not be able to share what I really believe to be true. And the very last thing here is there's the alarm is I do believe that life is challenging. I believe life is hard, I do believe life includes some suffering and I think, despite that, you can create a meaningful life where you genuinely, authentically, love who you've become. And that's my truth, and I just need to have the courage to own that.

Speaker 1 22:36

Well, I agree with that To your point. I think a lot of it's just a perspective. If you think, when it goes past a certain time in the day, it's supposed to still be light and it's dark and you think you're doing something wrong because of it, you're in for a life of disappointment. Well said, because that's just the way it is. There's nothing. Yeah, we could change the clocks we change the clocks twice a year and that changes things. But, yeah, this Life is challenging because, no matter what, I think, everything comes with adversity.

Speaker 1 23:08

I could give you, whether you're watching or listening I don't have this kind of money so I can't say that I've experienced it, but I could give you a billion dollars right now. I guarantee there's some level of resistance that comes with that. You just don't know it yet. Same, there's more resistance in the success that we have today. There's different resistance in the success that we have today than the success I had before this, or lack thereof. So I think resistance is going to be out there. There's going to be there's always going to be something to overcome.

Speaker 1 23:37

Sometimes the thing you got to overcome is the fact that you haven't had to overcome anything, and we I had a lot of conversations at next level live about that. Someone said I feel like I feel guilty that everybody else has had to overcome so much and I haven't. And I said isn't it weird how your lack of adversity has become your adversity? Yeah, that's wild, because that's that now you're, you have a resistance, that you had a lack of resistance. All right, I don't want you to be late for your interview, even though you already are going to be late for your interview If you have not joined Next Level Nation yet and you're looking for a group of people who are authentically themselves. That is really what we're trying to accomplish. Next Level Nation has been on fire, so we'll have the link in the show notes. Shout out to AIM and the team for being in there.

Speaker 2 24:15

Group 14 closes Tuesday. Yes, please reach out to me immediately. Group 14 NLU listener is the promo code. The link will be in the show notes. Group 14 is closing. It starts on Tuesday. Please join us.

Speaker 1 24:27

Tomorrow for episode number 1,664,. Are you actually doing it for yourself? It's very easy to convince yourself that you're doing something for you, but if that's not the case, it's not really serving you to believe that and it might lead you astray. So we're going to talk about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2 24:52

Talk to you soon.