#1697 - The Monster In The Closet, Isn’t Actually A Monster

Have you ever stood at the edge of a decision, your heart pounding with the weight of uncertainty, only to find yourself paralyzed by fear? It’s a sensation we’re all too familiar with. Yet, within that fear lies a pivotal opportunity for growth and enlightenment. In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros dissect the complexities of fear, the courage required to face it, and the boundless benefits of lifelong learning.

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Show notes:
(1:44) Island party
(5:54) The only way around it is through it
(8:43) London: Fear chasing over time
(10:16) False Expectation Appearing Real
(11:29) Learning loop
(15:44) New experiences and 99.9%
(18:37) At NLU, we want you to win, so we’re providing tools and resources to ensure your success. Join our Monthly Meet-up every first Thursday of the month at 5 PM. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/

🎙️ 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 1,696, Fear of Success vs Fear of Failure. Today, for episode number 1,697, the monster in the closet isn't actually a monster.

Speaker 1 0:24

There was a time I remember this vividly I had a I believe it was a first date scheduled and, yes, that's right, very, very curious. And I got a text from Alan. He said, hey, man, we got invited to this party. It's kind of like a networking party. We really, really, really should go. And I said I don't text from Alan. He said, hey, man, we got invited to this party. It's kind of like a networking party. We really, really, really should go.

Speaker 1 0:48

And I said I don't know, man, I got a date tonight. He said can we maybe reschedule the date? I feel like this would be super important. I said give me some more details on the happenings. And he said well, there's somebody I know, a mentor of mine. Well, somebody I know a mentor of mine, there's this party on this island down at Cape Cod, Like a private island party. What does that mean? I don't know. There's going to be a lot of people there. We're going to have conversations. It's going to be good. We'll be able to meet some people. Who knows, Maybe there'll be some podcast listeners. Yeah, we got to get our name out there, let's do it okay. All right, I'll reschedule my. Let me see about this. Let me think on it. I'll see if I want to reschedule my date or not. All right, I'll reschedule my date. Who's the date with?

Speaker 2 1:31

um, not taryn, okay yeah, this was because this was in 2000 taryn.

Island party

Speaker 1 1:38

Yeah, this is pre-taryn 2018, I think we did this, so this is pre-taryn. So we end up doing it say all right, cool, I'll pick you up. I'm the driver, I always drive us pretty much anywhere we go, so I'll I'll pick you up and then we can kind of shoot down there and the sub pick us up in the old subaru wrx the wreck.

Speaker 1 1:55

Yeah, my baby, I miss, I miss rex, I do, I miss rex. So we drive down and alan's like, yeah, so no worries, don't worry about it. But when we get there there's going to be like we're going to have to go through kind of like a check-in and we're going to have to give them the password. And I said, what do you mean password? He said, well, this is like a private island, so you have to give a password to get through the gates. I said, okay, sure, so we pull up Hello friend gates. Okay, sure, so we pull up hello friend. Uh, we're here for the party. What's the password? Whatever it is, nintendo 64.

Speaker 2 2:30

All right, cool, you're in real quick. Yeah, which do you like better, the bmw or the rex?

Speaker 1 2:38

two very different vehicles. The rex was very loud and very Not smooth. It was bumpy. It was loud, it was noisy. There was very little technology in it. It was a pain in the butt to drive long periods in traffic because it was a stick. The BMW is more of like an instrument. So it depends. I miss driving the Rex in the snow because it was so fun to drive that in the snow. I miss I don't miss having to shift and all that stuff so probably nice scarlet.

Speaker 1 3:13

Scarlet is her name, thank you very much. So we get to this party, we park outside and at this point I'm terrified of all of these things. So I have that moment of all. Right, we're here. Now I need to work up my second layer of courage to figure out what is going to happen when we get into the party and then, naturally, alan leaves me at some point. What is that going to be like? So we go in and I think we spent some time together, but I just go for the food. There was a. I don't know if it was a buffet, but they had like cheese and, oh yeah, smorgasbord.

Speaker 1 3:48

I remember they had scallop-wrapped bacon, bacon-wrapped scallops. I don't like that, but I'll try it to see if I like it.

Speaker 1 3:54

Big fan. So I just go there and then I start trying to how to network and I don't know how to hold conversations with these people and I'm so uncomfortable, it's brutal and I'm probably sweating through my clothes. And for me, the second we get to something like that, I want to count down the seconds until we leave. I want to get out of here. I'm super uncomfortable, but in time I get a little bit more comfortable and a little bit more comfortable and then by the end of it it's okay, still super awkward. I don't know anybody other than Alan, but it's not the end of the world. We leave. And going back to an episode, I think last week, I was very empowered. I felt empowered after that. The reason I wanted to do this episode in the way I wanted to do it is because the monster in the closet isn't actually a monster. What does that mean? It means that if you're afraid of something and you never do the something, you're going to be afraid of that something forever, forever and ever and ever and ever.

Speaker 1 4:55

Another great story for this is we had Lori Harder on our podcast for, I believe, episode number 34. Yeah, 21 or 34. And then we found out that she was doing an event in Boston and at the time I guess still to this day we only live like an hour from Boston. So we said, all right, cool, we're going to go support Lori. She's doing a book signing and it's this kind of event. So we're going to go. We had her on the podcast, we think this is cool, we'll support her.

The only way around it is through it

Speaker 1 5:27

And I had that same thing of I don't really want to, I'm terrified of this, I don't, I'm not going to know anybody there. Alan and I went. We went with one of our friends at the time, katie. Shout out to katie, katie and all right throwback. And when we got there it was Alan and like 300 women or 200 women. There might've been five gentlemen there and everybody else just a bunch of women, cause Lori Harder's audience is women. I was terrified. I didn't want to do that. I was so scared. But I said to myself I don't know if I said it to Alan I said I'm going to ask a question. If there's a Q and a, I'm going to ask a question. I don't have a good question, I don't care about the answer, but I need to prove to myself that I can ask a question. So at some point I got the mic and I don't remember what the question was. I asked some level of question. I'd left there feeling more confident than I arrived there, and that's really.

Speaker 1 6:21

This is the messed up thing about fear. Going back to when Alan said fear is a fence. External fear is a fence. You walk up to the fence and on the other side of the fence is your fear and you say, wow, I can only imagine what it would be like over there If I could only get on the other side of this fear. Life could be different.

Speaker 1 6:41

The problem is there is no other side of the fear. You just push the fear further and you do it, and then you get a little bit less afraid and the fence expands, and the fence expands, and the fence expands. I don't know if there's any other way around it. I think that's one of those things where the only way around it is through it. But if you are a kid and you have that monster in the closet, every time the lights turn off there's a shadow, there's a shadow from your nightlight and it's this giant monster and in reality it's a sock. But if you never go in the closet to find the sock, you're going to think there's a monster in there for your entire life, and that's just not. It's just not true. So that's really why I wanted to do this episode, and real quick.

Speaker 1 7:22

Alan, before I kick it to you. If you're listening to this, it's Thursday, so I'm not gone yet, but Monday I'm flying to Europe with Taryn. That never would have happened if I didn't get the opportunity to go to London when I was I think it was in 2018. A buddy of mine who knew I was into fear chasing messaged me and said hey, I'm going to London in a couple months. I just found out that tickets are 50% off. Flights are 50% off. I know you're into fear chasing. I feel like this would be a great opportunity for you to chase your fear of flying.

Speaker 1 7:58

Didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 8:01

No, don't want to do it.

London: Fear chasing over time

Speaker 1 8:02

I remember the night before. I was anxious, I couldn't sleep. I don't want to do it. I remember the night before I was anxious, I couldn't sleep. I don't want to do this. This is going to be terrible, but now that's something that I've faced enough times where, yeah, when we take off, I'm not going to love it, I'm not going to love the flight, but it's never as bad as it was in the beginning, but it would be as bad as it was in the beginning forever if I didn't face the beginning. But it would be as bad as it was in the beginning forever if I didn't face the fear. It's this we don't have a level of familiarity with our fears, so I think it actually makes it worse. I really really think it makes it worse. If one of your biggest fears is falling through the ice, I wonder if taking a class on what to do when you fall through the ice would be a constructive thing. I think it would. I think it would be super constructive, definitely. So yeah, that's my thesis for this episode.

Speaker 2 8:49

Well, I said on the last episode, at the tail end I said false expectations appearing real F-E-A-R and I think that's a valuable acronym and I articulated fear in two ways. One of the reasons I was so confused about fear and why some of the advice that I heard in the self-improvement space didn't work for me, is because it was competence courage or competence confidence, not social confidence, or my fears were more internal, not external. So, for those of you who are on Kevin's end of the drive to five, fear is a fence and you have to go over that fence and explore what's beyond that fence in order for your metaphorical fence to expand, and then you get feedback. You never.

False Expectation Appearing Real

Speaker 2 9:44

I was writing a blog earlier today, yesterday, last night, and I was thinking about this. So I'm I've been talking a little bit about it. It's called the learning loop. I'll go quick with it, but humble curiosity. When your humble curiosity brings you to new knowledge, new knowledge brings you to a new choice. New choice brings you to new experiences, and then new experiences bring you to new reflection. And so if Kev, what's one good example? Okay, the island party, humble curiosity. What's this island party about? Well, we're going to network, we're going to meet other podcasters. We're going to potentially find other podcast listeners, mentors. Okay, cool, awesome New knowledge he just gained. Then makes a new choice. All right, I'm going to can this date and I'm going to go to this island party, which takes courage. Then I'm going to get a new experience and in this new experience, there's five new inputs. There's I created an acronym yesterday hold on sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell.

Speaker 1 10:51

I get them all they're your, I don't know.

Learning loop

Speaker 2 10:55

Five senses sight yeah, hearing taste, touch and smell, yeah. And then your sixth sense, your intuition. So I always have to think of the acronym sight hearing, s-h-t-t-s. Yeah, sight hearing, taste, touch, smell, okay. So in this island party kev gets. He sees things he's never seen before. He tastes things he's never tasted before. Scallops, maybe you have I don't know he, he smells things he's never smelled before. He, whatever the other ones are touches things, he's never touched before Maybe a mahogany piano?

Speaker 2 11:31

The point is that you get a new experience and then I was thinking about this when I was writing my blog last night. Then the last one is new reflection. When you reflect on that experience even now, even all these years later, what six years later, 2024, that was 2018, so six years later, five years later, whatever you now are, I always say say, think, do feel, believe. You're saying things you never would have said before. You're thinking things you never would have thought before. So you need to have courage to face a fear in order to go get a new experience. When you get a new experience, you take it all in through your sight, taste, touch, smell and hearing. And when you take it all in, that's the time to sit and enjoy the experience, like when we traveled we traveled to Malibu and we were all over LA and we went to Canada, we've been across the country, pittsburgh, all different places. All of those experiences require that you face your fear, and then you have more inputs, more data, more understanding to reflect on Not more understanding, but more data to reflect on and then, when you reflect on it, it brings you right back to humble curiosity and then back to new knowledge, and so we don't always think about it like this, but I think a lot of the parents out there will resonate with this. What was it recently?

Speaker 2 12:52

Oh, emilia had this really cute moment. So she took chemistry. No, she took Mandarin back in college instead of chemistry and I said that was a huge mistake. Nothing against Mandarin, but to me, chemistry is the study of matter. It's critical. If you don't know any chem, you kind of don't know how most things work Not most things, but a lot of things. Okay, so forgive me for my engineering brain. I said that was a huge L in my opinion, but I'm also super into science. So the study of matter is critical. You're missing a big piece of the puzzle, sweetheart. So study some chem.

Speaker 2 13:25

So she's been studying chem and she came up to me in a really cute moment. She's like, oh, carbon carbonation. And I was like, right, I had to. But that's the cool moment, it's a cute moment. It's like one time I was saying yeah, yeah. She's like do you want to have breakfast early in our relationship and I was like, yeah, let's break our fast. And she was like oh, break fast breakfast. Just cute little moments. All of us have those. All of us have those cute moments where we learn something new, we make a connection we never had before. Oh, that's why they call it that Memetics meme on the internet. I'll never forget this. Memetics and genetics are spelled the same way, with an M instead of a G. Memetics and genetics are spelt the same way with an m instead of a g.

Speaker 2 14:15

Memetics means m? E. I used to wonder why isn't it m e, e, m? That it's me, me. What's going on here? Oh, memetics is a mind virus, and a mind virus, memes go viral. Got it okay? So what's my point of that whole thing? Learning underpins everything in this life. We're going to do an episode on that soon.

Speaker 2 14:34

And if you don't face your fears internally or externally, if you don't cross that fence, you don't get new experiences, you don't get new understandings, you don't get new things to reflect on, you don't get new taste, touch, smell, whatever. You don't get anything new. You basically are in a box. I remember before. There's a reason why life is set up this way. You don't teach a seven-year-old how to reel in a tuna fish. I used to deep sea fish when I was a kid. My stepdad would take us out. I couldn't bring in a Marlin because I was too small, and so what we need to understand is that just because I'm 35 and Kevin's 34 doesn't mean we don't still need to go have new experiences. But here's the problem We'll never have new experiences if we don't face fears. If you never went to London, if you never went to that island party if you never went to the mall with Amy back in the day. That's another story.

New experiences and 99.9%

Speaker 2 15:33

If you never fear chased, you never would have learned so much. And if you never learned so much, you never would have realized that most of this stuff is a mirage. The monster in the closet almost always isn't an actual monster. Now, here's the kick, the kick. Here's the problem.

Speaker 2 15:53

Sometimes it is sometimes it can be yeah, it's every bit as scary as you thought it was going to be, and and, and. Sometimes it actually can be dangerous. 99.9 of the time the thing you're afraid of isn't actually dangerous. If I could just inject one thing into all my clients, all the listeners 99.9% of the things you're afraid of aren't actually physically dangerous. And, ironically, some of the things you're not afraid of are wildly dangerous, like getting in your car every day is statistically the most dangerous thing you can do. Getting in your car every day is statistically the most dangerous thing you can do.

Speaker 2 16:35

One more story real quick. So, as all the listeners know, kevin and I are occasionally grabbing fast food. Emilia and I. We went to the track Thursday night, friday night this past weekend, late last week or the weekend, I forget which day. I think it was Saturday night, actually Beautiful night. We're going to go to the track. I'm going day. I think it was Saturday night, actually Beautiful night. We're going to go to the track. I'm going to time my mile. I got to figure out where I'm at Ended up there was people on the track. We were like you know what? We're going to go to? The backfield McDonald's is right nearby, of course, so we use the app Boom, boom, boom, curbside pickup. She ends up saying I don't know, I get a little triggered when people come up behind the car and I said, well, let's unpack it.

Speaker 2 17:15

Let's unpack that irrational fear. Almost all fear is irrational. I joke about snapping turtles, super scared of them. I was buried in the sand when I was a kid and a snapping turtle was put right near my face Scariest thing ever. Couldn't get out of the sand. It was probably claustrophobia came from that too. I was, so I couldn't get up out of the sand. I should never have been buried. Anyways, I'm not actually in any real danger. Snapping turtles are my irrational fear. I always joke about it. When I'm swimming in a lake, no matter what lake, there's always that little part of me that's freaking out, little part Freaking out. Something touched my leg Fish, seaweed or pondweed, lakeweed, snapping turtle, I'm gonna die. Joking All right, but here's my point. Look it up how many snapping turtle deaths per year? Zero, it's irrational, but we're acting like it's actually dangerous.

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Speaker 2 18:15

So I told Amelia, let's unpack the numbers. I said okay, there's cameras all around this McDonald's. The curbside thing is right there. How many times do you think this place gets robbed per year. She said I don't know, maybe once a year. I said, fair, okay, how many people per hour do you think hit that curbside pickup? And we averaged about 10. 24 hours McDonald's is 24-7. I said, okay, so what you do is 24 times 10, times 7 days a week or times 52 weeks a year. Rather, it came to like 360 people or something.

Speaker 2 18:51

I would have to actually crunch the numbers and we calculated all this. We did this whole mathematical algorithm that I can't redo right now. But it came to 0.0001 chance that we would get robbed or hurt. She's like well, alan, you've never had a really nice tesla before. Teslas get targeted, all that stuff. I'm sweetheart and again, I don't want to pick on Amelia here. It's just an irrational fear, and she knew it was an irrational fear. So anyways, I say okay, and of the 0.0001% chance that we actually get robbed, what's the chances out of those, that percentage, that we actually get killed or seriously injured? 0.0001% of that. So the point that I'm making here, and the point that I made to her not so eloquently, is there's nothing to worry about. I said if we're going to worry about that, we might as well be worried about getting hit by a meteor.

Irrational fear

Speaker 2 19:49

We went hiking one time and we did a five-hour hike in two hours and it was late at night in upstate New York and a lot of people freaked out. They were like, why are you guys doing that? That's so dangerous. Now is it dangerous? Yes, but it's not nearly as dangerous as you getting in your car every day. Do you know how many people die by a cougar or a bear every year? It's very, very small, very, very low. Only one shark death per year. On average in the US, that's 338 million people. Still too much for me. It's still too much, I know. But here's the point All of us inject irrational fear into each other versus the 38,000 people who die in motor vehicle accidents every year. So you get in your car every single day and you think nothing of it, but that is literally, statistically, 10,000 times more dangerous than what I did on that mountain. But the truth is people don't think rationally. People think very irrationally and emotionally, and that's okay. All humans are emotional creatures. But whatever your fear is is most likely wildly irrational.

Speaker 1 20:55

And if you overcome, that there's so much for you on the other side. There's everything. Everything is on the other side. Everything that you're not allowing yourself to have is on the other side. But you do need a moment, or many moments of courage Depends, it depends. And here's the other thing. Then you can start to expand that.

Speaker 1 21:13

So I used to be very afraid. I still am. I won't say I used to be. I'm afraid to speak in public still to this day, less than ever, but I'm still afraid, and I am afraid of flying. I spoke on stage that went better than expected. I took some flights that went better than expected. I took some flights that went better than expected and eventually I flew to places to speak. Then it was okay. I flew to this place to speak. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't as bad as it used to be in the beginning. It's gotten easier and easier and easier.

Speaker 1 21:45

Am I worried about the flight? Not really, no. Am I worried about going to the airport? No, I'm not really worried about that. Am I worried about missing our connecting flight? A little bit, because I know it can be hard to catch your connecting flight in London's because we have a layover in London, so that'll be interesting, am I? This is what I'm most afraid of. In Scotland. You drive on the other side of the car and the other side of the road and we are driving everywhere.

Recent and relative proof

Speaker 1 22:13

Yeah, yeah, we're driving everywhere. We are doing the entire. We're doing all of Scotland pretty much Nice. So I'm going to be doing a lot of driving. That's the part that makes me a little bit nervous. But when you do that one time, the next time you do it it's like all right, last time. I have recent and relevant proof. Recent proof is last time I did this. Relevant proof is last time I was in a country like this. We drove on the other side of the car and the other side of the road and it didn't go terrible. Will it go terrible?

Speaker 2 22:39

I don't know We'll see what's your perspective. I know we're going to jump soon, but what's your perspective on the? So I introduced Kev to a book called Rationality by Steven Pinker and I said if you want to understand me, I sent this to Emilia. I sent this to all my closest circle. I said if you really want to understand me, this is the book. I am hyper rational. Everything's numbers, everything's probability, Everything is calculating outcomes in advance. And I realized that that's not how everyone thinks. There's four modalities of thinking, just to give them to everyone quickly One of them is math, one of them is energy, one of them is words and one of them is pictures and images. I think Kev is words first. I'm math first. What is your take on the way? I think for the people out there that are words first, because the majority of people are words first Words and images are the two most popular modalities of thinking.

Speaker 1 23:33

It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to Again from me, from my perspective, to not worry about, I don't know, to not be afraid of things that are scary because of numbers, that Can we do the plane thing real quick.

Speaker 2 23:57

So your chances of physical danger in a car are, I don't know what a million times more likely than in a plane Statistically speaking Fair. That doesn't matter to you. Know what a million times more likely than in a plane Statistically speaking Fair, that doesn't matter to you.

Speaker 1 24:13

No, because statistics are based on things happening. So if it happens, then the statistics will change a little bit. Okay, what are the odds of winning the lottery?

Speaker 2 24:27

One in 10 million. It depends on the lottery. How many people play the lottery?

Speaker 1 24:33

50 million probably Way more than the odds of winning. Fair. But okay, my argument is those 50 million people are betting on one in 10 million odds, so it would make sense.

Speaker 2 24:47

But wouldn't you argue that that's unintelligent?

Speaker 1 24:53

I would argue that it's. The likelihood of you winning is very low, but people still do it yeah, because I think they're trying to purchase hope and I understand that too.

Speaker 2 25:07

I didn't want to come off poorly on that but I think that you're think. I grew up with people who play the lottery all the time.

Speaker 1 25:13

FYI, but I think they're trying to purge their souls, or somebody's gonna win. Somebody's gonna win.

Speaker 2 25:19

Might as well take a shot, buy five tickets but that's like saying someone's gonna get eaten by a shark. Today somebody might on the globe, someone will.

Logic VS emotion

Speaker 1 25:30

It ain't going to be me. I'm right here. You know what I mean. No sharks in my studio.

Speaker 2 25:37

But how many? People are going to die in a motor vehicle today, yeah, so this is a good example for the listeners. I think all it is is it's it's logic versus emotion, that's all this is.

Speaker 1 25:47

If I had ever been in a really bad car accident, I'm sure I'd be afraid of cars more. You definitely would, 100%. I've been in a couple car accidents, but nothing bad. If I was in a plane crash, I don't know if I'd ever get on a plane. See, that's I would.

Speaker 2 26:06

Because that's a freak accident.

Speaker 1 26:08

Statistically, it'll never. What are the odds of it happening to you once this? What are the odds of it happening to you twice? Yeah, astronomically lower than the odds of it happening to you once? Yeah, I don't care. It already happened once. It's going to happen again, I ain't doing it. But what about cars?

Speaker 2 26:21

Car accidents happen all around you, all the time.

Speaker 1 26:30

Yeah, but driver, everyone thinks that I really am though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I?

Speaker 2 26:32

mean yeah, I am, I'm an excellent driver. No, I don't I. I don't doubt that. I trust you in cars as well, more than more than most but it's, it's not.

Speaker 1 26:37

It's not.

Speaker 2 26:37

It's yeah, yeah, no, no, I know yeah, but I think this is a beautiful thing because the reason why I sparked this is because I think it will help everyone understand this emotion versus logic, and that's why I mentioned the snapping turtles, because I have irrational fears too.

Speaker 2 26:52

But, I have to recognize how irrational they are. I have an irrational fear that all the listeners are going to villainize me right now. It's not necessarily true, although it is true for some listeners probably. So if I've triggered anyone I apologize, but I also kind of don't, because if I get you to think differently it'll be worth it to me. So all of our fears are built based on pain. So if you got in a car accident, you'd be more afraid of cars, and obviously so. My father died in a car accident, so I naturally am going to be more afraid of that. And then then I got in my own car accident too.

Speaker 2 27:29

So I try to stay extremely humble around things that are statistically dangerous, but I think in numbers. So it helps. I think it helps, like that helped Emilia to realize that there's really not much to worry about. Granted, I know I'm not a woman, I know I'm not an attractive woman. I understand that sexual assault is way different for women than men. I also understand that 90%, or something crazy, of violent crimes are males, not women, and against women, a lot of them.

Speaker 2 27:59

So, there's a lot that I don't understand. And don't quote me on any of those stats, by the way, because I'm not exact on my stats. I'm just pulling numbers out of my brain based on what I've kind of studied over the past. But things change too, and whenever you pull out a stat, oh, that's not true, well, it was three years ago, it's just changed, since I don't use stats because I don't know it.

Speaker 2 28:17

Okay, fair, I need to know the numbers. I love to understand the accurate truth and to me, numbers is the only way we can do that. But everyone out there has irrational fear, false expectations appearing real. If you are swimming in the ocean and you think you're going to get eaten by a shark, that's a false expectation appearing real. It just happened to be real for one person out of 338 million per year. So if there's things to worry about in the world and all I'm saying is allocate your fears to the things that are most practical and I know how ridiculously logical that sounds, we're not cyborgs but seriously, if that island party, there was no danger, there's no danger.

Speaker 1 29:03

No, there was no physical danger, there was social danger.

Speaker 2 29:07

Yeah. And they are registered the same in the human consciousness and this is neuroscientifically true. Social pain and physical pain are the same pain center. They light up the same part of the brain. So when you are ostracized from a group or made fun of or villainized, or you get a bad review on Podcast Growth, you feel it.

Speaker 1 29:28

I think I feel that more than physical pain, physical pain is not. I don't really, again, I'm not. I feel physical pain, obviously, but for me I'd rather I don't know, I'd rather get stitches or something that's easier.

Speaker 2 29:47

But you can't be successful unless you risk people giving you low reviews of course, like what's going to happen when you get, when you have a thousand bad reviews you'll have a thousand. I can't wait for that day within 30 years, you'll have over a thousand terrible reviews, you know I, I can wait.

Speaker 1 30:04

Uh, I don't know. Hopefully I I assume at that point I will have evolved enough as a man to handle it Just like exposure therapy of fear chasing over time. I remember the first time we ever got negative reviews that I lost sleep. Now it is what it is. It is what it is. We're not for us, we're not for you, we're not for everyone. It's okay, it's all gravy.

Speaker 2 30:26

Yeah, titanic's a great movie, but some people hate it. I don't get it Same. I don't know how Well they're irrational?

Speaker 1 30:33

I think so, but we would think that.

Speaker 2 30:36

See how deep the rabbit hole of rationality goes.

Speaker 1 30:39

This is my lesson. The simplest lesson is ask yourself are you okay with missing out on what you're missing out on if you don't do the thing that scares you? That's really what jumped my button to gear is I said so. If I'm never going to fly, either I'm going to have to drive everywhere which there are places I can drive or I'm not going to be able to travel.

Speaker 2 30:59

Or you take a ferry.

Speaker 1 31:00

Easily, easily. I'm not going to be able to travel easily and Taron gets seasick, so we're not taking any cruises anytime soon. That was a piece for me. Taron wants to travel. I need to figure it out. I'm going to figure it out and I want to travel too.

Speaker 1 31:16

I don't want to be the person who has to take pills before I fly. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. Many people said that, Well, if you're afraid of flying, just take this pill. I. Many people said that, well, if you're afraid of flying, just take this pill. I don't want to do that. I need to overcome the fear. That won't help me overcome the fear. That'll just be a band-aid. Now, if I was way more afraid than I was, then maybe I would do that, but I don't know. I like to. I like to try to face the fear if I know I'm capable of doing it. And I don't like to try to face the fear if I know I'm capable of doing it and I don't like to have guardrails if possible, because then I don't feel like, then I know it's not real, I know I'm reliant upon something else and I think that's just not for me necessarily.

Speaker 2 32:02

Yeah, and this goes back to our last episode of fear of failure versus fear of success If you want to grow toward your dreams and goals, you're going to have to face the fears or you'll have to do the fake it till you make it thing, which ultimately will just make things even worse internally. And Kevin and I both in our past had a short burst of that where I was pretending to be fulfilled externally when in reality I wasn't really facing my internal fears and it was inauthentic and I don't recommend that for anyone. So if you, if you're going to achieve because I did achieve my goals but I didn't necessarily face my internal fears to do it, because I did a little bit of that fake it till you make it thing and it was more ego than it was true self.

Speaker 2 32:50

And if you want to be the true self, the authentic version of yourself and you want to achieve authentic goals and dreams, not ego goals and dreams. You're going to have to face your fears, so they're either internal or external, or both, and hopefully rationality can help, and if it can't, you got to fear, chase like you did.

Speaker 1 33:09

It was all worth it. That is what I will say. All the fears that I have chased thus far have been worth it. I wouldn't go back and change anything Because I don't think my life would look it wouldn't, it couldn't possibly look the same exact way it does today if I didn't do the things that I did. So I think it's worth it. That's the deep belief that I have. But for you, whether you're watching or listening, that's the belief maybe you need more of, and that's on you to work on and lean into and grow and evolve and all that happy jazz. I will not tell you to do something that scares you. I will suggest it because I think you'll be grateful you did. If one of the things you're looking for is more growth-minded people in your life.

Speaker 1 33:51

We have a private Facebook group called Next Level Nation. There's posts in there every day super active, always positive, a great place to dip your toes if you want to dive deeper into NLU, and the landing page for group 15, for group coaching, which starts on July 9th, 6th, 9th, 7th, 9th. It's 5 pm Eastern Standard Time. It's live on the website. If you use the promo code NLULISTENER, you will get 30% off.

Speaker 1 34:19

I have never seen a more affordable group coaching program. So most people when they do group coaching programs, they charge a ton of money because they want to make 10 times the amount that they're going to make with one-on-one coaching. We do not do it that way. It's very, very, very affordable. Because we want to make it affordable for you. It's more about you than it is about us making money. I pinky, pinky pinky promise. So if you're interested, we'll have the link in the show notes as well as the promo code. Tomorrow for episode number 1698, it's Freestyle Friday. As you know, for Freestyle Friday we don't know what we're going to talk about until we talk about it, and then we'll tell you what we talked about. So we can't title it yet, but we can after. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, we're grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we don't have fans, we have family.