#1701 - What You Say You Value VS What You ACTUALLY Value

In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros embark on a reflective journey examining the intricate relationship between our stated values and those revealed through our actions. This conversation is not just theoretical; it’s grounded in personal experiences that shed light on common discrepancies we all face when trying to live authentically. It’s a call to embrace personal accountability, navigate guilt-free pleasures, and make choices that reflect our true selves.

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Show notes:
(2:48) Which one is it?
(4:51) Duplicity in social dynamics
(8:16) Leading by example
(11:44) Impact of cultural acceptance
(14:01) 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/
(16:08) Integrity in health and fitness commitments
(21:57) Evolution of self-improvement
(24:52) Guilt-free pleasures
(28:46) Outro

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Transcript

Kevin 0:00

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, episode number 1700, 1,700. Every change starts in the imagination, where I made a giant mistake in assuming that a human would wake up at 30 for the first time ever, never have slept before. In retrospect, I wish I could go back and change what I said Maybe five-year-old.

Alan 0:30

When we invent a time machine and we do that experiment and we go back 100 years and show people the iPhone, you'll be able to go back in time and change what you said.

Kevin 0:39

Now, no, it's not going to happen Today for episode number 1,701,. You believe it. What you say you value versus what you actually value. I had a call with a friend recently and you know how I used to say that I didn't have any friends. You know how I used to say that you and I used to say we don't have any friends. I have more friends than I originally thought. So I want to correct that, Because I do have friends.

Kevin 1:10

And I don't ever want a friend of mine to hear it and then think like I thought you were my friend and you always say you don't have friends.

Alan 1:14

I do have friends.

Kevin 1:15

I genuinely do have friends.

Kevin 1:16

Well, I think you're saying in a playful tone yeah, but I mean it might not come off that way. You know that's fair. But I was having a conversation with a friend recently and he said something that genuinely surprised me. He said I don't really you're probably not going to see me or hear about me reading a ton of self-improvement books because I just don't value self-improvement as much as you do. Then he said I don't need it as much as you for the things that I'm doing and I said, yeah, no, fair, fair, good for you, good for you For actually admitting what you value and then staying in alignment with what you value, versus somebody saying, oh yeah, I absolutely love self-improvement, I'm all about it, but they don't do anything in terms of self-improvement, they don't have books that they read or podcasts or whatever YouTube, ted Talks, whatever it is.

Which one is it?

Kevin 2:10

I very much appreciated that, because this person's not deluding themselves into thinking that they're doing something that they're actually not doing. And we were talking about this on the meetup where we were talking about if you say that you value learning and then we go hypothetically, look at your Audible account and you have no books, or two books, and you say you don't value clothes, but the last 30 purchases are random clothes that you don't need. It's just good to know what you value versus what you say you value, and if they're not in alignment, it doesn't necessarily mean you're doing anything wrong. It just means that there's an opportunity for growth there. Go on with your bad self.

Alan 2:59

Well, I think we've got to call ourselves out a little. Every single human being on planet Earth has been a hypocrite at least once, a hundred percent. And I think back to my hypocritical days, without knowing I was being a hypocrite or maybe hiding from the fact that I was is I remember there was a time in college when I was super into fitness. It was sophomore year, tail end of sophomore year, end of my junior year, and I was lifting every single day, playing basketball every single day. But I was still partying. And I remember, because I quit drinking for like three months and I'm actually a little bit ashamed of this, to be honest but I used to actually fill my beer at the fraternity parties with water because I was too scared to be the the loser who wasn't drinking, and that is alarming to think about that. Why, why would you just not own that?

Alan 3:47

And the other thing, too, is a lot of the people that I was hanging out with at that time, and particularly meeting girls and that kind of stuff if you were the sober one while they were drinking, they would think you were judging them. So there was that social dynamic thing. So, anyways, not my proudest moment, but what I will say is when I was boozing up a storm for lack of better phrasing while lifting I was saying I'm into health and fitness when in reality, if I was actually into health and fitness, I wouldn't drink so much. Now I'm not saying everyone who drinks alcohol is not into health and fitness, it's just zero to ten. Everything's a spectrum. I wasn't nearly as into health and fitness as I am now, amelia and I. Early in our relationship, her and I decided to quit fast food. And now it's funny because she's tracking macros now and she understands how hard it is to get your calories in, so she'll. So in bodybuilding there's a sort of playful joke of you're either force feeding or you're starving.

Duplicity in social dynamics

Alan 4:48

There's pretty much no in between. So Kev's nodding his head. He knows the deal. You're either eating way more calories than you want and you're forcing yourself to eat a ton when you're full, or you're pretty much hungry all the time and there's very little in-between. If you're really doing bodybuilding, it's all bulks and cuts and diets and reverse diets. So Emilia is doing that and she's like now I get it and I felt so seen, because back in the day early in our relationship she said well, dunkin donuts isn't that, isn't that fast food? I'd be like, yeah, I mean it depends how you look at it. I mean it's pretty fast. I don't know if it's super fast, it's like semi fast food and then it's well, chipotle is that? Is that fast food? Well, it's casual dining.

Alan 5:29

I fast casual yeah, fast casual at the end of the day, I eventually said sweetheart, I don't want to do this, I don't want to quit fast food. So one of the reasons underneath that is it's easy to hit your macros when you're on the road and it's easier to get 380 calories in a McDouble than it is to eat chicken and rice, because if you're eating at that time, I think I was eating 3,600 calories. 3,600 calories sounds fun, trust me, it's fun for a day. After a day, it's just exhausting and you have to eat all day and you're constantly tired. It's just the worst. So, anyways, poor me, mr, 3600 calories.

Alan 6:11

But the point is is I, I told her, I said I can't not do this because it's too convenient and I'm not going to be able to hit my macros with chicken and rice. So what's my point of all that? Was I being a hypocrite by saying I value health and fitness but still eating fast food? By saying I value health and fitness but still eating fast food? By saying I value health and fitness but still drinking back in college? The truth is yes, to some extent. And so how do you align your actions with your words, with your beliefs, with your identity? And if there's anything that's misaligned, we can address it.

Kevin 6:42

Is there anything now? Is there anything that you say you value, that you don't show that you value?

Alan 6:51

I would say leading by example has become one of the most important things in my entire existence and people have been asking me a lot on podcasts about leadership because I talk about the 21 person team and how we're fully global. We don't have a headquarters. Some of our team members we've never even met in person and that's been really intriguing for a lot of people in the business space and in the world right now, because it's very hard, very hard to do that and I always say leading by example is the most important thing and I always say that coaching is my favorite thing because it forces me to lead by example. I'm never going to coach someone to do something that I'm not doing, so I'm never going to coach my client to track their finances and track their habits when I'm not tracking habits and finances. So it's the ultimate accountability. But to answer your original question, is there anything I would say? If there is, it's very slight.

Alan 7:41

If I were to check in, is there something that I'm saying? I would say the closest thing I can call myself out for is the fast food thing. I ate McDonald's on Saturday. I don't care, I loved it. I got four three McDoubles, two McChickens and two fries, small fries and a hot fudge sundae, and I loved every second of it. Now am I doing that every day? No, am I never going to do that again? Absolutely not.

Kevin 8:07

I loved it I think once a week is good, we all have our own standards.

Leading by example

Alan 8:13

Some people would never eat McDonald's. I have some clients that would never eat McDonald's. And that's up to you. That's totally fine, shout out to you.

Kevin 8:25

Shout out to you. I think it's one of those things where, if it becomes a detriment, if it's becoming a detriment beyond what you're accepting we all have those we can have those honest conversations with ourselves of this is becoming too much. This is no longer serving.

Alan 8:46

And remember that's us looking for the one thing, that's the only remaining thing other than caffeine that I can think of. I've given up all my other vices on purpose. I'm trying to be as virtuous as humanly possible. I've given up alcohol. I've given up alcohol. I've given up drugs. I've given up porn. I've given up any lying whatsoever to anyone about anything, almost to a detriment, especially lying to myself. And so the last two things that I would say aren't optimal would be fast food and caffeine, and honestly I'm not wanting to change those yet. But I'm also not deluding myself into thinking that they're not bad for me.

Kevin 9:27

This is why I'm very honest where I say I don't value health and fitness as much as you do, because I had a Guinness on Saturday night. It was glorious, loved it. Huge fan Guinness is my favorite. Taron and I if you're listening to this episode right now which you are because you heard me say that I am in I might not be. I'm going to be in Scotland. Scotland is known for its whiskey. I'm going to drink more whiskey than any man should, probably because I'm in Scotland. And is that healthy? No, no, no, but that's what I want to do.

Alan 10:04

And it's worth it to you. That's a fine line too right, but that's very different than someone saying well, whiskey's not that bad for you. You see how one of them is a rationalization that isn't accurate and the other one is I don't care, it's worth it to me.

Kevin 10:15

That's one of the reasons I didn't. I mentioned recently how I'm going to stop smoking weed. I'm not going to smoke it. One of the reasons is I was like, let me Google this, because I think it's one of those things where there's a really positive culture, a really positive marijuana culture, and I'm not making it wrong Again. You do you. This is your life, you get to do what you want, but there's no way it's as happy-go-lucky as everybody makes it seem, myself included. And it was just like this, isn't? There's enough research at this point where for me, it doesn't make sense. I can't. I wouldn't go as far. Well, no, I probably would. I can't say that I value life long health and smoke. It just doesn't work for me. Will I have edibles from time to time? Yes, because I've looked at the studies on edibles and I haven't seen anything that's hyper negative.

Alan 11:23

That's a that's all very personal, though, and then the question becomes well, what about the people with fast food? Emilia asked me this too.

Impact of cultural acceptance

Alan 11:32

She said sugar. I said sweetheart, you got to understand. A lot of those studies are done with people who have sedentary lifestyle, yes, and so you've got to. You have to customize it to you. Sugar is not nearly as detrimental. I mean, michael Phelps used to put mayonnaise on his pizza on purpose because he burnt so many calories in a day. So these studies are done with.

Alan 11:54

There's the whole fast food is terrible for you and all that kind of stuff, and it is. I'm not. I'm not defending fast food, seriously. I'm not saying to eat fast food. Please understand that. I'm not saying that's an optimal choice. It's not.

Alan 12:06

What I am saying is that the people who do have long-term detriments from doing behaviors like that. First of all, they're doing it way more frequently in way higher quantities, frequency, intensity, density, duration, and as a scientist, I have studied a lot of this and I do know that those things are far more exponentially more detrimental to people who have sedentary lifestyles, and I've exercised every single day for coming up on two and a half years, and so we don't have to play the same game. We don't have to play the same game. Now. Does that mean that McDoubles are good for you? No, it just means McDoubles are far less bad for me in a deficit. Even the cholesterol thing this bothers me so much. People say, well, that's so much cholesterol. If I'm in a deficit, none of it is storing. Cholesterol actually increases testosterone, but no one knows this. Nine times out of ten, mcdoubles are awful for you, but if there is an athlete who's in a caloric deficit, who needs salt, sugar and fat, it's actually not that bad. Now, that's a lot of nuance. There's a lot of nuance. But what I do want everyone to know is you make your own choices, you make your own bed and you sleep in it, and I'm willing to do the same and you can't trust everyone else's perspective and opinion when it doesn't apply to you. Exactly Because I have a coach of mine, an ex-coach of mine, who is a marathoner, and I told her I went into her fridge because I stayed at her place one time in New York City and I said you are not eating enough.

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Alan 13:42

It's wildly detrimental. I know you're not. You're eating too little amount of calories and you're exercising chronically and I'm I promise you, I'm a fitness coach. You need to eat more, and she has since had some challenging health repercussions and I knew that that would happen. There's an equation. You need to understand macros and micros and supplementation and diet and exercise and nutrition and these things are stuff that I've studied deeply.

Alan 14:11

And whether you smoke cigarettes or you smoke weed, or you eat fast food or you use caffeine or you are using other medicines, medications everything has side effects and the last thing we want to do on this podcast is get political or any of that.

Alan 14:27

But what I do know is that you have to be your own advocate, you have to make your own choices and you have to sit in the discomfort of your own misalignment. And I brought up being a hypocrite because I also call other people out for being hypocrites and I'm admitting in an effort to lead by example. I have to call myself out for being a hypocrite. If I'm ever going to do that with anyone else, and even if I am calling anyone out for being a hypocrite, it's only because I actually want what's best for you and what I do with my clients. Very last thing is, I say this is not aligned with the goal that you want to achieve, based on my understanding, and it's certainly not aligned with the story you've told yourself about yourself. And if you still want to do that, that's totally fine. That's your choice. I honor you. Some of my clients listening will know this I honor your choice, regardless of what I've shared with you, as what I believe is optimal moving forward.

Alan 15:20

And Emilia was kind to me too, when she said oh okay, I totally get it, you do you? And I said, honestly, babe, I don't want to quit fast food. Do I want to eat it every day? No, but I don't want to quit it completely, Hitting your macros without any. Not to mention in New England, dude, there's not exactly a lot of healthy options on the road. This is back when we were doing a lot of traveling and that kind of thing too. That's fair.

Kevin 15:43

Well, you've always been super supportive of whatever my decisions are. Thank you, I believe so much in freedom, brother.

Alan 15:50

I can tell you what I believe is optimal for your goals and dreams and for longevity. But at the end of the day, dude, if you want to have some tacos, you enjoy yourself. I do love tacos, because I'm not going to let you tell me what to do either. Everything's a choice.

Integrity in health and fitness commitments

Kevin 16:07

I believe in choice, so deeply what you say you value versus what you actually value. What would I leave with? What would I leave all you amazing humans with? It's up to you, yeah, only you can decide. It's up to you, yeah, only you can decide.

Kevin 16:25

I can't tell you that just because you don't exercise the way I do, that you don't value fitness. I think it's different for everyone. I think the ultimate goal is trying to lean more and more and more into how does the representation of what I value show up Like am I actually walking my talk? That's the best advice I could give on an episode like this Because, alan, to your point, it is wildly personal. It's wildly personal and at the end of the day, whether you're watching or listening, when you go to sleep at night and your head hits that pillow, only you know how you really feel about it and nobody else really knows how I feel about what I value versus what I say I value.

Kevin 17:07

Same for Alan. Leading by example obviously is there, but if you have a regret, only you know that. If you feel like you're in uber alignment, only you really know that. So, going back to oh no, we didn't talk about honesty, right, we talked about biggest weaknesses and we talked about how admitting it was super important. Admitting where you are and then taking that as an opportunity to shift into something else is what I would leave everyone with.

Alan 17:35

Do you have anything that you feel like is not aligned with?

Kevin 17:44

Same question you asked me. I think the fast food thing is one for me for sure.

Alan 17:48

I think we're growing out of that a little.

Kevin 17:49

It's not something I want to change. Yeah, I love food, and food brings me so much certainty. It's like when I have a rough, when I have a heavy day, I don't want to eat chicken, I don't. I don't want to eat ground turkey and rice. I want to have something that feels good. Now, again, this is where it gets dangerous For some people. Being an emotional eater is very detrimental to them, because it happens very often and maybe they're not as in control as somebody else might be. That's not really my case, though. I'll get up and I'll go to the gym and I'll track my calories and all that. So I don't know, I don't know if that is something I want. To have a whiskey every once in a while I do. Will that change, though? Maybe I think that's the beauty of it is, as you change everything else kind of changes too, but the difference is you're not saying it.

Alan 18:53

You're not saying that you, because this episode is the difference between what you say and what I.

Kevin 19:02

One of the one of the things that's hard at times for me is as somebody who is a host of a holistic self-improvement podcast. Sometimes I feel pressure to be cleaner than I am. Yeah, and nobody is putting that pressure on me. It's not like people are reaching out saying that that, I'm not saying that, but I've had those. I've had moments, too, where and this was a while ago, this wasn't recent, but I had a moment where it was like I can never have a bad day. I have to be on all the time. I can't miss, I can't have a bad day, because if I have a bad day, who am I to have a podcast about self-improvement? And that was something I worked through. What do you think of that now?

Kevin 19:50

I think having a self-improvement podcast, that's more important than any other type of podcast, to admit when you're having a crappy day, because that is life, that is life. But I also think that's kind of where I am when it comes to my quote-unquote vices for lack of better phrasing, chosen vices, because I do not ever expect anybody that listens or watches us to do life the same exact way I do. We're about improvement and, again, maybe this is me more than you I'm not saying it is, but maybe it is. If you improve from eating fast food three times a week to two times a week, and that feels right, cool. Only you know how detrimental it is to you. I don't. Would I suggest eating it every day? No. Would I suggest drinking every day? No. I think there's room for improvement there for sure.

Alan 20:44

Yeah, is it trending in the right direction?

Kevin 20:46

I think that's a when I was traveling and I was living on the road, hotel to hotel, I was eating like garbage every day, almost every single day. Some hotels we stayed in didn't have fridges, so I didn't go grocery shopping. I would get two donuts. I would literally get a white Monster. Oh, those Biggins? Yeah, of course. Oh they taste so good. Yeah, they do.

Evolution of self-improvement

Kevin 21:13

I would get a large French vanilla iced coffee, extra, extra, extra cream, extra sugar. Huge fan. I don't like coffee, I like milkshakes, ultimately. And I might get a breakfast sandwich or two donuts, and that was breakfast. For lunch, it would depend. I might get something ordered and brought to where we were working. I might not eat lunch, but for dinner it was like we're eating Wendy's, we're eating Burger King, we're eating McDonald's, we're going to Applebee's, we're going to Chili's, we're eating out pretty much every night. That was probably like the most unhealthy time of my life, because I wasn't sleeping enough, I was probably drinking I don't know at least once a week to excess. For sure, some people live like that for 20, 30 years man.

Kevin 21:59

I think that's where there's room for improvement is? It might not. That's the hard thing, right? It might not seem that detrimental, not in the moment. I was talking to somebody the other day and they said wait, you wear glasses. And I said, yeah, I'm blind in my right eye. And they said, oh really. And I said yeah, and they said I've never been to the eye doctors because I can see fine. And I said, well, how do you know you can see fine? I thought I could see fine too, and they said, yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. And it was like only you know, I don't know if what you're doing is optimal, and I don't know how detrimental it is really, because because were you doing it more or less than you were before? So, to your point, which way are we trending?

Alan 22:44

The old me would have tried to help that person understand what they might be leaving on the table. The new me would speak truth and say it's very likely that you would benefit tremendously from glasses and it's unbelievable to have glasses, because when I take these off I can't see nearly as much and you would benefit tremendously from it. But at the end of the day, you do you, and that's a guide versus I'm going to come save you. One of them is more pressure and the other one is here's my belief and good luck.

Kevin 23:17

Do with it what you please.

Alan 23:18

Last thing I know I said that a thousand times, emilia and I on the Conscious Couples podcast, we created something called the top three guilt-free pleasures. In other words, what are the three things that you're going to permit yourself in advance to do? I had three. One of them was movies slash TV shows, but movies mostly. One of them was I'm never drinking water with my meal.

Alan 23:42

I can't stand it. I hate drinking water with a meal I want. I've been in a ginger ale kick. Canada Dry is my jam. I love it. I don't like water. I drink water all day. I don't want water with my meal. So, anyways, just a thing.

Alan 23:57

And then what was the third one? Oh uh, takeout. I want to get takeout, not every, not every day, but at least once a week. I'm getting takeout at least once for sure. Yeah, delicious food, movies, and I'm not drinking water with my meal. That's it. Everything else I will be optimal in. And obviously, caffeine. I've actually done really well with caffeine. I've been keeping it pretty low, at least it's trending in the right direction.

Guilt-free pleasures

Alan 24:32

But at the end of the day, everyone, choose for yourself and give yourself a guilt-free pleasure. Now, emilia and I put this disclaimer on the episode because we did guilt-free pleasures. Now Emilia and I put this disclaimer on the episode because we did guilt-free pleasures and she has three as well and we support each other in them. Be careful, some people's whole life is guilt-free pleasures. I'm just going to say that Everyone think of someone who their whole life they smoke black and milds. Every day they drink a 30 rack. They they're all guilt-free pleasures. They go to strip clubs all the time. Whatever, I'm not making that. That's their life and their choice. But full disclaimer. If you already do a ton of guilt-free pleasures, the last thing you need is more guilt-free pleasures. So just please take this episode with a grain of salt. Just want to give a disclaimer.

Kevin 25:15

Heavy, heavy, heavy, vulnerable episodes this week. These are these are the ones that always scare me when I'm sharing an opinion. I have Not that again. I love each and every one of you and it's not you I'm worried about. It's somebody who tunes in for the first time and says who is this arrogant, smug bastard? That's Alan Nice. All right, we're going to go.

Kevin 25:39

If you are looking for a group of like minded humans who are into growth, who are into evolution, who are into trending in the right direction, whatever that means to you, whatever that personally means to you, please join our private Facebook group Next Level Nation and check out our website, nextleveluniversecom.

Kevin 25:57

We're upgrading, we're doing some different stuff shout out to Christina but we have a lot of different stuff on our website and maybe we have something on there that you didn't even know we do, because we do a lot of stuff and a lot of the stuff we probably don't talk about nearly as much as we should. So wwwNextLevelUniversecom Tomorrow for episode number 1702. If now isn't the right time, when will it be? And that's not a motivational bumper sticker thing, that's like a real question. What would have to happen in order for right now, or the next month, or the next year? What would have to happen for us to find the right time to do the thing? We'll talk about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan 26:46

Everything's a choice. Next Level Nation.