Next Level University

#1723 - An Important Thing To Understand About TIME

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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When we think about time, we often view it as an unstoppable force that carries us through life. But what if we could harness this force to catalyze personal and professional growth? In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros delve into how mastering time is pivotal to unlocking success. The journey from ordinary to extraordinary is about effort and how we manage and perceive time.

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Show notes:
(2:40) Is time on your side?
(4:03) Leveraging time for success
(7:12) Linear and exponential thinker
(11:05) The power of compound effect
(14:23) How algorithms skew reality
(19:03) The sexiest thing is also usually the rare thing
(21:57) 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/monthly-meetups/
(24:57) Success is a formula
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🎙️ 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 1722, the Two Types of Imposter Syndrome. Today, for episode number 1723, an important thing to understand about time. One of my favorite quotes and I guess it's more of a thought process than a quote, but one of the biggest misconceptions is that where you are today is where you will be forever, and where somebody else is today is where they've been forever. And it's very easy to look at someone who is 5, 10, 15, 20 years further in their journey than you and just assume they've always been there and assume you could never be there. Or this is the other, potentially less empowering side of things, or sorry, well, it seems empowering but it becomes non-empowering. You look at where someone is and you say, well, I mean, they're 10 years ahead of me. In 10 years I could be there too. That is the truth, but not if you don't do anything different. And that's my main thought, for this is an important thing to understand about time is time is not on your side unless you're on your side, Unless you're doing the right things.

Speaker 1

We had a conversation earlier and we were talking about some experiences I had recently and Alan said what was the biggest difference in the mindset of the person you were talking to? And I sat with it and I said I think the issue is they assume that in 10 years things are going to be different just because time, and I think they're automatically assuming that things will be different in a positive direction, when in reality, if you don't change at all, it gets worse, Because there is no such thing as stagnation, because you're 10 years older, Gravity, biology everything is taking its toll on you. So that's kind of how we came up with this episode, because 10 years from today, your life will look dramatically different, drastically different than it does today. Will it be by accident? Will it be by intention? Will it be by luck? Will it be by hope? I don't know. I just know that if you're not leveraging time, it really isn't on your side as much as maybe we wish it would be.

Is time on your side?

Speaker 2

There's so many different avenues I can go down with this. It was this weekend or last week. Emilia called me a linear thinker and I was super offended, playfully offended, because I knew what she meant. She meant a linear thinker, and I was super offended, playfully offended, because I knew what she meant. She meant chronological thinker. So there's two types of time. In the way back, in the way back In Greece, there's two words for time there's kairos and there's chronos. Chronos is chronological time and I think kairos is referring to what we now understand as quantum time. I'm not going to go down the quantum mechanics rabbit hole of physics?

Speaker 2

Yeah, let's not, let's not. But I will say there's quantum physics and then there's mechanics, and mechanics is Newton's laws, which is every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It's cause and effect. It's the cause and effect world. If I drink water, I'll have to pee. It's that I live in that world very heavily.

Leveraging time for success

Speaker 2

I calculate chess moves and I would say a good analogy for the way I think is a chess player in the economy, in the world, in life, and how do you put yourself in the position to succeed and I help other people do that as well and make sure you're in alignment with your goals and dreams. That's awesome. We talk about that all the time. But time is the one thing in this sort of iceberg that I keep referencing. Imagine an iceberg above his results, and then there's all these things. There's 15 categories below it, potential and influences and standards and beliefs, and all I've been through. Time isn't on there, because time is a constant. In mathematics. It there's a certain label called a constant. That essentially what it means is it doesn't change ever and you can't do anything about it. I can't increase time or decrease time. All I can do is invest my time more optimally, and so all of us have time, effort and money.

Speaker 2

Money is infinite technically Again technically which is why there was no trillion dollar companies in the past. Now there's a bunch of them, and by a bunch, again technically, which is why there was no trillion dollar companies in the past. Now there's a bunch of them, and by a bunch of them I mean a handful of them. And I would always say things like you know what's the most successful company 100 years ago? There are companies right now that make more money in one year than the most successful company in history 200 years ago. So money inflation everyone understands inflation. That's my point with that. So money's infinite increases over time, hopefully most of the time. And then you've got effort, which is semi-finite.

Speaker 2

Effort is I can do a workout today and put it and I can max out, quote unquote, in that workout without getting injured. And then, if I rest and recover for a couple of days, I can now max out even better. So imagine someone who does a timed mile, who does seven minutes and then gets better, and eventually six and a half, and then eventually six and then eventually five and a half. They can do more in the same duration of time. Okay, what is the difference between a six minute mile and a five minute mile. The person who does the five minute mile accomplishes the same amount of things in less time. That's actually what efficiency and productivity actually is, by the way. So if a company can achieve more in less time, that means they're more efficient and productive.

Speaker 2

So, anyways, where can I go with this? First of all, I love the idea of time, and Emilia called me a linear thinker and I got playfully offended because I know what she meant, which is a chronological thinker. And the reason why this episode is happening is twofold. Kev had an experience with someone and Kev said this person, I think, is in trouble over time. And I said what's the biggest difference? How do you know that they're in trouble? And he said they think that time is going to change something without them changing. And time without them changing is actually just going to make things actually worse. Fitness is a great analogy.

Speaker 2

Anyone who's older I'm 35 now Kev's 34. It's not the same as it was in our mid-20s. We used to be able to work less and achieve more back then. Now we have to be way smarter and work way harder just to get the same result. Because of biology, natural testosterone levels are lower XYZ Okay. Natural testosterone levels are lower xyz okay.

Linear and exponential thinker

Speaker 2

So the reason why, alternatively, this episode happened is because I told kev I said I was listening to a insane productivity training. It was a course that I take and I just had this moment, this breakthrough moment. That sounds really simple, but it was profound for me, and I had this moment of why doesn't anyone else talk about age? I have an 18 year old client and my oldest is 63. I talk about age all the time. I talk about I'm 35. Now I was. I was in my late twenties and XYZ happened and I wondered to myself why am I the one who talks about age? All the time I've studied the self-improvement space. I've listened to tons of different speakers famous, not famous trainers, podcasters, speakers, you name it. No one talks about time like I do and I don't understand why that is. Now I'm starting to understand why. I'm a chronological thinker and so, without going too far down the crazy, crazy, crazy rabbit hole and, kev, I know you'll bring this back down to earth for everybody.

Speaker 2

Maybe, I hope so. Emilia called me a linear thinker and I got offended and I said I'm not a linear thinker, I'm an exponential thinker. One of the quotes that I used to say that I now realize probably doesn't land for anybody is one of the biggest problems with success is people aren't successful because they think linearly. In a universe of exponentials, nothing grows linearly, literally nothing Like a linear is one step, two steps, three steps, four steps, five steps. A runner.

Speaker 2

When I ran my marathon, that was an exponential decay in my abilities over time. And cars accelerate, but then they decelerate when the air resistance happens right. So everything is exponential that's the best way I can describe it, in the negative direction or the positive direction, depending on the circumstance, and so we playfully joke, blah, blah, blah. And I figured out why I think I talk so much about time, and it's because I want our listeners to understand how much that matters if I were to tell you and again, don't quote me on this, because this isn't an exact science, this is just statistically accurate, with a percent error. Everything I say has a plus or minus percent error. I've had people say well, you said x, no, no, first of all, back then. That was true and number two, it wasn't 100. True, I had a plus or minus 20 error that's like.

Speaker 1

That's the hard thing of having the courage to say stuff is even if you're like a little off.

Speaker 2

Unfortunately, people make it about that, you know I didn't realize that no one else puts in buffers if you say something, kev, and you say inaccurate shit all the time it's just off by a small percentage Name one time ever of all time.

Speaker 1

No, I know, I know, don't name it.

Speaker 2

But you at least call it out and say I'm not sure exactly, but but when I say I'm going to be there at 6, I mean between 5.50 and 6.10. I just automatically think that.

Speaker 1

I would say it's between $6.10 and $6.20. Yeah, that's fair. You know what I'm saying In fairness.

Speaker 2

But the point is is I put buffers on everything. So again, why am I saying that? The statistic that I want to really hopefully make land for everybody is what if I told you that 80% of the world's success, quote unquote, is in the hands of people that are 60 and older? The large majority of the world's wealth is in older people's hands, and I realize now that no one knows why that is. It's just the compound effect. It's the accumulated compound effect. I mean. Think about, imagine a teenager, seriously think about this. Imagine a teenager who is 17 years old. Just imagine they're 17 years old and they're the CEO of McDonald's. That's impossible.

Speaker 1

The problem with it is, of course, nobody talks about the other side, because everybody wants the other side, everybody wants the other side. Nobody wants to be a 75-year-old millionaire, they want to be a 22-year-old millionaire.

Speaker 2

That's why I think the 22 year old millionaires have extra influence 100 because they have what everybody wants. But that's not normal.

Speaker 1

That's like so you, you and I had a really we had a deep conversation today about social media and I said the thing that really blows my mind about social media and I say this on podcasts all the time, because I think it's just a little unlock. I don't know when did TV come out?

The power of compound effect

Speaker 2

1950s 40s, 30s, I think so. The telephone was 1922 or something, or 20. So, let's just say 40 years ago. Let me rephrase that because again, I don't want anyone to know. It became popular in the 1920s. The telephone it wasn't invented then.

Speaker 1

There's a curve.

Speaker 2

Everything's. That's to my point. There's a curve. The telephone was probably invented in the 1800s, but no one knew about it. Right, like I have a self-driving car, but the whole road isn't going to be self-driving cars tomorrow, it's just going to be sooner than people think. I think yeah, and the only reason I know that is because I can see the curve in my head. Well, you've studied it.

Speaker 1

What were you saying? It was good. What I was going to say was going to be good. I have no doubt.

Speaker 2

And now it's gone.

Speaker 1

No, no, I'm kidding Again. I don't know. Don't quote me on the years, but let's just say before social media. Let's say 30 years ago. Right, we're in 2024. Let's say 1994. Was that 30 years ago? Holy macaroons, all right, let's say, let's say 50 years ago. 50 years ago, if you wanted to see a supermodel, you had to buy a magazine or turn on TV. By buying the magazine or turning on the television, you realized how rare it was, because you don't know anybody who's in magazines. Potentially Maybe you do, and you don't know anybody on TV. Statistically. Now you open up your phone and everybody is a supermodel and everybody is in magazine shape and everybody has nice cars and fancy homes and trips and extravagant, extravagant lifestyles, but none of that is actually. That's all the anomaly, that's all.

Speaker 2

the algorithm, yes, picking up on who's viewing what. Yes, and the most shiny object usually gets viewed the most, and therefore the algorithm puts that at the top of the list for everybody.

Speaker 1

And it messes up everything. Because I said well, I mean, do you want to see broke Kev? Do you want to see me pull up in my 1994 Toyota Corolla? No, it's not entertaining. It's just not as entertaining as pulling up in something nice. But the reason I say that is because it's not sexy to say well, you know, alan and I worked every day pretty much for seven years and then we got to 1,700 episodes and then we finally crossed a million listens and a million dollars. Our community celebrated the heck out of us. I am so grateful for each and every one of you. I think that's probably because you also understand the grind. But for some people they might think, well, what took you so long? It took you 1,700 episodes to get there. Yeah, yeah, it did. It took us a lot of episodes. We're also way better than we would have been if we didn't do those episodes.

How algorithms skew reality

Speaker 1

That's not necessarily sexy. What people like to hear is the opposite of well, yeah, no, I went viral in my first post. That's so rare that even aspiring for that is most likely setting you up for failure long-term. That's like meeting someone who won the lottery and then going all in on that and saying that's going to be my strategy. I'm going to win the lottery. You might, you might, but you also might spend your entire life putting money into something and wondering why it's not coming back. Because it's just a misbelief, it's just inaccurate, but it's the opposite of what is sexy. I think for most people, the journey from where you are today to where you ultimately want to get to is the opposite of what everybody else's sexy is, just because most of it isn't actually that real. For really good example of this before and then I'll kick it to you when Taryn and I went to Scotland, there's a famous bridge in Harry Potter. I've never seen it, but Taron wanted to go Okay.

Speaker 2

I took a bunch of pictures. Oh, it's a bridge. The train tracks, train bridge. Yeah, it's a train bridge.

Speaker 1

It's got arches. It's very famous If you've seen the Harry Potter films.

Speaker 2

It's the one in the second movie where they're in the flying car and it's the train. They're trying to catch up to the train. The train's actually behind them. Everyone who's seen the movie will understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 1

The second.

Speaker 2

Harry Potter movie. I adored that one.

Speaker 1

Taryn has a beautiful video of this train Chugga-chugga-choo-in. It's blowing its smokestack or whatever the hell it's called Nice Hogwarts Express. That 30, 45 second video world class. That place was the buggiest place I've ever been in my entire life. I had to walk down because the bugs were going up my nose and in my mouth. I gave Taryn my sweatshirt and I said cover your face because I want to make sure you don't miss this. I'm going to go down. They're in my shoes, they're in my shirt, they're biting me, they're stinging me.

Speaker 1

Never know that if I didn't tell you, you would never know that. If I didn't tell you and you know how you would know if you went and got a video of it yourself and then you'd actually know. But if nobody ever told you, you would have no freaking clue. You couldn't know, you just couldn't. It's a massive tourist attraction. There's a giant parking lot and there were 200 people there on the rocks taking videos. You'd never know. It's a huge thing. There's paths, there's signs, there's trails, there's fences. This is like a tourist attraction, but you'd never know if you hadn't been there. So I think that's just an example of it.

Speaker 2

Well, what I try to do in life and I hope our listeners do this as well and this is one of the reasons why I playfully say my coaching sounds terrible. I think the reason my coaching sounds terrible is because we're just being honest about what it is.

Speaker 2

All my coaching is is let me get you back to the real. Let me get you back to what actually works, what really builds it. I try really hard to do this and rationality is one of my main core values and I didn't presuppose that it didn't suck Like okay, if I saw that video of the train and harry potter I'd say that's so cool and I would assume that it absolutely sucked trying to get that video, because everything in life kind of blows yeah, but I think you're weird I think you're weird.

Speaker 2

You're safer. That way it's more accurate. Like we climbed a mountain called blue humpback mountain or blue ridge. It was in the blue ridge mountains and it was called humpback mountain. That climb was awful, but the view is always great, doesn't everyone know?

Speaker 1

the climb is always awful like yeah, if we're putting it into something physical like that. My example for that was it's the. The sexiest thing is also usually the most rare thing. That's usually how it is. The sexiest thing is well, I posted a video and then I went viral. I did this and then this happened. I did this I only I went on one date with this person and we fell deeply in love. Like, the way your relationship happened is very statistically rare.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that is super, super, super rare and the 30 years prior to that was not great.

Speaker 1

No, I would say in comparison yeah, it was an ideal.

The sexiest thing is also usually the rare thing

Speaker 1

Yeah, everyone knows that who's in a relationship, though it's, I don't know how to explain that, but I just think it's the principle that if you are looking for the Another one of my quotes and again, I say this on podcasts all the time if I sound arrogant when I give you a quote that I made up, I'm sure somebody has said it in the same exact language in the same exact sequence at some point. I have just never heard it. If we spend as much time looking, if we spent as much time looking, or if we spent as much time on the unsexy fundamentals as we did searching for shortcuts, we probably all would be more successful than we are, definitely If we just did the things that we know we should do Definitely Fair.

Speaker 2

Fair Statistically, that's a mathematical certainty.

Speaker 1

I'm very cautious with my facts, but that's my thought. It's almost like we want the sexy thing and when we don't get the sexy thing we think we're doing something wrong, when in reality that's just kind of the way it works. You're not going to get lucky, most likely, and that's okay. And here's the other thing you don't really want it, you don't really want to get lucky. I did, hey. And here's the other thing you don't really want it, you don't really want to get lucky.

Speaker 1

I did a call the other day with a new client and she started her podcast and opened up coaching and she got like 15 clients right away and I was like this is really good, but this is really good, but this is not going to happen forever and we got to get our ducks in a row here, because you're going to get overwhelmed very quickly and we need to build in the habits that actually would create this, because, trust me, when these 15 clients go away which they will eventually in their own order and their own when it's time you're not going to know how to get 15 more, because it doesn't work like this. This is good, and we need to be very, very cautious to make sure this doesn't actually become your biggest weakness, and I just think that's a really good example of this. There's benefits and detriments of everything. The benefit of you getting lucky is maybe you get somewhere faster. The detriment is you don't know how to handle it. You're not capable, yet your character gets jeffed.

Speaker 1

I had a moment the other day, alan. I was watching something I don't remember what it was and I thought to myself I am so. Oh, there was a Tara and I watched this thing about a dancing group that ended up turning into a church and it was this whole cult thing and they stole all their money, and I had this moment where I said I'm so grateful it took us as long as it has to get to where we are, because I'm not. I wouldn't fall for something like that.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

I don't have 2 million followers on TikTok at 22 years old and I'm naive to that. I was naive at 22, trust me. But I'm happy it took this long, because I'm not looking for that thing. Oh, if I join this group, that'll be what. I don't care, I don't care about any, I'm good. I'm good. We're going to keep doing what we're doing the unsexy fundamentals. So, and Grant, you sound like me at the beginning, I know.

Speaker 2

Everyone's going nuts for Clubhouse. I was like brother, we're good, Just keep the fundamentals. It's important that you have purple in the background. By the way, I just noticed that I believe it's pink.

Speaker 1

I don't know if purple or pink. I try to make it pink. I switched it up. Alan doesn't like when I don't do brand colors. He gets sad if I don't do brand colors. But I'm trying to make you know you got to make the backdrop pop a little bit, you got to, you got to.

Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.

Speaker 2

I think the purple and the blue contrast looks good. Yeah, likewise I have. This is one of my favorite topics in the entire world. Kev was like let's talk about time. Yes, so important, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. I had several things that I wanted to share.

Speaker 1

I'm stalling right now. This is classic stalling behavior.

Speaker 2

You're stalling. This is me trying to figure out what I was thinking to say. What were you saying right before this?

Speaker 1

Oh, so many things, so many valuable things, so many deep thoughts connected to other deep thoughts. No, seriously, who knows?

Speaker 2

I was talking about how I'm glad it took us as long as it did to get here. Keep going. Yeah, got it, got it. Okay. You talked about the cult thing. Yeah, I was in book club and I said my favorite part about book club is that we're all trying to get smarter. Smart people are not easily manipulated and this is something that's a little side tangent to the time thing.

Speaker 2

But, kev, you're not easily manipulated anymore because you know better awareness, it's awareness, yeah so if you have low awareness and you're naive, you can be easily taken advantage of. And one of the cool you and I have been in situations where, even when you went to get the BMW, you called me the reason why I think you do that, emilia when we were doing the house the mortgage person I'm on the phone because you're not going to out math, a math person you can't take us for a ride. I know what you're doing, sir, and I can tell what's a good deal and what's not. I even knew what to offer on the place. I knew what would get us the house statistically. So this, this is a superpower. It's awesome. I'm so great.

Speaker 2

But for the listeners, when you are aware of what creates results, what really creates, you can put time to your advantage. You can. In five years, you'll be in a better spot if you focus on the things that really matter. It is a formula, success is a formula and you can learn the formula and you can run the formula. I can't guarantee any specific outcome, but I can get you closer. I mean, you can shoot your shots and I can get you way closer. And the other piece that I wanted to share there's a woman named Val. Kevin and I went to Arizona once to an event and there was a woman there named Val who had won a Grammy for a show. I forget what show, not a Grammy. Grammy is music, right, which one's? The TV? One know that oscars are movies. Is grammy?

Speaker 1

music grammy's music okay.

Speaker 2

And then there's one for tv. It was a tv emmy, emmy, that's the one. Yeah, I knew it was grammy or emmy.

Success is a formula

Speaker 1

There's a lot of different terms, okay, so oscar, family family members gonna go hang out with grammy. Going to go hang out with Grammy. Then we're going to go hang out with Emmy Oscar. Then we're going to head over to Oscar's place. Perfect MTV Music Awards my cousin MTV Music Awards. Going to go see them later.

Speaker 2

So she won an Emmy Award for a TV show she worked on and I always ask this question Kev's seen me ask this question before? What's seen me ask this question before? What's something? So she worked in the tv business for 20 years, 20 plus years, probably 25 or 30, I don't actually know, but I know it's decades. You don't just win an emmy, you. You work in the industry for decades and then you win an emmy, right? So I asked her. I said what's something that I wouldn't know unless I'm in the industry? What's what's something that an outsider could never know unless they worked in the business? And she said this. She said it's not glamorous at all being on TV. People think it's glamorous. She says it absolutely sucks. It's awful. Behind the scenes is awful.

Speaker 2

And if you've ever been on a movie set again as if I've been on a bunch of movie sets we interviewed someone. A friend of mine who does feature films, did a feature film and I hear the horror stories of how bad that was. This actress getting hurt about this. This actor the people, all the directors might as well be a business person who just has to make sure you stay within budget. Certain people asking for more money, Some people saying, well, we're not going to finish the film now unless you pay me X, Y, Z more. It just sounds like a nightmare, Genuinely. It was really important for me to pick his brain about how bad that was, Because when we watch a movie, we sit down and it's like this is awesome. At least I do Like this is amazing. Harry Potter, the film that I referenced earlier. That cost what $200 million earlier. That cost what 200 million dollars back then, which is now what 400. I mean how many headaches people fired? Bad things, good things, people button heads. I mean what did that really take? Travel there is a.

Speaker 1

There is a youtube channel called it was a shit show.

Speaker 1

It's all about how big of a shit show it was all about how big of a shit show the making of a movie was Nice and I watched it on James Cameron's the Abyss. Oh dude, and it was wild. It was so such an interesting because when you watch I've never seen the movie, but when you see clips from it it's like, oh my God, it took. It was, I think it was six weeks over budget. James cameron almost died, several of the actors almost died. This thing was shot underwater, it was they had to put. They had to pump six million gallons of water into a abandoned nuclear test site that never got fully built and it was like this wild thing you just never know.

Behind the scenes of success

Speaker 2

You just go to a film, you eat your popcorn, you're chilling, really cool YouTube channel though it's called.

Speaker 1

It Was a Shit Show.

Speaker 2

Nice. Well that. I think that's a good metaphor for life. I really do. I think that when you go to a film and I love film, I'm so excited for Inside Out 2.

Speaker 2

It's coming out soon when you go to a film, you see all the best parts. You see the stuff that made it in the film. That's what I think social media has become. You're seeing the parts that everyone's catering and cutting and perfecting. But in real life their real life I'm telling you have coached these people.

Speaker 2

There's one person I'm thinking of. It's a couple. They live in a mansion with an indoor pool. They make tons of money, they are super inspiring in their own right, but their relationship is an absolute shitshow. I mean, they are not happy. My relationship is way better than theirs is and theirs looks way better than mine does online, and I don't even think mine looks bad. You just have to understand. It's all a fugazi. It's just like the abyss when you go see that movie. It looks great, everything looks fine. You have no idea anyone almost died. You have no idea how much hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted on that one shot that never made it in the film. You weren't there I mean Peter Jackson.

Speaker 2

When he made the Lord of the Rings movies he had mental health problems and massive depression and he had anxiety and all kinds of stuff. So Lord of the Rings films are unbelievable. They're so good, the best films maybe ever created in some people's eyes. But Peter Jackson was scared to do the next ones because he had. That was a really dark time for him. He spent. He spent years in a freaking editor's room, just again. I don't know if it's years, so please don't quote me, but I'll tell you what. It's a lot more than people think. And there was one scene where aragon the character vigo mortensen- he actually had an actual knife thrown at him like a real knife, not a fake one.

Speaker 2

On accident it slipped out of the orc's hand and he almost got deaded by the knife. He almost got got. So anyways, I think that's a good metaphor for life. I don't know how that has to do with time, everything has to do with time.

Speaker 1

Well said.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much. My last thing takeaway is do not look at someone else's moment in time and assume that that's how it always was or how it always will be. Every one of us is in a chapter and that chapter was the accumulated compound effect of the choices that they made up to that moment. And they might be headed down or up. And if you wake up each day and say, okay, what can I build today, who can I become today, what can I do today to to be the most constructive, best version of myself, I mean, your future will be bigger, better and brighter than it is. And most of that stuff being on this podcast is awesome.

Speaker 2

The production of this podcast is a lot of work. Thank you, production team. But, kev, you used to have to do all that yourself and what it takes to promote it, what it takes to analyze it, what we did today so it's 5.42 pm. We've been together since 11 am and everything we did up until hitting record was all back office, business spreadsheets, finance, bank accounts, charity, xyz. It was. It was a lot of work, that none of that was anything other than semi-frustrating and challenging and mundane and unsexy stuff. But if we don't do that we can't. We can't be here for this there's a.

Speaker 1

I have a. I have a man crush on an actor that I've seen in a couple things lately Austin Butler. He played Elvis in the Elvis movie with Tom Hanks Great weird movie, but very good. And he's not jacked like the Rock Allen. But I have a man crush on him. I don't know what it is about him. He's a really good actor For Poops and Giggles. I looked at what his career was like and I think he got his first. He's been doing this since 2006. He was born in 1991, so he's 33. But that was 17 years ago. That was 17. That's a long, long long long time.

Speaker 2

Yeah, he just had a really big break too, and Dune Dune he was in the bad guy in Dune masters of air, which is a really good movie, a really good series.

Speaker 1

I told you about that, that he was, he was in that. But that's the thing is like. When something pops and it's hot and it's sexy and it's out there in front of everything, you assume it's like, oh man, good for that person, they must've just got started. It's like no, no way, I don't. I wish I had a really good example of like how many studio albums did it take before somebody made it? But it takes years and years, and years and years. And that. Just understand. This is the last thing, and then we'll go.

Speaker 1

Time can be on your side if you're doing the right things, if you're on your side and you're trying to build your habits, you're trying to get a little bit better every day and all that stuff, the stuff that we talk about every single day just on repeat. If you're focused on that, your future is going to be very bright, just statistically speaking. Why wouldn't it? You're doing the right things. But anybody out there who you're assuming time is enough to change things? That's not going to be it. It's not going to work that way. It's not going to work that way. Win doesn't really matter that much if you don't have a sale up. And even in this analogy a sale is kind of easy to throw up. Time is taking us, but it's the effort thing.

Speaker 1

So maybe the sailboat isn't a good analogy, but I just hate to see, because I was that guy. I didn't go to college and I was like, well, eventually I'm sure I'll get something, and I did. I got a good job eventually, but that was luck. That was not because I did anything different. I'm telling you it wasn't. I got a good job eventually, but that was luck. That was not because I did anything different. I'm telling you it wasn't. I got lucky. Things happened in a really unique sequence for me and I got pretty lucky and I'm grateful I did. But I assumed that time was just going to catch up and eventually, yeah, everything will kind of work itself out. I don't think that's the case for most people. What do you think now?

Speaker 2

I think if I didn't get that job, I was going to be screwed. I don't know what I would have done If you used to say well eventually things will work out.

Speaker 1

What do you actually believe now Things are going to work out to the extent that you make them work out. Yeah, it's up to you. Time can help, but it can also hurt. It can also hurt. So, yeah, try to have the most empowering, accurate version of that is what I would say.

The power of time and effort

Speaker 2

Nice you dig, it was fire, I love it. I could keep talking but we should go.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I know, I know. Well, we went from 13-minute episodes to 35-minute episodes. Now that's how you know we're doing our Next Level Hope Foundation Father's Day event. Please tell the wonderful community family about it.

Speaker 2

For the long-term listeners. Thank you for sticking with us. You know all about this. We do it every year For the new listeners.

Speaker 2

So Kevin and I both were born without fathers, so my father passed away when I was two, had a stepdad from three to 14. My stepfather left when I was 14, but I never really fully connected with him anyway. So we were both raised by two women. So I had my older sister and my mom, and he had his mama and his mima, which is his grandma, and so we both were unconsciously looking for male role models, and so we created a charity called the Next Level Hope Foundation where we can hopefully provide be male role models to children of boys without fathers is what it started as. And then we wanted to include anyone without a father, and then we wanted to include children of single parents. So Kevin and I witnessed how hard it was to raise kids as a single parent, and so we wanted to give back. So we have a GoFundMe page the link will be in the show notes and Kevin and I are.

Speaker 2

This is the way we're approaching it now. So we grew our company by 20% last year, so we're growing our contributions by 20% as well. So last year we matched up to $500. This year we're going to be it's actually more than 20% we're going to be matching $600. We already matched our $600. So the goal is $1,200. We already contributed our $600. So please contribute any way that you can. This is going to t-shirts. This is going to renting out the YMCA for Father's Day. So we're not doing it on Father's Day, we're doing it on the 15th. Father's Day is on the 16th. It's Saturday, the 15th, from 2 to 5 pm we get beanie babies for the kids, we rent out the entire gym, we do arts and crafts, we do face paint. Again, the link will be in the show notes. You'll see the photo. It's been tremendous and any contributions we really appreciate Boom.

Speaker 1

Strong work, all right. So we're doing something different where and we've kind of been teasing this, talking about it maybe not teasing is the best word we don't know if we want to know what episode we're doing tomorrow, because I feel like these kind of episodes where we just it's what we really want to talk about in the moment, I think we're guilty of being on both ends where we would just completely freestyle it and then maybe that wasn't the flow, but we'd also script the whole thing and we definitely don't like that.

Speaker 2

Well, we never scripted the whole thing, but we definitely it went from just a conversation where we'd show up in the beginning to then. Eventually there was an outline and it became kind of more lecture-like and we want to try to go back to the center of more conversational and I feel like we're at a place now where we can talk intelligently about things, without a ton of prep work and what we're feeling in the moment. So sorry to interrupt you. I want it to be natural. No, no, you're good.

Speaker 1

I want it to be a natural conversation, and you don't really know what you're going to talk about in a natural conversation. You have an idea, but then you go and go. So I think that's what we're going to try to do, just because that feels right. And again, that's the beauty of learning and growing, evolving, and you all understand that too at a deep level, that different things feel different and then things feel right and you test it out and see what happens. So we're going to lead by example and do that. So I don't know what we're going to talk about tomorrow, but hopefully it will be a valuable episode to you. I'm sure it will and I'm sure Alan and I will have fun at doing it. 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.

Speaker 2

Keep time on your side. Next Level Nation.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host