Next Level University

#1756 - Self Awareness VS Self Honesty

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Have you ever set a goal and wondered why it didn’t feel right? In this insightful episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros help you understand yourself better by discussing self-awareness and honesty. They share simple tips on how to set goals that genuinely match who you are, embrace humility, and honestly assess yourself. Join us to discover how being true to yourself can lead to more meaningful and fulfilling achievements, feeling content in the satisfaction of embracing humility.

Link mentioned:
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Digital Asset:
The Ego Circles - https://bit.ly/3VVloIJ

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For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇

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LinkedIn ✍
Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
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Show notes:
(3:55) Importance of self-awareness
(4:46) Ego circles: Aligning goals with true self
(9:55) Most desires become expectations
(11:09) The role of feedback in self-improvement
(12:51) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal,

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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

Speaker 1

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. My goodness, we're recording this episode. It's Friday. It has been one heck of a week. I think this is my 10th or my 9th call of the day. It's great. It's been awesome, super fulfilled but very overwhelmed, jumping from thing to thing to thing.

Speaker 2

I hear you just got off of a really, really good podcast.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I got off of an interesting podcast. I'm going to leave it at that because I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but it was interesting, to say the least. Today, for episode number 1,756, self-awareness versus self-honesty Somebody asked me I've been getting this question quite often. I'm sure you probably get it a lot when you go on shows why is self-awareness so important? And I know it probably sounds like a very low, simple question to ask. That person didn't put a lot of effort into it, but it's a really deep answer if you're willing to go there and willing to have a conversation around it. And you and I were talking I don't know what episode it was, but we were talking about self-awareness versus self-honesty and I don't know if I asked you like what's the difference between the two? Are they the same? But then we said we were going to do a full-length episode on it. So here we are.

Speaker 2

Kev. I'm getting some audio issues through your microphone and it's different than usual, so I don't know.

Speaker 1

I appreciate it on, please hold, please hold.

Speaker 2

It could be internet related on your end, I don't know, and I I know that you're recording audio native, so I don't know. If, so I don't know. If it's a problem, it might be fine it. It is the sounding different now I would say it's much better now, I think what was happening is it's? It's changing your levels in real time.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's doing the audio change thing which I can't fix now, so we're probably going to end up using StreamYard Audio. Okay, but let's just.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I appreciate it, but StreamYard Audio is going to be garbage because I'm hearing StreamYard Audio.

Speaker 1

Well, the only other thing I can do and I don't know if I'm as I'm good enough to do this is I can just hold the entire time. I can just hold my my finger on the mouse where it holds the level I think let's do it.

Speaker 2

I can just do that. You got this, you got all right, cool, okay, all right, that's what I'm doing. Thank you, listeners, for we are we take messy action here.

Speaker 2

Editors, you don't have to take any of that out. We want to be imperfect, to show the messy action behind the scenes, all right. So when you said the question, why is self-awareness so important, I actually do have an answer that I give now. I think most people don't achieve their goals because their goals are not aligned with who they really are, and so yesterday we were doing a monthly meetup. Shout out to everyone who came. We had 14 people register, even on July 4th which I know is only a US holiday and we still had, I think, 14 people registered. 13 people came, or it was 13, 12. I forget, but it was awesome, it was really good. And the I basically said to the entire audience. I said there's one point in every single podcast episode, every single training, every single speech, every single meetup, every single book club where I really I know that this is the point that I really want to get to land.

Speaker 2

Whether or not I do is a whole other question, but this slide came up. I'm looking at it right now on my other screen and it's what I call the ego circles. I'm writing a blog about this now, and Emilia and I co-created this framework. It was mostly hers, quite frankly. I kind of repackaged it and so picture a three circles, a target-looking image, and we will put the digital asset by the way, in the show notes There'll be a link you can download this. It's just the ego circles, boom.

Importance of self-awareness

Speaker 2

Okay, so there's three layers. The outer layer is who, so one, two, three and the one is in the center. The second layer is two. Third layer is three. Number three who you want others to believe you are. Number two is who you want to believe you are and number one is who you really are. I think a lot of us don't achieve our goals and this myself included because we're setting our goals based on who we want to believe we are and who we want others to believe we are, not who we really are. So let me give you an example.

Speaker 2

I've talked about this on previous episodes, but recently I tried to do a timed mile and I got really humbled. Emilia and I were at the track and I said, sweetheart, I really, it was me, her and tucker. I said can you just take tucker for a little while? I want to try to do a timed mile, and I had this moment on my face where you realize you're screwed. And it reminded me of my cross country and my track days where, right before the, I remember there was this one time kev.

Ego circles: Aligning goals with true self

Speaker 2

I remember there was this one time, kev where my coach you know this person, mr Halsey, and he said, all right, we need Keith to get second. No, we need Keith to get first, we need I don't know someone else to get second, and we need Alan, you need to get third. And these runners it was winter track are way better than us. In order to win the meet, alan, you have to get third, and these runners it was winter track are way better than us. In order to win the meet, alan, you have to get third in a clean sweep.

Speaker 2

Dude, this is a tiny little indoor track and so you, I don't know, it was the 300 meter dash. So I think we ran around the track what three or four times, and the first lap, we were good, I was on par for third. And by the middle of the second, uh, way around the track, I was like there's no possibility, there's no chance that I can get third, I'll shoot for fourth. No chance I can get fourth, I'm gonna shoot for fifth. I, I kid you, not, all three of us after the keith didn't get first, the other guy didn't get second and I did not get third. And all three of us, I kid you not are outside in the back parking lot puking after the race. No joke, it was, it was brutal, but anyways.

Speaker 2

So there's that moment that we all have. You either get it after the thing or you get it before and. And so I'm about to do a timed mile and I got the gut check, I got the moment of truth, I got the fear moment of I'm going to shoot for six. I think I can get six, I think that's possible. Worst case, I'll do seven and most likely I'll land around six and a half minute mile. I've been working out. Awesome Go me, big legs, awesome, six foot two.

Speaker 2

Emilia is like come on, I can see the doubt in your eyes, like you got this? And I'm like I don't know if you understand what a six minute mile is, sweetheart, I don't got this intuitively, I know I don't got this, but yeah, she got me pumped up and I was like, yeah, let's do it. She said, worst case scenario you'll eat the humble pie. So I ended up with a 710. And 710 was devastating and I was trucking and I'm carrying my phone, which is a terrible idea. I should use my Apple Watch. I'm carrying my phone, but I also want my music with me and I look down and I go. Are you kidding me? Worst, worst case I thought would be seven. It's already past seven and I'm hammering to this finish line, right?

Speaker 2

So my point is one of the reasons we don't achieve our goals is because we're not setting them based on who we really are. I was setting that goal for a six minute mile based on who I want to believe I am, based on who maybe I I don't know if the third one resonates of like who I want others to believe me. I am because, honestly, emilia is the only one there and I'm not trying to impress her, but I do think that that's one of the reasons. I don't think we want to admit that we're such a bad runner that we need to shoot for a 10 minute mile to start. But I think that's where real growth is.

Speaker 2

I think be honest with where you're really at. I think you have to be humble and set an achievable small goal in alignment with a long-term vision. So I think self-awareness is an honesty with self is where real self-belief gets built, because if you do what I did and then you end up with a 710, now you might not run at all because you don't want to take that much feedback again. Luckily, I'm still uh, I've failed enough times now where I'm kind of thick skinned to it. But what does that do to my self-worth when I constantly am setting unachievable, unwinnable goals? I think it's much more powerful. What if I just shot for seven and then, worst case scenario, seven and a half, and then I would? I would be pumped with 710 instead of well, I don't know if you would be.

Speaker 1

I understand the. I understand the, the setup. I. I believe, now more than ever, that most of our desires become our expectations. If, because I've talked to so many people where they it's very clear that they're expecting it to go exactly the way that they want Almost all the time. And it's like why? Why do you think it's going to go that way? Do we have any data at all to back that up, or is that just what you want? Again, understandable. I wanted the same thing when I started this. My desires that we would make money and we'd be a successful podcast became my expectations. And then, when my desires didn't get I guess I didn't accomplish my desires I was upset because my expectations were off and that's a really dangerous place to live.

Most desires become expectations

Speaker 1

But I think that's why self-awareness is knowing yourself. I think self-honesty is having the courage to admit the parts that you know about yourself that you don't really want to know. But that is hard. That is super, super hard. I took a picture of myself before I started this cut. I took a picture of myself in the gym because I was like I'm looking really like, I'm looking really good, like yeah, man, I'm, I'm, yeah, this is gonna be fine. And then I I looked at the picture and I was like, oh my god, no way, that's not, that can't possibly be the way I look. I know it's so bad.

Speaker 2

The mirror. The mirror is against me. It's not just the mirror, dude, these iphones. They show everything well, I'm not gonna blame the iphone, but I do need but, that's. But that's good, because that's the truth I know. I took a picture yesterday at the track with emilia and I couldn't use it. It was unusable of my stomach, I couldn't believe it. It was unusable of my stomach, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1

And again, I know Alan and I are, maybe we're in shape Again. This isn't about that. It's about our standards versus our realities and what we have allowed. So this is an us thing. Let us have this. Thank you for that disclaimer.

Speaker 2

We've got standards, so you've got a goal. And then you've got standards, so you've got a goal, and then you've got standards. And then you've got expectations and none of them line up Right. And then you go and get feedback by taking action and it's never what you hoped. Almost never, I mean very rarely do things go better than you hoped.

The role of feedback in self-improvement

Speaker 2

But they might for you if you assume the worst, right, right. This comes down to the drive to five of. I assume things will go well by default. We did the fishing episode, where I'm always assuming it's a fish, kevin always assumes it's a log. I think that's a really cool metaphor.

Speaker 1

Yeah, same.

Speaker 2

And there might be. I guarantee you Kevin had fish on more than he thought and I guarantee you I caught more logs than I wanted to admit to myself. And I think this is the unconscious record we're all playing in the back of our mind. And Kevin and I gave a speech in Pittsburgh once to a pretty good group of college students and I remember saying which record is playing in the back of your?

Speaker 1

mind.

Speaker 2

Is it saying you're awesome, you've got this, you can do it, it's all going to work out? Or is it saying you're the worst, this is never going to happen for you? You can't do this, you're not competent, you're not enough? And if the answer is the first one, then you most likely are consistently up against letting yourself down. So I'm on that end. I think things will go well. I'm usually pretty let down. I I think, as I've matured, I've gotten closer to center. Kev thinks things are going to go horribly wrong and then he pleasantly surprises himself most of the time, and then a lot of times, he swings over, just like I, swing under, and and it's this pendulum that keeps happening. But ultimately, if you set your goals based on true, honest self-assessment, I do feel like, more often than not, you'll get closer to the target.

Speaker 1

I would agree, and if you're further away from the target, it won't hurt as bad. That's the really challenging thing is. I don't want anyone to limit themselves based on their own belief in themselves. But sometimes limiting yourself based on your own belief in themselves but sometimes limiting yourself based on your own belief is not a bad thing because it sets you up for more success and less failure. It's very but it's such a challenging thing.

Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy:

Speaker 1

The first time I gave a speech I was more prepared than I thought, but I'm sure for every time somebody's more prepared, somebody's less prepared. But if you think you're going to crush it and you don't, it's wonky. I am going. So today I'm going through this weird. Today's been a weird ass day. Did a, I did a speech for one of Evan Carmichael's groups 4th of July. So Thursday Went awesome. I felt really good. Felt really good, got great feedback. A bunch of people booked free calls, dms, awesome. Then I had one of those calls today and it was just amazing and I can understand why. If I did 10 calls like that every day and I was getting the love and the admiration and all of that, I would probably believe in myself a ton and you'd end up delusional?

Speaker 2

Well, definitely. And then when you try to time a mile, you'd get all the humble pie.

Speaker 1

I wouldn't do that, I know better.

The challenges of self-honesty

Speaker 2

But I purposely try really hard to do things that are outside of my zone of greatness for lack of better phrasing, because I need to eat the humble pie. Because, yes, have you ever met someone who maybe is living that life where they're just winning at everything at this point because they spent a decade grinding and they're really winning in one narrow area really, really well and, yes, they're really good at that thing, but they have such a massive delusional. It's almost like they think they're good at everything because they're really really, really competent in that one area. But that's also the narrow area they kind of stay in and you just want to hey, can we get in the ring and just spar for a little bit so that you can realize that this is this doesn't translate to everything and again, that's more of a metaphor than anything. I'm not saying to actually fight anybody, but the point is I'll give you an example.

Humility and real growth

Speaker 2

I remember one time I did a triathlon and I told someone else who's a triathlete about this and I was telling the story about how the run, when you get off the bike, picture running with bricks in your shoes. That's what it feels like. It was so bad and I said I hit the wall. And this person genuinely said, oh, in a sprint you should never have hit the wall at all. And I remember thinking to myself lady, I don't do triathlons, I did this on a whim. I had this moment. My ego said this inside me you need to come to weight train with me. I really need you to come to the gym for a sec and understand what I do, because this, this triathlon thing, this is all you do. And I stepped on and did a triathlon. The fact that I even finished the thing is awesome, but she's gotten so delusional that she actually thinks me hitting any wall with a sprint because she does Ironmans is like something to poke fun at. That's like us being like oh, one episode a week, that's a joke.

Speaker 1

Or you should never forget what you're about to say, like even though I forget what I'm about to say all the time, constantly, it happens she's just delusional because she doesn't do things that are hard for her anymore.

Speaker 2

I like to go into your ring and do things that are new because it gives me humble pie again. That's why I do the timed mile. I'm not a runner, I don't run often. I'm doing a 5k this weekend because I want the humble pie. I want to see if I can get under. I'm going to shoot for under 30, maybe get 25.

Speaker 1

20 is impossible, no way uh, but how many miles is a 5k?

Speaker 2

3.2. I think 3.1, 3.2, yeah, sounds terrible. It will be, it will be painful. I my hat is off to you. It's deeply painful, deeply painful.

Speaker 1

I see people hustling down the street and it's like nobody's. I don't see anybody chasing you. It doesn't look like you're chasing anything. Just go back inside. Just go back, and you can always turn around and go back inside If you want. No, I, I, I used to be a bit of a runner back in the day. I used to run the circle. We had a square at the town square. I used to run that all the time. I thoroughly enjoyed running. So shout out to anybody putting themselves through. All right, we got to go because two things. One, my left hand is numb because my entire, this entire time I've been holding down my mouse. Kudos to you. I appreciate that very much I.

Speaker 2

I had forgotten. I didn't even remember that you were doing that. That's how well you pulled it off.

Speaker 1

You could podcast while holding that and looking at the. I'm checking the levels, if you so, if you see me looking at the camera, I'm not looking at the camera, I'm looking at the levels on my other monitor.

Speaker 2

It's a whole thing and you're monitoring the time because you know I'll go right off the rails yeah, yeah, and we are doing two episodes in this.

Speaker 1

It's a whole thing. Alan and I are very overwhelmed, which is great. There's a lot of demand, but I know we want to try to get back to basics and really put the podcast. I don't want to be doing 15-minute episodes every time because obviously they go by very quick and we just don't have the level of conversation. So we'll be better.

Avoiding delusion in self-assessment

Speaker 2

What's your main takeaway?

Speaker 1

My main takeaway is I don't think. I think self-awareness and self-honesty are two different layers of the same onion. You can be self-aware but not as self-honest. Okay, I don't think they're as tied together as I originally thought.

Speaker 2

You think you can be self-aware without self-honesty.

Speaker 1

I think you can be more self-aware than you are honest, because I think honesty comes from now and the future. You can get to a point where you're 8 out of 10 self-aware and 8 out of 10 self-honest, and then you can just use all the self-awareness that you've learned and not take in any more information. That's what I would say.

Speaker 2

My only takeaway is it takes a lot of courage to look in the metaphorical mirror, and when you test yourself, you will always benefit, even if it hurts in the moment, because if you think you suck, you'll realize you don't, and if you think you're great, you'll also realize you don't, which is good for you to improve. So that's what I would say is being very honest with yourself about where you really fall on any spectrum or any growth curve is going to help you grow and improve, which, I think, is where fulfillment comes from. I think fulfillment comes from being very, very honest with who you are.

Self-awareness and self-honesty

Speaker 1

Truth is the way. It just sucks a lot of the time. And that's the hard thing is, we tend to avoid truth when it sucks, but we also tend to avoid truth when it is great for us. You're a really powerful speaker. That speech really moved me. Oh no, no, come on. Oh, you look beautiful in that dress. You look handsome today. Oh no, no, no, come on when. Maybe that's the truth, maybe that's the actual person's truth. That is a subjective truth and vice versa. Hey, I didn't come and show up today as as well as I could have, and, alan, I don't think you did either. It's like Ooh, but that's I'm not. I'm not saying you didn't but you did.

Speaker 2

I was kidding, hey, I definitely didn't. No, no, it's all good.

Speaker 1

This isn't my best either, so well, you know what they say about sex. I'm not as good as I once was, but I am good once as I ever was. That song's about sex. You have anything to say, anything to rebuke.

Speaker 2

No, I would say, doing your best every time is not a thing. Bettering your best is, I think, the path, and you can only do that through self-awareness and self-honesty.

Speaker 1

Didn't even take the bait on the country song. Okay, next level group coaching round 15 is starting. You're listening to this on Sunday, so it is starting Monday, two days from today. Use NLUListener as the discount code. You'll get 30% off.

Speaker 2

It ends up being what did we? Say $96 per month, month 60 cents, 12 sessions six with kevin and I, six with amy. Connection calls in the in the interim weeks. So 12 weeks of sessions every single week. It comes to, I think, less than 25 per session with the promo code. The link will be in the show notes sorry I had to.

Speaker 1

I had to adjust my sound live while I was doing this because I moved my hand. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and nlu united fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2

Stay honest with yourself next elimination.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host