#1771 - How Do You Know When You're Living In Ego?

How do you recognize when your ego is taking over? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros explore their struggles with ego and insecurity, sharing personal stories and insights that highlight the importance of self-awareness and humility. They discuss how insecurities can lead to misunderstandings and conflict and offer practical advice on identifying and managing these feelings. Understanding and addressing our deepest insecurities can improve our relationships and achieve tremendous success and fulfillment. Tune in and take steps towards a more self-aware and fulfilling life.

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Show notes:
(1:41) Living in ego?
(3:22) Addressing ego
(4:40) Pinball analogy
(6:17) Deepest insecurities
(8:07) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA
(9:04) Sign of maturity
(12:23) Looking below,

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. Today, for episode number 1,771, we're going to hit you with a quick one because Alan and I were just talking trash about one another behind the scenes for longer than we should have been and we ate into some of our recording time you some of our recording time. How do you know when you're living in ego? I was on a podcast the other day that was supposed to be an hour ended up being two hours and 45 minutes, but it was fire A really, really, really good podcast and I just kept. I just was like I'm going to stay for as long as this thing goes because it's super awesome and I'm in.

Speaker 1 0:38

It was a great host, just a great conversation, and one of the questions he asked me was about what was one of the hardest things you had to overcome to get to where you are, and I said externally it was being broke and figuring out business. Internally, it was imposter syndrome and realizing that I was wildly insecure and there were times in the past where, when I was insecure, I would ego up Not always externally, but I remember Alan, myself and Eddie Panero were having a conversation about business and I remember thinking to myself these guys are so arrogant when it comes to business. And then I sat back and I said, is this a me thing or is this a them thing? And I landed on this is a me thing. They're not why? Because they have certainty and they have confidence around business. That doesn't make them arrogant, you're just wildly insecure. So he asked me a question. He said how do you know when you're living an ego? How do you know, how do you decipher whether you're living an ego and when you're not In hindsight.

Speaker 2 1:35

I bet you, some of it was arrogance.

Speaker 1 1:37

Ah, less than you'd think.

Living in ego?

Speaker 2 1:40

I don't think it was a lot, I'm just saying some of it was.

Speaker 1 1:43

I don't think. I think it was very, very, very minimal Okay.

Speaker 2 1:47

I would say Very, very, very minimal.

Speaker 1 1:48

That's good to hear yeah, yeah, it was very quick for me to say ah, this is a you thing, this isn't a them thing.

Speaker 2 1:53

This is a you thing.

Speaker 1 1:55

So how did you know?

Speaker 2 1:57

I think self-awareness, I always know if you really want to listen, I agree. I agree it's the honest with self. First you have to have the humility to ask the question am I, is this true? And then you have to sit with the truth of yeah, maybe, maybe that is true you have to.

Speaker 1 2:18

You have to understand that one way is the easy way out. It would be easy to say, no, they're, screw these guys, screw these guys. How easy would that be. And just to villainize you for the rest way out. It would be easy to say, no, screw these guys, Screw these guys. How easy would that be. And just to villainize you for the rest of the day. It would be super easy, it wouldn't be hard. The hard road is, Kev. You have a history of this, Kev. You have a history of being around people who are more confident than you are and immediately villainizing them. Some of them are arrogant, 100%, but this is not that case. We can decipher. We can decipher.

Addressing ego

Speaker 1 2:49

The question that I was asked in this podcast was how do you decipher between living in ego and not? And I said I've never been asked that question in the way you just asked, so I'm just going to go with what the first thing that pops into my head is. I stop listening and I start responding. Okay, so even in my relationship, I know I am triggered and I know that I am living more in ego than centeredness when I try to respond without thinking about my response. We've talked about pinball before Pinball. My pinball analogy is you never say the first thing on your mind, Because that's a really good way to say some dumb shit. Go watch what's the game with steve harvey. What's the name of that game?

Speaker 1 3:37

family feud go watch family feud a lot of the dumb answers and the funny answers. It's because you're under a certain amount of time. You say the first thing that comes to your mind and that's a good way to end up in a bad place. So I said that's. One way that I've started to understand is if Alan and I are having a, we're having a conversation and I immediately rebut to what Alan just said. I know I'm living in ego, not necessarily arrogant, not necessarily mad. Maybe it's insecure.

Pinball analogy

Speaker 1 4:08

You and I had a conversation on Monday that was very, very, very challenging. There was a point where I literally said to Alan I said hey, man, I am sorry if I am being an asshole. I am so sorry, I'm just triggered and I'm freaking out a little bit. I was living in ego, that's all it was, and I responded differently than I normally would have, so that, in with you and Eddie, I sat back and I really really thought about it. Let me sit with this and let me not assume anything is anything and let me go through my self-awareness and my understanding of myself and then see what lands and what I think landed was. I am living more in ego than they are currently.

Deepest insecurities

Speaker 2 4:54

This is. I know we don't have a ton of time, so I'll try to be as brief as possible with this. Kevin and I, over the last seven years, have tried to understand that we trigger different people different ways. If someone is insecure deep down about something that you are extremely strong in, usually you'll poke their what's referred to as their exile, which is their insecurity. Let's just call it. Let's just say everyone has a deep rooted insecurity that they don't want anyone else to know about. Let's just for the psychologists listening this is an oversimplification. I understand that that, but this is just the way that I think will be very practical for people. I want to make complex things very practical. So everyone is holding an insecurity deep, deep, deep down in their subconscious and unconscious mind that they know is there but they want to pretend is not there and they definitely don't want anyone else to know it's there, okay, so so I'm just going to use you as an example, kev, because you don't mind that. So Kev was insecure about not being smart enough. Is that fair? Yes, okay, kev doesn't want anyone else to know that he doesn't think he's smart enough. And so Kev in the past. Now he just owns it, because now he actually does think he's smart enough, which is the whole paradoxical irony of the whole thing. And, ironically, because you were triggered by smart people, you then would villainize them and or not spend time with them, because they would trigger you. And if you don't spend time with smart people, guess what happens? You don't get smarter. So it actually is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our fears sabotage, our insecurities sabotage. So my deepest insecurity is abandonment and being unliked and unloved and attacked and villainized. We'll just call it villainized. So me, my deepest insecurity was being villainized. Kevin's deepest insecurity was being not smart enough.

Speaker 2 6:48

Now, when Kevin and I first met back in high school, I felt very capable and very intelligent. Kevin felt very, very, very insecure and not intelligent. He villainized me literally and said what a dick he's arrogant. Now, truth be told, I was arrogant to some extent. Okay, maybe not as arrogant as you thought, certainly not as arrogant as your insecurity wanted to tell you. If you were mature and I wasn't either, by the way If you were mature you would say wow, I'm really triggered by him. I wonder if underneath his protector, his ego, is someone who's been really hurt and so he's keeping people at arm's length with his intelligence because he's afraid to be hurt. And then you sit there and go. Maybe I'm triggered because he's way smarter than I am and if I get around smart people I'll get smarter. But being around him makes me uncomfortable, and the story you told yourself was being around me, kevin and I.

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

Speaker 2 7:57

By the way for the new listeners, kevin didn't like me in High school and I didn't like that. Kevin didn't like me. But I definitely had no problem with you. Genuinely, I I never had a problem with you. To be honest, I I don't even know if I can authentically say that I did, because I just didn't, but I did know you didn't like me, which I didn't like, but that was nothing new. That was nothing new for me. So, anyways, kevin thought I was arrogant, I thought he was insecure and fucking soft. I'm kidding. So here's the deal. There it is.

Speaker 2 8:25

There's the ego, but that's the cool part. We can play with it. There's a ego, there's the ego, but that's the cool part.

Speaker 1 8:28

We can play with it.

Speaker 2 8:29

Yeah, there's a big difference between me playing with my ego versus actually living in it. Right, and I think that being playful with your ego actually shows people that you're mature, because if you can make fun of yourself, it's either a protector of trying to make sure you make fun of yourself and put yourself down so no one else puts you down. But I think when you're playful, I think it's proof that you actually feel secure. So that's proof that I feel secure around Kevin right now.

Sign of maturity

Speaker 2 8:57

Okay, so Kev's story to himself about himself is I'm not smart enough. His story to himself about me is he's an arrogant person. I don't like arrogant people. There's truth, truth to it, but that doesn't mean it's the whole truth. My story to myself is kevin doesn't like me and I'm unlikable. And because I'm unlikable, I'm going to make sure no one gets close enough to hurt me.

Speaker 2 9:20

And so we just butt heads in high school. And it wasn't until we matured and grew and learned and had common core value of fitness and both realizing we don't have fathers, that in our mid-20s we started to like, hang out and really vibe really well. And you were very, very, very humble at that time, and I was also humbled by my car accident at that time. So we got back to true self and then we could really sit with our insecurities. And then we built a podcast called the Hyperconscious Podcast, where it's change the way you think, change the way you act, change the way you live, which is basically listen. We're both insecure, just happens to be about different things, and instead of us hating each other or avoiding each other or disliking each other or making fun of each other, let's learn from each other.

Speaker 1 10:16

And that's really how all of this came about. I'm sorry, I'm smiling. So I have the office door shut and ace just popped out from somewhere and I have no idea how he got in here and I don't know how long he's been in here, but you're about to see his butthole on camera here in a second.

Speaker 2 10:25

I have no clue how he got in here. That's awesome. What's up base? Um, yes, I'm so. I'm sorry for calling you a nut bag and a couple episodes ago called my cat a nut bag was that on on the air.

Speaker 1 10:37

I don't remember if it was. Yeah, it was, it was. That is all true, that whole thing we got to go. So I can't go too deep, but that, that is all true, all of that is very true, and I just didn't have the self-awareness or the introspection at the time. I think that's what empathy is. Empathy is looking below what you see. So, yeah, what really pissed me off is you thought you were better at football than I was. That's really what pissed me off. And you thought you could take me. That's what got me. Did I say that? No, but it was there and I remember thinking alan, alan, you, you wear abacrombie, I don't I go to the gym and I want to fight for a living like you, not a chance.

Speaker 1 11:21

What are you even thinking?

Speaker 2 11:23

all right, so to bring this back quickly to the value real quick.

Looking below, what you see

Speaker 2 11:27

I know we gotta go. Everyone listening or watching this try to identify what your deepest insecurity is, because the two buckets of insecurity is defective and unlovable. The defective don't believe in themselves and they struggle with self-doubt and they don't feel good enough or smart enough. The unlovable feel unlikable and unlovable and they feel like they. They are constantly being hurt or misunderstood or just not, and some people have both. But at the end of the day, the defectives trigger the unlovables and the unlovables trigger the defectives. And so the unlovables are typically people who achieve a lot but they don't get along with people very well because they seem so arrogant to people who don't believe in themselves, and sometimes they are super arrogant, by the way. So there's that. And then the the defectives feel super relatable and lovable and they feel like they belong and get along with people really easily, but they struggle to achieve their goals and dreams, and so that's an oversimplification. In in the sake of time right now, but figure out which, which. What's your biggest insecurity and how is that triggering ego?

Two buckets of insecurities

Speaker 1 12:25

because most likely that ego is sabotaging a lot of love and or success and or fulfillment and just to speak on the defective end, I think sometimes when you're feeling defective and that's your, your deepest core wound you hold people back, unintentionally as well, because you're afraid to get left behind. So there's there's positives for both ends, but there's also negatives, because that's kind of the way it works in life. Okay, if you have not yet subscribed, please do follow on Spotify, subscribe on Apple, on YouTube all of that happy jazz, and let us know if you're in Next Level Nation, let us know what you think of these shorter episodes. I know some people like longer, some people like shorter. Give us some feedback and maybe we can work in more shorter ones if you like it. If not, we will take that feedback and see what lands for us. 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, stay humble Next level nation.