Next Level University

#1775 - Back To Basics… - Freestyle Friday

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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0:00 | 26:34

Think success comes easy? Think again. In this Freestyle Friday episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros share their personal experiences and insights on returning to basics, especially when life and business feel overwhelming. They discuss the phases of growth and consolidation, the need sometimes to slow down to focus on quality, and the significance of stubbornness and consistency in achieving long-term success. They also explore how social media and societal expectations can create a distorted view of success, reminding us that the behind-the-scenes work is often what truly counts.

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

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Show notes:
(2:34) Phases of growth and consolidation
(4:21) Thin and stretched
(6:43) Returning to basics and core fundamentals
(8:39) Consistency, sustainability, strategy, and stubbornness
(12:25) 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. Today, for episode number 1,775, it is Freestyle Friday. If you are watching this on YouTube, you know that because it is dark in Alan and I's studios. Alan's studio doesn't get nearly as dark as mine, I don't know why. Maybe it's the camera.

Speaker 2

It's the. My shades are right here and the bottom portion of the shades are kind of like open, so the sun is coming in.

Speaker 1

I have my entire my shades are all the way open and the window is open. It's the camera.

Speaker 2

Gotta be the camera right, gotta be the camera.

Speaker 1

Because I can. It's bright out. This isn't a midnight screening Fair Of the Crow. What was Edgar Allan Poe's? Was it the Crow? Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2

Okay, cool.

Speaker 1

Alright, we're going to talk today. It's Freestyle Friday and Allan and I were talking in the preamble kind of, about what we're going through, what would be valuable. Freestyle Friday is freestyle, yes, but I also want to make sure we don't just jump on here and I go hey, alan, what do you want to talk about? I don't know, kev, what do you want to talk about? So we were talking about how, right now in the business and I guess in our lives and the lives of the team members on NLU, we're very much going back to basics and there's these phases.

Speaker 1

So you grow and you grow, and you grow and you grow, and then you try to lock in the growth and then, once you lock in the growth, you go on another growth spurt. You grow and you grow, and you grow and you grow. And we've done that over and over and over and over and I think at times we have grown too fast and then not locked in the growth. And then we kind of have to look and say, hey, we're doing more, we're probably doing more than we should be, we could probably be doing less than we currently are better, and then usually we have a conversation around what needs to change what needs to slow down. So, just as an, we put some of our departments on coast mode.

Speaker 1

All that means is we're just not pouring a ton of energy in because we want to make sure we're putting energy into the right people, places, things, ideas, feelings, departments, opportunities, options, habits, whatever it is. So yeah, that's kind of what we're talking about is back to basics. But Alan said do you think it would be valuable to talk about how kind of how we got here? And I said I'm open to seeing what comes of that. I'm not sure where we'll go exactly, but I figure I'll let you kind of lead the dance on that.

Phases of growth and consolidation

Speaker 2

So we've been working together for seven years and we've done all these episodes. We've met all these people, we've coached all these people. We've learned so much that it actually is breaking my brain Sometimes, I get we've coached all these people, we've learned so much that it actually is breaking my brain.

Speaker 2

Sometimes I get annoyed with how much we grow and I just want the growth to stop. I just want a minute to I feel you there, lock it in it's. It's not all the time, but every now and then I'll be like this is really exhausting and I feel like I'm growing at such a rate that the treadmill is just speeding up and speeding up, and speeding up, and speeding up and speeding up and you have to kind of reevaluate who you are constantly. And it can it can be really exhausting. And then when you go and see someone and you say, hey, how you been? And they say, oh, same old shit. And they say, what about you? And you can't even try to articulate the amount that's been going on. And this is not me trying to toot my own horn or Kevin's horn.

Speaker 2

The having a self-improvement company where our entire career, our entire mission, our entire life is oriented around personal development, personal growth, self-improvement, personal development, personal growth, self-improvement. So every single day you're working on getting better. 1% better in your pocket, from anywhere on the planet, completely free, holistic, self-improvement. Health, wealth, life and love that's next level university, when you live it and breathe it. Every single day you stretch yourself so much. Sometimes it can feel like that. There's a quote in the Lord of the Rings movie Kev where it says too little butter spread across too much bread.

Speaker 1

And that's a sad time for anyone.

Thin and stretched

Speaker 2

Exactly. Sometimes that's how I feel. I know that's sometimes how you feel, and that's actually why we put some of the departments in coast mode, because we are spread too thin and it's hurting the quality of our work and the quality of our life. Now, that said, I think there's a lot of people on the other side of that that probably are focused on quality of life, that might need more productivity or more focus, but over the last seven years, 1,700, however many episodes coaching people from all over the world, all different industries, all different backgrounds, global perspective now for sure, when we were younger, we hadn't met all these people from all these different countries yet, and we learned so much about the world and how it works through all these different people, particularly me through my business coaching. And I guess number one is it can be exhausting and it can be hard to sustain. And then number two is let's look back at the last seven years and figure out what actually did make the biggest difference.

Speaker 2

Because Kevin and I had a team huddle yesterday. It was a very powerful team call and the theme of it was back to basics, because the team feels that too, because they've been growing so much too. And back to basics. Back to basics, back to basics. What are the fundamentals? Back to basics, back to basics. What are the fundamentals? What are the fundamentals that bring progress, and meaningful progress, and results and fulfillment? What are the basics? And so, back to basics. Kevin and I wanted to have a conversation about what those basics are for us in hindsight, so that we can try to get back to basics today, so that our future can be brighter and bigger and better, but without maybe feeling constantly overwhelmed it's hard to know.

Returning to basics and core fundamentals

Speaker 1

I don't. I don't even know if I know what the basics are anymore. Really, I, if you said what are the basics, I don't know if I would be able to give you an eloquent, valuable answer, because it feels like there's too many. I know, you know, I don't know what are the basics, but what has gotten us here? Consistency, sustainability, consistency, improvement, creativity and stubbornness, those would be like the, the buckets strategy I was on a podcast yesterday called sustaining creativity.

Speaker 2

You were on that show, she said she didn't know what you do years ago marie mary. Yeah uh, mari mari mari. Yeah, I got it wrong. I I said Mary as well. I think it's.

Speaker 1

Mari, I was going to do research before you go on, you'll know.

Speaker 2

Son Fair, she wasn't offended, she was very kind about it. But she was talking about my view on creativity and I never considered myself super creative Same.

Speaker 1

Before that podcast, I remember saying I don't really think I'm creative.

Speaker 2

I said I'm an engineer. So I don't know if I'm the creative type. And I realize now after that podcast, as you probably do too, we are super creative and what she refers to as creative I call strategy, I'm a strategy. I realize now after that podcast, as you probably do too, we are super creative and what I call, what she refers to as creative, I call strategy, I'm a strategist. So we are always strategizing. Right before this we were strategizing. So I would say strategizing has been one of the big ones for sure.

Speaker 2

You and I are strategizing all the time of what to do, how to do it better. Kev will always ask me a question question. I'll say how do we grow and succeed at a higher level? And you can't say do everything, we're already doing one percent better.

Speaker 1

You usually do you kind of usually do, yeah, but I think that's that's a really good. It's a really good representation of how we got here too. It was a lot of. I don't know that's the hard thing. That's the hard thing is a lot of. I don't know that's the hard thing. That's the hard thing is a lot of. It has been just get through today and make tomorrow a little bit better, and I think that's kind of a phase we're in right now, and those phases always suck, they just suck, they're hard, they're hard, hard, hard phases. So that's one thing.

Consistency, sustainability, strategy, and stubbornness

Speaker 1

That's where I think the stubbornness comes in, because there's a lot of people and again, this isn't podcasting, this is anything you, whether you're watching or listening, there have been opportunities for you to quit something that you didn't, that other people did, and then they'll wonder how you got results that they didn't get, and the simple answer is you went further than they did. You just went further than they did. And when you go further than other people do, you get perspectives that other people don't have. You get opportunities that other people don't have. You get lessons that other people don't have, you get skills that other people don't have and you meet people that other people don't meet. But you don't know that and you never know when it's going to happen. Is it on day 365? Or day 368? Don't know, don't know, couldn't tell you, couldn't tell you, and the truth is nobody can tell you.

Speaker 1

No one can. And that's why, if it's important to you, you have to keep going. That's why, if it's important to you, you have to keep going. That's the hardest thing, is we just kept going, and the results we have today are based on seven years in business. If we stop today, we won't get any more results Whoa.

Speaker 2

But if we only do 10 years, we're only going to get 10 years worth of results. How did that used to so that articulation right there? How did you used to think about business versus that? Because that's true. I wonder if people know that.

Speaker 1

I thought you just made it.

Speaker 2

Okay, can we talk about how inaccurate that is? Yeah, the most. I mean, how many people have, for lack of a better phrasing, washed out or washed up, or athletes, whatever? Yeah, of course Success is. So there's a quote in the success space. I'll go quick with it. But success is not something you can ever own. You can only rent it, and the rent is due every day. For me, that's 100% true. Rent is due every day. For me, that that's 100 true. I wonder if people understand. Uh, I don't want that to sound negative, but you didn't understand that in the beginning. That's obvious to me now, like this is different than what it was in the beginning.

Speaker 1

I'm not trying to be mean to kev, like kev just didn't understand that if we stop, all of this goes goes I think it goes to what you said in the beginning of like dude, sometimes I just want to take a break and I think everybody wants that. I think everybody is kind of we're kind of sold this One of the a couple things, one of the dumbest things ever. If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life awesome on a bumper sticker and if if you're like, really suffering, I think there's a positive light in that. But I love what I do. I do not want to be on these microphones right now. This is literally the least. I do not want to be here. I would rather be a million other places I'm going to show up because that's what I do and that's who I am and I will never miss a fucking episode. Pardon my French, but I don't want to be here right now.

Speaker 2

It's so important for you to be honest about that. Because a lot of people would see your life and think you're living the dream and you are, and you are.

Speaker 1

Yeah, in many ways I am. There's nightmares. Nightmares are dreams too. Just FYI, when people say live in the dream, nightmares are dreams too. They're just not as good as the other dreams. You wake up.

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

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah yeah, that's how it feels sometimes. I was on a podcast yesterday and I think they might have had me and you mixed up, Because he's like let's talk about your addiction or your former addiction, and I was like porn. And he's like, no, wasn't it drinking? And I was like, no, no, I've never had a problem with drinking. I have had a problem with porn, though. And I was like you want to talk about that? And he's like, yeah, sure, let's do it. I'm like, all right, cool.

Speaker 2

I had. What a ridiculous opener to an interview. No, no, it wasn't the very beginning.

Speaker 1

It was a great interview. It was a great interview. Okay, nice, he was a therapist and a psychologist. I think it was wonderful.

Speaker 2

Just by the way, kev, because you'd want me to tell you this, I do think your levels just jumped, potentially my audio.

Speaker 1

Jeff and man, I'm going to throw this laptop through the freaking window.

Speaker 2

Hold on NLU listeners. This is the real. We're good.

Speaker 1

I think it's just because you and I were loud at the same time. Okay, but this is where I wanted to go with that. I talked about how I came across porn at like probably like six years old for the first time we had a black box. I went through kind of my history and my story. I had a dream last night that I was like so disappointed in myself.

The misconceptions of an easy success path

Speaker 1

I was so disappointed and then I realized it was a dream and I was like, oh my goodness, thank goodness that was a dream. So I'm going through it Like that's. I can tell when I have dreams like that I know things are happening, I know I'm under the, I'm under the weight more than usual. So yeah thing, my life is great. I do, I love my life. There are circumstances that come with this lifestyle that I don't love as much, and I think that's.

Speaker 2

But it's like that with every lifestyle, every thing Brother, on episode 7, scratching the Surface hyperconscious podcast. Before I was a part of it. Chase your effing dreams. Chase your effing dreams.

Speaker 2

You said I want to go to the gym when I want, I want to wake up when I want, I want. You are living your dream, you're married, you have your own business, you're a successful podcaster. You are living your dream and not but? And you have to pay for that every day. I think that that's the honest conversation that we can have. Is I have 24 clients? That is awesome. Right, I'm a business coach. That is my goddamn dream. Full-time business coach six figures Awesome. That's a dream.

Speaker 2

But, I better not miss a goddamn call because that roster can dwindle. When you start slipping, people leave. You can't slip Dude.

Speaker 1

It's almost like you have to get more dialed in over time, and I think everybody else makes it seem like you have to be less dialed in.

Speaker 2

It is weird.

Speaker 1

You get to the peak or the pinnacle and then you can just kind of let it ride. But it doesn't really work that way. I know I tried to do it in fitness Dude think about bodybuilding.

Speaker 2

That would never work. In bodybuilding you can't just let it ride.

Speaker 1

No, when you're on the biggest. I think fitness is such a good analogy Same. I think, fitness is one of the best analogies for growth for anything, because it's a really good physical and visual representation of progress or lack thereof. Agreed.

Speaker 2

Sports representation of progress or lack thereof. Agreed Sports you get. I used to say this I don't know if it lands when you get to the NBA. Your life didn't get easier.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

Now you have to play against Michael Jordan or whoever right, Like whichever the best players in the world. Now you're playing against the best players in the world. I remember when I went from high school straight a's math and science guy, all the awards to to college and I went oh my goodness I mean, we are in trouble I failed I failed my very first class.

The reality of constant effort in maintaining success

Speaker 2

Uh, it's brutal. And I remember we went to physics. I went to physics at wpi and in high school I got the physics award for being the physics guy. So I'm coming in hot as the physics guy and we get to. I go to two classes and by the third class we were done all of what I learned in the full year the previous year and I was. This is, this is another level, and so that's really the metaphor kevin and I are talking about. And I think that we all fall for this thing.

Speaker 2

Because if, if this looks easy, someone on the team huddle yesterday said, shout out to amy, she said it's unbelievable. You guys had that day. You had back to back to back to backs I think I had nine or eight. Then we recorded and you guys recorded an episode that she considers world-class. This is her words, not mine. She was blown away. If we make this look easy, it's so important to know that it's not. I think that's what happens, dude, even someone like and I'm only using the Rock because everyone knows him. It's a reference that everyone will get. That's why I try not to use some of the older athletes and stuff like Michael Jordan, for example. Some of the younger people listening don't even I mean, you know of him, obviously, but the Rock makes it look easy. Like him, obviously, but the rock makes it look easy like. Think about how easy he makes it look that that's one of the most successful people on the planet and think about how easy he makes it look he seems like he's hanging out fishing drinking tequila drinking tequila dude.

Speaker 2

I'm telling right now that dude wakes up with straight up panic attacks, but he doesn't talk about that. He tries to sometimes. He did a video once about the anxiety of always being under pressure all the time. I just think that I don't like to associate with anyone, so don't associate me with the Rock. But the point is, everything behind the scenes is everything behind the scenes? It's like in a movie. There's the scenes that are awesome. Emilia and I have been watching the James Bond series.

Speaker 1

Huge fan.

Speaker 2

With Daniel Craig. Yeah, Casino Royale was unreal.

Speaker 1

By far the best one. All those movies are just great they crush, they crush.

Speaker 2

Yeah, they're great movies. The scenes that are awesome are, and they do a good job of this. They show him behind the scenes struggle bus, and then the next awesome scene comes, and then there's behind the scenes struggle bus, and then the next awesome scene comes and then he loses someone he loves or whatever it is. So it's just success is a byproduct of adversity, over time turned into learning and growing and contributing, and so I think the world's biggest lie I've said this so many times is that success makes life easier. Success makes life more challenging. You just are more capable. So when you're more capable, you make it look easy. We make podcasting look easy, dude.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but the thing is it's not hard. It's hard with everything else, but this, this 25 minute segment, is probably the easiest thing I'll do all day. Honestly, for me, yeah, this is easier than coaching calls For me, right? So in a minute of time, in a vacuum, this is easy.

Speaker 2

I would say, coaching calls are easier for me.

Speaker 1

It makes sense. Yeah, this is harder.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it makes sense. You're a podcaster, first coach, second Podcast guy son Coach first, but in a micro minute.

Speaker 1

if you just look at this it's like, yeah, if this is all I had to do today, it'd be easy as hell. Wake up, go to the gym, record a podcast episode and hang out. It'd be super easy.

Speaker 2

Is that what you thought it was going to be 100%, yeah, 100%. Is that? Because that's what other people make it look like.

The behind-the-scenes struggles that accompany visible success

Speaker 1

I mean, when I started this, I didn't know anybody. I didn't know any podcasters that were successful other than Joe Rogan, and I didn't really understand. I mean, we were nobody was talking about money in podcasting. There was no $500 million, spotify deals or 200 million whatever it is 50 million. There was none of that back then. So when I started, it was just I don't, I knew I wanted to do this every day. I didn't realize that doing this every day made up 10 of the day. I think that's the best way to yeah to explain it is.

Speaker 1

I mean, think about. Uh, I've been watching a lot of bodybuilding stuff lately. As I've been saying, the gym for like a professional bodybuilder is only an hour and a half a day.

Speaker 2

Yeah, the rest of it is brutal.

Speaker 1

Mobility, sleep, eating, eating, massages, drinking water, whatever. However, you make money if you're not a professional bodybuilder.

Speaker 1

So coaching supplementation yeah yeah, Social media social social media, autograph signings, whatever, whatever, depending on what level you are, but that it's, yeah, I. I think this is the hard thing. We gotta jump because you gotta call. This is one of the really hard things is you only see the behind the scenes of your life, you only see the highlights of everybody else's. That's the hardest. That is the hardest thing in the world is your entire life is behind the scenes because you know exactly what's going on. Yeah, with Alan and I, you only know what we talk about on the podcast and you only know what you see on social media. And again, we try to be as like, as authentic as possible.

Speaker 2

But what percentage of it is that right? That's only 20%. I mean, it's not even Maybe, not even yeah.

Speaker 1

And that's us trying our best to be honest. How many pictures do you see of me in Scotland? I was in Scotland for 14 days. Yeah, I took hundreds of pictures. I could post a picture every day for the rest of the year, and that was from 14 days in Scotland, or 13, whatever it is, dude, that's a great metaphor. You go to a photo shoot and you take 200 pictures in two hours and then that gets posted for the rest of the year. It's like that was literally two hours of my life.

Speaker 2

That was two hours of this year, and that was the one time where you're the most in shape right because you optimized and dieted for that day, and then the rest of it was work.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

It really is. I think about this, alan when I see Social media is messing humans up, myself included. I'm not kidding Media.

Speaker 1

Media is Not even just social media.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I would say, media is.

Speaker 1

But it's amplified now.

Speaker 1

I know I know I saw a music video from a singer and then I saw a video, a picture of them outside of it was it was. It wasn't the most flattering picture, I'm sure they. It just wasn't a great angle. But when you see the way they exist in day-to-day life and I'm not making that wrong and then you see them during the music video, it must be so hard to go from because I'm sure there's such an immense amount of pressure to say, hey, you have a music video shoot coming up, you need to really dial it in and then that's the version everybody sees. When that's not the actual version of what the person looks like, I can only imagine how bad it messes with them because they know they don't look like that all the time. It's this weird cycle of I just think it's media, but social media for sure. All right, we got to go because you have a call in three minutes. All right, if you want to talk about any of the stuff we talked about. If you feel like you're under a ton of pressure, if you feel like the treadmill is just speeding up and it's really hard to keep up with, if you just want to talk to someone who's also going through the struggle.

Speaker 1

Alan and I will have our emails. Shoot us an email. We're both happy to hop on free 30-minute Zooms with anybody who's interested. I don't care if 200 people reach out. We'll find a way to get it done. Please subscribe if you have not yet, on whatever podcast platform you're listening on, or YouTube if you're watching this. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you At NLU, we don't have fans, we have family. We

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host