Next Level University

#1809 - The Downside Of Messy Action

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Are you moving too fast or in the wrong direction? In today’s episode, hosts Kevin and Alan explore the downside of “messy action,” where taking quick steps can sometimes lead to bigger messes. Join us as we share real-life stories and insights on how to keep your actions aligned with your long-term goals, ensuring that your progress today doesn’t derail your success tomorrow. Perfect for anyone trying to balance momentum with meaningful results!

Links mentioned:
Free 30-Minute Podcast Breakthrough Session with Kevin:
https://calendly.com/kevinpalmieri/free-30-minute-podcast-breakthrough-session-with-kevin?month=2024-08
Alan’s Coaching: Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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

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Show notes:
(2:40) Momentum and progress over perfection
(6:58) Messy action Vs. Misaligned action
(12:03) Alignment with your fundamentals
(17:13) The risks of losing focus on core goals
(21:31) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.

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 1,809, the Downside of Messy Action, I had a moment when I was-. There is none. There is none. That's the end. Have a wonderful evening, a wonderful afternoon, a wonderful morning, wherever you are in the world. I was thinking to myself, alan, when I was thinking about this episode and where we were going to go, where we essentially could probably do a downside of blank episode for every upside that we've given.

Momentum and progress over perfection

Speaker 1

Yeah, agreed, so the downside of tracking habits, the downside of whatever, and then I realized if somebody just went through and looked at our episodes, they'd be like you guys are really positive about habit tracking but also very negative. But I think that is this show in a nutshell, is that's kind of the truth. I mean, there's an upside to going to the gym every day. There's a downside. There's an upside to tracking your macros and calories. There's a downside. There's an upside to tracking your macros and calories. There's a downside. There's an upside to tracking your finances. There's a downside. The ultimate goal is the upside is better than the downside. Nice, that's my take. So, messy action. What does messy action mean? Well, messy action is you saying I am going to choose momentum over perfection. I am going to record the YouTube video on my cell phone with no microphone and a terrible backdrop and I'm just going to throw that bad Larry up on YouTube and see what happens. I do not have a coaching program. I don't really know what I'm going to do with this potential client. I'm going to hop on the phone with them and I'm going to do my best to add as much value as humanly possible and we're going to see what happens. Messy action is putting momentum and progress over perfection, and I think it's very valuable. I think it's amazing. We have built a lot of our quote-unquote success on that, but we have also made life harder on ourselves at times because the messier the action is now the potential that the cleanup of that messiness is going to be worse later on. I don't know if I have a good example. This is a good example. We had a client. Alan told me not to do this, but I did it. We had a client who was a very high-paying client and they came to me as a podcast and they said, hey, we have a podcast, we want help. Awesome, that's what we do. We do podcast. Awesome. And they said you, you do anything else? And I said, yeah, we also have a social media team that we're building out right now. And they said, oh really, all right, cool, I'm gonna give you five of my businesses to do social media on, and if you do really well, I have like another 12 businesses that I'll send over to you. And I was like, holy shit, it's happening, we're successful. So I said yes to that opportunity and then I kind of learned a lot on the job. I mean, we've been doing social media for a long time, so I understand the ins and outs of social media. But it was hey, kev, can you learn how to run Facebook ads? Hey Kev, can you try to figure out who our demographic is? Hey Kev, what do you think of this? What do you think of this? What do you think of this?

Speaker 1

And a lot of it was on the job training, and a lot of it was messy action. I am happy because we ended up staying with that client for longer than I thought we would, but at the end it did get a little bit messy when their expectations was that I could just fix any problem that they had, when in reality that wasn't. That's not my specialty. So the messy action of say yes and figure it out later eventually led to I can't really say yes and figure it out anymore because I don't have the time that I did at the beginning. I can't be on text all day talking to these businesses about certain things they're just looking for way more than they were in the beginning and way more than our typical social media client is. And then we lost them. They have since left. We left on really good terms and I prepped the team. I said this is going to happen, I just don't know when and it happened pretty much exactly when I thought it would. How did?

Speaker 2

you know, but, yeah, just energy. Do you have a fan on or do I have a fan on do?

Speaker 1

you hear that I mean you could have a fan. I'm not there, I don't have a fan.

Speaker 2

Do you hear a fan?

Speaker 1

I can't hear almost anything.

Speaker 2

Usually you hear all the things. I have my window open. That's what it is. I think I usually have it open, though I don't know what's different. Anyways, I started calling Kevin, Captain Ahab.

Speaker 1

Because he was the big whale.

Speaker 2

Yeah, again, I don't know if anyone, I'm sure people know that reference.

Speaker 1

Classic.

Speaker 2

My sister read me that book way back when I was a little kid. Captain Ahab chasing the white whale, kev Chasing the 16 businesses that were to never be. Never got, them, never got them, never got them. Here's the lesson of this episode don't allow messy action to take you off the effing rails I would say that that is it's hard.

Speaker 1

How do you differentiate between messy action and misaligned action? That's, that's the that's a question I have for you.

Speaker 2

How do you get so?

Speaker 2

excited yeah, I love that, and don't throw me under the bus too much well then I can't answer the question honestly a lot of good came, and that's the lesson underneath all this, which is, a lot of good can come, and it's not just making great decisions, it's also let me know if I could speak it's not just making great decisions, it's also when you make poor decisions, which I would say you and I have done a lot of, and in this instance I would say you made a less optimal decision than what I think could have been optimal. But, number one, what do you learn from it? Number two do you make it come out right? And a lot of people think, well, I have to make perfect choices or really good choices in order to have a really bright future, and I think there's some truth to that. Of course, choices matter, but when you do make a choice, do you commit enough to see it through? And one thing that I will say is you did that really well.

Speaker 2

I appreciate it. It's not like you were half in and half out you were all in all into a detriment, all into a detriment and eventually we and next level social media, our social media company within our company, has grown a ton because of it. So, and the pros and cons of everything, right. So, but to answer your original question, how do you know the difference in messy action, misaligned action? At first it's very hard to discern because sometimes like what if?

Messy action Vs. Misaligned action

Speaker 1

okay, what if it had worked, you and I would be doing a completely different episode yeah, but here's the thing, and you don't know this in the beginning if it had worked, I don't even know if it would have been worth it based on what I would have had to so let me ask you what?

Speaker 2

what do you know now that you didn't know then? Because ultimately, that's what this is, kevin and I always talk about all the mistakes we made over the last seven years. I told him this yesterday 80 of what we did was great. That's just not the. It's the 20 that was dumb.

Speaker 2

That needs to change yeah right, and dumb is probably a harsh word, but less optimal. So what did? What did you learn from this that you didn't know before? Because if you could go back you'd make a different choice. And I remember I questioned you. I said dude, are you sure we're not chasing some white whale? We're never gonna capture. And I, you had never read moby dick, so you didn't know what the hell I was talking about.

Speaker 1

How freaking dare you you read moby dick. I don't know if I read it, but I understand. I know what happens. The whale won son, oh right yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2

It's been a long time man here's what I know he was obsessed with chasing something that, ultimately, was never going to fill the void inside of him. So I think it's a metaphor, and I think you were chasing something that we didn't need.

Speaker 1

I was chasing it for financial reasons.

Speaker 2

Yes To grow the business, to grow the business. Yeah, what would you do differently?

Speaker 1

I would again, hindsight's always 20-20. I would try to get a better understanding of how the opportunity would evolve into other opportunities and whether or not those opportunities were more aligned or less aligned. I have a breakthrough thought. I gotta tell you something real quick. Okay, sometimes, when I say something and you have a breakthrough thought, I got to tell you something real quick. Sometimes, when I say something and you have a breakthrough, I feel like you don't hear at all what I said. I did hear what you said. That's why I had the breakthrough.

Speaker 2

Do you remember what I said? You said something about aligned or misaligned opportunities.

Speaker 1

Okay, good enough 30%, I'll take it.

Speaker 2

Thank you. So the breakthrough was we go, here we go. Oh, everyone out there watching or listening to this, I think to myself what are the? We all could do infinite things. Like kev, you could go landscaping. I could go consulting for robot robotics companies or industrial automation companies, like here's the problem in life we all have infinite possibilities, and maybe not all, because if you're not in a free country or whatever, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. The point is is all of us have infinite choices. You woke up this morning with an infinite number of things you could do today. That's why life is so hard, because how do you know what is or isn't optimal?

Speaker 2

I came to Kev. I said Kev, we are a podcast, we have a company called Next Level University and I'm a business coach and you're a podcaster and a podcast coach. Why are we chasing this white whale that is at the expense of all of the podcasting that you've been doing? The most important use of kevin's time, in my opinion and I don't even know if this is an opinion, I think it's a mathematical calculation is podcasting. You are podcast, podcast growth, university, going on other podcasts, meeting podcasters. We help podcasters for a living and we're out here having you wake up at 6 am in a mini panic attack, doing social media all day, and I I had to stop you and say, brother, are you sure this is worth it? And he said yeah, but what if it's like? Just imagine any anything that starts with. Just imagine you have to be a little bit careful of. Just imagine if unicorns flew out of my arse.

Speaker 2

I just think that we got off of the fundamentals. So it's not just messy. Action in alignment with your fundamentals is good. Messy action outside of alignment with your fundamentals is not. And I think that you and I used to talk a lot about clarity. We used to do episodes on clarity all the time. We don't do that anymore. We probably should. More clarity leads to more certainty. More certainty leads to more messy action. More messy action leads to more results, and then more results leads to lack of clarity. It leads to. Well, now that I have this opportunity, what if I did this, this, this, this, this Shiny object syndrome? I think we got a little bit of shiny object syndromes and we lost focus.

Speaker 2

I don't know if this will land, but way back when Steve Jobs got rehired at Apple after starting Pixar and all that stuff, and I don't know how many people know this story. I think it's pretty well known now, but I also might. It might be just because I used to study him when I was a kid. But ultimately he came back to Apple and he nixed. He got rid of a large majority of the products and he only focused on four things. He wrote a quadrant and he said we're only going to do these four things. We're going to do the mac, we're going to do the ipod, we're going to do retail apple stores and we're going to do the iphone and he didn't announce the iPhone until 2007.

Alignment with your fundamentals

Speaker 2

But the point is, is we, kevin and I, nlu? There's a difference between a wandering generality and a meaningful specific. I think that a lot of people myself included, kevin included take messy action and that's great and it builds momentum, but a lot of times we lose who we are. We lose what we do best, like bodybuilding. You are a bodybuilder, but you also ran for a little while and you also were doing jiu-jitsu and you also also, so those things can be supplemental, but as long as you never lose sight of the, the main train and I think we lost sight of the main train, one of the main trains at nou is this podcast, other podcasts and helping podcasters reach their potential, and I think that we went astray for a while and lost sight of our, our fundamentals well.

Speaker 1

The other hard thing about messy action is sometimes it creates opportunities for you to do what you think you should do. But you it might be what's best in the moment, but not what's best in a mile, and I think that's what I was doing. I was focused on. Well, you're trying to grow the business. This is a, this is a way to make money right now. Just fell into my lap, that was that I was thinking of it today in the shower. I was like well, why was that so big for me? Like, was that opportunity so big? And it's because it was completely unexpected and the opportunity was so big that I felt like it was worth doing. It's not every day where you, where you go in with one thought and then somebody says, if you do a really good job, this could theoretically add $100,000 a year to your business. That it's like how am I going to say no to that? How could I possibly say no to that?

Speaker 2

That's believe it or not. That's actually why a lot of people go out of business.

Speaker 1

But I would never know that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I know, and that's why I don't blame you at all, and this has ended up a business conversation a little bit, but in life it's the same way. So when I got that opportunity to train I don't know if it will happen or not I sent the quote yesterday, but I have on my board podcasting, training and coaching. If someone asked me to come, and for a hundred grand I want you to come, and I don't know, do real estate design for this development complex or condo complex? I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 1

What if it was more close to podcasting, training, coaching, if I was training, if I was training the developers.

Speaker 2

If I was training the developers on how to do it, I would, but that's that's very and again, I know that's unique to me, because I don't want to say unique to me, I think one of the problems with when you said that fall, that fell into your lap, it didn't, it just seems like it did. I'll paint a higher level view. Okay. So kevin starts a podcast called hyperconscious podcast. I'm his first guest, we partner up. He learns how to podcast edit, learns how to podcast video. Uh, we do youtube. We do one episode a week, two episodes a week, four episodes a week, eventually seven a week. And you start a week four episodes a week, eventually seven a week and you start a podcast production company within that brand and you know, you're a coach, podcaster, podcast coach, podcast producer.

Speaker 2

Quite the mastermind, I am huh yeah yeah, yeah and you're doing it, you're doing it, you're doing it right and you have momentum. And then someone comes around this client and says, hey, can you please produce my podcast? Makes perfect sense. That didn't fall in your lap, that makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1

The other thing did though I know.

Speaker 2

And then he said oh, by the way, can you also do this other thing? That's how it always. There's always a main. This is one of the most elusive things in the world. There's always a main reason why they come in the first place, and it's usually something that isn't obvious. So, for example, and I had a client who was a business coaching client of mine, who then wanted me to coach his whole team, and I lost sight of my main focus a little bit during that time too, because it was my dream to coach teams and all this kind of stuff. And so this time, with this training, I'm making sure that I don't lose focus on what brought it.

Speaker 1

It's almost like it would be nice, but I don't need it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it would be nice, it would be a nice add-on, but it's supplemental. Supplemental, it can never be at the expense I know it's a great word it can never be at the expense of the train that brought the original opportunity. A lot of business owners, a lot of people. They derail the main train. You and I have done a really good job at never letting NLU fall. Dude, do you have any idea how rare that is in?

Speaker 1

business to have something for seven straight years and not letting it fall, not as well as you.

The risks of losing focus on core goals

Speaker 2

No, I say this to my clients all the time. I say, if I let NLU fall, or Kevin let NLU fall, you wouldn't even know me and think of I mean some of these clients I've known for years now. And it's that if we let that one train fall, if we let you and I you know what Forget the podcast, let's do social media. Ah, forget social media, let's do Clubhouse. Ah, forget social media, let's do clubhouse. Ah, forget clubhouse, let's do dude.

Speaker 2

You can never lose sight of the trains that are the ones that are going to stay. And there's two trains and I've done this before but I'll be brief with it. There's a short-term profitable train and there's a long-term profitable train, and I'll use Kevin and I as an example. But we want you thinking about your own life too, and I do this in coaching all the time. The short-term profitable train for me personally I'll use me as an example, to lead by example is business coaching. That is immediately profitable, it's directly profitable, it's what I love to do, it's what I intend to do forever.

Speaker 2

That is one train that pays the bills. The other train is NLU, which is this podcast, which is known as indirectly profitable. The podcast builds the credibility for the coaching and also brings listeners to the coaching. The coaching pays for the podcast and they run in tandem. I can never, for the rest of my career, lose sight of those two trains. It doesn't mean I can't have a third and fourth train, but it can't be at the expense of those first two. And you have your own version of that, and Christina has her own version of that, and Ron has her own version of that, and that's how the whole team operates, that's how all my clients operate. But what we, what happens, is we end up losing sight of the, the one most important thing that actually brought, the thing that seemingly fell in your lap.

Speaker 1

Well, I think maybe that's the lesson is, as long as the messy action is you on the same tracks.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Because that and that was a very unique time too. And yeah, there was a lot of stuff. Hold on, something just popped up on my laptop. It was a very unique time. We were trying to grow that department. It just seemed like it made sense, but in retrospect it made less sense than I thought it did.

Speaker 2

What would you tell our listeners who because this is something that again, as scary as it is, to share this. This is something that's always been fairly obvious to me in terms of the compound effect and just that kind of thing Productivity, career I've been studying careers my whole life. For you, what would be the lesson for the listener?

Speaker 2

that because you obviously didn't understand this principle. Yeah for sure. How would you sell this principle to old kev or to someone who might not understand this principle? Because when you said it fell out of it, fell into your lap, it it seems like things fall into our laps. They never do, like me meeting Emilia didn't fall into my lap, it just looked like it did.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah yeah, it was everything I became prior to that moment that allowed that to happen, and I think we think we get lucky or unlucky when, in reality, a lot of it is based on something that is running beneath the surface.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the previous domino, I don't know man.

Speaker 2

Asking the salesman to sell it.

Speaker 1

The odds of being the best at anything are really, really low, and I'm not saying that to be negative, but the odds of being the best, one of the best in the world at something is just unreasonably low. Never mind trying to be the best at three things at the same time. That is impossible there's no way, it's, not, it's. I don't believe, I don't even know if that's humanly possible because some of the best athletes in the world have tried and they haven't been able to succeed, and they are once-in-a-lifetime humans and maybe actors and musicians.

Speaker 2

I mean, I was watching In Time yesterday. I don't know what that is. It's a I don't think it's a movie where the time is the currency instead of money. It's actually really fascinating. It's free on YouTube. It's a very fascinating concept.

Speaker 1

Is Justin Timberlake in it?

Speaker 2

Yeah, that was my point. He was a musician or a singer? Yes, and then also an actor, artist, yeah, and then an actor.

Speaker 1

But was he really a good actor? Not necessarily, I mean.

Speaker 2

I don't think he was necessarily bad.

Speaker 1

I think the Rock's one of the worst actors ever.

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Speaker 2

Well, and then you've got jennifer lopez. She did singing, dancing song, writing, acting she's also not a great actress. Nothing against j-lo yeah, but even the fact that she's reasonable yeah, but it's like if she was if she wasn't super successful, would she even get the opportunity?

Speaker 1

and again I I'm nitpicking here the answer is no JLo is a way better actress than I would ever be an actor or a musician or dancer or any of that.

Speaker 2

Well, the principle underneath this and welcome to a holistic self-improvement podcast it is we did the math on a few episodes ago, on a few episodes ago. We did the math a few episodes ago, which I found out was very enlightening for a lot of our listeners, which is awesome. I really appreciate the feedback, by the way, keep it coming. But the one in a hundred to the fourth power. So if you want to be one in a hundred in life, one in a hundred in love, one in a hundred in health, one in a hundred in wealth, that's top 1% in all four categories. That's one in a hundred million. And it's I, and it's I mean what are the chances? You're one in a hundred million. I mean you better dedicate your life to those four categories and you better neglect everything else. That's the thing.

Speaker 1

I don't know if I'd have a good answer. I don't know if I'd have a good answer for Kev, Because I still I probably still see it less negatively than you do.

Speaker 2

It's almost like every company, every person. You have an identity and you need to decide in advance what who you aspire to be Like but I'm a trainer, a coach and a podcaster.

Speaker 1

What'd you say? There's multiple identities. I know, I know right, I'm the. I'm the sales guy. It's my job to make money in the business. This is a really good opportunity to make money in the business. Am I supposed to say no?

Speaker 2

and it's my job to, as the ceo, to make sure that we stay true to our core values and our core trains, and that's what we did. That's exactly what should have happened. What should have happened, in my opinion, is, when I said, hey, are we chasing a white whale? You convinced me that we weren't, and I think I probably should have trusted my intuition and said dude, we got to go back to the fundamentals of getting you on other shows instead of we got to bring you back to.

Speaker 2

Anything that takes you away from podcasting is a mistake. But what if I did it faster? What do you mean?

Speaker 1

I think it took me six. I did all the social media, I think, for like six months. Yeah, what if that was only?

Speaker 2

like two months, then it probably would have been fine, and that's the optimal stopping problem question, which is but, to bring this back to the fundamental too, I think of it like an investment account. You're a podcast podcaster, you help podcasters for a living. I'm a coach, I coach for a living. As long as you and I never stray too far from those two things, our careers will be long-term much more successful than any short-term win. Right, because and and I think that's really hard too because short-term wins are more exciting well, long-term is made up of short term.

Speaker 1

So it's you want. You want victories along the way. It's hard to imagine that one day, because it's not, it doesn't work that way. But it's hard to imagine one day that it's going to be way different than it is today. If tomorrow isn't different than today, wait, wait, say that one more time. It's really hard to imagine that five years from today is going to be way different than it is today.

Speaker 1

If tomorrow isn't different than today, wait, wait it's really hard to imagine that five years from today is going to be different from today if tomorrow doesn't start being different from today a little bit and it is yeah, and it goes back to. It goes back to one of the quotes that I live with every day and I always say it on podcasts and it might sound arrogant as f because I think it's mine, I don't know, but from day to day, progress is invisible yeah and from year to year it's impossible to miss.

Speaker 1

But you kind of have to experience five years or a year or two years or whatever, however much time it is to say holy crap, so much has changed, even though there I can't point to anything specific that changed well here.

Striving for success with long-term goals

Speaker 2

Well, we're reading a book called Same as Ever in Book Club by Morgan Household, and I am thinking to myself okay, go two years in the future, go a year in the future, two years, five years, whatever far out that you can Maybe ten. Ask yourself, what about me? Is never going to change. I'm never not going to be a coach. I'm certain of that. I've always been a coach, even before I was a coach, I've been trying to give people advice on achievement since I was a little kid to an annoying amount. Right, that's never going to change. So don't put major time and effort into things that are minors Like I'm not going to be. Okay, I did a 5K and I did a marathon. I did a 5K and I did a marathon, I did a triathlon.

Speaker 2

I'm not going to be a triathlete. So what's never going to change about me? I'm always going to weight train. Weight training is the main thing. Yeah, I'm going to do adventure racing on the side, and yeah, I'm going to do a 5K here and there, and yeah, I'm going to do sled poles or whatever. I'm going to do all the supplemental things around it, but the weight training is the main train.

Speaker 2

Emilia okay, she's the most important person in my life. She's always going to be the most important person in my life. So I'm putting a lot of time and effort there and not as much into other coaching. So what are the buckets in your life that you're investing in? That will always and for youing podcast guy.

Speaker 2

So if, if it wasn't taking so much of your time and effort which are your only resources other than money away from podcast guy, then that wouldn't have been a big mistake. It only was once I realized that I mean, this is taking a huge percentage of kev away from kev's one main thing, away from the main thing that got us here. Right, and you can't forget what got you here. But you also do have to evolve, and so that's why it's so challenging, because in five years from today, kevin and I will still be podcasting. I'll still be a coach and you'll still be the podcast guy.

Speaker 2

Let's invest in those and a lot of shiny things will gravitate around those, and one of them is going to be social media. One of them is going to be next level video production. One of them is going to be blah blah, blah, blah. Right, we're going to have an app, all this stuff, but we can't put time, effort and money into the app at the expense of coaching, at the expense of this podcast. And that's why I haven't done BGU yet Business Growth University, because I'm not ready to take away from the other things that I'm doing.

Speaker 2

And it's really challenging because, ultimately, we're all trying to maximize our time, effort and money and it's very difficult to do this because those trains don't seem like they're paying off in any big way, because there is no big quick hit or quick win. It's kind of like oh, interesting new client, okay, awesome, and. And it's usually an accumulation that's much slower. So, day-to-day, the progress is invisible year over year. It's impossible to miss, but only if you stay focused on the day-to-day and only if you do it for long enough which you won't unless you're certain, right.

Speaker 2

So?

Speaker 1

you got to do it for for years and years. That would be kind of. My takeaway is one of the things that's so hard about messy action is, when you get messy action, sometimes you get messy results that require more messy action to stay in and you find yourself succeeding in a silo of something that isn't necessarily connected to what you wanted to succeed in in the first place.

Speaker 1

That's, if you're, because it's very easy to say okay, I love weight training and I love marathons, I'm going to be really good at both, but being good at marathons probably is going to hurt weight training and being good at weight training is not going to be good for marathons and you kind of, if you want to be better at one than the other, you kind of have to choose which one you want to be better at, and that's where messy action can be.

Speaker 1

It can be challenging. I still think it's one of the best things in the world. I do, I do. I think it's unreasonably important, but I do think when you take messy action, it's important to occasionally, when you're learning to swim or when you're learning to tread water you always stay close enough where you can grab the side of the pool in case you get tired. In case you yeah, mostly get tired when you're taking messy action, I think it's important to know where the railing is so you can grab it to make sure you're still close to where you want it to be, because it's very easy to float out with the current when you're taking messy action you and I created this yesterday.

Speaker 2

We were on the phone and it was a little, it was three things and we changed your syntax because that's what you're saying. Yeah, someone who is a bodybuilder first and does marathons on the side is very different than someone who's a marathoner first who also bodybuilds. Those are two completely different people. Yes Two different physiques, two different lifestyles, two different. Everything right. So what were your three?

Speaker 1

Podcasting.

Speaker 2

Number one yep podcasting.

Speaker 1

Podcast Growth University slash. Podcast Growth Nation for my second and then NLPS was my third.

Speaker 2

Okay, so podcasting is number one. Number two is Podcast Growth University, which is your podcast about how to grow, scale and monetize your podcast and the community, and the community that's building.

Know where the railing is

Speaker 2

And then Next Level, podcast Solutions Makes sense Now around that kev's going to get opportunities to speak, like over the next five years, if you stay focused on that target. It's like a target, all three of those. If you stay focused on that target, you're going to get opportunities for social media. You're going to get opportunities for xyz. You're going to get opportunities. As long as you stay focused on that target. That's the irony, that's the fascinating thing. So for the listeners, everyone out there and this is what I do in coaching regularly, not only with the team, but with all my clients what are the three most important focuses in your life right now? That if you stay on target, the other stuff will come as a byproduct.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that client came as a byproduct.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that client came as a byproduct of those three things.

Speaker 1

Definitely.

Speaker 2

He worked at NLPS first, right Before. Yeah, and that's if you lose sight of NLPS, when NLPS is what's feeding NLSM and again, that's a metaphor. I know this is a big business conversation, but it's a metaphor for your life. Business. I remember back in the day. It's a metaphor for your life. It is, I remember back in the day Kev used to think that well, the only reason why I got a beautiful girlfriend is because I'm jacked.

Speaker 1

That was the truth.

Speaker 2

That was the truth, that was the reason.

Speaker 1

So you can't lose sight of the gym then, I had very little else to offer at the time. I was not a very well-developed young man, mostly that Abs and strength you tell that story quick, would you?

Speaker 2

which one? The one where you, you and your friend both had an opportunity to be with a really beautiful girl.

Speaker 1

This was this was yeah, we were young and I think this was high school no wonder why you had that belief.

Speaker 1

I I was it was a weird time because I am not proud of the fact that I wasn't a super loyal friend. I was definitely putting love over friendship. It all worked out fine and we stayed friends. But there was a young lady that my friend and I at the time were both trying to court and she ended up picking me and she said you know, when I saw you, under Armour was really big Like casual Under Armour you just wear Under Armour was really big like casual Under Armour, you just wear Under Armour shirts, like the tight kind. She said when I saw you in that Under Armour shirt, you were just so I don't remember what the word was, but jacked basically, and I knew that I wanted to be with you and I was like hell, yeah, you did Nice.

Speaker 2

Nice, and that is how you lock in a belief.

Speaker 1

And that was it worked out every day for for the rest of yeah, so yeah, it's funny and that obviously, that relationship didn't end up working and that friendship also died later as well, and a lot has changed since then and how that has to do with messy action.

Speaker 2

I I don't know, but I think it's a funny story, ken was under the impression that being jacked was number one priority.

Speaker 1

Really no. I think people take messy action in relationships all the time they get into a relationship because they think A I can fix this person. B this person will fix me. C I'll figure it out, I've done that for sure. 100%, 100%. Yeah, I know this isn isn't right, but I'll figure it out. That's messy action, just not Constructive.

Speaker 2

Whoa, I know this isn't right, but I'll figure it out.

Speaker 1

I know this isn't right, but there's something For me to learn. I know this isn't right, but yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah. So there we go. We actually connected it To something self-improvement. Finally actually connected it to something self-improvement. Finally. It took 35 minutes, but we did that's good.

Navigating growth through relationships

Speaker 2

Usually I'm when I make and hindsight again is 2020 I made many, many poor choices. One poor choice I'm thinking of a relationship I was in. I didn't know if it wasn't right. I thought I mean, in hindsight it's obviously that it wasn't my intuition was like, hey man, I don't think so. Well, I was like I don't know, but what if?

Speaker 1

right, what well? Yeah, but you're, you've always been the well, there's lessons. It's like, yeah, no, yeah, there's definitely. You could go fight a bear and there'd be lessons there too. Would you escape to write them down and and send them out to the world? Most likely not. You can get your ass eaten, I think the purpose is growth. You don't grow when you die, that's true. That's, you can go fight a bear.

Speaker 1

I cannot think of a more worthy opponent that will test your skills and your reflexes and your martial arts, but you might get dead too.

Speaker 2

You might get dead too far outside of the comfort zone. Yeah, when you were going into this endeavor, maybe this is a valuable. I have a client who is in a new relationship and I said what is the point of a intimate relationship? She said growth.

Speaker 2

I said you're good yeah is that why you're doing this? She said yeah. I said then you're good. It doesn't mean it's definitely forever. It doesn't mean it's definitely not forever, but if you're going into it with an open mind and open heart for growth, I think that's a good, a good reason to do something, obviously not fight a bear. But I also uh for you with this client. You weren't doing it for growth, you're doing it for finances.

Speaker 2

You said that right, so maybe doing it for money yeah, I know, I know maybe that's not the best reason thought it was at the time.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, fair, you're trying to sell every that's how every regret ever starts.

Speaker 2

I thought that was a great idea at the time trying to grow a business.

Speaker 1

What are you supposed to do? Um, no, thank you what you are supposed to do is there's no good here.

Speaker 2

Okay, wait real quick. I know we gotta jump yeah when was it? When did it happen? Did you have the moment where you're like, yeah, I'm really, this has become a mistake? When did that happen. How early on in this journey did you go?

Speaker 1

I didn't, no, I didn't.

Speaker 2

There had to be a moment where you thought this was a mistake.

Speaker 1

No, Maybe now where it's like well, I'm rebuilding all the momentum I had with podcasting, but no.

Speaker 2

This is one of the problems, is you have no idea what would have happened if you stayed on the other train. Dude, how much momentum you would have built. That's six months of podcasts.

Speaker 1

That's the problem too. You don't really know what you're leaving on the table. Yeah, you don't. And then things are. So I was telling you today, it's like there's so much going on. Yeah, I was telling you today, there's so much going on. It's wild how much can change in a week. It's wild how much can change in a month, when this month is positive and negative. Things can go down quickly as well Faster.

Speaker 2

They can go down faster.

Speaker 1

Last thing I'll share. I told Taryn this and I told the team this. I had a call with the next level social media team a couple weeks ago and I said we're gonna lose this client. I'm certain of it. I can't tell you when it's gonna happen soon how did you know? Let's. I just you could tell I don't know. I've worked with with enough people to know.

Speaker 2

Energetically.

Speaker 1

Energetically, communication-wise, you start seeing signs. Yeah, so I don't know. I don't know if I could effectively communicate it, but I said I would like for us all to mourn the loss of this client in advance so when it happens, we're not blindsided. I want us to all get our feelings out about this, because I know it's going to hurt some of us. Some of us are going to think it's our fault and all that.

Speaker 2

I said I don't want it there. I appreciate that. I appreciate that way to go, man I don't want any of that.

Speaker 1

I don't want any of that. This to me lasted longer than I thought it was. I do consider this a win.

Speaker 2

It from that I said longer than you thought it would. Why? Why did we invest so much? Because not not longer than you thought it would in the beginning.

Speaker 1

No, okay, gotcha, no I thought this was going to be the thing that it became a huge part of the department and this was going to go on forever anytime you think it's going to be the thing.

Speaker 2

Kevin, we've been in business for seven years. I know that this is the guest. This is the thing.

Speaker 1

This is six years at the time. Thank you so much, okay. Okay, this was a year ago this started a year.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you've grown a lot.

Speaker 1

I just I want to make this point yeah, a really good suggestion. This is how I knew. I know now that that that I had. I had the moment where I was like, damn, this isn't it. When I was excited that the client was leaving. I was more relieved that they were leaving than if they were to stay. And I I asked one of our team members. I said I'm going to ask you a weird question. And she said go ahead. I said have you had a nightmare about this client yet? And she started laughing and she said I've had dreams. And I said I know, and that's how I know. Again, the client wasn't bad, it was just it was a lot of pressure, there was a lot of pressure, there was a lot of pressure and there was a lot of pressure for the team and a lot of that came from messy action. Hey, I know this is relatively new to you. How?

Speaker 2

fast. Can you figure this out?

Speaker 1

Because I am in over my head and I need help figuring this out, because I took messy action that I wasn't ready for either. And then it spreads onto the team.

Speaker 2

And the truth is, you can't build businesses without that. To some extent, that's why you? Build you, you wouldn't a lot of your messy action is why we got here well, it just took to. We took it too far we took.

Speaker 1

I have to rein it in.

Speaker 2

Well, that's in the beginning that made a lot of.

Speaker 1

That's my job, yeah I didn't do my job, I tried job.

Speaker 2

Do your freaking job. I tried, you're like dude. Can you imagine it's?

Speaker 1

like kev. Well, next time, we know, I'll use different phrasing yeah well, the future will be different but, the only reason I'm gonna say brother, get back to your freaking target. This is how you know. This is how you know. Have you ever, has anybody ever, broken up with you and you were grateful that they did?

Speaker 2

if so, it's probably a suggestion that it wasn't aligned yeah, yeah that I got cheated on once and I was actually one of my friends called me up for this. He said, dude, you're pumped that that happened. And I smiled and he's like you wanted out of that for a while now and I was like good for you. Yeah, that's true. And also, yeah, that should have been a sign. Yeah, that should have been a sign, right, yeah, so that was that was my sign is I told taryn yesterday I said hey, we lost that client.

Support and guidance for success

Speaker 1

She's like oh babe, I'm so sorry and I said I'm good I've. I mourn the loss in advance. I'm actually grateful. I do believe there's a piece of me that's unleashed because I'm not nice, I'm not scared and then we reallocate that to your target.

Speaker 2

I'm on it, baby nice I. Nice.

Speaker 1

I'm on it. Awesome, great episode. It was a great episode. All right, if you, as you heard from Alan, if you're looking for help with a podcast, if you have questions about a podcast, if you want to email me about whatever anything I can do to add value to you and your podcasting journey, please reach. That means working together or just me giving you free advice. I'm happy to do either. I love podcasting, I love podcasters. The fact that I get to do this for a living is wild to me. So anything I can do to add value, I'm always just a message away, and if you are looking for coaching in terms of personal, in terms of peak performance, but especially business coaching Alan is your guy. He won't let you make giant mistakes like I have a couple times. I've done some stuff right, though, but a lot of stuff I've also done more right than you've done wrong, for sure.

Speaker 1

Well, I appreciate that Sometimes a 20% can outweigh the 80% if you're really messing up. So, if you're looking for guidance, if you're looking for awareness, if you're looking for somebody to help you stay consistent, somebody Stay consistent, somebody to stay accountable to. Allen is your guy, 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

Please reach out.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host