#1845 - Why So Many Relationships Fail - Freestyle Friday

Are you feeling stuck in a blame game with your partner? In today’s episode, Kevin and Alan share how humility, courage, and vulnerability can help build stronger relationships. They discuss the power of taking responsibility for personal growth and why blaming others holds us back. You’ll learn how successful couples focus on growing together and supporting each other. Join us for an open and honest conversation about improving your most important relationships and taking steps toward a healthier, happier connection.

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Show notes:
(2:41) Why blaming others hinders relationship success
(5:14) Taking ownership of mistakes in personal growth
(9:36) The importance of humility and taking personal responsibility
(11:53) Recognizing signs of mistreatment in relationships
(13:03) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achievin

🎙️ 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

There have been people that I have had the opportunity to speak with and be on their podcasts and coach and just know, know through the grapevine and I will get a vibe I guess for lack of better phrasing of how their relationship is and then six months later I'll see that they posted they just got a divorce and it's like yep, of course you did.

Speaker 2 0:22

There's usually one partner who lacks humility and there's usually another partner who lacks courage, and when the courage increases, the humility increases. So that's a. I mean that if I were to, if you were to sit me down and say what's the one thing that you would say to a married couple to maximize the probability of their long-term success? I would say humility courage and vulnerability.

Speaker 1 0:46

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, Kevin Palmieri, and I'm your co-host, Alan Lazarus. At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Speaker 2 1:00

Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life, love, health and wealth.

Speaker 1 1:07

We bring you a new episode every single day on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits and defining your own unique version of success Self-improvement in your pocket every day, from anywhere, completely free.

Speaker 1 1:29

Welcome to Next Level University, 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 1,845, it's Freestyle Friday I was vetoed, so Alan said hey, man, we have to have the lights on. It's too dark in here for Freestyle Friday. I said you could pound sand. Alan won the argument and the lights are on, but it's still.

Speaker 1 1:58

Freestyle Friday, even though the studios do not suggest it is Freestyle Friday. I was telling Alan this yesterday. We were having a conversation after we recorded today's, yesterday's episode. I don't know, it's hard when time time is a thing, but I was explaining how one of our clients is somebody who just knows a ton about therapy. They know a ton about relationships, they know a ton about internal stuff and they get a lot of pushback on their content because people really really struggle to take ownership for their own stuff.

Speaker 1 2:41

And I'm convinced that is one of the reasons many relationships fail is because, rather than taking ownership for your own stuff, you blame it on everything else, you blame it on your partner, you blame it on work, you blame it on and again, I won't say I'm guilty, I'm not very guilty of this, but when I have a long week or a long day, it's far harder to connect. At night I'm exhausted. I told Alan last night was a really a really really long night and pops was. Pop stayed with us for the week and I I worked late pretty much every night.

Speaker 2 3:19

So I had eight 12 hour days.

Speaker 1 3:22

Yeah, yeah, yes, no, yesterday it was 14, 14 and a half. 12 is six to six, son. Oh yeah, yeah, 14, holy crap. 14 and a half yesterday, absolutely right. Today is another at least 13, right, and again, cool, it's, it's all good, that's, that's what I signed up for and things are rolling and it's good, it's, it's great.

Speaker 1 3:41

But I understand, when I get to the end of the day, it's really really easy to not want to do the things that I know I'll say it this way To not either not want to do the things that I know I should do, or just it's easy to fall into. Yeah, work's busy, I'm overwhelmed. Yeah, I'm stressed. This, this, this. It's easy to fall into. Yeah, work's busy, I'm overwhelmed. Yeah, I'm stressed. This, this, this.

Taking ownership of mistakes in personal growth

Speaker 1 4:07

It's easy to blame other things when the truth of the matter is, if I just took five minutes at the end of my day and I sat in the office by myself and said, all right, cool, we're done, let's just sit here for a minute and unwind for a minute and then go out of the office, leave all of that stuff in the office as much as humanly possible when I leave the office, I'm just going to be balanced, patient, kev, and I do do my best to do that. The opposite of that is just blaming everything else. Yeah, the kitchen's a mess. Pops is staying with us, so I got to do three times the dishes this week. That type of stuff that's not constructive. Could it lead to a constructive conversation? Maybe, but the reason I started off with talking about that client is she has really good content and the content that she has resonates with me a ton, alan. It would resonate with you a ton. But we are beyond, for the most part not 100%, but beyond the stage where we blame other people for our own F-ups.

Speaker 2 5:14

Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 5:16

For our own shortcomings. It's not necessarily natural now for me to see something that is a mirror of truth and then me blame that person instead of saying, yeah, there's probably some truth to that, huh, okay, this person isn't trying to make it personal. So, yeah, I thought that might be an interesting freestyle friday, because I think that's one of the reasons many relationships fail. If you're guilty of blaming everybody else for the stuff that's going on within you, your relationship, you're probably going to be in trouble because what you blame, what you, the responsibility you give to somebody else, is a responsibility that you can't really fix somebody else's problem.

Speaker 2 5:57

It's not your responsibility to fix it jim rohn has a funny little anecdote that he talks about. He said I, I was young and I started a little family. I was broke. Jim Rohn's a personal development speaker and he said on my list, I blamed the government, I blamed the taxes, I blamed the prices, I blamed my car, I blamed the country I lived in, I blamed everything, I blamed the weather. He said I had this little blame list for why I wasn't doing well and one of my mentors sat me down and I went through this whole list. My mentor said one problem with your list, jim, you ain't on it. He said in order for your life to change, you have to change. That's the fundamental.

Speaker 2 6:48

I mean again, it's playful, but I actually said this to one of our team members earlier today. I said hi, blank, I'll keep it anonymous. I really appreciate this ownership. You and blank are always big on ownership and taking personal responsibility. We appreciate that more than I can personally express. Thank you both so much for that. That's why we're going to achieve so much together.

Speaker 2 7:20

No-transcript, but every time I call them out for things that were not on me I'm not the video editor, I'm not the podcast production editor, I'm not that. They always take ownership. He actually went out of his way to say hey, man, honestly, in hindsight, this wasn't you. Something happened on the Conscious Couples podcast, and Conscious Couples podcast is produced by Next Level Podcast Solutions and this person runs the video editing part of that. And he reached out and said hey, there's some audio issues. And I'm on my end freaking out with Emilia trying to set up the office different because we're having these issues. I don't get it, what is happening? And then he followed up and said honestly, I'm so sorry, this was on our end, my bad, it was actually this, this and this. And I said thank you so much because that gives me so much certainty, because I don't have to wonder what the hell is the problem every time I go into that, because I've got back-to-backs Monday through Saturday and I'm very grateful for that. Genuinely, I'm not complaining.

The importance of humility and taking personal responsibility

Speaker 2 8:31

However, it's very hard to go from podcast to training, to coaching, to podcast, to training, to coaching, to back-to-back-to-back. Sometimes you don't have time to go to the bathroom and on top of that, I'm wondering if the audio is going to work. And so they took so much ownership and to me, I'm never going to work with people again ever who don't take personal responsibility. I've like made that decision in my life I will never again work with a human who doesn't take personal responsibility for what they say, think, do, feel and believe, and I think that that's based and rooted in humility. I think people with high humility take ownership. I think people who are arrogant and entitled, they blame the world, they blame everything else, they blame everyone else and unfortunately that's a vicious cycle, because when you blame other people, places, things and ideas, you are stopping yourself from growing the one person you in the the mirror, who actually could change those things. Because ultimately, I can't control kevin, but I can influence kevin by being a better person and leading by example.

Speaker 2 9:36

And you and I just talked right before recording this episode, about all the mistakes we've made over the last couple years in this journey and and I told Kev this recently, and I think this is really important I talk about my mistakes all the time. I'm constantly talking about all the poor choices I've made, and I said this to you behind the scenes and I think it's really important I don't think I made worse choices than anyone else. The difference is I'm focused on my poor choices because I want to make better choices, and it's this weird paradox where the more you focus on your poor choices and you get frustrated with yourself and you take personal responsibility for your terrible decisions, the more likely you are to change those decisions. And the neuroscience proves this, because adults really learn through pain. And so if you made bad choices and you don't ever feel the pain of those poor choices, you aren't going to neuroscientifically change your brain to make better choices. I mean, if you let yourself get overweight and you can't play basketball and you love basketball and you actually feel the pain of that, you will change.

Speaker 2 10:43

I went to the gym one time and cried in the bathroom by myself like I had such made such poor choices that I let myself go for so long that I had to hit that metaphorical rock bottom and I had to take responsibility. Like alan, you are the reason that you got here. You are the reason you stopped lifting. You are the reason you drank too much. You are the reason you had terrible friends. You are the reason you are not in shape and no one is going to come save you. You have to get your ass in the fucking gym, son.

Speaker 2 11:13

Now again, that's hardcore. So for anyone with kids listening to this. I apologize, but ultimately, I hope that the tenacity you hear underneath that and the passion you hear underneath that is something that can really ignite you, because no one is going to do it for you. There is no one who's going to come and help you be fulfilled and live a meaningful life, and there are people out there that are suffering with way worse ailments than what you and I deal with, and I just think that that's a really important perspective. When you're having a tough day, it's really important to remember it's all on you and it could be a million times worse and at the end of the day, you can make it happen. You can.

Speaker 1 11:53

It's a challenge for sure. It's a challenge for sure I I. The reason I started from a place of relationships with this episode is because that I, for some reason, I'm very good at predicting whether or not relationships will succeed. I think it's just intuitive and you can kind of tell the way one partner treats the other. You can tell If this, if one partner treats a partner negatively and they talk down to them and they look down on them and they disrespect them. If so, let's say, partner A disrespects partner B, partner b, if partner b ever has the opportunity or necessity to level up their self-worth, that will create some level of resistance because they're not going to take it anymore. You can't treat me like this anymore. I I now I understand that I'm more valuable than you're treating me. You're not. Why are you always talking down to me? I don't understand. What have I ever done to you?

Speaker 2 12:43

I've been nothing but great when someone's talking down to you, because I think, uh, you, you know that sometimes I come off as self-righteous on accident and and I don't, but I don't feel like I talk down to people, I really don't and and maybe that's a blind spot. I think at times I probably have. But ultimately, how do you know? How do you know when you're being mistreated?

Speaker 1 13:04

Next Level Nation. What is happening? If you've thought to yourself, I want to try coaching, but you don't really know where to start, group coaching would be a wonderful place for you. That's really why we created it in the first place. We start a new round every 90 days. So if you're hearing this, go to the website nextleveluniversecom and we have the landing page where you can actually hold your spot right now. Even if there's a group going on right now, you can still lock your spot for the next one. The biggest thing that we've seen is, as we get closer and closer to the date, unfortunately, some people end up missing. The group fills up and they can't do it, and then they end up regretting that. So please head over to the website. The link will be in the show notes and we would love to see you there. Head over to the website. The link will be in the show notes and we would love to see you there.

Speaker 1 13:49

Man, I don't know. I think it's the intention. There's a difference between I have said things to you. I had a minor blow-up recently, alan and I behind the scenes. Minor, it wasn't big.

Speaker 1 14:06

Alan and I didn't fight, but the second I overreacted. I felt shame. It was not my intention to overreact and it was definitely not my intention to make you feel a certain way. I think that's it. If I wanted to mess with you, I I know all the ways I could do it. I've said this before. I've said this to Alan behind the scenes you would be really easy to disrespect because you wouldn't even know I was disrespecting you. And that's a beautiful. It's not going the way you think it is. It's a beautiful test of character for me, because it would be really easy for me to say, well, alan's not going to notice anyway. No, that's not acceptable, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter whether Alan notices or not. I think it's intentionality. I've just noticed partner A intentionally is digging. They're trying to make, they're trying to dig that to me. That is what do you mean by dig?

Speaker 2 15:07

They're trying Get under your skin or manipulate.

Speaker 1 15:08

you mean by dig they're trying skin, or yeah, they're trying to make the other person feel bad. They're trying to make them question themselves.

Speaker 2 15:13

They're trying to rock the foundation of the relationship I, I actually, I think like I, I really, why would someone do that?

Speaker 1 15:19

I don't understand because many, many, many, many One. That's the dynamic of the relationship. It's just the way it's always been and it just that's just it. That's the dynamic. Partner A is.

Speaker 2 15:35

Is it a dominance thing? It's like a. Probably yeah.

Speaker 1 15:38

Yeah, partner A is overbearing, Partner B is submissive. Just the way it works, and that's why the relationship works. One of the but, and that's why the relationship?

Speaker 2 15:48

works One of the. But when one partner becomes empowered, relationship ends. The relationship won't work anymore. Almost and I've seen that countless times Almost every time and I coach intimate couples, so there's usually one partner who lacks humility and there's usually another partner who lacks courage.

Speaker 2 16:04

And when the courage increases, the humility increases. So that's a. I mean that that if I were to, if you were to sit me down and say what's the one thing that you would say to a married couple to to maximize the probability of their long-term success, I would say humility, courage and vulnerability. If you have mutual humility, courage and vulnerability, if you were to everyone out there listening or watching this, if you have an intimate partner, write their name and your name and it put an infinity symbol between them, which is just feedback loops, and then rate zero to ten humility, zero to ten courage, zero to ten vulnerability and that, if you average those six numbers, that is the quality of your relationship. I I have seen no scientific evidence to the alternative and I've been coaching couples for more than three years well, I think the humility piece is hard because humility you can.

Speaker 1 16:59

You can misconstrue self-deprecation for humility. That's what makes it really hard.

Speaker 2 17:06

That's why I always say inward humility, because you can easily pretend to be humble outwardly I think a lot of people do that all the time but inward humility is I have to catch you reading a book when no one's watching. I have to catch you signing up for therapy on your own accord, without being prompted to do it. I have to catch you being a student. You want to know what humility is. Catch someone doing being a student.

Speaker 2 17:32

Emilia is taking a course right now on trauma and she's in a cohort and it's unbelievable on her like she's reading 144. I mean, this is just brutal and she's just doing it on her own accord. She just I mean. People always say how do you guys have such a great relationship? Emilia's work, she knows how to be a magnificent partner. She's a better partner than any of my past partners by a significant margin. It's not even close. And my past partners some of them, were wonderful, beyond wonderful. It's just. Emilia has just renovated her house in this metaphor, way more. And so humility, I think, needs to be something that you catch someone doing. You catch them in the gym. You catch them reading the books. You catch them doing therapy. You look at their bank statement. You see humility in action. You can tell when someone's humble. At least I can now. I don't think I used to be able to.

Speaker 1 18:24

Yeah, well, I think it's hard because, yeah, you would have to know in the relationship behind the scenes, because when you're out around people that's different. Yeah, that's not the real dynamic always, or probably often, but that I mean, that's that's always. The giveaway for me is if, if both of these humans stay exactly the same forever, this relationship will succeed, because it's just a dynamic. If either of these people start to to improve in a different direction, it could be dangerous is always kind of my thought. Not that improvement is.

Speaker 1 19:08

I don't think improvement is ever bad. The problem is when your self-worth increases there have been this is going to sound bad. I don't mean it in a bad way. There have been people that I have had the opportunity to speak with and be on their podcasts and coach and just know, know through the grapevine and be on their podcasts and coach and just know, know through the grapevine and I will get a vibe I guess for a lack of better phrasing of how their relationship is and then six months later I'll see that they posted they just got a divorce and it's like yep, of course you did.

Speaker 2 19:40

I'm starting to develop that that's very strange. That's what's called you. You have an unconscious competency when it comes to that. That I never used to have and I do now. Because I've coached couples for so long, I can see now when a couple's gonna lose I think it's insecurity. It's so obvious when a couple will win I think it's.

Speaker 2 20:02

I think it's insecurity, it's an overcorrection of ego based on insecurity, like that moment where you said you quote unquote mistreated me. I'm telling you, listeners, we take you behind the scenes. He owned it immediately and started crying. I felt bad. It took you 30 milliseconds to go from somewhat mistreating me, which, by the way, understandable considering I came in hot and we're stressed out and under the pressure cooker.

Speaker 2 20:27

Yeah, but you took ownership 30 milliseconds later, and that's very rare, that's not common. Usually it's there's just so little ownership. Usually. I had a incident earlier this year with someone it's like there's no ownership on your end. Really. I made you xyz. It's like where's your? You're a grown adult, like what? Where's your responsibility in this? Like you chose to work with me, you chose to coach with me. This was your choice. This was your choice at any time. You could have been like listen, this isn't for me at any time. And but and again, same with me. But I took ownership. I okay. Okay, I'm going to work on X, y, z. I took the feedback.

Speaker 2 21:11

I even sat with Emilia and I said what percentage of this is true and what's the other percentage? And Kevin just said that person's just trying to hurt you because they're hurt and they want to hurt you.

Speaker 1 21:21

I don't, whatever. That is dude.

Speaker 2 21:22

I don't have that I don't want to hurt people ever. Dude ever, I'm trying not to hurt people. I was thinking about this yesterday after you interviewed me and I had this moment of like I'm such a weirdo World-class interview.

Speaker 2 21:39

And you know when you're a weirdo is when you aren't happy about it. It makes me sad, like I got sad about how different I am and I don't know. On one hand you would think it would be cool to be like whatever, believe in yourself and all that stuff. That's when I know it's real. When I'm coaching someone and they get sad about it, that's when I know they're really doing it. That's when they're really growing, when they're sad Because it isn't fun being different and being extraordinary.

Speaker 2 22:16

It looks cool from the outside in but it's a very different path. You don't get along right Like you can't be yourself. It's such a. That's a whole other episode.

Speaker 2 22:27

But for the people in relationships, to your point of this episode Freestyle Friday we're rock and rolling.

Speaker 2 22:34

If you're in an intimate relationship with someone who is taking the regular path and you're taking a growth, dream-chasing, heart-driven-but-no-bs path and you're on this NLU journey next level you pun intended next level version of yourself it's going to be very hard for you to coexist with someone who isn't.

Speaker 2 22:57

It's going to to be very, very difficult and they can easily make you feel like the villain when in reality you're actually the one who really wants to see everyone flourish, it's you just have more to give, because when you become more, you have more to give. So then you give more, but then you become this mirror and then it gets the other partners playing not to lose rather than playing to win, and and they don't want to lose you because they love you, but they're also playing scared. They're scarce and they don't have the humility to own that. And I see this time and time again and in coaching couples. It's been one of the most tremendous things I've ever done in my life is coach intimate relationships, because it's it's helped me see objectively the patterns that rip us apart and and that cause so much pain and suffering.

Speaker 1 23:40

If your partner heard an episode like this and they told you to stop listening, that's probably a good indication that that partner does not want to see you grow 100%. Unfortunately and again I'm not saying just because it's us, If it's anything If your partner walked in on you and you were learning about relationship dynamics or self-belief or self-worth and they said what are you doing that for? That's stupid. I am predicting that that relationship will not succeed, because the truth of the matter is you do deserve better if you're trying to do the work and somebody's shitting on you. That's just the truth of it. We got to go Fired up. We got to go because we have one minute here I loved this, that was great.

Outro

Speaker 1 24:21

Group coaching great group coaching starts on october 5th. So if you're hearing this, it is friday freestyle friday in a couple days. Next week, tuesday next week, we are starting our 16th group. We're going to be talking a lot about relationships. We talk about relationships. We have an entire call on it. That's kind of one of the through lines right health, wealth, life and love. So join us if you are in a relationship that you want to improve, even if if you're single, all good, because you can learn stuff that you can bring into your next intimate relationship. If you use the code NLULISTENER, you'll get 30% off. It ends up being $96.60 per month. We would love to have you. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow. Keep after it. Next Level Nation. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family.

Speaker 2 25:07

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes.

Speaker 1 25:16

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.