One Way Your Alignment Gets Tested (1856)

Staying true to your values in social situations can be challenging but rewarding. In this episode, Kevin and Alan discuss the brutal moments when others challenge your values and how to stay true to yourself. Kevin shares a personal story about choosing self-respect over social ease, even when uncomfortable. Learn how staying aligned with your beliefs, despite external pressures, can lead to stronger self-worth and inner peace.

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Show notes:
(2:29) Encountering someone from the past and the decision to stay in alignment
(4:51) How others unintentionally invite you to step out of alignment
(6:39)The difference between your “social world” and “real world.”
(9:58) The challenges of standing up for what you believe in
(11:22) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(16:19) Kevin’s personal experience of witnessing racism and standing up for his friends
(18:25) The power of standing for justice and aligning your actions with your beliefs
(21:20) Outro

🎙️ 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

If I look at my past 26, 22, 18, 17, 12, there are times when one I didn't stick up for what I believe in, and here's the hardest part. There are times when I stuck up for what I believed in at the time and realized in hindsight that that was not optimal.

Speaker 2 0:24

When you're not exposed to it. You don't really know, and you don't know what your conditioning is like. What's your unconscious beliefs? You don't know until you're faced with them consciously. That shook me. I remember that. I remember seeing racism in real time. Welcome to Next Level University. I remember that I remember seeing racism in real time. Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin.

Speaker 1 0:48

Palmieri, and I'm your co-host, alan.

Speaker 2 0:51

Lazarus At.

Speaker 1 0:59

NLU. We believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers. Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life love health and wealth.

Speaker 2 1:05

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.

Speaker 1 1:21

Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from anywhere, completely free.

Encountering someone from the past and the decision to stay in alignment

Speaker 2 1:28

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 1,856, one Way your Alignment Gets Tested. So my wonderful wife and I this weekend went to a fair. It was a big fair in I don't know what it's considered Northern Massachusetts maybe but it's a very big fair. Her part of her family plays in a band and they were playing on one of the stages nice. So we went to support them and I went to support some turkey gobbler sandwiches into my mouth. Oh yeah, big fan, but we were, we were again, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna, but I'm not going to give too many details. I told Alan, I said I want to make sure I do this eloquently.

Speaker 2 2:29

We were walking in and I ran into for lack of better phrasing somebody from my past who I do not like. I despise this person. I'm not a fan of this person. I do not believe they are a good human being. I do not believe they are a good human being and I had this moment when they said hey, kev, what's going on? Where there's a decision to be made here. There's either I just revert and I fawn this person and have a conversation with them, even though I don't want to at all, or I kind of just be rude and exit the situation to stay in alignment. And I did the second one and I'm very proud of myself for that, but I also felt like an asshole.

Speaker 1 3:14

Yeah, hardest thing ever.

Speaker 2 3:17

It was very, very, very challenging In my mind. I was running through the scenarios. I don't want to pretend like I like this person. This person knows I don't like them. They know that. I know that they're not a good person. This is behavior. This person is trying to get their hooks in me. Is what they're doing. They don't really care how I am. They're trying to get their hooks in me and if I respond positively, their hooks are in me and they know it. If I respond neutral, slash, negative, then they know they are not. Kevin knows what's going on here and he's not going to fall prey to what I'm doing.

How others unintentionally invite you to step out of alignment

Speaker 2 3:55

But I feel like we have those situations all the time, even if it's somebody you don't know. I've experienced this lately. There's a group of people at the gym older men and they just say some ignorant stuff and I find myself more and more when I see them walking towards me. I just put my head down and make sure my AirPods are in and they can see them, because I don't want to talk to you, because it becomes this thing of okay. Next time you say something ignorant, am I going to blow up the whole gym group and say hey, man, if you're going to talk like that. Just please don't talk to me. I think we're getting to that. But sometimes it catches you by surprise and you don't know what the thing was until you walk away from the situation. And then you're reflecting and you're thinking, wait, did that person really say that? And I was not. Was I just taken back by what they said? Was I just zoned out? What was it? So that's kind of what we're talking about today for alignment.

Speaker 2 4:51

One way your alignment gets tested. It gets tested by people who are misaligned, who aren't necessarily trying to force you to do anything. I think what they're doing is energetically inviting you to leave alignment, sometimes unintentionally. They don't know they're aligned and you're aligned are different. They're misaligned and your misaligns are different. But it's up to you to stay in alignment because you're going to feel you're probably going to feel regretful if you don't and, honestly, you might feel dirty if you do. But what would you rather feel? Would you rather feel bad in a positive direction, and maybe that's me putting that on you. Maybe you don't feel bad when you stay in alignment. I just know it was. I felt dirty after. It was an interesting feeling for me because it was the first time I had the opportunity to do something like that in a long period of time, and it was a weird feeling after, for sure.

Speaker 1 5:47

So a lot of people struggle to stay in alignment when they're behind the scenes by themselves. That's a lack of self-discipline a lot of times. I think everyone struggles with that to some extent. I would say the self-discipline piece when I'm alone is is strong. This is my kryptonite yeah, right here.

The difference between your "social world" and "real world."

Speaker 1 6:04

I I think I've come way up in it. I I feel very grateful that I've learned this. This is an energetic alignment. This is I. I've been breaking the world into two separate worlds. All of us live in two worlds. We live in the social world and we live in the real world, and they're not the same. Everyone knows that who you are on social media is not the exact same as who you are in real life. Uh, what's a good metaphor? So we're watching, as you know, the power of the rings. It's there's two seasons out and there's this behind the scenes, inside the power of the rings, after each episode.

Speaker 1 6:39

It's really cool because you get to see these characters out of character. You get to see the glitz and the glam and the green screen and the costumes and the makeup and the hair and you get to see them in character the king of the elves, for example, and Emilia and I were talking about how interesting it is to see the contrast between the real person and the character they play in terms of vibe, in terms of understanding, in terms of intellect, in terms of XYZ, in terms of intellect, in terms of X, y, z, and there was one character in particular who was actually more in real life from our perspective than the character they play on screen? Only one. Everyone else was either comparable or lower. One of the people that was one of our favorite characters in the show. There was an interview behind the scenes and it was oh damn. He was such an awesome character in the show and I can tell, just having been older and interviewed so many people Ah, damn.

Speaker 1 7:37

Damn, you're nothing like that in real life. That kind of sucks, because I think your character is so good in the show, extremely virtuous and all that stuff. So at the end of the day, we all have the real world and the social world. I struggle in the social world. I've come up in it. I think the social world is more about self-worth and I think the real world is more about self-belief. Self-belief is external achievement. Can I go to the gym consistently? Can I lift this weight? Can I read this book? Can I study for this test? Those are very tangible things like one of the reasons I loved academics is because I, I was.

Speaker 1 8:11

It was just me versus me, me versus the test yeah I didn't need anyone to like me to be good at calculus. If I did, I'd be in trouble, uh, but in the, in the social world, it was so much harder to to succeed in that because it's so hard to win in the social world. Quote, quote, unquote without contorting yourself, and in my opinion, you just didn't contort yourself. You stayed aligned with your values and I think you chose your own self-respect over your fears, which is being a dick or whatever.

Speaker 2 8:47

Well, I think the fear was this person's not going to like me. It's like I don't really care. I don't like this person, I don't care if they like me.

Speaker 1 8:53

Well it's behind that too, because if there was a chance that they want to fight you when you Well, I don't know if that's there.

Speaker 2 9:05

Yeah, I don't know if that's there Consciously, I guess.

The challenges of standing up for what you believe in

Speaker 1 9:09

I was reading or listening to a speech on the three brains the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain and then the prefrontal cortex, which is the higher consciousness that you and I try to bring on this show. Our reptilian brain, our central nervous system, is not social. Belonging equals eventual extinction, Because if you don't belong to the group, you are ostracized, which means you're going to die from our, our brain's perspective and you can literally study all that. That's, that's my terrible verbalization of it, but I would say there's probably some level of fear of is this person going to lash out and fight me? Is this person going to ostracize me from some group? Are they going to talk bad about me? Are they going to hate me and then in the future I'm going to have to watch my back.

Speaker 1 9:58

There's so many fears that people that's why social for me has always been so hard is I. I've had a lot of people that have gone, gone out of their way to try to tear me down, and I think that we all have fear of that. No one wants a bunch of enemies and it's very challenging Even you doing this episode. There's risk in that this person could be listening. There's a risk. I think that's so cool to. It's so important. I wouldn't say it's cool. It's important to acknowledge you and I are coaching 11 podcasters in group coaching. There was a noticeable difference nothing against the previous groups, but there's some I was talking to emilia about it. There's some. When you're a podcaster you're facing fears other people don't have to face public speaking not just public speaking but sharing who you are on a microphone, yeah, yeah, but I mean just even baseline.

Speaker 2 10:55

let's just say you're just doing interviews and you're not talking about yourself at all. You're here and talk about it, and I think that that is a huge aspect of what being successful and fulfilled requires.

Speaker 1 11:22

Hello, hello, hello. Nlu listener. Thank you, as always, for listening to next level university real quick. I just want to jump in and let you know about the Next Level Dreamliner. This is a journal that I use every single day. Achieve your dreams 90 days at a time. It breaks down your dreams into goals, milestones and daily habits. We hope you enjoy it. The link will be in the show notes.

Speaker 2 11:47

Well, the thing is I aspire to get to the place where because I think it's harder, let's say it's me. Let's say I have five gym buddies. I don't hang out with them outside of the gym, but let's say they're all at the gym when I go and this is hypothetical, I don't really have, I have essentially zero gym buddies. But that's okay If five of them say something that's out of alignment. It takes a lot of courage for you to stand up and say, hey, I vehemently disagree with what all five of you just said. I just I can't get on board with what you all said. But if somebody comes into our Facebook group it's way easier. This is our group, this is what it was created for. Everybody in the group is on our side, with the fact that you should be kind and you should be positive and you shouldn't be judgmental, and it's a safe space and all that.

Speaker 2 12:45

I think it gets harder when there's more people that are kind of against you for lack of a better phrasing or out of alignment, out of alignment, that are kind of against you for lack of a better phrasing or out of alignment, out of alignment. I think that's when it gets super challenging, because then you really want to think about it. It's like, okay, what's going to happen next time? I see these five people. Are they going to hate me? Are they going to tell the five people that they spend time with that I'm a terrible person, or whatever? That's where it gets. I think that's where it gets wonky and that wonky and that's. I think it takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of card. I admire that. I've always admired the person who would stand up for their beliefs, regardless of how many people were opposed to it, as long as their beliefs weren't positive. Yeah, in my my definition of positive, I've always I've always resonated with that it's the hardest thing.

Speaker 1 13:27

I think that's why we admire it. It's. It's very challenging to stick up for what you believe in.

Speaker 2 13:32

For sure.

Speaker 1 13:34

And here's the hard part about it. If I look at my past 26, 22, 18, 17, 12, there are times when one I didn't stick up for what I believe in. And here's the hardest part there are times when I stuck up for what I believed in at the time and realized in hindsight that that was not optimal. What's a good example? Okay, so one thing that's very clear to me at this stage is the amount of sexism in the world is wild. It's wild, it's unreal, it's blowing my freaking mind. To be completely honest. Now women will feel very validated, and they should because, holy crap, but there was a time in my life, when I was a kid, where I didn't know that, I didn't know how bad that was I didn't.

Speaker 1 14:33

I wasn't aware of how ridiculously sexist some of the people that I surrounded myself with were, and and so I unconsciously, unintentionally, became a part of it, you know. And so there's a. There's a part of this that. Well, what about forgiveness? This person is is there? Is there an area for forgiveness? I mean, I think in this case, no, because of what you're aware of. However, there's that other piece of redemption, too where, how do you know when to give someone the benefit of the doubt? These are the things a lot of people ask me business questions. I feel like I, I have answers, this stuff I have. I don't know. Like, do you give compassion and forgiveness and then get re-jaffed?

Speaker 2 15:20

or do you use? Yeah, I don't think there is a universal answer. I think the universal, I think the answer is personal because it depends. It depends on I don't know, know, depends on how, how well you know. I mean, if it was a son or a daughter, would that be a different story? Don't know your significant other, would that be a different story? Don't know, I don't know, I never. So Alan and I grew up in a reasonably small town that was predominantly just all white. There was very little difference in what's the word I'm looking for.

Speaker 2 15:56

Not ethnicity, ethnicity race, yeah, there was no diversity essentially it was very, very one way I didn't really understand racism until I started working with, when I started working at that company, because the majority of them were African American.

Kevin's personal experience of witnessing racism and standing up for his friends

Speaker 1 16:15

For me it was when I went to WPI and there were people from all over the world.

Speaker 2 16:19

Yeah, yeah, when you're not exposed to it, you don't really know, and you don't know what your conditioning is like, what's your unconscious beliefs. You don't know until you're faced with them consciously. It was weird. That shook me. I remember that. I remember seeing like racism in real time. I was like wait, why are you getting treated different than I'm getting treated by these people? It was very strange. It was a very strange thing, but I would always I don't know if it really ever happened, but I would aspire to make sure that I stood up for the people that I worked with, because these are my buddies, these are my friends, these are good people.

The power of standing for justice and aligning your actions with your beliefs

Speaker 1 17:06

I know we're short on time here, but I think it's and again, I don't want this to ever come off as Kevin and I on some pillar of self-righteousness saying the way the world should be what I would say is that injustice you can tell If you're really looking for it. You can see injustice, you can, and honestly, you want to know what you. This isn't an episode about purpose, but I think your purpose is on the other side of the injustice that bothers you most. Yeah, for example, people that don't have opportunities to learn or don't have opportunities to start their own businesses, or don't have opportunities to go to college or whatever Like that to me is an injustice, assuming they actually want to work and assuming x, x, x, x, y, z, however. So whatever injustice bothers you most, I think your purpose is on the other side of solving that problem, one of the injustices that this person has committed. This person has committed you can't, you don't like them and you don't like that, and that's. It's the opposite of what you stand for.

Speaker 1 18:25

And so again, I've been thinking to myself what's the lesson here? How do we package this? What do you stand for? Because ultimately that's what it is. Is you stand for something in the world, kev, and this person is the enemy to what you stand for, based on what they've done that you're aware of. Okay, do you become a part of the problem and associate with this person, or do you stick up for your, what you stand for? And I think it takes so much freaking courage.

Speaker 1 18:53

Everyone in history who stood up for what they believe in, who stood up against injustice I mean they were, if you read history books, a lot of times they were murdered or killed or raped or whatever. I mean there's just Martin Luther King, there's all these different ones and again, threatened. You've got to stand up for something and I think that's it. That's all I can come to with this, because ultimately, the social stuff, it's hard. There's no real, I don't know who deserves compassion and who. I'm not going to tell you that. What I will tell you is you have to stand for something in this world and it has to be for something that you believe is justice. It's something that's just Something that you know is really important.

Speaker 2 19:37

Really important Heavy one, heavy one on a Tuesday. I think it's a good reminder. If you do find yourself leaning outside of alignment and you get that dirty feeling, ask yourself why, what was it about the situation? I really want that person's approval. You're probably going to act a little bit differently around that person than you might, somebody that you don't care about. Their approval Not judging, not making it right or wrong great, from a place of awareness. And then you can, because I'm thinking now that's something that's on my radar. Was I me around that person? Did I bend more to their alignment than my own? Could I have brought them more to my alignment? It's always the conversation about that. Do I even care enough to try to do that, or will I just leave the situation? Energy is a weird thing, man. It's one of those things. You can't see it, but you know, you can feel it. You can feel energy, you can feel it and you know if you're out of alignment and you know if you're in alignment. And I think the ultimate thought this would be the wrap-up, because I have a call I've got to jump to here in a minute. This would be the wrap-up is only you can know what's aligned and misaligned for you. Nobody else really can. They don't have your thought process, they don't know they can try to help you align. They can, unfortunately, unintentionally misalign you. It's up to you to get back into alignment, because I don't think there's any way they can do it for you. It's just not that easy. Just not that easy, all right.

Outro

Speaker 2 21:02

Next Level Nation. If you have not yet joined our private Facebook group, next Level Nation, appropriately named, please do so. A place for growth-minded, heart-driven humans who want to get to the next level of their life, totally free. The only reason it's private is so we can keep you safe from people that don't want to grow. It's all about growth. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you. Nlu, we do not have fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 1 21:27

Keep reaching for your potential Next Level Nation.

Speaker 2 21:32

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family.

Speaker 1 21:39

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 2 21:48

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.