Are You Planning TOO Far Ahead? (1857)

In today’s episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazros talk about managing your time today while keeping an eye on your future goals. They share why it’s essential to focus on what must be done right now without worrying too much about what might happen. You’ll hear practical tips on staying organized, setting priorities, and breaking down big dreams into smaller, manageable steps. If you’re feeling stuck or wondering how to balance your everyday tasks with your long-term goals, this episode will give you clear advice on moving forward confidently. Ideal for anyone looking to grow and make progress in life!

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

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Show notes:
(3:25) Kevin shares thoughts on balancing writing a book and daily tasks
(6:47) Importance of focusing on current actions instead of future worries
(8:39) Alan’s urgency, importance, and significance framework for productivity
(17:35) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy:

🎙️ 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

what if your expectations are off and you get far less results than you think? Everything is thrown off. We have to focus on the how today. We can't focus on the how eventually. We have to focus on the how today, but we also have to focus on the then too.

Speaker 2 0:14

But I think it's a juggling act of those two, and so my percent error is just less in business and science and that kind of thing, but it's more in relationships.

Speaker 1 0:29

You understand people.

Speaker 2 0:30

Sometimes you surprise me and it's like, oh, I never thought about that once. So we're all still learning and I just hope everyone has the humility and self-belief to stay the course and keep getting better, and the probability of success increases as you improve yourself.

Speaker 1 0:40

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, Kevin Palmieri.

Speaker 2 0:45

And I'm your co-host, Alan Lazarus.

Speaker 1 0:48

At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Speaker 2 0:54

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

Speaker 1 1:01

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 2 1:17

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

Speaker 1 1:23

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 1,857, are you planning too far ahead? Second hat of the week. I just ordered three new hats because I realized, look, I like having nice hair and I like doing my hair. I don't really use gel anymore because I just I don't want to, so I would wet my hair and just comb it and it would stay for the most part. But I like hats. So I purchased a couple new hats so I don't wear the same raggedy hat every episode. We'll see what happens after I get a haircut. Okay, nobody needs to know and I'm sure nobody cares, but I wanted to just throw it out there. I have three hats. I have oh man, I probably have nine hats, but some of them are true bro yeah, yeah, some of them are beanies, some of them I only wear to the gym.

Speaker 1 2:24

You can't cross. You can't wear a hat to the gym and then wear it somewhere else, agreed.

Speaker 2 2:29

That is a sin. I have one light blue in NLU colors. No brand, just plain One. Black for the gym, black and dark and ominous. Dark and ominous. Block out the light, yeah. Fight in the dark, yeah. And then one gray which is neutral. Cool story, bro, yeah thanks, man, thank you.

Speaker 1 2:52

Hey, every now and then we got a bro out on here, Taryn, occasionally I'll tell her something and she'll look me dead in the eye and say thank you for telling me that. Other times it's a joke of you've just wasted my time.

Speaker 2 3:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:07

And I love it. It's my favorite thing in the world. All right, are you planning too far ahead? A couple places I wanted to go. This is my last call of the day. It's currently 2.56 pm on Tuesday. As of recording this, and after Alan and I finish here, I don't have any other public-facing things, so I will turn my lights off.

Speaker 1 3:25

I will make it dark in here I'll play music. What Party Party I'm going to party? Yeah, I'll get the whiskey flowing, get some Call of Duty going, whatever. Whatever I feel like doing. No, there was a piece of me that was like awesome, that's like a three-hour block for me to write my book. That was my initial thought. That was my initial thought. Is that's a? That's a nice block for me to write my book. I enjoy writing. Something has happened. I actually enjoy.

Speaker 1 3:51

It's weird, I don't know, maybe more than speaking currently. So just throwing that out there, cool. Uh, we're gonna quit the podcast. I'm gonna become stephen king jeffrey king is what I'm going to label myself as and then I had this moment of Kev. That's the dumbest shit ever. You're going to spend time now to write a book that's not going to be out for like eight months. There are more important things you could be doing right now. There are just far more important things than you could be doing right now. 100% this piggybacks to a podcast that Alan and I did together. So we very rarely guest on podcasts together, but that's something we're going to start doing more, because it's a really cool dynamic.

Speaker 2 4:34

And I love it.

Speaker 1 4:35

I think I also miss it too. There's a piece of me that misses feeling bad about myself for the entire duration of the interview. I think. I need more of that in my life. I love it I duration of the interview.

Speaker 2 4:43

I think I need more of that in my life. I love it, I do. I've always enjoyed that. The very first time we did that together was Evolve Ventures, which used to be called the why Power podcast, which is why you do what you do.

Speaker 1 4:55

And you came hungover. I think you're incorrect. I don't think that was the first time we did it together. You remember it.

Speaker 2 5:05

But it wasn't the first time when we were interviewed.

Speaker 1 5:08

No, no, I don't think it was. I think you're incorrect.

Speaker 2 5:11

We had a bunch I think that were before that when we were interviewed.

Speaker 1 5:15

Yeah, I wouldn't come hungover to the first one.

Speaker 2 5:20

No chance, you know.

Speaker 1 5:21

No way, no way I'd come hungover to the first one you and I were being interviewed on.

Speaker 2 5:25

No way. Well, it would make sense because you knew Bianca and Emilia, so it wasn't as high stakes for you.

Speaker 1 5:30

I still wouldn't do it. I'm a professional. I was somewhat of a professional Less than I am today but I was still somewhat of a professional.

Speaker 2 5:38

I don't know we got. Come at me, tell me I'm coming to find out what the first interview was that we did together, because I we did a lot of interviews, but a lot of times it was separate I'm gonna do it, please, I'm gonna do it.

Speaker 1 5:56

Sounds like a speaking of wasting your time, planning too far ahead. That's what I'll do today. After we get done, I'll spend hours figuring out the first interview you and I did together, virtually we so we did an interview the other day with two fine gentlemen from india young, hungry, curious humans.

Speaker 1 6:13

It was really fun. It was a really fun time and alan had to cut out a little bit early because he had a coaching call, and then I stayed and I hung out for a little bit and they asked me a question about hey, how do we? We want to turn what we're doing into a business? How do we get clients? And the next thing they said essentially was they were worried about what they were doing not being sustainable. And I said you guys are thinking too far into the future. Don't worry about sustainability right now in terms of well, eventually it's going to get to the place where we can't have that many clients. Let's worry about that when we get there.

Speaker 2 6:47

Yeah, right now, too many clients is the best problem ever.

Speaker 1 6:49

It's the best problem in the world. And when you do, then you have hopefully enough money to then delegate and and bring on help and all that. But we're not. Again, this isn't going to be a business episode, but but it was kind of the same thing of you guys are planning too far into the future and you're not focused on what you could be doing right now. You're not planning right now, you're planning too far into the future, and that's essentially the advice that I gave them.

Speaker 1 7:13

But I thought I'd make for an interesting episode because I think planning is awesome and I think planning is a superpower and I think planning is powerful. But if you're planning too far into the future, like I was, well, this book's going to be really good. When I get this thing out in a year, it's going to be awesome. Right now is not the best time for me to be working on that. There's other things that take precedent. So I would probably kick it to you, alan, and say how do you know? Yeah, how do you know what's the best use of your time?

Speaker 2 7:49

today in terms of the results you're trying to accomplish. Well, I'll give you the theoretical version and then I'll give you the practical one. Uh, there's a ted talk by a man by the name of rory Vaden, who is known as a productivity expert, who has a framework that I do believe is powerful, and he says that we think of time in 2D instead of 3D, and the Eisenhower matrix is a very popular productivity matrix that has it's essentially urgent and important. So some things in one quadrant are both urgent and important. Some things are urgent but not important, some things are important but not urgent, that kind of thing. So your book is important but not urgent, right, and what you're trying to say is there are other things that are important and urgent.

Speaker 1 8:39

That is what I'm trying to say yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 8:41

So he has urgent, important, and he brings in a third dimension which is significant, and this is exactly what I'm calculating. This episode right now everyone watching or listening to this for Kevin and I is both urgent, important and significant. Let me explain. Urgent means it is time-sensitive, ak sensitive, aka this is launching tomorrow. Yes, we've never missed an episode. We're 1850, however many in 55 and 56, so this will be 56, 77, okay, so we're not about to miss now and one of the reasons we've gotten the success that we've gotten and the impact is because we never miss. So we're not. So it's urgent. This is due now. Need to do this now? Okay, urgent, time sensitive. That's number one. Number two is important Zero to ten. How important is this podcast to our passion, purpose and profit? Ten out of ten, okay.

Speaker 2 9:45

The third one is significant. Significant means how long will it pay off, how long into the future will this matter? So urgent is how time sensitive is it? Important is how valuable is it to your success and achievement and impact and profitability, and significant is how long will it pay off. So, for example, if you buy one stock in Tesla and Tesla lasts the next 30 years and grows for 30 years. That stock will pay off dividends for 30 years. And so the reason why I'm literally right now postponing prep for a Relationship Talks event with Emilia that we had on the calendar is because this is more urgent, more important and more significant, and so I'm prioritizing you right now and this podcast listener watching or viewing this, over what I could be doing elsewhere. So that's the filter is number one.

Speaker 2 10:42

Ask yourself a simple question how urgent is this? Zero to 10. Number two how important is this AKA? How valuable is this? How much does this mean to me? How much does this mean to my success? How much does this mean to my bank account? How much does this mean to my physique? How much does this mean to my intimate relationship? And then the third one is how significant is it? I told a client earlier I said and then the third one is how significant is it? I told a client earlier I said I said champions, and this is a certain specific client.

Speaker 2 11:08

so I speak in certain I know he wants to be a champion, so I'm leveraging that. And he's a. He's a young man. So, champions, build. They don't waste time and effort, they don't waste anything, they build. What do I mean by build? I said, dude, you're not getting any younger, you, you're about to reach your thirties. I'm telling you build, do not do anything superfluous, stop doing things that won't pay off for decades. Now again, this is a hardcore client who I've been working with for three or four years. I didn't start there, all right, but ultimately I don't do things. I try really hard not to focus on things that aren't going to pay dividends forever. In other words, I'm a long-term investor and it's based on urgent, important and significant. So is this urgent Zero to 10. How urgent is this Zero to 10.? How important is this Zero to 10.? And how significant is this Zero to 10.? Now the question becomes how do you actually calculate that? And that's a whole other rabbit hole. Well, that's a whole other rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 12:00

Well, I think this is why it's so easy to put family fitness, friends. I didn't know that was going to be three Fs when I started down that path Family fitness and friends. Finance, no, no, no, don't stop trying to take me where I'm not ready to go yet. No, family fitness and friends in the back seat kind of, because finances do kind of have to come first at times. As a dream chaser, that's the hard thing.

Speaker 1 12:30

I remember when, so Alan and I had the opportunity to go live with one of our mentors for the entire month of December one year, and somebody said to me wait, you're going to be away for the entire month of December one year. And somebody said to me, wait, you're going to be away for the holidays. And I said, yeah, yeah, but there'll be Christmas next year and there'll be New Year's next year. I may never have this opportunity again. There's something to this, and while it didn't go the way I expected, I learned a ton about myself and just there was something about that that facilitated a lot of growth inside me.

Speaker 1 13:07

This person wasn't really a dream chaser at the time. They didn't understand oh, the only day your potential client can do the photo shoot is Sunday. That's what you're going to do. It doesn't really matter if you had breakfast planned or you were supposed to go on a date. I remember I had to skip on a date with someone I think it was like my first date with somebody because you and I had an opportunity it was. I don't know if I'm going to get this opportunity again. I have to prioritize this. I'm not saying you always do that. Now, if Taryn's sick and there's something going on, I'm going to cancel my meetings, but I'm privileged enough to be able to do that. You can't do that the whole time but you're not going to do that.

Speaker 1 13:51

If you're, if your acquaintance gets sick, right, right and that's the, that's the hard truth, unless, unless you are, unless that acquaintance, being sick means more to you than the other thing.

Speaker 2 14:04

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 14:05

As long as it's within your core values and your core beliefs.

Speaker 1 14:07

For me, if somebody I know is sick, it's not like I'm going to can my day Now.

Speaker 1 14:14

If they got into a car accident and they're in the hospital, maybe that's different.

Speaker 1 14:19

I think that's why this is so hard, because the truth of the matter is you have to make sure that you're making progress right now, because if you're not making progress right now, you might not be around in five years in terms of being a dream chaser with all the stuff that you're planning. But you also got to make sure you're planning for the future, because if you're not planning for the future, then when you do arrive at that place, you might not have any of the things set up you need to. But in the moment, in the micro, in the day-to-day, as a dream chaser, especially in the beginning, you don't necessarily have the privilege of choice. When somebody says, yeah, you can come detail my car, but the only time I'm around saturday night and Sunday night you either say no, can't do it on to the next one, or yeah, what time Saturday works, and then that becomes the priority of your weekend. But I understand that's a challenge, that's one of the challenging pieces of this whole thing.

Speaker 2 15:17

Every priority is predicated on a circumstance. Let's say, kevin and I had $500,000 in our business bank account right now cash on hand. You could write your book, doesn't matter, we're good. I could retire. No, you couldn't. We have a three-year runway where we're good. You can think more long-term Thinking. Long-term is a luxury that has to be earned through savings and, if I'm honest, so there's short, mid and long range. I'm a long-term is a luxury that has to be earned through savings and, if I'm honest, so they're short, mid and long range. I'm a long-term strategic thinker. That comes with a weakness. I know we got a jumpsuit. That comes with a weakness. So in hindsight, this is very clear. Kevin and I are learning, we're growing, we're taking you on this journey.

Speaker 2 15:55

In hindsight, I was overly. I would write, for I wrote every day for seven months in 2024. I have a blog of 20 blogs. They're very valuable. They still pay off, luckily. I still use them. I literally sent them to someone to help someone earlier today and check them out. They're on my linkedin.

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

Speaker 2 16:12

That said, there were more important things that I should have been doing. In hindsight, it takes humility to say no to things. I really have started to believe this. Someone, someone who is unintentionally overly optimistic says yes to a bunch of things that and I'm guilty of this I'll just talk about myself we had some really big months in the past that were really really good, and I allowed the abundance to get me to lose sight of some of the short-term things that need to always be focused on. We had a mentor once who said the first goal of business is to stay in business, and I thought that that I now understand that at a deeper level. The first goal in business is to stay in business. The second goal in business is to grow and scale your business in the future. I overly did the second one at the expense of the first one, and now I realize it's because you were mostly focused on the first one, and so you and I drove to five. You were overly short term, day to day survival, which, genuinely, if you're only day to day survival and you don't think about the future, you're in so much freaking trouble with all the love. If all you do is think about the future and you don't worry about the bills this month, you're also in trouble, and so all of us have to sort of figure out for ourselves our own circumstances and figure out what our priorities need to be, and it it changes from chapter to chapter and so micro, macro, 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.

Speaker 2 17:44

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. Every single one of my clients you guys can all do this. Every listener, every one of my clients has a target of their top three most important priorities. Mips is what we call it. Top three most important priorities for Q4. Okay, you have your most important priorities for Q4. I have my most important priorities for Q4. Mine are podcasting, training and coaching. Yours are do you want to give yours?

Speaker 1 18:25

sleep in snuggle netflix.

Speaker 2 18:29

It could be a very I believe it's a good way to go out of business.

Speaker 1 18:31

I believe it's podcasting, social media community. I believe are my three nice, okay.

Speaker 2 18:36

So everyone out there for the takeaway for today's episode. Think about q4, think about the rest of the year, think about end of 2024. What do you want your top three most important priorities to be? That's where you're going to focus your time, effort and money and you'll win in those three and then inevitably, some of the other stuff will fall and then next quarter you're going to have to pivot those.

Prioritize your current tasks, but don’t neglect planning for the future

Speaker 1 19:00

It's hard to succeed. A lot of things have to. I'm not going to say a lot of things have to. I'm not gonna say a lot of things have to align, because I don't mean it that way. You have to become aware of a lot of things and move them in the right order. That's one of the most frustrating things.

Speaker 2 19:12

Sorry, go ahead I I want to know don't be sorry, because I I just I really do want to know this, because when it comes to this stuff I'm just being very direct about this I, this stuff always made perfect sense to me. Not perfect sense, obviously I was imperfect. I mean, I'm definitely, I've made a lot of mistakes and I want to make this clear too Everything everyone says they're all wrong. It's just to what extent there's a percent error. So if I say, hey, uh, gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared, I'm actually actually accurate because that's true. But when I talk and when you talk, kev, we're not. We're never fully right or fully wrong. We're just more right than we used to be.

Speaker 1 19:50

if that makes, I won't say I'm never fully wrong you're never sure I'm sure I've said some dumb shit. That's like I don't know, under any circumstance, where this could possibly be valuable for you, based on where you are in your life.

Speaker 2 20:02

Don't do it, okay. I? I doubt. I mean, I haven't seen you. If, if you said anything that I think is fully inaccurate, I would, I would have called you out, most likely. So, at the end of the day, what I'm trying to say here is I want to ask you this what did you used to think, dude? Because, think about it, you wanted to. I remember I came into kevin's apartment and he had two million dollar net worth on his vision board and it was literally a piece of paper hanging. It wasn't yeah, there wasn't a lot of vision. There wasn't a lot of vision going on. What did you think? Man, like I don't, I really just in being transparent, I have no idea what you used to actually think on how to actually do that.

Speaker 1 20:42

I'm telling you. My current understanding is I thought it was like a movie montage where you set the goal, you did some stuff and then you ended up there. I didn't really have the. I had the bread, but I didn't have the middle piece of the sandwich. I didn't really understand the strategy. I had the bread. This is the goal, this is what it would be like when we get there, but that was kind of it. I don't know. I was not going to be successful. That's the truth of the matter. I didn't have the strategy, Can you?

Speaker 2 21:15

and again. What would you say to that, kevin? Because what I'm realizing at Next next level university, we help everyone reach their potential, grow yourself, grow your podcast, grow your business, holistic self-improvement for dream chasers all that's wonderful absolutely 100. What I'm realizing is we're the how-to. I'm realizing a lot of people just don't know how and I, as pretentious, as that sounds.

Speaker 1 21:37

No, I don't think that sounds pretentious at all, that I. I believe. The two most commonly Googled words are probably how to or how do I? Those are three words.

Speaker 2 21:46

I'm willing to bet that's most I've been overly focused on why and understanding. I think I didn't Not overly Okay.

How to invest time and effort in goals effectively

Speaker 1 21:56

I think you need both. I think most people. For me it was how and accountability, how accountability, how accountability. I don't think that's gonna stick on.

Speaker 2 22:09

What would you say to kev about, because now you know how to invest your time, effort and money towards your goals and dreams goals, metrics, habits, identity. You know how to do all this, not perfectly, but better than you used to. By a significant, I mean a thousand times better, right than yeah probably so. What would you say to kevin? Like your coaches, you're kevin's coach. He has a two million dollars on his tack board as a as a net worth goal. What would you say to him?

Speaker 2 22:37

because I remember I used to try to explain things to you and it I I now realize in hindsight I never really taught you how kind of no, and it's your fault.

Speaker 1 22:46

See, this is what would happen. You would say well, kev, you should have told me that you didn't know. It's like no, it's not the mentee's job. The mentor is supposed to know, how little I know. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 22:58

I would ask him how the mentee is not supposed to. That's what the mentee does son. That's what all the mentees, you know the mentees with, low self-belief, they pretend Again.

Speaker 1 23:08

this was my experience.

Speaker 1 23:09

I know everything. I know exactly how I'm going to get there. I would say how Kev, awesome. You want to have a net worth of $2 million. First of all, do you even know what net worth means? Please explain to me what net worth means. I probably would have said two million straight cash homie. And then this version of Kev would say that's not what net worth means.

Speaker 1 23:31

So let's start there. You can't set a net worth goal if you don't know what net worth means. You can't achieve your dream relationship if you don't know what your dream relationship looks like. It's impossible. You can't Okay, cool, can't, okay, cool. Let's start there. Let's not worry about this other stuff yet. Let's start there, cool. And then I would say all right, cool, how? How do you plan on doing it? I want what has to happen, what would have to happen in order, uh, this year, in order for you to make meaningful progress towards that. And then I think, ultimately, I would just say either A that's not realistic, I think you're biting off more than you can chew. B that's not realistic, I feel like you're selling yourself really short. Or C I feel like that's a pretty accurate place to start. Now, what do we need to do every day, because every month doesn't happen without every day and every day doesn't happen without every hour. So let's break it down and I would, and he would do really well, most likely because there'd be some strategy.

Speaker 1 24:34

I wrote this little sneak peek I'm an author, don't worry about it, it's not a big deal. I a little sneak peek into the book. One of the things that I'm writing about is the we talked about it expectations, approach time perspective. Expectations, approach time perspective. That's something that's a really important framework for success in general. I believe.

Speaker 1 24:57

I believe that deeply and I am telling the story about when we interviewed Coach Michael Burt and you said Coach Michael, I don't mean this with any malice or I'm not trying to be funny, but why does somebody need a coach? And he essentially said Coach Michael, I don't mean this with any malice or I'm not trying to be funny, but why does somebody need a coach? And he essentially said because I know how to do it and you don't yet. That's it. I just know how to do it and you don't yet. Now more than ever, I believe that if you can teach it, then you actually know how to do it. If you can teach it to someone else, you actually know how to do it. If you can teach it to someone else, you actually know how to do it. You've experienced it. Not you've seen other people do it, you've experienced it, so you know how to coach it. I didn't know I couldn't coach somebody else on success. I couldn't, so I think it's that. Yeah, how, how exactly do you plan on accomplishing this?

Speaker 2 25:44

And I see versions of me now I think how is really important? More important than I thought, but I think the how always came fairly naturally to me, not in relationships, but in yeah achievements I think how is?

Speaker 1 25:55

I think how is very, very powerful, as long as you have the accountability necessity to, to, to go with it. The other thing, too, is you have to believe the how is actually the how. One of the hardest parts of coaching for me has been working with someone who is so focused on I'm going to do this and then it's going to happen, and then this is what. Then this is what I'm going to do, and I see you're missing. You're missing so much here in the middle. You're essentially doing exactly what I did You're removing the middle and assuming it's going to go really well. I'm not saying it won't. It might go horribly wrong. What if your expectations are off and you get far less results than you think? Everything is thrown off. We have to focus on the how today. We can't focus on the how eventually.

Balancing present and future goals

Speaker 2 26:45

We have to focus on the how today, but we also have't focus on the how eventually, we have to focus on the how today, but we also have to focus on the then too. But I think it's a a juggling act. It is an end. You have to do both. You have to you're I I've a lot of people have said this, business gurus or whatever but ultimately you're, you're always running two businesses. You're running the one now and the one in the future. And the truth is, all of us are running two lives. We're running our life now and the one in the future. And the truth is, all of us are running two lives. We're running our life now and our life in the future.

Speaker 2 27:10

Emilia and I just watched a really funny comedy with kevin hart called fatherhood. It was really quite funny. It was, it was funny and it wasn't. It was actually pretty high vibe, all things considered. And it's about a man whose wife unfortunately passes away after childbirth and he's he's just taking care of the kid by himself and he has no freaking clue what he's doing. And it's it's really funny.

Speaker 2 27:32

And one of the reasons why we watched that film is because emily and I are preparing to be parents long before we're even trying. I mean, this is we're talking years before we even start trying, but I can't let that. I can't watch fatherhood and prepare to be a dad at the expense of our current company. So you have to constantly balance or harmonize both the present and the future. You have to learn from the past. You have to act now, massive action, courageous in the present, and you have to build toward a bigger, better, brighter future. And you have to do all three of those things very well.

Speaker 2 28:11

Earlier today, when I woke up, I was reading a book called the Art of Impossible and reflecting on my past that I'm going to reinvest in today to build toward that brighter future. I get it. I'm starting to finally understand why so few people actually achieve their dreams and I'm not saying that to be mean. So few people really do. Most people, unfortunately, will never achieve their dreams, and that's really weird to say on a podcast it's about dream chasing. But I mean we'll achieve some of our dreams, right Dream car, dream home, that kind of stuff, but not a lot of us are going to. There's a lot of dreams that are a lot of people are never going to reach and I think it's making me really sad. However, it's also firing me up to get better at teaching people how, because there's a way there's a way to do it.

Speaker 2 28:51

There really is. I mean, think about where kev was.

Speaker 1 28:52

He just admitted he had no freaking clue what he was doing whatsoever to an alarming extent, with all the love, and I still don't there's. I still don't know how I'm gonna get to where I want to get to eventually. I'm not 100 sure yet.

Speaker 2 28:59

I don't know yet what percentage do you think you know?

Speaker 1 29:04

dude, dude. The weird thing is, some days it's more and other days it's less. Some days it's like oh yeah, I know exactly how. And then other days something will happen and I get a new awareness that I've never thought of before. And then I think to myself do I know anything? Yeah am I delusional in thinking that that's going to happen the way I think it's going to happen? Probably delusional meaning I'm off, not over, over or under Percent error, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 29:27

I'm off when we first met when we first started working together.

Speaker 1 29:32

It looks like you are on the sun right now.

Speaker 2 29:33

I know, for some reason, my camera and my internet's been pretty wonky too, so we're still learning, but I know we got to jump real quick. When I first started working with Kev, I would say your percent error was 80%. Now your percent error is probably only 10%, but it's still a percent error. You're not a perfect self-driving car yet. You still take wrong turns that kind of thing we all do and so my percent error is just less in business and science and that kind of thing, but it's more in relationships. You understand people. Sometimes you surprise me and it's like oh, I never thought about that once.

Speaker 2 30:06

So, we're all still learning and I just hope everyone has the humility and self-belief to stay the course and keep getting better, and the probability of success increases as you improve yourself.

Speaker 1 30:18

This would be my takeaway. This is the takeaway, the wrap-up for me. If you feel stuck, one of the big reasons why? Is because you don't know what to do. I know that probably sounds overly simple or Kev, that's obvious, but there are ways to find the information. There's a lot of information out there. I would argue there might be too much information, which makes it even harder and that's what makes success so challenging is you don't know who to listen to. That would be the wrap-up for me.

Speaker 1 30:52

Find the strategy that is connected to where you are today, because where you are today dictates where you're going to be tomorrow. And it's awesome to plan for the future a thousand percent, but you've got to improve today too. Figure out what side you you're on. Were you like me, where you were only you only cared about today and it was survived today? Or were you more like alan, where you were focused on 10 years down the line? I'm gonna bet most people were more are more like me, just because I think statistically it's more common. You need to figure out like what the next, what you should be doing today, how what you're doing today transfers into the month, and then what that looks like for the year. A year is a long ass time and a lot can happen in a year, so you probably want to reverse engineer it and do a year. You know quarter month day, but I don't know if you'll have that understanding, because I know I didn't if anyone, anyone wants help with this, this is literally what I do.

Speaker 2 31:48

This is I've been doing this my entire life. I swear I've never not done this. Breaking down the decade into the year, into the quarter, into the month, into the day. I mean, when Kevin and I first got together, we never even talked quarters. I don't even know if you knew what a quarter was. I didn't know that's business. Talk Q3, q4, all that stuff. Reverse engineering is my most valuable skill and I want to help people with it. I so desperately want to help our listeners. So please reach out. We'll do a free session. We'll break down your goals and dreams, we'll get the metrics and habits going and then it's up to you to do them. And then if, if you don't, at least you'll be set up.

Speaker 1 32:23

Yeah, I can't imagine a world where you would get off that call and not have more clarity and more certainty and more strategy. Strategy that's the takeaway for today's episode. Hope is great, alignment is great, people finding value in what you do is great. That's all great, it's all important, it's all valuable, but strategy is something different. The reason I know how much I want to weigh and I can go do it in 10 weeks is just because I have the strategy. That's all it is. That's it.

Speaker 2 32:51

I just know how to do it, the exact recipe, yeah.

Speaker 1 32:53

I just have the recipe because I've done it for long enough and I did the research and all that. Same thing with a podcast, alan, with a business, you for parenthood or whatever, whatever it is. You have the recipe that I don't yet, so we just have to figure out what the recipe is. Again, I know easier said than done, but I cannot reiterate that enough. I just didn't know what to do, just didn't know. No awareness, I didn't have the awareness. Okay, next, on the nation, as Alan mentioned, we'll have the link for a free. It's considered a business breakthrough session.

Speaker 2 33:25

I think Is that what it's considered? Session. I think Is that what it's considered. What is it labeled as? It's labeled business breakthrough session. However, it's grow yourself, grow your podcast, grow your business. I will help you with anyone you want.

Outro

Speaker 1 33:33

All right that, so that link will be in the show notes. If you have not yet joined Next Level Nation and you are interested, please do so. A group of like-minded humans who like talking about weird stuff like this. That's it, and there are strategies in there. There are things that will make you feel like you're not alone on this journey. I know that is one of the things about being a dream chaser is sometimes you don't feel understood. So if you're feeling misunderstood, the group will help you feel back on track with being understood, 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. Please reach out. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family.

Speaker 1 34:27

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. Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.