Next Level University

What Are You Running From? (1913)

Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode, Kevin and Alan share relatable stories and powerful insights on facing fears, embracing feedback, and growing into your best selves. Discover why taking small steps outside your comfort zone is the key to lasting change. Don’t wait for life to push you—take action today. Tune in to elevate your life, love, health, and wealth.

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Show notes:
(1:47) Facing reality Vs. Avoiding problems in life
(4:57) A personal story about avoiding financial issues
(9:04) Steps to tackle uncomfortable conversations
(14:25) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://bit.ly/4eE5RF5
(17:47) The cost of avoiding hard conversations
(23:55) Addressing challenges daily Vs. All at once
(27:50) Outro

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.

Kevin Palmieri

but I think it was more the principle than anything else and it was supremely uncomfortable. But there's certain things that you can only run from for so long and if the thing is attached to you you really can't outrun it.

Alan Lazaros

This is the reason goals are so hard, man, because you can't avoid anything in alignment with the goal, like if you have a fitness goal. You can't avoid the mirror now. You can't avoid the mirror now. You can't avoid the scale now. What are you avoiding? There's no one that I know who, and that's what my coaching is it's finding out what are we avoiding?

Kevin Palmieri

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.

Alan Lazaros

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

Kevin Palmieri

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.

Kevin Palmieri

Welcome to Next Level University completely free. 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 1,913, a simple, yet profound question. And that's what we do here. We ask deep questions, yet profound question, and that's what we do here. We ask deep questions. What are you running from?

Kevin Palmieri

I was on a wonderful podcast yesterday with an amazing human who listens to NLU and PGU Shout out to Rula, and we were talking about we were talking about deep conversations and we were talking about we were talking about a lot of really cool stuff, but the through line of the whole thing was it's way easier to avoid the problem than it is to face the problem. I said what's harder? Not looking at your bank account when you're broke, knowing you're broke, or looking at your bank account when you're broke because you're afraid to see the reality, the actual, specific reality of what you're under. And I think we run away from the stuff that scares us in the moment and then, when we run away from that, it handcuffs us into that place in life and then we end up jething ourselves Deep conversations or challenging conversations in a relationship, really easy to run away from, really easy to run away from.

Kevin Palmieri

If you run away from those, you are most likely also running away from the success that those things would bring. If you're running away from and this is a this is a tough one, this is a tough one, but let's, let's work through it together. If you're running away from looking in the mirror, maybe with less clothes than you usually do, if you're running from jumping on the scale or whatever, whatever it is, you're also running from the necessity to do something about that thing. And I know that's a hardcore. Those are potentially hardcore examples.

Kevin Palmieri

But if we're talking about life, love, health and wealth, love relationship check-ins, health physical, mental, emotional, spiritual so maybe you've been, you've been saying, well, you know what, I'm going to book that therapy appointment, or I'm going to book that doctor's appointment or whatever it is, and you just keep running away from it. Okay, physical health, right. And then wealth Are you, do you keep running? I had a thing today. This was fun. I texted Alan. I said hey, man, I had to zell myself some money from the business because my personal bank account keeps overdrafting because, I don't really use it and it's weird.

Kevin Palmieri

I set up an auto pay thing from my personal account to the business to pay down the credit card four years ago. I can't change it. They won't let me do it. So I've been negative for the last week and I have $70 in overdraft fees. I need to sell myself some money and I think one of the reasons that happened is because I've been running from figuring out all the things that I'm paying from my personal account that I need to switch to the business. Now today you bet your butt. I went in there and figured out what it was because I had enough necessity. Maybe sometimes life finds us and it says look, you can't run from this anymore in a gentle way. Unfortunately, it's not always a gentle way and I don't want it to get to the place where you get smashed over the head with a shovel like the guys from Home Alone, for lack of better phrasing by something that you've.

Kevin Palmieri

I haven't, I have not watched a Christmas movie yet this year. I am freaking, devastated.

Alan Lazaros

I'm sorry to hear that. I've been uh watching the second one, yeah, and I haven't. I haven't finished it yet. It's actually pretty long, which first one or second one?

Kevin Palmieri

which one's better? You asked me that last week yeah I'm sure I did.

Alan Lazaros

I'm gonna ask you again, I still think, second it's they close, though.

Kevin Palmieri

Really, close, I'd agree. Second, bigger budget, though probably right, they must have had a much bigger budget, Definitely Significantly. Yeah, great movies.

Alan Lazaros

I'm not a huge fan of New York City. I've been there many times, many times. I've been there five, six times. I don't like it that much.

Kevin Palmieri

Same yeah, central Park is nice a city. I'm not a city slicker by any, any stretch of the imagination. I don't not a fan. No, absolutely not. No. Well, you don't need a car. You could walk places. I don't want to. I don't like walking, I want to drive I will drive there, I like having a car. Well, everything's so close, I don't care. I don't want to live in the city I like I like rustic.

Alan Lazaros

I lived in la for a time and I I used to say I grew up in the sticks and I'm I'm gonna live in the sticks. Yes, and emily and I do. We live very much in the sticks, but also close enough, five minutes from the highway, so we got all the all the benefits with none of the downsides.

Alan Lazaros

What having peppermint hot chocolate right now very nice, very holiday-esque of you, so to bring back to value In Next Level Nation Amy posted do you tend to dot dot dot, embrace challenges or stick to comfort zones? There's nine comments on it and I answered it earlier today and I said this. I said with relationships, my tendency is to stick to comfort zones with my own growth and achievement definitely challenges, and the hard part is when those two start to conflict with a laughy face. But I had there's like a lot of good answers on here, some people, both I would likely embrace a challenge because my curiosity needs to be satisfied. I want to know what I don't know Both. I like my comfort zone and I stick to it mostly. But I know growth only comes from stepping out of your comfort zone and it isn't. Isn't it funny how soon that thing that brought you out of your comfort zone and felt so scary and hard and different can become part of your comfort zone? Exactly Right, and this goes back to. I've never shared this before on the podcast, but I had a. Really I don't know if I'd go as far as to call it a breakthrough, I guess a distinction.

Alan Lazaros

I was on a coaching session and I pulled up a past team member, showed it to Jesse. She sent me something called a trauma window and she explained it to the whole team and it's really a fairly simple concept but essentially it's an image of a window and then there's hyper arousal and hypo arousal, arousal and basically it's the comfort zone. So when you're in your trauma window, you're in your comfort zone. When you're outside of that trauma window, you're basically in the growth zone and then if you're way outside of it, you're it's destructive. We've talked about this a lot in this digital asset. I actually drew the circles. So inside the window is your comfort zone, a little bit outside it is your growth zone and then after that is trauma zone. And we talk about the growth, the comfort zone, the growth zone and the trauma zone a ton of the podcast.

Steps to tackle uncomfortable conversations

Alan Lazaros

But to your point, what are you avoiding? Whatever it is that you're avoiding is most likely too far outside your comfort zone to where it might be in the trauma zone. But if you don't face that thing, so what's a good example of this? I have a client who needs to share a hard truth with his mom and dad. I have a client who needs to share a hard truth with his mom and dad. He lived in South America for a while Shout out to you, brother, and now he's living at home, he's going back to South America. While living with them, let's say he has to share a challenge with them. You don't go from I've never shared a vulnerable truth to.

Alan Lazaros

I'm going to share all of my hard truth all at once, all in one sitting, all in person, and instead it's okay, write a text out. Let's just write a text out. Don't even send it, just write it out. Okay, step one done. Step two okay, let's edit it, maybe dial it down a bit, make it a little bit less scary to send. Okay, let's send it to one of your parents. Which one's the more understanding parent? Boom, send it there. Okay, now, wait a little while, see what she says. Okay, now, maybe consider sending it to your dad. Like, the idea here is just create a staircase. Create a staircase. You and I talk often about the way we operate right now in our business. If we go back seven, eight years ago, we just talked about a video of you. For those of you who didn't listen to the last episode, you showed a video of you nine years ago.

Kevin Palmieri

Was that. I don't know if that was the last one.

Alan Lazaros

No, that was Monday Monday 1911. Okay that two episodes ago, that episode of you nine years ago, that video that you shared on the show, you could hear it in your voice that that was outside your comfort zone. Now my question is was that in your growth zone or was that in your trauma zone?

Kevin Palmieri

I think I was already experiencing so much trauma. It wasn't that hard to do it. If anything, it felt like a step in the right direction, so I would say it was constructive nice what would be?

Alan Lazaros

an example of something that would be destructive at that time.

Kevin Palmieri

If anything, it felt like a step in the right direction, so I would say it was constructive. Nice. What would be an example of something that would be destructive at that time? Telling a story about the breakup that I was going through or had gone through that, or the fact that my girlfriend waited to break up with me because she thought I might kill myself? That?

Alan Lazaros

But now that's in your comfort zone. Yeah, yeah, isn't that wild well, that's the weird thing.

Kevin Palmieri

That's the weird thing is they you've heard us say it before and again. It's not my quote, I don't know who said it, but sheer scars, not open wounds. That's always, that's always easy to to differentiate. Am I running from this because it's an open wound and I'm not ready to face it fully yet? That's a potential.

Kevin Palmieri

I think the hardest thing, the hardest part of it all, is when you have that moment where you know you should do something about something and then you don't. It gets harder. It's like somebody let's say somebody. Somebody messages you. I've had this happen. I've had this happen 100%. Somebody messages me on WhatsApp Not a client, but somebody from the community I've been talking to, and they have a question and this, luckily, hasn't happened in a long time. But they'll send me a question and I don't see it. And then I see it like four days later and I'm like, all right, I'll get to it tomorrow. And then I don't get to it. And then it's been seven days and then I start to feel guilty and I start avoiding it. Well, now it's too late, I don't want to send that message. And then it just gets harder and harder. Because what am I going to say hey, hey, blank, my bad. I know you sent this to me in April of 1970 and now it's 2002. My B slipped through the cracks. How's life? Are you still with us? What's going on? You know how are things going. I think it just gets harder because you have depending on what it is, you have more shame and I think you're just building momentum in the opposite direction.

Kevin Palmieri

I've told this story before, but I think it's one of the best I do. I think it's one of the best you best I do. I think it's one of the best You've heard about Kevin's situationships. In the past I had a situationship that I told Alan. I said, dude, I got to end this. I absolutely have to end this. It's getting to the point where I know this person is going to catch feelings and it's bad. It's not going to end the way it's supposed to end. I know that and I just kept putting it off Because my thing was I don't want to hurt this person, I don't want to have an argument, I don't want them to get mad at me. I don't want them to think I'm a dingo Jackass. I don't. There's going to be a lot of discomfort that comes with it and you either spread the discomfort out or try to convince yourself it's not going to happen, or you face it all at once Feedback. You've heard us say this you will always get feedback. You either get it little by little along the way or you get it all at once at the end. And I chose to get it all at once at the end, when I could have gotten it a little bit earlier and it would have been less. And I'll never forget that.

Kevin Palmieri

The person said well, I'd like to see you in person. Can we talk about it in person? And I was like no, no, no, I don't want to talk about it in person. I can't hide behind my text messages if I do that. No, I don't want to talk about it in person. And no, I don't want to talk about her in person. And I ended up driving to see this person and it was like the most awkward. It's like you just want me to come see you in person and tell you that we can't do this anymore. Is that what's happening? And that was it. I drove like 45 minutes for a three-minute conversation, but I think it was more the principle than anything else and it was supremely uncomfortable, but there's certain things that you can only run from for so long and if the thing is attached to you, you really can't outrun it.

Kevin Palmieri

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. You can't outrun debt. I've tried, they'll find. They find you. They find you. They know exactly where you are. They know everything you can't outrun. You can't outrun debt.

Alan Lazaros

You can't outrun it, you can't really outrun almost anything Almost.

Kevin Palmieri

No, no, Unless you're willing to lose it.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, unless you're willing to lose the thing. So if there's a friend who's been mistreating you and you know you should have a conversation, you know you should have a conversation. You know you should have a conversation. Another great example One of my best friends when I was younger used to come over and just was disrespectful.

Kevin Palmieri

He would take a shower and just leave his towel on the floor. He would just take food without asking and I'm fine, you want to have pup tarts before the gym? Just ask. I don't care, I'll buy more pup. It's not the end of the world. I'm more than happy to throw your towel in with my stuff. Just don't leave it on the freaking floor. What are we doing here?

Kevin Palmieri

And it got to the point. Now, again, it's not all his fault, I have responsibility in this too. It got to the point where he would literally bring his dirty laundry to my house when we were hanging out and he would do his freaking laundry at my place. Again, I don't care, just ask me. Not that big of a deal, it doesn't affect me, I don't care. What is it? A little extra water bill? It's the principle.

Kevin Palmieri

By the time I brought it up, we had gone too far and there was too much momentum there, and I take responsibility for that. I take responsibility for the fact that I didn't bring it up sooner. That's on me. That relationship ended just as much because of me as that other person, because by then I was already resentful, I was already convinced that this person wasn't going to change and, honestly, the problem is I didn't have the courage to sit them down and say look, brother, I love you, but you've got to get your shit together. What are we doing here, man? What are we doing? Let's be adults here. A little respect is all I'm asking for. Put a little respect on it.

The cost of avoiding hard conversations

Kevin Palmieri

Put some respect on my name. I would give you the shirt off my back. I would give you all my food. I just am looking for a little bit of respect. That's all. That's all I'm looking for. But I didn't have the courage to do it and then by the time I did it, it was already. I was kind of already checked out. So, yeah, if you just want things to die on the vine, you can avoid them, but unfortunately, unfortunately most of what we experience as human beings, you just can't let die. It doesn't work that way, yeah, and that's why goals that require you.

Alan Lazaros

This is the reason goals are so hard, man, because you can't avoid anything in alignment with the goal, like if you have fitness goal. You can't avoid the mirror now. You can't avoid the scale. Now, what are you avoiding? There's no one that I know who, and that's what my coaching is it's finding out. What are we avoiding?

Alan Lazaros

Maybe you're amazing and you're having trouble accepting it. Maybe you're not as amazing as you thought and you're having trouble accepting that. Maybe you're not as amazing as you thought and you're having trouble accepting that. Maybe you're a little cowardly and you have trouble accepting that. Maybe you're extremely intelligent and very unique in that. Maybe you're struggling to learn quickly. Maybe you struggle with memory. Maybe you struggle with sleep. Maybe you struggle. Maybe you have shame around your body. Maybe you have shame around success. Maybe you have a money block. I was on with a client recently and I said, just to raise your awareness, there there's a, there's a reluctance to talk about money in your business, and I'm not making that wrong. I remember those days. I'm saying that we need to be aware of it and we got to start small. We got to build, we got to start doing this and we can't start at 10,000 per client, because that's too far. It's too far outside of the One thing that I've been doing a lot lately. It's very important Whether it's Home Alone 2 or Great movie.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, I've been watching certain videos and or movies that are from way back. I watched an interview recently about Gladiator 1. Because Gladiator 2 came out recently, I loved it, but the first one came out 24 years ago or something like that 2001. 2001. And the actors that are a part of the second film I watched a couple interviews of them back then. Versus now, I mean it is tremendous how much they've grown. They're like little kids back then in comparison.

Alan Lazaros

And I just think there's something really important to be said, for if you could go back in time, what would you have faced sooner? What would you have faced sooner? What reality, what truth, what? I have one client who's 25 years old and I'm coaching him in a way unique to him.

Alan Lazaros

But, however, I'm also saying what I wish I understood when I was your age. I wish I had owned XYZ. I wish I had understood how rare it was to really want to reach your potential, to really, really, really want to reach your potential, to really, to really, really, really want to reach your potential. I wish I had understood how few people around me at that time, when I was in my mid-20s, early 20s none of my friends and family, were super focused on that. That was a unique to me thing. And the other piece of this, too, is most of the people around me at that time didn't actually have dreams. They weren't chasing their dreams. They didn't have dreams and if they did, they were very different size, scope, scale, type.

Alan Lazaros

Not a lot of people drive to LA to work in show business in their early 20s. You don't do that unless you have big dreams, and I I at the time I wanted to be at the top of show business. I didn't want to be. I. I intended on being very successful in that space. I've always aimed high. But the the point that I'm making here is whatever it is about you that you have yet to face that that you can run away from forever, it's never going to work. If it's a friend that you didn't give feedback to and here's the thing too, kev you literally were like well, I didn't want to offend him, I didn't want to lose the friendship I didn't want to, and that all happened. And then, with the situation, you didn't want to hurt her.

Alan Lazaros

You didn't want her to think you were a dingo. Both of those happened For a short time, the dingo for sure, yeah, yeah, for a short time. The point, though, is, the things that we're avoiding end up perpetuating the very fear of why we're avoiding them, but multiplied, but multiplied, yeah, exactly.

Kevin Palmieri

Okay, you're afraid to check your. Yeah, exactly, it was bad. I I didn't want to look at the number, I did. I ended up doing it and I've been tracking my finances since, which is, which is great. And you might say, well, kev, how did you end up in? How did you end up getting hit with a fee? I knew the fee was there, I just was like, ah, whatever, I'll figure that out later this week. You know, it's not. It's not because I wasn't looking at, it's because I keep very little money in my personal account and something came out that I didn't know was coming out. It's like oh shoot.

Kevin Palmieri

I got to transfer. The way my bank account is set up, I have to transfer some money, I have to move some funds from account to account. So it wasn't that I was avoiding it, but I think we're all guilty of this. All of us in some way, shape or form. Right now myself, alan, I'm not on my soapbox saying, look, you have to face everything. I'm not saying that I think we're all guilty of this to the degree that we are. It's just the awareness of, look, what's one thing right now that will become. This is my analogy there's a little pinhole in the bottom of the boat and you know the pinhole is there and you do not want to get to the place where the ocean takes the boat and you're out there floating with the sharks. You do not want to be there. So what is something we can do? To look at that pinhole right now and then try to do something about it. That is my takeaway for this episode.

Alan Lazaros

It feels like such a big mountain, and that's why you have to make it into this little stair step and eventually, if you do that, this is the weird conundrum you either decide in advance to face a little bit of tough feedback every single day or you're going to get it all at once. And that's why the car accident changed my life, because in my mid twenties it was all at once. It was all at once, and I remember that was really, really bad. I mean, I was so messed up because I wasn't. I wasn't doing the 1% self-improvement per day, I wasn't doing the 1% self-improvement per day, dude, I was so out of shape. How wild is it to think about how out of shape I was In comparison and that I would love to say, oh well, it didn't bother me, I didn't value it.

Kevin Palmieri

No, it bothered me every day.

Alan Lazaros

It bothered me every day and I just let it. I'm just bleeding all the time. You're just always hurting and you just don't tell anyone, you just. And then you surround yourself with other people who also aren't in shape and it becomes this whole thing. Yeah, so health, wealth and love, the irony, the paradoxes, and if you don't face the reality now, you have no opportunity to make that reality better. And I do believe that's a fundamental principle for all of us. And the last thing I'll share here is I've been behind the scenes with Kevin.

Alan Lazaros

I've wondered to myself why are there certain authors that write books about self-improvement but they're not into fitness? And you know what's interesting. Now I'm thinking about this. They're taking feedback in their thing, but they're not necessarily taking feedback in the other things. So one thing that's been very fascinating for me to study, particularly back in when I was working and going to work in show business, is a lot of actors and actresses are in really good shape, the majority of them, statistically speaking. If you took all the actors and actresses of the world and compared them to the statistical average, which one do you think would be of higher fitness? Okay, you want to know why You're always on camera.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, that's fair. You and I are on camera all the time. We can't avoid the feedback. When I look at us on camera, it's oh, geez, okay interesting. And when you're a fitness model and you're doing 42 photo shoots, you get the feedback every time and it's brutal, it's not nice, it's not good, like I. I was in great and I still had fitness photo shoots where it's like are you kidding me? Is that me?

Kevin Palmieri

Well, there's great shape and fitness shoot great shape. Those are two very different things.

Alan Lazaros

Very different, and the camera adds weight and all that kind of stuff. So it's just yeah, you've got to face and this is you versus you stuff. There's no one who's going to come. Hey, Kev, just make sure you look in the mirror. Today and I very rarely share this anymore, but we have a full length mirror in our bedroom and every single day, I take a moment and I and I look, and the reason I do that is because I don't want to become delusional.

Alan Lazaros

I need the feedback. I need to see where I'm at. I need to, and that's why we have habit trackers and metrics and clients. That's really all it is. It's just feedback. I was on it with a client earlier. We did his whole calendar. We have an average of how many physio sessions he's doing. We have an average of how many saves he's getting on Instagram. We have an average. We have all these metrics. All of that is just face the feedback a little bit each day instead of 10 years from now, and realize, holy crap, I didn't achieve my dreams, you gotta look to change it.

Outro

Kevin Palmieri

If you wanna change something, you gotta look at it first. Awareness is always the first step. That is, we started this podcast with that many moons ago. Hyper, conscious, acutely aware. Awareness is the first step. Alright, we gotta go. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you at NLU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow. Talk to you soon.

Alan Lazaros

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

Kevin Palmieri

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.