Next Level University

What's Ideal VS What's Realistic? (1915)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Are your goals holding you back? Chasing perfection can feel overwhelming—but what if the secret to real progress is starting small? In today’s episode, Kevin and Alan reveal why aiming for “realistic” goals beats striving for the “ideal” every time. From crafting morning routines that stick to exploring how self-worth shapes comparisons, this conversation offers actionable tips to build habits that genuinely work. Join us for a relatable and encouraging discussion packed with humor, honesty, and practical strategies for holistic self-improvement.

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Show notes:
(2:23) The difference between ideal and realistic goals
(6:39) The impact of morning routines on productivity
(12:55) Aligning habits with personal values and long-term growth
(22:19) 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
(25:21) The psychology behind comparing to others Vs. Ideals
(37:16) How upbringing shapes work ethic and self-worth
(39:27) 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

it's very hard to start almost anything ideally. Yeah, because there's so many things that go into ideal. You have to know the thing. There's just too many boxes to check.

Alan Lazaros

I think there's a correlation between people who compare to ideal and lower self-worth. However, the people who I think the people who have higher internal self-belief, self-efficacy, I think they compare to ideal more.

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.

Alan Lazaros

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

Kevin Palmieri

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 1915, it's Freestyle Friday For those of you who may be new here, welcome. First of all, we appreciate you. Second of all, freestyle Friday is a different type of episode, where we don't really know what we're going to talk about. It will be in holistic self-improvement, because that's essentially all we talk about. But yeah, freestyle Friday is a little bit more flowy. We don't stick to a strict schedule.

Alan Lazaros

What do we got for us Kev?

Kevin Palmieri

This was my thought. I did a podcast breakthrough session today with a wonderful human Shout out to Todd and Todd logged in and he said dude, the thing I really want to focus on is I want to focus on my workflow. I feel like I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do and I said look, man, I can tell you what I do, but what I do is drastically different than what you do, because I'm you're year one, we're year eight. Most of what I say to you is just not going to make sense. It's just not going to be valuable. I said, with love I think what you need to do is you need to change the target.

Kevin Palmieri

Right now, you're doing hour and a half guest episodes, you're doing the audio editing, you're doing the video editing, you're doing your social media. You're doing all this stuff. I think we need to simplify and we need to go back to basics and we need to restart where you would have started. So here's my thought for today's episode. We've talked about this, but I just want to reiterate it because I think it's super valuable. There's a drastic difference between ideal I almost forgot what I was going to say and realistic ideally, yes, every day the alarm clock would go off at six o'clock, you'd roll out of bed, you'd float off into the ice bath, you do your 20 minute ice bath while you counted your billions and billions of dollars, and then you'd go off and get in your helicopter and do whatever it is Ideally.

Alan Lazaros

Excuse me, Helicopters are not as safe man.

Kevin Palmieri

Understandable? No, anything that flies through the air at a fast rate of speed. You know what I mean. You know, when spacecrafts come back from space they go like 22,000 miles an hour or something.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, it's wild. Can you imagine how fast that is. How much safer are planes than helicopters? Check this out. Let's see what we got. Flying in a commercial airplane is generally safer than flying in a helicopter.

Kevin Palmieri

Thank you for that breakthrough that's terrible, terrible stats.

Alan Lazaros

Thank you, commercial air travel. Thank you for that breakthrough. That's terrible, terrible stats. Thank you, commercial air travel. Since 1997, the fatal accident rate for commercial air travel has been no more than 1 in 2 million person miles flown. From 2018 to 2022, the fatal accident rate for commercial helicopters was 0.77 per 100,000 flight hours. Yeah, so it's not close.

Kevin Palmieri

It's not close. Helicopters are wildly less safe. It's like 20 times less safe.

Alan Lazaros

I would have to crunch the numbers let's say it's 20 times less, significantly less safe, but the least safe thing. Everyone out there, public service announcement wear your seat belts. The least safe by far is cars, motor vehicles, particularly motorcycles. Man motorcycles, yeah dangerous game, dangerous game.

Kevin Palmieri

That's what I was talking to this client about. I said, yeah, ideally you would do this and you would do this, and you would do this and you would do this. But realistically that's not where we are. And I think that, as we're getting closer and closer to the beginning of 2025, we all want to come out of the gate hot and we're all going to try to set up realistic things. And I am leaning into sorry, we're all going to want to set up ideal things. I'm leaning into realistic, because realistic you can build on. So this was my example Back when I used to play baseball in my backyard.

Kevin Palmieri

It would be ideal if I could play catch with someone. Call up one of my friends hey, can you come over, let's hang out, let's play catch. I want to warm up the old whip. That would be ideal, realistically. I got one of those rebounders so I could throw a ball against the net and it would bounce back and I could practice throwing and I could practice catching. Do I want to do that all the time? No, that's more of a supplement, but things aren't always going to be ideal and I think just getting to the root of that earlier is beneficial, and especially now that we have a new year starting here shortly.

Alan Lazaros

So that's my thought. That made me think of when I was a kid I had a very, very, very mini basketball court and for some reason it had two hoops, even though it didn't need two hoops. I mean, this thing was tiny, but I had one of those retrievers no, it's underneath the net where I can just sit at the foul line and shoot over and over and over again Made me think of that. Lately I've become, I'd say, more mature and more centered. I used to be overly optimistic and I think staying optimistic in the long term is still very important, because the compound effect really can blow your mind. When you look back 2, 5, 10, 15 years ago, it is alarming, in a good way, how much you can improve and grow and change and achieve. However, in the short term, I'm becoming way more practical. Emilia and I both.

Alan Lazaros

I was on with a client recently Andrew, shout out to you he gave me permission to shout him out we're doing calendars. I'm doing calendars with a lot of my clients right now, and I said morning and evening routines. I recommend no more than three things, otherwise you're not going to sustain it. My morning routine is protein and learning. That's one. Number two is the dream ladder. Number three is mobility. At least half the time I don't get to the third one.

Alan Lazaros

So annoying, right. But these five, seven, eight, nine, 10 step morning routines you're just setting yourself up for failure. So don't let the quantity of things get in the way of the quality of the things that you're trying to do. And the ideal would be we'd all wake up at exactly certain time and we'd roll out of bed and we'd do eight things to prime ourselves for a perfect day. That's just not realistic. But what I do think is cool is finding the sweet spot. For me I've I recommend three things, three important things. Where it's enough, to where your brain goes, I have a morning routine, because if it's just one thing, it's not a morning routine, it's a morning habit. If you have three things, it's a morning routine, it's structured evening routine brush your teeth, read 10 minutes, whatever it is it. Three things is enough to have a morning routine. Have an evening routine to where you have the bookends, the structure, but it's not so much that you're.

Kevin Palmieri

Basically, you just say I can't do it, screw it question why and not this is not me, you, you'll get it why do you choose to do the things? Why is it okay to not do mobility as opposed to not do the Dreamliner or Protein? Like from your perspective when you're thinking about it, because I have my own thoughts. Like I miss the Dreamliner and then I do it the next day. You know what I mean.

Alan Lazaros

I haven't been making up for it when I miss it. I haven't been, I haven't been. Appreciate your honesty, yeah you'll see like December 9th 2024, and then the next one will be like December 12th, so there's just some days missing that's my thought on mobility is you can't make up for mobility, but you can't make up for journaling.

Kevin Palmieri

You know what I mean?

Alan Lazaros

yeah, I think you can't procrastinate. My original answer when you first asked that was I try to do it in that order and mobility is the third thing. So it just falls off. Because my first if I don't get in the shower by a certain time, I'm screwed Well we've heard about your shower.

Kevin Palmieri

It must be about 11 am, probably about 9.50. Gotta jump in there.

Alan Lazaros

About four hours, no, and sometimes I don't even shower, it's just my morning routine of brushing my teeth, getting myself ready. Dude, all right, this is going to sound bougie, the females listening will understand. And again, I know that I don't have that long of hair. Dude, it is a whole thing.

Kevin Palmieri

Oh, for Fletcher's sake, I'm serious, hey, real talk.

Alan Lazaros

The females listening will understand. When you have long hair, kev, we can't just throw on a bro hat man. How long is it? Longer than you think.

Kevin Palmieri

How long.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah the way that I wear it like this.

Kevin Palmieri

If you were to let it go down, how far would it go over your face Below my chin for sure.

Alan Lazaros

You just never see it that way because I need a picture.

Kevin Palmieri

I need a morning picture.

Alan Lazaros

Dude, I can put it up in a bun for sure, easily, okay, fair easily. Yeah, yeah, you've, there's some. Yeah, the point that I'm making is for the females listening. I don't fully see you, because I know that this is nothing but dude. When you're a dude and you are not okay, are you're okay with aging poorly? You, you don't have any, you don't worry about it, you just wake up and you're good.

Alan Lazaros

I do miss those days. However, however, I actually really have enjoyed having long hair, because I think it's an asset and I appreciate it. But anyways, I digress. Morning routines three things, any more than that. You're probably kidding yourself or you're at a different phase of life, because back when it was less busy and we didn't have as large of a team and I didn't have as many clients and I, I had a much more intense morning routine back then and I never missed. I remember I never missed foam rolling, I never missed a workout, I never met and and I I don't miss workouts now. But ultimately, the real answer is number one it's because it's third, and number two, it takes the most time makes sense.

Kevin Palmieri

Dreamliner for me is third, so that's the one.

Kevin Palmieri

What's yours? Oh boy, I do the same exact thing. Wake up, go to the bathroom, take out my earplugs, hair and makeup. Weigh myself Hair and makeup, weigh myself. Go get my energy drink from the fridge, throw down my yoga mat, airpods in. So yeah, it's mobility while learning Batch WhatsApp, and then it's supposed to be Dreamliner. But if it's close to the gym, then I just go to the gym and then I'll just do the Dreamliner later. So it should be mobility slash, learning, whatsapp and Dreamliner. But sometimes the Dreamliner doesn't get done until after I get back. I'm always thinking in my head what can I procrastinate till later?

Alan Lazaros

One of the other things, too, for me and I got to dial this in is sometimes it's not the learning, it's choosing what to learn. For me, if I don't have a book that I'm loving or a specific course, I'll spend a lot of time trying to find something on YouTube. So lately I've been doing a lot of TED Talks, but it takes me a while sometimes to find one that I'm interested in, and so that may take 15 minutes and I might fall down the rabbit hole or whatever and not even find something, so that can be really frustrating. I think I need to set myself up with a playlist that I just have like a go to. It's very easy to fall down the rabbit hole.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah.

Alan Lazaros

Even on Audible. I'll go on and I'll see all these different books and I'll try to look for a book and then I'll hate the book and it's. It's almost like I always need to have something available that I'm excited to learn and it doesn't mean I'm always pumped. But, it has to be aligned and it has to be something that I believe is of value. I think there's a lot of content out there that really is garbage.

Kevin Palmieri

For sure, yeah, 100%. What's your nighttime routine? I don't know if we've ever talked about I don't know what you do at night. Evening routine Same shit.

Alan Lazaros

Ideally routine. I don't know if we've ever talked about I don't know what you do at night evening routine same shit ideally same shit.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, yeah, nighttime evening.

Alan Lazaros

You know you want to say I don't know if I've ever said it out loud okay, you put all your stuff on the charger, which is on the other side of the house, brush your teeth, read and then bet. And then we have an acronym that emily and I do before bed, where we make sure everything's set up. We have a must meeting, which is what's your first must meeting, because we help each other wake up for it. The acronym is actually intense it's meseo epps. It's a lot meseo epps, meseo epps, yeah I don't like it mask?

Alan Lazaros

meeting eyes. Did you take your contacts out? Scooby snacks do you have your earplugs in alarm? Use a sound machine.

Kevin Palmieri

No, you don't use alexa, we use the alexa. Yeah, I don't have one in my office now, so I don't have to worry about it.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, we use Alexa Deep Sleep.

Kevin Palmieri

Playlist on Spotify Sound Machine for me, game changer.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, we use the Sound Machine in South Carolina.

Kevin Palmieri

I'm a big fan. I love it. It's a game changer, Even though I have earplugs in too. But I don't know. I like it. I like that Fan.

Alan Lazaros

I usually have a fan on no time of the year it is. Fan is one of the meseo apps. I'm not kidding. Fan and temperature the last two ft. I'm big on acronyms. Are those acronyms? What are those called acronyms? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not the guy acronyms, acronyms, for sure.

Kevin Palmieri

We did this before, right. What's the other one palindrome?

Alan Lazaros

that's the race car dude, I don't know what is I don't feel like I have a night uh evening routine really what should it be? Let's do it well, I I mean I, yeah, an acronym is a word created by combining, so fomo is an acronym. Fear of missing out.

Kevin Palmieri

Yep, I mean, I do the same thing. It's brush my teeth, mouthwash, sound machine on Cart wheels Fan on Cart wheels. Ear plugs, mouth tape, see.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, you ever miss any of them.

Kevin Palmieri

I gotta order more nose strips. No.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, we have an acronym To make sure we don't miss.

Kevin Palmieri

It doesn't feel like a routine, though. That feels like more like a task list. Yeah, I feel like I should have like a warm glass of tea before I go to bed. I feel like that would help me sleep better.

Alan Lazaros

Well, dude, if you want to count this, you do meal, big meal. We have zert, we call it zert dessert, always with dessert.

Kevin Palmieri

I can't do it like you do, though Gotta do zert.

Alan Lazaros

And then you transition, no stim. So you turn off the projector. You turn off whatever it used to be the TV. Now it's the projector. I actually put up a projector shelf. Now, dude, this thing is unbelievable. I'll send you a picture. I keep telling you I'm gonna, it's unbelievable Dude.

Kevin Palmieri

it's so good For those. Anytime you've ever you a picture or something he never has for me just saying I'm not seeing the stuff that he's talking about.

Alan Lazaros

Between you and I, the last thing I want to do is be on my phone late at night.

Kevin Palmieri

Alan texted me today and he's like hey man who is that person we interviewed early on that had the tedx talk. It's like dude, that's what you got, that's what you got from me. I dude, I. I sent him two names. He said nah none of those.

Alan Lazaros

She had a TEDx talk about emotional availability or emotional presence. It was about relationships.

Kevin Palmieri

Was it Jennifer?

Alan Lazaros

Nurtick.

Kevin Palmieri

No Jennifer.

Alan Lazaros

No, it was earlier than that man. I looked today.

Kevin Palmieri

I would recognize the name, not Steph Carinia, because I don't think she had a TEDx talk. No, it wasn't her.

Alan Lazaros

There was another one. It was about emotional presence or something like that. It was about intimate relationships Hold on. There was four reasons.

Kevin Palmieri

Okay, hold on, I can see her. I can see her face.

Alan Lazaros

You know who I'm talking about?

Kevin Palmieri

Maybe Was it. Do we interview her in your mom's basement?

Alan Lazaros

Probably, Probably or it was in my sister's room. I think it was in the early days, but I remember us being. I was blown away by that interview.

Kevin Palmieri

Oh my gosh we loved her.

Alan Lazaros

We were a big fan.

Kevin Palmieri

Talk about something. I think I have it, I just can't.

Alan Lazaros

It was four main things. It was about intimate relationships and it was about how, if you're not emotionally present, you can be physically present but not emotionally available. It was that I cannot find this freaking TED Talk. I think it's TEDx. I don't know if it's TED or TEDx, but I don't remember her name and I looked it up on our podcast as well. I couldn't find it.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't know if I can move forward until we do this.

Alan Lazaros

You know how I am, yeah, well was it jamie bronstein?

Kevin Palmieri

probably, dude, probably okay, spell it uh j-a-i-m-e, b-r-o-n-s-t-i-n. Okay, b-r-o-n, what s-t-e-i-n? Yeah, sorry, I spelled it?

Alan Lazaros

james monstein ted talk? No, I don't think so. Man, it's gonna be no no, okay, no, it's not her man.

Kevin Palmieri

Hold on, hold on, there's I. I I can see this person like I can physically see her in my mind. I just cannot remember her name to save my life it started with an m. We're just wasting everyone's time right now, though I know, but you know me, I can't move forward until we do it.

Alan Lazaros

By the way, for to make this valuable for everyone. This is a superpower for kev and a huge waste of time. I do a lot but there's something about you not being able to move forward until something is complete.

Alan Lazaros

That's really powerful, assuming it's the right stuff, obviously well, I think this is because we've been we've been trying to do it all day well I'm trying to send it to a client who I know it was it's really valuable for, and I also want it in my my playlist on youtube. I have a playlist on youtube that has curated content that I think is super valuable, and I want to make sure because this I remember this ted talk was yep, that's, those are fundamentals that everyone needs to be aware of, and I want to make sure Because I remember this TED Talk was Yep, those are fundamentals that everyone needs to be aware of, and I also want to do a Conscious Couples podcast episode on it too. So let me know when you find it.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't know if I'm going to be able to Okay.

Alan Lazaros

Another time.

Kevin Palmieri

I would. I just don't want to waste, Like you said.

Alan Lazaros

I don't want to waste anybody's time.

Kevin Palmieri

Like you said, I don't want to waste your time. That's so frustrating to me.

Alan Lazaros

What was the original point of this episode?

Kevin Palmieri

Freestyle Friday yeah that's a great question. The original point was ideal versus realistic. I know it doesn't feel good to just do realistic all the time, so I think of it this way you can't start realistic almost ever you start. You can't start realistic almost ever Like you're most likely not going to go from not going to the gym to going to the gym five times a week and having perfect workouts. It's just not going to happen.

Alan Lazaros

You keep screwing that up. You just said you can't start realistic, you can't start ideal.

Kevin Palmieri

You should start realistic. I don't know why I did a podcast growth episode about this today too, so I don't know why. Hopefully I didn't mess it up as much in that, because I have this, because there was no one there to check me, it's very hard to start almost anything ideally Nice. Yeah, because there's so many. There's so many things that go into ideal. You have to know the thing there's just too many, there's too many boxes to check. Do you compare to ideal Maya?

Alan Lazaros

Diamond Nice, Dude, that's the one. 100% Maya Diamond. 100% Nice job dude You're absolutely right.

Kevin Palmieri

Is that the one? Yes, 100%. I can see her in my head, I can tell Maya Diamond TED Talk. Boom, there, it is Nice.

Alan Lazaros

Nice work, brother, that was in your mom's basement, the surprising key to building a healthy relationship that lasts. Boom Done.

Kevin Palmieri

And, yes, we were a very big fan, huge fan man.

Alan Lazaros

Thank you so much, I'm going to send this to my client. Way to go man, I knew you'd know. That's why I asked you, because I knew you'd know.

Kevin Palmieri

I remember a lot and nothing at the same time. A lot and nothing at the same time.

Alan Lazaros

You sent me like six names, but we got there. We got there.

Kevin Palmieri

Nice job. Not as early as you think, though, I have no idea man, not as early. We're talking hundreds In the hundreds for sure. No, I'm curious, there's got to be in the hundreds. Do you compare to ideal? Probably not as much as you would think.

Alan Lazaros

No, I think there's a correlation between low self-worth and comparing to the ideal. Holy crap. Sorry, I'm pulling up the maya diamond interview that was us creating an amazing relationship with maya diamond, episode 306. That was deep in. That was our old interview.

Kevin Palmieri

Oh, yeah, it was in the basement, our old intro.

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Kevin Palmieri

I remember it, I remember my, I remember my seat, I remember all of it. Oh man, not good. 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.

Kevin Palmieri

For those of you who weren't around back then, you weren't listening to us. 1,700 to 1,600 episodes ago, almost nobody was doing virtual video. So we literally we had an audio interface. I still have it Actually. No, yeah, no, I still have it, and we would plug Alan's iPhone into this audio interface and we did something called Mix, mix minus, so you could record the call through the mixer into audacity, and we had no video pre-zoom, pre-zoom, pre-stream yard I don't. I mean, zoom existed, right, yeah, but they weren't.

Alan Lazaros

Nobody really used it it wasn't until after covid that zoom and stream yard and all those started becoming normal we used to do. Remember we did iphone facetime audio because it was higher quality.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, somehow yeah, way higher quality makes sense because you're on wi-fi well, that was the hack. Yeah, that was the hack back in the day, like, hey, I got something for you real quick.

Alan Lazaros

Let's go back to I keep having to clear my throat, I apologize everyone, okay, you said. I said do you compare to ideal? And you said not as much as you think. I think there's a correlation between people who compare to ideal and lower self-worth. However, the people who I I think, the people who have higher internal self-belief, self-efficacy, I think they compare to ideal more. I would say that Because when you and so the question I would have every listener or viewer ask themselves to make this of value is do you naturally compare to others or do you naturally compare to the ideal, I don't compare to others that much and sometimes that's detrimental, because if I did one time, I was at the gym and I was like you know what, alan, I want you to compare to others for a minute, just try it, just give it a shot, and every now and then, I've done this probably three or four times in my entire life, seriously, where I said, alan, I want you to look around the gym or wherever I am, the airport, and I want you to see if you would trade places with anyone, and my answer has always been no, particularly in the last decade.

Alan Lazaros

It's always been, oh my goodness? No, definitely not. And when I was in the gym recently I did this and I said, alan, just see how it feels to compare to others for a second and it felt really good. It felt really good and I was like wait a minute, this is dangerous, because if I compare to others, I will feel good and I'll be less driven because I'm already the biggest in my gym and my gym is a very small pond. I mean there's not, there's not that much. I mean in my gym I am the bigger fish, but it's also a tiny, small town gym. I very rarely compare to others unconsciously. I'm usually comparing to the ideal. I remember when I was fitness model, fitness competitor, fitness coach, I would compare to Greg Plitt and I had Greg Plitt's physique on my background. A lot of people made fun of me for that. It's like you would have a dude on your background. It's like, well, yeah, and I'm trying to get motivated Best natural physique of all time. You still don't know if it's natural.

Kevin Palmieri

RIP to Greg Plitt. I've learned too much about the industry to believe anything that anybody says he was in unreasonable shape.

Alan Lazaros

I'm still not sure if it's possible, but I'm going for it regardless. Naturally, no steroids, no drugs. However, I'm usually comparing to an ideal that I'm shooting for. I'm very rarely comparing to anyone else Very rarely, and I I'm wondering if there's a correlation between the ideal and the realistic and what you do.

Kevin Palmieri

I was talking to a client the other day and he said well, sometimes I just say, yeah, it's good enough, and we had a. It was a really good conversation and I was like well, that's, I can't do that in these things. And he said well, a lot of it's circumstantial Right now. Is your audio quality good enough for today? Like yeah.

Kevin Palmieri

I'm not going to do anything to change it. He said well, it's good enough for now. Enough for now. It was good. It was really good. It was a really good dialogue. I have a good relationship with this client. It wasn't a client, this was a person that I talked to.

Alan Lazaros

So for me, do you have that often Like good enough?

Kevin Palmieri

If it's something that I know, I'm not going to put conscious effort. If it's something I'm procrastinating. Yeah, right now my video quality is good enough. I just changed my lighting, I changed the angle of my camera. I'm procrastinating. Yeah, right now my video quality is good enough. I just changed. I just changed my lighting, I changed the angle of my camera. I'm probably not gonna do anything for a while. It doesn't mean it couldn't get better. It doesn't mean it's as good as it's ever gonna be. It's just that iteration happened and now it'll be. However, long before another iteration happens.

Alan Lazaros

Is it good enough for now, or is it good enough?

Kevin Palmieri

That's it. That's the question. Oh, for now, for now.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, are there ever times where things are good enough in general for you? I don't think I've ever. I don't finish things and go, ah, good enough. You know how hard it was for me to put up that projector. On level. It's slightly on level Dude, it bothers me every second. And again, again, that's the perfectionism, conscientiousness, if you it's. We joke oce, obsessive, compulsive excellence. It's also somewhat ocd, but I have to be very careful with what I do because I have that there's. There is no good enough yeah I don't have that I.

Kevin Palmieri

I hung our tv and then it was a little off. All right, cool, that's fine. Don't let that bother you, that's why we're a good team man.

Alan Lazaros

Well, here's the thing I don't.

Kevin Palmieri

If I didn't have the level, I wouldn't know. It wasn't level and I'm not going to notice it when I'm sitting on the couch. So it's not that. I was listening to a book today and he was talking about how I don't know it was back in the like very, very, very, very long ago and he was talking about how somebody hired a sculptor to make sculptures of the gods or whatever it was, and it was taking the guy longer than expected. And they said why is it taking you so long? And he said well, I'm doing the back too. I'm going to sculpt the back as much as I do the front. I feel like that's something you would do. Oh, for sure, yeah, I'd do the front.

Alan Lazaros

Throw that bad Larry around the wall done Well to make this valuable for everyone else. I've noticed some people tie their self-esteem very much to the quality of their work. That is me. My self-esteem is deeply connected to my body of work. I was on a podcast two weeks ago and the dude opened. I was so pumped it's like, oh my god, you see me. I felt probably fanboyed. He he said you have I mean, you have an incredible body of work and I was like, oh my god, thank you so much. I could not agree more, thank you.

Alan Lazaros

It's taken me so many years to feel good about my body of work and no one cares about body of work, like apparently that is so deeply why I'm playing. Like everything nLU creates I feel is intricately and deeply connected to who the fuck I am, and if it doesn't represent my best work, I it bothers me. Now I can go back to episode 306. I have it up right now and it's it's hot garbage compared to who we are now, but at the time I had to believe it was the best we could do and then better our best, and so to bring this back to the listener.

Alan Lazaros

If you don't resonate with anything I just said and you're more on Kev's side. You probably need to come up on something called conscientiousness, which is organization and perfectionism, and not the negative perfectionism but the thoroughness. I double check my emails multiple times I make sure there's no spelling errors on anything that kind of thing, whereas kev takes messy action better than I do and he doesn't take four hours to hang some fucking shelf and I I think that's really I mean dude, I'm I mean. This thing took me too long.

Kevin Palmieri

I spent four hours this weekend on something fairly that's why I don't like the how you do. One thing is how you everything.

Alan Lazaros

I don't like it I resonate deeply with that but of course I wonder because you and I are so different right.

Kevin Palmieri

I wonder if that's, I don't know. Unless it's, I don't mean intelligently, I mean more. I'm always factoring in in this grand scheme of the grand scheme of everything. How much does this actually matter?

Alan Lazaros

well. If it doesn't bleed into your identity, it doesn't, yeah, but if it bleeds into my identity, it matters a lot, because when my quantity gets too high and my quality suffers, it affects me a lot. And I know a lot of people maybe not the majority. I think the majority of people, statistically speaking, are on your end. I know there's going to be some people who really resonate with what I'm saying, which is, if you're going to do something, you're going to do it extremely well and you do. You tie your self-worth and self-esteem to it. Now, that can be dangerous, yeah, but you know what else can be dangerous is not tying any of your self-esteem or self-worth to any of your work, because good luck having a magnificent career doing that, and apple, with steve jobs, is a good example of that.

Alan Lazaros

Where he wanted he, he talked about how the inside of the iphone needs to be as beautiful as the outside, and that's a very unique. But apple is a very excellence driven company with that is the root of their core values, and I think that that's very powerful. I mean my tesla elon's. Don't associate me with elon, but my point is there's a point to this. I don't, regardless of who we're talking about. Elon's hero in business was steve jobs, and it's very clear to me that the tesla has the core value of even the things that will never be seen need to be absolutely masterful, and I appreciate that very deeply. It's an obsessive, compulsive excellence that is part of my DNA.

Kevin Palmieri

Speaking of excellence, I was thinking about my old job, where a lot of the work we would do would be above the drop ceilings in schools and there is this invisible barrier in your mind that nobody's ever going to see this shit. So it doesn't really matter how bad it looks and I was thinking of some of the jobs I did and how haggard they were and if anybody ever goes up there and looks at them, they're going to be like oh my God, which one of the students crawled up here and did this? It was me. That's how you lose clients. Well, I don't do that with our business. I did well.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't do that with our business. I practice that on somebody else's business, realize I don't really feel good about that, then I started this for people that are on your end, which is the majority.

Alan Lazaros

What would you say is the pro and con of this? Because you've obviously learned a lot of this through working with me and that's been painful at times as well you have to choose.

Kevin Palmieri

If you don't vibe with how you do. One thing is how you do everything. I would say maybe you're somebody who does things very. Does Ty have? That your wife More than I do.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, agreed, I'm just burning through stuff.

Kevin Palmieri

Like I gotta get shit done. You know what I mean. I'm gonna send 15 emails. They're gonna be 80s out of 100s, unless it's something that involves money and I'll put extra time into that. Yeah. But a lot of it is just done is better than perfect, and if I'm waiting to perfect this, I'm just not gonna do it and it's just going to live in my inbox until it's too late.

Alan Lazaros

But here's the truth Done is better than perfect, but done shitty isn't great either. So everything's a drive to five.

Kevin Palmieri

On one end you're too perfectionism and you don't get anything done.

Alan Lazaros

On the other end, you are haphazard and you get a lot done. Everything Kevin and I talk about is a drive to five. There's no right or wrong, but there is a center point that's optimal for each of us and I would have to work more on and Kev. We did courses back in the day when we weren't doing the same course and he would get his done quicker than but mine would be much better.

Alan Lazaros

And again better is relative, but they both suck, bro. Yeah, they both suck, but the truth is is that his, his would always get done faster than mine would.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, but you know the interesting thing I always spent more time writing my speeches than you did. Yeah, so it's, I don't know it's. It depends on. I think it depends on a couple things.

Alan Lazaros

It depends on how connected that thing is to your deep fears yeah, which yours was a fear of failure, so you spent extra time on your speeches because you didn't want to look back.

Kevin Palmieri

Nobody's going to come in and say, holy shit, that TV is off-centered. I've got to get my but here's the thing.

Alan Lazaros

I'm not optimizing for that. I could care less if anyone else sees it, but for me. That's why I don't do it, whatever.

Kevin Palmieri

That's it. That's what you're going to say. That's what you got from me. Good to see you as well. Yeah, no, it's not level. I don't care, don't worry about it. I'm not worried about it. You shouldn't be worried about it.

Alan Lazaros

For those of you out there right now who have critical parents, you're sitting there going yeah, my in over and say, hey, you know that tv is not level right. Yeah, you didn't have super critical. Yeah, you didn't have that. So yeah, there wasn't a lot of parenting going on. I mean, I know I know some people who have parents that are, oh you do, did you know your earrings don't match. It's like can you fuck off? You know, and and honestly dude like some of that is just conditioning that we that's fair we have.

Alan Lazaros

And I say we as the collective, we, if, if anyone out there shout out to you if you had overly critical parents, because they'll put perfectionism right into you.

How upbringing shapes work ethic and self-worth

Kevin Palmieri

You know? Last thing before we get out of here. I was talking about this on a podcast the other day and somebody asked me what was it like growing up with your mom and your grandmother? And I said one of the biggest things I took away from my mom is my mom. I think she went 23 years without missing a day of work or something. That's wild, never missed.

Alan Lazaros

Sick, that's wild. You are that way still. You never miss.

Kevin Palmieri

I got that from my mom.

Kevin Palmieri

That's a superpower man From my mom, so I was thinking of that the other day. You get really good things from your conditioning and you get some really crappy stuff that comes with it, unfortunately. Yeah, all right. Next level nation. First of all want to say thank you to those who donated to our go fund me for the next level hope foundation. Alan did the post and then, like two hours later, it was all done. So thank you so very much. We appreciate it more than know and we're very excited to have another holiday event. We're doing it on the 22nd Right.

Alan Lazaros

We've got the.

Kevin Palmieri

YMCA done. We're going to have games, we're going to have presents for the kids, we'll have food and all that happy jazz.

Alan Lazaros

Alan and I will play basketball and get into a sweaty mess and I will beat him hopefully, probably not but it'll be awesome and shout out to steph on the team who is coming and bringing some of her family, so that'll be wonderful, and steph is a single mother as well. It's a. It's an event for single parents who want to have a blast. We hope that anyone in the area reaches out if you are a single parent or know of a single parent with littles. It's arts and crafts, it's sports, it's pizza. It's awesome. Please join us. Reach out. Alan at next level universecom. Kevin at next level universecom. Instagram, dm, whatever it is, all those things.

Alan Lazaros

What else if you're not in book club? If you like self-improvement books with self-improvement people, next level books with next level people. We are reading a book called the art of thinking. Clearly, I still have no idea how to pronounce the last name of this author, rolf Dobelli or something along those lines. It's about the cognitive biases. So if you want to think more rationally and make more effective decisions towards your goals and dreams, this is the book for you. We're doing five chapters per week, but they're tiny chapters. Every Saturday, 1230 pm, eastern Standard Time. Please click the link to register in the show notes and if not for me, do it for Brandon, my man, brandon. He's the director of Book Club. He's been crushing it, and he wants to fill it with more aligned community members.

Outro

Kevin Palmieri

So do it for Brandon, do it for Brandon and do it for your future self. Yes, and for your future self. But be first Be Brandon, first B Brandon first. Call him B. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you at NLU, we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan Lazaros

Talk to you soon.

Kevin Palmieri

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

Alan Lazaros

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.

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host