Next Level University

What Would Old You Think Of New You… (1936)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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From awkward beginnings to confident endings! In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros reflect on their journeys from high school dreamers to accomplished adults, unpacking the lessons learned. They explore the gap between youthful expectations and real-world realities, offering heartfelt insights on self-worth, inner work, and building a fulfilling life. Through personal stories and practical advice, this episode encourages you to reflect on your growth and potential.

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NLU is not just a podcast; it’s a gateway to a wealth of resources designed to help you achieve your goals and dreams. From our Next Level Dreamliner to our Group Coaching, we offer a variety of tools and communities to support your personal development journey.

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

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Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
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Show notes:
(4:16) High school reflections
(7:36) Athletes and popularity in school
(12:41) Life beyond high school expectations
(19:49) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://bit.ly/49SyVHz
(22:10) Belief Vs. Results in growth
(26:05) Changing perceptions over time
(30:24) Final reflections and listener challenge
(35:21) 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

current me, looking back on old me, realizes that he had a lot more potential than he realized. He just had to do the inner work. I was good at doing the external stuff. I wasn't as good at doing the inner work and I think I picked that up pretty quickly. But I I needed somebody to sit me down and say like I know you're really good in the external world, like doing stuff and being consistent and disciplined, all that. We gotta work on the inner stuff because that's the stuff you're missing and that's gonna that's gonna bite you in the ass.

Alan Lazaros

I think that everyone is more capable than they actually thought, except for the delusional people who are saying they want to drive winnebago's and be an mlb with little to no effort. But the truth is you're so much more capable than you thought in the real world. I think that all that other stuff was just delusional, like, oh, I want to be an astronaut. I feel like a lot of that was very naive childhood dreaming.

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 1936. What would old you think of new you? So we were talking about this in our previous episode. And hold on, let me just. I just want to make sure I'm monitoring here. Okay, make sure my levels are good. And Alan and I were talking about today's episode and he said dude, we, we promised we were going to do an episode on this, so let's do it. And we were already kind of having conversation about it behind the scenes.

Kevin Palmieri

So I've said this many times on other podcasts where I genuinely don't know if 20, let's just say 25 year old Kev would like this version of Kevin. Not that I don't think he would appreciate the work and appreciate the growth. I think it would just be whatever level of mirror it created. That's the only reason I say it. I don't think it's because of the way I talk or any of that stuff. I think it's more the fact that it would be a mirror for that version of Kev and I think, at the end of the day, the level of mirror you're getting from your progress or lack thereof, might I mean that's what's going to dictate how you feel about yourself. We, alan and I, were talking about us in high school and how alan thinks I was cool in high school. I don't, so it doesn't matter whether or not I was, because I didn't think I was and we were both kind of losers for lack of better reason.

Alan Lazaros

All-star athlete man, it doesn't matter our baseball player hey, definitely matters.

Kevin Palmieri

I mean, maybe I wasn't as much of a loser as you, if you want to put it that way, but you definitely were not.

Alan Lazaros

As much it depends on which year you're talking, so freshman year, I was the biggest loser ever of all time.

Kevin Palmieri

Five foot two red-faced.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, I felt pretty.

Kevin Palmieri

I felt pretty close with you on that, though Really, I guess senior year was probably better, but I still dude. One of my deep seated fears was going to lunch and none of my friends being there and me having to sit alone. That was a I couldn't just roll up to any table and sit down. It's not like that. It wasn't like that.

Alan Lazaros

I'm so grateful we can have this conversation because obviously Kevin and I are big fans of learning and reflecting. Knowledge plus experience plus reflection equals wisdom, and I get to talk to Kev about high school and stuff and it's so cool to reflect back. My question to start this off is how different is what you thought in high school versus what really is? That is mind-blowing. Everything is different, yeah.

Kevin Palmieri

I thought at the time everybody had everything figured out. So I thought my mom had everything figured out. I thought doctors had everything figured out. I thought teachers had everything figured out. I thought doctors had everything figured out. I thought teachers had everything figured out. I thought people had everything figured out. And the truth of the matter is they have their thing way more figured out than I do. But outside of that, you don't really know. I mean, how many people are an expert in finance but their relationships are just shit. That's why we do the podcast the way we do, because I've been in really good shape and my mental health has been garbage and I've been really broke, but in really good shape, and I've been crushing it financially, but my relationships were in the toilet or my mental health was in the toilet. So I think that's probably the thing that jumps off the page the most for me.

Alan Lazaros

Well, in high school I thought you were likable, popular, definitely in better shape than other people. You were one of the athletes. I always thought in high school and this is this is, of course, from my nerdy frame like I was straight, a student, study, study, that kind of kid. Everyone's known for something. In high school I was known as one of the smart kids and all the faculty and stuff. I remember my neighbors and my friends. They would get in trouble. I would never get in trouble because I was one of the smart kids and the teachers loved the smart kids. So the teachers not all of them, but a lot of them kind of knew me. The guy who gave detentions, mr Davis or whatever, he would never give me a detention. He's like you're good, alan.

Kevin Palmieri

I was like one of the promising quote.

Alan Lazaros

Unquote one of the promising kids and the athletes, I think. And again, this is just from the nerd frame and the reason why this is coming up is because kevin and I have been having a lot of conversations. We're in our mid-30s now. I also just watched a movie called x2 x-men. It's the second movie from 2003 and I saw that when I was 13 13 years, and watching it now this is a way deeper movie than I thought. This is awesome. Back then it was just Wolverine and Claus and this is awesome and we would play on the trampoline and I would be Wolverine or whatever and get my ass kicked by my best friend's older brother Best friend at the time, neighbor, because he's five years older than me. He used to beat our ass, kev, that's par for the course, son. Yeah, man, oh, my God In hindsight that's what happens.

Alan Lazaros

I don't know, that was not. Probably great he's five years older when you're 13 and he's.

Kevin Palmieri

He's 18 and he's a grown-ass man almost Beginning to be a grown-ass man.

Alan Lazaros

You're a child, yeah yeah, that's sketchy, yeah. And then when he's 11, and we're six and we play Mortal Kombat on the trampoline, you know it's so weird. So I've been reflecting a lot. Obviously it's the new year, that kind of thing, but my point of this from a nerd's perspective the athletes got all the attention for sure. There's no way. That's not true. In high school, the athletes are what is valued.

Kevin Palmieri

But there's layers though. There's layers to Like. Yeah, I was one of the captains, the athletes got all the girls.

Alan Lazaros

No, no, some of them.

Kevin Palmieri

I didn't. I didn't get all the girls.

Alan Lazaros

You did. You dated one of the most popular girls in the whole freaking high school.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't know, you don't think about it at the time. Okay, let's do this. Out of the captains, it was me, Matt and Ryan who was more popular.

Alan Lazaros

Ryan.

Kevin Palmieri

Then who? Matt Then who, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, yeah, I might have been Honestly it was probably you after. It wasn't me, no, matt was probably.

Alan Lazaros

It kind of was no, matt was like the long term relationship guy.

Kevin Palmieri

When I was doing prom my senior year, I would have had nobody to rent a limo with. I got invited by Matt to go hang out with him and his squad you and I were there together, dude, do you remember?

Alan Lazaros

that we saw a picture. I swear because I was at matt's that time remember I was.

Kevin Palmieri

No, it was that it was at erica's. That's where the party yeah it was at erica's.

Alan Lazaros

That's right. I realized none of the listeners know who we're talking about.

Kevin Palmieri

Well, that's why I can say first If it was up to Alan. Alan would be like, oh yeah, this person at this address and this was their phone number.

Alan Lazaros

Is this the same time, keith me, nick, matt? I think so Because they were in physics class together. Matt, that's when he got close to my circle of friends. Kevin and I were not in the same circle, but our circle was in a circle Physics.

Kevin Palmieri

I didn't even know we had physics. Did I take physics? Yeah, we did, Mr Tanson. I've completely blocked that out of my memory. I'm sure it was probably horrible.

Alan Lazaros

We watched the Grinch recently. I got an award. I got the physics award. That means there were losers.

Kevin Palmieri

What's your takeaway from this episode? Why did you want to do this?

Alan Lazaros

Because it's so important to reflect back on how far you've come or, honestly, how far you haven't. I tell the story where I ran into a guy who was just everything I wasn't, and it was such a big mirror that I had to kind of go in the other room and contemplate my life. I think that's good. I think that's good for people.

Kevin Palmieri

Let me ask you this question. Sorry to interrupt you, I didn't. I thought you were kind of done. Were you done? This is awesome.

Alan Lazaros

I'm a fan. We're fine.

Kevin Palmieri

Okay To this. My life is not, and again, sit with me on this because it's going to sound bad. My life today is not as good as I thought it was going to be, because I was delusional of what my life was going to be. But then, when I level set now with the awareness of like, again, my thing was I'm going to play professional baseball with very little effort, I'm not going to have to work that hard, and then my best friends and I are going to drive Winnebago's around the country, somehow, I guess, in between professional baseball games. I don't have to practice or anything, so don't worry about that, and we're just going to be rich. And that was pretty much the extent of it. There was no, there was really no strategy around it. I thought that's, that's what was going to happen.

Alan Lazaros

Okay, Uh, how? How the hell did you think that?

Kevin Palmieri

I was dreaming.

Alan Lazaros

Did you ever interview a baseball player? No, no Say hey, by the way, this is awful.

Kevin Palmieri

I watch SportsCenter, so I had a pretty good idea.

Alan Lazaros

Basically I'm two games away from being cut 24-7.

Kevin Palmieri

Didn't really care about it. I thought that was it. That was the dream.

Alan Lazaros

I coached someone who worked on the Red Sox not the majors, but on his way up to the majors and he was a pitcher and dude, you basically are just screwed if you fuck up. Basically, apparently, yeah but they're getting you you cannot screw up because you're against the best in the world and it's all money. So yeah, professional sports players make a lot of money, but there's 10 people waiting to take your spot.

Kevin Palmieri

A lot of pressure.

Alan Lazaros

Honestly probably 1,000, actually.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, that's a lot of pressure. I mean how?

Alan Lazaros

many people on a baseball field.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't know Nine, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

Alan Lazaros

How many people want to?

Kevin Palmieri

play professional baseball Lots. Many, many, many, many, many.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, what 9,000 per team, at least I don't know. There's a lot. Yeah, that's one thing that no one teaches you in high school is how competitive the world is. It's way more competitive than people think.

Kevin Palmieri

Dude.

Alan Lazaros

I remember in 2009, the economy was starting to come back, 2010, it was really coming back. 2011, 2012, and 2014 were wild. 2013, 2014. That's one of the reasons is just one of the reasons I did well in corporate is because there was not enough engineers. Like it's not all me, I'm a computer engineer in a world where every company needs computer engineers.

Life beyond high school expectations

Alan Lazaros

So, you just win, win and you don't necessarily know why. Right, and of course I worked hard to do that. Engineering school was unreasonably difficult, but I don't know if a lot when you're in high school you don't. A lot of people don't think about, like I don't think, how competitive things are I don't think we're prepared.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't think about how competitive things are.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't think we're prepared I don't think people give you an accurate and I remember sitting in and I want to ask the question, I want to get your answer. But I remember sitting. We were in computer class and we were literally, they're like all right, today we're going to decide what we want to do with the rest of our lives. I'm like all right, that's what we're going to do. I'm going to go to school and study anatomy, physiology and kinesiology. That's what I'm going to do. And then I remember going to the guidance counselor and they're like all right, what college do you want to apply for?

Alan Lazaros

And I was like, honestly, I don't want to.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't think I want to do it Kev. You're to do it, kev? I can have a very bright future if you don't go to college. Like, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna have a very bright future either way. So why don't I save the 25 000 a year and maybe somewhere we'll catch up?

Kevin Palmieri

along the line like don't you get like bonuses if you get me to go to college? Like isn't that the way this works? Yeah, man, and I think most people I remember having the thought of. I just think most people are doing what their parents want them to do. Yeah, for sure. And I'm not making that wrong, because you don't really know what the hell you're doing. So it makes sense If your parents seem relatively successful and they say, hey, I went to college and I got a degree and that's what I did awesome.

Kevin Palmieri

Or I didn't go to college and wish I had that. I didn't have that. My mom nobody in my family at that time I don't think had ever gone to college. It was like I would just go in with the flow. This is my question for you Is your life better today than you thought it was going to be? Because I know you had very big aspirations Probably not as wild as mine.

Kevin Palmieri

In terms of, like you actually have the capabilities to be a CEO of a big company. Mine were kind of wild. So, yeah, yes, why.

Alan Lazaros

Can you figure it out?

Kevin Palmieri

I'm going to send you some freaking tea.

Alan Lazaros

It's only because I woke up. Not long ago I did sleep in. I need to get good. I got an 84 sleep score. I apologize. Okay, my throat man, I talk all freaking. Long ago I did sleep in, I need to get good, I got an 84 sleep score. I apologize. No, that's okay, my throat man, I talk all freaking day and then I go to the gym and then I eat a huge, freaking meal and then I sleep.

Kevin Palmieri

Little tea with some honey nah, man, not for me.

Alan Lazaros

No, we have a tea machine. Emilia makes tea every morning. I just don't want to do Dude. I literally was from out of bed into this office within a half an hour of waking up. Whoa.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, I slept in. I slept in Well, sometimes you need. I got a 66 sleep score today, so I'm dragging ass. That's not good.

Alan Lazaros

So I don't know if I've shared this before, but essentially I had many different roads. I was going to take Many different dreams, tons of goals and dreams, but the two main ones that were practical, that I really intended on were either going to be lawyer, politician president, or it was going to be engineer, mba CEO. I used to argue who was smarter, steve Jobs or Bill Gates, and I wanted to be like Steve Jobs. When I was very young, it was more Bill Gates and then eventually it was like you know what I'm going to go with Steve? He knew more about people and, to answer your question, my life is significantly better than I thought it would be in every way, except for Even with even with the lack of understanding of what life would have been like if you did do that.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, I don't think I had a huge lack of understanding. Yeah, that's fair. It's so weird too, because when I look back I was so ignorant but I also realized I wasn't. It's so fascinating. At Next Level Hope Foundation, we talked to a young man named Will. Will is, I think, 18.

Alan Lazaros

He's doing very well for himself, I mean, and I have this moment where it's like you're work ethic, you're asking me questions and you make a lot of money already and he has like grinds Dude's working full-time, making more money than most adults. Just keep it up, man. And I know why he's winning because you know how hard it is to find people who are willing to grind. It's very hard to find people who don't complain, who grind. That's one of the reasons you did so well and as a foreman is you just always show up on time and you just grind your face off and get it done. It's not easy to find people like that. Seriously, that's not common, unfortunately, and I know people that are multi-millionaires, that I think are lazier than will, for sure oh way lazier, yeah, brutal.

Alan Lazaros

And again I, I just people. Let's go back to the high school thing. In high school I knew it would be hard. I never had the delusion that it would be easy. I always knew I could do it. I was certainly on my way to doing that, but it was really. That's my truth. Climbing in corporate was much more of a political bullshit game than I ever wanted. I always hated that. It's like oh, I got to fucking go to dinner with my boss's boss. They took us all to downtown Boston. This probably sounds awesome, but I hated stuff like this. We went to Boston Bruins game and me and my friends from WPI that I brought to the company and we all had to go to Boston. We brought our girlfriends to Boston. It was like this fancy $1,500 dinner.

Alan Lazaros

I hated stuff like that dude.

Kevin Palmieri

I hated it.

Alan Lazaros

I didn't want to do any of that stuff and unfortunately, in corporate and anyone in corporate will know this it's building relationships with the right people more than it is actually being good at what you do. You need both. Those are the two, like you need to be really good with people and you need to be really good at what you do. And if you're not good with people, you better be really really good at what you do and, believe it or not, if you're good with people and not good at what you do, you can still succeed.

Kevin Palmieri

I was gonna say it goes kind of goes both ways but ultimately, ultimately.

Alan Lazaros

When I was in high school, I remember I went up to my favorite teacher, mrs Pryor Her name was Christine and I said you should come to WPI with me. Now I'm realizing she was one of my main mentors Don't abandon me, come with me. You know, come with me if you want to live. No, but I didn't want to lose anyone I cared about. So I was like come with. And she said, alan, I could never teach at WPI. And I was like what do you mean? You're awesome, what are you talking about? Of course you could, and, by the way, some of the ding-dongs at that school, I, of course you could. You know what I realize now?

Alan Lazaros

A lot of people don't believe in themselves. Mrs prior, of course, could have. There's no question she could have. Whether or not she actually wants to put in the work to do that is another question. I think that everyone is more capable than they actually thought, except for the delusional people who are saying they want to drive winnebago's and be in the mlb with little to no effort shots fired. But the truth is, you're so much more capable than you thought in the real world. I think that all that other stuff was just delusional Like oh, I want to be an astronaut. I feel like a lot of that was very naive childhood dreaming.

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.

Kevin Palmieri

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. Yeah, I would say so. I think the hard, the hard thing, is you build the belief to get there long before you get there. That's the Like. I don't have most of my goals yet, but I have way more belief than I did Okay, I think, in the beginning. And I think this kind of connects to what we're talking about, because when you're young, I don't know if you really understand this. I definitely didn't In the beginning. Your belief is way less than your results.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, well, it should be it would need to be if you're going to achieve your goals.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, and then, as you do it, you get some results, you get some results, and you get some results and your belief builds and your belief builds and then eventually, I think it crosses a chasm, where then you start to have more belief than you do, results which actually allows you to get the results you want. Eventually, I think I have more belief now than I do. Quote unquote results.

Alan Lazaros

And what was it like? As the opposite Because I've never been on the other side of that equation I've always had more belief than I do results.

Kevin Palmieri

And what was it like as the opposite?

Alan Lazaros

Because I've never been on the other side of that equation, I've always had more belief than I do results.

Belief Vs. Results in growth

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, you don't feel like you don't feel in control. It's a we've. We've used this analogy before, when, when somebody really starts to build confidence and they start to build self-worth and they start believing in themselves, it's a tool that they don't know how to use yet and it makes a mess. It gets on people Because you don't feel like you're in control of it. Yet it's not part of you, yet it's not part of who you are. It's not embedded in who you are. I think that's probably the best way to explain it.

Alan Lazaros

It's like a car with a lot of horsepower, but you're a new driver. Well, probably the best way to explain it. So I think you're. It's like a car with a lot of horsepower, but you're a new driver.

Kevin Palmieri

Well, You're just like oh, I mean that. And yeah, if you think about, most of the electric cars now are unbelievably fast.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, the Tesla Hammers man.

Kevin Palmieri

I'm very curious to know how many accidents are in those cars.

Alan Lazaros

That's so interesting.

Kevin Palmieri

The like cars that go 0 to 60, I love cars. Cars that go like 0 to 60 in under three seconds. That used to be. You used to have to have a Lamborghini, a Ferrari. You used to have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a car like that.

Alan Lazaros

Now, so many cars. What does my Tesla do? 0 to 60 in In sport mode? It's got to be like six seconds or something. No, no, no way faster than that.

Alan Lazaros

Six seconds is slow now I don't know I don't know what it hammers, it's probably under four probably like 3.9 or something like that. There's this section outside one of the gyms we go to it. It's right off the highway so you have to hammer, and I put it in sport mode and just to be safer, and that thing is ridiculous yeah, they're very fast because it's electric.

Kevin Palmieri

They don't have you have to build up.

Alan Lazaros

Imagine being a new driver, yeah, not knowing how to drive and then having a car like that, that's, that's low competence with high power.

Alan Lazaros

It's dangerous yeah so this is another thing that I wanted to bring up. We have this framework at nlu that I've I've never shared, I don't think on the podcast, and if I have it was a long time ago. It's called the imposter circles. So one of them is the growth circle. One of them is the imposter circle. So picture a digital asset I'll put it in the link in the show notes the left part. I use this in coaching all the time.

Alan Lazaros

The left circle is the imposter circle and this is when your awareness and your capabilities are smaller than your results. So for you, when you were a foreman, I think your awareness and capabilities of how you actually became a successful foreman were lower than what you actually got. Remember when you jumped from like 14 bucks an hour to almost a hundred bucks an hour in a couple of years? Remember that when I told you that I was at that iRobot, I worked for a company called iRobot in Bedford Mass and I got out of a meeting and I was like I'm screwed. That was one of the times in my life. There's very few of these, but there's a couple of times in my life where I'm screwed, like I don't, I'm belong here, I'm not ready for this. I'm in over my head. You know what I mean. That's what this feels like. This is the in over your head circle. Your awareness and capabilities is smaller than your results.

Alan Lazaros

The other circle is called the growth circle. This is the one that I try to get my clients in and stay in, even though it feels worse. It feels worse on the micro, better on the macro. You feel more in control. It's like someone who has a slow car but really knows how to drive it, versus the Tesla that goes zero to 60 in four seconds but you never drove before. It's like this is too much for me. I'm going to, I'm going to crash, probably. So the growth circle is your results are tiny, but your awareness and capabilities are huge. That's the circle you're in Now. Your results are much smaller than your ability to create results. You're just. There's just a lag. There's a mathematical lag because it takes time. You're not going to just build a hundred100 million company in two years. No one does that. No one built a $100 million company in two years. That doesn't exist. There's liars that say that exists and, by the way, if they ever do, say that it's because of what they were doing 10 years before that, two years so for I think in high school everyone's results and we talked about this offline the people who were popular or attractive, very, very young.

Alan Lazaros

Because I have one friend I'm thinking of who was treated very poorly, bullied. He had a rat tail, he was not popular, one of the least popular kids in our entire town, and I remember I went and visited him at UMass Amherst, which is one of the biggest colleges in the US, and I remember thinking he was like a sex symbol there in some ways. He was in theater, he had girls on girls and they all wanted him. It was fascinating. He was jacked again relative to back then and I remember thinking in uxbridge, nobody, everyone next to you in their mind, none of the girls wanted him in uxbridge. But at umass amherst I went to a halloween party. It was like he was a guitar hero and he had his shirt off and he had a guitar and all that, yeah, and the hair going, and I was just like how weird is this?

Alan Lazaros

And this is back in my contemplation days of like how did he become like so popular here when he was like the biggest loser in our town? And I started thinking like perception's weird. Everyone in our town thinks you're a loser and like, doesn't want anything to do with you. And now you're this. That must have gone to his head a little. I remember he had the hottest girlfriend you know at the school one of them and all this whole thing. And when you're a young boy, I'm just contemplating how this is even possible, cause I felt like a loser too. And ultimately, my point of all this is that when you're in high school, you have no freaking clue what life's going to be for you, because my career went the way I intended but nothing else did. So my awareness in career, I guess, was high, because you know your awareness is high when you can predict the future. That's my truth.

Alan Lazaros

If you can predict the future, your awareness is high when you can't and it's like, oh, how the hell did that happen? It means you didn't know something, you're missing something. That's why, whenever I didn't know something, I'm always asking what the hell was I missing? My relationships didn't go nearly as well as I'd hoped. I thought I'd get married and I'd be in love and that would all work fine and that eventually happened, but it took me 30 years. So my career went exactly how I hoped, in some ways even better than I hoped. But relationships absolutely not friendships Hell. No, this is like atrociously worse than I thought, because I just didn't know. I didn't understand myself and people as well as I understood. Maybe, career.

Kevin Palmieri

Fitness for me was that Fitness went pretty much the way I wanted it to go, yeah, and then when I got that job, finances went the way I wanted them to go. I think that's why it was so jarring to have my quarter-life crisis at 26 is because I kind of accomplished everything I wanted and realized that I'm just miserable, and that was like the straw that broke the camel's back. It was the key that I thought was going to open the final door. So I think that was a that's a really big piece of it is I essentially. I mean, I was in really good shape and I, when I tell my story, I say I, my, my girlfriend was a model, I was making a ton of money and I literally was in the best shape I will ever be, and I'm never going to be in that shape again because I'm not willing to to suffer as much as I did.

Kevin Palmieri

I was I. You could put me in magazines. I was, yeah, it really, really, really. I looked really good. I wasn't. I felt terrible. My body was destroyed and I my, I wasn't sleeping and and it was terrible, but from the outside, looking in, I had all the things you could ever want. So at that point in my life, my life actually kind of turned out better than I expected it to, and that's a weird, that's weird. And then we went way past zero to start this whole thing, zero to start this whole thing, and then, like now, my life is way better than I thought it would be, with the awareness of how life really works. Weird, yeah, it is, it is. It's weird. The sun is beaming in. All right, we gotta hop because you gotta hop real quick, just to wrap this up what's your, what would?

Alan Lazaros

old you think of new you one sentence. And then what is new you think of new you One sentence. And then what does new you think of old you. Well, old me would think of new me, and we want everyone contemplating this for themselves. By the way, this is not about us.

Kevin Palmieri

I'll start the second one. Current me, looking back on old me, realizes that he had a lot more potential than he realized. He just had to do the inner work. I was good at doing the external stuff. I wasn't as good at doing the inner work and I think I picked that up pretty quickly. But yeah, I needed somebody to sit me down and say I know you're really good in the external world, like doing stuff and being consistent and disciplined, all that. We've got to work on the inner stuff, because that's the stuff you're missing. And that's got to work on the inner stuff because that's the stuff you're missing and that's gonna, that's gonna bite you in the ass. That's what this version would say to that version. And then, I don't know, I, I unfortunately I think that I'm not sure. I'm not sure I aspire to get to the place where I communicate well enough and I hold the balance of humility and aspiration and all that well enough, where 25 year old Kev would be like hell yeah.

Alan Lazaros

Not 25 year old high school.

Kevin Palmieri

Kev, high school Kev. I always just say 10 year ago, same concept. That version of Kev would look and say good for you, man. You accomplished a lot externally, but more importantly, you worked on yourself internally. I'm proud of you for that and I think that's something to aspire to, but only if I knew him behind the scenes, if I could like sit him down and be like dude like I. I know my life's like really good off the microphone, behind the scenes. My life's really. It's actually good. I'm not lying, I'm not just making that up Like my life.

Alan Lazaros

My gratitude to Taryn last night was Would you think that would old? You think that it wasn't? Do people think that our life is bad behind the scenes?

Kevin Palmieri

I don't know, I don't, I just don't know. You know, I'm very. I question a lot of things now, now when people, their life seems a certain way like this is only would high school kev think you and I are full of it and that our live actually.

Alan Lazaros

Our lives actually aren't that great maybe that's very possible see I was naive, I would have believed every word. Well, I know, I know. And that is actually what I would tell me is don't be so fucking naive. People are not what you think, but some of them are. It's just a much smaller percentage and you desperately need more guidance from someone who actually knows. Stop going to people who don't know go ahead.

Kevin Palmieri

You were gonna say with taryn last night, my gratitude with taryn was I'm so, I'm so grateful that we just get to continue learning about each other. Like that's something I'm I'm so excited for. Just to keep learning about you forever, like that's amazing. That's such a pillar in our relationship. That's the best, it's awesome. It's awesome and that's like a grown-ass relationship that I never really knew I was going to have. So it's like the stuff behind the scenes. Again. This is literally one hour of a today's a long day, like a 16-hour day. This is only one-sixteenth of my day. The rest of the time there's other stuff going on and this is just the highlight of that. For lack of a better phrasing, All right, you got to go. What's yours Quickly.

Alan Lazaros

What now me would say to old me, like high school me, is you actually? You're on a great track, you are going to do great. You have unbelievable potential. Make sure humility and work ethic stay on the forefront. You don't rest on talent and do not listen to people who don't have any idea what they're talking about. You need to be very careful who you listen to, be very fucking careful whose guidance you take. What would high school Alan say about current Alan? I think would be thank you so much. Thank you so much for all the value. Thank you so much. I've always needed this. Thank you, that's it. I would be so grateful.

Alan Lazaros

I was looking for this my entire life. I was looking for NLU my entire life. Seriously, I had mentors and coaches. I had dozens Dude, half of them terrible, the other half decent, one or two maybe good ones. In hindsight, none of them were like us in this way and I'm not trying to be cocky you and I are more truthful, we're more accurate, we're more. We care more about other people's success. A lot of people in my past were really full of shit man. So, yeah, I think he would say thank you so much for doing what you do in the world. The world desperately needs this.

Kevin Palmieri

Okay, deep episode, hyperconscious, some would say All right. Next Level Nation. If you're not subscribed, make sure you are so you never miss an opportunity to get to the next level. Alan still has coaching slots available. Everything starts with a free 30-minute breakthrough session. If you dig it and you want to work with Alan, awesome. If not, it's a free opportunity to get coached. No strings attached, not going to pressure you, no sales tactics, not going to back you into a corner. Wait before you leave. What if I gave you this teddy bear with the coaching? Let's do it.

Outro

Kevin Palmieri

The offer ends tonight at midnight. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you. Nlu, we don't have fans, we have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan Lazaros

Stay focused Next Level Nation.

Kevin Palmieri

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level Nation. We will talk to you tomorrow.

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host