How Do You Know If The Advice Your Getting Is Good? (1949)

Are you filtering advice that moves you forward—or just the advice you want to hear? In today’s episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros break down how to recognize advice that challenges your beliefs, helps you grow, and aligns with your long-term goals. Learn how to avoid the trap of confirmation bias and ensure your mentors lead by example. This episode delivers powerful insights to help you achieve your goals, whether pursuing better health, stronger relationships, or career growth.

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Show notes:
(2:05) What makes advice good or bad
(4:02) Aligning advice with personal growth needs
(5:24) Importance of leading by example
(7:10) Using first principles to evaluate advice
(10:35) The role of books, coaching, and mentoring
(12:44) At NLU, we want you to win! So, we’re giving tools and resources to ensure your success. Join our Monthly Meet-up every first Thursday of the month at 5 PM.
(15:19) Why perfection is an infinite game
(20:55) The dangers of inaccura

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Transcript

Kevin Palmieri 0:00

I'll say close, closer to optimal. There's somebody close to optimal, I feel like I'm pretty close to optimal, but it's just wherever you are, the advice it's almost. Oh man, okay, the closer to optimal you are, the more the advice matters, but the less it moves you.

Alan Lazaros 0:20

You've been more accurate than me on many things and I've been more accurate than you on many things. I only want to figure out who's more accurate. That's all I care about. And here's the thing. I think a lot of people want to believe they're accurate.

Kevin Palmieri 0:33

I live in the perpetual belief that I'm not Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, Kevin.

Alan Lazaros 0:39

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

Kevin Palmieri 0:43

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

Alan Lazaros 0:49

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

Kevin Palmieri 0:56

We bring you a new episode every single day on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships boundaries, 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 1:18

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 1949, how do you know if the advice you're getting is good? I was on a wonderful podcast today with a gentleman from might have been Ireland, I'm not sure and he said obviously you're someone who's coached a lot of people, you've been coached by a lot of people, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. How do you know whether or not the advice you're getting is good or bad? And I was like that's a it's a really good question.

Kevin Palmieri 2:05

And if I was going to try to provide an answer that would cover the most amount of people and not be wildly specific, I would say if the advice that you're receiving is 100% in alignment with what you already believe, that advice probably isn't what's best for you because it doesn't force you to think about anything. And then I went to the example of right now there's probably somebody listening who works 90 hours a week, and here I am talking about how we grind and we're consistent and we never miss, and blah, blah, blah. I don't think that person really needs to hear that, honestly, that person might need for you to have somebody on here who's going to talk about taking 20 minutes of meditation and explaining why it's not a waste of time, because that's what they need. Probably. They already got the grind, they got the consistency, they got that. They don't need me to come on and talk about how you got to work really hard to get to where you want, I said.

Kevin Palmieri 3:02

But on the other end, if you were to have that person who comes on and talks about how 20 minutes of meditation is never going to be a waste of time for you, there might be people on the other side of the polar opposite, where they are super spiritual and everything is the law of attraction and manifestation and divine timing and all that. And I said they might need someone who comes on and talks about how grit is going to be one of the intangibles that might be that is beneficial for them in their journey. And I said you can see how we fall into the trap of only taking the advice that aligns with our existing beliefs. And I'm not saying your existing beliefs aren't true, but you're probably already really good at the thing that you're really good at and you're hopefully already doing the thing that you know you should be doing. But there are some other things that might be supplemental that you're not tapping into the power of yet.

Kevin Palmieri 4:02

And that was my answer to that question. Because, other than that, how do you really know? I mean, the person has a result that you want. It looks like they're living a life that you would like. But outside of that, you get to know the person at a really deep level and find out that they're not a fraud. That's core values, core beliefs, core aspirations. Everything's in alignment with that and that's a piece of it too. But yeah, that's the answer I gave. I'm interested to see where we take it from there.

Alan Lazaros 4:37

Very hard question to answer. So strong work. I appreciate it. My brain went a couple places. One is are they leading by example? If they're not leading by example, usually I think the advice is probably not great. I had one person in the past I was lifting and they were trying to teach me how to deadlift and they said well, my brother's a personal trainer and this person has never stepped foot in the gym.

Kevin Palmieri 5:10

Seven degrees of kevin bacon right there. It's like I know somebody who knows somebody, who knows somebody that knows kevin bacon. It's like, well, you bet you don't know anything about acting then, because you know you don't know kevin bacon personally but my friends, friends, friends yeah cousin, twice removed, knows how to deadlift.

Alan Lazaros 5:24

So number one is are they leading by example? That's a big tell. I think is someone who has either done it or is doing it. But again, that's tough because I have some mentors in the past that and this is something that's really hurt me a lot and hurt is probably the wrong phrase I was the overly naive ask everyone a question. I mean, you've seen me in rooms with people I can't help myself, but to just ask them everything they know, yes, and so it was very hard for me over the last 36 years to really figure out who actually knew and who didn't. And the second part of this. So the first one was are they leading by example? Number two I have to benchmark it up against my existing understandings, and this is where there's something called first principles.

Using first principles to evaluate advice

Alan Lazaros 6:10

So most people learn through story, metaphor and analogy and obviously all human beings do if you read a science textbook. So we have these books strewn kev, shrewd or strewn, strewn, strewn, nice, okay, strewn all across our house, and these books are there's. They're called 30 second books. So 30 second math, 30 second theories, 30 second genetics, 30 second chemistry, like, and they're awesome and they're basically science books that in they're one pagers of concepts. So the pythagorean theorem would be one page of this 30 second it's. It's not 30 seconds, unless you're a super reader, so it's more than that. But it's a catchy title. But these books are all theory. There's no story. So in 30 second math, if they're explaining the pythagorean theorem, here's where it came from, here's why it matters, here's how it works. Boom, it's in one page versus. That was a whole week in high school or whatever, in geometry or yeah geometry.

Alan Lazaros 7:10

so there's no story, there's no metaphor, there's no analogy, there's just first principles. So first principles are what are these basic things? So for us, first principles would be okay. The number one most important thing for any human being, I do believe, is self-belief. Okay, there's two types of self-belief, also known as self-efficacy. Belief type one is external achievement self-belief. Belief type two is belief in who you are as a person, also known as self-worth Okay. So that's really boring. That's why people don't do that typically, because it's alarmingly boring. Imagine a movie that was just facts and figures. Just be boring. You need a story, you need characters, you need character development, you need drama.

Alan Lazaros 7:54

You need some stuff. So most people learn through stories and they don't learn through theory and they don't learn through first principles. So I think you can only tell when advice is good based on if it has sound first principles. I base it against statistics, I base it up against science and science when you say science, I I just want to unpack this science is the scientific method, it's it's. I have a hypothesis, I have a theory. I'm going to test it with an experiment, I'm going to observe the results after that test and I'm going to draw a new conclusion. And my, my whole life is Emilia and I always say we're scientists, we're scientists, we're scientists.

Alan Lazaros 8:27

So Tucker was sick yesterday. We were trying to figure out why. We couldn't figure out why he wasn't feeling well, he was just weird. He wasn't throwing up or anything, but he was just weird. He was off. It's like, okay, is he upset because of mom not, you know taking him out of his office, out of his office, out of her office when she was working? Is he upset because he's eating a different food? We're also feeding him at two different times now. Did he just eat something around the house that he shouldn't have? And our current hypothesis is emilia brought in a branch from a big pine tree a while back because it smells good and apparent, and then we looked it up Apparently. Apparently, the pine cones Of a pine tree Are not Lethal to dogs, but the sap, I guess, is, or could be If they ingest enough of it. So we think, okay, so we got rid of this Fucking branch. I'm kidding, we got rid of this branch Outside the back deck.

Kevin Palmieri 9:20

Sometimes I do Throw it to the neighbor's yard.

Alan Lazaros 9:22

Sometimes Sometimes I say things Because you know the fur babies into the bedroom and then we took out this branch and we're seeing if he gets better, because I think it's the food. My hypothesis is it's the new food. It's obviously the new food. That's what my brain has calculated. She thinks it's the branch. I think I'm right. But of course I would. And at the end of the day no one cares whether or not we're right or wrong. We just want to know the truth so that our dog can get better. Right and again, tucker's fine. What's my point of all this? I benchmark everything you say, kev, up against my understanding of first principles, and when I think you're wrong I'll do something called Socratic questioning to help you understand that you're probably inaccurate. Or I'll just say I think that's dumb.

Kevin Palmieri 10:06

What a hell of a relationship you and I have built over here. Well, even the answer I gave, I could pick that apart. Yeah, I could pick that apart for sure. That's why it's so hard, because this is the other thing. The other question was let's say, you're someone who's being consistent and you're focusing on improvement. Where do you find the answers to the questions you have? And I know it might sound like a dumb question- Chat GPT ChatGPT.

Kevin Palmieri 10:35

ChatGPT is great. I said I think books are probably the best, because it takes years and years and years to put together a book. I said I'm a podcaster, I love podcasting, but you can throw together a podcast in all of 10 minutes and there has to be very little research and there's no vetting. You can say whatever you want, because there's just no. I said I think books are probably the best, but and I said but, as you get more specific in what you, you need to learn, I think you have to get closer to a human. And again, chat gpt is really good. But I said that's.

Kevin Palmieri 11:09

I think that's why coaching and mentoring is so valuable, because if you come to me and say I'm dealing with this problem, I don't have to talk to anybody else about what they're dealing with. I can talk directly to you about the specifics of your problem. Are doing it right, I guess? Okay, let's play Kevin's advocate. If you're already grinding to the degree that you need to and practicing self-care to the degree that you need to and you're in the middle, you're right around five, which is no one, I mean, there's some people. I mean it's less, less, less, less. It's rare, it's rare.

Alan Lazaros 11:50

But there's somebody out there. Five represents optimal. I feel like, no, no, no, it's impossible to stay, fuck me right, well, real quick. So optimal means you have the right amount of everything. There is no optimal recipe.

Kevin Palmieri 12:10

There is no optimal all right, okay, I'll say close, closer to optimal. Yeah, nice, there's somebody close to optimal. I feel like I'm pretty close to optimal, yeah, and then something's gonna shift yeah and you're gonna not be, and then you're gonna re-sign to optimal. It's like, wherever you are, the advice it's almost oh man, okay. The closer to optimal you are, the more the advice matters, but the less it moves you whoa, what?

At NLU, we want you to win! So, we're giving tools and resources to ensure your success. Join our Monthly Meet-up every first Thursday of the month at 5 PM.

Alan Lazaros 12:42

I just had a moment, nlu listener. What is happening? I just wanted to jump in here and let you know if you want to get to the next level faster. We have a free virtual monthly meetup at the first Thursday of every month. You can connect with like-minded people and become a bigger part of this amazing global community. The link to register will be in the show notes. I'm going to tell you something. You ready.

Kevin Palmieri 13:04

I'm link to register will be in the show notes. I'm going to tell you something. You ready? I'm going to fuck you up with the truth. Sometimes, when I say something that I think is very profound and you have a breakthrough, it seems like you don't even hear what I say. Is that accurate?

Alan Lazaros 13:19

I would say sometimes I appreciate the honesty, Probably less than you think but more than I think, all right, just wanted to voice that.

Kevin Palmieri 13:25

Real quick. Please hold what your breakthrough is, because I want to make sure I say it once and it goes off to the universe I'll come back. It'll maybe come back. Yeah, we'll see Okay.

Alan Lazaros 13:34

I just had a moment. You believe that you're optimal right now, close to optimal Close. Close to optimal close, I would say close to optimal future.

Kevin Palmieri 13:46

Kev is gonna realize that that wasn't true at all but past kev knows, I am all right.

Alan Lazaros 13:51

This is why I'm. I think this is one of the reasons why I'm wildly misunderstood and I totally understand why. It's all good and I'm not complaining about being misunderstood. I'm. I know that I'm not optimal. I'm the most optimal I've ever been. I'm more optimal than most, but I'm not optimal, not even close.

Kevin Palmieri 14:08

But isn't closest that you've ever been, isn't?

Alan Lazaros 14:11

that like the, but in a year from now I'm going to think I was an idiot.

Kevin Palmieri 14:16

You'll still be an idiot a year from today. For sure as well, also Okay.

Alan Lazaros 14:21

But do you know what I mean?

Kevin Palmieri 14:22

I do.

Alan Lazaros 14:24

What? Okay, but do you know what I mean? I do? What if there's a book I'm reading Called the Self-Made Billionaire Effect and it's talking about Duality and triality and the ability to Okay? Past Kevin thinks you're amazing, sure, okay. Current, kevin thinks you're optimal. Future Kevin's gonna think you're an idiot. Do you not know that in advance?

Kevin Palmieri 14:43

I don't think it's as cut and dry for me as it is for you. Remember, I'm further than I thought I was going to be baby. So, like for me, I think the and is just different. It's like I thought I was way ahead of where I actually was and I wasn't. But also, how could I ever know that?

Alan Lazaros 15:05

Well, that's like thinking this phone is as good as it can ever be Like. This phone is hot garbage compared to what it's going to be in five years, but it's a million times better than the original iPhone. It's the exact same concept. I realize that the phone doesn't have feelings.

Kevin Palmieri 15:19

Is that your new thing? I love when Alan learns something new. He just says it all the time, All the time.

Alan Lazaros 15:24

Well, kev, it's true, because Kev Kevin.

Kevin Palmieri 15:28

Kevin Edward, it's true, edward.

Alan Lazaros 15:31

It's my middle name. Is it really Kevin Edward? Yes, but that is the exact same concept. Do you think about those differently?

Kevin Palmieri 15:40

There's not a time during my day when I look at my phone and say this is the best.

Alan Lazaros 15:45

I don't think about my phone almost at all okay, in a year from now, they're gonna come out with a phone. That's far better than that. Definitely, in a year from now, you're gonna be a Kevin. That's far better than this. So by definition, you're not optimal, so you can't ever be. No, it's impossible, it's an infinite game.

Alan Lazaros 16:03

I don't like that I'm more optimal than I used to be, but I'm not optimal. Remember when I said this and again I said kev, I'm never fully right, but I'm definitely not fully wrong yeah, but I feel like anybody not anybody can say that, but I could say that too you and I, all of our conversations behind the scenes and and right now is always who is more accurate.

Alan Lazaros 16:28

You've been more accurate than me on many things and I've been more accurate than you on many things. I only want to figure out who's more accurate. That's all I care about. I don't, and here's the thing. I think a lot of people want to believe they're accurate yes, yes. I live in the perpetual belief that I'm not.

Kevin Palmieri 16:43

I think significance comes from feeling right at times. I'll never forget. I was at a Super Bowl party. We were talking about the football in the last episode. I was at a Super Bowl party and something happened. It was towards the end of the game. And in the NFL again, if you go out of bounds, when there's under two minutes on the clock, the clock stops. And there was like five minutes left in the game and somebody went out of bounds and the two guys I was standing next to they were like why didn't the clock stop? And I was like, well, that's only. I don't know why. I know this. It's like it's only, that's only when there's two minutes left or less. And they're like, no, no way, there's five minutes Because you've been betting on the game?

Alan Lazaros 17:29

Probably probably yeah, whenever there's money attached. Kevin knows everything about it. No, this was before.

Kevin Palmieri 17:34

This was before and I was like, I guess, yeah, whatever, how much do you want to bet? Like a dollar five bucks. And they're like, yeah, let's bet five. And they looked it up and it was two minutes. There was a piece of me that was afraid to be right, because their significance was tied to knowing football better than I did, which you should because I don't know what the freak I'm talking about arrogant? No, not necessarily. I just happen to know that more than they did I can't, obviously I can't imagine a world where they would think I knew more about football than them.

Kevin Palmieri 18:13

No, these people follow football. I don't know.

Alan Lazaros 18:19

It's weird and this comes back to duality. I assume people said there's been someone in my past that said you think you're always right. I said no, I just find it difficult to move forward effectively on the opposite assumption. I actually think I'm always wrong. I just know I'm more right than you.

Kevin Palmieri 18:34

Okay, let me ask you a question. Wouldn't they think it was arrogant of me to think I knew better than they did, when they know more about football?

Alan Lazaros 18:43

is arrogance revealed upon truth, truth yeah, because arrogance, by definition is thinking you're more intelligent than you are or thinking you're better than you are, which only can reveal itself after the experiment of the scientific method. Like you and I both have hypotheses about everything. That's what this podcast is. Kevin has a theory, I have a theory, and then we figure out who's right eventually, and sometimes I go hey man, my fucking bad.

Kevin Palmieri 19:09

And then other times you go. Dude, you'd be surprised, often behind the scenes, how many times I receive a message from Alan. I'm like, hey man, that's my bad, that's my bad.

Kevin Palmieri 19:27

Usually, when it comes to business or systems or the economy, I'm more accurate and and I think that's actually flipping a little bit, which is cool because I'm finally figuring it, the fuck out but you tend to get good at what you need to survive. Agreed, if you think about it right, you tend to get good at what you need to survive to make this as tangible for everyone watching or listening.

Alan Lazaros 19:40

Can you hold the duality that you? You are right and wrong simultaneously? I think that might be emilia's that way she always assumes she's right and wrong at all times, all she cares about. We have this thing called the truth trough. It's a dumb name, but if you picture the powerball when they put all the balls in it and it like they shake it up and then they put out the numbers boop, boop.

Alan Lazaros 20:04

Her and I have talked about our past relationships, how our past partners not all of them, but some of them that we can think of they care about. They like sign their ball and they want their ball to pop out. I could care less what ball pops out, I want the truth ball to pop out. I don't care if it's mine or hers, I, I just need to know. And someone would say well, why do you need to know?

The dangers of inaccurate thinking

Alan Lazaros 20:26

Because if you don't know, what you don't know will hurt you. Like, if you don't know that most people get divorced, you're going to be arrogant in your relationship and you're going to end up divorced. If you don't know that 94% of businesses fail over a 10 year period, you're going to basically be arrogant by default, thinking you're going to crush it when you're going to get destroyed. If you don't know that 90 of people who succeed in business actually work their face off and you're sitting there on the couch like it will hurt you eventually. Delusion hurts you no matter what.

Alan Lazaros 20:55

Eventually, if you don't know, cigarettes kill you and you smoke you're. You're potentially going to die of you know cancer I. That's why I care so much about accurate thinking. If you think that the rocket going this way is going to hit the moon, you're going to fly off into space like it is life or death. It just doesn't feel that way, like you got farther than you thought you'd get because you're. You've become more accurate over time and you've made more effective choices that have allowed you to become more successful than you anticipated.

Kevin Palmieri 21:23

Self-made, completely, hey self-made yeah, did it all. Did it all Self-made, yeah, I had nothing to do.

Alan Lazaros 21:35

I have a course on it too. Hey, I have a course on it too. Okay, $5,000.

Kevin Palmieri 21:39

You can become self-made too. All right, speaking of rockets, I'm currently reading Think Like a Rocket Scientist. I need a book recommendation. We'll save it for off the air because I know you'll think about it, but I need a new book recommendation. So I went back to Think Like a Rocket Scientist Very interesting book. It was very interesting where the author said when I heard somebody talk about psychological safety, I thought it was a joke. It's like how could you ever think psychological safety is a joke? But that this person is hyper-rational Rocket scientist Makes sense. Very interesting. It was very interesting. Okay, we gotta go.

Outro

Kevin Palmieri 22:19

Make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an opportunity to get to the next level Book Club every Saturday 1230. Meetups you hear them in the Metro every first Thursday of the month, 5 pm Eastern Standard Time. Next Level Dreamliner is on Amazon. We'll have the link in the show notes. As always. We love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you. And at NLU, we don't have fans, we have family. You, at NLU, we don't have fans, we have family. We'll talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan Lazaros 22:43

Stay Next Level.

Kevin Palmieri 22:52

Next Level Nation. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level.

Alan Lazaros 22:53

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 23:03

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.