Next Level University

What Are We Getting Wrong About Productivity? (1965)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Working hard but not seeing results? You might be making a critical mistake. In today’s episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros break down the biggest myths about productivity, how to measure real progress, and why some people achieve more with less effort. If you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making actual moves, this one’s for you!

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Show notes:
(3:06) The biggest misconception about productivity
(5:37) Why producing more value leads to earning more
(9:49) Why aren’t people more productive?
(12:58) The link between productivity and self-awareness
(21:28) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(22:19) When does doing more become doing less?
(27:24) How to know if you’re genuinely productive
(30:24) Three productive habits anyone can start today
(36:31) The power of motivation and staying consistent
(38:51) 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

That's why, when people get you know, when people like really go through a bad breakup and all they're thinking is like I just want to be different, I just want to be different, usually that's like a gym phase, usually that's a knowledge phase and then usually that's like some level of wealth acquisition, lifestyle increase, however you want to put it, and then 40s and 50s, between 40 and 60,.

Alan Lazaros

That's when it's your power phase. This is the phase of your life where you really start to make it and you build a lot of wealth. If you do it right, if you did the 20 to 30 and 30 to 40 right, you'll build a lot of wealth in your 50s and 60s. I'm sorry.

Kevin Palmieri

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

Alan Lazaros

I'm your co-host, alan Lazarus, at.

Kevin Palmieri

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

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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. I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt again, so something has happened. I don't know what's going on. I love them, huge fan. I may never wear a short-sleeved shirt again. Fits up to me. You definitely will. Most likely, most probably will Today for episode number 1,965,.

Kevin Palmieri

What are we getting wrong about productivity? So we were chatting about what episode we were going to record and Alan was like I got an idea and I said something very disrespectful to him that I won't repeat. I swore at him in a kind joking manner. I said listen up here, mother goose, something like that. I said I got something for you. I said I want to talk about productivity and, like a little boy, he said really, I love productivity. I said yeah, I'm going to interview you about productivity. Sounds like a dream come true. He said it sounds like a dream come true to be interviewed by someone with such skills and such vigor for life.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

Kevin Palmieri

This will be a treat for you. First thought, first question, first direction. Take it however you want. What do you believe, as somebody who has worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people when it comes to helping them be more productive? Is the most common misconception? What are people most confused about when they hear productivity, or they define it, their relationship with it? What is the most common misconception that you've seen?

Alan Lazaros

Where it started, what it?

Kevin Palmieri

is, are you going? To hit me with the crops.

Alan Lazaros

Probably. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure when it started and what it actually is Produce. Imagine a farm there's. Imagine a farm. Back in the day, the large majority of jobs were, for a time, farming. And imagine a farm that has one acre of land and you farm it and you go through the seasons and then and again I don't know much about farming, that'll be obvious in this, but let's pretend, I do for a second and then the fall comes, harvest, and then you feed your family, but there's a little left over that you go to the market and you sell, and then you use that money to buy a second acre, and then you do that again, but now you have even more surplus, so you sell that. And then you buy four acres instead of two, and then you buy eight acres and then 16 acres, and then 32 acres and eventually your productivity, your produce, is more and more and more and more.

Alan Lazaros

And I think the biggest misconception, in the most concise way I can say it, is people who want to earn more without producing more. There's a misunderstanding around you can't earn more money unless you produce more crops, and the same principle applies to all industries in the world. However, we live now in a social media world with the internet, where you can pretend to produce more than you actually do, which allows you to kind of produce fake crops, and there's a lot of businesses out there that are built on fake crops and they haven't actually earned any real revenue. So one example would be for the first several years of Snapchat. They had lots, hundreds of millions of users, but they didn't make any money yet. But yet they were valued at billions of dollars, because just because you haven't monetized a company yet doesn't mean that you don't have value, and so a valuation of a person or a company is predicated on the amount it can produce. Last piece Kevin's value economically is much higher now.

Alan Lazaros

When you were at the gas station, you couldn't produce that much because you weren't very skilled. Now you can do a lot more. You can video edit, you can audio edit. You can do a lot more. You can video edit, you can audio edit, you can lead a team. You know how to coach in podcasting. You know how to produce a show.

Alan Lazaros

The amount of people that can do that, can produce the crops that you can produce, is much smaller, and there's a lot of people who want to start a podcast, there's what? Five million after covid. Now it's probably down to three million. We'd have to look it up. But the point is is that there's a large market, aka a lot of people who want to buy crops and there's very few Kevins who can actually produce those crops and that's why Kevin is paid more than he used to be. And I just don't think people understand like they say things like I want to start a business so I have more time, and that's not going to work, because in the beginning of a business you have to produce more in order to grow it. Nlu has to produce more value, more crops, in order to grow itself, in order to go from one acre to two acres, to four acres, to eight acres, and right now NLU is probably I don't know we're eight years in. How many acres do we have? Probably 1,024.

Kevin Palmieri

1,024 acres Something like that Good size. Imagine me just driving the thing around in the fields all day. That's me.

Alan Lazaros

Let me see what it actually is. One sec.

Kevin Palmieri

I know what he's going to do right now 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. Hold on, hold on hold on 64, 128, 256.

Alan Lazaros

We're 256 acres, no eight years, so it would be 512. So we're 512 acres and the next step would be 1,024. And again, it's not exactly doubling, but we have way more impact. We produce way more crop than we used to.

Kevin Palmieri

And in the beginning it's all about planting. Now, the first couple of years of this.

Alan Lazaros

We're planting seeds, figuring out stuff, building relationships, all that stuff well, we're still planting and oh, when we have a production company. So we work with 66 podcasters, 54 in the production side 67, 67 67, 67 podcasters, about to be 68.

Alan Lazaros

If one of my clients signs up, which I'm excited for, you know who you are. So 67 podcasters, 12 podcasters in group coaching and 55 in the production side. Next level podcast solutions, it's podcast production. So pro productivity, production, produce, it's all the same idea and of the reasons why so I have. I'm reading a book right now called 168 hours and it talks about how we all have 168 hours in a week and you have to sleep, you have to eat, you have to whatever, live. But right now I'm at 44 average per week of coaching, training and podcasting. I'm trying to get that number up and the reason why is because I work from 11 to 7.30, 11 to 7,. Essentially, a lot of times it's over, but let's just say I want to work from 11 to 7, theoretically Monday through Saturday. So that's eight. How many? 11 to 7.

Kevin Palmieri

It's eight hours. It's eight hours Eight hours.

Alan Lazaros

So eight times six, 48. So Eight hours so eight times six 48. So there's 48 available hours for front-facing coaching, training and podcasting. So I'm trying to average 48 coaching, training and podcasting. Why? So that I can produce more crop, therefore earn more revenue, and reinvest it back in the company, and then eventually the crop gets better, of higher quality, and then you charge more for it.

Kevin Palmieri

And I can work less too, because Alan's working more, which is great, trying to get it down to zero calls per day.

Alan Lazaros

So I'm kind of making my way. The trend line's headed that way. That's good.

Kevin Palmieri

I was kind of making my way towards that, all right. So from a tactical standpoint, tactically, physically, from a practice perspective, where do people get caught up? Why aren't people more productive? Because I think everything you want is most likely on the other side of productivity. I'm not saying you have to work seven days a week, I'm not saying that, but one of the best ways to create more is to be more productive. Why aren't people more productive?

Alan Lazaros

from your perspective? Well, the first thing is it's their relationship with it. So, before you and I met, you never thought about productivity at all, never. And yet you wanted to be wealthy. I was hoping for it. Well, you can't be wealthy without productivity, unless have generational wealth from previous productivity, previous generations?

Kevin Palmieri

What if I sell? What if I sell foot picks on the internet?

Alan Lazaros

That's productivity just in a weird way Less less.

Kevin Palmieri

A little bit easier, a little bit easier.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, I mean I that you're joking, so let's not.

Kevin Palmieri

Well, if you've seen my, if you've seen my feet, you know that there's probably not a market for that Candy corn toe, you know.

Alan Lazaros

Sadly, there probably is, but it's a whole other conversation.

Alan Lazaros

But the first one is it's not a sexy topic, and one of the unfortunate parts about life is the least the most important things are talked about the least. The least the most important things aren't talked are talked about the least. So growing up, you don't usually talk a lot about productivity. It's not a common conversation around a dinner table, unfortunately, and because of that, no one really builds a relationship with it. It's not a sexy topic, so it doesn't get talked about, it doesn't get studied, it doesn't get learned.

Alan Lazaros

The three things that I study most are self-improvement, productivity and business. But the reason why I studied productivity is because I knew that I couldn't achieve big goals and dreams without productivity, and so the real reason people don't aren't more productive is because it it's very, very hard. It's very unsexy. Number one, number two it's very hard to get better at, and it's ironically the most productive people that I know are actually they had to face the most hard truths about their own inadequacies. I think that's the root of why it's not studied more, because when you like one book, for example, about productivity that I studied, it's called the 12-Week Year and it talks about how, if I can achieve more in one quarter 12 weeks than Kevin can all year. I can exponentially increase my results over his, and again, I'm just using him and I as an example. Oh yeah, sure, but that book is basically a constant mirror of how lazy you are, in a way Not you, but me and so I always know how good a book is by how bad it makes me feel about myself.

Alan Lazaros

I say that knowing that if you don't have self-belief, that's probably not a good thing, but for me, the books that make me realize that I'm inadequate help me become more adequate. So it's this weird paradox. So Emilia doesn't think she's productive at all. She's the most productive person I've ever met, and that's the duality. There's some people who think they're super productive and they're not at all, and I have a couple of clients that are wildly productive, that don't think they're productive. And let me explain If you think you're productive, you're probably not, and the reason why is because people who think they're productive are not constantly working on being more productive. It's the people that feel wildly inadequate and unproductive that work on it.

Kevin Palmieri

You think that's a belief thing though.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, probably. I feel like I'm super productive. I think that you're a layer upon a layer upon a layer. So back in the day before, you were this version and you aren't productive because you decided to be. You're productive because you know you have to be to achieve your goals and we're going to interview you about that next episode.

Kevin Palmieri

We'll talk about that. Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that, so stay tuned for the next episode. What if you're comparing where you are today to where you started?

Alan Lazaros

Am I as?

Kevin Palmieri

productive as I'll ever. Be no, but I'm the most productive I've ever been.

Alan Lazaros

Yes it's that duality exactly. So I'm the most productive I've ever been and statistically I'm more productive than most, but I'm not nearly as productive as I have to be in order to achieve my goals. So emily and I a lot of the people that are close to us will say, like, why don't you guys take more time off? And we try to say and it's very hard to explain, but it's our goals actually require us to dial this up, not down, and it's not our opinion. I'm not just saying I, you know, we really got to get after it. No, scientifically, if we don't dial this up, we will not achieve our actual goals. They're they're clear, written goals and we're will not achieve our actual goals. They're clear, written goals and we're actually not achieving our goals even right now, like we're behind. And so I playfully said to Kev earlier I need a day off. And I was playful with it, because the truth of the matter is Emilia and I both used to date people that weren't very productive and they didn't have big goals, so they didn't have to be more productive, whereas her and I we have no choice or we have to give up our dreams and, unfortunately, the one other thing to answer your original question. That's really heartbreaking is that the majority of people will not achieve their dreams statistically, and that makes me so freaking sad statistically, and that makes me so freaking sad because the productivity required to achieve them is way beyond what they actually want. It's like wanting to be a professional athlete but not wanting to be on the road nine months out of the year or seven months or whatever.

Alan Lazaros

It is Pro baseball. You know better than I, but imagine being in the MLB. Your dream is to be a professional baseball player, but yet you also have a dream to be home with your family seven months out of the year. That's impossible. They're conflicting goals and your productivity in baseball needs to be focused on more in order to be in the mlb, because the mlb is sitting there going well if this person's better than you and they fill the seats more because they have more RBIs or whatever. I don't know shit about baseball, but the point is is there's certain things that matter in each industry and if you don't prioritize those things, you're absolutely screwed and you'll never achieve your goals and dreams. But most people have goals that are conflicting.

Kevin Palmieri

Get those RBIs, friends, get those RBIsbis. Okay. When does, when, does it? Is it ever? Is it contextual? Is it specific? When does productivity cross over from more to less specifically and focused?

Alan Lazaros

nice nice the, the last episode that kevin and did, I went off on a couple tangents, that many Tangents, yeah, that built from stages and I think that there's stages of productivity where, zero to 20 years old, you don't really know who you are, you don't really know why you're here. Yet You're kind of provided for for the most part by your family hopefully Not everybody but and you might have a job, but you make most likely minimum wage-ish wherever you live, and that makes sense because you're at the beginning of your career. You most likely have a job, you don't have a career. And then you start to build a career, and a career is more than a job but less than a calling.

Alan Lazaros

And from 20 to 40 is basically like just atrocious. It's really bad for your career. And what I mean by bad for your career is 20 to 40 is basically when you start to realize that all of your goals and dreams are almost impossible. And you realize in from 20 to 40 that everyone's going for goals and dreams and there's only a few positions. That this is from 20 to 40 is when you realize you're not going to be in the mlb. In this metaphor, it's when you realize, ah, okay, so there's only 700 nba players and there's 700,000 people who want to be in the NBA. And you just, and again, I'm just making these numbers up but you just realize you're screwed kind of in your twenties and forties is when, statistically, people are the most unhappy, okay.

Alan Lazaros

And then in your forties you really start to hit a stride, assuming you worked hard in your twenties and thirties and 40s, so I always said my career wouldn't even start until my 50s. And the reason I said that is because I somehow knew that between 20 and 40 was going to be just awful in terms of making a name for yourself. Like no one knows us, right? I mean, we have, we're doing okay, but we're only at 512 acres. We don't have, we're not Tony Robbins, right? You didn't even know Tony Rob robbins name until he was 57 and and no one really knows this. It turns out and I'm not trying to be pretentious with this but like no one really wins in their early years. Rappers do and athletes do, but that's because those are. That's the time when they're attractive, that's the time when, yeah, right, right.

Alan Lazaros

So and the lifespan is shorter and if you, even if you look at actors and actresses, most of them didn't make their career until they hit their you know, late 30s and 40s and 50s and and even in acting it's lower. It's like, uh, dancing, if you don't make it to broadway within a certain time span as a young person, you kind of can't make it anymore. And if you didn't start dancing young enough, just like you know, olympics, your nfl, what if you're? If you're 42, you pretty much are done for the most part. Yeah, because you're competing with people in their 20s. So athletics, rap, like there's certain fields that it's younger people who are winning, but that's only because the the amount of people at the tail end of the compound effect has been moved. It's a sliding scale, so I'll get back to it. So stage one is you don't know who you are, you don't know what you're here for yet You're just learning through experimentation. And Kevin and I, on the last episode, talked about high school and middle school and kissing for the first time Not him and I, but kissing someone for the first time and then between 20s and 40, you're pretty much like just getting bludgeoned with all the hard truths of the world, realizing that most of your goals and dreams actually aren't going to happen, and it's really unfortunate.

Alan Lazaros

And then 40s and 50s. Between 40 and 60, that's when you it's, it's your power phase. This is, this is the phase of your life where you really start to make it and you build a lot of wealth. If you do it right, if you did the 20, 20 to 30 and 30 to 40, right, you'll build a lot of wealth in your forties and fifties. Uh, fifties and sixties, I'm sorry, yeah, forties and fifties, because okay, so, and then the last stage is 60 to 80, which is you give back. That's when you built enough wealth to provide not only for yourself but for your family and for your grandkids and your grand grandkid. Now you're a great grandpa or great great grandmother and that sort of thing.

Alan Lazaros

And again, this is just sort of, but here's the problem there's also seasons in all of that. And then, and then there's seasons overall. So let's call zero to 20, just a learning phase, figuring out who the hell you are. Let's call 20 to 40, the brutal truth phase of just oh shit, this is way worse than I thought or way better, depending on if you were pessimistic or optimistic. And then, from you know 40 to 60, it's holy crap.

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

Alan Lazaros

I never thought I'd be able to interview you know the best in the world, or. Or I never thought I'd be a multimillionaire and a lot of millionaires, by the way, didn't know they'd be millionaires. It's just the compound effect of a great career over time. I have kids from college that are multimillionaires now and they never intended on it, they just were engineers. And it's the 21st century and they got on. You know they're on Apple, they work at Apple and you know you make $250,000 a year, year over year. You just eventually invest it and you become a millionaire and they're going oh, interesting, and then so not everybody by, by the way, but that's a thing.

Alan Lazaros

Hello, hello, hello. Nlu listener. Thank you, as always, for listening to next level university real quick. I just want to jump in and let you know about the next level dreamliner. This is a journal that I use every single day achieve your dreams 90 days at a time. It breaks down your dreams into goals, milestones and daily habits. We hope you enjoy it. The link will be in the show notes and then you have the last phase, which is when you really reflect on whether or not you did the first three phases as well. And so back to productivity, back to your original question, which I've totally forgotten what it is is let's really look at how everyone out there watching or listening how well are you doing these phases?

Alan Lazaros

how well are you doing these chapters?

Kevin Palmieri

you want me to ask the question again? What was the question? I really thought we were going to get back. I did. I thought we're going to get back. When does it cross from doing more to doing less? Better, strong work?

Alan Lazaros

yeah, so hopefully the bludgeoning in 20 to 40. That makes you work smarter. So I'll give you an example. Kevin and I and again I just use me as an example because I obviously am me, but I want everyone to put this into their own context so we have someone on our team who's really really, really freaking good at video editing, and just video editing, and that's honing their core competencies. So productivity and core competency. So Kev's core competency is podcasting, podcasting, podcast coaching. He has two podcasts. He has a podcast production company. Like. Everything revolves around podcasting, podcasting, podcast coaching. He has two podcasts. He has a podcast production company. Like everything revolves around podcasting. How much of your career calling revolves around podcasting?

Kevin Palmieri

It's all of it.

Alan Lazaros

That's by design, and so when you hit your forties and fifties you're going to crush, and the reason why is because you've narrowed it.

Alan Lazaros

So the work smart, work hard thing, from zero to 20, it's basically all work hard. You can't work smart because you're young and no one young knows much. And then from 20 to 40, you start to work smart out of necessity, because you just don't have any more time to go to the gym and it's a struggle. And now you have kids and or relationship and you lose all your friends because you basically realize I can't have all these friends anymore because I don't have any free time and I have to work and I have a household and all this stuff. And then in your 50s and 60s you basically just double and triple and quadruple down on your thing. So for me it's business coaching, business productivity and self-improvement. For kev it's podcasting, podcast coaching and podcast production, and that's by design. So you and I will do very well in our 50s and 60s because we worked really smart. And working smart, I think, is learning what not to do way more than learning what to do okay.

Kevin Palmieri

So if we were going to break it down to like because I understand, you and I have our things and we're very clear on our things and we've worked very diligently to get that, it's hard to ask because it depends. It depends on the specifics. How does somebody know whether or not they're doing the things that are best for productivity for them? What are the tells? What are the buckets? How do you know? Yeah, that's, is that too wide of a question?

Alan Lazaros

No, it's good, it's good. Number one is you have to have clarity on what you want, which is what I do, so I help someone get clarity on what they want in the future. When you and Taryn first met, she said you can't ever force me to be an entrepreneur and you said you can't ever force me to give up the podcast. That's a lot of clarity. See, that is a big tell that you two can win. See, that is a big tell that you two can win. And, and the reason why is because now you have permission to be more honed and same. It's Pareto's principle, so bear with me on this number one is clarity in your future.

Alan Lazaros

So, if you have absolute clarity on what you want to achieve Fredo's principle, so bear with me on this Number one is clarity in your future. So, if you have absolute clarity on what you want to achieve and you have clarity on the vehicle in which you want to achieve it, so, again, using us as an example, we want to achieve building a successful, holistic, self-improvement company, boom, okay. The vehicle to do that, the tagline is level up yourself, level up your podcast, level up your business. But the vehicle to do that is podcasting, primarily podcasting and coaching. If you had to really break it down, okay, those two vehicles, and that's Kevin and me. Okay, he does some coaching and more podcasting. I do some podcasting and more coaching. Awesome.

Alan Lazaros

Now, pareto's principle allows us to work smarter. So 20% of your effort produces 80% of your results. So, but you can't do Pareto unless you know what you're going for. Can't do Pareto unless you know what you're going for. So 80% of Kevin's success in his career and his calling is going to come from podcasting. 80% of my success in my career and my calling is going to come from coaching, particularly business coaching. And so your original question, I think, was how does someone figure out what to focus on right?

Kevin Palmieri

Yes, okay, how do they know if they're being productive? That Like, how do you know? You might get to the end of the day and feel like you crushed it. You might get to the end of the day and feel like you didn't. What's the truth? How do you know the truth?

Alan Lazaros

What you measure. But then the question becomes how do you know what to measure? So I just sent you a book. Kev asked me for another book recently, and the reason you asked me for a book is because you trust me to give you the book that's going to help you achieve your goals. Yes, and the book is called measure what matters. And so how does someone know if they're productive? They, they know their goal. So how does someone know if they're productive? They know their goal, and then they measure the progress toward it. So Kevin is in a cut right now.

Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, Okay, what's your current weight and what's your goal?

Alan Lazaros

weight 182 was current weight Goal weight is 170, unfortunately. Okay, so you're trying to lose 12 pounds. In how many? How long? 12 weeks, okay, 12 pounds in 12 weeks. So he needs to measure his weight and his average needs to be a pound a week of weight loss. That means you're productive. Now, what does productivity mean in the form of weight loss? In kevin's case, the pareto principle what? What's the 20 of effort that's going to make 80 of the result? And you know the answer, otherwise you'd be screwed.

Kevin Palmieri

Tracking calories. Well being at a deficit.

Alan Lazaros

Okay, that's number one, and what's number two?

Alan Lazaros

Exercise Nice Burn more, eat less, and if you're doing that well, you will be succeeding. And you'll measure whether or not you're succeeding. And every time you step on that scale and you got to be careful because there's daily fluctuations, but every time you step on that scale week over week, if the average is a pound a week, you're doing it, you're productive, you're doing it Okay, you're gaining weight consistently week over week. Well, you got to go and adjust and make some changes.

Alan Lazaros

And I think this is one of the reasons why I come off so arrogant is because I'm certain that I could get Kevin that result just from a mathematical formula. I'm not certain because I'm so great, I'm just certain because I can run the exact formula Like, if you want, if you came to me and said hey, I want to weigh 12 pounds less in 12 weeks, I would just tell you what to do and if you did it, you would do that and it literally is just a mathematical formula. It wouldn't actually be that hard. It would be hard to do, but it wouldn't be hard to come up with the process. And Kev told me before we hit record.

Kevin Palmieri

He said you love process, people like results and the reason I love process is because you can't get results without it. Okay, if we were, this will be the last question. I'm coming up on 30. I know it'll be a little bit longer, but let's say somebody doesn't have clarity. They're not sure there's a 17-year-old listening, not sure yet, right, 17, there's a lot of living to do. What are three things, what are three habits that they can practice that will be productive, regardless of the goal that they decide they want to shoot for?

Alan Lazaros

Number one is exercise, consistent exercise. I prefer weight training. I think it's the best I do. I think it's doing hard things and I think it trains you to have self-discipline. And I also know muscle mass is good for longevity and good for your brain. It's really important. So I would say weight training would be number one. That helped me get my life on track. You gotta go with reading books, but you gotta be careful, and I think a lot of people think I'm really closed-minded with this. I actually got called closed-minded recently, uh, by emilia's grandma. I said I prefer non-fiction books. She says that sounds really closed-minded.

Kevin Palmieri

I was like okay, fair, take it easy nana shots fired.

Alan Lazaros

Uh, but I do. I think nonfiction, books in the sciences and or self-help, self-improvement space that you're never going to go wrong with that. Business, self-help, science, self-improvement, productivity, like that You're never going to go wrong in that area because ultimately, most people want a mansion on the beach and most people want a great relationship and most people want to be wealthy and have time freedom and the only way you can ever get those is if you learn about time management and you learn about productivity. You learn about these things. So number two would be books. Number one weight training. Number two is books and then number three has got to be get a mentor. Get a mentor or a coach who's living your fucking dream, who you trust to guide you without taking advantage of you.

Kevin Palmieri

My third one was gonna be squirrel away as much money as you can. I guess that's less of a habit, but I mean because, if you think about it, health. That's why when people get you know, when people like really go through a bad breakup and all their thinking is like I just want to be different, I just want to be different. Usually that's like a gym phase, Usually that's a knowledge phase and then usually that's like some level of wealth acquisition, Lifestyle increase, however you want to put it.

Alan Lazaros

Insert movie montage of the character, getting his or her life together.

Kevin Palmieri

I would say Rocky's probably the best montages ever. I would say Did you ever see? Never Back Down. Did you ever see?

Alan Lazaros

that movie? I don't think so.

Kevin Palmieri

It's a fighting movie. Back in the day, back when I lived in Uxbridge, I used to get there was a Chinese food place called Foodworks and I would be like down, it'd be Friday night, be down for a movie night, just me, myself and I and Foodworks, and I would be eating this Chinese food, just enjoying life, and they would get to like a montage and I'd be like I gotta go to the fucking gym.

Kevin Palmieri

I gotta go to the gym. It is what it is. It was the best. I didn't have anything else to do, so why not? Life was simple back then little bonus.

Alan Lazaros

Last thing what you just did there was that montage motivated you. It ignited you. I have certain videos that I go to whenever I'm not motivated. That's one thing that I think we don't talk about anymore. We used to. I one of the things I do with my clients is I just keep them fucking motivated, like I'm always driving the engine to make sure no one's complacent and I know that that's a pain in the ass to some people, but to some people it's really good. And I have certain videos that just fire me the fuck up and I need them. It's like, uh, you got to know where the gas station is and you got to know where your gas station is and you've got to know how to push your own buttons. There's certain videos of certain fitness people or whoever that they just they trigger you and it's like I gotta, I gotta go to the gym.

Alan Lazaros

I gotta, I gotta do it. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. And I think that hopefully, I know you does that for people too. I know that it does actually, because I have some clients that listen and some clients that don't. How dare you? I'm kidding.

Kevin Palmieri

Uh, but you're not listening, so we're all good.

Alan Lazaros

But I have some clients. There's a noticeable uptick in motivation, consistent daily motivation, in the people that do listen daily, and I think that that's something that is maybe way more important than I ever thought, and I think the reason why is because motivation seems like jump up and down and rah-rah when in reality it's what you just said. It's fuck. I got to go to the gym now because this ignited me, this triggered me, this you gotta know what pushes your buttons, what gets that competitive drive going, and if you don't have that, it's known as prey drive it's very hard to. If you've ever seen an animal like tower real, she saw birds this morning we have a little bird feeder the chirp.

Alan Lazaros

She, oh, that's the best I didn't do a chirp.

Kevin Palmieri

I don't know you, I can't do it. It's like their jaw goes. That's Ace does it when he sees birds outside. It's and he likes he has like a high-pitched squeal, he just wants to murder them.

Alan Lazaros

How in trouble would those birds be if he got out?

Kevin Palmieri

Oh they'd be the deadest.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah.

Kevin Palmieri

I'm pretty sure cats are like the number one, one of the number one reasons birds are and they're like one of the apex predators for birds.

Alan Lazaros

I think For sure, tao Riel is amazing. She yeah, cats are unreal, especially Tao she's. She's masterful, those birds. We have a. You know the ball that Emilia uses in Muay Thai to hit. You know how some people hit a ball and then they.

Kevin Palmieri

I've seen you do it too.

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, tao has one of those and she I put it higher and higher to see if she can get. She can jump like six feet. It's nuts. But the point is is that when she sees those birds, you can see it in her eyes.

Kevin Palmieri

She's like Dad, I murdered that thing. Let's fucking go. I had to murder one of those, Is it?

Alan Lazaros

game time. Are we doing it? Are we going to feed the family?

Kevin Palmieri

No, you don't let that happen.

The power of motivation and staying consistent

Alan Lazaros

Yeah, we don't want birds to. Yeah, we're not doing that, but that's prey drive, and if you don't have that as a human being, I'm saying this because won't be what it could be.

Kevin Palmieri

I feel like that's something I don't really. I don't really have videos that I watch really.

Alan Lazaros

You do. You watch that guy who's?

Kevin Palmieri

jacked.

Alan Lazaros

Oh yeah.

Kevin Palmieri

That's for fitness, sam Sulik. Shout out to Sam Sulik, but that's motivating as hell dude.

Alan Lazaros

That's, of course, that's why you do it. Definitely.

Kevin Palmieri

on the sauce, he's definitely on the sauce, but he talks about it.

Alan Lazaros

he's not claiming, I mean you look at this guy, but that motivates you.

Kevin Palmieri

That motivates the hell out of you yeah, but it's not like I wake up and look at it in the morning. It's like I'll the thing I really enjoy, and this is why finding content we talk about content a lot, but finding content that is consistently within alignment is so important. Dude exercises every day, films every day, films every day and drops a new episode every day, and right now he's dieting, so I can literally eat my food at the end of the night and watch him exercise and it's like this feedback loop. It's a feedback loop Super jacked. Every time I look at him I feel very bad about myself. It's just terrible. We're not even the same species. He is just Also seems like a good dude, which makes me happy.

Kevin Palmieri

Okay, next Love Nation If you are looking for a place where you can stay extra committed and extra consistent, we will have the link in the show notes for Next Love Nation, our private Facebook group. Again to Alan's point, one of the best things to have is a community of people who are doing similar stuff to you, where growth is cool. It's not weird to grow in this group. So we'll have the link in the show notes.

Alan Lazaros

We would love to have you there if you are interested, if you want to get to the next level of your life, if you want to guarantee and again, if you want to wildly maximize the probability that you achieve your quarterly goals, coach with me. I do bi-weekly. I'm not really offering monthly anymore, because the once a month thing isn't for me and for anyone out there who's a monthly client. You're good, your grandmother or grandfather didn't. We're good, but I'm doing mostly bi-weekly, weekly, and I have some twice a week. I actually have a few that are three times a week. And the reason why is what we talked about just staying on it. So you'll hear me say this stay ignited, stay next level, stay after it, keep after it. You'll hear me say that stuff all the time. And the reason why is because you really need momentum. You can't. We all know you go on vacation. It's very hard to get back.

Kevin Palmieri

It's tough.

Alan Lazaros

It's tough. So if you want to stay motivated, stay consistent, stay accountable and achieve all your quarterly goals, give this a shot. Reach out to me. Facebook, instagram, email they're all in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri

As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan Lazaros

Stay next level, next Level Nation.

Kevin Palmieri

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

Alan Lazaros

We for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family. We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri

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

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host