Next Level University

How To Build Will Power Part 2 (1983)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Many people think discipline is the enemy, but what if avoiding it holds you back? In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros continue discussing why willpower is the foundation of success and how to strengthen it step by step. They share real-life examples, the power of tracking habits, and why your environment plays a more significant role than you think. Whether you’re struggling with fitness, finances, or personal growth, this conversation will challenge you to rethink what’s possible.

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We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on Instagram, Facebook, or via email. We’re here to support you in your personal and professional development journey.

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Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

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Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/

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Show notes:
(3:42) The truth about discipline and success
(5:22) Avoiding the shortcut mentality
(7:33) Why right actions must be done long enough
(10:03) How to build willpower
(14:42) Starting small to build confidence
(19:33) The hidden dangers of over-discipline
(21:21) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(27:28) Holding yourself to a higher standard
(32:46) Regret Vs. Progress: Which will you choose?
(38:22) What inspires you to keep pushing?
(40:42) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Alan Lazaros:

How am I supposed to expect the listeners to journal if I'm not journaling? I can't do it. I can't, I will not ever ask someone else to do something that I'm not willing to do, and I think that there's something about that that I deeply crave in the world. I think it's unjust to preach something that you're not practicing.

Kevin Palmieri:

This is the other thing that I think is very important to state what the best version of you would do. Changes in terms of the quality increases. Maybe in the beginning, the best version of you does this thing at 50% Cool. Is that 50% better than the 49% yesterday? Yes, awesome, cool, good for you. Then maybe the next day it's 51%. Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin.

Alan Lazaros:

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

Kevin Palmieri:

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 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 1983, how to Build Willpower, part 2. We said in yesterday's episode we were going to talk about how to, and then we didn't, and again it was a shorter episode. So I wanted to make sure we did a part two where we actually talked about what we said we were going to talk about. So today we're going to talk about how to actually build willpower.

Kevin Palmieri:

Do you think we?

Alan Lazaros:

didn't have enough willpower to teach how to build willpower.

Kevin Palmieri:

No, I think we had plenty. I don't think we had the time to stretch into it. Nice, I think it was more of a circumstantial thing as opposed to maybe skill set is what I would say. Sounds an awful lot like an excuse. Yeah, I would say so. Yep, what if you could only give and obviously we'll go deeper, right, but if you could only give one tip for building willpower I don't know why that's so hard to say what would it be?

Alan Lazaros:

Choose a goal you've always wanted and find out the thing that you kind of can't stand that's necessary to achieve that goal. So for me, it's dieting. Can't stand it, hey, I hate it. I hate dieting, okay, and then you just focus on that each day, because we all, all of us wake up, we have a certain routine.

Alan Lazaros:

If you tried to brush your teeth with your opposite hand, it takes a lot of willpower for sure, whereas if I mean, it doesn't take that much willpower to brush your teeth because you've done it so many times. So there's sort of a again, I don't want to overuse this metaphor, but there's a highway to your existing habits and there's a dirt road to your new habit, and a lot of our goals require us to do something we don't want to do, and then anything that you have to do to get your goal that you don't want to do, requires willpower let me ask you a question.

Kevin Palmieri:

if we, if we just thought purely from this perspective okay, because I know we were talking about we were talking in the previous episode about how there's kind of a push for discipline doesn't work and consistency isn't, is isn't important and that type of stuff On podcasts and social media and stuff like that.

Alan Lazaros:

What was the quote? The guy said If it's for you, you couldn't possibly screw it up.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yes, and then we were like we can't have you on the podcast, man that's dumb Can you go into that real quick.

Kevin Palmieri:

So this is when Alan and I were already kind of on the fence about having guests, for many reasons. One, we were getting busier. And then it's aligning three schedules can be really hard, right, aligning two schedules is hard enough, nevermind three. And we, as we started to get certain guests on, we had we had a guest on who is doing all the circuits tom bill, you all the shows and this person was on like a couple years ago, and after the episode they were just like so arrogant, just like just completely different than they were on the interview. And afterwards we were like we're not gonna drop that episode, right, and we both agreed so we deleted it. And then we had another guest scheduled, I think for the week after or something, and I always go, I always would go through guest social medias the week of or a couple of days before the interview, because I want to know what they're talking about right now, like what are they into, what is their, what's their new thing?

Kevin Palmieri:

I want to know, I want to see what they're all about. And I came across a post on this, on this guy that we're supposed to have on, and it was like a video. That said essentially, if it's meant for you, you can't possibly screw it up, no matter what you do. And I texted Alan and I sent it. I was like dude, I don't want to interview this guy. I don't the only if the honest truth is, if I was interviewing him, the only reason I would have been is because he had a big name and he had a big following. I'm not interested in talking to this dude.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think that's out to lunch. I don't think it's going to be helpful for our audience. It's our job to bring value. I don't think that's going to work. So, yeah, that was the last time we ever booked a guest. Where was I going before that? Well, we're talking about willpower and Got it. I'm in, I'm good, here we go. Okay, you and I let's say you use me as an example I come to you and I say, alan, I have a specific goal that I desire to achieve.

Kevin Palmieri:

I would like to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. And you say cool, this is the strategy, this is how you're going to do it and it's going to suck pretty bad. All right, I appreciate that. Let's say you didn't actually know how to help me hypothetically, in this hypothetical scenario. You do, but let's say you didn't. I'm five weeks in and I've lost one pound and I'm just frustrated and I don't want to do it anymore. And I'm convinced this isn't the way.

Kevin Palmieri:

Somebody comes up to me and says oh, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. All you need to do is insert something here, whatever right Cut carbs, whatever it is that will bring you to your goal, or something it's this supplement, it's this, it's this, whatever. I then do that thing, I still don't get any results, but I feel good in the process. Can you see why that path is followed? That Well done? You might be doing it right, you might have been doing it right. You just didn't do it right for long enough.

Kevin Palmieri:

And here this is a good quote Maybe, or it's going to be dog shit. It's going to be dog shit Definitely Because I lost where I was going to go. There's two thoughts If you do the right thing long enough, something good will probably happen. If you do the wrong thing long enough, nothing is going to happen. Honestly, it's going to be probably pretty bad, but it's the long enough thing. You have to figure out the right thing, you have to do it the right way and you have to do it for the right amount of time. None of the wrong things are ever going to work, no matter how much you do them.

Kevin Palmieri:

Unless it's just accidental, Good sorry.

Alan Lazaros:

How often do you I do think this is sort of a me thing, but I want listener viewer anyone Kev. How often do you go into the future 10 years and go? Ah, I'm fucked if I don't change 10, never, maybe five.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, okay, never, maybe five. Okay, think about something you're doing or not doing right now and go five years into the future. If you don't change that, you're in trouble. You're in some trouble right. So people think, oh well, you just like discomfort. No, I'm going into the future and seeing, holy shit, I am screwed if I don't change this now.

Alan Lazaros:

So Kev used to say you're so disciplined. I said I'm more aware of the downside of not being disciplined. I'm not that. Yes, I am. But like when you have a goal, this is the formula the more you have self-belief, the higher you will set a goal. The higher your goal, the higher your standards need to be in the moment. The higher your standards are in the moment, the more willpower you have to develop. The more willpower you develop, the more likely you achieve said goal. When you do get to the goal, you decide shit. I do or do not want to double down on that, and it's a process that you rinse and repeat. So, but it all starts with self-belief and if you don't believe it's possible for you, if you don't believe it's possible, possible for you or worth it, you're never going to even start that process.

Alan Lazaros:

Self-belief is everything it's a's a big, it's a massive piece as someone who has a lot of willpower, who has built a lot of willpower, who, when I met him, has had significantly less than he does now.

Kevin Palmieri:

But still above average, I would say probably.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah agreed.

Kevin Palmieri:

I just I want to make sure that's accurate, because it's not like I went from zero to 10.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah agreed, agreed. How did you build it? How do you build it? Because there's some people who love tracking metrics. Let me, let me read this real quick, and then I want to ask my question. So someone reached out to me and said I have to say I've been tracking since group coaching.

Alan Lazaros:

I missed a couple of months in the fall and damn, did I notice a difference. Exclamation point Off the fucking rails, alan. Exclamation point Nice. Hardly any meditation, no finances jeffing all around, almost no misses on exercise and reading, though Of course they are the things that I love doing and have been doing for my entire life. Okay, aka, the things she loves don't require that much willpower. The things that she doesn't love, all of us require willpower. Okay, and if anyone out there believes they should be able to like live a life where they don't do things they don't want to do, you're there's no candy land. You're that's not a thing. There's no. Um, I think I want to. I think I want to be an astronaut and then just not do anything about it, just hang out just hang that was my strategy early on.

Kevin Palmieri:

Let me tell you didn't work, unfortunately. I tried it didn't work.

Alan Lazaros:

She said this I just hate tracking, even though it takes literally two minutes at the end of the day to go through the list. I'm trying to figure out why I have strong resistance to it. I do see the difference in my life and I probably wouldn't have gotten into tracking at all if it weren't for NLU. Thank you, so all the love for setting me up for a better life, aka setting you up for massive self-disappointment. I'm obviously joking, but tracking is nothing more or less than just accountability and when you, when you track, the reason why people don't like it, I think, is because it basically shows you where you suck. It shows you where you're sucking. My PPT right now is probably an average of like 67% something like that I could look it up.

Alan Lazaros:

It's probably. I know it's not above 75% because in our tracker it turns green if you're above 75%. So I'm 67% great or 33% terrible. Whichever way you want to look at it, it's both. Both are true. But my system is 24 habits with, I think, nine metrics as of yesterday. So 67% of my current system is world-class compared to when I was 18. When I was 18, I wasn't tracking anything right, at least not on Google Sheets or writing it down. I was tracking everything in my head. Now my question for you, kev you track. Now You've got what? 10 metrics, 18 habits, something like that. It's a lot. I look at your tracker every day because I look at listens and you track the listens I don't know what it is.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's there's there, it's good, it's a full spreadsheet.

Alan Lazaros:

There's a lot going on in there well, at the beginning, five habits you were like, nope, that sucks, I don't even want to do that. Now you're tracking all that and now you're on track and you will achieve, statistically speaking, a lot more. And and not only that, let's not talk about what you're gonna do, let's talk about what you've already done. You have your own business, you work from home, you're married, you have a nice place, you have a beautiful luxury car, you have a team 16 person team you get to do what you love every day quote, unquote and a lot of shit you hate and you Make a lot of money. There's you're, you're living, you're in shape and everything's progressing in the positive direction Within reason. Not everything, but most things health, wealth and love. You're in shape and everything's progressing in the positive direction Within reason, not everything but most things Health, wealth and love.

Alan Lazaros:

You're healthy, wealthy and, in love. Fair, I would say that's fair. Okay, take willpower out of the equation. None of that is possible.

Kevin Palmieri:

Nope.

Alan Lazaros:

So my question for you is how the hell did someone go from lost, not even wanting to be here, to living your dream?

Kevin Palmieri:

One, and this is like the NLU. Unsexy thing is you just gotta start super small. So here, even when you were saying it, I'm 67% great and 33% terrible. That's maybe Alan's self-talk. I don't think that should be most people's, just because maybe you don't have the self-belief or self-worth to do that. Yet If you have three habits, it makes it way easier to say I'm 100% accurate right now.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's why we start small, because in the beginning you want to set yourself up for wins, win, win, win, win. I don't want you to start off by just taking L's, start off by getting some W's. That's one thing is. I started off by getting some W's, it's like, oh yeah, I can do this, I can track my bank account every day.

Kevin Palmieri:

How long does it really take? And even in that person's message, shout out to whoever that is, I don't know, because Alan keeps everything anonymous just for privacy, but I think they even said in the message I know it only takes like two minutes at the end of the day that right, there is a really good awareness. So you know it's not time. Cool, great, great. That's a really good place to start. You know how long it takes to track your bank account. Doesn't take that long. Well, five minutes. I mean we could do ours in five minutes and there's a ton of.

Kevin Palmieri:

I track it every day right right and there's a ton of there's money that comes in, there's a lot of money that goes out in a bunch of different places. So there's a lot of line items but you can do it in five minutes if you're really dialed in. So one is is start small. Start almost embarrassingly small because it's behind the scenes, nobody's going to see it, just you, and you'll actually start to feel belief when you do it. You'll start to recognize, when you start to believe. And kev started with five, five and honestly that was probably too much. I probably I probably should have started with three, based on what we, what we know now. I was working really closely with you, so it's a little bit different what was that like, like?

Alan Lazaros:

what is it not working with me? What was it like to be the only one tracking fucking habits? Dude, that is blowing my mind like I felt. I can't even imagine going back to winging it. I don't think it felt good.

Kevin Palmieri:

in the beginning. I think it felt like it felt I understand why people have a negative relationship with discipline. I do I understand Because I think most of the things that they've been disciplined in were inaccurate, so they didn't get the results. So they have a negative relationship with discipline, not with the strategy. It doesn't matter how disciplined you are if you're doing the wrong things.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, that's true.

Kevin Palmieri:

You'll probably improve to a degree, but you're most likely not going to get to where you want to get to.

Alan Lazaros:

So I understand, and even if you're doing the right things, if you don't do them long enough right?

Kevin Palmieri:

it doesn't matter. Yeah, so you almost don't. I put it, I I took a today. It was like today's the day I'm going to do the shirtless picture.

Alan Lazaros:

The back, not the front. Yeah, okay, it went honestly, the iPhone dude.

Kevin Palmieri:

Very honestly, it went worse than I thought. Very honestly.

Alan Lazaros:

It's in.

Kevin Palmieri:

WhatsApp it's on my story. I've been Take a glimpse of this warlock. I've been working really, really, really hard, really hard and really disciplined, and I've been hitting the gym and I've been I've been gently tracking calories. I know I'm eating under, but I I've been doing this since almost two months.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, that's a 35 year old man right there. That's a 35 year old man. Not, that's not a peak 35 year old man. I, man, I've been dieting for two months.

Kevin Palmieri:

Alan, two months yeah, almost, yeah, two months and I've lost 10 pounds. Doesn't look like it Doesn't really look like I lost 10 pounds. I don't think I look almost any different than I did at the beginning. During some of my workouts I do, but I could see why somebody would say, yeah, this isn't what I thought it was going to be. Like this, isn't it? What if? What if? What if discipline's not the problem? What if consistency and I mean doing more of it is not the problem? What if consistency is not the problem? What if it's strategy and or maybe goals that don't serve you? Why is discipline the bad thing? I think the reason discipline seems like the bad thing is because when you do it and have regrets, you blame it. Ah, yeah, but why do you have regrets? Is it because of discipline, or maybe is it because of something else?

Kevin Palmieri:

I was talking to somebody recently and I've known this person for a long time. This person and I were into fitness together and they said I've just this person for a long time. This person and I were into fitness together and they said I've just been fucking up when it comes to tracking calories. I'm just out completely. And I said it's the worst. I said Do you think it's because you were so disciplined for so long, even when you didn't need to be? And they said, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I just built up a negative relationship with it. Okay, you could have dialed it back a little bit. You didn't have to track every calorie just because you didn't have to, because now you're not tracking any calories at all. That was you. That wasn't the discipline. It was what you thought you had to do. It was your relationship with your body. It wasn't necessarily the discipline. So I think there's just layers under it. So, yeah, all that, and it feels good when you accomplish something, and then you compare it to what would have happened if you didn't.

Kevin Palmieri:

I, tara and I have been crushing, not ordering out, Nice we. I did get it. I got to talk to you. I went out to dinner the other night. It was $200. Now here's the thing I had a gift card. So it was literally like this was going to be Tanner and I's big celebration. We're going to use a gift card that we have Gift card didn't work. They're like, hey, gift cards are really finicky, doesn't work. Oh, I said, should you use this other card? I said yeah, no, yeah, I mean you could, you could, yeah, you could do that so gift card didn't work but how do you get that money?

Kevin Palmieri:

back? I'm not entirely sure yet we're working on it behind the scenes because we have like maybe 700 in gift cards that are completely rendered useless and we can't figure out how to spend them. Amazon will take them. They'll take anything that's my thought Gas stations. There's going to be some plays. Don't worry about it, I'm on it, I'm thinking about it, but we have been really, really, really good, really good lately.

Alan Lazaros:

Now, what do you get from that? Because that's the thing If you don't have a goal. None of this is even. There's no point.

Kevin Palmieri:

You get almost nothing in the short run. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I think you get. I think you get self-worth. You guys are going to buy a house.

Alan Lazaros:

That's what you're going to get. Kevin and Taryn are going to buy a house and it's going to be magnificent, I know, but it seems so.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think you get the momentary feeling of putting a proverbial coin in the bank, Like best self did better than what less than best self would have done. That feels good, because that's essentially what I've been trying to do is reward yourself by giving yourself good feelings when you do the thing that you know you're supposed to do.

Alan Lazaros:

Hello, hello, hello. Nlu listener, reward yourself by giving yourself good feelings when you do the thing that you know you're supposed to do 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. They talk in the book Willpower about self-esteem and know that it doesn't build self-esteem to fake it till we make it, so to speak, okay. I cheated on vocab tests when I was in high school. Not all of them, but there was a couple that I cheated on. All right, I told the story about it Doesn't matter. The point is is we had a? I had a teacher that did not take teaching seriously. Kev knows who I'm talking about. I wasn't going to fucking learn anything.

Kevin Palmieri:

I didn't care.

Alan Lazaros:

I was a math and science guy. I cheated on some vocab tests. Okay, I didn't feel good about myself doing that that you're never going to build authentic self-esteem by taking a shortcut, and one of the things that really pisses me off in my life is when my brain wants to take a shortcut. It pisses me off. It's like Alan, why would you do that? The point of this is to build self-esteem and self-belief and self-worth and to be a better person. How is it going to make you a better person to not re-rack your fucking weights? And I can't.

Alan Lazaros:

I'm telling you right now, emilia and I are in the gym. It's crowded. Awesome, okay, go, go, go. Sign language, let's get it. 45 minutes, get as much done as possible. Frequency, intensity, density, duration awesome goals, dreams pop.

Alan Lazaros:

Now, okay, she's moving on picking the next two workouts because we do flip flops I have. I'm behind because I'm sweating like a fat kid, okay, and I need to wash the machines. I cannot, kev, cannot go to the next workout without washing the machines. Can't do it to the next workout without washing the machines. Can't do it. One time I forgot. I went back and rewashed the machine because I can't live with myself knowing that I didn't give every fucking ounce. I did to be the best man I can be, and I think the reason why and I don't want to make this about me, the reason why is because imagine if the world was like that. Can you imagine if everybody did the right thing, if everybody picked up litter, if everybody was a good person, the world would be such a better place. So I can't. This is the way that I think and I hope that this lands. How am I supposed to be upset with someone bullying someone while I'm being a bully? How am I supposed to be upset with you spending fucking money that we don't have if I'm spending money we don't have? How am I supposed to expect the listeners to journal if I'm not journaling? I can't do it, I can't. I will not ever ask someone else to do something that I'm not willing to do, and I think that there's something about that that I deeply crave in the world.

Alan Lazaros:

I think it's unjust to preach something that you're not practicing, and I think that's one of the reasons we didn't have guests Is because we would interview these people who we knew were not practicing what they preach behind the scenes, when no one's watching, because the moment those cameras and lights shut off, they were saying things and doing things that were not in alignment with what they just preached and, at the end of the day, I think that self-esteem, to the point of the book willpower. What they found, based on the research, is that real self-esteem can never come from cheating on a vocab test dopamine can. You can look cool and get dopamine and look like an awesome oh, I got a hundred, go me. But authentic self-esteem self-worth inside you can only be built through saying you're going to do something and then mustering the courage and tenacity and willpower to actually follow through with the highest good. When you are not the best version of yourself, you're literally guaranteeing that you're a worse person in the future and that perpetuates. It's like a virus that spreads.

Alan Lazaros:

Some of the people that I was around growing up were really fucking racist, and I wasn't racist, but I was. I was tolerating it as a kid. I tolerated it because I didn't know any different, but deep down it it hurt my self-esteem and it hurt my self-worth because I knew it was unjust, I knew it wasn't right and there's something about that that's just so important and I I just, I just hope that the world can set a higher standard and build their willpower, and that means you got to get good sleep. It means I just shout out to anyone out there that's doing all they can with all they have to be the best person they can be, because that is what spreads. It does it spreads.

Alan Lazaros:

We all have someone who inspires us. We all have someone to look up to, we all have something to aspire to and it does it spreads. Covid was so scary because it spread exponentially and we had the six feet distancing. And I think this is a really cool metaphor of I'm very careful with who I allow near me, because I don't want them. I don't want their shitty habits and their bad mentalities and their bully tendencies and their victimhood to get on me. I want to be around people who inspire me. Emilia inspires me more than any other human on this planet and I'm so, so lucky to have her in my life and that stems from inside of her. I'm not telling her to exercise every day. I'm not telling her to be a good person. She is that through her own accord, and I know that all of us are, are capable of that, and I think that that's really the point of this whole willpower thing epic monologue.

Kevin Palmieri:

Epic monologue I was gonna go just very tactical how to is very tactical for me and I know we didn't in the previous episode.

Kevin Palmieri:

I I mean, yeah, I agree, I don't. Unfortunately, I again, I have a, a tattoo of an angel and devil playing chess for control, the the world on my chest and my sleeve and the devil's winning and I, I don't know. I think if people didn't litter, we wouldn't have to pick up litter. You know, it's like you wouldn't have to pick up litter because there would be none. Yeah, in this, in this ideal world, I think so, instead of us being upset about it let's change our own.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's it. Behavior yeah, that's it, yeah, that's. I think that's really all you can, all you can do and this is this is the other thing that I think is very important to state what the best version of you would do. Changes in terms of the quality increases. Maybe in the beginning, the best version of you does this thing at 50% Cool. Is that 50% better than the 49% yesterday? Yes, awesome, cool, good for you. Then maybe the next day it's 51%. I think that's an important thing. Is it changes? It's so much different than it was at the beginning.

Kevin Palmieri:

In terms of willpower, it's not Going to the gym isn't necessarily that hard. Getting up is Once I'm awake. I'd rather go to the gym than just come into the office. I'd rather do that. I'd feel better. So maybe the willpower isn't just doing the thing, it's the thing around the things. That's a big piece of it. That's why you'll hear Alan say this all the time, and he used to say it a lot more when we talked more about fitness and exercise You've got to make sure the gym is close, because the last thing you want to do is drive 25 minutes to the gym. If you have one closer, it takes more willpower to drive. 50 minutes total for a gym session.

Alan Lazaros:

It just does Way more.

Kevin Palmieri:

Exponentially more. Just like turn it on the other end. If you have a McDonald's five minutes down the road, it's harder. If you have a McDonald's five minutes down the road, it's harder. If you like McDonald's, it's harder than if it was an hour away. If it was an hour away, you wouldn't even know it was there, probably. So it wouldn't, it wouldn't trigger you, it wouldn't ping you. So I just think that I just think it's important to understand that number one best version of you evolves and best version of you evolves and grows. The best version of Kev is drastically different than seven year ago.

Kevin Palmieri:

Best version I wanted to do better and I wanted to be the best me, but I wasn't as capable in certain ways. That's one thing and I think the other thing is figure out where is the cutoff right now when it comes to discipline and willpower. Is it the actual thing or is it the thing around the things? We've talked about this before the two Ds of consistency, discipline and design. Design is I'm going to make it as easy for myself as humanly possible. Discipline is I've made it as easy for myself as humanly possible and it still sucks. But I'm going to do it and I feel like. If you can marry those two together, it makes it a little bit easier. It's still going to be challenging. I think it's supposed to be. I think success is supposed to be challenging because it's outside the realm of what the normal population does. So of course it's going to be. It's going to be challenging. It's that's what separates the results right.

Alan Lazaros:

It's it's effort and discipline and consistency and grit and all that willpower, all that stuff yeah, and if you were to have a measurement of Kev how he feels about himself now versus eight years ago, I'm sure it wouldn't be close.

Kevin Palmieri:

No, I feel very competent. That's the other thing is, when you set goals and you actually start to believe you can get them, then the downside is there, the down. So I know I can get to 165 pounds, I'm certain of it. I'm certain of it. Now, when I screw that up, that hurts more, like at a personal level. It's like kev, you're, you're fucking up in real time. You're actively moving away from what you said.

Alan Lazaros:

You wanted brutal sucks brutal, but that's his internal dialogue. A lot of people would say, well, that's have more self-compassion. It's the truth. Is that's not not self-compassion no, I want to get that's you being, that is loving yourself. That is you holding yourself to a higher standard. That's that's kev coaching himself, saying I believe in you, you know you can do this.

Kevin Palmieri:

And I still love me. I love me, but I have a goal that I know I can accomplish and that I know is deeply meaningful to me, and I know I'll feel super fulfilled when I do it, and I know it's probably going to suck for most of the time. And how are you going to feel if you don? I do it and I know it's probably gonna suck for most of the time and how are you gonna feel if you don't do it? I'm gonna regret it tremendously yeah, and that's what's driving right, and I, I guess, what am I gonna say?

Kevin Palmieri:

oh, next year, yeah, I'll do it next year. No, there's only so many more of those, there's only so many more of those. Next years I'm, I'm gonna push everything till I'm 90, be old as shit. You know, I'm not gonna get a six pack at 90, probably, maybe, probably not, probably not almost guaranteed, not depending on what drugs you want to do.

Alan Lazaros:

I don't know if there's enough. Last piece here they talked about new year's resolutions and how it's mid-february, right now, and if you have this long list of resolutions at the beginning, you're setting yourself up for failure because there's just not enough willpower to do all of them simultaneously. That's why we do health, wealth and love and we're sticking to that, because being successful at all three of those, if you're top 1% in health, wealth and love, that's one over a hundred. To the third power, which is you're one in a million, that's one in a million. I think that willpower plus humility humility to start small. Humility to know that you can't slough it off. Humility to know that you have to be careful and keep the cookies out of the out of the room. Emilia and I, we designed our whole house to make sure that temptation is limited. I know that sounds boring, but one of the things that I want to share about Kev too. Hopefully he doesn't mind. He keeps it simple. The dude doesn't have a complex life. You're not trying to. You have three things that you're trying to be really good at, just three. You want to be a great husband. You want to be a great husband, you want to be a great podcaster and business owner and you want to be fit. You're not winning at anything else. I'm not trying to be unkind, but there's not enough willpower. This book talks about the research. So don't just hear it from me, but read the book. It talks about how you're not going to be awesome at 12 things.

Alan Lazaros:

When I was a kid, dude, I loved being good at basketball and I loved doing backflips on the trampoline and I loved swimming. I was a really strong swimmer and I loved volleyball and I loved football. And when you're a kid, you like to be good at stuff and you like to compete and it's a lot of fun. And I played soccer and I played track and I did all the different stuff. And there was decathlon and I did cross country. I kind of sucked at that, even though I realized it was mostly because I wasn't willing to suffer, even though I should have, because in hindsight, blah, blah, blah and we had one of the best runners in the freaking country. Actually it was making me feel pretty bad. You know who I'm talking about. Dude going up against him was. It doesn't matter what I do, I don't care how hard I work. This dude makes it look easy.

Alan Lazaros:

But the point is is that I used to want to be good at everything. I wanted to get good at everything. I loved the process of mastery Smart. I always didn't like how come you can't be athletic and intelligent? How come you can't be good looking and a nerd? How come you can't build computers and be good at video games and get hot girls? How come you can't? But I always wanted to prove to myself and to the world that you can be whatever you aspire to. Now the naive version of this is. Now I realize how unreasonably difficult that is, and that's why anyone who wins olympic gold medals at the highest level they like. Michael phelps is the most successful olympic athlete in history. He has 23 gold medals, but they're all in swimming. He's not also running, and I think it's really important for all of us to decide for ourselves what we care about, because when you narrow that down this is what I've been telling my clients a lot when we narrow your circle of concern, when we narrow your focus, your impact gets way bigger, and Kevin and I are working really, really hard.

Alan Lazaros:

Fitness is a full-time job Sleep, hydration, nutrition, training, mobility, breath, work, supplementation. I got to take my vitamins Okay, I got to do this. Okay, I got to protein pancakes. Okay, okay, I got to weigh myself 195.6. Okay, awesome. Okay, I'm trying to get. Okay, good, good, good, it's a full-time job.

Alan Lazaros:

Being in shape is a full-time job. That's why most people who have kids because that's a full-time job get out of shape. That's why it's called dad bod. Why do you think it's called dad bod? Because the moment I got pets and I got out of shape, never mind kids, I don't even have children yet, so it's very, very hard.

Alan Lazaros:

So I think that ultimately, narrow it down, start really, really, really small, and then stay with it, stay with it and iterate and stay with it and iterate and you will eventually get results that people envy. And the goal isn't to be enviable. The goal is to have a magnificent fucking life, and I know that we can do that if we try really hard and we stay consistent. But it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be overnight and it does. It inspires people. I think that's why people watch the olympics because it's inspiring. It's really inspiring, inspires people. I think that's why people watch the Olympics because it's inspiring. It's really inspiring. These people get one shot every four years. Can you imagine dedicating every day for four years and then losing? To me, that's the most inspiring shit in the world, because bronze and silver they're still the third best on planet Earth. They're the second best in the world and they dedicated their life to something, and I think that's why it inspires so many people.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't watch the Olympics because it's on during the day and I have to work. Unfortunately, never been a fan really of the Olympics, because I don't understand. You know I love curling. You ever watch curling? That's the one where they have the broom on the ice. They clean the spot. It's pretty cool, Pretty cool game. You would watch curling.

Alan Lazaros:

I don't know. I've always been drawn to that.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's like ooh, there's a lot of strategy in it. It's almost like the opposite. It involves very little athletic prowess and a lot of touch and thinking. What inspires you? There's, and a lot of like touch and thinking. What inspires you I? There's a bodybuilder named Sam Sulik. I talk about him all the time. I definitely have like a low-key man crush on him. He just seems like a good dude and he went from essentially nobody and nobody knew him and then he started a TikTok and he got in really good shape Again. He takes steroids. He's fairly open about it and he just competed in a show and won and he's just like so humble but he's like one of the most jacked people on the planet. That that inspires me, the amount of work that he's put in the consistency and it doesn't seem like he lost sight of being a good man in the process. That's always inspired me. That's always inspired me. That's always inspired me. People are in really good shape. I think that's always inspired me more than almost anything else.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, you can't fake that. You can't fake that. That takes so much work. Yes, you can take steroids. It still takes a ton of work. You can win the lottery.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't know how your relationship really is behind the scenes, but when you show up and you take your shirt off, that's what you've created. I respect that. I have a lot of respect for that yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

Same.

Kevin Palmieri:

All right, we actually talked about how to today. Go us, look at us. We stuck, kind of sorted, to the script. Alan still has spots available for one-on-one coaching if you are looking to really, really really take it to the next level. Again, if you listen to this podcast every day, you are doing it and you're probably tracking habits and you're staying consistent and probably have above average willpower, so strong work. But if you're looking for that extra kick, that extra accountability, that extra strategy, alan can help you with that for sure. We'll have his link in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri:

And then Next Level, live 2025, april 5th 2025, is a totally virtual event, so we're going to live stream this on Zoom. It's going to be a full day event. Alan, myself and Amy, we're going to bring our best stuff and there's going to be breakout sessions. You can literally get to the next level whilst in your pajamas, which, when we record episodes, I'm always wearing pajamas on the lower half of my body. So it'll be a little bit different for me that day because I'll actually have to dress up, but you won't have to and that's pretty freaking cool, if you ask me. 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:

Keep it Next Level.

Kevin Palmieri:

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

Alan Lazaros:

Level family. We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri:

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

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