Next Level University

The Relationship Growth Gap (1989)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Relationships often face the daunting challenge of aligning growth trajectories. In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros dive into the relationship growth gap—when one person is all-in on self-improvement while the other isn’t. They also debate goal-first vs. growth-first mindsets and which wins in the long run. Plus, it’s a fun argument about who will age better!

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

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

Website 💻  http://www.nextleveluniverse.com

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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.

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

Facebook ✍
Alan: https://www.facebook.com/alan.lazaros
Kevin: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.palmieri.90/

Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

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

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Show notes:
(3:01) Growth gaps in relationships
(4:49) Small differences add up over time
(7:01) Are you goal-first or growth-first?
(9:25) Who succeeds more: goal-chasers or growth-seekers?
(12:54) 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. https://bit.ly/4dPeTiD
(14:13) Why long-term goals feel impossible
(20:11) Kevin & Alan’s mindset differences
(23:25) Balancing confidence and humility
(24:53) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin Palmieri:

The goal is to do the next workout better than I did this workout and then eventually, hopefully, if you do that for long enough, you end up in a better spot than you would have. It's almost like is it optimal, Would you have?

Alan Lazaros:

that goal if it wasn't, for it's like you're trying to build a Lego castle. You're not even going to put the first Lego piece. If you don't know what you're trying to build, you just start putting Legos together, yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

You may never get the castle. You may never get the castle, but you, hopefully, will get more Lego pieces on top of one another. It just might not be. It's like the puzzle thing we were talking about before. Maybe you don't know exactly what the end of the puzzle looks like, but realistically you don't really need to know what the end of the puzzle looks like to start it. Just start putting shit together and see what happens. Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin Palmieri, and 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:

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 1,989, that is actually the year I was born. You know how I say that about every episode. We finally got into the place where I can actually say that and it's real. We missed 1988, we did miss my chance we'll have to go to your year of death, so like when we get to like 20, 21, 20 ish I could say this is probably about when alan's going to die.

Kevin Palmieri:

So year of death, okay, kev.

Alan Lazaros:

Yes, people have a weird relationship with mortality. Just so you know. You have a very comfortable relationship with mortality, so you did just kind of brush over a joke about death. I'm just saying that's my apologies.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's coming for all of us.

Alan Lazaros:

It is, yeah, it is coming for all of us.

Kevin Palmieri:

Alan wants to live until a buck 20. He's currently 36. That means he has what 80 plus 40, 84 years left on the planet, so that'll be 2,100.

Alan Lazaros:

Let's make them count.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, let's make them count. Cool, yeah, sorry to start on a negative Relationship growth gap. Should we redo that? Probably Nope, definitely not. Okay, you want to talk? No, no, this is it you know, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alan Lazaros:

This is us being us, this is us trying to be us, if I offended you with any jokes about death.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't mean to do that. I do have a very I'm very comfortable with the understanding that it's going to happen. So I that. But the relationship growth gap why did you want to do this freaking episode? What does it mean? You did a relationship talks event on this and you said you think it would be good to do a deep dive episode.

Alan Lazaros:

Quick, deep dive episode so emilia and I did a relationship talks virtual event last thursday, yes, and it was about getting on the same page about personal growth, and we talked about how, anonymously, there was a couple that we coached for a long time. We actually still are she's coaching them more than I am now but when they first came to us, the man in the relationship was goal oriented but not growth oriented, and so he was achievement oriented but not self-improvement oriented. And that is very much where I was prior to my car accident at 26. I think I was still semi-growth oriented, but the goal was to get the goals. It wasn't necessarily the goal wasn't necessarily personal development, self-improvement, personal growth, and the female in the relationship is extremely growth oriented, working on herself constantly, and when we first started coaching them, they were struggling with this growth gap. Kev, there's a rule Kev. Kevin, tell me, kevin Palmieri, kevin.

Kevin Palmieri:

Edward.

Alan Lazaros:

Kevin Edward. Yes, yes, kevin Edward.

Kevin Palmieri:

Say the. Thing.

Alan Lazaros:

There's a rule called the 1 in 60 rule. Kevin's very afraid of planes planes so he might know this because he researched a bunch about planes to try to mitigate his fear and anxiety on planes okay so apparently there's a one in 60 rule, so if you are one degree off when a plane takes off in 60 miles, you'll be a full mile off course. Did that make sense? Yes awesome okay I'm not.

Kevin Palmieri:

I just want to make it clear. I'm not afraid that the plane's gonna land at the wrong place. I'm afraid the plane's not. The plane's not gonna land at all you know, we land in a different airport, I'll find my way to where I need to be. I'm I'm afraid of other stuff $4,000 Uber, ride, Whatever. Okay.

Alan Lazaros:

So the idea here is there's a honeymoon phase and everything's going well and you're pretty much just living the dream. It's we're falling in love, we're going out, we're kissing for the first time, making love for the first time, we're doing it. This is great, awesome. But you don't necessarily know yet their growth orientation. So picture a dial from zero to ten like a light dimmer. A level ten growth orientation is someone who has a therapist and is masterminding, constantly listening to NLU every day. Growth, growth, growth, growth, books, books, books, do, do, do, awesome, awesome, awesome.

Alan Lazaros:

And what we found the male in this relationship at the time was smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, regularly playing guitar huge fan of this person, by the way, good dude, but just struggle. Bus entrepreneur, struggling. She was very growth oriented, has a very level career, definitely growing financially, blah, blah, blah. So it was kind of they started doing this sort of diverging happening and the male was kind of freaking out. I don't know how to keep up with her, this, that and the other thing.

Alan Lazaros:

So my idea for this episode was everyone out there listening to Next Level you. You are obviously self-improvement oriented, otherwise you would definitely not like this podcast, since the sole purpose of this podcast is to improve yourself so you can improve your life. Do you have a partner who is as growth oriented? And if not, what can we or what do we do about that? Or maybe you're like me and you do self-improvement constantly, but your partner is even more growth oriented than you are, and Emilia definitely is, and I'd say it's pretty close, but I would definitely give it to her. So maybe she's a 10, maybe I'm a 9. And what is the gap? How large is the gap?

Kevin Palmieri:

Because if the gap is large, you might be diverging without knowing it and then eventually that snaps so the thought is goal is you are the type of person who you grow to a goal and it makes you become way more than you would have bet if it was just yeah, okay, that would be the male in the relationship at this point, but he was struggling because he was a new entrepreneur, he left corporate and he wasn't.

Alan Lazaros:

He had a couple down years and you know as well. Yeah, a couple down years can can really affect your self-belief and so all the years in the beginning were down years.

Kevin Palmieri:

It was not great, it sucked badly, okay. And then Growth is somebody who just grows to grow? Yeah, they just like growing.

Alan Lazaros:

Yep. The goal for them is growth After 26,. For me, I kept my goal orientation, but the goal became growth first. So it's syntax For you, Kev, it's goal first, growth. Second, For me it's growth first goal.

Kevin Palmieri:

Second Somebody asked me on a podcast the other day. They said how do you stay so consistent when it comes to growth? How did you learn to like growth? And I said I don't like growth, I still would rather. I love this and I love podcasts, but I don't enjoy learning that much. I'd rather be listening to music. Of course I would. In what world would I rather be listening to some bumping music in the car?

Alan Lazaros:

super important for you to be that, because I think that you'll be able to help people in a different way, because some people really are obsessed with growth and it's not relatable to everybody.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, shout out. Shout out to you. If you're obsessed with growth, growth, shout out to you. Shout it, I do. Yeah, I do think you're probably the rarer.

Alan Lazaros:

Definitely Okay.

Kevin Palmieri:

Okay, what do you think has a higher probability of success? Which of those two?

Alan Lazaros:

External success.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, goal achievement, external goal achievement, the goal-oriented person?

Alan Lazaros:

probably. Goal achievement, external goal achievement the goal oriented person probably no, no, short term, the goal oriented person will always win. Long term, the growth oriented person will always win eventually. And that comes out of nowhere. Well, it's not about the goal, it's about growth. Eventually you cross a threshold where you've just grown so much. Yeah, that makes sense and that comes out of nowhere. Well, it's not about the goal.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's about growth. Eventually, you cross a threshold where you've just grown so much. Yeah, that makes sense.

Alan Lazaros:

When I was younger, in my early 20s, I was very goal-oriented and I was very improvement-oriented toward those goals. But again, I wasn't self-improvement-focused. So it wasn't personal growth, personal development, it wasn't as personal it. If I had done inner work when I was younger, had a therapist younger I mean dude, this is the way I would see it. Alan A is the one that I was the goal-oriented first, growth second, and then I flipped the script at 26 to growth first, goal second and I went broke. By the way. So be careful. But long-term the growth first would have surpassed the goal first person. However, for the first decade it probably would have been alan a who were you, if it looks like the victor growth.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, since 26, I can honestly say I focused on growth more than goal, which which was detrimental at first until I got my goal orientation back up.

Kevin Palmieri:

And that's why you say Al and I always have a running joke. Not really, it's not a joke, it's a serious conversation, but not serious. Serious that you'll be in better shape when you're older than me. Is that because you're growth focused and I'm goal focused? Because you're growth focused and I'm goal focused.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, bianca wouldn't mind me sharing this. She's a client of mine and she used to squat more than me and we used to go to the gym together. She works with Emilia. She's actually the one who introduced me to Emilia, so thank you forever. P Holy crap, best gift of my life. And when Emilia first saw my photo she was like not for me, he's probably a dingus I was very much fitness modeling at that time.

Alan Lazaros:

But I remember B squatted more than me and she used to make fun of me because we'd go to the gym together and she's half my size and she was squatting and I remember thinking, yeah, but you're, you're doing one rep maxes and you're going to blow your shit out potentially and hurt yourself and I'm playing a very long game. Like my goal is to be in ridiculously good shape at at 50, 60, 70, and 80. And her goal was to be in shape now and she has since and she wouldn't mind me sharing this she's since been like, yeah, that was really dumb, cause she hurt her back. And now she's coming back and she's doing the therapy, physical therapy and all that kind of stuff. But she now sees like, oh, okay, yeah, that was very short-term, focused power lifting, unless you're doing it for a living, can be very dangerous if it's ego lifting yeah, for sure, been there, son, been there.

Kevin Palmieri:

Anything more than four reps is cardio, though everybody knows that.

Alan Lazaros:

Everybody knows that, I think anything less than five reps is cardio, though Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think anything less than five reps is reckless, do you really? Yeah, I do.

Alan Lazaros:

Unless you're really really good at it. You have really really good form. Okay, I feel like I have three. I do three sometimes when I'm shooting for five. Sometimes I'll only get three, but, dude, as you get older, that gets dangerous. Well, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta be careful.

Kevin Palmieri:

yeah, you gotta be careful, let's flip the script here for a sec. You still goal first, growth second, what would you give forever?

Alan Lazaros:

it's gonna be that forever so what would you give for advice to someone who used to play the short game 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.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think it's important to have tiered goals, Like right now. I have like a very, very, very short I'm talking this week goal. What do we got? It's with a potential client.

Alan Lazaros:

Oh nice.

Kevin Palmieri:

Do the right things to help this person so I can add more value, so then we can continue to help them, maybe at a deeper level. That that's like. I have a very but like okay, for fitness goals, I don't have a super long one, I don't have the one that you have. I haven't thought that far. Right now it's I want to get down to 165 pounds, which is going to be terrible, but I need ones that lead up to that. Yeah, 100%. So that's the advice I would give myself now or in the beginning, is have a 10-year goal Awesome.

Alan Lazaros:

Great. Does a 10-year goal not motivate you? So when you think of you at 45, that doesn't motivate you.

Kevin Palmieri:

So when you think of you at 45, that doesn't motivate you. It seems like a fantasy world. You think I could get my dream car in 10 years? For sure, it doesn't even seem remotely feasible, just emotionally, logically, sure, but it doesn't matter.

Alan Lazaros:

What would the payment on that thing be? 7 G's a month or something.

Kevin Palmieri:

$225,000 car. So you figure 7 years. Yeah, it'd be a lot. Hold on $225,000.

Alan Lazaros:

5 year payment. I know what we're paying for your Beamer so hold on, let's do some numbers here more than that what's your? Beamer, worth retail. Uh, 50 something, 50, all right. So let's do this, let's do 225.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'm not balling like that people.

Alan Lazaros:

I know you've heard I have a bmw, it's, trust me, it's not the it's not so the payment would be 3500 a month, not including insurance and all that yeah, it's a lot.

Kevin Palmieri:

So you're looking at maybe four, four grand a month for a car.

Alan Lazaros:

You could buy a house, you know but just just a small one, depending on where you live. I know from a logical standpoint. It just doesn't it doesn't seem years, a long time well, yeah, but I see you, that's logical.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, it's logical right.

Alan Lazaros:

Here's the, here's the interesting paradox, and we'll go back to the growth and goal orientation here. Here's the fucking problem if you don't think that's possible, you won't do what's necessary to make it possible well, I think that's why the short and midterm goals are so important.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's because it gives you belief and it gives you trajectory. Yeah, like that I'm telling you, but how do you know what to?

Alan Lazaros:

do if you don't have that end goal.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think you are slightly. You're slightly dissatisfied with the present or you're slightly motivated for a change in the present, and that's what starts it. And then then from there you build momentum and you build awareness. I think that there is something to be said about when you get small goals, you can set more specific, bigger ones, just not necessarily massive ones yet, but those small ones need to hopefully build toward the big ones.

Alan Lazaros:

It's such a paradox. I know it is fascinating. And then, if you want to look good in the present, high self-belief leads to high goals. High goals leads to the necessity for massive failure in the present. If you're avoiding failure in the present, you will not achieve high goals. But you will avoid failure in the present if you don't have the high future orientation. It's almost like we're set up I feel like most people are and myself included, in the past, but in a different way set up for failure in a way Dude, bringing this back to relationships real quick. If you and I took away our goals, we wouldn't even be recording this Right, right. So and again, this is going to sound so ignorant or arrogant or both I don't understand why we would do this if we didn't have a goal. You know what I mean. Like why do things at all if there's no goal attached to it there?

Kevin Palmieri:

is a goal. It just might not be as clear or it might be unconscious or it might not be as constructive. Like again, I work with a lot of podcasters. I don't think, and if you're out there and this is your goal and I don't know it, please forgive me, I'm out here jeffing. I don't know if there's any pot. I don't know if I've ever worked with a podcaster who has the same goal as us to have the most successful yeah anything in in the industry. That's not what most people are playing for like.

Alan Lazaros:

If your goal is to build a tv, you have to go learn about tvs and study tvs and take apart all your tvs and anytime you set a goal, whether it's conscious or not, you immediately have to change everything you do and don't do. Like if we wanted to start a tv company, we would immediately shut this off. Well, and go do something different.

Kevin Palmieri:

I wouldn't say anything and everything I think you have to change. You have to start by changing something Again, the massive action piece. I don't think it's. It doesn't work that way for most people. I didn't change everything when I started a podcast. I changed one thing.

Alan Lazaros:

At a time, yeah, but you changed everything over a period of time.

Kevin Palmieri:

Eventually.

Alan Lazaros:

The way you used to live versus the way you live now.

Kevin Palmieri:

But I started one thing Night and day. Yeah, agreed, so that's my. I guess that's my thesis in this episode is if you want to be, let's say we have a client who wants to be physically independent into his 90s Okay, cool, very specific. Yeah, let's say he didn't have that goal, though, and he has been exercising for a long time. The goal is to do the next workout better than I did this workout and then eventually, hopefully, if you do that for long enough, you end up in a better spot than you would have. It's almost like is it often, would you have?

Alan Lazaros:

that goal if it wasn't, for it's like you're trying to build a Lego castle. You're not even going to put the first Lego piece. If you don't know what you're trying to build, you just start putting Legos together, yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

You may never get the castle, but you, hopefully, will get more Lego pieces on top of one another. It just might not be. It's like the puzzle thing we were talking about before. Maybe you don't know exactly what the end of the puzzle looks like, but realistically you don't really need to know what the end of the puzzle looks like to start it. You just start putting shit together and see what happens.

Alan Lazaros:

Will you be able to complete it as long as you're humble enough to reassess, reassess, reassess. Yeah, yeah, it's weird.

Kevin Palmieri:

This is a very we sure as shit. Shouldn't have done a 20 minute episode on this one because it's very, very. There's way more depth to it, for sure. But I think most people start again. I'll speak for myself, I don't want to say most people. I didn't start thinking we're going to record the 2000th episode in a week and a half or whatever. Never thought that was going to happen. That is now become a. It's just, that's a growth. It's a byproduct of growth.

Alan Lazaros:

Sorry, it's a byproduct of goals.

Kevin Palmieri:

I didn't think of it. I didn't think. Eight years down the line I didn't know what was going to happen. I thought I was going to be doing mindset coaching for high level athletes in the very beginning. Mindset coaching for high level athletes In the very beginning that's what I thought I was going to be doing.

Alan Lazaros:

Oh yeah, remember that. Yeah, I do. Yeah, so you started the podcast knowing that eventually it would stop.

Kevin Palmieri:

I started the podcast knowing I wanted it to start Pretty much. That was it. I didn't. I don't think it would be good for me to have too many expectations because then I probably wouldn't have started. We have to. There's got to be like some level of an asset where it's like the yeah, the optimal starting point, each for each person. If I thought this was going to start at 2000 episodes, I'd continue past 2000 episodes. Honestly, I don't think I ever would have started it because I wouldn't. I could not in that moment believe I would ever get to the place where I could do 2,000 episodes.

Alan Lazaros:

You know what I mean. Me leaning into me last piece. I'm the opposite. If I didn't think we'd get to 2,000, I wouldn't even have started, I know Well.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's why we work so well together.

Alan Lazaros:

Now here's the thing I need to make clear. I think relationships is a good example of this my past relationships that were long-term. At the time I wasn't certain I was going to marry these people, but I wasn't certain. I wasn't going to the moment that I became certain they weren't going to be my wife, my person. The moment I became certain they weren't. What was best was the moment I had to leave, became certain they weren't. What was best was the moment I had to leave. I wasn't certain they would be my person, but I wasn't certain they wouldn't be. Did you intend on them being yes? I never would be in a long-term relationship if it wasn't what I had hoped To me. I'm not certain that you and I will work out forever, but I'm betting on that. I would never have started if I was certain we wouldn't. I mean, that's just a way to fail.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, that makes sense. But I think that's why, when somebody out there struggles with low self-belief in their mind, why start? I think I'm going to fail. There you go. So I'm not going to fucking start. Why am I going to start a podcast? I'm not gonna fucking start. Why am I gonna start a podcast? I'm not gonna be. I'm not gonna be gonna do this forever. Why not? I mean, at the time, that's the way, because I didn't know I had a fixed mindset. I didn't know I could grow like there was just too many.

Alan Lazaros:

There was just too many circumstances that I felt were beyond my control self-belief is the most important thing, and next would be the humility to keep it in reality, because I think some people with high self-belief end up to Lulu and they end up. You know, myself included. I've been very delusional in the past and self-belief is number one, humility is number two. I'm, I'm. And then the third would be self-worth.

Alan Lazaros:

But in terms of external achievement, goal one is self-belief, goal humility and, by the way, those usually don't come together it's very hard to sustain both of those, because when you have more self-belief, it's harder to stay humble and rooted in reality because all of a sudden, you, you start to have all these grander and grander visions well, I don't think sometimes you you want to have with it either.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't think empathy comes with self-belief, because you don't understand that people don't think the way that you think.

Alan Lazaros:

Not that you don't want to empathize, I think it's just hard to yeah, and they pretend they have self-belief because they don't know that they don't right and we're all sort of inner world and outer world, so it's a whole thing we're gonna have to do a part two a lot of part twos.

Kevin Palmieri:

Um, yeah, I, you never know where the episode's gonna go when you start, but I think there's a lot of layers to this one. And even talking about, yeah, do you set a goal for the goal? Do you set a goal for the growth? Do you know how much growth it's gonna take to get the goal? We're gonna do a part two. All right, I love it. I love it as well.

Kevin Palmieri:

April 5th 2025. Next Level Live 2025. Tickets are only $47 for a completely virtual full-day event. You can grow whilst in your pajamas. Alan and I will not be in our pajamas, unfortunately. Alan still has coaching slots available. If you are looking to get to the next level behind the scenes, right, you listen to this podcast, you watch YouTube, whatever it is. There's another opportunity for you. First call is always free as long as you haven't had one before, so we'll have the link in the show notes for a free 30-minute breakthrough session with Alan if you're interested in that. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you At NLU. We do not have fans. We have family.

Alan Lazaros:

We will talk to you all tomorrow, keep it Next Level, next Level Nation.

Kevin Palmieri:

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

Alan Lazaros:

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get ahold 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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