Next Level University

How Do You Get Over The Fear of Social Judgment? (2005)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In today’s episode of Next Level University, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros tackle the fear of social judgment and why being known is often a requirement for success. They share insights on handling criticism, building a strong reputation, and pushing past the discomfort of being seen. If fear of judgment has ever held you back, this conversation will give you the clarity and confidence to move forward.

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Show notes:
(2:31) Can you be wildly successful and unknown?
(4:34) The power of reputation in business
(6:39) Influence and industry recognition
(9:09) Perception, judgment, and the power of influence
(12:45) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-live/
(18:56) Facing fear and embracing visibility
(24:29) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Alan Lazaros:

If no one's listening to this podcast, we cannot be, we cannot build a successful business. It's impossible. So what's your thoughts on everyone who put unknown? What would you unpack for them? Because what I would say is my goal is to help everyone. You can't succeed, you can't be wild. I think being wildly successful and not being known at all is impossible. That's mathematically impossible.

Kevin Palmieri:

I would say identify. Why first Identify. Why Is it because you're afraid of judgment? Is it because you're afraid of success? Is it because you think you might lose yourself? I would dig into that, because I would argue that somebody who has worked on themselves internally first is way more prepared for external success. Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin Palmieri, and I'm your co-host, Alan Lazarus. At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Alan Lazaros:

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

Kevin Palmieri:

We bring you a new episode every single day, on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits and defining your own unique version of success.

Alan Lazaros:

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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. Today for episode number 2005. How do you get over the fear of social judgment? So we did by. We, amy, did a post in Next Level Nation, our private Facebook group. If you want to join, we'll have the link in the show notes and it was essentially. It was a really cool visual, but would you rather be famous for something that you love, or unknown but wildly successful? And I'm pretty sure so there's 19 comments. Did anyone say famous? Every single person said unknown, including me and including Alan, and Alan screenshotted it and he sent it to me and he said dude, this has to be something right. And you actually beat me to it because I saw that and I was thinking that would make for a really good episode.

Alan Lazaros:

Where will we go? I don't know.

Kevin Palmieri:

But I said well, what do you think it is? You think it's the fear of judgment? Do you think it's the fear of failure? And Alan said I think it's probably the fear of judgment. So here, here's the downside. It's really hard to be wildly successful and unknown, at least to some. I mean, there are definitely musical artists out there's artists out there that are, you know, painters or whatever, whatever other artists there are who I've never heard of, but they have a very large following. I'm just not in that community. So even that, yeah, maybe you're not known by the entire population. Maybe this isn't like you're not going to be Johnny Depp, right? Maybe you're saying like I don't want to be Johnny Depp, you're not going to be Johnny Depp, right? Maybe you're saying like I don't want to be Johnny Depp, but for every Johnny Depp there is somebody local that's really well known. So I don't know, can you really be as successful as you want and completely unknown? That's kind of where this episode is coming from.

Alan Lazaros:

I had a mentor early on who took me through when I first went to start investing because I had a bunch of extra capital in corporate. I went to him and I asked what he does, where does he invest his money, why? And he wrote down this list of things that matter. And one of them on there was your reputation, and I think that I tried to explain this in the group coaching session yesterday we had a connection session, showed up to group 17, voices unleashed. I tried to talk about branding and marketing and how everyone has a reputation and when you say a certain word, people associate you with that word. So if I say I'm an engineer, everyone has a certain meaning they associate to that. Okay, so probably calculated, probably pretty smart, probably math and science, whatever, right, right. So there was a person in group coaching who none of us in the room knew what she did. We all thought she was a financial advisor. She wasn't, and I said we were trying to help with branding and marketing.

Alan Lazaros:

I'll bring this into why this is important. I don't think that you can be this is my sort of bold statement to start. I don't think you can be super successful without being somewhat known, at least in your industry, and this mentor. No one would know his name if I were to say his name right now. It's sort of like if you're in New England, everyone knows who Tom Brady is. If you're in Canada, you might not know who Tom Brady is. Tom Brady is a Patriots quarterback for 20 years, the most successful NFL player in history, and I've learned over the years as a speaker, trainer, coach, podcaster that the world is like a giant high school, but it's different cliques. So in the podcasting space, there's certain people that everyone knows, even though outside of that industry. So so let me, let me break this down. Kevin and I went to the same high school. If I say who's the biggest jock, there's three names that I could name he's going to think of at least one of them mike. What if mike would be one of them? John would be one of them, right, okay. So everything is like that, but in in the world, and so if you want to be really successful, you have to be known. Mike would be one of them. John would be one of them, right, okay. So everything is like that, but in the world, and so if you want to be really successful, you have to be known as really good at that thing. And, unfortunately, if you're known as really good at that thing, you also have to be somewhat famous. So my answer I forget what exactly it was verbatim, but my answer was I would prefer to be unknown and really wildly successful.

Alan Lazaros:

However, I think fame will have to be an inevitable part of what we do, because I like being the behind the scenes guy, I like being, I like one-on-one coaching better than I like podcasting. But the podcast allows me to reach more people and cast a wider net which allows me to find more people that eventually coach with me. Kevin's the opposite. He likes, he still coaches. So we both coach, we both podcast. He's podcasting first wide net, breadth over depth. I'm depth over breadth and that's why on the show you kind of get both and I tend to go really deep and he tends to bring us back to the surface and make jokes the being put.

Alan Lazaros:

But ultimately, if you're going to be successful, really successful, it would be nearly impossible to do that without being at least known in your space or in your town or in your whatever your sector. So, serena Williams, tennis, oprah Winfrey, media, tony Robbins, speaker, evan Carmichael, youtube you can name any famous person and you can name the thing easily. You're going to be famous for that thing. Fame is influence. Influence is success. It's almost impossible to become successful without influencing other people. If I don't know, if no one knows that coaching is a value, no one can come to my coaching. So I don't want to be famous. I feel like to some extent I have to be, even though I genuinely don't actually enjoy it Like I've. I've had some people run into me in my town and all this stuff, and Emilia and I always have our hats down and I don't even want anyone to notice me. Like, genuinely, I literally don't want any of that. I just want to focus. But I also know that it's a necessity and I think that's a really vulnerable conversation because I think when I was a kid there was a part of me that wanted to be famous and then I think I got my tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny taste of it, and I was like

Alan Lazaros:

fuck this. This is terrible, and the reason why it's terrible is everybody wants something from you or they like they judge the hell out of you, and I think that that's what it comes down to. Everyone that wrote unknown number one. Everyone's writing unknown, so that's probably influencing that, but the other piece of it is you're gonna get. You can't be famous, well-known and successful without being judged. It's impossible. If I give a speech in front of a thousand people, I have a thousand reputations. I only have one character. I only have one real Alan. There's only one real Alan, but there's a thousand opinions and that's terrifying. It's honestly terrible. I just want to be honest.

Kevin Palmieri:

Keanu does it. You know, everybody loves Keanu. Why can't I be Keanu?

Alan Lazaros:

Well does it. You know, everybody loves keanu. Why can't I be keanu?

Kevin Palmieri:

well, keanu has gotten some shit too, I'm sure right well, and I do believe he's also been through a lot of shit and I think that's probably one of the reasons he's a humble human, but potentially I don't know never met him. Love to, would love to meet keanu. You know, maybe I take the new york subway. He's sitting there, keanu. What's up, dog? How you been living? We'll have a conversation.

Alan Lazaros:

Talk to me about this. There are a lot of famous people that a lot of people like. There are a lot of famous people that a lot of people don't like. I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Some of it is because some of these people are are obviously not very good people, and then some of it is just perception and um, it's really tough because from the outside in, you are one version of who you are, and then from the inside out, you're you're another version. You're always you, but your reputation in high school is not who you actually are. Right.

Alan Lazaros:

And your reputation in your industry isn't either.

Kevin Palmieri:

I understand why. I think there's two thoughts. One I understand why most people would say unknown, because it seems like you get all the benefits with none of the detriments you know. Imagine like well it was. You do something you love, right Famous, for something you love, unknown, but wildly successful. Yeah, how much easier would it be if you just won the lottery. You just won $500 million and nobody knew your name. That would make life different, but quote, unquote a lot easier and nobody would be knocking down your door and there would be no paparazzi and none of that. But I think so.

Kevin Palmieri:

I want to make sure, sure this conversation we actually touch on what we said we were going to talk about. This is the thing again you don't go from most people, don't go from completely unknown to overnight sensations over the course of a month. That happens so rarely that I think one of the one of the things about social judgment is you get it along the way and it still sucks and it's still not fun and it still hurts, but you get it along the way and then you are able to deal with it more. I know now last night I was getting it was like 7.45 I told Taryn, I said I'll be in in a couple minutes. I just gotta check my messages and there was something going on with a client and I was like I'm gonna need some time, gotta figure some stuff out here, gotta move some pieces around, I'm gonna take care of it. Normally that would have wrecked my entire day, like something isn't right with a client, I have to fix it. Normally that would have I mean, not normally two years ago that would have fucked my entire night up. I wouldn't be able to sleep. Rectified the situation, team's on it. Good, all good Message. The client Cool it. That used to be like a level eight stressor, now it's like a level two.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think social judgment's similar, except most of us never start the process of building momentum Again. You've got to. You've got to experience it to see how you respond to it. And then the goal is next time let me respond a little bit better. So I understand why everybody would say unknown, same, same, of course Same. But if you're unknown you also don't get the other side of being able to potentially make somebody's day Because nobody knows who you are. You can still make someone's day, but they have an expectation of who you are. If you over-deliver on the expectation, now you're Keanu. If you under-deliver on the expectation, now you're. Whoever didn't have time for the person? Oh, they wouldn't take a picture of me, or whatever it is. Meanwhile I'm leaving the gym and I gotta take a poop. I gotta get home. I gotta get home.

Alan Lazaros:

So the social world and the real world are two different things, and the social world is fame, in this metaphor, and the real world is fulfillment. 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.

Alan Lazaros:

I think one of the reasons why it's really really, really, really, really alarmingly difficult to be successful externally and internally fulfilled is because they're two fundamentally different things. And I want to ask you this because I've contemplated this a lot for a long time, because little Alan, who felt insignificant, wanted to be more known, and then I got more known and it was like okay, this is terrible, quote unquote most popular kid in my college, all that, and then what came with that? I lost myself, all this stuff. So what I've found is that external success and influence, fame quote, unquote. Influence, because obviously fame is, there's levels, that is what is required for external success A lot, but that's often not what actually fulfills you. What actually fulfills you is a deeply meaningful relationship. What actually fulfills you is having a great feeling, great every day, great sleep, great hydration, great body, great physique, feeling good about yourself, self-worth, self-belief. The inner world is where fulfillment is built.

Alan Lazaros:

In the outer world, in success and business, you have no choice but to be known. I mean, in the tech space, I became known. You know SpaceX and iRobot and all the tech company. Wpi is well known in the tech space. No one outside the tech space knows it at all. In the engineering world, everyone knows WPI and MIT and that kind of thing. But, like Everyone knows WPI and MIT and that kind of thing, but like my question for you, kev and I maybe this is new, but my thesis is you cannot be externally successful without facing social fear. It's impossible because business is about people. If, if we don't know, if no one's listening to this podcast, we cannot be, we cannot build a successful business. It's impossible. So what's your thoughts on everyone who put unknown? What would you unpack for them? Because what I would say is my goal is to help everyone. You can't succeed, you can't be wild, I think, being wildly successful and not being known at all is impossible. That's mathematically impossible.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, I think it depends on what wildly successful means to them I think of. I know some people that do very well, that are contractors, that they aren't that well known but they're very well known in the town and the city that they live in. They're not. They don't even have a social media presence. They put their stuff up occasionally. They're not, they don't even have a social media presence. They put their stuff up occasionally. They're not doing it like that.

Alan Lazaros:

But the whole town has a reputation. They have a reputation in the whole town, the whole town and everybody that they work with.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yes, but they have been in business for however long, so I think they've had time to level up to that Right that I think I would say identify why first Identify. Why Is it because you're afraid of judgment? Is it because you're afraid of success? Is it because you think you might lose yourself? I would dig into that because I would argue that somebody who has worked on themselves internally first is way more prepared for external success first is way more prepared for external success, and I think this is why. I think this is why you see kid stars just go off the rails. Of course you haven't had any time to work on yourself. Macaulay Culkin kid who was in Home Alone, was like one of the biggest stars on the planet and he was like nine, however old was. What do you think is gonna happen?

Kevin Palmieri:

yeah, yeah, for sure you, you haven't, you're not you're not ready you're not ready, you couldn't possibly be, you couldn't, you couldn't possibly be ready so how the hell did harry potter handle that?

Alan Lazaros:

I mean seriously um daniel radcliffe, that probably had really good people around him yeah, because emma watson handled it well too. Still got her degree at Brown.

Kevin Palmieri:

It seems like she handled it pretty well. Yeah, some people do. I wonder if it's because they live in a different country, though that might be part of it, yeah. I don't know, I don't know, but those are the most famous movies, maybe in history?

Alan Lazaros:

I mean the Harry Potter series, most famous books in history. Maybe most famous movies? I don't know.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'd have to look that up and then you think of, like the Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. They were all like 18 years old and that was all reverse engineered. That wasn't luck.

Kevin Palmieri:

Like they found them and said, ah, we're going to make you stars, so they weren't ready for that. So I think it's that. I think one. What is the fear underneath it? That's part one. Part two is let's have an honest conversation about the level of impact you want to have and the level of results you want in life, and how do we get to the place where you actually feel capable of putting yourself out there to that degree? I think the best example I can use is I don't think about this episode going out to however many people it's going to go out to anymore. In the beginning I did. I don't think about that anymore.

Alan Lazaros:

It could be 500. It could be 5 million. Did I don't think about that?

Kevin Palmieri:

anymore. It could be 500.

Alan Lazaros:

It could be 5 million, we don't know. Right.

Kevin Palmieri:

Right, and that's the internet right, it's wild, but I can imagine if somebody has never done this before and they would get like a really big opportunity to be on whatever podcast. They might say no, because it's like I'm not ready for that, I don't. Is it going to be edited? No, it's going to be live streamed. How many people there's going to be? We usually have a million people that watch each live stream. No, I'm good Understandable, but then you won't be successful. Like that's the opportunity. It's too much of a stretch.

Alan Lazaros:

I know we have a time constraint both of us but I really want to try to get this to land, because the hardest part of being successful for us, I think, is success. I think is hard for a lot of people. It is it's challenging, I think is hard for a lot of people. That's, it is it's challenging. It's been hard for me too. But how do I say this? Right, success in itself is challenging.

Alan Lazaros:

Success in alignment with your integrity is feels fucking impossible. Yeah, like I was talking to Kev yesterday about how I got cast for Love Island and I could have done that and I'm. I was talking to kev yesterday about how I got cast for love island and I could have done that, and I'm. I was talking to kev very vulnerably behind the scenes saying I'm so glad I didn't do that and I would have been rich and famous quote unquote but like I wouldn't have met emilia, emilia and my. That is more important to me by far. It's not fucking close now. That's also easy to say because I also feel like we're still successful, right, but like when I saw that post that I knew there was something where it's like okay, our community is obviously people who are not not, not narcissists Like the. The narcissist score you can look this up is very low in our community. I'm very grateful for that, seriously, because I mean goddamn.

Alan Lazaros:

But that that also means you're holding yourself back. There's something you have to be willing to be known for your thing. If you're going to be successful and that's a that's a fact you have to be willing to be known. You had, I had a LinkedIn. I had to put myself out there Like there's no way I could have succeeded in corporate the way I did if I wasn't willing to like, face my fear of judgment. I face my fear of judgment all the time on this episode. Do you know how many things I've said that I was like I don't know, yeah, but I, you have to put yourself out there in order to be successful, so I'd rather be unknown and wildly successful. Well, well, unless you're, it's impossible. That's not a thing, unless you are generational wealth, in which case you can do that.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think if it sounds noble to be unknown, it sounds noble to just do the work behind the scenes and nobody ever knows it was you.

Alan Lazaros:

I try, it doesn't work.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, I mean, it works to a degree, it's not gonna work, maybe for everybody, to the place that they want to get to. And I'm not going to say that's right or wrong either. If that's what you want to do, you do you. But just like we had this conversation when there's a channel I follow that's all about Dedicate, the channel is essentially dedicating to charity, dedicated to charity. I can't speak to save my life and what they do is they'll go buy a bunch of food and they'll go give it to underprivileged kids, or they'll give it to people living on the streets or whatever it is, and they record it so they can put it on social media, so they can get donations on their GoFundMe, so they can continue this going. For every one person that donates, there's a person that says why do you have to do this? Why can't you just do this behind the scenes? I know that seems more noble, but unless you have Boku bucks.

Alan Lazaros:

it's not going to live that long. Influence is required. It's a requirement for success. It's a requirement, and until all of us get over that, we will not be successful.

Kevin Palmieri:

And that's my next level lesson, that's your next level lesson.

Alan Lazaros:

If I could be successful just without any level of social judgment, of course I would do that. That's not a thing. If you want to impact people, you're going to have to put yourself out there and you're going to get both love and hate, and there is no fucking way around that. And especially if you're going to be your love and hate, and there is no fucking way around that, and especially if you're going to be your true self.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, I was going to say, just wear a mask and if you're more afraid of hate than you are in your desire to impact. This has been the hardest part of my journey. It's been the hardest part of the journey for me is is how do I be me and impact others with what, while I'm while? I dislike being villainized yeah, that is the hardest part. So, for anyone out there fighting the good fight, I, I'm rooting for you. You got to do it, do it tastefully, stay yourself, but, but you, you can't be a coward. You got to put yourself there.

Kevin Palmieri:

My next level lesson would be dig into what is actually under it. Is it fear of judgment? Fear of success Kind of encapsulates a lot of it. But what's under it? Do you not think you can handle it? Do you have skeletons in the closet? Whatever it is, that's where we got to start, because if you do aspire to have that level of impact and that lifestyle, what?

Alan Lazaros:

You got some skeletons in the closet. No, I just was thinking about some of the stuff we've told each other in the past.

Kevin Palmieri:

Oh, I got some shit on you a little childhood trauma but yeah, I would dig awareness. You know me. I always think awareness is the first step and that's where my mind goes. It's because I don't I'm afraid to hear what people say about me when they don't really know me. More than it feels good to hear what people say about me when they don't really know me, more than it feels good to hear what people say about me when they do know me. That is my takeaway. All right, cool Next Level Live 2025.

Kevin Palmieri:

Tickets are selling as we speak. So we're only selling 50 tickets, as we mentioned, because we want to make sure that we can have five really high-quality breakout sessions, breakout groups, and we don't want to have too many people. So link will be in the show notes. Make sure you get your ticket. Do not wait till the last minute, because then you're going to end up missing it and then you're going to get mad at us and you're going to hate us and you're going to have to wait till next year and, who knows, we might blow up and be famous for each and every one of you at nlu. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow stay next level, next level nation thanks for joining us for another episode of next level university.

Kevin Palmieri:

We love connecting with the next level family we mean it when we say family.

Alan Lazaros:

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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