Next Level University

What If You Hate It Because It Works? (2045)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Share episode

What if the very thing you’ve been avoiding is the key to leveling up your life? In today’s episode, Kevin and Alan get real about to-do lists, habit tracking, and systems that truly work—even when they feel boring or frustrating. From peak performance tools to why success isn’t about feeling good all the time, this convo will challenge the way you view discipline and productivity.

Learn more about:
Next Level Monthly Meet-up  - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700

_____________________

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

_______________________

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/

_______________________

Show notes:
(3:09) The real reason to-do lists matter
(4:11) Amateurs adjust, pros trust systems
(5:42) Four tools for peak productivity
(7:02) What do you lean on when overwhelmed
(10:17) How we actually use our lists
(13:13) Next Level Dreamliner: The planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(14:47) Why the list is never “Done”
(19:58) Hard stuff now or harder later
(22:15) Everything you love requires effort
(23:58) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin Palmieri:

What if I told you that one of the reasons you're not more successful is because you're not doing things that actually work, because they suck? I think one of the hardest things to understand is oftentimes the things that get us the best results are also the things that make us feel the worst at times.

Alan Lazaros:

On my phone. Right now I'm looking at my rolling MITs. It is on Google Tasks, which is an app on my phone, and MIT stands for Most Important Task, and essentially at all times I have a rolling list of tasks that I believe are really, really, really important. And it's boring and it sucks and it's unsexy, but it is necessary.

Kevin Palmieri:

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

Alan Lazaros:

And I'm your co-host, Alan Lazarus.

Kevin Palmieri:

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 Self-improvement in your pocket every day, from anywhere, completely free.

Kevin Palmieri:

Welcome to Next Level University, next Level Nation. Today, for episode number 2045, I'm doing something I never thought I would. We are going to do an episode. Well, first of all, it's called what If you Hate it? Because it Works. Alan and I were having a conversation before this and I said dude, you know, prepare yourself because I'm about to say some outlandish stuff. I said what if we did an episode and stick with us? Please Don't tune out right now? What if we did an episode on to-do lists? And he said brother, you know, I want to do that. I've been waiting, I've been waiting to do that episode. All right, well, I'm ready. Now I'm ready.

Kevin Palmieri:

Last week I had a day where I don't the only call I had. You and I were supposed to record three episodes. I think we only did one or maybe two, but it was at like three o'clock in the afternoon, so I had from 9am until 3pm with no calls, no distractions. It was like 75 degrees out. I had the window open, I had my music going and I was literally just going down my to-do list saying all right, I got to message this person Done, I got to do this. Okay, done, I got to update this, done. I felt so good. After I felt so good, I texted Alan. I said hey, man, I need more blocks like this because I get so much work done. It's awesome. Here's the downside Now it's a new week and the fact that I did all of those things now have created three things under each one of those things that need to be done. The to-do list got small for the weekend and now it is growing to a larger size than it was before.

Kevin Palmieri:

But I think I've heard so many people say, yeah, to-do lists suck, tracking habits sucks. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that, and I think that's where so much of the gold is buried. I don't want to have a to-do list either. The only reason I do is because I don't want to forget something more. That's really all it is. I don't want to have a to-do list.

Kevin Palmieri:

On a scale of 0 to 10, my desire to have and check a to-do list is a 2. On a scale of 0 to 10, my desire to have a client say, hey, what happened with blank Because I completely forgot about it, is way lower than that. There's way more pain associated with that and I think sometimes it's. You are trading the lesser of two bads and I think to do lists aren't sexy but they are super useful if you can stick with them long enough, if we're talking strictly about success and achievement and again we talk a lot about the inner game and the outer game on this podcast.

Alan Lazaros:

If the frame of this episode is from the frame of external achievement, a to-do list is necessary. I often tell my clients I want you to be. I say and at the beginning of hearing this quote you might think that I said it wrong, but I'll explain. Amateurs run the system, professionals let the system run them. It makes it sound like I did it wrong. An amateur tweaks the system and says you know what I'm going to move that, move that, move that move that A professional has a system that's set up and executes no matter what Rain, sleet, snow or shine.

Alan Lazaros:

It doesn't matter if it's nice out, it doesn't matter if you got a phone call, it doesn't matter if you are hungry. A professional runs the fucking system. Now your level of tenacity and intensity and persistence with your systems does not have to be to the level that ours is. I want to make that as clear as possible. I really mean that. But if you do want to succeed in business or in your career at a very high level, if you want to succeed in fitness at a very high level you can't say I don't really feel like squatting today, I don't really feel like squatting today. You set up the system and squatting is on there, with certain rep ranges, and you've got to find a way to get it done. Does it mean it's perfect? No, but it means you get it done On the days you're feeling good, go above and beyond. On the days you're feeling terrible, hit at least the minimum, hit the bar right.

Alan Lazaros:

So the four things that I have my clients doing to stay on the rails the first one is peak performance tracking. It's a habit tracker. It's metrics and habits based on your goals and priorities. Number two is to-do lists. They all have a to-do list and it's a prioritized to-do list based on what's urgent, important and significant. And I can go into that if we want to. The third thing is the calendar. Gotta, use a calendar, gotta.

Alan Lazaros:

You're not going to see successful people without a calendar. It's very, very rare. There's a couple creative endeavors where that's possible. But the successful people that I study, that I coach, that I learn from, that I've mentored, been mentored by all these people I've met all over the world. The most successful people are dialed in on their calendar. They have a calendar and they're dialed in. The fourth one is your dreamliner, your journal. It doesn't have to be a dreamliner, but it has to be a journal. You have to have some feedback loop of self-reflection. And the MIT list, the most important task list, the to-do list I mean, of course, I've always wanted to do an episode on this because I think that the least sexy stuff is the most important. It's not sexy, which is why so few people do it, which is why it's so valuable.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, yeah. I think it's always a good thought of when you're super overwhelmed, what do you run to, cause you know it'll kind of save you. Okay, what if we just did that all the time? What if we just did that Not all the time? What if we leaned in that direction? For me, when I get super overwhelmed, the thing I lean on is my to-do list. I lean on it so hard because I will forget stuff. I'm human and there's a lot going on and if I don't have it somewhere that I look at daily. I used to be the guy that had like a dozen notebooks. It still helps for me to have one, because it's hard to if I'm on like a coaching call and I have multiple windows open. I don't want to have to pull up my to-do list and like type it out right there, but I think I probably should. I probably just should say like, look, I'm going to put this on my to-do list right now in front of you.

Alan Lazaros:

Well, I have it on my phone on purpose so that I can do that A lot of times, even when we're recording. I'll throw something on here, but you use.

Kevin Palmieri:

Google Tasks? Yeah Well, I just have a Google Doc that has checkboxes. I don't know, I never really fell in love with Google Tasks.

Alan Lazaros:

No stress, there's a bunch of other ones Trello, Google Tasks.

Kevin Palmieri:

Just like an old school Google Doc. I know Apple has one Old school Google Doc right in front of me.

Alan Lazaros:

Here's what I would say, and again, everyone do whatever they want, but this is what I would say is pick something simple, don't do this crazy. I rate each tasks from zero to 10 and all that Like listen, keep it simple. Keep it as simple as possible. Simple. If it's complex, you will not do it.

Kevin Palmieri:

When the team flew in a couple years ago for Next Level, lie Taryn helped me find gifts. She's like you should really do a gift bag for people that's just not naturally where my of them and there's like a cloud that you can do and I use that for my to-do list for a long time and I loved it. And then it got to the place where it was like every time I fill up a page then I have to erase the whole thing and then start over again. It's like is that really going to be feasible? So I stopped doing that and then I was using a regular notebook for a while. But I think that that is important.

Kevin Palmieri:

Whatever it is you're doing, okay, let's just assume it's not going to be sexy, let's just start there. Okay, well, it's not sexy, which means it's probably already going to be relatively challenging and there's going to be extra resistance. To Alan's point make it as easy as you can. You don't have to pay for a software if you don't want, but what's going to be the easiest for you? I used to do post-it notes everywhere. Then it's like okay, I'm already a mess, I can't do that. That's not going to work for me. But when you find something that works. I'm willing to bet, if you how many items do you have on your-. I'm embarrassed to say so many.

Alan Lazaros:

I love that we can bring people behind the scenes, because I'm embarrassed to say how many too. They're not all of the same importance level, but I have. It actually doesn't show me the amount. I have to actually count them. Are you counting them right now too?

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, I have 30, I have 38. Honestly, all things considered it's not terrible. I have 38, and then what I do is I take a big three usually and say, okay, I'm going to try to get these three done, and then when those three go, I bring three back up and rinse and repeat that forever. Alan's counting 60.

Alan Lazaros:

Oh yeah, you, why don't I do it? Okay, before anyone judges 38 and 60, we're not doing 60 items a day. No, these are FYIs. That's why I call it a rolling MIT list. I pick at least three per day that I knock off. And that's why in the Dreamliner it says says top three mit's. I cherry pick the top three each day and then, if I get those three done, I'll do more, but not all of these. And then every now and then I'll go through this and I'll be like, oh, did it, did it, did it, oh, did it.

Kevin Palmieri:

I literally just did that as I was as I was looking I was like, oh, I don't need to do that anymore. Sometimes it's just about the reminder, yeah, and you go in and it's kind of already been done because something else happened. It feels good. That's the other thing too. You get such a dopamine hit when you see something and again, you judge me. If you want, I would suggest you do the same thing. Sometimes I'll literally look and I'll be like, oh shit, I forgot, I got to send that thing to Alan. I will put it, I will type it in Send that thing to Alan, and then I'll do it and then I'll check it off. It wasn't on the list, but I want to give myself credit for it. Feels good, man, you're the realist.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's what's up I got to, to jump in, oh shit.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, okay, better face buzzer. I used to be prepubescent. I didn't have any facial hair. You put better face buzzer. 100% Nice, hey, real quick. Yeah, I waste way too much time trying to shave here. You use shaving cream and a razor. I used to Because for me, I only had to shave once a month.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, yeah, shave once a month, yeah yeah, now it's a week goes by and I it's like what the hell is going on here. So I got you I norelco, one blade, simple. I want one of those. Now, those suck, are they terrible?

Alan Lazaros:

you don't need it, you don't have that much hair, I want a nice shave. Okay, no, never mind, don't listen like every day. I mean look, look't, listen to me, I got a nice shirt on.

Kevin Palmieri:

The kid buys a new shirt. Everything's about this shirt.

Alan Lazaros:

I need a nice shave. I need it to be something that happens at least every four or five days, minimum once a week. But I can't spend 30 minutes a week on my fucking face. Know, and again I can. I just choose not to. Okay, 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.

Alan Lazaros:

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. Another example get Dan Heath on book club. If that doesn't happen, I'm not going to stress about it. I mean it's a reminder. Oh yeah, I got to send him a message. That would be sweet. It would be great to have the author on book club. That'd be great. We did it once. It went well. Let's do it again. But I don't Not all of these are that important Like I might not get a better razor or face buzzer for another three months, but I won't forget it's. It's it's peace of mind of knowing these things are on there. Now there's some on there that are time sensitive, that need to get done. Topic for May meetup. I have to decide on a topic for the meetup.

Kevin Palmieri:

So the quick mode which is in a week or two, two weeks. So you do three a day. You take three.

Alan Lazaros:

I put three in my dreamliner a day and I cross those off in the dreamliner and then this is just sort of like when I'm at the gym and I think of something, it's oh, let me just throw it on my tasks, but I don't always get all three done same yeah sometimes I get three done and then I do another three. Sometimes I get 10 done. Sometimes I get 10 done. Sometimes I get one done.

Kevin Palmieri:

I got 10 done the other day for sure. Yeah, it's awesome and it's awesome, and it creates 15 other things that happen eventually, which is good, that's progress. It just doesn't. So you'll. You've heard Alan say this many times and I don't disagree with it. I just know when you used to say it, I was like I don't know, I don't know if I agree with it a with it 100, you never really get done the to-do list, because when you do something, it's like a domino. It's like, yeah, one domino falls over, but it knocks over another domino that knocks away.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's progress, that's good, that's not a bad thing necessarily used to think that you'd reach a point where you were like good well, if you had, if you just started a to-do list today, it might only have three things on it, so you might actually get everything done. So yeah, I think it depends on where you are, I mean yeah, but there's infinite things you could do.

Kevin Palmieri:

Like you're never gonna finish your, I know but, but, but finitely, if I let's say I only had seven things and I had five hours to do it, I I could get all those done.

Alan Lazaros:

And then my to-do list would be naked Fair, but then you'd just fill it with more important things. Like more things, yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

So there was days in the past where you'd be done For my own mental health.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, probably it's heavy. What heavy? What do you think now? Like there is no done for anyone out there watching or listening, like you're, if you're an adult with goals, like there's no no, there's, there's no done, there's no finish line. There's never not going to be a time when you could. That's why I have 60 on here, because at least three or four of these are really urgent.

Kevin Palmieri:

How many of those are garbage? How many of those will end up getting canned, do you think?

Alan Lazaros:

At least 30%. I mean, one of them says Emilia's Spotify Duo, who cares? You know what I mean? First of all, that's going to save us money, baby, I know, but it's not going to save us as much money as the other stuff I'm doing. I promise you that, yeah. No, that's fair, right. So it just gets to a place where, okay, one of them says um, ksa triangle digital asset, knowledge, skills, awareness. It's a digital asset I've wanted to create for a while. It hasn't happened yet. It I might eventually do it, right, but I don't want to forget about it. So I clean this up every now and then, but and again, I know this is depressing. Seriously, I'm not trying to be mean. There's never going to be a time where you go to bed done.

Kevin Palmieri:

You choose to stop. I want people to be able to feel accomplished.

Alan Lazaros:

You can definitely go to bed feeling accomplished. That's important.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's important.

Alan Lazaros:

Agreed, agreed, but you'll never be done. No, like fairy tale land where you're good now, okay, I'm good now. There is no. I I think the whole retirement idea, I I think we should have a conversation with that at some point, because there isn't really that either. I mean, it's not like you're done, you still feel weird.

Kevin Palmieri:

I feel weird talking about retirement as a 36 year old man, so it's like I don't know I don't plan on I don't plan on doing it, but I also don't hate my fucking job, so I understand why. Why?

Alan Lazaros:

people understand what that means Really. I have a couple clients that help people plan for retirement I know you do as well and retirement just means you have a nest egg that creates an income for you so you don't have to work. It doesn't mean you don't work, you still do things things right, luckily for us.

Kevin Palmieri:

This is you can. This is easy to do, not easy, but like you can. You can speak long into your yeah, your age.

Alan Lazaros:

It's like golf as long as you take care of your voice.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, me and you're gonna get on the, get on the links one of these days.

Alan Lazaros:

Take some swings for no, no, no never golfing fan. No.

Kevin Palmieri:

Same. But I don't know, Maybe one day I'll have hobbies. You know, hobbies and interests.

Alan Lazaros:

If I was going to do that, I'd play basketball or snowboard, or something that I really love.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, you can't, you're not going to be able to snowboard into your 90s. I'm not up to mine. Well, yeah, who am?

Alan Lazaros:

I to put that. I was on with an 82 year old man earlier. He had me on his podcast. He was fucking awesome. That was really cool man. That was really. He seemed like he was just getting started. It was great. It's great he had such a good attitude. Yeah, I always talk about bruce I'm telling you, I'm saying he's weight training right yeah, bruce is stronger than I mean he.

Kevin Palmieri:

He does dumbbell presses with the 50s and the 60s. Man's 80 years old, that's awesome.

Alan Lazaros:

That gives me hope, I know some people in their 20s who can't do that. 100%, 100%.

Kevin Palmieri:

All right, what's your next level lesson before we get out of here about to-do lists? Good sir.

Alan Lazaros:

You never know how much you might grow and evolve, because I know that in the beginning this would have been a topic you would have thought was dumb or boring or whatever. But you've evolved a lot in the last few years and you are becoming someone who believes in productivity and to do lists and you've embraced a lot of the boring shit that's just completely necessary. Like you want to buy a home, you're going to have to pay a mortgage, most likely Right, Unless you have five hundred thousand dollars cash, which is very rare for anyone who's even reasonably young. Like life sucks and that's okay. It's supposed to suck, it's just it can get so much better when you embrace the suck and do the things that make it better. Yeah, we're adults Like we're not kids anymore. You can't just frolic.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'm not going to go all the way to Alan's end, cause I don't. I don't want life to suck. I'm not going to go all the way to Alan's end. Usually I'm somewhere in the middle. That's always my thing. I think it's going to be challenging, and trying to avoid the challenges of life are just going to create more challenges ultimately, and they're probably going to be worse. Oh, you don't want to exercise? Okay, cool. My grandmother fell and broke her hip and almost died. Is Bruce going to fall and break his hip? Most likely not. No, no, he's taking, he's doing the stuff. And again, I saw mom and me with this weekend love them. But I think about that all the time. I think about that all the time. That's one of the reasons I'm trying to be active now is because when I get older it's gonna be harder.

Alan Lazaros:

So, yeah, bruce has the quads not gonna. Not gonna fall, not not as likely to fall uh, not as likely to fall.

Kevin Palmieri:

Got some quads on him, no, doing legs, no, no, he's got. He's got knee issues, but I mean he's still carrying the 60 pound dumbbells across the gym, like that's something that most 80 year olds can't do. So I think if, by avoiding certain resistance, you create more resistance later on by doing something unsexy like a to-do list, I think it just makes life so much better. And if you could do a cycle of it, if you could do okay, I'm going to make a to-do list, I'm going to put five things on it. Okay, cool, today I'm going to try to get those five things done. All right, I got all those five things done. I you know what. That really that kind of felt pretty freaking good. All right, let me try that again tomorrow and see what happens.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think when it starts to get bad is when you put three things on and you accomplish zero, and then the next day you put five things on and you only accomplish one. It's like, oh, this is, this is really starting to build up here, but what would have happened to all those things if you didn't put them on a to-do list? You wouldn't even know they had to get done and you're quite literally setting yourself up for failure there. So I don't think it's super sexy. I still think it's somewhat boring. But again, if we only talked about the sexy stuff, we would have ran out of topics a long time ago and we also wouldn't be at all successful, because a lot of the exercises in the gym look really freaking good. That's not how you get jacked. That's not the way it goes.

Alan Lazaros:

Can I say one more thing? I know we got to go yes yes, please.

Alan Lazaros:

I think this is a good metaphor. People love their animals. I have pets, fur babies, right? Maybe you want horses, maybe you want dogs or cats, maybe you want a farm. They take a lot of work. Emilia has a bunch of plants. She loves plants. A lot of our listeners love plants. Okay, everything that you love in life requires work, lots of work. So it's great Tucker, tilly, tariel, cats, dogs love it, but there's, they're a shitload of work. It's pet foods not free, right. So everything in life has a downside. It's pet foods not free, right. So everything in life has a downside. Everything A to do list is the downside of being a productive adult, and it's necessary, and I don't mean to just scream into the mic at people, but I think it's easier to just accept that than to try to avoid it for the rest of your life and try to stay a child out there and you have a to-do list Shout out to you.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

You're a productive child with a to-do list, and that's cool as shit. Now are you going to be made fun of? Yes, most likely Will. Most of your friends put you out on an island. Unfortunately, probably yes, but in 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, you'll show them.

Alan Lazaros:

You'll show them.

Kevin Palmieri:

And that's what matters. Okay, as Alan mentioned, we have a meetup on the first month of every Thursday. I think it's one of our mid-tros. I get to check in. We're going to do new mid-tros. There's a bunch of stuff going on over here. We don't know what we're talking about because Alan hasn't decided yet, because it's on his to-do list but it's too far down so he hasn't done it yet. If you're looking for a group of like-minded humans who are into personal development and want to be more successful internally and externally, not just externally, both internal and external we have a private Facebook group called Next Level Nation. We'll have the link in the show notes. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow. Keep it productive. Next Level Nation. 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 a hold of us is in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri:

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host