Next Level University

Our Top 10 Most Embarrassing Moments (2084)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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How do you keep going when failure feels humiliating? In today’s raw and hilarious episode, Kevin and Alan recount their 10 most embarrassing moments on their journey to building Next Level University. From flopping on stage to failing in front of high-profile clients, they share what each moment taught them and why embarrassment is often the price of real growth. If you’re chasing a dream and terrified of messing up, this episode will remind you that failure is part of the process.

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Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700

Free 30-minute Business Breakthrough Session with Alan -
https://calendly.com/alanlazaros/30-minute-free-breakthrough-session?month=2025-04
Free 30-Minute Podcast Breakthrough Session with Kevin -
https://calendly.com/kevinpalmieri/free-30-minute-podcast-breakthrough-session-with-kevin

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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:
(3:48) Our first big event flop
(5:43) We couldn’t afford dinner
(8:07) Bombing in front of a high school
(17:08) Podcast setup gone wrong
(19:49) Next Level Dreamliner: The planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(20:58) Awkward moment with Laurie Harder
(23:21) Losing a millionaire client
(29:29) The six-minute mile misfire
(33:03) Coaching confidence at the mall
(36:46) Why failing forward really works
(39:48) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin Palmieri:

I believe if you are a dream chaser, unfortunately you are also going to have to chase down and conquer embarrassment, and today we're going to talk about 10 times that. We had to do that and honestly, it sucked pretty bad.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, there is no version of you reaching the next level without failing forward and sometimes, quite frankly, embarrassing the hell out of yourself, like I did on the last episode.

Kevin Palmieri:

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

Alan Lazaros:

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 2084, our top 10 most embarrassing moments. So we're going to talk about the most embarrassing moments from the last 8 years of this journey. Going to talk about the most embarrassing moments from the last eight years of this journey because here's the thought and this is the thesis, and this is why we're talking about embarrassing moments if you want to build momentum, it is really really really hard to build momentum without dealing with embarrassing stuff, because if you're taking messy action, you're often failing, and you're often failing publicly, and one of the things that is going to come with that is embarrassment and then the ability to dust yourself off and get back on the mission you and I came up with this episode because on the last episode, not only did I butcher my favorite verse of all time, as did I the one and only marshall mathers airplanes, part two featuring Eminem.

Alan Lazaros:

But also we announced the 10 pounds in 10 week challenge that we do annually now for the next level fitness accountability group. And I put the wrong date. Yeah, I put today's date for the end date and I just and I it was in there and some people called me out on it, I think and I just had that moment of Kev. I was rolling forward. This morning I had a great workout. I was like let's do this now, let's rock and roll. Momentum Fucked it up.

Alan Lazaros:

So, I put the wrong date in and so the correct date for those of you who are joining the 10 pound in 10 week challenge, by the way, the correct dates are August 7th. Start date May 29th 2025. End date August 7th 2025. I have double and triple and quadruple checked this is correct 70 days, which is 10 weeks, 7 times 10. Nice.

Kevin Palmieri:

My favorite one of these? Can I start, of course, my favorite one of these. So we, I start, of course, my favorite one of these. So we, we co-hosted an event in 2019. Right, it was 2019, yes, sir, and we co-hosted this event, and alan got brant pinvidic there, and brit franks and mark metri and tori aletto and shauna pelton, myself and, and Alan, am I missing anybody?

Alan Lazaros:

Yes, Joanna oh.

Kevin Palmieri:

Joanna. Well, I'm not the biggest fan of Joanna because we pretty much did that whole event and we got no credit for it. It was a whole thing, okay.

Alan Lazaros:

So I should have just said nope, yeah, you should have just said nope, you're not missing anyone. There was eight speakers. It was a full day event. It was a whole effing thing and this was our first second.

Kevin Palmieri:

This is our second live second live event yeah, but this was like no, this is the second, but this was the first like big one. Yeah, it was big that we ended up having like 130 people there. We got some good photos from that one, but it was not looking good, yeah it was yeah, if we were, it was like 10 minutes from the start and there was like 10 people in the audience and there was like 200 seats. So it was obvious that this was not going to happen.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, 250 seats.

Kevin Palmieri:

Was it 250 seats? The reason we don't necessarily have a great relationship anymore with that person is because they kind of I don't know If you ever did a project with somebody in school and they took all all the credit for you getting a good grade. It was kind of that.

Kevin Palmieri:

that's what it felt like, at least yeah, they just came in and started putting their signs up, yeah, we did 99 of the work yeah, yeah, unfortunately, but lessons learned that's why we don't partner with anybody anymore makes sense, all right, so the then it was a full day event after we always do a dinner, and by always do a dinner, I mean that was the first time we'd ever done one, because it was a full day event after we always do a dinner, and by always do a dinner, I mean that was the first time we'd ever done one, because it was like this is what you're supposed to do. I think you treat everybody to a dinner All the volunteers, the NLU team. Taryn Speakers Was Emilia, emilia was there.

Alan Lazaros:

I think Emilia was there. Yep, we did a dinner in 2018 when we co-hosted your World Within Live, so we dinner in 2018 when we host co-hosted your world within live, so we did a dinner then too, but wasn't this before? No, I don't think so. I think your world within live was first. Then it was I don't know, I'm not sure, I don't know either. Well, whatever, yeah, your world within live was 2019 this and then top notch live was 2020 it was early 2020.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, f all everything I said, ignore everything. You don't need to know the dates, they don't even matter. We were having a dinner and we were having a dinner at 110 grill, I believe. Great spot, a great spot, great food, great food. But there's like 15 of us, so it's not a cheap restaurant. It's not a cheap restaurant, so at's not a cheap restaurant.

Kevin Palmieri:

So at one point, alan gets up to go to the bathroom Excuse me, I have to excuse myself. I also have to use the bathroom and we are in the bathroom peeing next to each other and I said hey, man, between you and I, I don't know if we're going to be able to pay for this. I think the credit card's going to decline. Decline. I don't even know how we're gonna pay for this. Yeah, like, what the fuck are we supposed to do? Everybody's gonna know we're frauds. And we were just in the bathroom dying of laughter, slash embarrassment, because we had just quote unquote hosted a successful event and here we are getting a bill for I don't remember how much it was. It was like I think it was like six or 700 bucks.

Alan Lazaros:

Well, cause the venue, I actually had to get an investor for the venue, yeah, and we promised them, so they they invested $3,000. We promised them 4,000 back, which I did pay from one of my college friends. And it's not because we made money from the event. Well, the event we had like 138 people there. I think that's the number that's coming off, but that includes speakers, that includes volunteers. So the room was semi-full, but we were going for 250. We really swung for the fences back then well, that was one of the most embarrassing.

Kevin Palmieri:

I would say that was one of the most embarrassing moments of all time, just because it was like you and I, yeah, just feeling extreme. Nobody can know that we don't have any money and I genuinely don't know how we're going to pay. I'm not sure how we're going to pay for this freaking dinner that everybody's thoroughly enjoying. It was absolutely brilliant and it was a rock star event too, so everyone you gotta figure.

Alan Lazaros:

Everyone thinks that we're doing really really, really well.

Kevin Palmieri:

That was a rough one.

Alan Lazaros:

There's a big difference between doing awesome in podcasting and doing awesome in business. We started doing awesome in business way later.

Kevin Palmieri:

We were doing very well in podcasting and social media. Yes, not business though.

Alan Lazaros:

So that's one of 10. And because we have time constraints here, we've got 28 minutes. We're going to get through all of these and there's a lot of them, our top 10, most embarrassing moments. So your favorite one you just shared. So let me check that one off here. Alan has a list. That's how. That's how serious we are today. You know it. You know it. Bathroom credit card check. All right, so which one is my favorite on here? Okay, my favorite is the walk of shame. So Kevin and I call this the walk of shame.

Alan Lazaros:

We had the opportunity to go to Milwaukee and speak at one of the largest schools in Milwaukee high schools. This is a high school that had both middle school and high school in it. This is a large school and it was one of my favorite experiences of all time, still to date, because of what we learned from it, even though it was atrociously bad. So the idea was we're going to go there, we're going to speak to the seventh and eighth graders first there's like 300 of them Then we're going to speak to the ninth and 10th graders, then we're going to speak to the 11th and 12th graders, the juniors and seniors, and then I'm going to train the educators. There's a training at the end where all of the teachers and staff are going to get together and I'm going to train them on effective communication, oh man. So anyways this, the assembly's coming in. They had a full system. It was. It was good. This was a moment for Kevin and I where we looked at each other and went this was a dream at one point.

Alan Lazaros:

For sure 100% and it was a big assembly and it's just one of those moments of see it can happen. Little did we know. Later that afternoon we'd feel terrible about ourselves, but the first one went awesome. It was on growth, perseverance and thinking long-term or something like that for kids. And the first one went pretty well. The 7th and 8th graders were pretty open.

Alan Lazaros:

I thought you and I could have done better, so we'll do green, yellow, red to make it simple. I think our performance was yellow, but it was received green. Then we had the back room Shout out to a community member named Bobby Joe. She set us up, she got us all our snacks and everything. It was awesome. And so we go into the back room and I'm like kev, what'd you think? Like what can we get better? Every conversation you have with me is basically how the fuck do we get better? Almost always, and kev's like, okay, we could have done better, but it's a good, it's a good start, right, we got three more to go today. Let's rock and roll. I was like, okay, agreed, what are we? What are you gonna do better, better, what am I going to do better? Hey, say this do this. Boom, boom, boom. We go to the next one.

Alan Lazaros:

I think our performance got better, but it was received worse. This is when my brain broke. Kevin and I spoke way better the second time and it was received a little worse. So the first time, our performance was green, yellow and it was received green. The second time, our performance was green for sure, and the receive was yellow. Third speech juniors and seniors roll in. It's an assembly and their inner thoughts I know now are who are these two? Chung guy, yeah, yeah, try and try hard.

Alan Lazaros:

Try and teach us personal development and perseverance and growth mindset. So we go in the back room and I'm freaking out. I'm like Kev, what's the deal man? Like we did a way better job. That was a really strong speech. The deal man Like we did a way better job. That was a really strong speech. Why was it received worse, didn't understand. Yet Third speech happens Best performance. I mean we perfected the hell out of it. When you do one, two, three back to back, you can really perfect it.

Kevin Palmieri:

I mean you can and for.

Alan Lazaros:

It was terrible. It was so. Our performance was super green and it was received red. We might as well have been made fun of. If they had fruit, they would have thrown it at us for sure. And that's when I realized and this is one of the most powerful lessons I've ever learned- by the way, alan hasn't even gotten to the embarrassing part yet.

Kevin Palmieri:

These aren't even the embarrassing parts, 100%.

Alan Lazaros:

The development of the ego, because we got backstage and I was broken, my brain was broken. I was like what the hell just happened?

Kevin Palmieri:

See, I felt really good. I was like hell yeah, Survived.

Alan Lazaros:

Interesting Survived. That's Kevin's goal Survive Mine is to teach these kids something they've never heard before, to change their fucking life. Anyways, now I realize backstage I'm like what the hell just happened? Oh, juniors and seniors have huge fucking egos and if you study the neuroscience, you get more and more and more closed minded as you age and then you open back up when life humbles you. You so everyone remember yourself when you were a junior or a senior. Now imagine me trying to teach you personal development. You're going to make fun of me. I didn't understand.

Alan Lazaros:

We also were introduced wrong. It was a whole thing. Now here's the deal, and I'm going to make this point land too, because I know this isn't the point of this episode, but I need to. Adults have huge egos. The training was even worse. This was one of my favorite memories I've ever had because it taught me something I'll never forget. 7th and 8th graders were pretty open-minded to growth, mindset and personal development. 9th and 10th a little more closed-minded. 11th and 12th a little more closed-minded. The staff fur-fucking for fucking get it. I could not get through, no matter what it is. What it is, and I understand why I look young. I also wasn't as assertive back then I also was kind of a social coward, so, and it was pillars in the middle I was gonna say people were eating.

Kevin Palmieri:

I mean, it was the ultimate failure. Set up performance. The performance was also a dog shit, yeah. So while they were not super receptive to value, there was very little value being delivered contextually.

Alan Lazaros:

I think the 25 impact points of effective communication are world class.

Kevin Palmieri:

I agree. I just think the performance of it was less than world class.

Alan Lazaros:

It was basically me just going through only point after point after point after point fucking principle afterwards was like next time can you just pick the top five?

Alan Lazaros:

so now we understand. But dude, for me I thought this was a training. I'm talking navy seals, get your fucking shit together, sit down and take notes like let's do this. But that's what I would want, and it turns out none of them want to be world-class communicators, right? So, and by the way, these 25 impact points, I rate myself from zero to 10 on all of them, week after week, not every week, but they're really good If anyone wants them reach out, they're really, really, really strong. I mean, if you want to be an excellent, excellent, excellent communicator and do way better than I did that day, these are the. This is the way you do it. So, anyways, no one could hear me in the back.

Kevin Palmieri:

There were these huge brick pillars there was literally a point where alan was like, can everybody hear me? And a bunch of people in the back were like no, I was like they can't hear you, man, you gotta yell.

Alan Lazaros:

You gotta yell louder all right, we're good, just hammered it, let's just hammer it. And then, after the speech, the training bombed, and they were all eating too, so they're all distracted yeah, just imagine somebody, it's not easy to capture a room when people are eating and it's set up wrong and they're getting their potato salad.

Alan Lazaros:

Walking by to get their potato salad exactly, and then we had to walk through the walk of shame. So that's the the most embarrassing one on this list probably is the walk of shame walking through the crowd after that training. And now I do realize too and again I'm not trying to be mean, but I've spoken at a lot of high schools and colleges at this stage Personal development and I actually coach someone who's an AP Cal teacher Personal development is actually not that common in school systems. Yeah, of course, yeah for sure. You say of course like it makes no sense to me. I understand why wouldn't we teach personal development in school?

Kevin Palmieri:

because it's not sexy. You gotta have somebody that brings in zoo animals and snakes and shit that's the way you want to get the attention yeah, bring a boa and I guarantee you'll get something to land.

Kevin Palmieri:

That was. It was fucking terrible. I mean, alan, I don't even think you did it justice with how. I mean it was fucking terrible. This experience. Just imagine standing nothing to hide behind, just exposed as hell. And I literally had a moment where I was like I'm just gonna let alan flounder, I have to let. I was in charge of the presentation for the students. Alan was in charge of the training. I had not even seen the training until the day of when I saw it, I said we're fucked, we're fucked, we are in trouble.

Alan Lazaros:

We are in trouble god, I have a picture of me in front of that tv. It's a good looking photo, deer in the headlights to impress my friend? Yeah, we didn't, though at one point during the training kev was trying to slink. So far into the desk. If he had camouflage he would have just been part of. If I could have left I would have.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'll see you in the back, man, it was brutal. Okay, that one was probably. That was probably the worst. One was terribly embarrassing privately. The credit card one. That was terribly embarrassing publicly. One of the other ones it wasn't as embarrassing. But the first big client, the first client I ever got as a podcast coach, slash producer I think. He paid us like $2,000 to launch a show and do the first four episodes and help him set up the equipment. I went to his house. I went to his house and I was like, oh, this is, this won't be a problem. I've set this stuff up a bunch of times. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to set it up. I ordered shit on Amazon. I was trying different outlets. I had to go back to his house like five times.

Alan Lazaros:

You bought an $80 power strip that you still use.

Kevin Palmieri:

I bought an $80 power strip.

Alan Lazaros:

It's a good looking power strip.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think you have it.

Alan Lazaros:

Oh, I need to use it because I think it's great.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, I think you have it I think it's in one of the boxes we took out of the studio. But I literally was like this guy's going to know, I don't know anything, even though I knew I was 400 episodes in, like I knew a lot, but I was so embarrassed it got to the point where he's like yeah man, can I just like leave you here and you can lock up and say, dude, honestly, that's probably what's for the best anyway, because I need to do some some youtubing to figure this out five days.

Alan Lazaros:

That was super, five trips and a bunch of amazon orders.

Kevin Palmieri:

But look if anybody ever says kev, kev says he's gonna do it, he does it. I will come to your house if I have to. It's not ideal but I will.

Alan Lazaros:

Like I said, kev is the best in the world at getting something started. He can't scale a fucking thing god, it was brutal.

Alan Lazaros:

All right, so that's three down. We got a crank here. One of them is snake laughed off stage. Oh yeah, so I've done. I've done three fitness shows, fitness competitions. My trophies are behind me. And the first one I thought I'd win got fifth place. Second one I thought I'd lose. I got first place and I won the overall. So I won the entire thing. And then the third one I thought I'd win again and I got fourth place. The third one I was in really good shape but I wasn't lean enough and I was coming off a W and I didn't hire a posing coach that year and I. So when you're on stage for those of you who have never done a fitness competition if you want to really show your abs, you basically have to breathe, breathe out fully. Yeah, and I was posing doing this. Someone in the audience was like do you know that guy? So I was there.

Kevin Palmieri:

I was with Alan and the dude next to me was like what the fuck is that guy doing? And I was like, honestly, dude, I don't know. I didn't say he was my buddy, but I was like I don't fucking know what he's doing. It's not good. Whatever he's doing is not good.

Alan Lazaros:

And Matt was backstage with me. He was like, oh, you're in such trouble, so it's just damage. Whatever he's doing is not good. And matt was backstage with me. He was like oh, you're in such trouble, so it's just damage control. At this point he's like how'd you think you did? I was like I don't know man, I don't know. Fourth not bad brought, brought back a trophy. It's rock and roll that was brutal.

Kevin Palmieri:

I had a lot of muscle mass but I wasn't lean enough. Man well, I told you you know you can't be eating, uh, chicken broccoli, alfredo pizzas two weeks out from a fucking fitness show.

Alan Lazaros:

It doesn't work Unless you're on all the steroids. It was delicious, though yeah, I was not. I'm sure it was no steroids, fully natural, okay. So that's Snake gone, done.

Kevin Palmieri:

What else? What's the next one here?

Alan Lazaros:

Hello, hello, hello, nlu listener, thank you. 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. Lori Book.

Kevin Palmieri:

Oh, we laurie harder for episode number 34. For those who don't know, she's very big in the self-improvement personal development space. She was having a book signing slash a little bit of a q a speech in boston. So we went and it was me, alan and like 300 women, so there's like no other guys there and understandable her audience is predominantly women. But we wanted to support her. We both bought her book and we went up to do like a photo op where she was going to sign it and take a picture for us, and I dropped my book and I'm kicking my book all around. I picked it up the wrong way, like a fucking idiot and in the picture I have a hover hand, like I'm not even touching her back, like my hand is hovering over her shoulder because I was like I don't want to touch you on your back or your waist.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't want to be weird and we have a picture you made it weird because of that.

Alan Lazaros:

I made it super weird, but that was embarrassing as hell.

Kevin Palmieri:

I have the signed book behind me. I wish I had the picture on my phone where I could show you, but it I'm literally fumbling with my book during the picture and she's she's a sweetheart, so she's not judging me really, but it's like I know, laurie, I understand yeah, she had some good stuff, honestly.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, yeah, yeah she's. She taught us some good stuff. The point of that book, by the way, is masterminds, and, yes, that it's called a tribe, called bliss, and it's all about how to set up a mastermind we don't talk about masterminds as much as we used to me, because we do them so consistently now.

Alan Lazaros:

But if, for anyone who doesn't do has never done a mastermind before, I mean, get a group of growth-minded people together and just that's what book club is every week, so book club might as well be a mastermind about certain books that we all just share ideas. I mean it's, it's just going to help you grow so much, think differently, improve your beliefs. Okay, so we got a couple more here.

Kevin Palmieri:

Um, next would be steve uh, we went to arizona for a brendan burchard event and we were able to interview somebody who is very successful. Alan had spoken with him, so alan knew him a little bit. So we went to this. Like you had to go through like three gates to get to this guy's house and this gated community in scottsdale, scottsdale, arizona, overlooking the desert, a beautiful multi-million dollar mansion. So we go, we interview him.

Alan Lazaros:

This is the second time, just go out.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, my chair went on.

Alan Lazaros:

It hasn't done that lately yeah, it's been a long time it's getting a week and, by the way, spoken, with him makes it sound like I hey, how are you steve? Spoken I spoke on stage with him. Well, it wasn't a stage, so I can't say that I spoke in a hotel with him. You spoke with him.

Kevin Palmieri:

I would say talked to him if you just talked to him, but you spoke together, presented.

Alan Lazaros:

Put some respect on it, man. That was a solid event.

Kevin Palmieri:

I was there, I supported you, I supported your ass, long before I knew what this was going to be.

Alan Lazaros:

I thought that speech went pretty well all things considered. I don't remember.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't remember. But we interview this gentleman at his mansion overlooking Scottsdale, arizona. He's got an infinity pool, beautiful, just a beautiful house. Amazing interview. He makes us filet mignon. We're almost late for our flight home.

Kevin Palmieri:

I was like, oh, this was pretty cool, pretty cool homes like, oh, this was pretty cool, pretty cool. Alan connects with him and alan gets him to the point where he's ready to start a podcast and he wants, he's gonna, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do the production. Cool, love it. So I, him and I go back and forth on emails and I'm like, yeah, what you're looking for is 1500 bucks a month. Get this. This is about a bing bada boom. Off to the races. What do you think? You're a millionaire, this shouldn't be a fucking issue. Sign on the dotted line. And he emails me back and says what do you think about a thousand dollars per month? I'll pay you three months in advance, so I'll cut you a check right now for three grand and you can promote, so you can like sponsor the podcast, so I'll give you a shout out on the podcast. This podcast is produced by next level podcast solutions. I was like, nah, nope, that ain't gonna work.

Alan Lazaros:

1500 keep in mind at this stage we had invested a lot of time crafting. I crafted the perfect messages. I didn't understand. I know kev didn't know I didn't understand kev used to back then he used to think, well, someone's a multi, a multimillionaire. So I said, kev, how do you think he became a multimillionaire? By giving away money.

Kevin Palmieri:

What's 500 amongst friends? You know it's not 500.

Alan Lazaros:

It's 500 a month, forever Amongst friends. And it's not about friends, it's business. Goddammit, you waste money in business. You go out of business.

Kevin Palmieri:

And you've learned that since then. He uh, just stopped responding, just didn't say no, we just stopped responding completely and I messaged him like five times after I've never heard from the man.

Alan Lazaros:

He'll never respond for anyone out there who is a business owner. When someone offers you three thousand dollars up front and has a huge amount of influence in a very successful industry and offers to sponsor the show, say no, say yes and ask for five or more a month and see what happens so yeah, he, uh.

Kevin Palmieri:

I was very embarrassed. I haven't spoke to him since and he again. It was a great lesson. Unfortunately, I had to be the one to learn it and that sucks, and it was very.

Alan Lazaros:

Now you understand if you waste money in business, you go out of business 100 okay, 10 minute warning here, so we get a pace yeah, hammer, hammer. So what we have left is six minute mile. Uh, dean potato cam, uh-huh, amy maul uh-huh, and justin justin, justin red oh, okay, what do you want to do? Most of these are you, I know well, that's because I feel like I embarrass myself all the time.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, but they're like micro ones, like the next level fitness accountability group thing. It's like that's not that big of a deal all things considered.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, fair. The point, by the way, just to reiterate, is when you are in momentum, you're going to mess up constantly.

Kevin Palmieri:

For sure yeah.

Alan Lazaros:

You are.

Kevin Palmieri:

You're going to break shit.

Alan Lazaros:

For you are. You're going to break shit for sure, and if you're constantly playing not to mess up, you're going to lose momentum, you're not going to take risks, you're not going to move forward, you're not going to make decisions. I, this morning, was feeling it. I said it's time to announce the 10-pound in 10-week challenge and I fucked it up, but it's better than not announcing it.

Kevin Palmieri:

Right, and we're still doing it right, so it or just not not the biggest deal. Okay, biggest guest we probably ever had, I would say, and again, in terms of our space, dean graziosi. He is like a level, a plus level guest in the self-improvement business, personal development, speaking, all of that. We had just learned that you can use the camera I am using, which is a sony a73, as a webcam. We didn't know that that wasn't, that wasn't a thing. We didn't understand that that was a thing you could do. So this is our first time ever doing it. So we log on to zoom, dean logs on to zoom and it literally looks like you are filming us with a potato. I mean, it was fucking terrible, unusable. It was bad, unus was bad, unusable video.

Alan Lazaros:

And imagine you're looking in goggles underwater, but the goggles are completely blurry.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, drunk goggles. They might as well have been drunk goggles. And there's a moment where Dean logs on. He's like, hmm, okay, this is a waste of time. How did this get through? How did this get on my calendar today? Luckily, it went really well. Well, but that moment of like hey, I know it looks like shit, we mess something up, but we promise this is going to be, hopefully, a valuable interview. That was terrible. I mean I, I did so much research. I also fucked up the intro. I for some reason I can't say new york times best-selling author. I don't know how to say it when somebody's standing and standing in front of me. So I also fucked up the intro for that as well.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, it's. It's so cool to look back. I know we got to go here in a second, but terrible, kev, you'd be fine now you were so embarrassed around.

Alan Lazaros:

Back in the day you used to you used to have this weird thing about certain people that were really successful, like cause he had what a $15 million house or something at that time that he just got a newborn Kev and I want to share this with our listeners because I've met so many millionaires and one billionaire on this journey and I know them, some of them pretty well, some of them deeply well. They are just people and they're not as amazing as you think. They're really really, really, really good usually in one area and alarmingly bad in a lot of the other ones. So just don't Kev. You used to have a little bit of this their inferiority, complex, imposter syndrome, whatever it is and now you don't. I don't think nearly as much. If anything, you've been shocked at how incompetent they actually are.

Alan Lazaros:

Because I remember telling Kev like dude, that dude doesn't know what you think he knows. He's like what do you mean? I'm telling you he got more lucky than you think. Okay, so six minute mile, I'll. I'll tell this one.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, yeah, kev and I are in the gym back in the deep fitness days. I mean you and I were just getting after it and Kev's like dude, I could fucking run a six minute mile. I was like no chance, no chance, let's, let's do it, let's do it. We that we had just worked out and we did legs, I'm pretty sure, for an hour and a half. Back in those days we weren't doing as much business, we were doing a lot of lifting. So we're an hour and a half in the gym. It's like 8am or something and we it's freezing, cold rain, yeah.

Alan Lazaros:

And we go to the WPI track in Worcester and this is a nice track. My uncle Merle is actually Norcross field, named after that track. This is where I went to college Set the timer up. Kev's like let's fucking do this. Man, I'm athletic as hell, son, he obviously didn't say any of that. And the dude, I ran a 617 and we were hammering with everything. We had a couple athletic guys, and kev could not survive. I caught him dead at the end of the third lap and he was on the ground dying.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's brutal. What's your take? It was very humbling and it was embarrassing because I said with such confidence that I would be able to do it. But I think again if there's any lesson.

Alan Lazaros:

What do you think?

Kevin Palmieri:

you could run now. Nothing, zero, no way, I don't know, I haven't run in so long, I don't know. Yeah, probably I don't know, probably.

Kevin Palmieri:

I know I could probably squat 365 pounds. So that's what I'm, that's what I'm playing for right now. Nice in a cut, that's pretty good. I I think that the level of embarrassment is directly connected to how competent you feel in something. So when it comes to like physicality, I wasn't nearly as embarrassed as maybe some of the other stuff, because I do feel like capable. I just wasn't as capable as I thought.

Kevin Palmieri:

But yeah, I mean that was pretty embarrassing for sure all right, we got two more amy maul and justin ren first interview uh, first big interview I ever got like long before I ever should have gotten it was this guy named Justin Ren. Justin Ren had been on Joe Rogan. He was a professional mixed martial arts fighter and he did this thing where he was partnered with this company that would go to the Congo to build water wells for pygmy villages, and I was like, holy shit, this is cool. He posted on his Instagram that he was going to be doing podcast interviews. Nobody had podcasts, really in 2017. So I reached out. I was like I'd love to interview you Somehow. I made it through it. They were like, yeah, let's do it. I was like, fuck, yeah, this is awesome, nice, what?

Alan Lazaros:

was this episode three or something?

Kevin Palmieri:

I think this was episode. This was going to be episode like seven, I think. So I did the interview over phone recorder because this was 2017. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I didn't know what the hell I was doing and his Wi-Fi was brutal and I was like I'll probably be able to fix it. I tried to fix it. I couldn't fix it. I mean, this was a world-class interview. This was a 10 out of 10. I crushed it.

Alan Lazaros:

He crushed it. It was great, I listened to it. I could hear your questions, but I couldn't hear him.

Kevin Palmieri:

I sent it to you. I this fixable. I sent it out to someone. I paid like a couple hundred bucks, I think, to try to get it fixed. Couldn't get it fixed, I ended up reaching back out and they ghosted me. They wouldn't respond. They wouldn't respond to to the request to do another interview and I felt so dejected I was like, oh, my goodness, this is all. This is never gonna work. I just dropped the ball. And the biggest thing ever I'm super fucking embarrassed it was terrible.

Alan Lazaros:

What? What do you understand now that you didn't back then?

Kevin Palmieri:

I mean dude, you'd never let that happen this time yeah, it doesn't. You'd have standards and you'd say it doesn't matter, I, I good wi-fi it was the first. I mean talk about momentum. I was on the road for work. I did this from a hotel room. I had no idea what I was doing.

Alan Lazaros:

I didn't do enough research, that I didn't do enough research and I think that if you got on the phone and they had bad wi-fi, you'd say hey, you have standards now. It's so different than it used to be, isn't it? Yeah it's awesome. And we didn't have stream yard, we didn't have these microphones, you didn't have cameras. It wasn't on youtube. No, it was an early, early, early day.

Kevin Palmieri:

This was recorded on my fucking cell phone like cell phone recorder. I recorded the call with a cell phone recorder that was it, and this is before kevin and I teamed up.

Alan Lazaros:

I need to make that clear. All right, amy mall.

Kevin Palmieri:

Last one, amy mall. Okay, so we had a team member as she was. This was before she was a team member. Many of you might know amy not amy l on the team, but previous Amy. She reached out to me before she was on the team Like she was a listener and she was a really strong community member. Like she was. She was really big in the community.

Kevin Palmieri:

She was my EA for a time. She was Alan's EA for a time. She said, hey, I'm struggling at school because I just feel like an outsider and I don't know how to start conversations with people. And I said, all right, well, let's go to the mall and we'll start conversations with strangers. And she's like all right, cool. So we meet at the mall and I actually live like 15 minutes from this mall. To this day, it's like right down the street. No shit, yeah. And so we go and we get coffee I need a little liquid courage, let me caffeinate and we go to a store where they sell these giant beanbag chairs.

Alan Lazaros:

Dude, I was so big on Dunks back then it was Starbucks. Oh it was, yeah, I got Starbucks. I always used to get Dunks.

Kevin Palmieri:

It was cheap and I didn't feel like I felt like Starbucks was too good for me. It's like I'm not that type of person now. It's just expensive as all hell. We go to a the store that sells these beanbag chairs, and I say, amy, all you gotta do go up to the front desk and ask him how much the beanbag chairs cost and she's like no, no, what if they? I said no, I don't know who's buying these fucking things. They're probably not having many conversations. They're gonna be excited to have a conversation. It'll pass the time. We got this. I was so embarrassed that day, just like walking from from store to store, kind of trying to trying to poor belief.

Alan Lazaros:

I think you messaged me because you were trying not to talk to yourself off the ledge. I didn't want to go. You were like all four of my tires were slashed.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, like what excuse can I use that I won't have to do this? I?

Alan Lazaros:

was super nervous. You Snapchatted me that day Like I don't remember. I don't remember what you said. I know I definitely didn't want to go. That was back in the days when you borrowed belief. Dude, is it weird to think back on this stuff. Dude, how hard would that be for you now that would be a joke. Now it would be much easier. But. But I just gave a speech on a whim to you know, 50, 50 000 per year, mastermind people, it's. It's such a different world later on. The compound effect is really something powerful. That's eight years ago. Eight years ago we weren't capable of what we now make look easy. It's so important to understand that everyone that you look up to probably at one point was like struggling with these simple things.

Kevin Palmieri:

They definitely were. They definitely were struggling with these simple things and it was a really good lesson for me of somebody else borrowing my belief. That was the thing You're willing to do more embarrassing things for other people than you're willing to do for yourself. If you take nothing else from this, that I mean that is a huge thing. We are more likely to do something for somebody else than we are ourselves, especially if it's embarrassing or uncomfortable. I wouldn't have done that for me. The reason I did that was for Amy and I wanted to shield her from as much embarrassment as possible, and it went really really well. Ended up having conversations with strangers food court. We rented these mechanical zoo animals you could ride around the mall. We did that. I have it on video. And then amy came on the team and literally won one of our rejection contests where we were selling tickets to something and it was whoever gets the most rejections gets a hundred dollar amazon gift card or something. She got rejected more than anybody else, so somebody who's cool, she got dean's list.

Kevin Palmieri:

So many things yeah based on based on that, but she had to work through embarrassment together with me and that was something that was super beneficial.

Alan Lazaros:

Let's wrap this up because I I gotta jump to my therapy session, the let's wrap it in a bow, both of us. What's your main takeaway? Because I don't want to just tell 10 stories and not have something really of value.

Kevin Palmieri:

If you want to get momentum, you are most. This is it. Anytime you're doing something beyond what you're currently capable of, there is an opportunity that you're going to mess it up royally, and there is an opportunity that there will be embarrassment there. But be embarrassment there. But if you keep going, you'll event, you'll get that level and then you'll get to the next level and the same thing's going to happen. I don't know if it's ever really anything you can avoid. It's just something we have to become better friends with.

Alan Lazaros:

I remember way back in the day I saw a magazine and I used to love the show friends and Jennifer Aniston was like my teenage crush. I was a teenager and she was my crush and I remember I saw a really unflattering photo in one of the magazines of her. I remember thinking how does she deal with everyone taking photos of her that are so unflattering? And I remember thinking how does she deal with it? How is she not insecure? How does she? You just exposure therapy. And now I feel and again, I'm not by any means famous or anything like that, not at that level, not even close. But my point is is I now know there have been a lot of unflattering things put online of me. I don't know if I give a shit as much as I used to. I think it's just, it is what it is. But when I was a kid and I was insecure about being tall and lanky and prepubescent, I couldn't get girls to look at me. I remember thinking how does she deal with that? And now I know it's just, it's exposure over time. She's been an actress at that point for 15, 20, 30 years and it's the long term is, if you take nothing else from this. That's only eight years.

Alan Lazaros:

We've still got a long ways to go. We're still pretty young all things considered, and those are only 10. We have 100 more embarrassing moments. You put something on social media, you say something wrong, you spell something wrong, you look stupid. I posted something recently that looks like I don't have any shins. At the end of the day, you just got to fail forward. We used to talk about that all the time back in the day. You got to fail forward and embarrassment hopefully drives you. It drives me. I got more motivated after that training and I went back to the drawing board and I tried to figure out what we did wrong. And now we have hook, story lesson, future pace, all this stuff. So every time you get knocked on your ass, get up smarter and stronger and faster each time and you can accomplish such amazing things long term.

Kevin Palmieri:

And we have a thousand more embarrassing way more than that. We have millions of embarrassments to come. It's just at a different level, in a different way, and we'll have a different response and relationship to them, hopefully. All right, cool. All right, next up a nation. If you are looking for a group of amazing humans who are on this journey with you so they know what it's like to be embarrassed as they try to build momentum, sometimes out of control, join our private facebook group.

Alan Lazaros:

We'll have the link in the show notes and below and if you want to join the 10 pound, 10 week challenge excuse me, dm kevin or myself on instagram, email us alan at nextleveluniversecom or kevin at nextleveluniversecom. We'll put you in there. And, uh, the start date is may 29th 2025. The end date is August 7th 2025. Even though I originally butchered that, strong work.

Kevin Palmieri:

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

Alan Lazaros:

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 a hold of us is in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri:

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

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

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