Next Level University

How Quickly Do You Pivot? (2112)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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When frustration rises, can it lead to something greater? In this heartfelt episode, Kevin and Alan explore how the moments that test us can spark the clearest vision. A crowded gym becomes the catalyst for a new dream, and a conversation unfolds around self-belief, control, and the quiet power of pivoting with purpose. Through real stories and raw truths, they show how clarity often comes not in ease, but in resistance.

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Show notes:
(2:11) Frustration as fuel for change
(4:26) The home gym decision
(6:43) The Delta Force mindset
(8:34) Level up with NLU: Join our free virtual Monthly Meet-up event every first Thursday for powerful insights, real tools, and unstoppable growth. https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/K_0bBGWuTfKcnTh5B0pvBg#/registration
(12:23) Creating the future you want
(14:35) The truth about manifestation
(15:21) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Kevin Palmieri:

My biggest bottleneck in the beginning of this journey was lack of awareness. I've always been pretty quick to pivot. I've always been pretty quick to take action. My issue was that I just didn't know what to do. So if you're somebody who knows exactly what to do and you struggle with pivoting today's episode- is for you.

Alan Lazaros:

Frustration turns into fascination. Fascination turns into innovation, turns into fascination, fascination turns into innovation. I actually think the things that bother you are obstacles in the way of your goals, and I think they can motivate you if you use it right.

Kevin Palmieri:

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 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 2,112. Saturday if you're listening to this on the weekend, how quickly do you pivot? This is going to be a 10 minute episode. Okay, we say that and then usually it goes longer, but our goal for this is a 10 minute episode. Alan has a podcast he's on. Do not interrupt me, because every minute here is valuable like diamonds. You had a story, what is it?

Alan Lazaros:

what I was gonna say. Yes is it's saturday. That means book club is at 12 30 pm eastern standard time. The link will be in the show notes to register join us willpower strong work.

Kevin Palmieri:

All right, now we have nine minutes, got it all right, I was in the gym earlier.

Alan Lazaros:

Most of our stories are gym related. Again going back to the previous previous episode.

Kevin Palmieri:

when you have a priority, almost everything revolves around the priority, so that becomes the most focused on thing got to.

Alan Lazaros:

Fitness. Finance and family are my three priorities right now. Coaching, training, podcasting it's all good, okay, priorities within priorities. It's another episode sometime, wow, all right. The story is this I was in the gym earlier and because we have the heat wave thing going on, I think a lot more people are in the gym than typical.

Alan Lazaros:

Emilia and I had skipped two days, so we we walked outside in the heat in the evening because we've been overwhelmed for our exercise instead of going to the gym. We try to weight train every other day. We were in the gym this morning and it was an absolute S show. It was the worst I've ever seen it. I mean, it's a small-ish gym and there were, I don't know, maybe 30, 40, 50 people there. It was a lot. It was a lot, probably 30. And you just, you just couldn't get any stuff. You couldn't get space. It was. It was brutal and I was so frustrated. It was so frustrating because we only have 45 minutes. I was obviously behind. I texted you earlier and I got in the car and so did Amelia and we looked at each other and we went. That was a shit show. And then I had a moment and I was like it's a gym that's two minutes out of the way.

Alan Lazaros:

So in my head I immediately go to brainstorming. I go from annoyed and frustrated to immediately brainstorming. So frustration, I think, is the your mind, body, heart and soul saying hey, there's something in the way of your goals. That's what frustration is. When you get frustrated with your intimate partner or your friend or your family, you're frustrated because there's a goal or a core value being infringed upon. When you have huge goals, expect your life to be frustrating. Seriously, kevin's frustrated with my audio quality right now. He's annoyed because he has a goal. If you didn't have a goal to be a world-class podcaster, that wouldn't bother you. It's fair. That's why I think that's the base reason people don't have goals. The moment you set goals is the moment most things frustrate you because all of a sudden, there's a thousand obstacles in your fucking way. So one of the obstacles in the way of my dreams and my dream physique is this gym that is very, very difficult to work out in because there's so many freaking people in it and it's too small. So I have a couple options. So frustration into fascination.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, let's brainstorm. Alan, we can either go to a different gym, which the next closest is probably 15 minutes away, maybe 10, probably 10. Okay, I don't want to do that. It's two minutes out of the way. It's going to waste more time. Okay, and I was like you know what. I turned to Amelia. I said this is just going to motivate me. I'm going to go work harder Both of us. Let's go work harder, let's grow our businesses and let's buy a home gym. And she said, yep, and that was it. That was the end of the conversation and both of us had a fire in our belly. From that moment, we will go do that. It's just going to happen Now. It's not going to happen tomorrow. We're not going to buy a home gym tomorrow, but within two years you will see a decked out home gym. She already has the capital to do that and I'm going to also work on that, and we do too. But I also need other things, not just a home gym for me. Yeah, you get a home gym.

Kevin Palmieri:

What do I get? A Ferrari, a T-Rex, a llama a new car, I guess, so I already used up my home gym fund?

Alan Lazaros:

unfortunately no, but the point is, at the end of the day, you do have more control over your future. You don't have a lot of control over the present. Sometimes there's nothing I can do. Like the gym was so fucking crowded, what am I going to do? There's nothing I can do. So okay, and this is my trauma response, straight up aim higher, work harder, get smarter there is other stuff you could do that you could go to different time.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, I mean, there is other stuff. Now is it aligned? I don't, that's different yeah, exactly that's different.

Alan Lazaros:

I'm actually been enjoying the mornings. I used to be the evening fitness guy for years and I've been enjoying the mornings. I used to be the evening fitness guy for years and I've been enjoying the mornings because my willpower is higher. Shout out to Willpower the book in book club. But I actually and I want your take on this Kev, because I know we got to go here I am so quick to go from and she is too dude. You should see it. It's awesome. She goes from pissed off to positive change quicker than any human I've ever seen. It's insane. We, we immediately brainstorm about what we're going to do differently and then it's done the other day. She's like in the future, when you go upstairs, can you bring my phone down too, because we have a chart our chargers upstairs I said yep, and then the day after I forgot to do it, she's like hey, and then I was like, boom, did it.

Alan Lazaros:

Now it's done, I do it every morning. But we, we are very big on that and we use the analogy of delta force and we looked this up on chat gpt only 300 out of 1.3 million people in the us military are delta force, so it's 0.023 300. What a cool metaphor. The spartan 300 and I, for my clients out there, I'm I'm definitely using that metaphor like if you want to work with me, you basically are willing to be elite and hear the hardest truths in the world genuinely, and don't work with me if you aren't in a good mental health space. But we think of ourselves like that genuinely.

Alan Lazaros:

We've been watching a lot of military films. Like we, we have a very military mindset about everything. I mean, we don't fuck around with anything ever and and we do we're playful in in certain things, but for the most part, when we get up, it's game time, like if we don't leave here an hour and a half before our first session, before we go to bed, we always say what, what's your first session? I said 10, I said 1030. I thought it was 1030. That's why I had to text you yeah. So what's your take on this? Because, ultimately, I've never seen anyone go faster from frustrated to brainstorming, to positive change than Emilia Smith, and this is something that I do think is a cheat code. I just don't know I think it's.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think it's directly connected to self-belief, as always, your, your belief in your ability to control a situation, I think, is directly connected to your level of self-belief. So I think that's why it happens so quickly, or somebody else they might not think they're capable of, because right there it requires the belief to think that you can make enough money to afford a home gym in the next two years, hypothetically if we're saying two years, that right there the exact amount. That's a. That's not something that many people do nlu listener what is happening.

Alan Lazaros:

I just wanted to jump in here and let you know if you want to get to the next level faster. We have a free virtual monthly meetup at the first Thursday of every month. You can connect with like-minded people and become a bigger part of this amazing global community. The link to register will be in the show notes. I know how much money we make. I know how much money she makes. I know how much money she has. I know how much money I I have. I know how much a home gym will cost. I know exactly what we're going to do. I know where we're going to live. I know the price of homes in those areas I know square footage, I know the mortgage and the taxes.

Alan Lazaros:

I I in my head it actually a year and a half max.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, that's just not common. So it I'm, I'm, convinced it's again. I say this with many things it's directly connected to self-belief. The more self-belief I've been able to cultivate over the years, the faster I am to pivot as well, and it almost makes the present not matter as much. Yeah, it's going to suck for the next year, but it's not that big of a deal. But I also understand how rare that is and how that doesn't necessarily land with other people what was it?

Alan Lazaros:

what is it like to not have? Like, self-efficacy is what we're talking about. Your, your ability to just say okay, I'm just going to change this then you feel out of control you feel out of control.

Kevin Palmieri:

Bitch and moan and feel bad, make excuse. Depends. It depends on. For me, there are certain things that I always felt like pretty in control of, like the gym was always whatever. I'll just find another gym or I'll go to a different time, whatever, I don't care about that. That never really affected me that much. But yeah, you just feel out of control and then, whatever your trauma response to feeling out of control is, make excuses. Think you're not good enough, think you're not smart enough. Blame the world, blame other people, blame this, blame that, that I think that get matt.

Alan Lazaros:

Villainize other people that leads to even less self-belief it's, it's oh.

Kevin Palmieri:

What the why the fuck are all these people here at nine o'clock? I don't, don't any of you have jobs. It's like, well, you're there too, though like you have a job, so they, maybe they have a weird job that or I didn't go to that at all, no, no, or well, this person's not even in shape, like, why are they using the machine?

Kevin Palmieri:

It's like, well, that's how you get in shape. That, I think it's just. It's so easy to blame. It's so easy to blame other people than to take ownership. And I think you can constructively take ownership to the level of self-belief you have, because you can't really change what you don't own, but you can't really own what you. It's really hard to own what you can't change. That, yeah for sure. It becomes a. I think it's just a cycle. I think that's why self-belief and self-efficacy is such an important thing and a fundamental of what we talk about so much, because I think it dictates almost everything I do.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, agreed, do you? You used to have lower self-efficacy and now it's much higher, and to the point where you've actually playfully said I think I sound delusional to other people. 100%, definitely, okay, explain the difference, man.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's almost like you know you can predict the future because you're creating the future and you're just certain that you can create it. Like I told, taryn is like there's not gonna be any travel this year. I mean no travel, travel, we're not gonna travel. But next year it'll be completely different. Like just give me a year. I understand how fucking crazy that sounds. Just give me a year. That sounds crazy. Well, here's a long time a year's a long.

Kevin Palmieri:

Not, I know, but it is it, I know it's. It's really not, but it also kind of is, depending on when you zoom out, it's not a lot of, not a long time yeah, but when you think about doing the same thing every day for the next 365 days, it's like oh yeah, that is fair, that's fair, that's fair. So between now and your next birthday, we're just gonna do the same shit every day. Just give me, just give me that. That's all I need, that's it, and then things will be different.

Alan Lazaros:

That's it. Things will be different.

Kevin Palmieri:

I know, I know Things will be different. I know, I know It'll be great, way better, way better. But I understand, because I used to hear you say that. It's like, dude, it's not just give me a year, year's, a long fucking time. Now I say the same thing, so I understand what it's like to be on both sides of the coin, oh man.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, no-transcript. Okay, well, go into the future 10 years and tell me what you're going to be pissed off at yourself now for and Emilia later on that night. She's like 10 years, alan. She got stuck in shame the moment you said that and I was like, oh my bad. I have a client who told me recently I said go out a week. She said yeah, go out two weeks. She said yeah. I said go out a month. She said it's blurry. I said go out two months. She said it's blurry and there's shame. She said you want to know what came up for me, this photo of me at my worst. And she showed me the photo.

Alan Lazaros:

It's like are you fucking kidding me? Oh my God, dude, when I think about my future, there's nothing but excitement. I'm so fucking excited. Well, because you feel in control. Same. But here's what I want to share with everyone you can build that. I'm certain the neuroscience shows that you can build that. And willpower book club like come to book club. You can build it. You can build the executive function that only dolphins and primates have of going into your future. You can like Kev is now like yo, give me a year. You can build. You can build a lot more than you realize Seriously, but it's going to take fucking work and like you can't just oh, home gym tomorrow, like that's not how it works right. So that whole manifestation thing is such bullshit. 100%, yeah, 100%.

Kevin Palmieri:

I want to do an episode at some point on, like what are the top five things we used to believe that we now know we just don't anymore? Manifestation is one of them. For sure for me, nice, the universe doesn't care. Doesn one of them? For sure, for me, nice, the universe doesn't care, doesn't care, it doesn't, it doesn't. Bigger thing, hey, it doesn't care, doesn't care about you? Oh, it must. The universe aspires to align with everything you want. No, no, it doesn't, no, no, no, no, no. But it does feel good to believe that, it does feel good to believe that. But yeah, no, it's got other shit to focus on, like keeping everything spinning and like gravity and shit.

Alan Lazaros:

But you know, I really want to fucking bmw.

Kevin Palmieri:

Irrelevant to your feelings, I'll tell you all right, we're gonna go so, uh, you're on time ish to your next call book club today at 12 30 eastern time. If you're listening to this episode, on saturday next, all the nation will have the link in the show notes below. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at nlu we don, we donate to fans, we have family. We'll 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.

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

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