¶ Intro / Opening
One of the most common lies that we tell ourselves is that we're not lying to ourselves , and I think to some degree we are all lying to ourselves in some way , shape or form . It's hard to admit , especially if you don't think you can change it .
It's hard to admit if you feel like it's beating yourself up , and maybe the hardest time to admit it is when you're not ready for change yet .
I think the greatest sign of maturity is one being honest with themselves . Kev some of my clients , the ones that I would bet on the most , are the people that the story to themselves about themselves is the most accurate Welcome to Next Level University .
I'm your host , kevin Palmieri , and .
I'm your co-host , Alan Lazarus .
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Next Level University anywhere , completely free . Welcome to Next Level University , next Level Nation today for episode number 2034 . How often are you lying to yourself ? So we're going to hit you with an 18 minute episode on lies and that's the truth . Pretty good , huh , nice . Pretty good , okay . Somebody commented Shout out , pretty good , okay .
Somebody commented Shout out to Jake . Somebody commented on a recent YouTube video it was the .
Your future self may hate you If you do something , jake If you're watching this Brother , reach out to Kevin and I on Instagram . We would love to To e-connect , to meet you .
Let's e-connect . He commented this hands-on . This hands-on episode is one of the best I've heard in a while . I know the principles of future you , but I have to admit to be 100% on the wrong side of that YouTube games , mobile scrolling , dopamine hits . Living for the now but thinking about the future . Thanks , and I hope you guys have a great seminar today .
Appreciate you man .
Nice , appreciate those kind words so much .
Way to go .
Jake , Appreciate you and I'm not calling you out .
Way to self-honesty on that . 100% . That's a lot of self-honesty . That's good .
¶ Future-you Vs. Present-you choices
I'm not calling you out on this episode , jake , but that was a really good example of this where , essentially , I know the principle of future you versus current you , and I think a lot of us do . We know that eventually we're going to have to pay the piper With whatever it is . Well , I'll clean up my diet eventually .
It's like no , no , you most likely won't , until something bad happens . All of us are guilty of this In some way , shape or form . I used to lie to myself about weed all the time . It's like , ah , this is good for me , I feel good when I do it , this is seven years in the making .
I tried to tell you you .
You know you did . I feel like you should have told me , harder though I do , I don't . At the time I didn't want it .
I tried .
I don't think so . I tried , did you ? Did you hold me down and make me smoke the whole pack ? No , never , never , once all right , real quick .
There are several things kevin and I eight years ago that I wish he was harder on me about , because yeah , after I grew that I wish he was harder on me about , because after I made a transformation or a change , I said , kev , he's like I knew . I tried to tell you and I'm like , well , you didn't fucking try that hard man . Oh my God Well .
I'm glad that that's happening to both of us . I deluded myself .
Yeah .
I deluded myself , and here's the fact . Here's the truth . This is the fact . I didn't want to change yet yeah , I didn't . I still want to smoke weed .
Not only did you delude yourself , you got me to do a bong rip , no .
I'm kidding , First of all . Yeah , how you didn't hey , I'm joking .
Hey , I take full responsibility for my actions . He didn't peer pressure me to do this , I was willing . Worst idea ever , man . I didn't smoke for years and I took a bong rep .
You were willing and able . Until you were not able anymore , we had to put Alan to bed . Oh , that was bad . I think we all . Again , it's not that for everybody , but there's something there's no human on the planet who is 100% honest with themselves at all times . I don't think that's even possible .
No , it's not Because we don't have the awareness to be 100% . That's what I'm going for , though . You're going for 100% .
I'm going
¶ The connection between goals and self-honesty
for 100% . It's an asymptote . You never percent . I'm going for 100 . It's an asymptote . You never get there . Shout out to the person who reached out on instagram keep it anonymous who said I really like what you said about the asymptotic function . When it comes to reaching your potential , you get . It's a mountain that gets higher as you climb it .
You never fully get there and for those of you out there , asymptote it's . It's the line , the equation that gets closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and closer to 100 , but never actually gets to 100 . So you never really reach your potential . It's an infinite game . Just a little side math .
What do you advise ? What would the alan lazarus next level three-step system for self-honesty be ? Pretty good , the next level , honesty accelerator .
Excuse me , Okay , can I just answer and not give you the three things ? I'd prefer three if possible . But yeah , let me try . I don't think it's three . The first step would be Okay . The first step is I have a goal To get to a level beyond the level I'm at .
Okay , okay , of honesty , of self-honesty .
No , no , no no . I had a client recently tell me so all of this is impossible without goals . I said , yes , Of course . Let me explain . You're not going to intentionally learn things Like okay , you knew we had Kev one time up in our attic checking something you remember . I don't even remember what it was .
Yeah , you had a leaky pipe or something somewhere I was checking on I think . Oh , remember what it was . Yeah , you had a leaky pipe or something somewhere I was checking on , I think oh no , it was your hvac .
Your hvac was out , yeah god damn , dude , this was a new build . Quote unquote . New build 2006 or 2007 . This was built , dude , 20 years . Everything starts going to shit , right ? Isn't that the like ? I don't know , it's a real I told emilia I want to buy homes that were built in this century . I'm not for the oh , it has character .
And again , for anyone out there with a house with character . I see you , I understand .
I want functional utility is the way . If it has character , probably has termites as well .
Yeah , it's very possible , you know so , anyways , we had kev up in our attic . Why ? Why ? Because you did weatherization . You didn't wake up in the morning and go . You know , I really think I'm going to go learn about weatherization today . No you had a goal to make more money .
A company that did weatherization offered you more money and then you went and learned it because you had to , not because you want to . Human beings learn out of necessity . We don't learn for funsies . I learned spreadsheets because I was screwed . If I didn't right , I didn't wake up going . I hope for spreadsheets , okay . So anyways . Number one set a goal .
We've talked about how , if you don't have a high self-belief , that's going to be hard . So set a goal congruent with your level of self-belief . It has to be any goal . It can be a week from now . It it has to be any goal .
It can be a week from now , it can be a week out , it can be a month out , it can be a quarter out , it can be 10 years out , depending on your level of self-belief . Number one is set a goal . Number two figure out where you're lying to yourself when it has to do with that goal .
¶ How to tell when you're lying to yourself
How do you know ?
I have my answer for this but how do you know when you're lying to yourself , when it's not working ? But it takes a while . So I said this earlier on a podcast . I said there's two reasons in this moment why people people aren't achieving their goals . Either number one they haven't waited long enough for the seed to actually become a plant .
It might actually work . It's not going to happen overnight and that's alarmingly a lot of the case . What you're doing might actually be working . You just aren't doing it long enough and then you stop before the seed becomes a plant . You stop watering the seed when it's a little under-the-ground thing .
You're not going to ever see any results Under the ground thing .
I was going to let that slide . I was going to let that slide .
Yeah , appreciate it , appreciate it , all right . The second reason is because and I really like the quote that you have for this the reason you're not successful at your goals is not because you don't believe enough in what you already believe . It's because you have inaccurate beliefs , you have an inaccurate understanding .
So that's the second one that I would talk about is okay , goal step one is set . The goal step two is figure out where you're inaccurate . And you said how do you do that ?
you look at how do you know when you're lying to yourself ? Alan immediately goes to goal setting .
It's like goals , goals why do you know when you're lying to yourself ?
Yeah , how do you know when you're lying to yourself ?
I think you have your own bullshit radar . This is hard to answer because if you were in my head , my thoughts are very honest . That's why a lot of people don't like me , because I say things that you're not allowed to say , even the dog thing with all the ethnicities I was like whoa , I wonder if that came off wrong .
I don't think so because a lot of people delude themselves into wanting to believe we're all equal and everyone's the same and it's like well , that's not actually genetically true You're . You're not allowed to say that , though there's a lot of truths in real life that a lot of people aren't , you're not allowed to talk about .
That's fair Socially and that's really hard for me because in real life if you don't face the truth , you can't really win , like the Abercrombie model thing . A lot of people would call me mean for saying you can't be an abercrombie model . It's like listen , I'm not trying to be mean , I'm just saying don't waste your fucking time .
Well , it's not as mean if I am , if I agree but you wouldn't agree if you were lying to yourself , I know , but if I was lying to myself , that would have broken me . Yeah , to a degree . Right , that's . That's why it's . You can only . You can only give level four feedback to a level four relationship . You can't give level 10 feedback .
Yeah , that's one of my biggest problems , for sure . Well , that's , it's a hard thing , for sure , for sure it's brutal , okay , uh , I don't know if I know an answer , because I feel like I do . I think we all have a bullshit radar with ourself and other people , and I think we just have to learn how to use it I would agree with that .
Say I don't know if there is . I think you know . That's always my answer . It's like you know you know you ever play the game bullshit with cards long , would you essentially lie about what cards you have ?
so the goal is to get
¶ Inaccurate beliefs that block success
rid of all your cards and if you said three fours but it was actually a two and two fours , they can call bullshit and then you take the whole deck Like you take the whole pile . There's a scene in how to Lose a Guy in 10 Days which I think is an underrated movie . I think that movie's hilarious , but we used that in a Relationship Talks event .
Emilia and I coach couples in the Conscious Couples podcast and we used that movie . It was awesome . I love Fern , love fern . Have you seen that film ? I know of course not . Oh , it's good , it's funny . I thought you would have seen it because it's a comedy romantic rom-coms aren't for you .
That's a romantic comment , that's hey , you know underrated movie how to lose a guy in 10 days . It's all the things not to do .
I think it's a good study I , I don't disagree , I just was never into mcconaughey , just never did it for me . I didn't , I don't . I never understood why everybody was so drawn to him . A good looking dude charismatic dude but . But his acting is good , but like in the beginning in the rom-coms yeah well , you haven't seen amistad .
I mean , there's a lot of other ones I've never seen amistad pretty strong . Interstellar unreal , come on . Okay , doesn't matter . I'm not going to defend mconaughey here , although I do have his book behind me Greenlights . I actually thought it was pretty good , so I'll give him that , but anyways , I couldn't put that one down .
I was up at 2 am listening to that .
I heard our business listening to that 100% .
Thanks .
Matt yeah , exactly , okay . Number one set the goal . Number two bullshit radar . I think that you can Listen . It's not socially acceptable to call everyone else out on their bullshit . I'm going to give you an example . And my mom and I are good , so I'm gonna say this and if you were listening , mom , that that's okay . You were here for this .
She was at the dinner table and she was like well , the reason I'm fat is because I quit smoking . And I said , mom , like , are there people who quit smoking who aren't fat ? And she used the word overweight , I think , but I think she actually might have used the word fat actually .
And she said , well , yeah , and I , but I think she actually might have used the word fat actually and she said , well , yeah , and I said , well , that's obviously not it . Then , like , the real reason and I'm saying this because I love you , I actually said it this way , mom the reason you're overweight is because you've never consistently exercised .
And she's like oh , Next Level
¶ Join the Next Level Podcast Accelerator: Podcasters growing together. Level up your self, podcast, and business.
Nation , we would love to invite you to our 18th round of Next Level Group Coaching . It is the Next Level Podcast Accelerator . If you are a podcaster who wants to level yourself up , level your podcast up and level your business up , this 12-week program is perfect for you .
So we've done this 18 times . We've iterated and iterated and improved and improved . The first four weeks is level up yourself . The next four weeks is level up your podcast . The last four weeks is level up your business . Build a brand underneath your business . The promo code is NLULISTENER all one word . Put that in at checkout for 30% off .
It comes to less than $25 per session for the 12 sessions . Kevin or I will be on every single one of them . We hope to see you there . Well , if you tell yourself a story , it's because you quit smoking . You're not gonna do anything about it and this is nothing against my mother . This is . I don't want people to lie to themselves .
Remember at Next Level Live when I pulled up a slide . There's a picture of me drunk , blacked out , drunk , terrible photo of me in my early 20s . And then there's a photo on the right transformation photo of me and emilia just happy , healthy and in love . And I .
On the slide it said bad choices in big red letters , bold and good choices in big green letters , and I and I stopped everything I was doing . I told the whole audience like I made terrible fucking choices . That's the truth . And a lot of people say no , don't be so hard on yourself .
Like , listen , the truth is , until you admit you're making terrible choices or bad choices , pick the label , you're not going to work hard on changing them . Like , the reason I quit drinking is because I knew that my goals required me to my fitness goals in particular . And so , number one set a goal . Number two bullshit radar .
I think we have that more than we realize . I think we're conditioned to to lock it up because of shame within ourselves , insecurity or social conditioning . I would . I was definitely the old me , never would have said that to my mom . The old me wasn't man enough , wasn't courageous enough , wasn't grown up enough .
I used to just lock in my head , think wow , that's not going to help you , and then just keep it to myself . I don't do that anymore . I used to be a fucking coward coward . The third one I would say is what's the new action plan based on the accurate story ? And that's three steps
¶ Lying chips away at self-worth and self-respect
three steps .
That's how you change three steps . This , so I have a visualization for how you know you're lying to yourself .
Okay , will it work ?
Don't know , but this is how I imagine it . I think it works for me , I think it lands for me . When I'm lying to myself , it feels like I am taking something away from the pile , and that pile is my self-worth Nice . When I'm owning , when I'm undiluting myself , it feels like I'm adding something to the pile . So I again , I have this . What is the best ?
What would the best version of kevin do ? Well , the best version of kevin do , that is , essentially , am I lying to myself right now ? And there's always this moment where , like , I throw the ball in my head and it's like it could get intercepted , could get caught , it might hit somebody in the stands and knock the popcorn all over the fucking place anything .
I throw the ball in my head and it's like it could get intercepted , could get caught . It might hit somebody in the stands and knock the popcorn all over the fucking place . Anything could happen here . It usually 99.9 times out of 100 , gets caught . It always gets caught , but it's just a matter of how long does it take .
So that pile for you is self-worth .
I would say that pile is self .
So you're stacking self-worth . I would say that pile is self . So you're stacking self-worth . Probably self-worth slash .
For me it's self-respect .
I lose respect for myself very quickly when I'm a coward or I'm lying to myself , so you can label it out there for you whatever it would be . Self-esteem , self-worth , self-love , self-respect , self-trust , self-trust yeah , self-worth , self-love , self-respect , self-trust , self-trust yeah . You can't build authentic self-love or self-esteem or self-respect or self-worth .
I don't believe while lying to yourself . I've tried . I deluded myself for a long time of , oh , drinking's totally fine and yeah , that's not a big deal , and yeah , okay , like I always use the cheating on the vocab test , like that hurt my self-respect for sure . Of course I still regret it . I seriously still regret it .
Now , do I think I should be chastised for that ? No , of course not , right ? I mean , I'm a kid . Does that mean chastise ? Honestly , man , I don't know and I don't want to get into it , even the thought of it . I don't , I don't know chastity belt like basically chastised means you just don't .
I've never heard of don't know chastity belt like basically chastised means you just don't .
I've never heard of that before . A chastity belt means you can't do . You can't do sex .
I think that's right yeah , the metal belt means you can't do sex , you can't just I guess all right . Well , here's the point . I don't want to get stuck in the shame of oh you cheated on a vocab test . You're the worst student ever and that takes away everything you did with the straight A's and the President's Award .
No , but it's not as awesome as someone who didn't . Well , it's not unforgivable . Yeah , exactly , there's very little , that is but there's levels to shame and I think that's why we lie to ourselves as shame . I do .
I have a question really quick before we get out of here . Well , I guess it's not a question , it's more of a statement . We were talking about this before . How sometimes who . I'm hang with me when I say this cause . This is going to be very concrete and maybe blanket .
Oftentimes , when you tell the truth about yourself , people who are still lying to themselves about themselves try to save you from your truth .
Yeah .
Not , maybe not in all the time . Are they lying to themselves ? I don't know . But getting over that is one of the hardest parts , because I will say , when I started this journey I was not that smart and people would be like , well , no , I just wasn't . Let me tell you about me . Why don't you just let me ?
tell you about me , because they're insecure , that if you think you're not smart , they think they're not smart . They think they're not smart and you trigger their exile . That is totally fair , but it's like when you and I consider ourselves out of shape because we're comparing to our old standard Same .
But that doesn't mean I'm judging you .
Exactly . But that's where their insecurities go and that's how irrational insecurities make us is . Oh well , if Kevin and Alan think they're out of shape , they must think I'm really out of shape .
No , we don't . I ain't thinking about you , I'm thinking about me .
We're comparing to our standards . I was watching some videos earlier . Oh my goodness , you and me , man . What the hell happened ? I'm back , baby , all right , not the kid , though .
I'm coming back now .
Don't save me from that I gotta be truthful . You're coming back , Dude , I was jacked man For sure .
Oh my goodness , 176.7 today .
Nice you low .
And I'm hungry and suffering , so things are working fairly well .
This episode brought to you by Lenny and Larry's Cookies .
I'm joking Seriously . If you want to fart her out of the room , grab millennium larry's one thing I gotta read real quick .
I know we gotta go all right . I had a client who I believe is on the highest end of statistical success for probability in the future and I'm so freaking proud of this client anonymous .
She said it's wild how good of a job we do lying to ourselves and then lying to others which , by the way , if you're lying to yourself , you most likely are lying to others as well , makes perfect sense . I said that is the base problem of why a low percentage of people achieves their goals and dreams . You can't make optimal decisions with inaccurate data .
The true sign of maturity is how honest someone is with themselves . That's what I'm always looking for , and she said there are still a lot of places in my life that I'm Delulu and telling stories to myself to make myself feel better , or at least to make my parts feel better , even if it feels like shit .
I want to get really good at understanding these and working with them . Slash through them .
I have one more thing .
What else you got for us there ?
besides those mouth noises .
Yeah , sorry about that , but that's . There's something in there . Oh , I said when you were with blank , you were very delusional . I said it was the only time I started hating spending time with you and I said this is the reason why most people don't like me , because I'm extremely honest and this is what I'll end with .
This person was with someone who I think was horrible for her and again she agrees Definitely now and I tried to tell her , just like you've tried to tell me in the past , and I wasn't ready to listen . She wasn't ready to listen , right .
And when she was with this person who was wildly delusional , she got more delusional and egoed up constantly and I was coaching her at the time and that was the only time I didn't like coaching this person . Is you're just so delusional ?
My job is just to re-undelute you constantly , because if you think it's a road and it's actually a cliff , the self-driving car is just going to keep driving off a cliff and then blaming the world or blaming yourself or blaming other people , when in reality it's actually your own delusion . And my job as a coach .
If you hire me for anyone out there watching or listening , if you hire me as a coach , it's my job to help you think more accurately , because then you can make good decisions and play the chess game so you can actually achieve your goals .
Because if you don't know what the pieces do and you don't know where the pieces are , it's like trying to play chess when the board is all run amok . You can't . You can't do it .
So that's one of the base reasons why we don't yeah , horse doesn't horse doesn't out .
But if you think the horse is over here and it's actually over here , and you think the knight is over here , the knight is the horse . But the point is is accurate thinking
¶ Raise your standards for self-honesty
, I think . And again , I know I'm over the top with this , but that's why rationality is so important to me , Because I know that rationality . That's why people are afraid of AI . It's more intelligent than them . So if you get smarter , you become the chess master instead of the pawn .
We've all felt what it's like to be young and under the thumb of our parents or under the thumb of so-and-so , and when you get really , really , really smart , really , really , really brilliant , you become unhoodwinkable . People can't lie to you . You take back the reins of your own future .
Take back the reins of your own future .
Mm-hmm .
Could be a song name . A little long for a band name , but I could see that as a song name for sure .
Take back the reins . It's a good song .
That could be a band , I think . T-B-R . Take back the reins . Wow , anything you want to add quickly . Next level lesson , my next level lesson . Let me get a word in edgewise here , if I may , totally kidding . Alan and I are in weird moods . I don't know what's happening .
We're crumbling under the weight of the pressure we've created for ourselves , but also smiling , doing it , accept and live in and live with . Don't let other people lessen it for you , because they're going to try to . This is the fact of it . I was out of shape . I'm not comparing to you . I'm not saying you need to compare to me .
I'm not telling you how to live your life in any way , shape or form . I know how I used to look . You might not know how I used to look . I expect that you don't . You have a life . Of course , you don't know how I used to look . You have your own life . You don't have to worry about what I used to look like 10 years ago , but I do .
That's up to me . That's up to me , and if I lie to myself , I'm the one who has to deal with the repercussions of that , not you In this case . At least Slash . If you're lying to yourself , you're affecting other people too , whether you want to believe that or not you are . That would be my next little lesson . To end with what is yours , good sir .
My next little lesson is try to get around people where the standards for self-honesty are higher . One of the base ways to improve your life is to just start being really honest with yourself about the things that you're disappointed with . That's where I started . It's like listen , you are out of shape . Listen , you do drink too much .
You do hang out with people that might not be going places Like that changed my life and you're going to get the feedback eventually . So give it to yourself now and make some changes .
Next Level Nation Group 18 of Group Coaching . The Next Level Podcast Accelerator starts on Tuesday , April 15th , 5 pm . Eastern Standard Time Group is filling up nicely with super amazing , aligned people . If you want to be in the group , please let us know and we will get you all set up . Level up yourself , Level up your podcast , Level up your business .
We would love to have you . Link will be in the show notes . As always
¶ Outro
, 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'll talk to you all tomorrow .
Stay Next Level . Honest with yourself Next Level .
Nation . Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University . We love connecting with the Next .
Level family . 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 .
Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow .