¶ Intro / Opening
Have you ever said oh , I just don't have the willpower , I just don't have the discipline ? What if you're not correct about that and you are overwhelming yourself with too many things and too many priorities ? And that's the actual issue .
Ever since I was a kid wow , ever since I was a kid , I was obsessed with math and science . We're reading a book called Willpower in Book Club , and the science of willpower is blowing our minds .
Welcome to Next Level University . I'm your host , kevin Palmieri .
And I'm your co-host , alan Lazarus .
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Welcome to Next Level University , next Level Nation today for episode number 2107, . The issue isn't your willpower .
I had a moment recently , alan , where I connected the dots to the more overwhelming my to-do list becomes , the less I feel like I'm capable of accomplishing things on my to-do list , because I get overwhelmed with all of the things that need to get done . And I had that moment today where it was like all right , let me look at , this need to get done .
And I had that moment today where it was like all right , let me look at this . And I think the other piece of it , too is most of it can't really get done right now . You know how . You have something but you have to send a message to someone to get a piece of information , to then do the thing to send it back to them . That's a whole nother thing .
But yeah , you wanted to do this episode . I figured I'd open us with a story , but why are we doing this ?
¶ Study reveals surprising willpower clue
I was running earlier I called it a jaunt because it was more of a jog and I was listening to Prep for Book Club , which is right after this , and the first chapter of Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney is talking about how they did a study with college students during finals , and the college students that were doing the best on the tests , that were
doing the best at studying for the tests , had dirty socks . That's not where you thought I was going to go . No , not at all . So what they found is that you only have a certain amount of willpower and if you're using it to study , you're inevitably going to let other things fall , and dirty socks is the metaphor for that .
But there was another piece of the book that talked about I got a sunburn this weekend . I'm super itchy .
There's another part of the book that talks about this chapter how these kids that don't study well identify as I just don't have enough willpower , when in reality , the science shows you aren't getting enough sleep , you're spreading yourself too thin , you're overwhelmed , you're trying to do too many things well , which , if you listen to the last two episodes two
episodes before this was about . What are you ? What can you be top 1% at . If there's a hundred random people , you will be in the top If you really tried , if you tried over a long period of time , not just overnight . The second one is how do you actually do that , which we did eventually get to , and then this episode is about how do you do that ?
How do you actually improve mastery
¶ How your brain builds discipline
? And a lot of people say I don't have discipline or I don't have willpower , when in reality it's something that you can grow . I'm going to butcher the name of this part of the brain .
Emilia and I were listening to neuroscience , a neuroscience Ted talk earlier while doing mobility and there's a part of the brain the anterior something , something I'd have to look it up that gets larger when you do hard shit you don't want to do .
And I said I was on with a client , we were looking it up , and I chat GPT didn't live and I said my sneaky goal in life is to get this as big as humanly possible .
And the neuroscience has shown that unless you can force yourself to do hard shit that you genuinely don't feel like doing , that willpower part of the brain , which I'm going to look up in a second , will not actually get bigger . And the people who have olympic athletes , stuff like that , they have a much bigger . This thing I'm going to look up .
I'm going to look it up . As a matter of fact , I'm not even going to look it up , I'm just going to go back to the search that I did before .
I had a moment this weekend where I was going to do something that I didn't want to do , yeah , and I was like , all right , I need to create 10 benefits in my head of what will happen after I do this thing . Nice , it worked really well .
Yeah , that's far it works really well , and you'd be surprised how fast you can come up with 10 things , like one might be . I'm gonna get way better at it . Two , I'm gonna feel relief after I do it . Three this person's gonna really appreciate that I do it . Four , I'm gonna be able to check it off the list . Five , it'll free up something next week .
Six , I'm gonna get myself ice cream because I do it . Seven , blah , blah , blah , and you can get ice
¶ Trick your brain with future rewards
cream if you want .
Okay , don't fucking judge me is that one of the reasons ? No , no , I can't .
I can't have ice cream because it it goes against two out of it goes against everything . No , but I would understand if it was like I don't know , write your . You want to write your thesis and you don't want to do it ? Yeah , get yourself a . Get yourself a pizza pie , get yourself an ice cream , whatever . Whatever feels right , do it .
Dude , I'm looking through my chats . Yeah .
This is hilarious Bare deaths in 2025 . Introduction to discrete math Change audacity sample rate . This is funny , oh man .
You want to hear something crazy ? Real quick , talk to me . Do you know ? It's been 50 years since Jaws came out .
Yeah , I saw that , isn't that ?
maybe the craziest thing of all time .
Yeah , it's wild . And also , if I were to watch that movie again , it would probably look terrible . Nope , is it still strong ? It holds up . I'm telling you when was the last time you watched it ?
Two years ago .
I love that movie . These are my judgy eyes . Two years ago , it still holds up .
I'm telling you that movie will hold up forever .
It will never look bad , dude . I went and watched , I told you , the Indiana Jones films . It's like come on .
Well , here's the thing they always sucked , Dude . They always suck .
We're going to potentially lose listeners right now as a a kid , they were probably awesome , but yeah , but so wasn't a fucking page master , like that was a great book too you've never seen page master I don't know what you're talking about , straight up macaulay culkin you love him , man , one of the greatest .
All in on home one of the greatest child actors of all time . He , he like , was good . He was good , great , world class . He did a great job , world class . He somehow , like , gets into a book world and it's the . That's why it's called the page master .
You'd love it seriously , is this another one of those oppenheimer things ? No , I mean no , no , you'd love it . Okay , cool , yeah , I am gonna watch . Uh , one of my clients shout out to you , matt . He said I'm with kev , you gotta watch . It's a wonderful life , got it ?
yeah , the fact that you have it is you got to watch . It's a Wonderful Life Got to ? Yeah . The fact that you have it is personally offensive to me . It's going to change your life . Is Emilio going to love it ? Yes , nice it's going to change your life .
We watched a movie last night I know this is irrelevant , listeners we watched a movie last night called Devotion . It was awesome . You know the dude uh from twisters , glenn powell . He's crushing it , man , yeah , yeah , yeah , he's , he's good , he's real good , he's in it and it was awesome film . It was awesome again .
I love film , so take that with a grain of salt . I just want to relax and I love the hero's journey . I love seeing someone overcome adversity and , you know it , it's awesome . I do .
Okay .
I'm going to look this up , okay , you still haven't looked it up .
I thought the whole time you were fucking looking it up .
Well , dude , I'm in my chat GPT , so we're talking about movies . I use chat GPT to find movies .
Same . I have a GPT created that gives me movies based on my recommendation of what I want to eat . That's awesome . That's awesome that's awesome .
Okay , what part of the brain that's ?
that's what I'm doing that's what I'm doing when I'm not texting you back .
Yeah it's bigger ,
¶ Willpower isn’t your problem
gets bigger , uh , as you develop .
It's a little overcast and I want to watch the dark night . What should I get from ? And I only have 1800 calories ? What should I get ?
Nice , okay , d , l , p , c , p , f , c . It's the front part of the brain , part of the prefrontal cortex . There it is Anterior cingulate cortex . Acc monitors conflict and helps regulate emotions and impulses off , often working in tandem with Dpfc . Which means what ?
Training your willpower through practices like meditation , goal tracking , goal tracking , nice , deliberate discomfort huh , that's , that's fire , and mindful pauses before action can physically strengthen these areas of your brain , ventromedial prefrontal cortex involved in valuation and reward-based decision making . So neuroplasticity .
Last piece , with consistent use , like practicing self-discipline , resisting temptations or engaging to focus-based tasks , the DLPFC becomes more active and structurally strong over time . Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex . Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex , also known as DLPFC , found it . I don't know what any of that means . That is an accomplishment .
Hell yes .
We did this . Yeah , Now I know that I do need to memorize that , though for sure ,
¶ Level up with NLU: Join our free virtual Monthly Meet-up event every first Thursday for powerful insights, real tools, and unstoppable growth.
NLU listener , what is happening ? 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 Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex Is it memorized ? Say that five times fast .
I can't say it one time fast .
Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex . Nice yeah . Dorso lateral prefrontal cortex , nice , yeah , dorsolateral prefrontal cortex . Okay . So the point of this episode ?
Yes , the issue isn't your willpower .
Exactly . Don't identify as someone who has low self-discipline . Instead , identify as someone who is going to build it . And here's the thing I don't care what you want to achieve in life , you cannot achieve shit without self-discipline . It takes discipline to go to bed on time . It takes discipline to wake up on time . It takes discipline .
The 21st century is a landmine of immediate gratification . You can get anything you want . You can spend money easier than ever before . Remember back in the day when you needed cash to spend money ? Now you don't need shit . You just need a credit card that they will give you and you just need to go right past zero right into debt and then you're Jeffed .
It has never been harder Amazoncom , click , click , boom . When I was in college , we studied the three click satisfaction that steve jobs created for apple . That has helped the world and hurt the world tremendously , because in three clicks any of us can get access to almost anything . How fucking wild is that ?
Super convenient but super dangerous if you don't have willpower . So if you're not getting good sleep and you haven't developed this part of the brain , you're in a lot of trouble . And I say that because I care .
¶ Why hard things are good
It's it's . I think the hard part is , almost all of the things that are best for you are the things that you don't want to do . That's kind of I don't want to go to bed early . I want to stay up and ride the lightning . Always , it takes discipline to go to bed on time . It takes discipline .
I think it takes more discipline , for me at least , to go to bed on time than it is to get up early , because I like getting up early . I don't like going to bed early at all at all . What has helped me with with discipline is stat . So right now I'm hyper focused on saving money and I'm dieting .
It's way easier for me not to order food because it literally goes against two of the boxes I'm trying to check . Every day I'm waiting . I don't know . I want a burrito . There's a place that I have been frequenting not frequent as much as I'd like to , but they have amazing burritos . They have amazing burritos . I already know how many calories it is .
I know what I can get . It's like 12 bucks Awesome . I go pick it up . It only costs 12 bucks Great , but it's 12 bucks and I don't know when I get on the scale tomorrow I'm going to be holding extra water because of the sodium . Is that going to you know ? Is that going to throw my graph off ?
There's just a lot of necessity to not do the thing , and that's been helpful for me at least when it comes to being more disciplined eight years ago when I met you I know we gotta jump soon you had much less willpower than you do now is that fair , much less .
Yes , okay , what number one ? And again , I know you're afraid of bragging , but I'm asking you .
I am the fucking man .
All right , he's not that afraid of bragging . How big do you think your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex would be ? Zero to 10 ? Compared to the statistical norm , 10 is the highest and zero is the lowest . Eight and then number Okay , nice . And then it's higher than that . And then number Okay , nice , and then , ah , it's higher than that .
I don't know For sure who you can look this up right now . How many people work out six times a week ?
Yeah , but I'm thinking like tens are like high-level athletes , like high-level military personnel , and eight times 20 people in a random hundred .
This is the thing . Okay , if I take 100 people , you're 9.5 9.5 , so that means five people are more disciplined than you possibly . In a random sample of I'm open to the . I'm open to the possibility okay , yeah , look at you , that's interesting . I'm open to the possibility . I'm open to , I'm open to the possibility . Who you like ? A politician ?
I'm open to that , I'm open . I'm open to the possibility , I'm open . I'm open to the possibility . I mean , look who knows . Second question what do you think your life would have been if you never developed this Awesome Fair ? Okay , I would .
No , it would not be awesome . That is 1000% a joke . I would probably have so many things that I was resentful that I didn't accomplish because I didn't have the discipline to do it .
There's so many , so all of the things , that discipline was buildable , or did you think it ?
was fixed . I don't think I believed it was buildable until I did my first bodybuilding show , because I was the most disciplined person I've ever been . Up to that point Again , like when I I I ate the same meals . I never . I cheated once on my diet and I told my coach , but I would . If I had an extra kernel of rice , I would take it out .
The scale had to say exactly what I was supposed to be eating . I was obsessed . That's awesome . I was obsessed . I cooked salmon on a hot plate in a hotel room and I blew out the power to the whole fucking hotel . You're a ridiculous person . Because , I was cranking it , I was I gotta cook this salmon baby Blew out .
I wasn't to the whole hotel , it was to the whole wing of that hotel and I was like , oh , my goodness , what have I done ? But you just blew the circuit breaker . I blew the circuit breaker . Yeah , I was so disciplined , so disciplined , but that's because there was like there was a date and there was potential for embarrassment and there was- .
And a coach .
accountability and a coach and I don't want to let people down , I don't want to let myself down , I want to get embarrassed .
There were so many , so many pieces that helped me with it , and your Snapchat followers obviously needed to see your shirtless yeah of course , of course .
Look , that was a big thing , that was , you know . I think if anything we've realized that that definitely helped with our success early on is we were both in really good shape yeah , for sure that doesn't , that doesn't hurt .
Well , we were obviously walking our talk , we weren't just talking . That's one thing . That that's one of the reasons I love fitness so much is it shows that we're actually walking our talk . We're not talking about willpower and then eating Cheetos on the couch .
Look , I mean , I'm not against eating Cheetos on the couch . We're not talking about willpower and then saying I don't feel like doing it . I woke up today and I was like I do not want to do two episodes today , 100% I do not want to do it , but I'm so glad we did .
Always .
Yeah , always .
That always comes after , though .
¶ Three ways to build willpower
Yes , it does .
That's my next level lesson is you can build discipline . You can build willpower . Don't identify as someone who doesn't have willpower because you do .
Give me three . Give me three one sentence quick hitters about how to build it .
Number one set very clear goals in the near future that you value , would you say , small goals .
What size goals ?
Depends on the person , but I would say probably weekly or daily goal . Okay Okay , start with daily Okay , okay , okay that's one . Number two okay . Number two is do one thing . Whenever you set a goal , immediately there's something required of you that you don't want to do every time . There is no one who loves kale absolutely not .
They tell themselves a story they do , but they don't . No one actually wants kale Absolutely not . They tell themselves a story they do , but they don't . No one actually wants to eat kale over a cheeseburger . That's not human . Human beings are evolved for salt , sugar , fat , like . That's not real . Okay . Now that they might .
Whatever the point is is the moment you set that goal . Number two , you immediately have something that you don't actually want to do . That's required to achieve the goal mathematically , scientifically . What's that ? One thing , do it today . One thing , okay . And when you do . Number three is check something , write something down . I check every day , 1207 days .
I wake up in the morning , I hobble my ass to the whiteboard and I go and I erase with my finger . Obviously , I erase the six and I put a seven . Go us , fuck . Yeah . 1,207 days in a row without missing exercise . I get to feel good about me first thing in the morning , every day , and then I have to get my ass in the gym .
But that's you got to write something down and give yourself some sort of metaphorical check mark . There has to be a neuroscientific loop that closes . That was not one sentence each , but that's all good .
I literally sometimes will not have something on my to-do list . I'm like , oh my God , I have to do this . I'll put it on my to-do list just so I can check it off .
A hundred percent , you get dopamine , you got to hack the good vibes .
That's my next level lesson . You got to hack the good vibes when you can . And that's why I said if you look , if you had a really hard week and you grinded it out , get yourself a pizza , as long as it aligns with your goals . It's got to align with your goals .
If your goals are dieting and saving money , that might not be it , but if not , you do you Hot table , hot table . You could that . You could do babakoo's burritos . If you want , like , I'm gonna do whatever . Whatever you want , all right , cool , all right .
Uh , next level nation private facebook group for amazing people like you who are trying to get to the next level and want an amazing community excuse me , community to do it with . And there is a new book in book club . It is willpower by somebody ray baumeister and John Tierney , roy , roy Baumeister and John Tierney .
He's reading it on .
YouTube yeah , it's a little foggy .
I'm about to be on book club in 22 minutes . All we do in there is learn how to get better . That's it . It's a group of people who get together every Saturday and we read books and learn how to get better . That's it .
Boom . Hell of an endorsement right there . All right , cool as
¶ Outro
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 , keep it Next Level , next Level .
Nation . Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow .