¶ Intro / Opening
Many of you probably do not know this , but at one point I thought that I was going to be a peak performance mindset coach for high-level athletes . That's what I wanted to do .
I was convinced that is what I was going to do Until I got to the point where I realized that I did not believe that I could be one of the best in the world at that and I had to go in a different direction at that and I had to go in a different direction .
If you cannot be at the top of a certain industry or a certain scale or a certain space , it's probably not what you should design your entire future around .
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 2105 . Don't go all in on anything until you know this is true . I am re-listening to Good to Great by Jim Collins from Alan's suggestion and one of the things he is talking about .
And again , this is for successful businesses , but we will make sure it connects to all of you out there that aren't entrepreneurs and don't want to start businesses .
The most successful businesses are the ones that choose one thing that they can be the best in the world at , and when things get really dangerous for a business is when they try to do a bunch of different shit really really well .
Is this the part where they use when Circuit City bought CarMax ?
No , no , this was Dumb idea , gillette . They were talking about Gillette .
Circuit City and they bought CarMaxes . No , it's not a great idea .
Yeah , it's not a great idea .
You got to stay in your lane .
That's why they went out of business . It is .
One of the reasons .
One of the reasons yeah , but I think for all of us , if we want to accomplish anything above the statistical average can't speak to save my life . If you just want an okay nine to five , you probably don't have to be the best in the world at what you do it's you know , probably don't have to be top 1% .
You just have to be better than those around you and better than those in a given area . I remember thinking that I was going to do high level , peak performance mindset coaching for athletes and I think the reason I chose that is because I didn't know what I wanted to do . We had this podcast . This was 2018 , 2019 . We were a few years in .
We had a good amount of reps I was coaching . I was doing mindset coaching at the time . What ?
was that . Like I know , lately I've been taking the episodes slightly off the rails .
It's all good . There are no rails here .
I love it . So I forgot about our mindset coaching days , yours in particular . Yeah , they were forgetful . We used to talk about mindset all the time . What was mindset coaching
¶ Insecurity and impostor syndrome in coaching
?
like it was bad I didn't know what the hell I was doing is that it ?
yeah , what can you tell us about it ? Obviously I don't think it was probably that bad . You probably help people dial in I don't know .
I I don't know . I think I've always been . I think I've always thought I was a bad coach , always , even to this day . I don't think I don't know . I think I've always been . I think I've always thought I was a bad coach Always , Even to this day . I don't think I'm a good coach .
I think I'm like pretty good , but I get insecure as hell because I always feel like we get to a certain point in the call and it's like I haven't added any value .
Yet I'll never forget we were traveling , we were in .
Milwaukee . He says I'll never forget , he can't remember .
No , no . I remember the scenario . I don't remember where we were . Remember the Airbnb . How would I describe this place ?
It was a nice one , was it brick ? Yes , it was the one where we were in Nice elevator yes , we had to go from one to the other in the same building .
Yes , correct . Yes , we had to go from one to the other in the same building . Yes , correct , that was the one . Okay , I came downstairs and you were on a coaching session and you were creating a funnel for somebody and I was like , fuck yeah , kev's creating a funnel I think I'm just it's .
That's my core wound . My core wound is not being good enough , not being smart enough , not being capable enough , so I think sometimes I just get insecure about it well , let's real quick if you are uncertain about your coaching and the value of it how would you sell it ? how would I sell my coaching ? Well , now I I don't know .
I definitely don't have all the answers that I'm certain of , but I most likely have encountered and worked through almost everything you will as a podcaster , just because of the pure amount of reps and or experiences .
If I was a podcaster ? I am , but if I was a podcaster and I wanted to coach with you , what would I get ?
¶ What makes a coach truly valuable
You would get 3,200 episodes of wisdom . You would get thousands of hours of business training , sales training , speaking training , conversation training skills . You would essentially get a decade's worth of wisdom every single time we sit down and talk . But what I'm convinced of is the I'm not a natural , I'm not a teacher like you .
When somebody asks me a question , I like that . I love when clients come with questions . That's always been my jam . If you come with a list of questions , it's going to be great . I don't like pulling up a whiteboard and saying , all right , this is our lesson plan for the day .
I've always just done better with questions I don't know why because I think then it shows me where they want to go . So I know I'm actually checking the boxes that they want .
Why does it matter what they want ? That sounded wrong . I'm trying to give them what they need not what they want . I'm trying to give them both , cause I think you , you have to give them both . You have to give them both , yeah . So I always ask an intention and then they show up with an intention or I say I can drive .
So any clients listening I say , hey , looking forward to our session today , do you have an intention ? Question mark with a little brain emoji . And if not , I can drive and I've been doing that , yeah .
Oh you have . Yeah , I'll do that . Or else I'll say what do you , what do you want to work on today specifically ? Or I can I literally just ask the question based on where you are and where you aspire to be , what do you believe is the best use of our time ? I like that question . That question always tends to give pretty good answers .
One of the things we never talk about . Why does coaching matter so much ? It gets you thinking about the right stuff . Imagine if you had a friend who always , when you hung out with them , all they ever wanted to do was talk about your goals and dreams .
It's the best . Well , that's what I'm saying , and they actually know how to help .
Exactly Because they've achieved it already , or help someone else achieve it , or they know how , because they've reverse engineered it .
Yeah , the , the shift , though that the shift to make this applicable to the episode is . I do believe I can be top one percent podcast coaches . I believe I could be the best podcast coach in the world . Eventually , eventually , nice , but I don't know if I would again . For me it doesn't .
It didn't start at the beginning of me saying I'll go do a bunch of reps and eventually I'll have the confidence . Now it's just I've done so many reps that I have way more confidence . I didn't reverse engineer
¶ Becoming one of the best in podcasting
that .
You did more than I did , for sure so I said this earlier to Kev off air and this is something that may come off arrogant or not . It's a fact regardless , at least think . I would be surprised if this wasn't completely true .
I'd have to look it up , but I think based on your current trajectory , you will have done more podcasts than anyone in history If you continue this trajectory , because we do an episode every day , plus you have Podcast Growth University . Plus you're guesting on an average of five plus shows a week , nine this week and you're just so far ahead . You have 3100 .
We track everything at nlu . That's like a big nlu thing is just tracking . I actually created a shout out to you , lizzie . I helped create her peak performance tracker earlier . But one of the reasons kevin is saying he can be top one percent at podcasting isn't just you coming saying that . It's based on evidence well , and it's it's .
I guess it depends on how you measure the evidence . There's a lot of people out there that do daily shows , but they're like five minutes still shout out to them for doing daily shows not easy , but it's . That's different . Five minutes is different than 30 minutes , so there's depth to it too .
The amount of depth where it's like okay , this person has written 100 books , but each , each book is only five pages long . Well , this person has written 100 books , but each book is 700 pages long . Who do you think is going to end up a better writer ? Second , it's not .
It's not going to be close the second one on the second one , but that has come over time . That has come . That has come over over time , and I just think . I think the other thing is , it's the thing that I'm willing to learn the most about too . That's a big piece of it .
I don't think I wanted to learn that much about mindset like to the degree I needed to . I I love learning about mindset , obviously , but I didn't want to dedicate my life to learning as much as humanly possible versus with podcasting . I love learning about speaking and all that stuff .
I was talking to Emilia . So Emilia and Bianca have a podcast called Evolve Ventures and Kev is their podcast coach and I told Emilia I need Kevin learning everything about podcasting . And so she wants to learn everything about podcasting and she's challenging you to come with industry , stats and all kinds of stuff All the time , yeah .
¶ Mastery comes from reps and obsession
And , at the end of the day , for the listener , if you want to be top 1% in something , you have to know everything about it . Like I'm , there's three things that I'm going to .
I've decided in advance to master , more than anything else I do Fitness , personal development and business everything there is to know about fitness , everything there is to know about personal development and everything there is to know about business . And I'm going to merge those three worlds to the best of my ability , because they're definitely not merged .
That's very clear and in the future , an ideal client for me would be .
I actually have a client that's kind of like this , where he's starting a business about reaching his true potential in fitness a business about reaching his true potential in fitness , and it's a YouTube channel Shout out to you Cole and he does fitness and personal development and he calls it find your apex is the name of it , and it's basically find your best
self through personal development and fitness . And so I'm helping him with business through fitness and personal development . So I love that coaching because I'm learning those three things . I'm still going to learn about love . I'm still going to learn about relationships . I'm still going to learn about parenting .
I'm still going to learn about basic things around the house , but I'm not going to like , when I pick a book on Audible or I buy a book at Barnes Noble , I'm looking for business books or some form of a self-help personal development book or fitness the people I follow and don't follow based on those things .
So at the end of the day and I wonder if I've ever explained this well , way back in the day , a couple hundred years ago , you kind of you grew up in small family units and you had to be good at a lot of stuff .
You had to learn how to raise pigs and you had to learn how to raise cows and you had to learn how to farm and you had to learn how to do mechanics and you had to learn how to brush your own hair and cut
¶ Why specialization wins in today’s world
¶ Mastery comes from reps and obsession
your
¶ Why specialization wins in today’s world
own hair and take care of your own teeth . In the industrial revolution , all that changed and specialization came in . Kevin and I don't need to know everything about teeth we have dentists . We don't need to know everything about health . We have doctors . We don't need to know everything about computers we have computer engineers .
We don't need to know everything about computers . We have computer engineers . We don't need to know shit about cars . We have mechanics .
The world got specialized exponentially so on the internet with 5.65 billion last time I looked this up 8 billion people on planet earth , 5.65 billion people on the internet , and that's growing rapidly you can be fully specialized In 300 years ago , podcasts didn't exist . But if it did , podcasts didn't exist .
But if it did , you couldn't just be good at podcasting , you wouldn't make enough money to pay for all the other things . So if Kevin and I are world-class at our things and we add that much value to that many people because in the past there wasn't enough people , so what's a good example of this ?
You had to make your own shirts because there was no one else to buy shirts from . Now , it's a good example of this . You had to make your own shirts because there was no one else to buy shirts from . Now , you don't ever have to make . You and I never in our life have to learn how to make a shirt .
We just get to buy shirts on Amazon and they come to our door with the money that we make doing what we do , and so now that I'm explaining that to people , they're going . Oh , so that's why , if I get really freaking good at my thing , I can pay for all the other things .
Yes , that's a specialized economy and I don't think anyone in school I know in school they didn't explain that- no , that's true you , you , okay . So you should not get good at 500 things . You shouldn't not in today's economy . In today economy , you can get really good at one thing and you can blow everyone else out of the water .
It's not like who's a famous actress , jennifer Lawrence .
Okay , natalie Portman . Natalie Portman does not have to be good at anything else in the economy . If she wants a successful marriage and to be a great mother , she's going to have to learn some skills . But when it comes to skills in the economy your job , your career you don't need to be good at
¶ Talent, alignment, and natural advantage
anything else . I have a person from college who isn't good at anything else . That's not true . He's good at some other stuff , but he's not that good at much else . Dude's wealthy as hell . He's really really , really good at coding and he's been coding since he was nine years old and the whole world needs coders . So what do they do ?
They pay him a lot because there's not a lot of coders and everyone needs coders , so they pay him a lot . Doesn't know much about much else . Seriously , I wrote a boat with the man . He can't row a freaking boat . Like , genuinely , we're going to get there . Never , brother , I need you , I need to take over here , right ?
I grew up on the water , so , at the end of the day , I really hope that people understand . And the question here is what can you be top 1% in ? Here's the problem . Do not try to be top 1% in something you suck at . It needs to come naturally .
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Next level nation . What is happening ? If you've thought to yourself , I want to try coaching , but you don't really know where to start , group coaching would be a wonderful place for you . That's really why we created it in the first place . We start a new round every 90 days .
So if you're hearing this , go to the website nextleveluniversecom and we have the landing page where you can actually hold your spot right now . Even if there's a group going on right now , you can still lock your spot for the next one . The biggest thing that we've seen is , as we get closer and closer to the date , unfortunately , some people end up missing .
The group fills up and they can't do it , and then they end up regretting that . So please head over to the website . The link will be in the show notes and we would love to see you there .
There's one person I'm thinking of and he wanted to be a speaker like me and I said brother , I love you , I love you . I went to college with this kid different kid no , no , no , no , no , no , brother , it would take you 30 years to even get where I am now . English is not your first language . He's not a strong communicator .
He's really good at other things . I'm not trying to be mean here , but there's someone else I'm thinking of Shout out to you , gabby , if you're listening , I know you listen . Gabby should be a speaker fucking right now . Yesterday , yesterday , yesterday . She got a standing ovation without even prepping . She's so good . She did a testimonial for us once .
I said how many takes did that take ? She said just one . I said I fucking knew it . You are so good at that . You need to do that , by the way , start your podcast . But my point is these skills need to be natural inclinations . Like Kev , you're a strong speaker . You're a strong communicator . You always were .
We've been looking at facebook memories from you eight years ago now not as strong as you are now rough , but you were already always pretty good , genuinely , and that's a good place to start . If you're already starting at the top 80 , it's not going to be as hard to get one percent .
But if you're starting in the bottom percentile you're in some serious trouble I .
I saw one of my Facebook memories today . Now that we're talking about it Real quick , let me see if I can find it real quick with the quickness . It was from Hold on . It was a poem that I wrote from 16 years ago . So 16 years ago . Lay it on us . I was writing it's dark If you want to .
It's dark If you . If you want to , of course I do . Oh , is this a ?
dramatic reading . This is a dramatic reading . I think I went through a breakup at this time .
I don't know , throwback for the new listeners Way back in the day . Every now and then we would do a Dramatic reading from one of my favorite books . This is the first Kevin Palmieri dramatic reading on the show . Are we ready ? Oh yeah , it's called Shatter . Should I play some dark and ominous music ?
No , no , none needed . Okay , here we go . Yeah , I'm okay , I promise . I swear to God I'm fine . It just seems like in order to see you I gotta stand in line . That's beautiful , right there , a little iambic pentameter . Just take a ticket , get my number and wait my turn . It's my love to give , yet it's yours . I need to earn .
Jesus , the pain's unbearable , worse than kicks and punches . No more dinners . I guess it's beer replacing lunches . I am not complaining . I I continue trying . Every day it feels like a little bit inside is dying . Can we make it ? Can we manage ? Did we dig holes too deep ? A irreversible damage ? That was called shatter . Oh , that's 16 years ago , by the way .
Okay . I was 19 years old . You ever see , mr Deeds .
Yes , he does reading cards .
I like to think , okay , there was a time in my life when I was down and out of my luck , that I debated writing . I swear I did the research to figure out how much you you decrusted , so yeah , that was 16 years ago . I was writing , trying to express feelings and communicate , and honestly that's I mean I . I had been doing it a lot longer than that .
I've been writing poetry for like 20 years probably , see this is the thing in 10 years when you are a successful podcaster . You already are , but you know what I'm saying . We're gonna have to go all the way back . I recently saw a clip . It's by evan carmichael . He talked about ed sheeran's .
Come up , he was broke as a joke , sleeping in cars doing music at different places in lond , couldn't get a gig , couldn't catch a break . Awesome , by the way , big fan personally . Again , I don't know him .
I'm not a fan .
I don't think he's that good , I like his music . Anyways , brother . Yep , sorry , ed , when you , it's all good , as if he's listening when he made it .
Then people would go back and see oh okay , because what happens when you make it quote , unquote is people study how you did it and one day maybe people will study and go see he was writing and communicating emotions . Of course he was going to be a good podcast . I'm going to delete .
I'm going to delete that shit . You know what's sad . Is it on facebook ?
yeah , they already have it , so you know what's sad yeah , I would , you know me , I wouldn't delete it .
Yeah , what's sad and heavy for every ed sheeran living in their car chasing their dreams .
There's 99 who are living in their car and don't make it that is fucking heavy yeah so , and you never know which one's gonna be ed sheeran
¶ How to know if you’ve got “it”
you never .
Well , the one that can be the best in the world .
That's how you know , nice , okay , well , let's talk about that . How do you know ? I would ask you Do you know if you have it or not ?
man , I don't know . I would ask you because I didn't think I had it . I didn't choose this in advance because I enjoyed it .
When I met you , I remember thinking of course , if you want to be a successful podcaster , of course you can do that Best in the world . I don't know . Yeah , At the time , at the time , at the end of the day and then that's subjective too , Of course who's the best pod ? Well , Joe Rogan , Mel Rot , blah , blah , blah . We don't know the point is .
And then there's the true crime , one or whatever . I've never even listened to it , but it's like the biggest , or I guess ? Here's my point . You meet someone Long-term . We are all more capable than meets the eye . I can get , anyone can get better at anything . It , but it depends where you're starting . So what's a good example of this ?
You , in basketball , is always a good example . You're just never going to be that good because you're just too short . It's not in the cards for you to be in the NBA . There aren't anybody . There's nobody . Who's five , six in the NBA , right ?
Muggsy Bowes , I believe his name , and now he's no longer there . But he , I believe he , was like five foot eight and he won the fucking slam dunk contest somehow , I don't even , but that's .
That's the thing is somebody will say well , you know , muggsy Bowes , if anything that speaks to how amazing and incredible and elite and anomalous that human being was to win a slam dunk contest at like five foot eight is fucking impossible , I need to look up .
It's nearly impossible , and so for the listeners and to turn this into five foot three .
No , muggsy Bogues is a retired NBA point guard and the shortest player in NBA history at five foot three no , dude , I used to play NBA 2k .
Yeah , on Dreamcast way back I played with Muggsy . Five foot three hundred hundred thirty seven pounds . What an anomaly he didn't win a slam dunk contest . Hold on , hold on At 5'3" . That's got to be made up .
No , I lied , I definitely lied yeah there's no way . Yeah , no , that's Somebody else that was shorter though won , but not Muggsy .
Yeah , yeah , not Muggsy . Do you think he could dunk ?
No , he said he couldn't dunk . Couldn't dunk devastating , because I I could touch middle of net in my , in my prime nice , I could dunk in my prime , dunk in my prime not a good , not like easily , not anything crazy if you gave me 10 tries , I could put it down do you think we should do ?
No defenders , do you think we should do a part 2 on how to actually figure out what you ?
because I have a coaching call in 2 minutes yeah , definitely I'm gonna give my next level lesson , though . Next level lesson is tell me , if you want to get better at things , good , great , love it .
Absolutely do not design your career or your business around something that you aren't already in the top 50 fair okay , we're gonna do a part two tomorrow you're cool with it .
Yeah , man , I'd , yeah , I'd like to dive more into it .
That's awesome I'm skill development , I'm game . You said , yeah , you wanted to talk about skills . All right , cool , you know I'm in .
I'll bring another dramatic rating too , maybe perfect , you're joking , obviously .
What's your next level lesson , man ? I'm serious , I'm serious as
¶ The inconvenient truth about potential
you can be .
You got another poem for us . I've got , I've got . I have dozens and dozens of those , are you ?
kidding me .
Nice , are you kidding me ? My next level lesson is I think it's empowering . I think when we're young it feels empowering for people to tell us that we can be the best in the world at anything . But the inconvenient truth is you can't be the best in the world at everything . You can't be the best in the world at almost anything .
But there might be something . My wife is way more thoughtful than I am . I mean , if there was like a , an award for being the most thoughtful human she could win that 100 that ain't it for me and that's natural for her .
That's natural .
That's a natural thing , that ain't it ? That ain't it . For me , that's not . I would have to go so far and learn so much and go so off the beaten path that there's . It would take me so long to even get to where she is . I'm not gonna be the best of the world . Can I be better ?
Yes , but if I dedicate my life to something that I'm not going to be the best at , it puts you in a potentially dangerous position . Agreed , well said .
That's what I would say All right , cool , next level nation private Facebook group for to get around more growth-minded people , and we will have the link below for the Next Level Dreamliner five minutes a day . If you want to build a journaling habit , five minutes a day will take you to the next level Boom .
¶ Outro
As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you and NLU . We don't have fans , we have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow .
Keep it Next Level , 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 .