¶ Intro / Opening
The goal is to do the next workout better than I did this workout and then eventually , hopefully , if you do that for long enough , you end up in a better spot than you would have . It's almost like is it optimal , Would you have ?
that goal if it wasn't , for it's like you're trying to build a Lego castle . You're not even going to put the first Lego piece . If you don't know what you're trying to build , you just start putting Legos together , yeah .
You may never get the castle . You may never get the castle , but you , hopefully , will get more Lego pieces on top of one another . It just might not be . It's like the puzzle thing we were talking about before .
Maybe you don't know exactly what the end of the puzzle looks like , but realistically you don't really need to know what the end of the puzzle looks like to start it . Just start putting shit together and see what happens . Welcome to Next Level University . I'm your host , kevin Palmieri , and I'm your co-host , alan Lazarus , at .
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Welcome to Next Level University , next Level Nation . Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University where we help you level up your life , your love , your health and your wealth . Today , for episode number 1,989 , that is actually the year I was born . You know how I say that about every episode .
We finally got into the place where I can actually say that and it's real . We missed 1988 , we did miss my chance we'll have to go to your year of death , so like when we get to like 20 , 21 , 20 ish I could say this is probably about when alan's going to die . So year of death , okay , kev .
Yes , people have a weird relationship with mortality . Just so you know . You have a very comfortable relationship with mortality , so you did just kind of brush over a joke about death . I'm just saying that's my apologies .
It's coming for all of us .
It is , yeah , it is coming for all of us .
Alan wants to live until a buck 20 . He's currently 36 . That means he has what 80 plus 40 , 84 years left on the planet , so that'll be 2,100 .
Let's make them count .
Yeah , let's make them count . Cool , yeah , sorry to start on a negative Relationship growth gap . Should we redo that ? Probably Nope , definitely not . Okay , you want to talk ? No , no , this is it you know , oh , yeah , yeah , yeah .
This is us being us , this is us trying to be us , if I offended you with any jokes about death .
I don't mean to do that . I do have a very I'm very comfortable with the understanding that it's going to happen . So I that . But
¶ Growth gaps in relationships
the relationship growth gap why did you want to do this freaking episode ? What does it mean ? You did a relationship talks event on this and you said you think it would be good to do a deep dive episode .
Quick , deep dive episode so emilia and I did a relationship talks virtual event last thursday , yes , and it was about getting on the same page about personal growth , and we talked about how , anonymously , there was a couple that we coached for a long time .
We actually still are she's coaching them more than I am now but when they first came to us , the man in the relationship was goal oriented but not growth oriented , and so he was achievement oriented but not self-improvement oriented . And that is very much where I was prior to my car accident at 26 .
I think I was still semi-growth oriented , but the goal was to get the goals . It wasn't necessarily the goal wasn't necessarily personal development , self-improvement , personal growth , and the female in the relationship is extremely growth oriented , working on herself constantly , and when we first started coaching them , they were struggling with this growth gap .
Kev , there's a rule Kev . Kevin , tell me , kevin Palmieri , kevin .
Edward .
Kevin Edward . Yes , yes , kevin Edward .
Say the . Thing .
There's a rule called the 1 in 60 rule . Kevin's very afraid of planes planes so he might know this because he researched a bunch about planes to try to mitigate his fear and anxiety on planes okay so apparently there's a one in 60 rule , so if you are one degree off when a plane takes off in 60 miles , you'll be a full mile off course .
Did that make sense ? Yes awesome okay
¶ Small differences add up over time
I'm not .
I just want to make it clear . I'm not afraid that the plane's gonna land at the wrong place . I'm afraid the plane's not . The plane's not gonna land at all you know , we land in a different airport , I'll find my way to where I need to be . I'm I'm afraid of other stuff $4,000 Uber , ride , Whatever . Okay .
So the idea here is there's a honeymoon phase and everything's going well and you're pretty much just living the dream . It's we're falling in love , we're going out , we're kissing for the first time , making love for the first time , we're doing it . This is great , awesome . But you don't necessarily know yet their growth orientation .
So picture a dial from zero to ten like a light dimmer . A level ten growth orientation is someone who has a therapist and is masterminding , constantly listening to NLU every day . Growth , growth , growth , growth , books , books , books , do , do , do , awesome , awesome , awesome .
And what we found the male in this relationship at the time was smoking cigarettes , drinking alcohol , regularly playing guitar huge fan of this person , by the way , good dude , but just struggle . Bus entrepreneur , struggling . She was very growth oriented , has a very level career , definitely growing financially , blah , blah , blah .
So it was kind of they started doing this sort of diverging happening and the male was kind of freaking out . I don't know how to keep up with her , this , that and the other thing . So my idea for this episode was everyone out there listening to Next Level you .
You are obviously self-improvement oriented , otherwise you would definitely not like this podcast , since the sole purpose of this podcast is to improve yourself so you can improve your life . Do you have a partner who is as growth oriented ? And if not , what can we or what do we do about that ?
Or maybe you're like me and you do self-improvement constantly , but your partner is even more growth oriented than you are , and Emilia definitely is , and I'd say it's pretty close , but I would definitely give it to her . So maybe she's a 10 , maybe I'm a 9 . And what is the gap ? How large is the gap ?
¶ Are you goal-first or growth-first?
Because if the gap is large , you might be diverging without knowing it and then eventually that snaps so the thought is goal is you are the type of person who you grow to a goal and it makes you become way more than you would have bet if it was just yeah , okay , that would be the male in the relationship at this point , but he was struggling because he
was a new entrepreneur , he left corporate and he wasn't .
He had a couple down years and you know as well . Yeah , a couple down years can can really affect your self-belief and so all the years in the beginning were down years .
It was not great , it sucked badly , okay . And then Growth is somebody who just grows to grow ? Yeah , they just like growing .
Yep . The goal for them is growth After 26, . For me , I kept my goal orientation , but the goal became growth first . So it's syntax For you , Kev , it's goal first , growth . Second , For me it's growth first goal .
Second Somebody asked me on a podcast the other day . They said how do you stay so consistent when it comes to growth ? How did you learn to like growth ? And I said I don't like growth , I still would rather . I love this and I love podcasts , but I don't enjoy learning that much . I'd rather be listening to music . Of course I would .
In what world would I rather be listening to some bumping music in the car ?
super important for you to be that , because I think that you'll be able to help people in a different way , because some people really are obsessed with growth and it's not relatable to everybody .
Well , shout out . Shout out to you . If you're obsessed with growth , growth , shout out to you . Shout it , I do . Yeah , I do think you're probably the rarer .
Definitely Okay .
Okay , what do you think has a higher probability of success ? Which of those two ?
External success .
Yeah , goal achievement , external goal achievement , the goal-oriented person ?
probably . Goal achievement , external goal achievement the goal oriented person probably no , no , short term , the goal oriented person will always win . Long term , the growth oriented person will always win eventually . And that comes out of nowhere . Well , it's not about the goal , it's about growth . Eventually you cross a threshold where you've just grown so much .
Yeah , that makes sense and that comes out of nowhere
¶ Who succeeds more: goal-chasers or growth-seekers?
. Well , it's not about the goal .
It's about growth . Eventually , you cross a threshold where you've just grown so much . Yeah , that makes sense .
When I was younger , in my early 20s , I was very goal-oriented and I was very improvement-oriented toward those goals . But again , I wasn't self-improvement-focused . So it wasn't personal growth , personal development , it wasn't as personal it . If I had done inner work when I was younger , had a therapist younger I mean dude , this is the way I would see it .
Alan A is the one that I was the goal-oriented first , growth second , and then I flipped the script at 26 to growth first , goal second and I went broke . By the way . So be careful . But long-term the growth first would have surpassed the goal first person .
However , for the first decade it probably would have been alan a who were you , if it looks like the victor growth . Yeah , since 26 , I can honestly say I focused on growth more than goal , which which was detrimental at first until I got my goal orientation back up .
And that's why you say Al and I always have a running joke . Not really , it's not a joke , it's a serious conversation , but not serious . Serious that you'll be in better shape when you're older than me . Is that because you're growth focused and I'm goal focused ? Because you're growth focused and I'm goal focused .
Yeah , bianca wouldn't mind me sharing this . She's a client of mine and she used to squat more than me and we used to go to the gym together . She works with Emilia . She's actually the one who introduced me to Emilia , so thank you forever . P Holy crap , best gift of my life .
And when Emilia first saw my photo she was like not for me , he's probably a dingus I was very much fitness modeling at that time .
But I remember B squatted more than me and she used to make fun of me because we'd go to the gym together and she's half my size and she was squatting and I remember thinking , yeah , but you're , you're doing one rep maxes and you're going to blow your shit out potentially and hurt yourself and I'm playing a very long game .
Like my goal is to be in ridiculously good shape at at 50 , 60 , 70 , and 80 . And her goal was to be in shape now and she has since and she wouldn't mind me sharing this she's since been like , yeah , that was really dumb , cause she hurt her back . And now she's coming back and she's doing the therapy , physical therapy and all that kind of stuff .
But she now sees like , oh , okay , yeah , that was very short-term , focused power lifting , unless you're doing it for a living , can be very dangerous if it's ego lifting yeah , for sure , been there , son , been there .
Anything more than four reps is cardio , though everybody knows that .
Everybody knows that , I think anything less than five reps is cardio , though Everybody knows that . Everybody knows that .
I think anything less than five reps is reckless , do you really ? Yeah , I do .
Unless you're really really good at it . You have really really good form . Okay , I feel like I have three . I do three sometimes when I'm shooting for five . Sometimes I'll only get three , but , dude , as you get older , that gets dangerous . Well , you gotta , you gotta , you gotta be careful .
yeah , you gotta be careful , let's flip the script here for a sec . You still goal first , growth second , what would you give forever ?
it's gonna be that forever so what would you give for advice to someone who used to play the short game
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I think it's important to have tiered goals , Like right now . I have like a very , very , very short I'm talking this week goal . What do we got ? It's with a potential client .
Oh nice .
Do the right things to help this person so I can add more value , so then we can continue to help them , maybe at a deeper level . That that's like . I have a very but like okay , for fitness goals , I don't have a super long one , I don't have the one that you have . I haven't thought that far .
Right now it's I want to get down to 165 pounds , which is going to be terrible , but I need ones that lead up to that . Yeah , 100% . So that's the advice I would give myself now or in the beginning , is have a 10-year goal Awesome .
Great . Does a 10-year goal not motivate you ? So when you think of you at 45 , that
¶ Why long-term goals feel impossible
doesn't motivate you .
So when you think of you at 45 , that doesn't motivate you . It seems like a fantasy world . You think I could get my dream car in 10 years ? For sure , it doesn't even seem remotely feasible , just emotionally , logically , sure , but it doesn't matter .
What would the payment on that thing be ? 7 G's a month or something .
$225,000 car . So you figure 7 years . Yeah , it'd be a lot . Hold on $225,000 .
5 year payment . I know what we're paying for your Beamer so hold on , let's do some numbers here more than that what's your ? Beamer , worth retail . Uh , 50 something , 50 , all right . So let's do this , let's do 225 .
I'm not balling like that people .
I know you've heard I have a bmw , it's , trust me , it's not the it's not so the payment would be 3500 a month , not including insurance and all that yeah , it's a lot .
So you're looking at maybe four , four grand a month for a car .
You could buy a house , you know but just just a small one , depending on where you live . I know from a logical standpoint . It just doesn't it doesn't seem years , a long time well , yeah , but I see you , that's logical .
Yeah , it's logical right .
Here's the , here's the interesting paradox , and we'll go back to the growth and goal orientation here . Here's the fucking problem if you don't think that's possible , you won't do what's necessary to make it possible well , I think that's why the short and midterm goals are so important .
It's because it gives you belief and it gives you trajectory . Yeah , like that I'm telling you , but how do you know what to ?
do if you don't have that end goal .
I think you are slightly . You're slightly dissatisfied with the present or you're slightly motivated for a change in the present , and that's what starts it . And then then from there you build momentum and you build awareness .
I think that there is something to be said about when you get small goals , you can set more specific , bigger ones , just not necessarily massive ones yet , but those small ones need to hopefully build toward the big ones .
It's such a paradox . I know it is fascinating . And then , if you want to look good in the present , high self-belief leads to high goals . High goals leads to the necessity for massive failure in the present . If you're avoiding failure in the present , you will not achieve high goals .
But you will avoid failure in the present if you don't have the high future orientation . It's almost like we're set up I feel like most people are and myself included , in the past , but in a different way set up for failure in a way Dude , bringing this back to relationships real quick .
If you and I took away our goals , we wouldn't even be recording this Right , right . So and again , this is going to sound so ignorant or arrogant or both I don't understand why we would do this if we didn't have a goal . You know what I mean . Like why do things at all if there's no goal attached to it there ?
is a goal . It just might not be as clear or it might be unconscious or it might not be as constructive . Like again , I work with a lot of podcasters . I don't think , and if you're out there and this is your goal and I don't know it , please forgive me , I'm out here jeffing . I don't know if there's any pot .
I don't know if I've ever worked with a podcaster who has the same goal as us to have the most successful yeah anything in in the industry . That's not what most people are playing for like .
If your goal is to build a tv , you have to go learn about tvs and study tvs and take apart all your tvs and anytime you set a goal , whether it's conscious or not , you immediately have to change everything you do and don't do . Like if we wanted to start a tv company , we would immediately shut this off . Well , and go do something different .
I wouldn't say anything and everything I think you have to change . You have to start by changing something Again , the massive action piece . I don't think it's . It doesn't work that way for most people . I didn't change everything when I started a podcast . I changed one thing .
At a time , yeah , but you changed everything over a period of time .
Eventually .
The way you used to live versus the way you live now .
But I started one thing Night and day . Yeah , agreed , so that's my . I guess that's my thesis in this episode is if you want to be , let's say we have a client who wants to be physically independent into his 90s Okay , cool , very specific . Yeah , let's say he didn't have that goal , though , and he has been exercising for a long time .
The goal is to do the next workout better than I did this workout and then eventually , hopefully , if you do that for long enough , you end up in a better spot than you would have . It's almost like is it often , would you have ?
that goal if it wasn't , for it's like you're trying to build a Lego castle . You're not even going to put the first Lego piece . If you don't know what you're trying to build , you just start putting Legos together , yeah .
You may never get the castle , but you , hopefully , will get more Lego pieces on top of one another . It just might not be . It's like the puzzle thing we were talking about before . Maybe you don't know exactly what the end of the puzzle looks like , but realistically you don't really need to know what the end of the puzzle looks like to start it .
You just start putting shit together and see what happens .
Will you be able to complete it as long as you're humble enough to reassess , reassess , reassess . Yeah , yeah , it's weird .
¶ Kevin & Alan’s mindset differences
This is a very we sure as shit . Shouldn't have done a 20 minute episode on this one because it's very , very . There's way more depth to it , for sure . But I think most people start again . I'll speak for myself , I don't want to say most people . I didn't start thinking we're going to record the 2000th episode in a week and a half or whatever .
Never thought that was going to happen . That is now become a . It's just , that's a growth . It's a byproduct of growth .
Sorry , it's a byproduct of goals .
I didn't think of it . I didn't think . Eight years down the line I didn't know what was going to happen . I thought I was going to be doing mindset coaching for high level athletes in the very beginning . Mindset coaching for high level athletes In the very beginning that's what I thought I was going to be doing .
Oh yeah , remember that . Yeah , I do . Yeah , so you started the podcast knowing that eventually it would stop .
I started the podcast knowing I wanted it to start Pretty much . That was it . I didn't . I don't think it would be good for me to have too many expectations because then I probably wouldn't have started . We have to . There's got to be like some level of an asset where it's like the yeah , the optimal starting point , each for each person .
If I thought this was going to start at 2000 episodes , I'd continue past 2000 episodes . Honestly , I don't think I ever would have started it because I wouldn't . I could not in that moment believe I would ever get to the place where I could do 2,000 episodes .
You know what I mean . Me leaning into me last piece . I'm the opposite . If I didn't think we'd get to 2,000 , I wouldn't even have started , I know Well .
That's why we work so well together .
Now here's the thing I need to make clear . I think relationships is a good example of this my past relationships that were long-term . At the time I wasn't certain I was going to marry these people , but I wasn't certain . I wasn't going to the moment that I became certain they weren't going to be my wife , my person . The moment I became certain they weren't .
What was best was the moment I had to leave , became certain they weren't . What was best was the moment I had to leave . I wasn't certain they would be my person , but I wasn't certain they wouldn't be . Did you intend on them being yes ? I never would be in a long-term relationship if it wasn't what I had hoped To me .
I'm not certain that you and I will work out forever , but I'm betting on that . I would never have started if I was certain we wouldn't . I mean , that's just a way to fail .
Well , that makes sense . But I think that's why , when somebody out there struggles with low self-belief in their mind , why start ? I think I'm going to fail . There you go . So I'm not going to fucking start . Why am I going to start a podcast ? I'm not gonna fucking start . Why am I gonna start a podcast ? I'm not gonna be .
I'm not gonna be gonna do this forever . Why not ? I mean , at the time , that's the way , because I didn't know I had a fixed mindset . I didn't know I could grow like there was just too many .
There was just too many circumstances that I felt were beyond my control self-belief is the most important thing , and next would be the humility to keep it in reality , because I think some people with high self-belief end up to Lulu and they end up . You know , myself included .
I've been very delusional in the past and self-belief is number one , humility is number two . I'm , I'm . And then the third would be self-worth
¶ Balancing confidence and humility
.
But in terms of external achievement , goal one is self-belief , goal humility and , by the way , those usually don't come together it's very hard to sustain both of those , because when you have more self-belief , it's harder to stay humble and rooted in reality because all of a sudden , you , you start to have all these grander and grander visions well , I don't think
sometimes you you want to have with it either .
I don't think empathy comes with self-belief , because you don't understand that people don't think the way that you think .
Not that you don't want to empathize , I think it's just hard to yeah , and they pretend they have self-belief because they don't know that they don't right and we're all sort of inner world and outer world , so it's a whole thing we're gonna have to do a part two a lot of part twos .
Um , yeah , I , you never know where the episode's gonna go when you start , but I think there's a lot of layers to this one . And even talking about , yeah , do you set a goal for the goal ? Do you set a goal for the growth ? Do you know how much growth it's gonna take to get the goal ? We're gonna do a part two . All right , I love it .
I love it as well . April 5th 2025 . Next Level Live 2025 . Tickets are only $47 for a completely virtual full-day event . You can grow whilst in your pajamas . Alan and I will not be in our pajamas , unfortunately . Alan still has coaching slots available .
If you are looking to get to the next level behind the scenes , right , you listen to this podcast , you watch YouTube , whatever it is . There's another opportunity for you . First call is always free as long as you haven't had one before , so we'll have the link in the show notes for a free 30-minute breakthrough session with Alan if you're interested in that . As
¶ Outro
always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you At NLU . We do not 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 ahold of us is in the show notes .
Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow .