¶ Intro / Opening
You may have heard the quote that success leaves clues . Well , what if you could figure out what the clues were before you had to follow in somebody else's footsteps ? So if we could create a success equation , what are the three things that would be involved ? Our goal is to find out those three things today .
Equation , one of my favorite words ever of all time . So I'm showing the camera on YouTube , my iPhone . I have an iCloud note called Principles , and one of them is everything has a formula , even if you're not yet aware of exactly what it is .
Welcome to Next Level University . I'm your host , Kevin Palmieri , and I'm your co-host , Alan Lazarus . At NLU , we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers .
Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life , love health and wealth .
We bring you a new episode every single day on topics like confidence , self-belief , self-worth , self-awareness , relationships , boundaries , consistency , habits and defining your own unique version of success .
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Welcome to Next Level University , next level nation . Today , for episode number 2068 , what's the actual equation for success ? You and I have been asked many times how do you become a successful podcaster ? How do you become what the freak can I help you with ? I ?
just realized . The quote I picked said formula , not equation . I didn't really see , I wasn't even paying attention .
I should have said equation . You jiffed you and I have been asked many times whether it's on podcast or whether it's by clients . How do you create a successful podcast ? How do you create a successful business ? How do you create a successful relationship ? And I don't know about you , but very rarely do .
I just say it's these three things , because there's way more to it . So even in today's episode , we're going to try to come up with three each , but there's , it is an iceberg and there's a million things under each of these , but hopefully it's a really good place to start Challenge .
I don't think there's a million but , I , think there's a lot more than three .
Well , some would say there's infinite . The Alan I knew would say there was infinite things .
¶ Success isn’t doing more, it’s doing what matters
There's not Well yeah that's the duality . There's infinite principles and there's infinite things you can get better at , but there's certain things that matter a lot more than others , and I said this on group coaching last night .
I said success in podcasting is not doing 10,000 things , it's doing basically five things 10,000 times and getting really , really good at them . And so I do think success is the dance between all the stuff you have to get done and then focusing and mastering these other things sort of in the center . But I digress .
What is your number one ? So we're going to each try to come up with three .
It's the same as yours , I think . Okay , if I had to guess . Okay , well , you can , you can lead it if anyone has , if anyone has google , if anyone has the internet which you do because you're listening to this wow , this is gonna be real good google , chat , gpt , whatever search engine , whatever ai you use I , I know Google search engine uses an AI .
Now Meta has one which is also Facebook . At the end of the day , if you look up self-efficacy , there's a bunch of research . We call it self-belief and I think self-belief is a far better term . It's how much do you believe in yourself ? How much do you believe , how much certainty do you have , that you can achieve X , y or Z ?
Self-belief by far the most important , because I realized 99% of what I've been able to accomplish despite a lot of really painful adversity is due to just really never questioning whether or not I could . It's a big piece of it Is that , not yours , no , yeah , no , that's .
I wake up in the morning and just possibilities seem endless to me . I can do anything I choose .
No , but I meant just survive . I'm not asking what it's been for you , I'm asking what your . That wouldn't be part of your equation . No , if you had to pick three things , self-belief isn't in it . No , what you've been lying to me this entire time .
Well , I want to go in a . I want to go in a different direction , understanding that did you know I was going to pick self-belief ?
Is that what ?
this is no , no , no , no , no , no . We also didn't really talk about this . It was like I kind of threw Alan the idea and he's like , yeah , man . And then I threw him another idea and he's like that's the worst idea ever . I was like , okay , I'll think of something else .
And then we jumped on the mics and we're recording imagining for our audience that already knows how much we talk about self-belief oh well , that's an entirely different episode , sir .
I have been hoodwinked .
So what's what's your ? If I was on a podcast and somebody asked me self-belief , a thousand percent would be in there . But for this I want to go in a different direction , because I don't want to just say self-belief , because I you know we talk about that so much . I want to make sure it's . I want to approach from a different place today , if we can .
Okay , so we're not going to use self-belief .
I'm not going to mention self-belief , I'm not going to mention self-worth .
¶ Kevin’s top pillar: Effort over everything
I'm not going to mention either of those .
Okay , mine would change then to being around someone who you respect and admire from a sincere place , because if you don't , they won't rub off on you really , but if you really do , deep down , respect and admire this person from a sincere place , be around someone who has far higher standards for themselves than you do for yourself .
I think that's a very important thing that I've searched my entire life for .
I would say that is supremely important . Again , going to go in a different direction . Going to go in a different direction . Number one effort , number one effort . So , like this is going to be , this would be like the top of the top of the top of the equation , and then there'd be a bunch of things under it .
Under effort would be skills , it would be consistency , it would be competence , it would be strengths , it would be weaknesses , it would be all of that stuff . It would be like the strategy . But I think effort is the most important .
If we're just talking about Okay , talking about okay , but you remember the movie cast away . Oh yeah , huge fan , great . How do you make a great film doing nothing on an island , by yourself , don't know , crushed ?
it , crushed it . There is no community . So what ? How ? How did that person create success to get off that island ?
I'm thinking that coconuts wilson what made an axe out ?
of a skate . We had an axe out of a skate , made a raft out of whatever . That opening scene is intense or not . The opening scene that plane crash scene is intense oh my goodness . So that's what I'm going in a different direction than you are that's okay .
That's the point of this .
So number one for me is effort . What's number two for you ?
I've been thinking a lot about this lately because I've been trying to figure out what exactly is it that I'm doing differently for my clients than other people or other coaches , and I think so . I was on with a client recently . You know who you are . Shout out to you and I pulled up my Facebook cover photos .
Shout out to you and I pulled up my Facebook cover photos .
And way , way , way , way , way back when I was in my early 20s , there was a cover photo on my Facebook of a pawn up against an entire row of chess pieces , and that was sort of a metaphor for it's you against the world , and if you're smart enough , you can win , even if you feel like just a pawn right now , because I felt like all of us are born
into a situation where we are the pawn in someone else's game . Everyone you grew up in a family or not You're a pawn in someone else's game . When you learn how that game works and become more intelligent than everyone else , in that game , you are no longer a pawn . There are certain people that used to influence us in what I think are manipulative ways .
Now we're too smart , we're on to you , fucker , and so you can't be manipulated . This is why really terrible leaders like to lead dumb people , because dumb people are easier to control and
¶ Alan’s case for intelligence as power
manipulate . So the second one is intelligence . People are asking ChatGPT all these questions what if you were so smart that you knew all that All the time ? And I'll define intelligence real quick . The reason why everyone's scared of AI is because it's too smart . Quote unquote .
But I'm not scared of AI and the reason why is because I've spent my entire life trying to get smarter . And the reason why is because I've spent my entire life trying to get smarter and I think intelligence is understanding yourself , others and the world , how it works and why it works that way .
Yourself , others and the world how it works and why it works that way . If I understand myself , if I understand human beings and the human condition , and I understand the world and the economy and the and the globe and how it works and why it works that way and all the sciences , I am in full control of my own destiny .
And so number one is get around someone who believes in you , who has higher standards than you , that you respect and admire . Number two is be the most intelligent human being on the planet , if you can Jesus ? Interesting Because when you know how to do everything , everything becomes an option . You and I have argued knowledge is not power or knowledge is power .
I actually think it is , and the reason why is because , now that you know how to start a podcast and how to grow a podcast , now you just can go do that . Well , you still do it though .
Yeah , those coconuts are potential .
That coconut was potential , but not really , because if you know how to use a coconut and how to open it and how to , create an axe out of there's very few people .
The reason we don't take action is because we have too much uncertainty , and the reason we have too much uncertainty is we don't know enough so knowledge is is a big piece of the equation yeah , I agree , I , I would , I would agree with that 10 times out of 10 . Do you think knowledge and self-belief are connected ?
Because I think knowledge is 100 correlated hmm , what if I had more self-belief than you in the beginning of this journey , because I knew how to do it more than you did at the time ?
I would say that's probably accurate .
Yeah , I would say that's probably accurate like you're not uncertain about whether or not you're going to be able to drive later . Right , you have a lot of self-belief in a car because you have a lot of knowledge about how to drive a car after this .
But in the beginning , after this double shot of whiskey , I probably , I probably will choose not to kidding , but yeah , so , anyways , I rest my case .
That was my second one .
Okay , that's the second one . Okay , my second one direction . Yeah , that's very similar to knowledge . Yeah , I'm going like super high level , I think . I think in my mind it's like if , if we were having a three chapter book , these would be the chapters , but within it would be everything else we're talking about .
But yeah , direction , that would be my second one . That's it . That's gonna make a case . My my mother said to me one time she said kev , direction is far more important than speed , because there's many people going nowhere fast . And I remember thinking that might be the best thing I've ever heard in my entire life .
¶ Direction matters more than speed
First of all , she seriously said that yeah , what's what ? How old were you ? Oh , who knows , that's my idea .
It's great . Now , did she see that somewhere ? I'm guessing I don't think it just came to her . I love my mom . Mom , if you're listening , I'm not saying you couldn't have created this , but I don't know where the hell you got it from , but it was . It was fire . Yeah , that's real good .
I I'm just thinking from the perspective of if somebody said you could only give me three , just three simple words on what has made the biggest difference , like what is the , what is the simplest version of the equation ? That's what I'm coming with .
You've changed this frame six times on me .
I know . Well , that's the thing is you don't really know where it's going to go until it goes . But I can tell you that my last one is going to be very simple .
So so far , I have mentor Yep , and intelligence yeah , and you have effort , yeah , and direction yeah , nice , yeah . What's your third one listeners out there , please dm myself or kevin and let us know who you think has the better equation for success also , if you're , if you're listening on spotify , you can literally comment on the episode .
So you can do that as too .
YouTube as well . Youtube as well . Youtube as well . Apple not yet . I'm sure they'll probably get there , maybe eventually , or they'll go out of business . One of the two . They're focused on other stuff . Man , they're coming , though . You can do video on Apple now . Really , they're coming for it . They're trying to catch up , but we'll see what happens .
I feel like Apple has neglected the podcast space for a while .
I would agree .
Yeah , yeah , I would agree , my roommate in college was the head of the . Yeah , I'm not saying his name , so we're good . My roommate in college , one of my roommates in college is the head of the iTunes team that did the analytics , for that's wild .
Yeah , I remember I picked his brain for like three hours to figure out how this all works and why it works that way and all that stuff . Anyways , okay , so number one , mentor . Number two intelligence . For you , it's effort and direction . Yeah , I always say trajectory matters more than current results .
I love that , although socially , no one cares at all about your direction direction is an easier word than trajectory , so I like direction .
How ?
dare you .
I'd resonate with that more . You know Trajectory . It's like don't flip your nose up to me when you're talking to me . You know , tell me with a word that I get Direction . Talk to me like you're talking to me . You know , talk to me like you're talking to me . Yeah , I'm in a weird mood today . I told Alan I'm cracking .
This is great .
I'm cracking under the pressure of this like a walnut . This is great , but not a bad way . It's all good .
My third one , so that we don't waste any more of anyone's time .
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Okay , I'm on the fence about a couple words . Now that you got me on the word train here , yeah , I gotta say it's momentum , it's momentum , it I feel very , maybe maybe it's improvement . Oh , nope , can't all that Can it , can't at all . Okay , first word mentor . Second word intelligence . Third word is focus . Focus .
I do believe and this is why I love metrics and habits Because if I can get you to track the right metrics , I can get you to focus on the right things . And where focus goes , that's where your momentum goes . I had a client say hey , I want to come to the relationship talks event on Thursday . I really don't want to miss it .
Do you think that I should reschedule this other
¶ Focus as a superpower in today’s world
thing ? And the other thing is her one thing and we've all heard the quote of the main thing is to keep the main thing . The main thing and I said absolutely not Do not , ever , ever , ever cancel a therapy session . This is a clinician . Never , ever , ever cancel your one thing . That's the dumbest thing ever . I'm grateful you want to come to the RT event .
I think it's going to be really valuable for you . If they reschedule on , you definitely come , but do not ever cancel a therapy session . That's your one thing . You're going to be a world-class clinician and focus In the 21st century , that's a skill that has to be worked on constantly . I've been on social media a lot lately .
I've been doing a lot of different stuff and it's very difficult to not get lost in the sauce . There's too much going on and it's very hard to stay focused , and I think that that's if we had to boil this down to one skill to be the most successful , it would be focus .
In my opinion , I think that and again , I I used to not share this because I used to be such a coward , but I will size up someone's ability to focus the moment I meet them and I can determine their future success based on that .
It's a soundbite right there .
Last piece and I'll kick it to you . Sure , in the gym I have something that I refer to as controlled rage , and it's the amount of focus that I have in a short amount of time because we only have 45 minutes and it's in the morning . We got have in a short amount of time because we only have 45 minutes and it's in the morning .
We've got to get to our first session , emil and I . In the gym , I can tell who's committed and who's not . I can tell who's going to be in shape and who's not . You can tell . You can see there's a TV on and I always turn it off . People don't like that .
They're not thrilled about that .
Some people turn it back on , Like are we here to lift or are we here to watch TV ? Now , at the end of the day , everyone does what they want to do . Not everyone has to have my standards . I understand that I'm holding the duality here .
It's not my gym Like put it back on if you want , but I , if you want to talk just about the success , I can tell who will be successful based on their level of focus .
Okay , makes sense , I dig that . Okay , I had a third one , but I might change it .
Can you tell us both ?
¶ Longevity: The underrated key to mastery
The third one was going to be time . So high , high level effort , time direction , effort , time direction Like that is what I think success probably is at its simplest form , right , very blanket statement , not digging underneath , but I think it might be because time isn't enough . If you're not , it's time is not enough .
If you're not constructing , it's like cool time is going to pass , no matter what . Probably longevity , I would say power , but that's two words , probably longevity . I think that we would only have been three year version success if we only made it three years in .
And there's something , there's something to that If you have ever quit something before you achieve the result that you desired , desired , how do you know whether or not you could have actually achieved the result you desire ? You don't . You don't know , because maybe you just didn't do it for long enough .
That that , that if you had lost your bodybuilding show , would you have done another one ?
no , probably not . I think that was the only one I was going to do , no matter what I probably could have if I won the whole thing and they said , come back and you can get your pro card . I don't know if I would have done it . I don't know . It wasn't . Yeah , I don't know .
I did it to do it and then see what happens , and then it just wasn't a good experience . The leaner I get , though , the more I want to do another one . Yeah , the leaner I get , though , the more I want to do another one . Yeah , will I ever ?
I don't know , I don't think I could , I think it would be so detrimental to everything , but the leaner I get it would definitely be detrimental to everything but I could do it in a different way lose focus I would definitely lose focus . So probably longevity nice , I think that's a so effort .
You've changed so much over the years , man , direction and longevity . What do you think I would have said eight years ago , god ?
video games success there would have been a lot eight years ago . There would have been a lot more ego .
For sure . I don't know if I would have had an answer . I probably would have said I don't even know . Honestly , it might be the same exact things . It might be effort , time and direction . I just wouldn't understand why . I would have just said them . But effort if you remove any of these , you're most likely not going to be successful .
If you remove effort , it doesn't matter how many connections you have . Good luck , good luck .
You're competing against people who have connections and are working .
We probably would have called it work ethic , probably , or grit , I think probably work ethic , because I didn't know anything . I knew how to practice grit , but I couldn't define it Without time . It doesn't matter , you might be way better than me at everything .
I don't think you would have said time back then . I feel like you thought things were going to pop off . That's fair . Yeah , that's fair . That's what I meant by you've changed so much . Is the longevity thing never used to land for you , because I'd always say eventually it was like my favorite word in the beginning Eventually .
Oh , don't worry about it , Kev Eventually .
Well , it's easy to have that perspective when you're on the other side of eight years of something I mean I never . I had never done anything other than fitness for that long .
Yeah , well , dude , that I should have used that . I should have said Kev you , you eat pizza and fuck off with your diet and you're still jacked . Why do you think that is ? And you would have probably said genetics , but I probably would have .
It the truth , even when I fuck off , I'm not really fucking off .
You've been working out since you were 16 consistently . I mean , you're just on , you've had longevity in this . It's not the same game later on . That is such a hard thing . I just started Business Growth University and I'm trying really hard to talk to the people who I know are listening , which are my clients .
But I also want to talk to people who are brand new in business and I'm finding that really difficult .
Understandable , they're two different people .
They're two completely different people .
Understandable .
I had the same thing with podcast growth .
It was like do I want to talk about starting and launching podcasts or do I want to talk about growing and scaling podcasts ? Those are different .
How have you done that ?
Are you still ?
talking to new podcasters or are you talking to seasoned podcasters ?
I feel like I'm talking to seasoned podcasters and I had a conversation with myself on the microphone saying I want to be the guy who talks about podcasting and talks about podcasting success and all of that , but always adds in personal development and all of that , but always adds in personal development .
Like there's always going to be an undertone of personal development in everything I do , because I that's such a big piece of who I am and it scares me to do that in that way , but I don't know if I want to do it any other way . I don't know . Will I lose people because of that ? Yeah , probably , but I mean , this is who I am .
At the end of the day , I'm the one who has to record the freaking episodes . So I got to make sure I'm aligned with who I am and it's also how you did it .
That's fair . If you and I took personal development out of this equation , we wouldn't be where we are or who we are no way .
Yeah , I do think you can be very externally successful without personal development , but I don't think you can be internally fulfilled without it and I don't think you can be holistically successful in terms of health , wealth and love without it .
I think in one narrow area , you can be world-class without personal development , but if you want to be holistically well , healthy , wealthy and in love , you have to grow yourself . You have to work on yourself , and I've been saying this a lot lately . This is on my principles list as well is work harder on yourself than you do anything else ?
And I've been wondering on BGU too , everything's going to have a personal development undertone , but I'm trying to figure out . Am I talking to new business owners or am I talking to people who already own a business ? So I got to figure all that out .
But ultimately , for anyone out there watching or listening on NLU Next Level University , success and personal development is what this podcast is about . If you take away your okay , imagine a person . They're not allowed to have a mentor , can't get mentors . No coaches , no mentors , no role models . You are not allowed to learn .
You're not allowed to read books , you're not allowed to listen to podcasts , you're not allowed to become more intelligent . You're not allowed to learn from chat , gpt or Google and you're not allowed to focus you can't focus , you never developed the skill of focus . Okay , you never developed the skill of focus ?
There's no way that person can be successful at anything . These are fundamentals .
If they had two out of three would there be , do you think , two out of three ?
Yeah , I think you can be . You can be a certain level of successful with two out of three , but you can't be , you can't be top 1% at anything Because the and this is the thing that I really I've been saying a lot lately , I know we got to jump the science of success doesn't give a shit about how you feel about this .
If I'm willing to focus , get smarter every single day and get mentors to help me accelerate the momentum , you're never going to win in a competitive world . You're never going to win in a competitive world . And to kevin's point , if imagine someone who I've completely forgotten them effort , no effort . They don't put in any effort .
Yep , they have no direction and they have no longevity . Time longevity , yeah , yeah , they can't stick around for the long run . That person can't really be that successful either . You can be reasonably successful , like you can have a day job , and there's nothing wrong with that I'm not trying to make that wrong but you're never going to be .
I reached out to Stephen Collar to interview him for BGU . Stephen Collar wrote the Art of Impossible and he talks about high , hard goals and massively transformational purposes . It's a book , kevin , and I interviewed him back in the 600s and I was thinking to myself he cares about reaching his potential more than most . What am I going to interview him about ?
Because I want BGU to be about reaching your business potential . I think NLU is about reaching your own unique potential , and then Podcast Growth University is about reaching your podcast's potential . And I wonder too , kev , how many people actually care about reaching their potential ? I feel like people do . I feel like they want to be better .
I feel like everybody wants to be better At least that idea of it .
It's different , though . There's a difference between wanting to get better and reaching your potential . Those are two very different things . I feel like one starts at the bottom and one finishes at the top
¶ Redefining success through personal growth
. It's like reaching your potential is the top . Getting better is going from where you are today to a little bit , you know are you reaching your potential in fitness ? more , uh , more than I have recently .
Probably not more than I ever have , but more than I have recently from a holistic standpoint , more than I ever have , because I'm tracking sleep and I actually care about sleep and micronutrients and hydration . But if you were to look at me , I'm not , no , I no , I'm not , excuse me , I'm not in as good a shape as I once was . I think they're different .
Do you think people can be successful without caring about their potential ? Yeah , a hundred percent A hundred percent , but not holistically .
No , I think they can be successful without that too . What does successful even mean , though ? Well , I think that's probably one of the most people , that's probably the number one thing in the equation is alignment , to figure out what success actually means . That's probably the most important thing , honestly yeah which is clarity on what you actually want .
Yeah , if it's money , one thousand percent . If it's money , you can hoodwink enough people into being rich and you don't have to really get good at anything other than lying . But that's going to be a completely empty existence and I don't think anybody really wants that .
For me , that's not even in the decision making .
Same .
I could never . To me , that isn't success , though my definition of success means that I did it ethically .
Well , but you also have had opportunity . You also leveled up . When you were young , I think , you probably thought success was one thing . And then you got it and you're like , yeah , that's not exactly what I thought . And then you can . There's , there's , it's , it's a privilege to to achieve a certain and again , there's a lot of effort that goes into it .
But when you get a certain level of success , it creates a new level of clarity and it creates a new level of desire , and then it becomes this whole thing . I do have to hop because I am about to get on a call here . Last last , last thing listeners .
Please reach out to Kevin or myself . Dm us on Instagram or Facebook . All of our stuff will be in the show notes . Reach out and say whose did you like better ? Seriously , I'm not going to be offended . I would love to know . We love the data We'd love to meet you ?
Yeah , of course We'd love it . You dig ? Yeah , all right , cool ,
¶ Outro
as 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 . 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 .