Your Community Raises Your Awareness More Than Anything Else (2095)

Today , for episode number 2095 , your community raises your awareness more than anything else . Where did you learn to drink ? The people around you the first time you smoked weed ? I'm I'm not going to guarantee it , but you probably weren't by yourself . You're probably with questions .

The first time I drank I I mixed captain morgan and a bunch of sugar into a poland springs bottle and then we lit a fireball . We lit a tennis ball on fire and threw it at each other . That was the first time I ever drank . Oh my god , yeah , it was awesome brother it was fucking awesome .

14 and she was 17 and her friends were 21 , 23 , 24 , just wild parties , big , big parties and our neighbors , they had , uh , older brothers .

One of my friends , mark , had older brothers that were friends with her and it was just a party house on a lake and uh , kiki and I my friend in freshman year we raged and we didn't know what the hell we were doing , but we were with the cool kids at the time . And by the way , I no longer think those are the cool kids .

This episode is going to be a shit fest , I can tell already . I said to alan one of the benefits of being in the next level fitness accountability group is not necessarily that you're gonna learn anything . It's not necessarily that you're going to learn anything . It's not necessarily that we're going to teach you anything .

You're going to be around people who are doing the same thing as you , so your awareness will get raised .

If somebody says well , I set this goal and I , you know , I realized it probably wasn't good for me , that might help you adjust the goal that you're going to set . When I said I'm taking 300 to 350 milligrams per day of caffeine , maybe that raises somebody's awareness of oh okay , I thought 150 milligrams was a lot .

I think the daily recommendation is 400 milligrams . That's the max , but I know people that do way more than that .

If somebody posts something about their workout , you might get an answer to a question that you didn't even know you had , or you might get an awareness or a consciousness that allows you to ask a better question , and I think that's one of the biggest benefits of being in a specific community , and that's one that I never had , because I was always afraid to ask

the question and I assumed everybody else was afraid to get to ask the question too . So I probably wasn't great to be in a community with , because I wasn't going to give you any new awareness based on my questions that's really shifted uh , I still don't like asking questions , I don't know . Yeah , it's shifted for sure , but that's not my natural .

My natural is not to be curious and ask questions . I don't think . I think that's something I've just developed over time that was the point of the hyperconscious podcast the point of it in the beginning was just to have cool conversations , so it was like I guess there's a difference between asking a question to one person versus asking a question to a group .

Amy Bianca Carla Richard . No , not sure , not sure , not sure . Amy , my man , greg . Amy again , greg again . Tanya Kev me , amy Steph . What's happening ? These are the people that are in Mike Mike . What's happening ? Another Mike , two different Mikes , one's Michael , one's Mike Claudia . Shout out to you , odette , what's going on .

I don't feel like we give enough shout outs .

Again , if you want inspiration and motivation , dm kevin or myself , we used to put the link in the show notes . We stopped doing that because we started getting a bunch of bots or whatever . Yeah , yeah , yeah , and so we're not going to do that , but reach out on Instagram or Facebook .

I promise you this you will be in a community of people that will help inspire and motivate you . I looked this up earlier because I always talk about reference group . You say community and on Business Growth University , we're talking about branding , marketing , sales , client delivery and community .

The next episode's community , which is kind of why I didn't want to do this one , to be honest with you , because you can just go over to Business Growth University to talk about community . I am joking . The reference group matters because it significantly influences your beliefs , behaviors , attitudes and goals . I mentioned in the opening a client of mine .

He's on the team as well Brandon Paying client team member . Awesome Brandon , what's up . He played D2 college football . He was a rock star in high school , running back , and Brandon wouldn't mind me sharing this . He is a much smaller stature than running back and Brandon wouldn't mind me sharing this . He is a much smaller stature than most football players .

Statistically speaking , the chances of him playing in college were unbelievably low . They already are . Never mind for his size , right , because I think he's . Do you know how tall he is ?

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And he said , dude , when I was trying to play college ball .

And I said , okay , well , let's explain , let's break it down and I've talked about this on the show before you had an offensive coach , you had a defensive coach , you had a head coach , you had teammates , you were named team captain , you had your grandfather rooting for you , you had your father there with you , you had your family counting on you , you had

accountability , you had practices Monday through Friday and a game every Sunday . So you had why , power and you had motivation and you had structure and community around you . The whole school was counting on you . You're going to be 10 times more motivated than you are by yourself .

And I actually broke that down and deconstructed what organized sports do , and that's actually how we created the group coaching program , because in group coaching right now , we have eight people coming tonight , 10 people in the group two aren't going to come and they're going to watch virtual , but the reason why our group coaching members feel on fire and feel like

they're in momentum and feel inspired and motivated and educated is because they're in a group . There's something very powerful about small groups and this fitness accountability group is definitely that as well , and so I looked this up .

These are the I use reference group all the time because there was this Harvard business review study where they took they said that up to 90% of your future success is based on your reference group AKA who you unconsciously compare to . So if you listen to this show every day , you are comparing unconsciously to Kevin and I , at least to some extent .

We track habits , we track metrics , we're consistent , we believe in consistency , we believe in discipline , we believe in hard work , we believe in work ethic , we believe right . So we believe the next level matters more than the current level .

We believe in you and we believe in your future and we believe in ourselves and we believe in self-worth and self-belief and all these things . These are all norms , social norms . So this is what came up your reference group , aka your community , sets social norms . It shapes your identity .

It influences motivation , it affects decision-making , it reinforces and challenges old beliefs and it impacts emotional well-being Some of the places in the world where people are the most

happy . I'm on a podcast after this in Iceland and when I was doing my research I was watching one of the episodes and they were talking about how Iceland is statistically one of the happiest places on earth , based on all the surveys , and the episode was about why that is . It's the . It's the culture .

We don't talk about culture on next level university because this isn't a business podcast , even though it probably feels like it sometimes . Culture at nlu , on the team culture is who the fuck you are and the type of person you are and the group that like attracts , like birds of a feather , flock together all that kind of stuff .

So , kevin and I believe in humility , work , ethic , discipline , all this stuff . If you're a next leveler , if you're a next level fitness squad , if you're in next level group coaching , there's an identity that comes with that . It's unconscious , but it's there and no one wants to let the team down . You have to leverage that .

If you're a bodybuilder , that's an identity and you hang out with other bodybuilders and there's a lot of things in the bodybuilding world that a lot of people outside that world think is really in the bodybuilding world . So many people take steroids in the real world , in the regular world , no one does .

One of the things that I hated about the bodybuilding world is that everyone else was on fucking steroids when I wasn't . It bothered me so much because I'm competing with these people , right , but at the end of the day , there's an identity with every community , whether it's conscious or not .

Hello , hello , hello . Nlu listener . Thank you , as always , for listening to Next Level University . Real quick , I just want to jump in and let you know about the Next Level Dreamliner . This is a journal that I use every single day . Achieve your dreams 90 days at a time . It breaks down your dreams into goals , milestones and daily habits .

We hope you enjoy it . The link will be in the show notes .

Should I take a pre-workout ? Should I do this ? Should I do this ? The fact that that person asked that might have answered a bunch of people's questions without them having to ask it , and I think that's huge , especially if you're somebody who has lower self-belief and you're not ready to ask that question .

Yet if you're in a group , there's a bunch of people that probably think the same thoughts and they're probably at a similar level than you and they probably have the similar questions . That was my point for the whole thing . I think it's just a cool extra benefit on top of all the other stuff Accountability , and you don't want to let the group down .

You're far more willing to do something for somebody else as opposed to yourself , all of that . But if you're in a group , it's almost like you get to see the brain of the group , and the brain of the group helps you grow your brain and it's one of the best ways to do it . And that's just one that I never , I never understood . I just didn't get it .

If you're somebody , if you're let's let's just use this analogy If you're like a professional driver , like a formula one driver , you being in a driving group is probably not going to be super valuable for you , because nobody really knows what it's like to be you and you're probably more skilled than almost anybody else .

But if you're Somebody , if you're a kid who's just learning to drive you're 16 and you're just learning to drive there's so much value . Almost everybody's ahead of you , so it's just , hopefully , wisdom . Again , you have to take that with a grain of sand , a grain of salt , whatever the fucking saying is .

masterminding . That's what mastermind is .

When I say they didn't know that much , I mean they didn't know what I was trying to learn . We were in a lot of podcast masterminds with people that just didn't know that much about podcasting and we didn't know it at the time . Yeah , I've been in fitness masterminds .

I said , brother , how many times are you the most out of shape in the room ? And he said almost never . I said give me one friend who you know in person who's in better shape than you . He's like um . And he gave me a name and we looked him up on Facebook and he wasn't . I said how much more in shape is he ? He's like meh , slightly more .

I said , dude , that's , that's not a good thing . If you've ever heard me say you got to get around people that make you uncomfortable at the ego level , what I mean by that is you got to get around Kevin .

You said this to me behind the scenes , dude , you got to get into a gym that has some actual lifters in it , like you're in a small town , little big fish , small pond , right , and that's so true it's unconscious , it's so important yeah , and and again , I'm not two minutes away , I'm not gonna you know , but we do have one gym that has some monsters in it

that we go to usually once a week . haven't been lately , but at the end of the day , this reference group thing I feel like did you not like being a part of ? Okay , did you not like being around people that were way ahead of you ?

The fitness group is for everybody . Anybody who wants to improve in fitness Awesome . I don't care how you do it , I don't care you do you . I'm not going to preach about anything , you do you . And the entire group is focused on improving their fitness health . Awesome . Everybody does it in a little bit of a different way . Everybody .

Some people are more consistent , some people are newer , some people have been doing it longer , whatever . But you have to be okay with potentially seeing me with my shirt off and maybe I'm in better shape than you and I can understand how that could be too much for some people , and you and I had that conversation in the beginning of dude .

I'm afraid , as I get into better shape , people are going to not want to be part of this anymore because they're going to feel like maybe this isn't the group for them and I want this to be the group for them . I want this to be safe .

I also want to be able to feel safe sharing my stuff , because if I can't share in this group , it's not going to work for me . So how do I juggle that ? I don't know yet .

I think everyone's relationships everyone , I think would benefit if more of their relationships were a byproduct of their goals . 100% that fitness group . You're not in there to build relationships . Maybe you are , but you're in there for your goals first .

Relationships second and I didn't understand early on that a lot of the people in my life were in relationship with me for lack of better phrasing friends , family , whatever . It was just to be in a relationship rather than friendship , whatever , rather than goals .

And one of the things that I'm scared to share out loud , but I do think it's critical , is I don't think that you can achieve your dreams if they're really really high . I don't think that you can achieve your dreams if they're really really high , unless you

flip that . Kevin and I , most of our relationships are now a byproduct of our goals . The NLU team is a byproduct of a mutual beneficial goal . We are all trying to get to the next level . Our community , my community , growing up was not good in my opinion , not good for my goals . I'll say that Good for fun .

For sure we had a lot of fun , but that's it . And now I feel like I have a community , a global community around me .

That's really really good for me , aka good for my goals and my aspirations , and I just I think most people end up being friends with people out of geography or out of their past rather than the future they want , and I think that's a wildly detrimental .

I felt for that for sure , and that was life as a byproduct of who you're , of your next level or maybe of your previous level , because if it's of your previous level , you might be in some trouble , well , and it's easier to find people than it's ever been .

It's not just based on geography . You don't have to hang out with the people that are next door . You have to mastermind with the people next door . You can listen to podcasts , watch YouTube channels , all that stuff . So we'll have all that stuff in the show notes below .

If you are looking for a community Next Level Fitness Accountability Group , reach out to Alan or myself . Our stuff is in the show notes . And then Next Level Nation , private Facebook group growth every single day . Awareness every single day . Conversation every single day . Community every single day . We'll have the links in the show notes .

The link to register for book club will be in the show notes . That is a link on zoom , totally free . Add it to your calendar .

as always , we love you . We Grateful for each and every one of you . In an NLU , we don't have fans . We have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow .