Next Level University
Success isn't a secret. It's a system and we teach it every day.
Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers, entrepreneurs, and self-improvement addicts who are ready to get real about what it takes to grow.
Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros, this show brings raw, honest conversations about how to build a better life, love more deeply, lead with purpose, and level up in every area... from health to wealth to relationships.
With over 2,000 episodes and listeners in more than 175 countries, we combine experience, data, and deep coaching insights to help you:
- Master your mindset and habits
- Scale your effort and income
- Create deep, aligned relationships
- Stay consistent when motivation fades
- Build a life you’re proud of one day at a time
No fluff. No hype. Just real growth, every single day.
Subscribe now and join #NextLevelNation.
Next Level University
#1768 - Grit And Resilience - Freestyle Friday
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Have you ever wondered how to build grit and resilience? In this Freestyle Friday episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros explore the power of habit tracking and its profound effect on health, wealth, love, and clarity. They share personal experiences and insights on tracking, even the most minor habits can significantly improve different areas of life. Whether improving your relationships, enhancing your career, or achieving fitness goals, this episode is packed with actionable advice and real-life stories to inspire you to track your way to success.
Links mentioned:
Subscribe & follow NLU: https://www.buzzsprout.com/742955/share
Mailing List: https://subscribepage.io/nextlevelmailing or
Email Alan: Alan@nextleveluniverse.com
______________________
NLU is not just a podcast; it’s a gateway to a wealth of resources designed to help you achieve your goals and dreams. From our Next Level Dreamliner to our Group Coaching, we offer a variety of tools and communities to support your personal development journey.
For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇
Website 💻 http://www.nextleveluniverse.com
_______________________
Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - https://bit.ly/3xffver
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
Next Level Monthly Meet-up: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
_______________________
We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on Instagram, Facebook, or via email. We’re here to support you in your personal and professional development journey.
Instagram 📷
Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/
Facebook ✍
Alan: https://www.facebook.com/alan.lazaros
Kevin: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.palmieri.90/
Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com
LinkedIn ✍
Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/
_______________________
Show notes:
(2:18) Habit tracking brings clarity
(4:20) Habits and metrics tracking
(9:45) Relationship tracking
(13:02) Find your schedule and flow
(16:53) The mountain keeps getting higher...
(19:17) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams wh
Send a text to Kevin and Alan!
🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros
Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.
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 1768, it's Freestyle Friday. The lights are off in the studio, the good vibes are flowing like the salmon of the Capistrano and we are out here living the dream. For those of you who may be new, freestyle Friday is us just jumping on and kind of going where the conversation takes us. If you are listening, maybe this is your favorite episode of the week because we've gotten a lot of really, really good feedback, so hopefully today will be no different.
Speaker 1What's on my brain? I was telling, telling, telling. I was talking to somebody on a podcast the other day and they were asking about I think the question was what's the number one thing that made the biggest difference for you since 2017? And I said habit tracking. For sure, habit tracking has been the thing that has been the biggest shifter for me, has been the thing that has been the biggest shifter for me. And I said but I think we overcomplicate it or people assume that when I say that it takes away from some of the magic of habit tracking, it's really hard to do. It's hard to do consistently all of that, but the level of clarity it gives you is amazing. And I said, one of the reasons it's easier quote unquote for us to be holistic is because we track health, wealth and love.
Habit tracking brings clarity
Speaker 1There's a lot of people that are really good at tracking certain things. Really good at tracking this is how many things I have to do at work. I do this, I do this, I do this. This is what I I track, but it's not necessarily well. This is how many things I have to do at work. I do this, I do this, I do this. This is what I track, but it's not necessarily well. Okay, how are you tracking your relationship? So that's kind of what's on my mind right now is, if you don't do habit tracking or you have your own version it's not an NLU way or whatever but you're only tracking like external stuff, the amount of times I go to the gym, that type of stuff. I would argue that some of the most powerful stuff to track is relationship stuff. Maybe it's internal stuff. What are you struggling with the most? That's the thing you should probably start tracking.
Speaker 2We can give some examples. I think that would be good. Yeah, I think we have a digital asset. I believe Jerrianne shout out to Jerrianne. I do believe she created this. It's a worksheet that goes life, love, health and wealth and all the different types of habits under each. So if you want to start tracking habits, reach out alan at next level universecom. I will create a little google sheet for you and, uh, free of charge, just want to help.
Speaker 2Okay, I have a bunch of. I'm very grateful. I have 25 clients currently on my roster weekly, bi-weekly, monthly clients, business coaching clients Youngest is 16, oldest is 63 Everywhere from hey I want to start a youtube channel to hey. I've been in business for decades and I'm already a multimillionaire, but I want to be even more successful and impactful. So the one thing that I've been grateful for the most is that I've finally gotten to a place in my coaching practice where I can kind of say this courageously, because I used to not have the courage to say it, but I said this to my most recent new client. I said I don't want to coach you unless you track habits. The reason why is I don't have certainty that I'll add as much value as possible unless we have some sort of reporting system.
Habits and metrics tracking
Speaker 2Back in middle school, they had something called progress reports. Kevin and I went to the same middle school. In high school they have report cards. In college they have a GPA, and if you get below a certain GPA, you get kicked out of college. It's important to track yourself, and we do really well at being accountable when we have someone looking over our shoulder, but we don't like when someone's looking over our shoulder. So why not do it with yourself? And so I'll give you a bunch of different examples of some of these different trackers. So, kev, I'm going to use yours to start. All right, so Kev tracks gross revenue. He tracks cash on hand. He tracks number of NLPS, clients, next level podcast solutions. He tracks NLU listens. He tracks the number of NLU episodes we have. You also track the number of podcast growth university episodes we have. Now, these aren't habits.
Speaker 2It's very important to distinguish the difference between a metric and a habit. A habit is green, yellow, red, it's a zero, a 0.5 or a one. Either you did it, you kind of did it, or you didn't do it. Keep it simple. For a long time people were doing like well, I two-thirds did it. It just gets complicated, so we just do. Green, yellow, red metrics are different. Metrics are your weight, it changes each day. You, you track it each day. Now there's two types of metrics. There's a cumulative metric, which is one, two, three, four, five. So one of my clients tracks number of days, habit tracking. That's a metric that increases by one day every day. Brandon has been running a mile a day for 657 days Something crazy. And his mile time, by the way, is like 630. Something crazy, it's wild.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's awesome, and so that's a metric. Okay, a habit is did I run? A metric is number of days I ran in a row. That's a good way to describe it can.
Speaker 1Can you slide your mic a little bit away from your face? Your it's uh, your camera's out of focus occasionally I think that's probably why right here, or you have the eye, the eye thing on, so when you turn your head a little bit it goes out of focus. It looks good now. But I'll tell you when you're what I think. Some like my camera I don't know if your camera has it, I'm sure it probably does it knows the focus on my eyes. So when my eyes go away, sometimes, like if I look away, it gets blurry. So some like sometimes when you're looking to your left, like you're looking down at something, it gets blurry. I don't know.
Speaker 2Oh, this is real, real time troubleshooting I'll put this in front of me so that I'm looking at you still yeah, okay all right, I'm going to continue.
Speaker 2so just some examples of habits that kevin tracks batch, whatsapp. We communicate on our team through whatsapp next level nation batch so he's in next level nation every day. Proactive thoughtfulness in his relationship story post connect with a Okay, these are just simple habits. So everyone, think about your goals and then think about some habits that you think if you did them consistently you'd be more successful. Please don't overcomplicate this. Start small and let it build. My new client he is doing 20 minutes of real estate research. He's doing lesson prep because he's a calculus teacher. Another one of my clients Okay, anonymously. No vaping, awesome.
Speaker 1What are the relationship ones like For ones that are in relationships or want to improve the relationship with themselves?
Speaker 2Let me give you an example of that one.
Speaker 1I think that's always a that one's always hard for it can be a challenge for people. Wife and hubby time Quality time.
Speaker 2Yep, quality time, that's common, very common. Yeah, makes sense. Quality time with wife or husband. Give me another one. Fitness, accountability, group sessions, review finances, 10,000 steps, 10k steps that's actually fairly common, fairly common. I think I have three clients that do 10K steps.
Speaker 1Shout out to anybody doing 10K steps a day.
Speaker 2Good for you. Some other ones Examples Emergency fund that's a metric, not a habit. Protein shake there's a habit. Morning walk, 10 minutes, podcast listening, meaningful check-in uh, this is one for a relationship as well. Hold on pm gratitudes reading for 30 minutes.
Speaker 1Deeper relationship with hubby yeah, it's so important, it's so valuable. That's one thing that I've noticed when, when I go on other shows and I talk about habit tracking, it's always very, very couple things. It's always very, very surprising to people that I came up with all this myself. That's always that always blows people's minds when I say I've pretty much architected this whole. I kind of the whole thing by myself, just on my own kind of, came to me one day and I just sat down and I started drawing it out On a mirror, yeah or on a window, like in the movies.
Speaker 1It's just kind of a gift I have. Yeah, I don't know, it's just something.
Speaker 1No, Alan's the one who created it. The part of the relationship piece that's when a lot of people, when I say say well, we break everything into health, wealth and love. I think the health thing makes sense. It's like, yeah, go to the way I weigh myself and I track my calories and that try to drink a certain amount of water, whatever the wealth is. Well, yeah, I track my bank account and I try to learn every day so I can make more money in the business and maybe it's reach out to one potential client. The relationship one is always when people say, well, what do you do for that? Well, every week we do a check in, but on the day to day, play the gratitude game every single night before bed, do the thoughtful Proactiveness.
Relationship tracking
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a good one Proactive thoughtfulness. Think about it. Kev's in the middle of his day, it's 4pm and he's on his tracker and he's cranking.
Speaker 1Never. I'm never on my tracker at 4 pm, so okay, fair you know what I mean.
Speaker 2I'm working now let's imagine he sees proactive thoughtfulness. Then that's the trigger, then the behavior is okay. I gotta think of something cute, yeah, to do this evening with taryn. If you're not tracking, it's most likely not going to happen. That is human nature. Trigger behavior reward. Trigger behavior reward. And then you do something cute. Taryn loves it, she lights up, you see it, and then the relationship is better.
Speaker 1Or you just get the check for doing it. That's a reward for me too. It's not all about it is it's a friendly reminder. So people will say how many times do you look at it a day Once? I look at my tracker pretty much once a day Really.
Speaker 1I know what's on there. There's two thoughts. One, I know what's on there. And two if I do my day the way I'm supposed to. And two, if I do my day the way I'm supposed to, everything's going to get checked off anyway. That's kind of the weird piece of it is I don't even have to know what's on there. I know what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 2I track it, you don't even I have it up, so I have two. And again it's Freestyle Friday, so sorry to interrupt you, yeah.
Speaker 1I don't want to make it about me.
Speaker 2I just there YouTube what's happening and then I have my Zen book over here on the left and I always have it on my Zen book. So I'm working on my main laptop and then my Zen book, which is like a little mini laptop that we're recording on right now, always has my calendar and or my tracker up, because that's my goal is to stay on track. That's kind of fairly new. I think that was within Q2. But I check my tracker I mean dude, half dozen times a day, for sure I don't check it. Do you update?
Speaker 1the next day, or do you update day of? I update next day. Okay, that's why, yeah, I update as I go. Most of my stuff is done first thing. So when I wake up, I weigh myself yeah, I look at my calendar, it's. I wake up, I weigh myself, yeah, I look at my calendar, it's like, okay, yesterday I did two podcasts, so this is the number. Okay, there's so many listens we have. Alan does the finances and it just auto-populates to my spreadsheet. I don't do the, it just shows up which is nice.
Speaker 2Imagine I just throw a couple mil in there. I'm waiting, I've been waiting. Imagine.
Speaker 1I get a phone call from Kev hey man, I've been centered and I've been manifesting millions and I'm waiting on the kid to put them in there. Throw an extra 100K in there, see if I get a phone call A couple years, a couple years, but yeah, I don't really.
Speaker 1I kind of do the same thing every day. I know I say I don't have a morning routine. Now I kind of do shout out to the amazing next level social media team I'm not doing anybody's social media anymore, which is awesome because I actually have time to do stuff for me, which is great. But and the team is crushing it Amazing. Shout out to Nicole, jerry and Riley crushing it.
Find your schedule and flow
Speaker 1I now actually do have somewhat of a morning routine, but it's the same thing. I come in the office, I open this up, I usually check my emails, I track the listens, I batch WhatsApp. Those are like the things I do. I do those before I do anything. Before I do anything, there's still sleepies in my eyes and that's what I'm doing, because I just feel like that's a really good flow and that's a whole other conversation is figure out. Sorry, don't be sorry. You. Disappointedly, he was like the other thing that I've been really thinking about a lot lately and we'll do a full episode on this at some point. But when you find the right schedule for you, it is the best thing ever of all time.
Speaker 110 pm tara and I go to bed almost every night, nice 6 am. I get up, oh uh, every morning, pretty much seven days a week. I'm not saying that because it's like oh, I'm getting up earlier than you on saturday and sunday. I like it, I really enjoy getting up. So saturday night, uf, sunday, I like it, I really enjoy getting up.
Speaker 1So Saturday night, ufc was on. I ordered Domino's, we talked about that, and it was like 10, 15. No, no, no, sorry, it was like nine o'clock and I was like babe, I want to come to bed and watch it in bed and you can snuggle on me, what do you think? And she's like yeah, I'll be, I'll soon, so you can come in. I was like awesome, this is awesome. So I went and laid down and I watched UFC and she was watching it a little bit with me and then I ended up falling asleep and I got up at 6 on Sunday. I went out into the living room, I sat on the couch while I drank my energy drink and I watched the fights. I watched the fights at 6.15 on Sunday, it was awesome While I was getting ready for the gym. It was the best, it was the absolute best. So that's a whole other thing when you find your schedule and you find your flow. It's easier to be consistent.
Speaker 2It's so much easier, but how many years did it take you to get to that schedule?
Speaker 1Well, it took me many years to get to, but also have the privilege to do schedule Well, it took me many years to get to, but also have the privilege to do it. That privilege demand whatever you want. I remember I used to do calls at 7 am on Saturday. Recently, 10 am is the first one Go ahead.
Speaker 2Recently, amelia and I, we went to Target. A couple weekends ago. Two weekends ago we went and saw Inside Out 2, and then we were there and Target's there. So we went to Target and I had a moment. It was like storming and for those of you in the area who know Millbury Mountain, it's beautiful up there and that place is always packed the way in a. In an era where retail is going out like in-person retail is going out, they crush true they crush.
Speaker 2It is though it is yeah yeah, but anyways, and milbury mountain's always packed, so whoa right, talk about perfect location and it's awesome up there. I love it. Qdoba, you gotta, you got everything you need. I haven't been in so long it's awesome up there, big fan, barnes and Noble, great yeah. So anyways, little Starbucks in there. So we're at Target. I had a moment way back in the day. I used to park in the back of the Target and do my coaching sessions in my Subaru, in my.
Speaker 2Subaru like all day. I would live in my car man practically obviously it's on.
Speaker 1Was it on the way home from the studio?
Speaker 2yes, yeah, I, because I would try to maximize my time and I remember back then I also used to do bottomless coffee at panera all the time. So that was the other reason I was in milbury, because I would be doing my back office work, tracking all my metrics and stuff, in Panera, bottomless coffee. Then I'd have a front-facing call. I can't do that in Panera because I don't want to coach with people in the background and stuff. I think it's a very private setting. It needs to be. I think that's important.
The mountain keeps getting higher...
Speaker 2So I would go in my car and it'd be summertime, 95 degree weather. I'm in my Subaru, the AC is cranking and I'm just trying to as much as life is still really challenging, business is really challenging. I don't think that will ever change, quite frankly, unless you're climbing a smaller mountain, which we're not, we're just the mountain keeps getting higher as you climb it. When I have moments like that, I really do appreciate how far we've come because, dude, that sucked, that really sucked. And one of my clients shout out to Bianca, she's been with me for five years, off and on and she was like she remembers that she was someone I was coaching back then. You know, on Zoom on my phone in the subaru and I don't know. I was taking notes and it's just cool to look back on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1You want the ultimate throwback. Oh yeah, I used to shovel the sidewalks at milbury mountain in the winter. Really, nope, yep, I used to shovel all the sidewalks. Yep, I used to shovel all the sidewalks. How old Whew man, I don't even know. Teens, teenager.
Speaker 2The last episode I teared up talking about how poorly I was treated when I was a bus boy and a cart kid at a golf course. And the bus boy I was very young and I look young now. Imagine me at 14, right, or 15, 16. When I go back to that, it listen you and I work. I work 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week, every week, and I but here's the thing, right, you and I are in our offices. We're virtual. We've got a 30 second commute. It's just really important in in.
Speaker 2Yes, it is challenging and I don't take anything from that. I really don't. But there's something to be said.
Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.
Speaker 2When you used to shovel snow for a living and pump gas for a living and travel all over the East coast in sketchy hotels for a living, and I also in corporate traveled a ton too, and I couldn't stand it. I hated it so much Like. And again, it wasn't all bad. I got to listen to my books and I made a lot of money and I was grateful for all that. But at the end of the day, I didn't really like travel, especially in a car. I, I, it wasn't, I wasn't my favorite, and you're always on the road. You have to eat out all the time. You can't track your calories as well. It wasn't my a big fan, but, but I just go back to those jobs that were really hard, like I remember painting houses up in maine and it was some days 100 degree weather, just my shoulder wanted to fall off.
Speaker 2If you've ever painted, it's yeah, and, and I think that it's really important to give yourself that perspective because, truth be told, yeah, we work really hard and these days are really hard and yeah, we did four full episodes today and we tracked finances and we track habits and we lead a team and that can be really emotional. I got into it. One team member recently shout out to you if you're listening, and we're good, but it's been hard, it's been really, really challenging. But, dude, compared to that, it's a different kind of challenge, for sure. That's the thing. It's almost like. You should never want life to not be challenging, because if you do, you're in trouble. Instead, hope that life's challenges become higher quality challenges. I think that's a really cool lesson.
Speaker 1I remember we would work like overnight when there was a big storm. I'd be outside shoveling snow all night. It was freezing, it's brutal. I mean we made good money at the time. I think it was making like 15 bucks an hour. I think it was like 17 maybe, so that wasn't even so. This was just like a side gig we'd do on the weekends or nights or something.
Speaker 1But there's something to that. One of the hardest jobs I ever did was the weatherization job and we were working in New Jersey in a really big school and a lot of people don't know some schools have attics Not all schools, it depends on the school, but there's some schools. There's a hatch in the hallway and you throw a ladder under there, you go up into the attic and it's just a bunch of open space and it has insulation up there and I am not kidding, it was probably 97 degrees out and in the attic it was at 130 degrees minimum. And I have a full Tyvek suit on. I have a mask on, not a like an N95, like an actual mask, a respirator that has canisters on the side.
Speaker 1And I remember I listened to the same song over and over and over Tourist by Whit Lowry great song, and I was single and I remember I listened to the same song over and over and over Tourist by Whit Lowry great song. And I was single and I was lonely. And now when I listen to that song it makes me think of Taryn. I don't know why, not because of the song, but just because I was so lonely, thinking of like, wow, one day I'm going to marry someone.
Speaker 1But I remember there was a point where I'm dragging this hose. So when you blow insulation into an attic was a point where I'm dragging this hose. So when you blow insulation into an attic, you essentially run a long ass hose from the machine which is outside all the way through the school up into the attic and then you drag the hose around and you blow in this insulation and you got to get it level. I Alan, I'm not kidding, and this is just the way I was. There were times where I like fell down because I was so hot and overheated, but I was sweating. My suit was filled with sweat, one of the hardest days I've ever had in my entire life. After that, nothing's really that hard that is exactly.
Speaker 2I told Kev one time we were cleaning out the studio and we were carrying stuff down and that was just a day of Very nostalgic day because we had a studio for what? Two years, three years, I think it was two years, two years and we cleaned it out and it took us a long time, honestly. But there's a dumpster there and I loved that studio, man. That was awesome. I miss it. It's a good chapter. It's a good chapter and at one point I remember you and I had a bunch of stuff on our back.
Speaker 2We were bringing it to the dumpster and I said something along the lines of if you were soft, this would never work. Yes, and if you grew up privileged, there's no way I could work with you. And I think that there's something to be said Now. If you did grow up privileged, I think that's great. I'm not trying to be unkind to you in any regard, but I do know that there is a benefit to doing things that suck so bad that it level sets your expectations. So, for example, seven episodes in a day we only did four today is like, really, really difficult. Our record is 21. You were going away to Scotland. We needed to get all three weeks worth and we made it happen.
Speaker 121 in one week, Not in a day. No, no, no in one week 21 in one week.
Speaker 221 episodes in one week is nothing short of genuinely brutal, is nothing short of genuinely brutal. But podcasting is not the same as blowing insulation into an attic. That's 130 degrees. Yeah, no, no, no. And I am telling you one of the reasons why we seemingly some of my clients have sat me down and said I don't understand how how I'm a YouTuber, I can only do one video a and said I don't understand how how I'm a youtuber, I can only do one video a week. I don't understand. I say number one we have an awesome team, we didn't start here.
Speaker 1And number two full-time jobs, yes exactly.
Speaker 2And number two, there's a level of grit to this that I wonder sometimes where that comes from. But I know that some of the things that I went through as a kid you think 21 episodes in a week is going to take me down no chance, right, we're good, we're going to make it happen. So there's something to be said for grit, and I don't know how else you build it other than just do really hard stuff. And I don't mean do chance right, we're good, we're gonna make it happen. So there's something to be said for grit. And I I don't know how else you build it other than just do really hard stuff. And I don't mean do a cold plunge or take a cold shower, I mean set goals that force you outside your comfort zone. And I don't mean outside your comfort zone emotionally yes, that too. I mean physically. Yeah, you gotta suffer a little bit. You gotta suffer a little bit. That that's you gotta suffer a little bit by choice.
Speaker 2It has to be by choice Because you're gonna suffer no matter what, when life throws terrible things your way, and that's just life. But if you suffer by choice, there's another level of grit that comes from that that there's certain people I coach that you're just gonna win because you just are capable of doing things. Other people aren't, because you've suffered so much by choice. And if you can't suffer by choice, you're not going to be as successful as someone who's willing to put that in, because that's the one thing that we can't coach you through.
Suffer by choice
Speaker 2When you're on the field and I'll be very brief about this there was this one time. It was 100 degrees and Emilia and I were playing soccer on a field that I now call the hot box. It's brutal down there, and that's where I did my marathon too. I'm not kidding, that was dangerous, all right, when we were playing soccer. It's a football field, so this is a full length football field, and Emilia and I did. I wanted to do 25 there and back, and I'm talking without stopping in the middle of the hot box, and I was so close to passing out and so was she that I just said we got this, don't stop, we can do this. I just said we got this. Don't stop, we can do this. It's to the point where if I had passed out, I wouldn't have been shocked.
Speaker 2Now I realize football players do that all the time. I realize soccer players do way worse than that. I realize. I realize, I realize, I realize, I realize okay, but those times are the times when I know I'm getting an edge inside my own ability to develop grit. I'm not doing it because anyone's watching. There's no one there except Emilia and I. I'm doing it because I need to train my brain to do hard things when they're necessary, and I do. I believe that's a huge part of the reason why you and I have been able to get to where we are, and I would be lying if I didn't think that our listeners need to develop that. You need grit, and there's a book by Angela Duckworth called Grit, and I don't necessarily think it's a great book, I don't think it's a bad book, I think the concept is really important.
Speaker 1Somebody asked me one time it was a great podcast, I don't remember what it was but he said do you feel like most people can do what you guys have done? And I said no, no, no. And I said I don't think it would be healthy for most people. And he said why? And I said well, there's two of us, so automatically, if you're on your own, we're going to do at least twice the amount of work. It's very hard to make up for that.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I said Alan's a genius. That's, if you don't have that, you don't have the same strategy. And I said, honestly, I just don't think most people are willing to suffer to the same degree. And I'm not making that wrong, I'm not saying you should want to, but we, what we have signed up for, it's our lives are not going to get any easier. Quote unquote. Some things will. Our lives are not going to get any easier. Quote unquote. Some things will Eventually. Money makes certain things much easier. That's true. I'd be lying if I said that wasn't true. But it's not like eventually, alan and I are going to go live on an island somewhere and never work again. That's never going to happen. Probably a higher likelihood of me doing that than Alan, but I can't imagine that happening. I said I, we're just I think we're just really good at suffering.
Speaker 1I think a lot of it comes from the bodybuilding. There's a little piece of me, there's this little voice in my head that's like hell, yeah, man, you're suffering. When I'm at the gym and I'm, I don't want to be there and I have no energy and literally my stomach is making all sorts of noises, a certain song will hit and I just start bobbing my head. It's like this is the good stuff. This is really good, nice, because it makes you feel alive and it makes you appreciate stuff. Yep, it makes you appreciate stuff.
Challenging yourself
Speaker 1I'm not saying to cold plunge, because I do think it's dumb. Honestly. I think it's for a lot of us. I think it's a really dumb use of your willpower. What's the willpower? Yeah, you want to wake up and jump in a cold tub Awesome. If it does it for you, do it, but not at the expense of doing something else. That's more valuable. That's my, that's my truth. But if that's what helps you build grit, do it Awesome. That's not how I want to do it. I'd rather go to the gym and grind out a really hard workout. But anything that is going to force you to literally say this is going to suck, this is physically going to suck, it's physically going to test me, it's going to be physically uncomfortable, and then you challenge yourself to do it, I think that's always going to be a good thing to try. I miss jujitsu because of that. I miss it because I was suffering, I was getting beat on. I miss that. It's humbling. It grounds you. It's super, super humbling. It's harder to do that to yourself.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1The 5K. That's why I like that.
Speaker 2Yeah, it makes sense, as much as I don't consider it super impressive to do a 24-minute 5K and there's a lot of different things, and that's why it's like, oh, keep talking about the 5K, I don't. It's not about the 5K, it's about testing myself.
Speaker 1We have very little stories to talk about because we don't do anything. So when we do something of note, we do talk about it often.
Speaker 2We got it. It's a good metaphor.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's nothing else. I got nothing else for you it's a good metaphor. I had pizza and I watched UFC.
Speaker 2That's all I got and I tested my ability to put down an entire pizza myself, pepperoni and banana peppers During the 5k. There was a moment I talked about it. I said you will not stop, you cannot stop, do not stop. Emilia had a moment where she did walk for a very short time and I knew that was not an alignment with. I knew she was upset about it. It's just not in alignment with her identity. Yeah, and I'm not going to shame her or guilt her for that, but she's been trying to tell me, like my cardio is not what I want it to be, it's not as good.
Speaker 2We found out why, by the way, side time, tiny side tangent. In the gym we've been doing really hardcore hit weight training and her wrists. She has these tiny little hands. She has tiny hands and feet. She's so cute. She's five foot three's, this little thing, but she's strong as hell. I have been diagnosing why her cardiovascular hasn't come up as much as mine has. I said you're stopping the weights not because your muscles are fatigued or because your cardio is fatigued. You're stopping because of your grip. You have smaller hands than I do, so it's harder to grip and you use grip assists, or maybe you don't anymore.
Speaker 1I don't know, always I think it's dumb not to okay fair.
Speaker 2She doesn't want to use grip assists and she has these tiny little hands and dude. It's a huge advantage to have big hands in the gym. Huge advantage, yeah. And so and we use chalk and whatever the point is is that I said are you stopping the end of your sets at failure? And she said yeah. And I said well, what part is failing is that? I said are you stopping the end of your sets at failure? And she said yeah.
Importance of identifying and overcoming personal bottlenecks
Speaker 2And I said well, what part is failing? Is your cardio failing? Is your strength failing? Your muscle fatigue, or is it just because of sheer volume, or is it because of strength, like weight, you can't lift that weight. And I said if you're going to train for strength, make sure the thing that you fail at is the thing you want to grow and is the thing you want to grow. And so for me, lately I've been trying to fail based on strength, not based on cardio. But prior to the 5k, between the time to mile that, I got a lot of humble pie in the 5k, I was trying to stop because of my cardiovascular, I was trying to push my cardiovascular and then we're in a cut now. So I'm trying to do strength, but at the end of the day you can't stop because of your grip. Now she's going to actually use lifting gloves. I know, kev, I know you're against it. She's going to use lifting gloves.
Speaker 1Look, look, I'm not. It's not. I'm against you using them. Okay, nobody else Anybody? Else wants to use gloves, use them.
Speaker 2I'm against Alan using them Okay fair, I might actually use them hardcore bodybuilder.
Speaker 1The aura ring's gonna be fine. I lift every day with the aura ring. It's scratched up but it builds. I don't want it scratched up, man, that's fair. That's fair. You do, you, you I'm not. Who am I to? Who am I to? Shame you appreciate?
Speaker 2you, brother. But here's the deal get outside your comfort zone, whatever the bottleneck is. If it's physical suffering, that's your bottleneck. You're gonna have to go work on that. If it's intellectual, I remember when kevin and I first started working together, he would gas out intellectually, cognitively, his brain would shut down. But look at how smart you've become. I mean, your brain is dude. How much more powerful is your brain? Seriously, not with the humility much more.
Speaker 1It's much more powerful than it used to be. I don't know how much more powerful, um, I don't know. I do feel like a very smart person, which is weird for me because I never did and I hang in conversations with people that are world-class smart. It's very strange. The NASA doctor, nasa doctor, space doctor, didn't know that was a thing, thought that was only on TV. Much smarter, much smarter. The only doctor I know is Dr Pepper, dr Pepper. Much smarter, the only doctor I know is Dr Pepper, dr Pepper. That's right, you know it. There's got to be a couple other ones.
Speaker 2Dr Seuss.
Speaker 1Dr McGillicuddy. I had that moment happen recently where I was like that was the end of a long day and I was talking to someone and they were just going off. They were like so passionate about what they were talking about and I was like I don't know if I can do this right now. My brain is. My brain is so tired. It was ready for a nap but it was really good.
Speaker 2So physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. For me my bottleneck is emotional. It's usually relational. I need to get outside my comfort zone in my relationships. The team member I mentioned that I had a hard conversation with, that took a ton of courage and the whole rest of the day was hard for me. So and then spiritual, that I don't really know necessarily how you test that other than check in with yourself breath, work, energy fulfillment, are you in alignment with your calling, that kind of thing?
Speaker 2But physical limitations hold us back, and particularly the people out there that identify as spiritual I know a lot of our listeners do. The physical side of things might be holding you back. You might not be as willing to suffer physically. One of my clients suffers physically but she struggles mentally, cognitively. One of my other clients is super spiritually connected but she struggles with physical discomfort. All of us have a bottleneck and it it's very important to identify what that is. And so for Kev, it was never going to be a physical bottleneck because you were willing to grind almost to a detriment. So for you I think it was cognitive.
Speaker 1I would say so I'm still willing to grind to a detriment just not as much of a detriment trying to be more sustainable. I, that's. If I and we gotta go, we'll get out of here, because I know these, these uh episodes this week have been super long. We've just been in flow, having good conversation and we didn't want to get off the mics. I've noticed that I'm I try to be way more proactive. It's like I feel like my throat is getting sore. What can I do? Like, okay, let me eat a little bit extra, let me drink extra, maybe get nine hours of sleep instead of eight.
Speaker 1I've been trying to focus more on staying on the field than anything. That's kind of been like one of my friends, like, just stay in the field, stay on the field, stay on the field. It's about longevity, longevity. So that's a little something too. All right If you are focused on getting to the next level little by little, day by day, moment by moment. Make sure you are focused on getting to the next level little by little, day by day, moment by moment. Make sure you are subscribed on whatever podcast platform you are listening to us on. That would be a subscribe on Apple and a follow on Spotify, I believe and then make sure you're subscribed on YouTube as well. Again, it's hard to get better every day, especially when you wake up and you don't feel like it, but it may be a gentle kick in the butt saying NLU has dropped a new episode. We'll help get you there and you know we're never going to miss, so we will be in your pocket every single day.
Proactive steps for maintaining health and longevity
Speaker 2If you're not yet on the NLU mailing list, shout out to Jerrianne. She does awesome emails for us. The emails are designed to keep you informed about what's going on. So, gentle, friendly reminders hey, group coaching's coming up. Hey, we have a monthly meetup coming up. Hey, here's Alan's blog. Hey, Dreamliner, whatever it is. So if you want to be on the mailing list and a bigger part of the NLU community, email me, alan at nextleveluniversecom. Just first last name and email address. Obviously, if you're emailing me, I'll have your email address. You will be added to the mailing list. Email me and you'll get those emails. Usually there's about one email per week. Very occasionally we'll do two emails per week if there's two things going on that are really important.
Speaker 1Depends. If we're trying to sell like any llamas or horses or something, if we're trying to sell farm animals, we will email you seven times that week. I'm definitely kidding. All right, 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'll talk to you all tomorrow. Keep it gritty Next time on Nation.
