Next Level University
Confidence, mindset, relationships, limiting beliefs, family, goals, consistency, self-worth, and success are at the core of hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros' heart-driven, no-nonsense approach to holistic self-improvement. This transformative, 7 day per week podcast is focused on helping dream chasers who have been struggling to achieve their goals and are seeking community, consistency and answers. If you've ever asked yourself "How do I get to the next level in my life", we're here for you!
Our goal at NLU is to help you uncover the habits to build unshakable confidence, cultivate a powerful mindset, nurture meaningful relationships, overcome limiting beliefs, create an amazing family life, set and achieve transformative goals, embrace consistency, recognize your self-worth, and ultimately create the fulfillment and success you desire. Let's level up your health, wealth and love!
Next Level University
#1594 - Is Your Success Sabotaging You?
In a world that applauds high achievers and heralds success as the ultimate goal, it's not uncommon to find oneself at a crossroads between ambition and personal relationships. Pursuing excellence and yearning for connection are often seen as parallel paths, yet they frequently intersect, overlap, and even clash. In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros delve deep into this intricate interplay, offering insights and strategies for harmonizing these two critical aspects of life.
Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Live - Saturday, March 23rd, 2024 (10:00 am to 4:30 pm) https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-live/
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NLU is far more than just a podcast, and we have so many more resources to help you achieve your goals and dreams.
For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇
Website 💻 http://www.nextleveluniverse.com
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Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
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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 Meetup: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
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Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com
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Show notes:
(2:28) Getting success and maintaining success
(5:29) Perks vs purpose
(7:24) Paradigms
(10:15) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.
(11:36) Pushing towards continued growth and success
(14:44) Continued purpose and the dangers of being too comfortable with abundance
(18:14) Revel your success
(21:32) Outro
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. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, episode number 1593, where we talked about balance versus juggling. Today, for episode number 1594, is your success sabotaging you. What does that mean?
Kevin:I had a super powerful call with somebody the other day and they were alluding to the fact that they were kind of slowing down on being productive and they had changed their mind about some of the things they wanted to do. And again, we were talking about this in one of the previous episodes. Sometimes I just go with what my intuition says and I just ask the question and I said you don't have to answer this if it's uncomfortable at all. This person and I have a really good relationship, so I wasn't surprised that they chose to answer it. But I said remember that person you met a few months back. How's that going? How's that relationship going? And this person perked up and had a big smile. They said it's going amazing, going amazing. And I said okay, cool, cool, awesome. Do you think that that might be a reason we're losing some of our ambitions towards the things that we decided we wanted, and they said yeah, definitely.
Kevin:Oh yeah, big time, definitely. For the first time in a long time, I feel safe, I feel nurtured, I feel abundant, I feel all these things that I was longing for for so long, and I said yeah, my chair gave out.
Kevin:That's why we're laughing. I gotta get it fixed. I'm out here, Jeff. I've been busy, I've been busy. So, yeah, that really for me. That's why I wanted to do the episode. We've talked about this in the past too. I'm gonna power through. If one of the things that motivates you is getting into a relationship, what do you do when you get into the relationship? How do you maintain the other things you were doing?
Alan:I'm in a really good mood. I just wanna provide context for why.
Kevin:I'm laughing, it's all good.
Alan:Kev. Remember back in the day we used to joke about my trick hip.
Kevin:Oh, yes, yes, yes yes, I have a trick chair.
Alan:I injured my groin for a time, and there was a time when Kev and I were in the studio and I would always like, oh, you know we're in trouble.
Kevin:I have to grab something.
Alan:Yeah, that's what that reminded me of, because all I could see is Kev's face behind the camera and all of a sudden he's out.
Kevin:Because I lean. I don't know if it's because I'm leaning back, I have to just like lean forward. It's a whole thing. Yeah, so that's the reason I wanted to do the episode and if we could connect it to. We've talked about the five M's of next level motivation. One of the five M's is what is it? Because we don't see mating.
Alan:Hold on. Wasn't it like mating Marriage, marriage, marriage Instead of mating.
Kevin:Mating can sound kind of weird as a phrase, so we say marriage. When you get the thing that you're so motivated by, how do you keep going? That really is kind of the topic that I wanted to touch on today. Based on the experience of that client and I've seen this time and time again you and I have had this where we had a really good financial month and then we took our foot off the gas.
Kevin:So if your success forces you or causes you to stop doing the things that brought you success in the first place, unfortunately you're not gonna be able to sustain the success, and that is one of the things that I think a lot of us aren't really told and isn't talked about a lot. Getting success quote unquote is one part of it. Maintaining that success is usually as hard, if not harder, and it's the longer portion of the journey. It might take you 10 years to accomplish something, but if you wanna have that level of success for the next 20 years, there's a lot that has to go into that. So I thought it would be a powerful episode.
Alan:I'm reading a book right now called Leader Shift by John Maxwell, and in the book he talks about how a team that wins a championship often has a really hard time winning the next championship. And he talks about perks versus purpose and he says that when you do something for the perks and then you achieve it and you succeed, you get the perks and then all of a sudden you are not motivated anymore Because the purpose of why you were motivated is now gone, because now you have it. Whether that's Kevin and I having a big month, you see this all the time with couples. I often used to say this as hard as this might be to hear, I think it's objectively true Couples usually get in shape together or get out of shape together usually and again, we are all the sum average of the five people we spend the most time with. So obviously, if you're spending a lot of time with someone, you're gonna get smarter together or not. You're gonna get in shape together or not, and so a lot of times I would have past friends that would get into a relationship and all of a sudden they'd stop going to the gym. And here's why the motivation under getting in shape was actually a motivation to attract their dream partner. I'm not making that wrong. What I'm saying is, how do you refill the tank once you have a partner? Because if you stop doing what you did in the beginning, you you might see the end of the relationship. So if your partner you know you were super into fitness, for example, crushin it, fitness goals, weight training, whatever and you met your partner at the gym and you two were both crushing it fitness, awesome. And then you, once you get the partner, all of a sudden you're not as motivated in the gym, but they still go is that partner eventually gonna say you know what, maybe my partners hold me back, maybe I'm not as motivated as I once was, are they gonna be less attracted to you and are you gonna still have that core value in common? So, to the point of this episode, what is it that you're?
Alan:I think one of the reasons why we're doing this episode is I had a client who went through the paradigms. If anyone is curious, two things. Number one a paradigm is just a Fancy word for your deep belief about what the purpose of life is. So there's a bunch of different examples. If you have a family parent paradigm, it means that everything revolves around family. If you have a Growth paradigm, everything revolves around growth. If you have a mission paradigm, everything revolves around achieving whatever your mission is, whatever your purpose is that kind of thing. Business paradigm everything revolves around money and business. I Want to do this at some point. We're doing workshops now at NLU and I want to do a workshop at some point, and I don't know when, but I want to. I want to sit down with people and I want to help them get clear on their paradigms and I want them to have their top three. And so I'm gonna use myself as an example.
Alan:Prior to my car accident at 26, when I had a big transformation, a big paradigm shift, I grew up in these three paradigms. The first one was achievement. I had an achievement centered paradigm. I cared so deep about achievement and I want everyone thinking about themselves, not me got achievement. Number two was friends and number three was pleasure. So I had achievement, friends pleasure, naturally. I did really well in school, which was my achievement. I had tons of friends and I Partied a lot. And then I went to college again achievement, friends and I brought all my high school friends to college. I hosted the parties, paternity, all that kind of stuff. But I kept my grades up, achievement, friends, pleasure and I had a lot of fun.
Alan:After 26 I shifted my paradigms to mission growth. Probably goals, mission growth and achievement stayed, achievement stayed. So mission and growth and achievement. For anyone listening, most likely growth is one of your paradigms. If it wasn't, you probably would be a little bit bored and or annoyed by myself and probably Kevin as well, most likely me. But for all of our listeners, if your number one paradigm is spouse partner relationship and then you get it, most likely if you step off the gas unconsciously you might end up losing that but you might not be as motivated because that was already what was motivating it underneath. So if you achieve that goal and all of a sudden you're not as motivated, you got to check in with your paradigm and see, you know, kevin used needs, I use paradigms, but it's the same concept. And when you fulfill that, are you still climbing?
Kevin:I'm convinced this was this used to be a thought that I had very early in, long before I coached as many sessions and studied as much and learned as much there. I believe this, this is my belief that if I stopped doing the things that I am currently doing, my relationship would not be nearly as good, because one of the reasons my relationship started in the first place is because I was ambitious. I'm. I have a firm belief that yes, let's just say in this example, tyron wants to spend more time with me. I'm convinced if I swung that too far, it was like, yeah, cool, I'll just retire and then I'll just, we just hang out every day. She would get sick of that very, very fast. So there is that you have to know yourself. But you also have to understand that sometimes, when you get all of what you want, you realize you actually don't want all of what you thought you wanted, because there was something there that was creating the attraction or creating the pleasure, creating uniqueness, whatever it is. I'm using an intimate relationship in this example, but it's super important to understand that about yourself. Why are you doing what you're doing and what is the failsafe if you do actually get what you're doing it for we were talking before this about how important having a mission is, whatever that means to you.
Kevin:I'm guilty of this in the past. When I get into a relationship, or I got into a relationship, I would stop trying to impress Like, all right, cool, I I courted and now I have the relationship, I can kind of take my foot off the gas. I'm guilty of that for sure in the past and that always came back to bite me in the butt. Or it would be a conversation and I would say, hopefully I would say, yeah, you're right, let me do better, but I'm guilty of that for sure in the past. Or when you get your dream body, whatever that means, then you start celebrating the fact that you have your dream body and then you start doing the things that are the opposite of what got you the dream body.
Kevin:It's there, it's it's in everything, it's in everything, so Early next level nugget from Kevin Hello.
Alan:No, I just the body one. I've been there, man. Oh, same Post show you get the trophy you win first place you win the overall and then after that it's all the food.
Kevin:We did our 10 pound and 10 week challenge. What happened after that?
Alan:The gain 10 pounds in half that time challenge. Yeah, probably the 10 pounds and 10 weeks.
Kevin:Yeah, 10 pounds and eight weeks. Maybe the other way. I don't. This isn't something that I hear a lot of people talking about, so maybe it'll be a challenge to figure out how it lands for you personally, whether you're watching or listening. But that would be my next level nugget Look back into your past and ask yourself where have I found success and where did that success sabotage me? I'm guessing it probably happens to all of us in some way, shape or form. The more aware of it you are, the better off you'll be, because you'll be able to counteract it or create more necessity. I was gonna name this episode Can you Be Too Abundant? But I didn't think that would really explain what we're gonna talk about. Abundance is good. Overabundance can create lack of necessity, which then creates less abundance later, unfortunately.
Alan:Best example ever. You find these new cookies, these new bars, these new whatever. I remember I got in a kind bar. Kick Loved them.
Kevin:I was doing kind bars with honey. You remember that phase. I would see that.
Alan:I would see that from time to time, yep, and I just bought a bunch of kind bars. Still have them now. I loved them so much that I bought so many of them and now I have like three or four boxes and I just don't care anymore. And the reason I don't care anymore is because it was a phase and because of abundance, when it's the last kind bar, it's different, it's unique, it's special, it's significant. When there's a whole bunch of them, it's like, ah, you know what? That was a phase. I'm good, and that's human nature, by the way. So just don't let human nature get the best of you. And there is such thing as too much abundance. And there is such thing as resting on your laurels. And there is such thing as Kevin and I had our biggest month.
Alan:I think it was November of last year. I want to say November of 2023. So weird to say last year, november, which was two months ago. We had our biggest month ever in business and we said to each other the moment it happened, it was like do not get complacent, do not step off the gas, because we made that mistake early in 2022. We had a huge month. We did really really well, very grateful, worked hard for it, and then I remember. I'll never forget this. I'm in my office eating food at 11 am on a Tuesday, just watching my favorite show by myself, and then I napped on the floor.
Alan:I had a yoga mat at the time on the floor and I napped on the floor and I remember the next quarter was not very successful, not as strong as the previous quarter, and of course it's not right. You just got a little complacent Now again. Was I chilling all the time? No, it all depends on the mountain you're climbing, but it's an infinite game that never ends. And the last thing that I'll share is this, and, kev, you, you and Taryn are a great example of this. Emilia and I are a great example of this.
Alan:Taryn and Emilia want positive, growth-oriented, emotionally maturing, growing, competent men. They don't want man-child who hangs out all the time and is R&R-ing regularly and never growing and never contemplating, and never. They want people on a mission. They want men on a mission. They want men who are serving and who are purpose-driven and who are engaged and who are learning. And yeah, of course they want more quality time with us.
Alan:But there are times in our life where I had plenty of time for quality time and I promise you I was not as much of a catch, and I think that that's a great analogy for everyone to remember, because in the past there have been times where what attracted the relationship in the first place was goal-oriented, growth-oriented Allen, and then, once I got the love and the relationship, some of that took a backseat to quality time and then the relationship ended up suffering and a lot of my fulfillment ended up suffering too, again because I wasn't being myself, I wasn't in my paradigm that I chose and that I wanted to live in and that I really uncovered because, ultimately, that's the case.
Alan:So, very last thing, my next level nugget, is what is your paradigm? If you had to pick three, what are they? I have a PDF I can send you. Email me, alan, at nextleveluniversecom, I will send you the list of paradigms. One of them is growth, one of them is mission, one of them is goals, one of them is achievement, one of them is spouse, one of them is family, and you can just go through them and my clients rate themselves zero to 10 on each, and then you find the top three and really what that is? It's very similar to core values. It's what you filter your decision-making through.
Kevin:Last thing I would say we always talk about celebrating successes. I want you to celebrate successes and I want you to celebrate your wins. I would rather you have the opportunity to celebrate them for a long period of time instead of celebrating them once and then losing them and having to redo the whole thing over and over and over again. So I don't want this to be a negative episode of don't celebrate, please, please celebrate. You earned it, but you earned it, and I want you to have the opportunity to keep earning it, not have to do the whole thing over and over and over again. That would be an extra next level nugget for me. If you are looking for a group of like-minded humans who are into growth, who are into self-improvement, who are aspiring to their own unique next level, please join our private Facebook group. Link will be in the show notes, as always.
Alan:Everyone it is. I am proud to announce next level live 2024. Level up your life love, health and wealth. It is 57 days, 17 hours, three minutes and 52 seconds away. The link will be in the show notes. The show notes it's at the Groton Inn in Groton, mass. There's two components to this. If you are local, we hope you come in person. It's gonna be 30 individuals, three groups of 10. But we also have a virtual component. So if you are not local, aka two hours or less of a drive away, you can come virtually. Christina is the virtual event coordinator. She's gonna make sure that she's there on Zoom with all of you. There's gonna be breakout sessions. It's gonna be awesome. So again, 57 days out is game time. We do this every single year.
Alan:Next level live Learn exactly how to design and achieve the most aligned, fulfilled and successful life possible. This is the very best stuff that we've got. The ticket price is $97 for in-person Lunch is included. That's why it's a higher price. Okay, it's actually a really good lunch. Buffet style is gonna be awesome. Beautiful venue, mountains in the background, awesome. Kevin and I gave one of our first speeches their way back. And the virtual event is only $47. Okay, so the website is up. Click the link in the show notes. It's from 10 am to 4 30 pm and it's going to be awesome. Come join us. Meet Kevin and myself, meet the team, breakout groups the very best of all we've got in one day.
Kevin:Right on. And if you can't come in person, the virtual is. That's why we're doing it. We are a global podcast and we realize not everybody. You're probably not gonna take a plane across the ocean to come to a one day event. Eventually we'll have multi-day events. But if you want to join virtually, that is gonna be a next level experience as well. Tomorrow for episode number 1,595, we're creeping up there almost at 1,600. Month one check-in we were talking on the team call. We have a team call every other Wednesday. So this past Wednesday and everybody was talking about how their mind blown that it's already been a month, that we're almost through the first month, which is just wild to me. I cannot fathom it. So I thought we could do a little month one check-in, a little self-awareness for the end of January for an episode. So that's what we're gonna do tomorrow, as always. We love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we run a fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Alan:Don't rest on your successes, next time on Nation.
