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
#1622 - An Important Lesson In Comparison
As individuals, we’re often seduced by the deceptive shine of someone else’s success, and it can be challenging to resist the comparison trap. In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about a journey that goes unspoken mainly. This journey requires a relentless pursuit of dreams, resilience in the face of setbacks, and a dedication to growth that can take years to manifest. To those who choose to live on their terms, resist the temptation of quick fixes, and build empires of lasting value through their consistent actions and habits. The climb may be slow, but once reached, the view from the top is incomparable.
Links mentioned:
Next Level Group Coaching - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
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 more than just a podcast; we have 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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Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
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Show notes:
(2:52) 10-foot ladder vs. 100-foot ladder
(4:27) The analogy of building the unseen foundation
(5:52) Pay now and play later, or play now and pay later
(10:35) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.
https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
(11:53) The analogy of pyramid
(13:43) Consumer vs. investor mindset
(15:16) Play the long game
(18:04) Apples to apples comparison
(19:42) 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 yesterday's episode, episode number 1621. Does fulfillment require struggle? Today, for episode number 1622, an important lesson in comparison. This is something I've seen Very often from dream chasers. You'll be grinding away and you'll be working really hard and you'll be Sacrificing the now for the future and you'll be investing money and time and energy and effort into the mission. And you'll come across someone who is just living it up. Maybe they're Spending a week in the Bahamas, maybe they're spending a week in Europe, they're on a backpacking trip, they just bought a new house or they bought a new car, and I think we fall into this trap of saying, oh my goodness, that person is doing so much better than I am right now.
Speaker 1:I told Alan before this episode I'm going to try to explain something that I do not know how to explain yet. Hopefully it will come through in this episode. This is the way I've always I Won't say I've always thought of it. I'm sure you and I had conversations and maybe you taught me this. I don't know, but Just because Let me think of an analogy. This is the. This is the analogy I. The analogy I thought of was this Just because somebody is at the top of their 10 foot ladder Does not mean that you will not be at the top of your 100 foot ladder. Let me explain what. If they go on vacation every single year for a week and they go here and here and here and here, but that's the max, they have gotten to their peak level of quote-unquote success. But if you keep doing what you're doing and dream chasing and doing the things that you're working so hard for and building the future that you have Designed and you're dreaming about, when you get to your maximum level of success, it will be drastically greater than that. I Think of it from the from the perspective of okay, that person has $5,000 a year that they can put towards a trip. Awesome, maybe right now you don't have $5,000 a year to put towards a trip, but what Do we think? That they're gonna have $15,000 a year to put to towards a trip in five years? Probably not, because that's not the way it works for most people, but it doesn't mean it couldn't work that way for you, because the benefit of Taking a different path and being a dream chaser and Having as much growth as you can handle and you're willing to work for and you deserve, and the time, freedom and all that stuff. It also has the detriments of you look like you're losing a lot longer than other people.
Speaker 1:Maybe another good analogy, alan, for this would be You're spending years and years and years putting out in a foundation for your building. Unfortunately, nobody can see the foundation because the foundation is underground While everybody else is building from the ground up. They don't really have a foundation. So year one they get to the first floor Awesome. Year two, second, third, fourth, fifth, however high they're going to go For you.
Speaker 1:The first five years you're just building a foundation. So you're sixth year in. You don't just go from floor or ground floor to ground to floor one, you go ground floor to floor two, and then it goes from two to four and then maybe from four to seven. You can see that 10 years down the line, everybody else is on the top floor of their proverbial building, but you're still growing and growing, and growing and growing. So when we're thinking of comparison, I think we forget that maybe someone has a really good life and it looks really good from the outside and we're envious of the vacations and the trips and the cars and all that stuff. But they might be maxed out, they might have made it to the end of their game, quote unquote, and they're not going to grow that much from from here, where you might have another 10 levels to grow and then you can reap the rewards of those next 10 levels. That was my goal to hopefully convey that in this episode.
Speaker 2:In my late twenties I went to a Thanksgiving get together with my ex-girlfriend and her family and there was a couple people that we had gone to high school with that bought a new home, beautiful home, and they both had brand new cars, very, very high end cars, very nice cars and they had just gotten married and they were having a baby and I actually really adore these two people. So this is nothing negative. But I remember on the way home my ex-girlfriend was talking about how that must be so nice and I at the time was kind of a broke entrepreneur my late twenties and I said no, no, no, that is really nice and that's awesome. But you got to understand that they just locked themselves in to their current roles. They can't quit their job if they want to because they those are two car payments, there's a mortgage now and they're having a child and that's all great.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying not to do that, but they can't quit their job if they don't want to work. They now are forced to. They're kind of done to Kevin's point. They're I said they just signed up for a 30 year commitment with that home and at least a 15 year, maybe 10 year commitment with each car and an 18 year minimum commitment with the having children, which again I'm for all of those things. So please don't take this negatively. But at the time the only thing I could really try to help her understand is I said they're not going to, they're not going to be. It was so hard for me to communicate to her why I was doing what I was doing, because you and I have were broke entrepreneurs at the time.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I. It was so hard for her to understand how we were going to get there and I now understand that this person doesn't understand and I wasn't good at communicating it, so I'm going to try to hear. Kevin and I in our late 20s were broke entrepreneurs. We started a podcast called the hyper conscious podcast and we were not very successful for the first year. We only had a thousand listens in the first year 1054 or something like that.
Speaker 2:And lately I've been going on other shows a lot and people ask you your story and I've talked very openly and honestly about entrepreneurship and how hard it can be. This couple that we knew that Kevin and I went to high school with they have a wonderful life and in that moment, if you were to take just that snapshot of that Thanksgiving, I look like the loser, success wise, and they look super, super, super successful. But what I tried to explain is in 10 years from now, that will flip. That will flip Now. How do I guarantee that? It's this idea of pay now and play later, or play now and pay later. So they did play now home, multiple cars, that kind of thing, play now, pay later, mortgage car payments, xyz. Kevin and I were doing the opposite Time, effort and money into the business. Pay now, play later.
Speaker 2:Now obviously it all depends on what size of the mountain. It's not like we're, but what I wanna share with everyone and please keep in mind this is gross revenue. So look up gross revenue if you want, because gross is not take home. It's not like this is in our bank account, but when we had, we had our biggest month and our month it was $74,000, and that is more money than that couple we'll ever make in a single month. And I'm not trying to compare here because I don't care. I was just trying to explain why I was doing what I was doing to my girlfriend at the time, who was obviously freaking out about not being able to have those things that she wants now, and even that I don't wanna get into. But the point of this is that Kevin and I decided to go all in on something that we are passionate about, that is within our purpose for a profit, and everything we do at NLU is to help others create a bigger, better, brighter future on their own terms, and we've created a life on our own terms and we're leading by example right now, in this moment. But the hard part about that is is that you have to pay now and play later. That's the hard part. It really does suck.
Speaker 2:And if you do wanna be an entrepreneur, be very careful and please understand that you're climbing a mountain. That is way different than any treacherous hike I could possibly describe. And if you are an entrepreneur and considering being an entrepreneur, I really want you to really sit down with yourself and ask yourself if you're ready to suffer for many, many, many, many years. And if the answer is yes, then you gotta do it. Here's how you know you're an entrepreneur. When you kinda don't have a choice. You don't even wanna do it, you know you have to do it. That means you're an entrepreneur. If you don't feel that way, don't do it, all right.
Speaker 2:That said, that doesn't mean you can't chase your dreams. That doesn't mean you can't have a side hustle. That doesn't mean you can't XYZ. That doesn't mean you can't be an entrepreneur, which means work for a company and have an entrepreneurial mindset within a company. There's a lot of other options, okay, and if anyone's curious, please email me. I would love to help Career-wise. I love career development, professional development also. That said, kevin and I don't have a glass ceiling, so we had to build a really, really, really strong foundation with no safety net whatsoever, coming from two jobs that did have safety nets and did have a lot of income in a very short time and we easily could have afforded houses and cars just like they did. But we decided to go a different road.
Speaker 2:We decided to pave a foundation that is much larger, and that's why I love the analogy of the pyramid, because if you want the pyramid to go higher, you have to have the foundation go longer, go bigger, go wider. And so we went really wide. We focused on character, we focused on systems, we focused on habits. We quit a lot of our bad habits, we built relationships with these incredible women, amelia and Taryn, and we really built a really rock solid new foundation on the new versions of ourselves, and that's what we're trying to help all of you with as well. And fortunately, six years later, we can honestly say we are far better off success-wise and internally and life on our own terms and all that stuff, and we will be far surpassing that couple that I referred to at the beginning financially, long term. Do I say that to compare because we're better or worse or any of that? No, it's all about choices. It's all about your choices. If you wanna live a life entirely on your own terms and you don't wanna have a boss and you don't wanna have to answer to anyone, you are gonna have to pay for that with blood, sweat and tears for years and years and years, probably a decade minimum. If you're okay with a corporate career or XYZ career, then you can probably afford a lot more now and your future may not be as abundant as it could be.
Speaker 2:And the last thing I'll share, kev, I have a client who is magnificent, definitely climbing his own Mount Everest for lack of better phrasing shooting very, very high in terms of his goals. And he and I were talking earlier today and he said you know, it's so interesting. My wife comes to me and says you make so much money you make like three and a grand a year and you know all this stuff how come we don't have any money? And he said she was being playful. Obviously they have money. But the point is is he said well, I have two college accounts for our kids, I have multiple savings accounts, I've got 401, I've got Roth, I've got all the. He's just investing in the future. He's got hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars invested in the future, but you don't see that right now.
Speaker 2:And so that's the two mindsets. You have consumers and investors. A consumer buys the cars and the houses now and an investor buys a rental property, rents it out, cash flows it and invests in the future while they live in a shoebox. I'm joking, but that's the difference is one's a consumer and one's an investor. A consumer wants short-term pleasure at the expense of their own future. That's what credit cards are about. And then an investor is I'm gonna pay now, with time and effort and money, and I hope that this is going to create way more, bigger long-term gains.
Speaker 2:And that's a much deeper discussion than we can have on a podcast. So if anyone's curious about any of that, I adore talking about it and unfortunately, you have to be okay with kind of looking like a little bit of a loser and I don't mean to be a dick about that and I don't mean to be curt about that. I just, it is true, kevin and I looked like losers for a long time and we're finally starting to actually get the payoff of being willing to look like losers for so many years.
Speaker 1:Well, we still. There are still rooms where that, energetically, is similar. I told you this behind the scenes. I won't go into too many details, but Taren and I went to dinner recently with some friends and they do a lot of traveling. They could travel a couple of times a year and when we were leaving I could tell Taren was thinking about it and I said I know what you're thinking, I know, I know, trust me, I understand, but you and I will have more travel than anybody you know eventually. It's just not gonna be right now. Right now we're building and we're grinding and we're sacrificing. But I also understand why it's hard. When you compare to that, it is because you're looking at right now. Another really good example of this is anything fitness related. If you've done any sort of seasons of fitness where you intentionally gain some weight so you can get stronger and put on muscle and then you intentionally cut some weight so you can lose some fat and retain muscle, in the moment you might look like you're losing Definitely.
Speaker 2:I always say being in shape is like an orchid that blooms and dies on the same day. Yeah, I mean it very much. Right now I'm dieting For next level life, so my strength is going down.
Speaker 1:But when I get to the end of the diet I'll look good, but my strength won't be good. So unless I take my sweatshirt off, you're probably not going to think that much. And then eventually, when winter comes again, I'll be trying to put on muscle and I won't take my sweatshirt off because you'll probably think I'm. And again, these are my standards. But that's just a good example of it.
Speaker 1:The snapshot of time screws with us all. The snapshot of time does not work in room for potential. And as a dream chaser, to Alan's point, it's not about you being better or worse, are you being more capable or less capable? It's just about the opportunity that you have as a dream chaser, because your building is going to be taller. Most likely, if you want it to, the journey will be longer. So five years into the journey you might only be on the fourth floor, but your eighth floor is higher than anybody else's floor, you know and you're on your way to that, so that really we do have to hop, because I have a podcast here. But that really was my intention of this episode, because I know if you take a polar road of somebody else's life and you take a polar road of yours. It's easy to say, well, that person's doing this and this, and car and house, but five years from today, we don't know what their life is going to look like. Your life is going to look as quality to the creation that you've made.
Speaker 2:It's going to be that. One more very quick thing Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly. I know two doctors who are married I'm a doctor who are now in their late 40s, early 50s and they are wildly successful and extremely wealthy and they are multi-multi-millionaires. And if you look at them now and their home now, it is unbelievable, it's magnificent, it's awesome. But in their 20s and early 30s it was nothing short of all investment and being broke college students. They went to school for 14 years Both of them and if you saw me, if you saw them in their 20s and early 30s, you would not be jealous. If anything, you would be whoa, screw that. So it's very easy to take a Polaroid of later on and then be jealous. Just be careful of comparison and make sure you're comparing apples to apples. That is one of the most important valuable lessons, for self-worth is just apples to apples comparisons.
Speaker 1:Apples to apples, not apples to apples. Apple pie, that's my new saying. One more time Bulls to apples, not apples to apple pie. Nice A circular fruit can't win against a pie.
Speaker 2:No way, no way.
Speaker 1:No fruit can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, More of a pecan, pie man myself.
Speaker 1:I don't like apple pie, but you can't say a pecan. Don't compare a pecan to a pecan pie, why not?
Speaker 2:I guess you could.
Speaker 1:This is the same thing, kind of I don't know Tomorrow. We got to go Tomorrow for episode number 1623,. Have you slipped back into a bad habit? Success, Good habits and bad habits are very similar, where you kind of don't recognize they're happening until something big happens. If I want to talk about that tomorrow. 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.
Speaker 2:Keep playing the long game, next time on Nation.
