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
#1630 - The Importance Of Understanding Your Feedback Language
Consider how your feedback delivery mirrors your preferred way of receiving it. In today’s episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros delve into the intricacies of feedback. Whether in personal or professional relationships, feedback serves as a potent tool. It enables us to communicate what’s practical, what needs improvement, and how to grow. However, giving and receiving feedback involves more than words—it encompasses language, timing, and emotional intelligence.
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Show notes:
(1:39) Feedback reciprocity
(4:38) Self-perception armor
(8:01) Care and candor
(9:17) Level of permission and balanced feedback approach
(12:23) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA
(13:47) Mutual improvement: Constructive growth
(15:42) Unsolicited feedback
(17:07) Feedback balance equation
(22:43) 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 1629, alignment Effects Overwhelm. Today, for episode number 1630, the importance of understanding your feedback language. We got a client like eight months ago and it was on our first call where we were trying to figure out what we were going to name the podcast and what was the description going to be and all this stuff. It was probably an hour call. It lasted probably close to a full hour. We were probably 45 minutes in and this gentleman said what do you think of this name? Because we'd been talking about it, we'd been talking about it kind of for the whole call and I said I don't really think it lends the credibility to you that it could. He said Kev, why didn't you just tell me that in the first place? Why did you wait 45 minutes to tell me that? And I was like oh shit, my bad, I don't know. This is how my process works. I don't just blurt the first thing out, I think about how I want to express it and then I go and I remember feeling a lot of different ways. In that moment I felt stupid because it was like I don't know. I would never communicate that way to someone. Why didn't you just tell me that in the beginning? For me it's like well, thank you so much for taking the conscious effort to work through that. That's why I want to do this episode Understanding the way that somebody else gives you feedback and what that makes you feel and I don't want to say what that means about you.
Speaker 1:I don't want it to be that serious, but what do you think it means about you? I thought that this person's looking down on me. This person probably doesn't think I'm that brave. They probably think I'm cowardice. Whatever it is. They might not think I'm like them and the truth is I'm not in that way. But on the other end, it's just important to understand that the way you like to give feedback is probably also the way you like to receive it. It just tends to be that way. I know we assume that oftentimes we assume that our love languages that we enjoy receiving are the same love languages we enjoy giving. It's not always the case. You'd have a better handle on that than I would, but just knowing that is very, very important.
Speaker 1:I'm not great at giving direct candor. Direct hey, this is how I'm feeling. This is my truth. I usually sugarcoat it. I sugarcoat it more than I don't sugarcoat it. But when somebody gives me direct feedback, it automatically makes me think about myself, and I think one of the reasons, alan, that getting to this quote unquote level has been so challenging is a lot of the clients that I've started working with are very, very, very successful, very serious business owners who don't have time to beat around the bush. They just tell you like it is and that's it. And it's not from a negative place, it's not from an egotistical place, it's just this is how I want it, this is what I want. Can you do it or not? And it's just something I'm not used to. So I thought it would be worth exploring in an episode, because if you're out there, you probably experienced this in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a huge distinction there, which is that person it's about a title, it's not about them. So what I've found in coaching so many business owners is most people are very unconsciously defensive when it comes to them. They're not as defensive when it comes to a title of a podcast but, some people are, because some people the podcast is an extension of them.
Speaker 2:So, for example, if someone were to crap on the hyper conscious podcast back in the day, that was your baby, that would offend you, and so we all have to kind of figure out. I had one client who is a very successful business owner in the financial industry and he came to me and said Alan, I'm going to need you to dial it up. I'm not like your other clients. I need you to bump this up, meaning I want to know what you really think and do not sugarcoat it. Yep, and I did. I dialed it up and you know it's interesting because there have been times where I had to dance with him too a little bit.
Speaker 2:It's and and this is the psychology underneath it we all have protectors. It's. It's think of your ego as a protector. It's it's almost like who you believe you are is A shield that you have up, particularly when you're around other people. So if you think you're in shape and someone comes around you who Challenges that by them being in better shape, it will. It will trigger you.
Speaker 2:If you think you're out of shape and someone comes around you and they're in great shape, it might not trigger you as much, because it might trigger you because you're insecure about being out of shape. So that's a whole thing. But in in internal family systems, you can study this. I've talked a lot about it on the podcast but for the new listeners, I have a therapist named Carol who does IFS, and I FS is understanding your protectors, your protectors. A good way to think about it is a shield around you. Everyone has protectors up, particularly in public, and that's why when you feel psychologically safe with someone like you and I we work together for almost seven years now, so your protectors aren't often up with me.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they are because, I'm also the CEO and you know I got to make sure you're on the rails and you got to make sure I show up on time every now and then. So we're our protectors are up a little, but not much, with your intimate partner. The protectors come up when you're insecure and but hopefully your intimate partner is the person that you're the safest with, hopefully. But here's the problem If Emilia or Taryn, kevin's wife, my, my girlfriend, future wife If they have to give us tough feedback, how do they do that without Without losing the psychological safety? And you're doing this all the time. You, you want to help your partner grow and you want her light to shine as bright as possible and if there's mud covering it, you want to reveal that to her. That's what being in a great relationship is about. But how do you do that without throwing stingers or daggers or or Igniting her protectors to where she doesn't feel safe to be herself around you?
Speaker 2:And I think that's one of the reasons why I struggled so much in intimate relationships is because I Was more growth oriented than I realized. I I Was very direct in my feedback with people, particularly because, as a math thinker, you just kind of tell things, you just say things that you think are true. I've gotten a lot more emotionally intelligent with feedback. I've started to do what I call care and candor, and that's kind of what I want to focus on this episode, which is you got to start with care and then bring the candor. Some people get annoyed with that because to your point, they think you're beating around the bush.
Speaker 2:It's like just tell me yeah but that person that you're referring to. If I were coaching them and it wasn't about their podcast, it was about them I can almost promise you they'd have a huge protector come up and you don't trigger people as much. I don't think. I think yeah it's fair, create a safe space for people. So, if anything, they're like Kev, come on, keep.
Speaker 1:Well, it's don't take it easy on me. It's so hard because, like you said, if it's an intimate relationship, you either know the level of permission you have or you ask for the level of permission you need. This was the first conversation I never. This is. This is my default setting. It's just a mix of default settings. Your default setting is different than my default setting and that's creating resistance somewhere in the middle where I have certain clients when I know exactly how far I can go and I know exactly how far I can challenge them and in that role I'm totally good with it. But I would never do that on the first call because I don't know. I don't know what level of permission I have to be direct.
Speaker 2:So that's why it's hard in the beginning, especially it's Every single time you go into a social interaction, and this is true for an audience as well. I want to share that with everybody who might aspire to be a speaker. That's why audiences are so hard. Even right now, we're trying to guide and help all the listeners. Who is? Who is the listener? Yeah, there's so many listeners. We don't really. I mean we do, we know our listeners better than most podcasters I've met, but we're not talking to one human right now.
Speaker 2:So what is the permission we have in advance To say, hey, by the way, you're not working hard enough or you need to work harder, or whatever it is. And so it's very challenging. And every time you meet someone, every time you're in a room, you have to Intuitively feel the room, and I think emotional intelligence is understanding whose protectors are up and whose aren't, where you have permission, where you don't. But at the beginning it's very difficult because you don't really know. And what I've found fascinating Is you've got this multimillionaire, super successful XYZ who, when you talk business, you can just hammer them. Hey, man, you're messing this up. Hey, what are your thoughts on this? Hey, but, but, but, but, but. Then, when it comes to him, you can't even touch it with a 10-foot pole, you can't go near it. It's like immediately oh no, don't challenge me, not me, this is business and you can feel it. And then you have to go in soft. So it's a constant intuitive. If you've ever been annoyed with someone, including me, it's because they're basically calling you out more than they have permission to, and someone who has really, really, really high standards is just naturally calling people out just by being there.
Speaker 2:So there's these guys in the gym, this group of young guys, and they can't stand being around me. They don't know that I'm just way harder working, I'm more dedicated, I'm older, they're young, prepubescent, that they don't have any muscle mass and they just don't. They're uncomfortable around me. One of the guys loves me. So one of the kids in the group loves me. He's like dude, you know the man, take the pump cover off, bro, like he. He loves when I take much, you know my sweatshirt off and all that stuff, because in that gym there's not a lot of inspiring bodybuilders from my perspective and so he's pumped. But the other guys are just deeply insecure and they don't want me to Flourish really want you to shine.
Speaker 2:They don't want me to shine, and so all of this is just protectors. We have an ego that doesn't want us to be seen as less than and, and it's very difficult to gauge that while trying to guide someone because, you technically can't help someone grow without giving them feedback.
Speaker 2:If Kevin and I, I'm always walking that line, this will be the last piece of this. I'm always trying to figure out what is the appropriate level of feedback that I can provide in this episode to where the listeners Actually get to the next level. But don't hate me, no, I and I've gotten that wrong pretty much my whole life. Well it's. It's understandable why.
Speaker 1:Why it's a thing it why it might. Maybe it's something you struggle with or maybe something you think about more than other people because you have a different experience with it. I Just want my next level nugget for this would be it doesn't mean you're doing. It doesn't mean you are anything wrong. It doesn't necessarily mean that because so this is. I guess this is a good way to explain it. With certain clients, I'll get feedback where, in my mind, they're not happy, but really what the truth is, they want to do better together. It's not like, kev, you're not doing a good job, it's together. I want us to do a better job, but I tend to personalize it. I had a call with someone recently where I said I literally lose sleep. I lose sleep over whether or not you're making progress, and they said you shouldn't be, don't worry, don't do that. That's not good. And I can tell that the way they give feedback is not as serious as I interpret it. As yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not the end of the world. When I get that message in my mind, everything has to change and I think that's just a that it maybe it goes to we did the episode and we talk about it often. The Richter scale of what you're used to. If you're used to Just direct, you need to do better, you're the worst. You will never accomplish your goals unless you get your shit together. If you're used to that and I come in and say I feel like you're doing a pretty good job, a couple of places you could probably improve, not the end of the world, you're probably gonna say Kev, you can't help me like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah maybe I can't or Maybe you're so used to getting crapped on that I actually can help you in ways that you don't just don't know yet and, on the other end, to working with someone who Working with someone who's comfortable taking that level of feedback, like you you're a good example of that. That helps me practice like I'm.
Speaker 2:I do when you say that I don't know, because I would consider myself overly sensitive when I get feedback.
Speaker 1:But I think it's from people that you don't, people that you don't value their feedback from Right, because if it's inaccurate feedback, I think it makes you question things that you don't. I won't say you don't have to. Maybe you shouldn't necessarily question.
Speaker 2:I Well, so Karen Cander. Cander is just direct, brutal truth, like the time you called me fat I'm being playful with that. But essentially I thought I was in better shape than I was. Kevin said dude, it's you're not. That actually helped me, and later on I was grateful and you knew that I would be. Eventually, even though I was, there was a little part of me that was like screw you, man. And you obviously said I'm fat too. So yeah, which I think is hilarious, I think I led with that. Yeah, I think, alan.
Speaker 1:I know you know I'm out of shape. I know I'm out of shape too. I know you think you're in shape. You're not as in shape as you think. That's all. That's all it is. We're both out of shape. I'm just more accurate in my understanding of how I'm out of shape by it.
Speaker 2:And again, it's a sliding scale too, because it depends. It depends what you're comparing to, right? So, but that was very candid, it wasn't a lot of care, although you did have care first. I'm out of shape too, you know. So all of us are overly warm or overly strong. What I think bothers me is when someone is overly candid, when they have no credibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that dude who reached out and said, hey, you should really XYZ. It's like what are you talking On what planet can you give Kevin and I advice, when we've been in this industry studying it every day for years and you've never done this once before in your entire life? So for me, I get pissed off with unsolicited feedback because I think I've gotten a lot.
Speaker 2:I know that I've gotten a lot and it feels a little bit like bullying, but that's why I love coaching so much, because coaching you're, you're in a position where you're allowed to give feedback and so you get to actually help people. And here's the philosophical understanding underneath this that really I'm glad we're talking about this. Can you help someone grow without giving them any feedback? We all know the answer to that it's no. So how do we? You can't give 15 year old feedback to a seven year old when they're practicing their ABCs and you say, hey, you know, try this calculus problem and then shit on them when they can't do it. That's just awful and toxic. But you can't let a seven year old do only three year old tasks, then they'll never grow. And so this is one of my life's greatest challenges, which is, how do you figure out the right amount of care and the right amount of candor and the right level of feedback? And one of the reasons why I think I adore when people have big goals is it gives me permission to tell them the truth. If you want to climb Mount Everest and you don't bring enough oxygen tanks, you are screwed, you're gonna die 100%. And it gives me permission to say that, and that's why I say, if so, when someone tells me their goals. I have one client who wants a net worth of $75 million. If I didn't have that piece of information to use half the things I tell him, I couldn't tell him. He told me recently he's like dude, I'm not gonna lie, I thought about it. I might just go be a producer and just do quarter million a year, like I don't know if I wanna do this. I was this close to quitting. I said if that's the case, you can do it. But my point is is I have to say if, if you want a net worth of $75 million, you have to change this, you have no choice. Whereas if I didn't have that goal, I couldn't use that as leverage to help get underneath his growth and for anyone out there listening, the level of goal that you have, you're gonna have to seek that level of feedback.
Speaker 2:I had a posing coach and a fitness coach before my competition that I won. I had lost several, but the one that I won I got the most feedback. It was awful. It was check-ins every week. It was being called not lean enough when you are super lean already. It's posing, with every little piece of your posing being critiqued and thinking you suck. It was basically thinking you suck for three months and then you crush everybody. Versus the opposite was thinking I was awesome for three months and then losing horribly. And so I think that that's the feedback conversation, and when you're delivering feedback to others, you need permission, you need to understand the level of feedback, you need to communicate it effectively. No wonder why we all walk around scared to tell our truth. There's so many things that have to stack up right for it not to be a negative experience.
Speaker 1:Oh, andy, or you assume that you should give feedback the way you like receiving it. That's not always true. That's just not. It's just not always true. So that's a whole nother. I mean, that's this episode on a nutshell, but that would be my next level nugget. Yeah, really sit down and ask yourself how do you like to give feedback and how do you like to receive it, and what comes up? What comes up? I tend more in the past than now, because now I understand it I would tend to villainize people who would just be super direct, because it was almost like I don't, you don't have the permission to be that direct. Yeah, because I wouldn't be that direct. I could be that direct with you, but I wouldn't be. I don't think it's right yet, and that's at least that's my pattern and my understanding.
Speaker 2:That would be a low level of emotional intelligence.
Speaker 1:most likely they just don't understand where the relationship is yeah or is it me just being right triggered? I don't know. It's probably a mix of the two. It's probably not one or the other. It's probably a mix, but I don't know what parts.
Speaker 2:When people say in a relationship, I know we got to jump, but when people say in a relationship, I've been walking on eggshells, that's what they mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, they mean that I'm not allowed to or I don't feel the permission in advance to share my feedback. And if you walk on eggshells for too long having coached relationships for three years now the relationship is in so much trouble because nothing's gonna transform. When one partner is walking on eggshells and not giving any feedback, the relationship can't evolve, it just gets stuck. And you can only stay stuck for so long before one partner is unfulfilled. And same with business partnership. It's the same deal Like if you feel like you can't bring me the truth and I feel the same way with you, we could never work together.
Speaker 2:No 100% Short term. It's a short term win for a long term Determined.
Speaker 1:It's challenging. Being a human is challenging.
Speaker 2:The most, thing, the most. Thing.
Speaker 1:The most challenging. The most thing, apparently speaking, is a challenge to it.
Speaker 2:It's not easy. Would I really do early?
Speaker 1:episodes man my throat by early Alan means 10.32 in the morning, but it is. It is earlier than we usually do. We usually don't start till 11. So yeah.
Speaker 2:Usually my first call is at 11. So I'm going to have a little more hydrated.
Speaker 1:I didn't even have time to go to the gym today.
Speaker 1:I got up at 5.15. I didn't have time. It's like there's no way I'm going to get all this done before 10. But it is what it is. What are you going to do? Okay, if you have not yet got your tickets for Next Level Live, please do so virtual and or in person. The link will be in the show notes. If you have not joined our private Facebook group, next Level Nation, please do so.
Speaker 1:A great opportunity to be surrounded by a like-minded community tomorrow for episode number 1631. A very unique title for this episode Emily is going to win. And here's why I had a call with one of my clients last week, earlier this week, and I was telling Alan I was like it's just, it's my favorite, one of my favorite clients to work with. She comes with 20 questions and we just hammer and he said is she going to win? I said definitely yeah, she's going to win it and anything she does. And he said why. He said we should do an episode on that. So we're going to do an episode on it because there's some lessons in there that I think will be valuable for all of us. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Questions allow feedback 100%. When you ask a genuine question now it has to be genuine because some people ask and don't really want the real answer unfortunately.
Speaker 1:But that's, that's why it's yeah, it's going to be good. It's going to be good. That's what we're going to do tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Keep taking and giving the right amount of feedback. Next explanation
