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
#1633 - What’s Your Next Unlock?
In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros share liberating personal stories of transformation that follow when confronting the most profound fears. This episode is a heart-to-heart discussion about those defining moments that carve out a path for personal growth and understanding. Let us venture into this journey of reflection together, where we will recognize the crucial 'unlocks' in our lives and discuss the bravery needed to chase after the profound changes we seek.
Links mentioned:
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Show notes:
(2:12) Understanding unlock
(6:37) Courage fuels growth
(9:33) All of us will grow in proportion to the amount we face our fears
(12:24) At NLU, we want you to win! So, we're giving you the tools and resources to ensure your success. Join our Monthly Meetup every first Thursday of the month at 6 PM. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
(13:35) More expansive yet probably super constricting
(18:01) Facing the right fears
(21:24) You are going to be more
(22:49) 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. I hope we hope together, alan and I. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode, episode number 1632. A powerful question. I particularly wish I started asking myself earlier today for episode number 1633 what's your next Unlock? The reason I said I hope I hope you enjoyed is because when I do podcast growth you I Hope you enjoyed. Sometimes I say we, though, because I'm just so used to saying it you never know what's gonna come up. So why are we doing this episode?
Speaker 1:As I referenced in yesterday's episode, when I go visit Alan because Alan lives in the hometown we grew up in, that's where his home is I oftentimes drive around to the street I used to live on or places I used to go or buy stores I used to frequent, or drive by the gas station I used to work at, and it gives me a ton of nostalgia. I just get so much Nostalgia that's probably the best way to put it. But it's also like when I visit, every time I visit, when we're further into this journey and I'm more evolved and I Know more and my relationship is more evolved and my friendships are more evolved and the business is successful and I'm more confident and my self-worth is higher. It's a little bit of a reset. It's a little bit of a Unlock. Every time I go back and an example of an unlock is just something that Something that you do, that maybe you know you should do that just breaks something free inside of you. It allows you to look at things differently. It allows you to reprocess information differently. It allows you to reflect with new awareness.
Speaker 1:The best example of this for me is when I was 27 I'll tell this story quick because I know we don't have a ton of time for me to go into depth but when I was 27, I was at home in New Hampshire, 15 minutes from where I live today. I was going through Facebook and there was a there's a Private folder for people who message you that aren't friends with you, and I didn't know that back. Then I opened up the folder and it was a message from someone and it said hey, kev, I'm blank, I'm your father's girlfriend. And I remember I threw my phone on the floor and I said no, no, no, we're not gonna do this for context. I didn't know my dad. My dad left when I was young and I Didn't know what he looked like, I didn't know what his name was, I didn't even know if he was alive at this point In my life. So then I picked up my phone and I said all right, let's, let's take a gander at this, let's see what this is all about. And the message said your dad has seen you on Facebook and he's proud of you and if you want, he would like the opportunity to meet you, if that's something you want to do.
Speaker 1:And I remember I fell on the floor. I was bawling my eyes out because for most of my life I Never expected to have the opportunity to meet him. I said the only time I was ever gonna see him is at his funeral. When I pissed on his grave like that's cut the level of hatred that I had for this man. I was not anticipating ever seeing him.
Speaker 1:And I Ended up messaging them back and saying, yeah, let's, let's do it, not because I wanted to, but I knew it would be an unlock for me. And I messaged one of my friends and I told them what happened and they said are you gonna do it? And I said I have to. I don't want to. I'm not excited, I don't want to do it, but I know it'll be an unlock for me. This has, there has to be something under this 27 years of this and now I have the opportunity to go see what's created all of this pain inside me. There has to be something and I went and did it. And, alan, I told you this and I mentioned this on the podcast, but it was.
Speaker 1:I had empathy to a degree for the man that I looked across the table and saw, because he was just a child. He was just a child. He's very immature, not very well developed, and I don't mean that a negative Dissway. I'm not trying to diss him, but I had that moment where I said, oh, I should be the father in this relationship for sure. There's just no level of self-improvement. He just hasn't done that work, and that's the person that I've been villainizing for all these years. That's the person I gave so much power to. That's the person why I let influence me for all these years, leaving that day, I was a different man, something that I don't want to say simple, because obviously that's a challenging thing, but something like that. That one hour changed my life, maybe more than anything ever has.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm talking about when I talk about an unlock. It doesn't have to be that big. It could be something smaller, but that's what I'm talking about in this episode. And the question is what's yours? Do you have that thing that you know you should do? You can tell internally if I did this, things could be a little bit different. Or if I message my, if I messaged my ex and said, hey, I'm sorry, the way things ended, or whatever, whatever it is for you, if I message my strange parent, if I message my strange family member, maybe something would be different. Do you have that? If so, maybe that's something worth exploring.
Speaker 2:The thing that came up for me, kev, is just the word courage. There's a book called courage is calling by Ryan Holiday that I read and I adored it, and I don't think that a lot of internal growth is possible without courage. It took a lot of courage to Message his girlfriend back. It took a lot of courage to go to lunch with him, and I remember you telling the story about seeing him out the window and being like, oh that's.
Speaker 1:Just new that's him, yeah, I don't know what he looks like, but I know that's him.
Speaker 2:And I believe that all of us require courage in our life in order to grow, and this is known as getting outside your comfort zone, this is known as challenging yourself, this is known as embracing the suck, honoring the struggle. Insert whatever cookie cutter phrase you want, but at the end of the day, life requires courage and the simple notion that I Need more courage. Even earlier today, I was on with a team member and we took a bathroom break because it was a couple hours and I had a moment During the bathroom break. I was like I have to share something, and it took a moment of courage of if I don't share this, I Don't know what will happen to our relationship in the future, but I know I would have to dial myself down a little bit more in the future. I have to share this, this thing, and I think that everyone has different fears and but what I do know is the principle of whatever you're afraid of, it requires courage to face it.
Speaker 2:Are you afraid of going to the gym because you're afraid to be judged? Are you afraid of DMing that person that you're attracted to because you're afraid of rejection? Are you afraid of giving that speech because you're afraid you're going to get laughed off stage or afraid of being rejected? You're going to get laughed off stage or fruit is going to be thrown at you vegetables, I don't know what people throw, I'm just being playful. But are you afraid to jump on the microphone? Are you afraid to ask that person, that big guest, for an interview? Are you afraid, or are you afraid, to message your ex? Are you afraid to admit that you weren't perfect? Are you afraid to face your trauma? Are you afraid to face your poor choices? Are you afraid to admit that you struggle with alcohol? Are you afraid to admit that you might have a drinking problem or a drug problem, or a porn problem or a I don't know? Insert vice here problem. I Insert escape here problem, procrastination problem. That's a big one, and I do believe that all of us will grow in proportion to the amount that we face our fears. I Think that that's cliche, but it's true, and Kevin mentioned his dad. I had a stepfather from age three to fourteen that I've talked a lot about, and my last name is actually Macorchol, my birth father's last Name's Macorchol. I took my, my stepfather's last name, lazarus, when I was, I think, around seven. I don't know the exact age, but I messaged him on Facebook recently and there was something inside me that changed too, for sure, and it wasn't just a message, it was a let's get lunch. I want to. I Want to meet you now as the versions of us. Now I'm not a little kid anymore and I always use this on other podcasts, but I want to use it on ours as well.
Speaker 2:You can rewatch. I Want to preface this because I know a lot of people struggle with memory. So, assuming you have a really good memory, you can rewatch the movie of your own life From a higher sense of awareness. If you saw Finding Nemo when you were a kid and then you watch it again, you'll notice jokes you never noticed before. You'll notice lessons in there, moral, ethical dilemmas in there that you never noticed before. Oh, I never realized that.
Speaker 2:That was and and that can happen in your own life too, whether it's Kevin driving in our hometown or it's you running into an old friend, or it's you Facing your past in whatever way. And so maybe you're afraid of your past, maybe you're afraid of your trauma, maybe you're afraid of the future. I don't know what you're afraid of, but I do know it's gonna require courage and I Don't think you can really just have courage on a whim. I think you have to choose it. I think you you have that moment and you have to sit there with it and go.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm afraid and I know I'm supposed to do this thing, this hard road in front of me. I'm supposed to go there, I'm supposed to say that or do that, and I can either face that head-on or I can avoid it. And I think that when you admit, when you have the humility and the vulnerability to admit you're afraid, I think that's when you have the opportunity to have courage. Because I think if you pretend you're not afraid and you act all macho which I think we've all been guilty of you don't really Face it because you think there's nothing to face. Oh well, I'm not, you know, I'm not scared of that. Oh no, I mean no big deal. For me that is an ego response where you're basically pretending you're not afraid rather than saying I am afraid, but I'm going to have courage anyway. And I think that that second one is always where all the growth is, that's where all the unlocks are, to the point of this episode.
Speaker 1:I think we run away from them too. I'll never forget I was in a hotel room. I was traveling for work. I was I think I was in New Jersey. This was probably 2015, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't remember when it was but I got a text message from a buddy of mine. He said hey, I know you hate planes. I'm going to London in a month or a couple months and I just the tickets that I'm gonna book are like 50% off. You should come to London. And I remember thinking no, no, no, I'm good, we're good, not unnecessary. What's in London? That's not here? I got McDonald's here. It's not a big deal, for me at least. No, I'm not concerned at all, but I have that moment of yeah, no, you're probably right. This would be a really good opportunity for me to do something that scares me, even though I don't want to do it, but I I think, I believe that a deep level, it would be an unlock, and that was the first time I had flown, since I was like I don't know 10, 11. That was the first time I'd flown in 15 years was it not.
Speaker 1:It was definitely an unlock yeah, to the point where I've told this before and it's a joke but Andrew, who I went with, booked the wrong flight home. He booked a different flight home than me and told me a different date and I booked the same date as him, quote, unquote. And he was wrong. So I had to get up at like four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1:We stayed at one of it, maybe his cousin's place and I had to go at, yeah, his cousin's flat, and I had to wake up and I had to drag my luggage through the streets of London and I had to get on the tube and I had to take three trains to get to the airport and I was pooping my pants the whole time and I flew home alone and that was the first time I've ever done that. You want to talk about an unlock? That was a huge unlock for me and here's the thing I didn't have any option it. What am I going to do? Stay there forever? Or say, all right, I'll just pay however much to fly an extra tomorrow? No way, I don't think that was even reasonable. So I had to do it. But yeah, that was a big unlock for me and I've flown by myself since several times, many times, which never would have happened. That never would have happened. There's that. There's the thing there that is going to help you become more expansive, but it probably feels super constricting.
Speaker 1:I asked a client that today.
Speaker 1:I said what is something that you know would be very expansive if you did it, but you know you have to walk through the constriction to make it happen and I said just sit with that like, let me know.
Speaker 1:Let me know, intuitively I don't really come with questions, but that's a question I wanted to ask you based on what we've talked about today and it was a really good conversation because I think oftentimes to your point the pleasure is on the other side of the fear, or the expansion is on the other side of constriction, or the certainty is on the other side of uncertainty, or the answer is on the other side of the question and, intuitively, maybe you know, maybe you know I've been hiding from this thing. Maybe you know I've been running from this thing to Alan's point. That would be my next level nugget. Trust your intuition with stuff like this. I obviously it's simple to say meeting my dad, kind of knew that was going to be an unlock, but I didn't know it would be an unlock at the level it was and I never would have been able to predict that if I didn't do it.
Speaker 2:What would have been different if you didn't do that? And again, you can't know for sure. But because I think we don't show Not we, but like the collective we we don't always show what was on the other end of it. That's the other problem with self-improvement it's hard to articulate what actually made it happen. Okay, if you didn't go meet your dad, would you have had the courage to be with Terrin? You don't know, it's hard to know you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So that's why I think self-improvement is so hard. It's like even when Emilia said the therapy thing I had, there's a part of me that said why there's no guarantee on the other side of the store. Maybe it doesn't do anything, maybe it's a massive unlock. It happened to be a massive unlock and I think the only way you know is in proportion to the fear. If I was afraid to do therapy, then that means the unlock will be in proportion to that.
Speaker 1:In. Is it an unlock you want? That's another one. Is you don't?
Speaker 2:know what the unlock will be in advance. That's a problem.
Speaker 1:But Terrin, since we started dating, she said I want to go shark diving. I'd love to get an occasion to go in the water with sharks, and that's my biggest fear. And or like skydiving, no, I have no interest, I don't care what unlock is there. I genuinely know I'm not going to do it. I'm not interested. The shark diving in a cage that's something I would do for sure. I plan on doing that. That'd be cool, but I'm going to poop my pants, my poop my wetsuit. It's going to be a hot mess. No, I'm terrified, but I do think it's important. Is the unlock in alignment?
Speaker 2:That's another thing. Yeah, your goals. Yeah, how do you know which fears I'm actually asking? How do you know which fears are Important to face and which ones aren't?
Speaker 1:The fear that's holding you back from the things that you know you want Getting on a plane. Either I, if I want to be a speaker, I'm either going to speak in the state I live in or virtually forever and I'm never going to get on a plane, or I never would have been able to get married in Colorado, so I don't even know what would have happened. I think we kind of know, you know, if your fear is holding you back from accomplishing what you want.
Speaker 2:You know, you do, you know.
Speaker 1:That's why it's so hard to do it. But you don't know from what. No, but you know from something. Yeah, it might just be in the bucket of better I know it's holding me back from better. Am I willing to risk this fear to see what that better is and then from that better you get to see more? Oh, I'm not that afraid of planes now.
Speaker 2:Good, that's exactly it. I'm trying to and you and I do this in coaching all the time, doing this on this podcast right now, everyone listening think of a fear that you need courage to face, whatever it is. It can be simple, it can be go to the gym, whatever New outfit photo, social media, whatever the fear that you maybe it's messaging your mom, something, your dad, something, your stepdad, whatever. Think of that fear. How do we encourage people to get outside their comfort zone and face their fear? Have courage when we can't articulate what's going to come of it. What if it goes horribly wrong? You'll still be grateful. You did it, probably. Most likely, yeah, and that's why everyone has to decide for themselves.
Speaker 2:But it's very hard to connect. That's one of the things about inner work that always frustrated me. It it didn't make any sense like why? Okay? So me? I live in the northern part of the town we grew up in. I grew up in the southern part. I'm living in the northern part with Emilia, and that was actually a complete coincidence, because we were house shopping for a long time and this just happened to be one that I knew was magnificent. She adored it too, but I agreed with Kev, when, when we moved to our next home, which we're already considering, we're looking and all that kind of stuff it will be an unlock, but I have no idea how big. I have no idea what will come of that. I have no idea. When we manifest for lack of better phrasing more of our goals and dreams. I won't know how much of that was correlated to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's true.
Speaker 2:So I'll give it one more example. I have a friend of mine. I'm supposed to. I'm supposed to. I was told, my conscience, my Intuition whatever you want to call it my highest self Told me I'm supposed to go get lunch with one of my friends, one of my close friends growing up. And here's what I did. I went into my future and I said, alan, would you regret it if you never saw this person again? And the answer was yes. I said okay. What does that mean? Okay, that means you really should. You, you need to see this person. And then there's a part of me too that knows this is going to be important, but I have no clue why.
Speaker 2:No yeah, I think because we grew up together and it would be good to see how he's doing and to connect on that level. But I also think part of it is being the new me versus reverting, and I think another part of it is seeing the contrast that I maybe Used to delete or not want to see, or that kind of thing. Maybe it'll be good perspective for me. At the end of the day, though, it's very hard to know what's gonna come of it. I think that's one of the biggest problems with self-improvement and personal development is you just don't really know what you're gonna achieve. It's not like you can say oh well, if you go to lunch with that person, you're gonna be able to buy a new Tesla.
Speaker 1:You just know you're gonna be more. Yeah, you're gonna be more, whatever that means you're gonna be true. Yep.
Speaker 2:I think that's the only way. And then what does that mean? It means you can achieve more, or achieve more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah you're gonna be more you can. You might not be able to, you're not gonna be able to step from where you are to where you want to be, but the next steps gonna be a little bit closer. That. You're just gonna have a different perspective. You're gonna be to see more of the mountain. You're gonna be able to see more of the land. You're gonna, whatever you just have a different perspective. All right, we got to go because you and I both have calls in two minutes. If you have not gotten your tickets the next level, live 2024 do so soon. We're coming up on it. It's coming very, very fast. I can't believe we're already in the Beginning of March. It's wild. We have the in-person as well as the virtual. Tickets will be in the link below in the show notes tomorrow for episode number 1634.
Speaker 1:Can your values change? We talk often about core values, core beliefs and core aspirations, which I think is a thing that Emilia Lent to us. But as you get older, do your values change? Should they change? Can they change? Do you want them to change? We're gonna talk about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and an L you. We did not have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow live with courage.
Speaker 2:Next Sunday
