The 5 Things You Need To Align To Create Success And Fulfillment (1871)

Many pursue success by trusting fate and intuition, neglecting what matters most. In today’s episode, hosts Kevin and Alan reveal the keys to lasting success and fulfillment. They dive into the mindset and habits that make a difference, sharing personal stories and lessons learned. Tune in to discover why a strategic approach—and building the proper foundation—matters more than trendy advice.

Link mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700

______________________

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://bit.ly/3BQBYDr
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:
(1:57) The five fundamentals
(4:13) Avoiding feel-good advice that stalls growth
(6:41) Constructive approaches to self-discipline and goal setting
(10:08) Aligning the five elements for lasting success
(16:38) Why self-discipline matters
(19:09) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://bit.ly/3Up1FkG
(24:39) Clear goals + Aligned habits = Inevitable growth
(37:25) Approach to success and fulfillment
(38:20) Outro

🎙️ 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.

Transcript

Kevin 0:00

I'm not saying that advice can't be good in a season, but if that becomes the fundamental, I think you're in trouble. I just do. I just do Because you're competing against people who use that in a season but then use other. It's a tool for a time. I don't think it's a philosophy for long-term success, fulfillment and improvement.

Alan 0:21

I said I can give you a list of what to do, but the truth is you're not going to do it unless you do this other thing. Can we talk about the other thing? And they said I said here's the truth Zero to 10, where's your self-discipline? This is the mirror time, Because I can give you a list. It doesn't matter, you can Google how to lose weight, it doesn't matter.

Kevin 0:42

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin Palmieri, and I'm your co-host, alan Lazarus. At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Alan 0:56

Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life, love, health and wealth.

Kevin 1:03

We bring you a new episode every single day on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits and defining your own unique version of success.

Alan 1:19

Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from completely free.

The five fundamentals

Kevin 1:25

Welcome to Next Level University, 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 1871 the five things you need to align to create success and fulfillment. We were talking about this in the previous episode and this is something I've been saying a lot more on podcasts. The reason success is so hard and the reason fulfillment is so hard is because it does require a strategy and as much as there's stuff online that says you can just arrive there and there's just a lot of stuff out there. But there is strategy Intuitive eating you can intuitively track your calories and your macros and work out and you can lose weight. But intuition is honed through strategy. There's a strategy under everything, right At the end of the day A successful relationship. There's a strategy under under everything, right at the end of the day, a successful relationship. There's a strategy. Today's kind of about strategy.

Alan 2:28

Remember we used to do strategy saturday oh yeah, was that a thing we did? We did that, right, I think so it was five minute clinic. Yeah, it was. Come on scratching the surface. Wait, wait, five minute clinic. It was freestyle, right?

Kevin 2:46

I don't know, I've lost it we had, we had five minute clinic.

Alan 2:50

Yeah, small talks small talk scratching the word.

Kevin 2:54

Pick a word today for episode number 416, honesty, and alan would read the freaking definition of it, and we do do an episode on it no idea why we weren't successful.

Alan 3:07

Why aren't we successful yet?

Kevin 3:11

And then we did Five Minute Clinic, and then we had Motivation Monday, and then we had Freestyle Friday. We've done everything.

Alan 3:14

Remember Motivation Monday used to have motivational music in the background.

Kevin 3:18

I loved it. And then we were like that's not really what we do.

Alan 3:21

Well, we looked at the stats and the listeners were like nope.

Kevin 3:24

Yeah, you guys didn't like it, so that's on. You Didn't like it.

Alan 3:27

So that's on you, do you remember? Do you remember we're in a giggly?

Kevin 3:34

mood.

Avoiding feel-good advice that stalls growth

Alan 3:35

Who was the person? You don't have to answer the who, but there was a clip that Kevin behind the scenes was frustrated with venting about, where the guy said said you pretty much can never screw up anything that isn't meant for you.

Kevin 3:50

Uh, we were about to have this person on the podcast. He has like 1.5. His name is danny morel. I'm just gonna say it I don't care, whatever you. He's very big on. He's very big on instagram. We had an interview scheduled with him and we were like an hour before and I messaged Alan and I said we can't do this, we're not going to do this, can't do it, it's just Good for you.

Kevin 4:13

We can't do it Again you like him, you like his content. Awesome, Just not necessarily our cup of tea. So can you?

Alan 4:20

go into why Because this is about strategy into why because this is about strategy. I think that that was just terrible, a lack of strategy. He basically said anything that's not meant for you, you, anything that is meant for you, you couldn't possibly screw it up dumb as shit, that's like me being like well, emilia is meant for me, so I couldn't possibly screw this up.

Kevin 4:37

I am the man it's entitled oh yeah, uh, oh.

Kevin 4:41

You don't like the fact that I leave my towel on the floor. Pound sand? I don't really care. I saw a dude on Instagram who told me this was going to work out. So I don't even care. Leave it on the floor for all I care. I just I don't know. It's just. There is an unfortunate area of the internet where if you just empower and give it's like you are, everything you're doing is already enough. If it's meant to be, it'll be. That's really good for empowering. Again, if you're somebody who is just riding the struggle bus and you hate everything about life, that probably feels really good. I'm not saying that's not positive. That's not going to get you to the next level. That's not going to get you to the next level.

Kevin 5:26

It's not going to get you to the next level it.

Alan 5:28

It might get you out of the rut you're in, but I can guarantee it's going to create the next rut you're going to be in in a year from today so one of the reasons I think and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm kev's like people love it when you tell them about them I think one of the reasons that bothers you is because you would have fell for it way back no I don't know.

Kevin 5:48

No, I remember I watched the secret and I was like wait what, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? Now again, I'm not saying the law of attraction doesn't exist, but I think there's also a law of momentum and I think they kind of they're important to put next to each other.

Constructive approaches to self-discipline and goal setting

Alan 6:05

You can't, you can't necessarily do one without yeah, the other, so so one side of the spectrum is overly affirming yeah and it feels really good.

Kevin 6:13

The other is the grant cardone. If you make if you make less than four hundred thousand dollars a year, you should consider yourself a loser. That's the second dumbest shit I've ever heard in my life. It's dumb, it doesn't make any sense, it's not. It's not constructive. The only thing it's meant to do is to make you feel a certain way on both ends.

Alan 6:33

It's like good, good.

Kevin 6:35

You should feel better than you feel, or you should feel worse than you feel. That's all. That's all it is. I don't.

Alan 6:41

What would be your constructive version of those two things? Oh God, and we'll go into the strategy.

Kevin 6:51

I said this on a podcast the other day. I said while it may be unfortunate, the result sorry. The reality that I have noticed about life, and at least my life and many of those around me, is your life is not going to be any better than you are. So if you want really good results in life, you've got to work really hard on being the best version of you. And how many? You know how many things I've screwed up that were probably for me so many. I've screwed up so many things that were meant for me and for me. What that did was it created the opportunities, it created the lessons and it created the necessities that never f***ed that up again In that way. And then, on the other end, I feel like most people shouldn't make $400,000 a year Because you're going to have to sacrifice All the things that you care about in order to do it, and then you're going to end up miserable and Grant Cardone's an idiot.

Alan 7:43

The statistics 400,000 per year globally. If it's USD, obviously different currencies that's top 1% of 1% right there globally. In the US that top 1% I think is 450. But that's in the largest economy, so you're not supposed to feel bad if you're not. That's like being like feel terrible unless you're better than everyone else. Which makes no sense because the majority of wealth is in the hands of people 50, 60, 70, 80. Generational wealth, older, and so, anyways, let's get to the strategy piece.

Alan 8:21

But I really appreciate that conversation because I'm grateful that NLU believes in helping people more than the. We're fearful of sharing things that are going to turn people off or trigger them. However, we care more about your success and your fulfillment than we do about our own desire to never come off wrong or never turn anyone off, and I think that's really cool. I think it's taken tremendous courage and I think, as long as we do it with humility and courage and vulnerability, I think it's good.

Kevin 8:52

I think it's really good, I agree and I'm not saying I know it all, because I definitely don't but you and I both know people on both ends of those who have been preyed upon by both ends of those spectrums. Yeah, and that's just. I don't. What are we doing here? You know, that's just, that's just.

Aligning the five elements for lasting success

Alan 9:14

I don't dig that, I ain't into that same, kevin, and I coach someone who, anonymously, is being coached and misguided by someone else and it's been fascinating and I don't want to step on the other coach's toes. But I also know that if if I'm going to put my client's best interest first, we're going to have to candidly say I don't agree with her. She's, she's inaccurate, she's lying to you, she's kind of lying to you. So, anyways, okay. So the strategy piece piece. So this is after. I want to provide context. I don't want this to come off as pretentious or preachy. However, I do want to provide context. So started mentoring 10 years ago officially, even though I've been doing it kind of my whole life uh, my whole adult life anyways I was mentoring it too I'm good, uh, my whole adult life I was kind of bubba, grab the bubba, yeah, grab it all.

Alan 10:08

Right, this is one foot here in front of the others. Just rinse and repeat.

Kevin 10:12

It's pretty good now, you're walking now you're walking.

Alan 10:17

So 10 years, though, I've been mentoring, first two years and then coaching, gonna be eight, and I have a 10,000 hour tracker of podcasting. This is struggle Podcasting, coaching, training and speaking, and the majority of it is coaching, more so and more so, and all different walks of life 23 individuals, 26 individuals right now, actually 23 business couple relationships, all different individuals, all different industries. Okay, so what I've come to understand is, when you do this work over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, you learn and you iterate, you improve and you realize, okay, in hindsight, over the last decade I've pretty much been doing these. I've been helping people align these five things. Now, is it this simple? No, and I'm trying to make it simple enough to actually start small, because I do have an iceberg with 22 things. I assess blah, blah, blah, but right now, these are the main five. Okay, and I did this with a client earlier.

Alan 11:19

I wrote G-M-H-S-I. They each stand for something. G is goals, okay, and I play a game called green, yellow, red. Green means awesome, check mark, yellow means align, and you're coasting. It's like ah, it needs some work, but it's not terrible. And then red means you suck. Okay With love. Now you're sucking, you don't suck, you're sucking All right. So G I, sucking, you don't suck, you're sucking all right. So g I. I was with someone earlier and I said let's do the self-assess how we doing, how clear are you on your goal? She said green, clearer than ever. Good, not the problem. Metrics. She said uh, yellow, I'm not sure we're tracking the right metrics. Okay, yellow, boom. I don't know what that noise was, gm. And then the next one was habits. Habits, she's best I've ever been.

Kevin 12:08

Boom, green, awesome give us a noise, let's have it uh, I really can't do it.

Alan 12:14

I'm not the noise guy. Okay, then you've got skills. This is the one that I think a lot of people forget. So kev is a podcaster okay, goals for ke for Kev all right, I want this amount of podcast clients. I want this amount of podcast episodes. I want to add value to the listener, whatever. Okay, goal metrics I'm going to track podcasts, episodes, other shows plus our show, plus Podcast Growth University shut up. Okay, I'm going to track community members awesome for PGU. Podcast Growth Nation is what it's called your community of podcasters Awesome, okay. So, goals metrics done. Habits All right. I'm going to make sure that I journal each day and get my most important tasks listed out first thing in the morning to make sure that I'm cranking Awesome Okay, habits Good. So now we're going to get to skills.

Alan 13:03

One of the things that I don't think a lot of people that probably comes off pretentious. One of the things I know a lot of people are not thinking about maybe enough is the skills. What's the difference between knowledge, skills and attitude? A lot of people. I mean, half of success is attitude, yes, but the other half is skills. So Kev has a positive attitude. He has a great mindset, awesome. If he sucked at podcasting, we'd be in trouble. Right opposite is also true if he was a great podcaster, but he had a terrible attitude and he was entitled and he sucks as a person. That also wouldn't work. So knowledge, skills and attitude is kind of combined into that skills section. So you have to know knowledge, how to do it, you have to have a good attitude, positive mindset, attitude, growth, gratitude, and then you also need the actual skills of effective communication. If you want to be a speaker, you better be an effective communicator and if you're not, you better work on it. So that's skills.

Alan 13:56

Okay, green, yellow, red, boom, I think she said yellow on that. And then the last one is identity. Now, that's the one that's. I couldn't possibly sum up. It's what motivates you, what drives you. That's your childhood, that's your conditioning, that's your true self versus your social. That's who are you, why do you do what you do? What makes you tick, what are your strengths and weaknesses? I mean, that's the one that really kevin mentioned of. Very rarely do people get results in life that are beyond how good they become I think and by they I mean best version of themselves.

Kevin 14:36

I think the tv show character is a really good visualization of that. Yeah, agreed, if you were gonna. What are five characters that you can imagine would be successful, versus five that you cannot? They just don't have the identity to be the type of person that would be the level of successful that they want.

Alan 14:53

I have one example of this that I think is really powerful. There was someone that I was coaching and this was very challenging, because I often have to share hard truths that feel unkind, even though I know they're not, and this person's like okay, tell me what to do. And we listed it all out. They want to lose weight, they're trying to break a certain amount of weight. I used to be a fitness coach. I've done it many times and I said here's the thing you can try to do. All these things. I can give you this list.

Alan 15:24

However, I got to ask two questions. One is how bad? Do you actually want to be in shape? Meaning, is this unbearable? The fact that you're not, and the answer is often no, I actually don't care that much. Okay, well then you're screwed because you're trying to shoot for something that you don't care that much.

Why self-discipline matters

Alan 15:40

Imagine me and Kev being like yeah, know what it's 74, 7, 45 pm on october 28th, ona, monday, and I don't really care that much, man, about doing this episode. So I'm gonna take off, I. You have to be really in it. You have to be really committed, and I'm not talking fortune cookie committed, I'm talking 7 46. I can barely talk because I've been at it all day, committed. That's one, and then the second piece of that and this is the self-discipline one. So this one's the hardest for me and I'll get back to the framework in a sec.

Alan 16:14

But I said I can give you a list of what to do, but the truth is you're not going to do it unless you do this other thing. Can we talk about the other thing? And they said yeah. I said here's the truth Zero to ten. Where's your self-discipline? This is the mirror time, because I can give you a list. I can give you a list. It doesn't matter. You can Google how to lose weight. It doesn't matter If you don't have self-discipline.

Alan 16:38

If you can't get yourself to do hard things that you don't want to do and build it slowly over time, it doesn't really matter what I tell you. So that's what we have to work on. We have to work on self-discipline and you can build it. That's another episode. So goals, metrics, habits, skills Self-discipline is a skill. I know a lot of people don't think about it that way, but it's a skill. Kevin has it. If he didn't, we'd be screwed and he would not be my business partner, no matter how much I love him and like him. It doesn't matter. If you don't have self-discipline, you can't be my business partner. Okay, and we would never have gotten here we, okay, and we would never have gotten here, we would never have gotten here.

Alan 17:17

We need to be very clear about that. I think that's important.

Kevin 17:19

But the last one is identity and we've done a lot of work on that as well.

Alan 17:34

What's the most important? The first one, the last one?

Kevin 17:39

identity, because you can't set goals.

Alan 17:45

How do you know if you don't have the identity? I think one of the reasons most people don't achieve their goals is because they set them based on an idealized version of themselves. So, for example, you put $2 million on your vision board for net worth. You didn't even know what net worth was here's the thing chicken or egg?

Kevin 18:00

well, in my vision board was also a cork board with just pieces of paper on it so it wasn't, there wasn't a lot of vision to it. I just I read about it so I think I again I think I heard in a secret. I was like, oh, hell, yeah, that sounds good. Um, I have a cork board and I have some college ruled notebooks. Let me rip out six pieces of paper and just throw them up there, and that's. That was where it started.

Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching.

Alan 18:23

So here's the chicken or egg issue, and here's the philosophical question would you have gotten here had you not put that two million dollar vision on your cork board? And by two million I mean a crumpled piece of paper with a sharpie that says 2m, with a dollar sign? I don't know. And then an even deeper question is if I didn't see that vision, would I have stuck around to try to help you achieve it? Yeah, and, and that's why I can't tell you what's the most important, because the hard truth is you need all five.

Alan 18:58

But I would say you need the vision and the identity and they're very connected, because someone without the identity usually doesn't create the vision.

Kevin 19:06

I think that is the hard thing. Next level nation. What is happening? If you've thought to yourself I want to try coaching, but you don't really know where to start, group coaching would be a wonderful place for you. That's really why we created it in the first place. We start a new round every 90 days.

Kevin 19:24

So if you're hearing this, go to the website nextleveluniversecom and we have the landing page where you can actually hold your spot right now. Even if there's a group going on right now, you can still lock your spot for the next one. The biggest thing that we've seen is, as we get closer and closer to the date, unfortunately, some people end up missing. The group fills up and they can't do it, and then they end up regretting that. So please head over to the website. The link will be in the show notes and we would love to see you there. We started with this and again, I don't want to continue visiting it.

Kevin 19:58

But I think one of the things that's so hard about self-improvement is there isn't one answer. That's the hard thing. It depends. It depends Are you consistently doing the things that you know you should be doing in order to accomplish the goal? The advice is different. It's completely different. If you are just starting, the advice is different than if you've been doing it for five years. But if I forget what it was like to just start, my advice is going to suck, it's going to be terrible, and sometimes I go on other podcasts and I don't feel like I'm adding value because I keep saying it depends. I know you're looking for an answer. It depends, it really depends. It depends on so many things. I can give you some relative fundamentals, but it depends.

Kevin 20:43

Yeah, some people depend on themselves the goal it depends on the goal, the person, the environment, the circumstances, the money values count all of it.

Alan 20:52

A good decision with 50 grand in the bank immediately becomes a bad decision with two grand in the bank. That's you're absolutely right, it completely depends, and that's why one-on-one coaching is so powerful.

Kevin 21:03

If if with the right coach, yes. If grant cardone said if you're, if you're a business owner that has 50 employees and you only make four hundred thousand dollars a year, you're probably gonna go out of business. Okay, that's fair.

Alan 21:15

That is fair that's a fair statement. You're definitely gonna go out of business, right, but that's. But that's different than saying well, if you don't.

Kevin 21:21

You should feel like a loser if you don't make x amount of dollars. No, no, no, that's, that's not yeah, it's, it's blanket statement.

Alan 21:28

Yeah, it's not customized. Yeah, it's not constructive. It's not meant to facilitate change same with if it's meant for you, you couldn't possibly screw it up. That isn't useful. No, it's not useful. Okay, imagine I said Kev, if it's not meant for you, you couldn't possibly screw it up anyway. What's going to change in his life with that advice?

Kevin 21:53

If it's not meant for me.

Alan 21:55

Yeah, if it's not meant for you, you, it's not meant for you, you. Oh, wait, wait, my bad, I screwed it up. Yeah, of course I did. I don't remember the freaking principle, because it's not a principle, it's not real kev. If it's meant for you, you couldn't possibly screw it right. All right, what are you gonna do now? What are you gonna do with that? Go, go, manifest your dreams with that. I'm gonna stop trying.

Kevin 22:16

That's what I. I would just stop trying.

Alan 22:17

It's like well, it doesn't matter, the moment there's frustration, the moment there's challenge, the moment it doesn't work out immediately.

Kevin 22:22

It's not meant to be. It's not meant to be. And guess what? I'd be single and I wouldn't have a business and I wouldn't be in good shape. No, no, there's a difference between something being deeply challenging but also deeply meaningful to you, and something being challenging that isn't worth it. All that is is a question of is it worth it or not? If it's worth it, then it's worth it to overcome it. It's worth it to work through it. It's worth it to deal with what it brings internally. If it's not worth it, you say, ah, it's not worth it, it's not. There are some fears that you don't have to face. Oh, you're afraid of snakes. Okay, cool, okay, you don't have to face it necessarily.

Alan 23:06

And don't watch Indiana Jones.

Kevin 23:08

Don't go to Australia probably. I know we have some folks in Australia. I don't know if I'm off on that, but I know it's a dangerous place to live If you want to.

Alan 23:20

Rattlesnakes in Arizona. Man.

Kevin 23:22

Rattlesnakes in Arizona, oh yeah.

Alan 23:24

I've seen them. We have Actually eight rattlesnake ones.

Kevin 23:27

It's weird Snake, and eggs, timber, rattlesnakes, I think in New England One of the gentlemen who got invited to the bachelor party is not coming because he's afraid of flying. Doesn't have to, it doesn't matter, he doesn't have to come. However well, he's missing out.

Alan 23:46

Yep, potentially, but it's not worth it to him.

Clear goals + Aligned habits = Inevitable growth

Kevin 23:48

If it's not worth it to him, then, just like I'm, I'm afraid of flying, but overcoming the fear of flying is worth it to me. It doesn't mean it's not meant for me or it's meant for me. It just means if I want to do certain things, I'm going to have to overcome it. So again, I don't want it to be a bashing session on stuff like that. It just I don't know it makes me sad because oftentimes I'll talk to someone who resonates with that advice. I'm not saying that advice can't be good in a season, but if that becomes the fundamental, I think you're in trouble. I just do.

Kevin 24:22

I just do, because you're competing against people who use that in a season but then use other. It's a tool for a time. I don't think it's a philosophy for long-term success. Fulfillment and improvement is what I would say Agreed.

Alan 24:39

Here's what I will tell you Clear goals with sound metrics, with constructive habits and developing the right skills in alignment with the identity you not only currently have but also aspire to to achieve the goal will always work. Eventually, if you give it enough time and you work at it, that will work. That's good advice. But saying it is going to work no matter what, or it's not going to work no matter what, or you're amazing if X and you're a loser if Y.

Alan 25:13

None of that is useful and I I really do like the self-driving car analogy metaphor. I I think it's powerful if, if the car has inaccurate data, it'll drive you off a cliff on accident and it won't know why, when in reality it just didn't know that was a cliff, it thought it was a road. And I think that advice like that is unintentionally misguiding people and they're either blaming the government or blaming themselves or blaming other people, when in reality it's just inaccurate data. And if I, if I go into the jungle and I know nothing about the jungle, I'm probably gonna die most likely you ever seen anaconda.

Kevin 25:59

Yeah, man, you might get slurped up by that thing I gotta be honest with you.

Alan 26:03

I actually really like that movie.

Kevin 26:06

It's honestly, I think it's underrated right, j-lo, j-lo, ice cube. John lithgow, john voight john voight, john voight, who's?

Alan 26:15

john lithgow. Oh, john lithgow's owen wilson's in that. Yeah, man didn't know that I.

Kevin 26:21

I enjoyed that movie isn't vincent, it's a guilty pleasure no, no there's somebody else, apparently. I know this movie no, no, definitely not.

Alan 26:32

There is someone else though? Ice, ice cube. This is useless. It's a useless conversation. I just said this moment.

Kevin 26:37

It's a great movie. It was a thriller. I remember when I was in middle school, when I stayed home sick from school one day, and I ate that while watching. Oh, I ate that. I watched that while eating campbell's soup you know what made you say that?

Alan 26:53

I ate rattlesnake yeah, I ate that while watching campbell's soup I don't know if you know this about me.

Kevin 26:59

I had a very heavy reptile phase. I was into snakes. I knew everything about the boas and the Burmese pythons and the reticulated pythons and anaconda. I knew everything about snakes.

Alan 27:10

Why.

Kevin 27:11

Loved them why? Because I'm afraid of them. The same reason I love learning about flying because I'm terrified of them. I love learning about flying, because I'm terrified of them. I love learning about what I'm scared of because it makes me less afraid. That's very cool. And I held, uh, I remember I went somewhere and I held a boat a boa around my neck burmese python it was massive you have a picture of that yeah, I was somewhere.

Alan 27:32

My mom probably does. I was young. We got to get that photo because that'll be good for a meetup or something I was young face your fears. Real, quick story, tiny story, remember real quick, real quick, real quick.

Kevin 27:44

Yeah, real quick, real quick, super quick. I also had a dinosaur phase where I knew everything, yeah, land before time no no, I'm talking real shit, man not these dumb ass movies I'm talking. I had books and I had figures about the brontosaurus and the pterodactyl. I had, I had these things that you would this. I was like maybe seven years old you. They were like foam and you could put them in water and they would grow and expand.

Alan 28:17

You had those. The 90s were wild yeah.

Kevin 28:19

The 90s were wild. Yeah, the 90s were wild. Yeah, I did have those. It's the end of my story.

Alan 28:23

And whales and sharks.

Kevin 28:24

Sorry, real quick, real quick. Whales and sharks. I knew so much about whale sharks and tiger sharks and hammerhead sharks and great white sharks and mako sharks.

Alan 28:36

The hammerhead sharks were scary. They are very scary, scary.

Kevin 28:41

Whale go sharks. Hammerhead sharks were scary. They are very scary whale sharks, biggest shark on the planet harmless harmless doesn't eat, doesn't eat people, eats people, people.

Alan 28:47

It's funny snapping turtles, which I can only assume they eat people. Okay, so real quick I'm done.

Alan 28:54

We apologize we apologize in advance for wasting everyone's time. Yeah, self-improvement podcast about Kevin's passions growing up. So we went to the same middle school. Yes, we did. Okay, do you remember we were both in middle school, although I'm pretty sure I was in eighth grade or something. There was a high school talent. No, no, hypnotist. Hypnotist came in you with me. Hypnotist came in. Remember the auditorium? Okay, I pretended to be hypnotized as a little kid. They put a massive snake on me while I was pretending to be hypnotized and on the drive home, my mom and stepdad don't worry, you'll remember tomorrow, you'll remember tomorrow. It's like no, no, I was awake the whole time. I obviously had you guys convinced. So that was my first acting audition. I pretended to be hypnotized and I, the snake. I, I almost broke character, I almost did, but I didn't. I hung. I hung in there. Yeah, I was grit.

Kevin 29:53

What kind of what kind of snake was it, but it had to be a python, huge python.

Alan 29:56

Yeah, they're harmless for the most part can't they wrap around you, kill you For sure.

Kevin 30:01

Not when there's people around you. Really, if you're by yourself, yeah, yeah, if you're by yourself.

Alan 30:08

Again, it is what it is. It is what it is, it is what it is in fact. That's why I loved anacondas.

Kevin 30:12

Dude 25-foot snake. What you? What? Imagine? A snake next to a bus and the snake is like more than half the length of the bus. What?

Alan 30:25

Yeah, are you kidding me? It's gonna be hard to know, man.

Kevin 30:29

It's definitely. That is wild stuff.

Alan 30:33

And now back to our regular scheduled programming.

Kevin 30:37

Yeah, this would be a good commercial. Taryn wants to go shark diving in a cage? Do it, man, do it. Yeah, this would be a good commercial. Taryn wants to go shark diving in a cage? Do it, man, do it. I want to do it, but I also don't want to do it at all.

Alan 30:52

Yeah, I don't think Emilia has any. I know she has a lot of bucket list stuff. We've got some good stuff. We're going to do Mountain climbing.

Kevin 30:56

We climbed.

Alan 30:57

Manadnock yesterday.

Kevin 30:58

I can imagine the bucket list is you have like your bucket. You guys's bucket list is a small bucket. It's like a little. It's like a little, it's like a very little bucket.

Alan 31:07

Uh we, we climbed manadnock and it was gonna get dark so we had to hammer. Please stop. We did it, we did a two hour we did a two hour hike 37 minutes. Please stop telling me hammered it, it's good. The way up, the way down, we took our time, we relax, we're fine, we have bear spray, it's all good I don't trust you because you're reckless yeah, but she's the voice of reason?

Kevin 31:30

not at all.

Alan 31:31

Maybe more reckless even, somehow, you know she was the voice of reason last yesterday I respect. We're on our way up and the ranger stops us, says hey, uh, you guys going up? No, we're not going up.

Kevin 31:43

Right.

Alan 31:43

Yeah, of course we're going up, we're hammering, so you guys got flashlights. We're like yep, right here, baby. He's like what does this mean? And then, dude, I kid you, not, kevin, this will be fun. Someone came in on the walkie-talkie. It's going gonna be getting dark soon, or something like. He's like ah, that doesn't be a 27b74 or something, I swear god you know I'm losing it. I'm laughing inside. Right, just let us go. We have to go now. It's time for us to go.

Kevin 32:11

What was this? This is mount everest. Was this uh cell?

Alan 32:14

phone. He said it was his main cell phone. He's like those aren't real flashlights, you got to get a headlamp or whatever. I'm like I don't worry about it, we're fine.

Kevin 32:19

I respect the man yeah, these are not real.

Alan 32:22

We call them uh, old man, river is what we call them. But we handled it was fine, it was completely, it was light. By the time we got home he didn't understand how quick we can climb this thing with the quickness, with the quickness I said we're athletes, we're fine, you know.

Kevin 32:37

His thing was these these, these two are gonna get stuck. We're gonna have to come back. We'll be at home Having tea with the family. I'm gonna have to come Pick these dimrods up and set them out.

Alan 32:46

I understand, you know, I understand. We had a blast. It was awesome up there. Manadnock, shout out, it's not far from you.

Kevin 32:55

I dude, I, I'm Thank you. Is this tearing like that?

Alan 32:59

Nah, no Good view. Monadnock was good, I enjoyed it.

Kevin 33:03

Great views on the internet too. Pull up a picture of the top of Monadnock. Not a problem. Same thing, Same stuff. Don't even have to go outside.

Alan 33:10

All right For any of our listeners out there. You know you're with me on that one. Come on, I'm sure, most through the Rockies man. It's not even close. On the pictures, the pictures sucked.

Kevin 33:20

I've been, I've never been to the Rockies.

Alan 33:22

This was way back in 2011, or something.

Kevin 33:25

Yeah, because it's changed so much. The cameras were not great Because the mountains have changed so much since 2011.

Alan 33:29

The cameras have All right. We're going to go. We got to go. We got to go. I know, okay, I know you don't with Tom Cruise stuff, it's all good. Here's my deal. We tried watching the first one Can't do it.

Kevin 33:45

Too old the picture's terrible Dude the tech.

Alan 33:49

I can't even believe the tech. Yeah, oh, brutal. My favorite thing in movies is zoom and enhance.

Kevin 33:54

It's not real. You can't do that. You, it's not real. You can't do that. You can't zoom and enhance.

Alan 33:58

It doesn't work that way, and once you know that you can't, it just doesn't work.

Kevin 34:03

Yeah, but they just slide it right under your nose, zoom and enhance and somehow the picture is better zoomed in than it was.

Alan 34:10

It doesn't work that way. Maybe one day but probably not, though. Emilia got me a new projector for our anniversary Dude. You projector for our anniversary dude, you want to talk about zoom enhanced, this thing I can point it at the way. I'm not going to explain the whole thing, but it figures out the exact focus and it dude. It's awesome, it's unbelievable, it's awesome. And the dolby digital surround sound without surround sound awesome, huge game changer. Man, it's like a amazon fire tv.

Alan 34:41

But projector, dude, it's unfreaking, believable so much better than the piece of crap she bought me last.

Kevin 34:47

Oh, that's far. I can be down there by 9 30 latest.

Alan 34:50

Be down there an hour and 20 I'm gonna fire dude.

Kevin 34:53

I gotta show you this thing at some point I'll take a picture of it or something yeah see it started. I'm gonna let me. I can't wait to show you this man. I'll fire over a JPEG image of it here shortly. You know what I mean. We live an hour and a half away. Home theater.

Alan 35:05

It's a dream come true man Home theater Best gift I've ever gotten. Swear to God Best gift I've ever gotten.

Kevin 35:09

I'm truly jealous.

Alan 35:14

If you want to know what it is, reach out, and it's also not a million dollars. No, no, it was very affordable $297 or something.

Kevin 35:22

I don't want people to think that you're balling, balling.

Alan 35:25

No, no, we're doing okay, but it's yeah. No, what are we doing here? I'm not getting a $1,500 projector.

Kevin 35:32

Well, you'd have a lot of people try to flex on that. Yeah, my love just bought me a projector.

Alan 35:38

Oh, yeah, it was 1.5 mil.

Kevin 35:40

I got lost in it. I was in the theater the other day.

Alan 35:43

I got lost in it. I couldn't even find my way out. No, but this thing's awesome, man All right, we're going to go.

Kevin 35:48

Yeah, you down with that.

Alan 35:50

Yeah.

Kevin 35:51

It was reptiles, dinosaurs, sharks. Okay, make sure I didn't miss anything here.

Alan 35:56

Mountain climbing projectors. Mountain climbing projectors Technology, mission Impossible.

Kevin 36:01

Yeah, Old man River. Yeah, that was funny.

Alan 36:05

I don't even know that That'll be a 27B64. I'm like what does that mean? What are you telling them? We're going to the top of this mountain, sir.

Kevin 36:12

All right, next Level Nation. If you are looking for a Facebook group that talks about some of the stuff that we talked about today, that talks about some of the stuff that we talked about today, like the self-improvement stuff we have a Facebook group called Next Level Nation. That's all about that. If you're looking for reptiles rattlesnakes a reptile, a snake is a reptile sharks and dinosaurs that'll be an upcoming Facebook group that we create. Maybe it'll be like Kevin's Creations Facebook group. I feel like that's got a nice little ring to it and then we can do at some point we'll do Lazarus Outdoor Expeditions Facebook group and Alan will have all of his hikes, trials and tribulations in there. Seven mountains, man, seven mountains.

Approach to success and fulfillment

Kevin 36:54

Seven mountains, seven mountains, so we'll have all of those in the show notes, but only one's real so far.

Alan 37:01

Yeah, and only one will probably ever be real. Most likely yeah. If you want to align your goals, metrics, habits, skills and identity with yeah, your goals, your dreams. This has been fun. Reach out please. Favorite work in the world. It's what I do. I know that I can help. I would love to help. Please reach out, dm me and or click the link in the show notes.

Outro

Kevin 37:25

And a little freestyle, a little different, before we get out of here. I know this one was a little bit different, but to me this is what heart-driven but no BS is Heart-driven. We genuinely want you to win. Genuinely I want you to win. I want you to be the most fulfilled, successful, aligned and love, financially successful, relationshiply successful, all of that stuff Of all time. That's heart-driven. But the no BS is I will not lie to you about what it'll take to get there From my perspective.

Kevin 38:01

Again, I don't know everything. I just I don't know. Feeling good, hearing content that makes you feel good, is important, but I think that changes your mood, not necessarily your life, and that's all. I want to just end on that. I don't want you to think we're beating anybody up, because that's not the intention, but I also don't want you to get beat up proverbially in this example. 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 will talk to you all tomorrow. We understand if you don't reach out. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family.

Alan 38:38

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes.

Kevin 38:47

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.