Next Level University

Time Is So Confusing... - Freestyle Friday (1978)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this Freestyle Friday episode of Next Level University, Kevin and Alan break down the myth of overnight success, sharing how long-term commitment and consistency lead to real growth. They discuss the importance of staying humble when things are going well and holding onto self-belief when times get tough. You’ll hear insights on career development, personal growth, and the power of tiny, daily improvements that compound over time.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Live 2025 - Saturday, April 5th, 2025 (10:00 am to 5:00 pm) - https://bit.ly/4aTwC7Q
Free 30-minute Coaching Call with Alan - https://bit.ly/4f3MSUz

Check this out: “The Power of 0.1%: How a Dollar Grows Over Time”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFzc6JdOsaf/?igsh=aGhtbHVoMjk1ejI5

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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

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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/

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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/

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Show notes:
(2:22) How change happens faster than we realize
(4:26) The danger of counting your wins too soon
(7:07) How success compounds over time
(10:44) You don’t know how you’ll react until you get there
(16:01) Bright spots, dark spots, and learning from both
(22:51) The power of 0.1% daily improvement
(24:52) Next Level Dreamliner: the planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(36:08) Why most people quit too soon
(42:07) Small daily improvements Vs. Viral success
(48:10) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Alan Lazaros:

I think sports and rap mess things up, dude, in sports, in gymnastics, you basically have to be really good, very young. Simone Biles, the best gymnast in the world. She started when she was like three or four or something like that. So this long obedience in one direction for lack of better phrasing is how you build a great career.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think one of the most common misconceptions is where somebody is today is where they've been forever, and where you are today is where you're going to be forever. But to Alan's point, most of the people who are like famous now and they seem like overnight successes, they were just unknown for 10 years behind the scenes. Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, Kevin Palmieri.

Alan Lazaros:

And I'm your co-host, Alan Lazarus.

Kevin Palmieri:

At NLU, we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Alan Lazaros:

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

Kevin Palmieri:

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 Lazaros:

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

Kevin Palmieri:

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 1,978, I was looking at my list. It was all Jeffed. It's Freestyle Friday and, for those of you who may be new, freestyle Friday is when Al and I just kind of sit down. There's no agenda. It will be about self-improvement, for sure it will be about growth and hopefully it will be valuable, but we don't really have anything planned. There's a bug in my drink. Well, kind of Drink it up fire that down, put it down for sure.

Kevin Palmieri:

Fire it down. Here we go big gulps. Huh, nice, look at that here.

Alan Lazaros:

This was my thought just so everyone knows I was gonna do that anyway. It's not because kev said it uh-huh, that's, that's.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's exactly what everybody was thinking like wow, look at the influence kev has on that.

Alan Lazaros:

He's so powerful, such a powerful being.

Kevin Palmieri:

This is what I was thinking today, and I've talked about this a million times, but it's always you don't really think about it. Until it happens, you're gonna. You'll probably shake your head because you've heard me say this so many times. Things change so incredibly fast and the new normal that you're experiencing. So much has changed over the last two weeks, but it feels like it's been months and most of it is really good change. I would say the majority of it is really good change, but it's hard to remember what it was like before the change change. But it's hard to remember what it was like before the change and I think that's why it's so easy to lose sight of how you got to a certain place. I think that's why it's so easy to lose sight of humility, because everything's kind of easy right now, but it's not. It's also terrible. But I'm getting a lot of opportunities and I'm getting connections to people and people are just reaching out out of the woodwork and it's just very easy.

Alan Lazaros:

You're a big deal these days.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'm definitely not a big deal. I appreciate the sentiment that that is what I'm currently thinking of, and I think here's that this is the downside we get to a place where we we eventually get to a place where we hoped we'd get to and maybe some of the things that we wanted to come with that place come with it, but that place doesn't stay forever. I don't think it stays forever for almost anybody, and that's how do you juggle and balance and stay aware of that and make sure you stay humble with that. Tara and I were having a conversation today about a potential, a nice potential opportunity, and I said I'm not going to, I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch. I've done that in the past and it's it's burnt me and I don't want to do that. And she said, well, you're excited. And I said, yeah, I'm definitely excited, but I said, regardless of what happens, I will wake up tomorrow and I will go in the office and I will work really, really hard.

Kevin Palmieri:

It doesn't matter what. It's not going to change my approach. It can't. It has in the past that it's almost like when you get all the things that you wanted and many of the opportunities that you had hoped for. That's when you have to keep your foot on the gas even more. Not take your foot off the gas, because that is just a suggestion of all the work that you put in before the delayed response and the delayed results of that have come to fruition. But if you take your foot off the gas now, you kind of lose the opportunity to build momentum on that. So, yeah, it's an easy thing to get confused by for sure.

Alan Lazaros:

Well, when you're winning, how do you stay humble, and when you're losing, how do you keep believing in yourself? That's really that's it right there. Okay, have a good day everybody.

Kevin Palmieri:

Thank you so much for tuning in.

Alan Lazaros:

Well, everything that, Kevin, becoming a big deal.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'm not a big deal for those watching this, I promise.

Alan Lazaros:

Many leather-bound books Zero. People know me. You know that movie is ridiculous, but there are some really funny parts there are yeah, alright, so that was an Anchorman reference For anyone who's that? Came out what 2000 or something. I mean that was early 2005, something like that, I don't know Useless information. The first thing to understand is none of the success that you are experiencing right now has anything to do with what you've done recently.

Kevin Palmieri:

Really, I mean, yeah, somewhat, but that's so hard, though it's so hard to understand that.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, I know it's really the last few years it's the.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's the last. I think it's a mixture of the last few years and really the last few years. It's the last. I think it's a mixture of the last few years and then the last few moments of how you dealt with the opportunities.

Alan Lazaros:

I know that's well said, okay, so let's do this Time perspective real quick.

Kevin Palmieri:

Oh.

Alan Lazaros:

Jesus Kev's 35. I am 35. 35. Gonna be 36 whenever, technically speaking. These new successes, the new level level, the next level of success that kevin is now experiencing- dream coming true, awesome, amazing, potentially.

Alan Lazaros:

Well, you know, let's not count our chickens before they hatch, but also let's get excited, but also not too excited. It's a whole thing. All right, 35 years it's taken for kevin to reach this dream, but okay, also, it wasn't like he was thinking about this when he was four, so maybe it's only 31 years. Uh well, he wasn't really thinking about it when he was eight either.

Kevin Palmieri:

Okay, so let's say seven years, yeah, so seven years.

Alan Lazaros:

When you became a podcaster to now, so we'll call it seven years, okay, 2017 to now.

Kevin Palmieri:

Eight years, eight years.

Alan Lazaros:

Eight years, 2017, to now, march of 2017, the Hyperconscious Podcast was born. Kevin became a podcaster. Now we work with, as of today, 69 podcasters and I work with 27 business owners. And it's more than 69 podcasters because some of them are two. You just mentioned two per co-host yeah so it's well over 100 clients.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, awesome, great. That was an accumulated compound effect over the last eight years, and in the first year we didn't work with any podcasters, we only had our own podcast. In the second year, I think you had gotten your first client.

Kevin Palmieri:

Maybe that was the third year so, third year, you got your first client.

Alan Lazaros:

2020 was the first year this is the hardest part about success is it's such a long journey. I was telling a potentialential client yesterday I was coaching her and I said I started out with as a fitness coach because I said Kevin and I have a really hard time helping other people with things unless we are doing those things in our life. So we help podcasters because we are podcasters. I help business owners because I'm a business owner, so I'm trying to grow our business as the ceo of the company, so I can help you grow your business as the founder and CEO of your company. All right. So I said I wasn't a business coach in the beginning, but I was a coach. I was a fitness coach because that was what I was dialed in on Fitness model, fitness coach, fitness competitor Okay. Then it was mindset coaching. Then it was peak performance coaching. Why? Because fitness competitor. Okay. Then it was mindset coaching. Then it was peak performance coaching. Why? Because I was a peak performance, I was a peak performer. Then it became a little bit of life coaching. Didn't do that for long. And then it became business consulting. Okay, we had a business that was growing 119% year over year from 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. If we look at our numbers. I have them all tracked. We were growing by an average of 119% year over year, and Kevin and I didn't stay humble enough.

Alan Lazaros:

It's very hard to stay humble when your business is doubling every year. It feels like everything's going to win forever. And so we got cocky. We spent, invest, team everything, let's do it. Payroll go yeah, run it, try it, do it. What do you think about this Shiny object? You just lose focus. So we had 24 departments Now we've narrowed it down to only 13. We had 24 team members Now we've narrowed it down only to 15. And this is the expansion and refocus part of life. But bringing it back to Kevin's point, when you're winning, you have to be very careful not to let that get to your head, because the moment it does, you're going to stop doing what created the winning. But when you're losing, you also have to hold on to hope, and you have to hold on to believing in yourself and believing it's possible and possible for you and that it'll be worth it, because right now we're in a very good spot. I feel very good overall too, but if we get cocky, we're fucked.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think the thing is you don't really know how you're going to react when you get to a place you've never been before. You have an idea of how you think you'll react and you have an idea of where your mindset will be and you have an idea of how you think you'll behave, but you don't really know until you get there. At least that's my experience. We. I had never. I had never been a business owner, I had never made any money with a business, so I was like, oh cool, this is how it's working. That was it. I didn't. I didn't really have expectations, because I didn't. I didn't know what to compare it to.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think that's the hard thing. You just don't really. Again, I'll speak for myself. I didn't know how I would react when certain things happened. And then they happen, and then maybe you react better or worse or the same or different than you thought you would, and that's a new lesson and that prepares you for the next time, unless the next time it's a different result. So like, let's say, a good example is getting your first client. I, first time I got a client, I cried, cried my eyes out, leaving that place, texting my wife. We made it. We made it, babe, we made it and we did.

Alan Lazaros:

That was the beginning right, I know, I I don't. I always say this. I don't mean this disrespectfully, but that's very cute I mean that in a good way.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't mean to no, no, I don't, I don't. I don't feel that way it was.

Alan Lazaros:

There's a book I'm reading called zero to one by peter peter teal. Zero to one. That.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's the hardest one.

Alan Lazaros:

Zero to One is the hardest one Zero to One.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, and how did I react? I feel like I probably celebrated. I'm sure I got like pizza that night or something. First time I lost a client was probably a year later, after getting maybe five more. I remember the first time I ever had tough feedback from a client. It fucked my entire week up.

Alan Lazaros:

It was.

Kevin Palmieri:

I no, you're good, the sky was falling. I was like whoa, I don't know if we can do this, am I capable of this? Didn't know how I was gonna respond because I never thought it was gonna happen. I thought you just got clients, and then you the clients really well, and you and we do. But we're human, we make mistakes.

Alan Lazaros:

I love when you're dishonest man. I appreciate it of course.

Kevin Palmieri:

Oh, that's, that's. That's the goal.

Alan Lazaros:

I just thought you'd get clients. I thought that's how hilarious.

Kevin Palmieri:

Nobody ever tell, nobody nobody ever talks about losing clients never.

Alan Lazaros:

I, I know. Have you ever seen an ad on?

Kevin Palmieri:

how to deal with losing clients.

Alan Lazaros:

Losing clients is the fucking worst, it's brutal, it's so bad.

Kevin Palmieri:

Especially if you've never done it before.

Kevin Palmieri:

Now Sometimes it's awesome, depending on the client. It's fair. It's fair. I still don't like it, it still doesn't feel good. But now the thing is what are the lessons that we can take from this? Did we do every? Did we? Was this on us? We've had some clients who just said like, look, I want to, I want to try to do it by myself and save money. Awesome, cool, you do you. If it doesn't work out, we're here, come back. If you need me in any capacity, just shoot me a message. I know you're not a client right now. You were a client. Client. If there's anything I can do to add value, please let me know. Awesome. We've had the rare ones who are angry about something, and more often than not it's just they're kind of challenging to work with. We'll put it that way. But have we had clients that have left because we made a mistake?

Alan Lazaros:

yes, that's very rare, very rare, though it doesn't happen. Very often, when you say challenging to work with, you mean semi-entitled.

Kevin Palmieri:

I would say very entitled. And here's a good again. Maybe this can cross over to relationships. If you've ever seen somebody who it's like every time they're in a relationship, the relationship is filled with drama and things are going horribly wrong and blah, blah, blah, they might be the problem. I say that all the time. I was at least 50% of the problems in all my relationships. I don't know, for some reason, all the baggage that I had always seemed to follow me. It's because it's my baggage. That's what happens. That baggage comes with you until you work through it. Point I'm trying to make with all this Maybe you don't have clients, maybe you're not a business owner right, this isn't a show just for entrepreneurs. That's not what we do Dream chasers.

Kevin Palmieri:

Dream chasers. You don't necessarily know how you're going to react until you get the opportunity to, and sometimes it goes better than you think, other times it goes worse than you think. But but, but but but creates an opportunity for you to react in a more aligned way. The next time and I think that's what's happening this time is, I think you and I are just reacting in a more. If anything, I'm working more than I have in the past. I had that moment the other day where I was like, yeah, no, I've been putting in work, just lots of work. That's good. That's good, that's good for me. That's what I need to be doing. So I don't know, yeah, you just don't know. How could you know? How could you know how you're going to react to something? Until you're faced with that, it's okay. If you're disappointed in the way you reacted, it's okay. Hopefully, through our experiences and quote-unquote failures and or successes, there's a lesson in there for you.

Alan Lazaros:

That's my goal there's something called bright spots and dark spots, and whether you succeed or fail, the process is the same, which is you go back to the drawing board and you figure out what you didn't know before, what you now know and what you're going to do differently. And some people are more motivated by success that differently. And some people are more motivated by success that's Kevin. Some people are more motivated by failure that's me. Some people need to aim really high and eat humble pie. Didn't intend on that rhyming, but that's nice, aim really high.

Alan Lazaros:

You're going to eat humble pie. That's good. That's me. Some people need to aim, aim low and hit and then aim a little higher and hit. Aim a little higher and hit. That's kev. Build belief. I need to build humility consistently. Kevin needs to build belief consistently. Then kevin gets cocky and things crash and burn.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Alan Lazaros:

The moment that you do, and I think that we all are probably constantly dancing between optimism and humility, because think about it Every time you get a result, you're going to get either more belief or you're going to get humble pie, because if you think the speech is going to go awesome and then it goes poorly, you're going to get humble pie.

Alan Lazaros:

If you think the speech is going to suck and you do, well you're going to get optimism and belief, and I think that's probably why action is the most important thing. It just keeps you grounded to reality. Action keeps you grounded to fucking reality it does.

Kevin Palmieri:

What if you're feeling something for the first time and you don't know how to feel about it? But it's because you've never done that thing before. Of course you're unsure of how you're feeling. You've never had the experience before. Of course, imagine I don't know. Yeah, you're unsure of how you're feeling. You've never had the experience before it. Of course, imagine I don't know. Yeah, imagine never taking, never have taking taken a flight and you don't know anything about planes and you don't know, you don't get it. Yeah, and you get on. Somebody's just like, hey, we're gonna go somewhere. All right, cool, where's the car? Oh, no, no, we're going to get in this thing. Oh, it's a car with wings, big, bigger car with wings. Okay, cool, why are we jettisoning down the runway at 200 miles, like what's happening? And then you take off. It's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn't supposed to happen.

Alan Lazaros:

No, this is why I try to still do that by the way, I still do.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's my exact reaction every flame whoa, physics, physics.

Alan Lazaros:

So when I spoke to the kids at wpi that's the school that I went to as well it was so interesting because I'm 16 years older. There was one guy there that was 30, that wasn't supposed to be there, but the rest of the kids were 18, 19, 20. And those 16 years it's just so clear, it's so obvious. Oh, you guys don't just, you just don't know anything got it because of the compound effect. So I did this post and I'm going to share it because I think it's the most valuable post. And I'm going to say this I really do believe this to be true. I do believe it's the most valuable post I've ever posted. So since I started social media, I have done 3,187 posts since I started an Instagram, and this is what I believe to be the most valuable one. Hopefully it won't be a huge letdown after that buildup.

Kevin Palmieri:

We're going to find only one way to find out how long is this out of 10?

Alan Lazaros:

5,000 hours? Okay, $1 growing at 0.1% per day for 365 days turns into wait for it, $1.44. Not that impressive. Okay, now here's the idea. Do you believe listener YouTube viewer, person listening Kevin Robot Do you believe that you could improve by one-tenth of one percent per day?

Kevin Palmieri:

I do.

Alan Lazaros:

What's an example of?

Kevin Palmieri:

that Again, I think you lose people with the numbers.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, An example of that would be this podcast. I am working really hard to not use filler words. That's why I have very long pauses and Kevin can't tell if I'm going to keep talking or not. What's?

Kevin Palmieri:

one-tenth what? Would that be? So a dollar one-tenth, what would that be? So a dollar one-tenth of 1% would be what Less than a penny? No, that would be?

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, it'd be less than a penny. So it'd be like a tenth of a penny. So let's do $100, it would be no $10, it would be a penny. So it's like Right, so it's like I don't know, you're the math guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

Makes sense. Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Just that small of an improvement, Like imagine if you had $10.

Alan Lazaros:

No, no, no, $100.

Kevin Palmieri:

It would be a penny $100,. 1% would be a dollar. A tenth of a percent would be 10 cents right. Hold on .001 would be a penny Yep. Hold on .0101 would be a penny Yep. Hold on. We're so sorry. This segment brought to you by Matt.

Alan Lazaros:

So it would be. If it was $100, it would be a penny, I think. I'm on it. I'm going to chat GPT this right now, ready. What is 0.1% of $100? Yeah, it would be 10 cents so it would be 1 cent out of $10. Yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

But out of $1, it would be 1 tenth of a penny. So you would need 10 of these things to make a penny Correct.

Alan Lazaros:

That's how small these changes are. That's what you're trying to make. Land that doesn't land for anybody.

Kevin Palmieri:

I just think when we start using like a tenth of a zero, of a ninth of a tenth.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's one. One thousandth, a tenth of a tenth. No, no, it's what the fuck's going on here? No, no, no. Hold on what the fuck's going on here. No, no, no, hold on. 1% is 1 over 100. 1% of 1% is 1 over 1,000. Yes, it's 1 over 1,000. Okay, so you have to get better by 1 tenth of 1%.

Kevin Palmieri:

Just a little bit.

Alan Lazaros:

The smallest amount you can imagine 0.01%. It's 1 penny out of $10. Cool yeah, now I know why it doesn't land, it's hard. This is my favorite post I've ever done and we're butchering it right now, but that's okay, all right. One dollar growing at 0.1. You know why this is confusing is because you have to multiply by 100. For percentages like 0.1 percent is actually, you have to multiply it by 0.001. It's actually 0.001 of whatever it is. Did that land?

Kevin Palmieri:

No, Mr Silvestri, I apologize for my lack of knowledge.

Alan Lazaros:

I do understand why percentages are confusing for people. I really do Okay, and again it is what it is Okay. $1 growing at one-tenth of 1% 0.1% per day for 365 days is really do Okay, and again it is what it is Okay. $1 growing at one 10th of 1% 0.1% per day for 365 days is $1.44. It doesn't grow by that much. So if you do something every day for a year, I'm 44% better, meaning I am 1.44 times this current version of Alan.

Alan Lazaros:

Not that impressive, okay, let me keep going. $1 growing at 0.1% per day for 3,650 days, which is 10 years, is $38.4. What does that mean? Let me make this contextual. So Kevin does an episode a day More than an episode a day, honestly. But let's just say, let's say Kevin does one podcast episode per day Every day for 10 years. He's going to end up 38 times better at speaking Than he already is right now. You're already good at speaking, now imagine 38 times better than that. It's mind-blowing. I get why it doesn't. This is how the wealthy get wealthier. By the way, this is how this works. I'm going to keep going, but I'll go quick. 20 years is 1,474 times better. 30 years is 56,000. 40 years is 2.2 million. 50 years is 84 million. If you work on speaking, 884 million. If you work on speaking more effectively a little bit each day for 50 years, you will be the most effective speaker on planet earth, assuming you're intentional about it and assuming you never miss Hello, hello, hello.

Alan Lazaros:

Nlu listener. Thank you, as always, for listening to Next Level University Real quick. I just want to jump in and let you know about the Next Level Dreamliner. This is a journal that I use every single day Achieve your dreams 90 days at a time. It breaks down your dreams into goals, milestones and daily habits. We hope you enjoy it. The link will be in the show notes $1,. You can put this in a financial calculator. You can put $1 in a financial calculator and you can grow it by 0.1% per day for 50 years and it becomes $84 million. It's $83,543,000, but you understand what I'm saying. The point of all that post is and this is what I wrote at the end, so hopefully this lands. I said anyone can get 0.1% better each day if they work at it. What if all of your goals and dreams are mathematically possible but they just seem impossible without consistency, extended over a very long period of time? Because who wants to do something every day for 50 years? That's the problem. That's all it is.

Kevin Palmieri:

But that's a big. I mean, that's a big fucking barrier.

Alan Lazaros:

You know what I?

Kevin Palmieri:

mean Like 50 years.

Alan Lazaros:

All anyone has to do.

Kevin Palmieri:

If they want this to land real quick. How old are?

Alan Lazaros:

you, hey, all anyone has to do real quick if they want this to land go watch a movie that was filmed 50 years ago. It's fucking terrible. It's fair. I watched the Mummy Returns returns. It was in 2000 and it was fucking terrible. It was now.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think it's a great movie, but the cgi was fucking is that cgi rock one where he's yeah, it might as well be a video game character it was brutal on my new projector it's a big ask.

Alan Lazaros:

It is ask. I just just think about 50 years ago, dude, there was no internet, there was no cell phones, there was no computers, there was no fucking Starlink, there was no electric cars, there was. I just, I really just what'd you? Say I said there was no.

Kevin Palmieri:

Alan, there was no Alan.

Alan Lazaros:

There was no Alan, there was no Kevin, there was no podcasting, podcasts didn't exist. I just that is the way that I think, and I hope that I can make that land one day.

Kevin Palmieri:

God damn it. I thought that post would do it. I think we gotta break 50 down to five 50. You're 36.

Alan Lazaros:

What if we just do 10 years 10?

Kevin Palmieri:

years is 38 times better.

Alan Lazaros:

Imagine if you're a filmmaker and you make a movie that's a real piece of shit and then, if you stay with it for 10 years and get a little better each day, you can make a movie that's 38 times better than that that I, and then 10 more years. 38 times better than that Does that make?

Kevin Palmieri:

sense, I think we just stay with the first 10.

Alan Lazaros:

Why I mean think about like a James Cameron. He's been making films for 50 years. I know I understand he didn't make Avatar until he was what 60 years old.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, but he's also an outlier Because he made Terminator 2 and fucking the Abyss. He's talented, real quick.

Alan Lazaros:

The man is talented. How old was James Cameron? Abyss he made he's talented real quick. The man is talented. How old is? Was james cameron? What else?

Kevin Palmieri:

did he make aliens.

Alan Lazaros:

Did he make aliens?

Kevin Palmieri:

no, no, that was um, it's the guy who made gladiator no, not spielberg uh, not ridley scott ridley scott, ridley scott.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, I think we do.

Kevin Palmieri:

How old was james?

Alan Lazaros:

clamp. I know how old was james cam Cameron when he made Avatar Filmed, made Filmed. He had to be at least 55.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, he's 52.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, I was off. He was 52. Okay, so when he filmed Avatar, he was 53. It says 53, depending on the exact filming date. Okay here, when he filmed Avatar, he was 53. It says 53, depending on the exact filming date. Okay, here's the deal, and I really I used to be too scared to do this, and we're going to do it. It is what it is. I always used to say when I was a kid my career won't even start until I'm 50. The reason why I said that is because you don't really get good at things until way later. All of the best directors are old as shit, it's fair. Meryl streep has what? 13 academy awards? Well, she's 70. I mean, I don't know if she's 70, but she's in her 60s for sure.

Alan Lazaros:

Tom cruise is 65 or something right, doesn't look a day over 20, yeah the point is and again, don't I don't associate with any of these people, but at the end of the day I just really don't know if people understand like you're not gonna get good at things early. I think sports and rap mess things up, dude. In sports, in gymnastics, you basically have to be really good very young. Simone bile is the best gymnast in the world. She started when she was like three or four or something like that.

Alan Lazaros:

So this long obedience in one direction for lack of better phrasing is how you build a great career and I just you and I started coaching, training and podcasting eight years ago. We're not gonna be world. I mean, we didn't even know who Tony Robbins was until he was 57 years old. He's 65 now. We knew about him what eight years ago. I just wonder if people understand what they're capable for the listener. What you are capable of is so much more than you can possibly imagine mathematically if you know what you're here to do and you stay focused, consistently over time and you always, always, always improve along the way.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think 50, it's just a big ask for 50. That's all Okay. Well, 10 years is Imagine my life plus half into the future doing the same shit.

Alan Lazaros:

Fair. Okay, 10 years. You're going to be 45.

Kevin Palmieri:

You're still going to be a young man into the future doing the same shit. Fair, okay, 10 years, you're going to be 45. You're still going to be a young man. I will be a silver fox, probably at 45.

Alan Lazaros:

You think I'll have gray hair. So 45, you're still at the beginning of your career. You've still got another 30 years of solid career?

Kevin Palmieri:

Yes, but I think this is the difference and this is the thing that often goes missed. I like my career, so I want to get better at it and I think that's it, but here's the catch-22 if someone else gets better at their career, they will end up liking their career untrue. No, well, no if you.

Alan Lazaros:

If you work on yourself every single day, you're more likely to be able to have a career that you love.

Kevin Palmieri:

That that's statistically true, that's fair. But I'm not just because you get good, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the quotes that I actually think is true is be careful at what you get good at, because you might be really good at something you don't like doing, unfortunately. I think 10 years is good. I think 10 years is a good.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, so picture how healthy, wealthy and in love you are right now. Now multiply that by 38. Balling 38 times that Deeply in love. Jacked. That's what we're hoping for Now. It doesn't work as well with fitness I know, because fitness is biology right. So career and fitness career this works, fitness not as much.

Kevin Palmieri:

Unfortunately.

Alan Lazaros:

Unless you are on a lot of drugs. Maybe one day Kev make it land. I can't do it. I don't.

Kevin Palmieri:

I just think it's. No, I think it's just a smaller time perspective no, I didn't see the post. Oh damn, what was it? I saw the one about you fishing, oh yeah. I want spring to come naturally of course I get pulled to that all the fish I'm not catching.

Alan Lazaros:

I didn't catch a goddamn fish that day, not one I don't know.

Kevin Palmieri:

Are there any living fish in there? I don't think so.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah my buddy and I went fishing one time we had a little john boat.

Kevin Palmieri:

we put it out into the, into the place we got home and his his dad, was like you know, there's no fish in there, right? Oh well, it makes sense. That's why we didn't catch any. I don't know how to make it land to the place we got home and his dad was like you know, there's no fish in there, right? I was like, oh Well, that makes sense, that's why we didn't catch any. I don't know how to make it land.

Alan Lazaros:

I think it's just, I'm going to send it to the team and we're going to throw it in the show notes, if anyone's curious.

Kevin Palmieri:

Time is the great equalizer. Time is the great equalizer and if you do something this is always my thought I just tend to go with a quote. I think one of the most common misconceptions is where somebody is today is where they've been forever, and where you are today is where you're going to be forever. But to Alan's point, most of the people who are famous now and they seem like overnight successes, they were just unknown for 10 years behind the scenes real quick, I'm going to show you me eight years ago.

Alan Lazaros:

Look at this small child. That's why transformation photos are so powerful. Look at this is a small this is when I started alan lazarus llc. What you'll never learn in school but desperately need to know that is a man child, that is a. You are a child. 100, that's. That's the compound effect.

Kevin Palmieri:

Now look at me now look at the naivety in his face. He's like everything's gonna be fine. It's not, it's, it won't be it's not gonna be fine.

Alan Lazaros:

Also, look at that. Look at that shirt. That's well fitted well fitted shirt. Yeah um, but that's the thing, right. We all start out, just as these small little toddlers. This is Kevin, and I Check this out.

Kevin Palmieri:

This is little.

Alan Lazaros:

Kevin with his frosted tips Look at this. The girls loved it.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's me in the bottom left Little.

Alan Lazaros:

Kevin frosted tips. I remember that shirt. It was so comfortable, and over here is me in the same classroom. Look at that.

Kevin Palmieri:

Little.

Alan Lazaros:

Backstreet Boy right over there.

Kevin Palmieri:

Wait, wait, I thought that was edited. We weren't in the same class.

Alan Lazaros:

Oh, you're right, we weren't in the same class. I'm sorry, it looks like the same class, yeah. Yeah, you did a good job with it. Oh, thank you, we weren't in the same class. No, no, you're right, you're right. But now look at the men over here, see those photos and now put the 0.1% in context. That's I know. Every redwood started out as a little.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's what you're gonna go to.

Alan Lazaros:

That's how I know Alan's losing it.

Kevin Palmieri:

He goes to his redwood analogy. Every redwood starts out as a little turd, a redwood acorn.

Alan Lazaros:

Look this up. You owe it to yourself to look this up.

Kevin Palmieri:

A redwood can grow to 135 feet fucking tall, probably even taller, and it starts out as a little acorn that looks like a little turd I think a good way to put it is honestly, many of the things that you think of as wild in your imagination are definitely possible given enough time. It's just a matter of whether or not that's the hard part. The hard part is doing it for the next 20 years, the next two years, the next one year, the next five, whatever. Whatever it is, that's the hard part. I did an episode today on podcast growth. You and there's the stats of how many podcasts make it past eight episodes 50 episodes, a hundred episodes, 200, 300. And it's like 55, 55 of podcasts don't make it past episode eight. Um, I think it's like nine, yeah, nine percent don't make it past 100. That staying power is like the hardest thing nine percent or 90, oh sorry, 91.

Kevin Palmieri:

Don't make it past 100, thank you for that. And it just progressively gets so only% don't make it past 100.

Alan Lazaros:

Thank you for that. And it just progressively gets so only 9% do make it past 100.

Kevin Palmieri:

If you start a podcast with 99 other people, it will be you and eight people after 100 episodes. So yeah, only 9% make it past 91% fail.

Alan Lazaros:

And I think this is why staying power is something that's so powerful. It's so important, and that's why it's so important to find your passion and your purpose and to try your best to find it, because, once you have that, it took Kevin and I a long time to realize that he loves podcasting more than I do and I love coaching more than he does. He loves podcasting more than I do and I love coaching more than he does. We both coach and we both podcast, but I'm going all in on coaching one-on-one coaching and he's going all in on podcasting. That's why he's the podcast guy and I'm the business guy, and so it took us years to figure that out. But now that we have that figured out, I'm coaching 27 people. Three of them are three times a week. I want to just do more of that. I love it, and if anyone wants a coach in your corner to help you dial in, I'm your guy. Please reach out and it will be just 1% improvement every time.

Kevin Palmieri:

It wouldn't be a Freestyle Friday if we didn't do math, if we didn't do quotes, if we didn't do. How old is this director? How long have they been directoring for?

Alan Lazaros:

Classroom photos of Jeff and Jeff. If there's any female directors out there, you gotta go crush, because there's not enough female directors, man.

Kevin Palmieri:

You notice at the end of.

Alan Lazaros:

Most films are directed by men.

Kevin Palmieri:

We gotta get some women, unfortunately so A movie that I told you to watch that I don't think you ever will, but it's a masterful performance by Christian Bale. It's graphic. It's called American Psycho. That was called. Directed by a woman.

Alan Lazaros:

Nice. There's a movie we just watched that Taryn would love. It's Raya and the Dragon. Is it animated? It came out in 2020. It's animated. It's awesome. She would love it. Female director. It was awesome.

Kevin Palmieri:

Shout out to female directors. Oh yeah, unfortunately we live in a space where I don't think women could vote. No, get credit cards until like 1970. It's nuts how fucked up.

Alan Lazaros:

Is that? It's really fucked up, brother. How fucked up is that? I've been very much Into learning All of the history of All this With Emilia and I. She's big into this stuff and I've been just, it's really fucked up, man. Honestly, it's pretty Pretty fucked up. Sexism is, honestly, it's pretty fucked up.

Kevin Palmieri:

Sexism is very much a thing.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, yeah, yeah For the empowered women out there listening go you, you don't need to do anything, but, yeah, just don't let anything stop you. Lean into your greatness, lean into your greatness. And the men who don't like it? Just Pound sand. Yeah, pound it. Just Pound sand. Yeah, pound sand, exactly Pound sand, all right anything you want to say before we get out of here.

Alan Lazaros:

No man, that was awesome. Thank you everyone for sitting with me in the math. Transformation photos are so powerful because of this. That's what that is. Three years it's insane, how big of a transformation. Some three years, it's. It's insane, how big of a transformation. Some people don't even look the same. There's someone that you and I all use first names only you and I went to high school with, named rebecca, and she's been posting. I don't know if you've seen it crushing it, it's not even. I mean, in high school she was maybe not one of the popular girls, you know, she was a little overweight. All this now she's just this machine of a woman, just absolutely crushing life, and I fucking love it, man. I love it, and the transformation photo is awesome to see.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, I think that's a really good way to put it is imagine, we're not. We were supposed to record two episodes. We're not going to record two. We know that at this point, so I'm just going to keep going a little bit longer.

Kevin Palmieri:

Might as well imagine if you were to. So this is like sci-fi shit, okay, so close your eyes and sit with me, not if you're driving or operating heavy machinery or anything that requires you to ellen's falling asleep. You zoom into a transformation picture and as you get into the transformation picture it takes you behind the scenes and it shows like day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, and it shows all the days in between the first picture and the second picture and you can see, little by little by little by little by little by little by little by little by little by little, but again, in day to day nothing looks any different. But then when you start to accumulate them, day to day, nothing looks any different.

Alan Lazaros:

But then when you start to, accumulate them, that I have a tactic. Hit us with a tactic Tactic. I have a folder called Perspective in my Google Drive. It's a private folder, just for me. It's called Perspective. That's actually where I pulled up all these photos. I have pictures of my birth father in here. I have pictures of me as a little kid, have that picture of kevin and I in middle school. I've got a picture of me at my most overweight with on youtube I'm showing my fitness show transformation. That's. That's two years transformation right there, dude, every day in those two years what looked the same felt the same kind of sucked a lot of that.

Alan Lazaros:

Two years kind of sucked because it was dieting and training and some of it was awesome too. But yeah, I think the compound effect of small improvements over time will always be my favorite thing in the entire world it's very clear. If you were a pull string doll, that would definitely be one of your sayings the snowball effect, the compound effect, the flywheel, I mean, you can take your pick, but small incremental daily improvements compounded over time can change the world I.

Kevin Palmieri:

I choose to go viral instead what? How's that going pretty good what uh, 70, 70 or zero, zero hits so far? It would probably be self-awareness is the answer to everything. That would be one of them nice, that'd be one of them.

Alan Lazaros:

Our next episode, jesus, our next episode should be kevin and alan's pull string sayings. I'm sure that would be a heavy hitter and what we really mean by them we, nobody would buy our dolls unless they want to like rip their arms off I can think of at least three people who would want to do that. There's a market for that, for sure. It's like stretch armstrong jeff stretch jeff strong.

Kevin Palmieri:

Maybe that'll be the next thing we do when you buy your dreamliner we're going to ship you a stretch jeff strong, doll link will be in the show notes for the stretch kev strong.

Alan Lazaros:

Jeff, you remember those, I do. I had one. Stretch armstrongs, I did. I had one of those too, I had one.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, I had an easy I think I had an easy bake oven, but it wasn't for food, it was for like Make, like spiders and stuff. Oh yeah, what was the?

Alan Lazaros:

Nickelodeon had the commercial right. Something like that it was that weird crazy scientist guy, I think so. And you could make I can remember this jello spiders and yeah, yeah, nickelodeon was remember ren and stimpy.

Kevin Palmieri:

Uh, way too heavy for the age that I was. This is gonna break your heart. You get. There's a lot of, there's a lot of documentaries about nickelodeon. Not a good place really. Our childhood is slowly being dismantled by negativity.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, it's unfortunate, man, it's really tough.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's too bad, but it is facts and that's what growing up is.

Alan Lazaros:

If anyone's young listening, growing in your 30s, learning, learning, learning it is. There's some very depressing aspects of it. However, the good news is now you're less naive, so you can make better choices and, hopefully, build a life.

Kevin Palmieri:

You can drive a vehicle. You can legally rent a car at 25 in the US, which is awesome, Not really. Remember, we'll get out of here right after this. We went to Florida one time and we rented this red Kia Soul just a box. Oh yeah, that thing was fucking sweet. It was not sweet and we returned it as we were supposed to, and I got an email like three days later. They sent me pictures and there's like yellow paint all up the side of it and I'm like yeah when you returned it, it looked like this no, it fucking didn't.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, and why did it take you three days to send me the email? And why isn't it a different spot than it was before? And I said alan, what do I do? And he's like I just stopped responding yeah, block them and I stopped responding. They just left us alone some unethical companies just do that.

Alan Lazaros:

Well, what I've read people will pay, some people will pay.

Kevin Palmieri:

What I read is the rental industry has changed a lot because of that, because people were like I'm not gonna rent rent cars, then I'm not going to rent the car Because, you guys, every time I rent a car it somehow gets damaged after I drop it off. So a little bit about rent-a-cars, a little bit about James Cameron, and Avatar what's your takeaway? Freestyle Friday, baby, no takeaway. No, it's Freestyle Friday, that's my takeaway. We went all over the place today there was one very clear through line math is tough on a public media.

Alan Lazaros:

Math is tough last question why do you think, as someone who is focused on getting 0.1 better per day, yeah, why do you believe most people do not do that? Because, statistically, most people do not do that and you're someone who is benefiting tremendously from that process. I have the answer Ready, yeah.

Kevin Palmieri:

Four words. Okay, it's easier not to Ben. It's easier not to that. It's easier not to. Yeah, I could have slept in today. Ace was snuggling on me. He hates when I wake up, he claws me and tries to catch me and grab on. Sorry, dude, daddy's got to go.

Alan Lazaros:

Daddy's got to get 0.1% better today. That's it. Daddy's got to go to the gym, did you tell him?

Kevin Palmieri:

that? No, he percent better today. That's it. Daddy's got to go to the gym. Did you tell him that? No, he knows he sees me, but it's easier not to that. It's easier in the short term not to, and then eventually it becomes drastically harder. How would you sell it?

Alan Lazaros:

to young kev, the young kev that didn't think he could get a beautiful woman, didn't think he could be successful, didn't think he was worth it.

Kevin Palmieri:

When the nurse wanted to, wanted to date me, date him I know the easy road seems easy, but there is a time, eventually, where there is an off-ramp and it gets really, really, really hard. And the unfortunate thing is you don't know when an off-ramp and it gets really, really, really hard. And the unfortunate thing is you don't know when an off-ramp is coming and you don't really have a choice. I mean, you kind of have to take that off-ramp. You might be setting yourself up the present you desire and the present you so deeply long for, might be setting you up for a future that you are going to hate. And then he would have been like dude, dude, get out of here. Man, how the hell did you get in my house? Get out of here.

Alan Lazaros:

Who the fuck are you? I could eat my Chinese food and watch Rocky 7.

Kevin Palmieri:

No, no, it would be the Dark Knight. Nice, nothing like a night of Chinese food. And the Dark Knight Might do that tonight. No, can't On a diet. All right, next level yeah, what do you?

Kevin Palmieri:

got quickly my pc is about to go your pc is next level live april 5th 2025, totally virtual all-day event 47 per ticket. You'll get access to the replay breakout rooms. All that happy jazz alan still has coaching slots available if you are looking for the best coach on the planet. I said it, not him. That way it can be true. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you At NLU. We don't have fans, we have family.

Alan Lazaros:

We'll talk to you all tomorrow Stay Next Level, next Level Nation.

Kevin Palmieri:

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family connecting with the Next Level family.

Alan Lazaros:

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 Palmieri:

Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

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