Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service. On the podcast today, we have Kevin Palmieri. Kevin, welcome.
Thank you so much for having me, my friend. I’m very much looking forward to it.
I’m looking forward to it also. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do?
Yes. So, as Thomas said, my name is Kevin Palmieri. I am the host and the creator of Next Level University. It’s a global top 100 podcasts being listened to in over 100 countries just across 720 episodes. So that is my full-time gig. I am blessed that I get to do that every single day, but I also have a business called next level podcast solutions where we help podcasters grow their shows and I’m a speaker and a coach as well. So I get to do that every day and I’m just grateful for the opportunity to be able to do that. So is this speaking and coaching specifically for podcasters or is it for business people as well? So it’s interesting and you can probably speak to this as well, but our brand is the Next Level University where our goal is to help you get to the next level of life, love health and wealth.
So the predominant majority of my speaking is on that mindset on that peak performance on that self-improvement, but I will be transitioning more into podcast specific just because I have such a love for the art, such a love for the opportunity and what can come with podcasting like on episode seven of this, this podcast that I created, I said that I wanted to wake up when I want to go to the gym, talk to amazing people and be able to do this for a living and here we are, you know, 715 episodes later and that is my reality and it’s because of the podcast, like the only reason you’re talking to me is because of the podcast has brought me, you know, that ability. So I’m just so passionate about helping other people share their messages. Right? You mentioned self-improvement as a no category for you. What springs to mind for you? If someone was to say, you know what the main things that you’ve learned about self-improvement, what would you say? I would say, I remember thinking back like when I was in my mid-twenties, early twenties, I assume that the things that the things that were, had to be the way that they were, I didn’t understand that we were malleable like clay, that human beings can learn new things.
So when somebody says self-improvement to me, all that means to me is focusing on small improvements. It’s just a small upgrade from where I am today to where I could be tomorrow. None of this came overnight, none of it will come overnight. It’s just focusing on the areas that maybe we’re weakened. Maybe we’re insecure in, Maybe we lack confidence in its focusing on that area and just saying, you know what, I’m just gonna get a little bit better. Like I’m really going to be committed and focus on consistently improving this part of me and when I get there I’ll focus on improving something else. And the other thing that jumps off the page to me, Thomas, is a long game. There is no such thing as being the final version of you. We’re always working on us and we’re always trying to get to that next level. So that’s another thing that jumps off the page is self-improvement is a long game because you ‘re only playing the game with yourself for yourself, you’re not playing against anybody else so you can play it forever. Well, I can certainly see from an improving sort of incrementally.
That’s a good reflection of the podcast because I went back and had a look at like the first few videos on the channel, I’m sorry, my friend. And then if you look at that relative to the most recent ones, it’s like really professional high quality. And have you found that the podcast doing the podcast has improved you specifically? Yeah, yeah, it’s so I think of it this way, our, our mentor, I told you we were just talking to David Meltzer before this interview, he talks about clearing corrosion. So all that means is getting rid of the negative parts of your ego, getting over your fears, learning to become consistent, the bigger the goal, the more corrosion you have to clear and our goal and I know we’re going to go into this, but our goal is to put self-improvement into every human on the planet’s pocket, seven days a week for free, through our podcast.
So the studio had to happen. I didn’t start this to have a studio, it’s just the natural progression of growth that it will require us to have a studio to get to the level we want. So the goals that I and my business partner, Alan, have set have forced us to grow at this exponential level that I never would have grown at if I didn’t have the goal. So this podcast quite literally not only saved my life, but it gave me the ability to use my life and use my passion and my purpose to help other people with their lives. So this has done so much for me, this is the catalyst for the human you see today, it is the podcast for Sure. Yes, it’s a weird thing that I didn’t expect to happen personally is that you start making improvements in your own life based on the conversations you have on a podcast, but you mentioned consistency and to have as many episodes as you do, you do have to have an element of consistency as part of your, should we say, repertoire?
Have you got any thoughts or anything you’d share on the principle of consistency? Sure. So We do seven episodes a week, but we didn’t start there. I think a lot of people think about the peak of mount Everest and they don’t think about like understanding the equipment you need and understanding the training you need and understanding the support you need. I think so many people are focused on the end goal that they don’t focus on the process to get there. So this is what we do and this is what works, has worked really well for me. And again, I have to credit Alan because Alan helped me with this, but we break our daily habits into health into wealth and into love. So for people that I start working with, I say, let’s just do three in each. Give me three things that you can do every single day in health. Okay, I’m gonna drink 90 oz of water, I’m gonna weigh myself and I’m gonna do some form of exercise, awesome wealth, track my finances. I’m going to prospect for a client every day and then I’m going to make sure I don’t stop at Dunkin donuts, like I can make coffee at home, right?
I’m gonna get rid of expenses. I don’t need awesome love every night for the last year and a half, I have played the gratitude game with my girl, my girlfriend before we go to bed every night. We say one thing we’re grateful for about the other person self-love, meditating, mobility, yoga that positive affirmations. So if you did those nine things, your life would look completely different. But none of those nine things seem like they’re really that big. That is the key I think for most people is to understand that starting small leads to big changes, eventually. What I see a lot of people do Thomas’s, they come and they say okay, I want to do these six things. I want to do these eight things and I want to do these 12 things and it’s like The odds of you being able to 40 things a day are just not high and then you’re gonna start to feel bad about yourself and then you’re going to wonder why you’re not making progress. So number one start small number to focus on the small victories, human beings are really good at looking at what they’re doing wrong, especially if you lack confidence and self-esteem, but they’re not always good at focusing on what they’re doing right and what they’re doing well at.
That’s another thing. It’s like you don’t see the progress you’re making in the moment because it takes time, right momentum and so there’s some lag time associated with that and then you stop before you actually would have seen the results. So my thing is always do nine things for a few months and see what happens. Then you can add things, then you can add different things than you can change out different things. But I think it’s basically creating some sort of tracker. So we have something we call peak performance tracking where every day I track, you know, I tracked the podcast lessons. I check that off when I do it, I do the bank account, I do, you know, connecting with a podcast listener and every day that tab on my laptop is open all day so I can see exactly what I should be doing. And then at the end of the day I get a score out of the 17 things I’m doing. I don’t, I did 98%, like that’s a really good day and I think it’s, it helps to see that progress, but, and you might, I’m curious to hear your opinion on this Thomas, I have an idea of where, what you would think, but a lot of people think that I don’t want to have that kind of structure, I don’t want to be so structured that I’m tracking everything I’m doing from what I’ve seen with myself and Allen and the team and our clients is you can use your discipline now to get more freedom later or you can use all of your freedom now and you’re gonna have to get more disciplined as your results lag.
I like the 1st 1 and I think a lot of people are afraid of that word discipline, but discipline just means keeping the promises that you’ve made to yourself, it’s not a bad thing, it’s a really good thing and it will give you the freedom that you want eventually. It’s not overnight, but it does add up over time and you know, if you can be consistently disciplined, it’s just a completely different life. I got a phrase, I can’t remember where it comes from now, so it’s unfortunate, but it’s a measurement, improved performance. So even if you do nothing other than just measuring what you’re currently doing, it will improve just based on the fact that you’re aware of it and I think sometimes people don’t want to measure because I don’t know, we could probably analyse that, but I think it’s like, are you serious about wanting to improve this thing? and maybe there’s a, there’s a fear of failure element to that. Perhaps I think they’re always is – I mean, it’s interesting because if you showed me this version of Kevin seven years ago, I’d be like, there’s 0% chance.
I was so insecure. I didn’t have any confidence. I didn’t have any goals. I didn’t have any vision. I didn’t have any clarity and if you told me to track my habits, I would’ve been like, no, no way, not a chance. So I think it, we have to get clear first on, like, what do we actually want, because if we didn’t want the most successful podcast we wouldn’t be doing seven episodes a week, it just wouldn’t make sense, right? So I think you have to also understand like, as a human being, there has to be some level of necessity for you to do the things you want. That’s another good thing. Like you can motivate yourself by saying like, okay, I’m okay. What happens? People are getting married and when they think like, oh, I’m getting married in eight months. I have eight months to get my high school body back or eight months to fit into my talks or whatever it may be. That’s just an extra level of necessity. We have to find a way to work that into your life.
Now, another thing that Alan does with his clients that works really well is you have a commitment device. So say you really, really dislike a political figure Every time you don’t do what you say you’re gonna do, you’re gonna donate $50 to that person that you do not like and you’ll learn very quickly or you’re going to give the money to somebody else and then they’re gonna donate it for you that way. You can’t say no, that’s an extra level of necessity that, you know, most people don’t force themselves to have for the pros. Yes. Have you got any thoughts on? I 100% agree that it is should we say vital to actually know where you’re going in order to achieve it, your outcome or your goal? have you any thoughts on the concept of perhaps people aren’t good actually knowing that, so, and even if let’s say they do decide it perhaps, they don’t decide it.
Well, I think there’s a quote for example, you know, I worked all this time only to realise that the ladder I was climbing was up against the wrong wall or something like that. Have you got any thoughts there? Yeah, A lot of it comes from personal experience. I was making six figures when I was 26. I was chasing money for sure. And I literally was at the point where I was sitting on the edge of a hotel bed suicidal because I didn’t know how my life had become what it became because I didn’t have that level of clarity. So I think there’s two types of people, Well, there’s two types of way to set goals. One people set goals based on what they think they can get. two. They set goals based on what they actually want. And that is a completely different life. I used to set goals based on what I thought I could get. And that stopped me from trying so many things that I never would have tried when I pivoted to. I want to have the hi Thomas. What are the odds that my podcast is heard by every person on the planet? 0%, right. It’s never gonna happen. Like it’s humanly not possible because not everybody has access to technology, but what that goal will make of me is going to take me so much further. Then if I said, I would just want to have a pretty successful podcast. So I think it’s that, I think it’s have the audacity to dream like you did when you were a kid, like when we’re kids, anything is possible. I want to be astronauts and the president and a police officer and firefighter, uh, actress, whatever, a singer. But as we get older, we hear all these reasons of why we can’t do what we want to do and we believe that if you turn that to like maybe the person who is giving you that advice doesn’t believe that they can do it. But most of the advice you’re getting from people is based on their limiting beliefs, their fears, their corrosion, not yours. So, I think it starts with that when I again, I just want to reference this on episode seven of this, this podcast.
I said I wanted the life that I have now. If I didn’t have the audacity to say that I probably wouldn’t have it now. Is it the same as I thought it would be? No, it’s definitely different. It’s way different than I thought it would be. But doesn’t it have to be. It’s never gonna be exactly what you think it’s gonna be, but you’re gonna be way closer. So I think the quality of your goals is directly associated with the quality of the audacity. You have to admit what you want. You’ll never get what you want if you don’t admit it. And I think about it this way, if you, after this interview said, Kev do you know anybody who knows blank? Like I’d love to interview blank whoever it may be if you never came out and said that I can’t help you if you do. I can say, yeah, of course, like we actually had that person on like let me connect you and it’s just that small thing of having the audacity to ask for what you really want and trust and have faith that you’ll find a way, you’ll find a way you can’t learn to swim by watching YouTube videos.
You just can’t, you can learn about swimming, but you can’t learn to do it. I remember I tried to learn how to snowboard on YouTube and when I strapped in and started going down the mountain. I was like, this is not what I expected, but of course it’s not, but it’s ok that at least I’m on the mountain, I decided I wanted to learn a snowboard that was the first part of my clarity and then I fell on my face many times. But now I can snowboard and it all starts with that have the audacity to admit what you really want, not what you think you can get because you can get way more than you want. Maybe not currently, I can’t do the splits right now in this moment, if you said Kev do the splits, it’s not going to happen, some bad things are gonna happen, I’m gonna hurt myself. But if I set my goal based on me doing the splits now, I can’t versus saying I want to do the splits. I can in time. I think that’s what people’s goals are like you can in time any Jim Brown influence for you. I’m a big fan of Jim Rohn, I think his story telling is just amazing, he’s an amazing storyteller and he has this strange way of teaching you without you knowing your learning anything.
I’m a huge fan of Gary V, huge fan of Tony Robbins, Tom Bilyeu, David Meltzer. I’m sure I’m forgetting Brian Tracy. Big fan of Brian Tracy was for what it will make of you. That’s kind of the reason why I ask the question, it’s a million dollars, not for the million dollars, but what it will make of you right? Yeah, it’s easy to, it’s easy to hear that, but when you start living it, then you really understand what that actually means. You know, so regarding your goal for the podcast, why do you want that? I think that if people had self-improvement from a younger age and it was more accessible and less intimidating. I think people would have a different life. My father left when I was young, I had a lot of adversity growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money. People were in and out of my life. I debated suicide several times. you know, I surrounded myself with people who weren’t necessarily the most positive influences.
When I found out about self-improvement, it was like, oh wait, you can actually think of things that way. And I think if I learned this earlier, because I started all this when I was 26 I’m 32 so I’ve only been doing this for six years if I heard of this or learned of this when I was in my early twenties, I think my life would be completely different. So it’s our goal to bring this to people who may have never heard it before. And I think part of the thing and believe it or not, a lot of our listeners are women. Part of the reason why I think is because we try to do it with the least amount of ego possible. Like I get fired up and I get excited, but like it’s always my goal to tell you that I don’t, I don’t know everything and I have screwed up so much like I am not perfect and I never will be and I make mistakes every single day, but you can grow to and make mistakes and I just think there are a lot of the people out there that are in this space, it’s like rah rah rah, you know, go do this, don’t sleep grind your face off.
And it’s like, that’s not sustainable, like that’s not sustainable. We want a holistic approach to self-improvement and most people don’t have it all. How many people do you know that have a net worth of $100 million but have been through six or seven divorces and they don’t take care of their bodies or somebody has all the love, but they’re not really good at going out and finding monetary success. I think that it’s just one of those things of it’s a tripod and very few people have all of those and our goal is to help people with, with all of them. I’ve done the body building my relationships amazing, which I’m grateful for and we’re making more money now than we ever have. But it’s not just because of that, it’s because we focused on improving ourselves as human beings and now the results are coming. It’s, yeah, we all want results. I’m very similar to what you said earlier, but you have to become the type of person who is capable of attracting and sustaining those results. And when you start there, it’s a completely different process in a completely different life.
And we want to help people understand that. It starts with you, it starts with you and no matter where you are, there is a next level for you, Maybe you’re at the ground floor, that’s okay. I’ve been, I’ve been below the ground floor, totally fine. Maybe you’re on the 10th floor, there’s an 11th, right? So it’s helping people figure out where they are and what the next level looks like for them and actually talking about our failures and our pain points and are bottlenecks and you know what we’ve learned in the process. You, you referenced tough times and suicide and I’m sorry that you had to go through that, but I always ask, what advice would you have to someone who is suffering at the moment in the way that you were? Yeah, I would, first thing I would say is admit it. You know, I, I was this bodybuilder with tattoos and a sports car and I love fighting, you know, I was training to fight for a long time in my life and the last thing you would ever expect is for me to be depressed and suicidal. It just didn’t make sense. I was, I’m the funny one, I had to first admit it to the people around me of like, hey, I’m not like I need some help, I need some help.
I went to therapy. I’m a huge advocate for therapy. I remember going to the therapist’s office and just crying my eyes out and it was like, scary and I was like, oh my God, she’s gonna think I’m whatever, insert whatever ego words you want, but that was such a big thing for me of just being vulnerable and admitting my troubles and in my past and I think the other thing is I think a lot of us assume and this was the case for me, I assume that my past was a preview of what my future was going to be, you know, broken home, little confidence, little money, I carried that on my shoulders and assume that was going to stay with me forever. When honestly, that’s been the thing that’s pushed me beyond what I thought I was capable of, like I have never quit tattooed on my arm, that’s like my persona now, because I’ve had to never quit, that’s helped me that that detriment has become such a benefit for me. So I think number one is admitting it, Number two, don’t be afraid to ask for help And then number three, I would say therapy is there for sure, but number three, figuring out why you actually feel the way you feel, you know, I thought that I wanted money. I thought money was going to fix all my problems, but I traded in so many things to get that money, I think as humans and this will be a Tony Robbins take, I think humans want growth and contribution and most people don’t have very much of growth or contribution, right, because it’s, it doesn’t always pay the bills, it doesn’t show up at the end of the month, it’s something that is fairly selfless and I think that more humans need that.
So perspective is great. Go volunteer at a shelter, go volunteer at a food shelter. Like that will show you very quickly that there’s a lot of people who are struggling too and maybe you can take something from that perspective. I think that’s another beautiful way to from the podcast, we’ve got the opportunity to interview a lot of amazing people, but some of these people, a buddy of ours, Eric Legrand is paralysed from the neck down. He got paralysed playing football. Happiest, happiest kid, you ever know, like does more from his wheelchair than many people do, you know, fully capable of doing whatever they want, that’s inspiring. That perspective of my excuses aren’t real, like I don’t have, I have it really well, like I have a fully functioning body and a fully functioning mind and you know, I’m a white man who lives in the freest country in the world, like all things considered my life is pretty good, you know, and there’s a lot of things going on in the world right now that bring up that perspective of it could be a lot worse and a lot of people are going through hard stuff so finding perspective, I think is huge too and admitting where you are, that’s always the first step is awareness of where I actually am thank you for that.
It was a great answer regarding the guests. So if you’ve got any favourite guests, quote unquote and of the ones that are, that’s a well-known, How did you go about getting them? I would say one of my favourite guests is David Meltzer because his ability to speak on the universe and quantum levels of things and energy and a lot of attraction paired with his success in business. It’s just very interesting. It’s, it’s interesting to, to intertwine those two Anthony trucks is a former NFL player speaks with Brennan Bouchard, He’s very, very successful. His upbringing is just like the hardest of the hard had to like chase chickens around and catch chickens to eat. Like was forced to lick the bottom of people’s shoes until his tongue bled like the foster care to foster care to foster care, nicest guy in the world, like just such a nice, nice human being who’s really turned his life around and is helping so many other people.
We’re actually interviewing a friend of ours, her name is Tory Leto this week, she’s a relationship expert. So we love talking about relationships because it’s just one of those things that I don’t think a lot of people focus on, It’s one of those places where we can learn a lot too, which was nice in terms of getting them. It’s always, it’s always the dance of reaching out to somebody and saying, hey, this is how we’re going to help you get what you value, that’s all it is at the end of the day, that’s why it gets easier as you get more successful because we have bigger numbers now than we did before. But it’s a, it’s literally an email or if you really want to like impress people, send a video, I send videos to people on Instagram all the time. Like if you follow me after you listen to this, you’ll probably get a video from me. It’s different and it takes more talent. So if I, if I record a video that says, hey Thomas, I’ve been, I’ve been following your journey for a long time and that story you talked to me about or you talk to your audience about this really, really moved me. I’d absolutely love to introduce you to our audience at next level university where this this this this this, is that something that you feel is a line for you?
It’s completely different than a copy paste of hey, this is Kevin, I have this podcast, this is why you should come on. So I think it’s hard lead with heart and treat all humans as humans because that’s what they are. Even if they have a million followers just snip it out of the video now, can’t you? Because you’ve already done it. I do, they’re all custom now. So you can take that one if you want it anything, I know that some of what you cover is regarding mindset. If you were to teach some, if you taught someone what the best kind of information that you have or you’ve learned on mindset, what would you tell them? I would suggest they read mindset by carol Dweck. I think most people early in their journey are guilty of what I was of assuming what is, is forever. So I would, I would say that and then I would say this, you don’t even understand how impactful the people around you are on your mindset. You don’t, you can’t know until you like really, really take a look at it and what’s normal is only normal until you realise it’s not.
So one of my favourite questions to ask people at speeches or clients are the people in your life the best from your past or the best for your future and people don’t like that question because it’s like interesting, like now I have to think about that your community determines your mindset way, way, way more. Then you realise like reading books is amazing and learning is amazing 1000% but I think you would get more out of changing your community as a first step than almost anything else because what’s normal stays normal until you realise it’s not and when you’re in a growth community and people are talking about their limiting beliefs or their traumas or their triggers or their past, you realise that not only is that acceptable, but that’s like part of the journey, like being an entrepreneur is amazing. I love it. I’ve learned a lot of things. The thing I’ve learned the most about is me by far bar none. I’ve learned so much about Kevin in my traumas and my triggers and what it means, but a lot of that has been the community I’ve surrounded myself with.
So one easy mindset shift. Ask yourself that question are the people in my life, the best from my past or for my future, see where you land and then start switching it, start leaning into getting people who are better for your future and you’ll realise very quickly that they’re going to help you with your mindset more than you may realise. Do you think peer group can be eBooks and audiobooks and that sort of thing, videos, et cetera, or even podcasts for example. So would you be if someone was listening to you on a regular basis, would you be part of their peer group? I think so, but I also think that there’s a level of accountability that comes when you’re actually talking to somebody. So it’s almost like I think about it this way at the top of our business model, it’s kind of like motivation. So what most people do is this, they do motivate, inspire, educate like when you’re paying somebody to help your really educating them and you’re really holding them accountable and you’re really giving them like You know 90-100% truth where at the podcast level I’m talking to a bunch of people at a different level so you might, you might find bits and pieces that resonate with you and help you and I would say it’s somebody that you can learn from always but I don’t know that it’s the same amount as you know somebody that you’re having a one on one conversation with and we’ve seen that Thomas we’ve had people who have listened to 100 203 100 episodes of our show who we actually start working with and coaching and we realise that it’s the accountability portion that a lot of people struggle with the knowledge is out there but how do you hold somebody accountable to take their knowledge from something that is potential to actual, it’s usually being one on one, you know, having a conversation of like how are things going, are you getting the results that you really want?
I think that accountability is really what comes in in a community setting that you might not necessarily get from a book or a podcast or you know TedTalk, YouTube and how much coaching time do you spend on that topic of accountability? Right? It’s honestly it’s wired around our, our business really, I mean, Alan does a lot more peak performance, lifestyle design now and I do a lot more podcasts but we have group coaching where you know it’s every other week and we check in like we’re looking at your numbers like okay, did you do your reading, did you do your exercise, did you do the things that you said you were gonna do, you got to think about it this way, nobody wants to show up to the meeting without anything to contribute. So it’s that level of accountability of like, I don’t want to be the one that they pick on, who pick on, count on or call on to pick on. I don’t want to be the one that they call on who doesn’t have anything to show because then everybody is subconsciously going to think I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. So I wouldn’t say it’s as much about what we talk about versus what it’s designed for.
Like under the surface we know that human beings require accountability. That’s why we do a lot of the things, the way we do, that’s probably a good frame for it. You mentioned in your answer prior about the fact that you like discussing the topic of relationships and I think from a personal level, I think it’s extremely beneficial because you know, most people don’t get educated or talk about relationships and so we rely on people like you and authors and that sort of thing to share best practices if you like. Have you got anything work wise in the relationship area that you would want to share because for for example, business owners, people talk a lot, a lot about culture. So what kind of culture you want? A positive culture and everything? Anything that springs to mind or that you’d like to share on that topic for me and this is particularly, well, I was gonna say it’s from a masculine male perspective, but it’s not vulnerability is the key to unlocking the relationship that you really want, particularly if it’s an intimate relationship if it’s a business relationship.
I have I have had more progress in crying through problems than me going up. You know, my my girlfriend loves when I’m vulnerable because it’s real and I just think that it’s one of those things that’s so, so hard. But I think the depth of your relationship goes hand in hand with the level of vulnerability you’re willing to have. I’ve seen it across the board with so many people with my clients, with my relationship with my business partnership with Alan, like we talk about everything all the things associated with business. Alan came to me recently probably like a month ago and said, Kev one of the fears I’m having is that I’m going to outgrow you and like this was really difficult to have. Like this is my business partner, this is somebody who I plan on working with forever, but he was afraid it wasn’t an ego of, I’m way too good for you, it wasn’t that it was, I have a fear that maybe the trajectory you’re on is going away from the mission where I’m going even harder towards it and because he was vulnerable, I was able to be vulnerable back and since then our business has grown exponentially over that last month, which is interesting, but it all starts with that, that vulnerability.
So that’s, that would be the one buzz word I would have is understand that having all the answers isn’t the answer, admitting when you don’t is a great start and you’ll learn very quickly what your partner values, if they don’t value vulnerability, that’s a dangerous thing, because then you can’t really be your true authentic self, it would be that and then it would also be one of my favourite analogies is I call it the pinball analogy. So I’ve had those talks before of like, you know, my girlfriend and I will be in a little bit of an argument and I literally say you have no idea what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, you don’t know what it’s like to start a business. Don’t do that pinball analogy when somebody says something, let it bounce around in your head and shake off some of the dusts before you hit a rebuttal, your goal is not to win, the argument is to get closer to the truth and that’s I’m telling myself that as much as anybody else because that’s something I’ve struggled with.
But I think that’s part of it too. You’re, if you’re in a relationship, you’re on a mission together, it’s not you against the person, it’s you with the person overcoming whatever the obstacle is. So really focus on that level of teamwork and not, it’s not you against them. It’s you with them. I think maybe a, a partial interpretation of what you, the example you gave initially was perhaps a communication, like an example of communicating in a positive or authentic, I think was what you said way versus if you weren’t willing or able to communicate that difficult message, then that will probably show up in negative behaviours. Maybe in resentment. This is I’ve seen this so often with people, either people, I’ve worked with his clients or just friends. Something will happen early in their relationship. And rather than say something, it’s this little thing at the beginning, but it happens and it happens and it happens and it happens.
And by the time you’re ready to communicate it, it’s, you have to yell it because you haven’t whispered it along the way and I’m guilty of that as much as anybody else. But I think when it happens, you learn and you can reflect and say like, okay, you know, I didn’t say something and then it happened again and I’m twice as mad, then it happened again and I’m three times as mad and then what I’m trying to convey the truth. My truth is like, I’m really effing mad when it would have just been like, hey, it bothers me a little bit. When you do this, Can we come to a compromise vs hey, I cannot stand when you do this. It’s just a completely different conversation. Any thoughts on how you do that within a team? Yeah, yeah. It’s the culture. Like you said the buzz word of our team And we’re walking a fine line with this and I think it’s important to do that. But like, I love the people on our team. Like, we have a 12 person team and I tell them like, Hey, I love you. Thank you. I love you. I’m always here if you need me.
But it also has to be the fine line of like, when you signed up to work with us, you signed up based on the fact that you wanted these results and this was the effort you’re going to put in. I I’m doing you a disservice as a leader. If I don’t tell you the truth, I’m actually hurting you and holding you back, which then hurts us and holds us back, which then may cause me to have resentment. It’s honesty Thomas, it’s honesty and vulnerability of like, look, yeah, we might be the leaders here, but like, it’s also our job to help you get what you want out of life. It’s not just about you, it’s not just about podcast. Our goal is to help you with your life. If you’re holding yourself back and I see it, you want me to tell you genuinely. And it’s one of those things too, of like the more you do it, the easier it gets, I think that’s another thing that, you know, going to the gym was really, really hard at the beginning. There’s so much friction, there’s so many reasons not to do it now. I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s like, it’s just what I do, it’s who I am, it’s part of my identity, but it didn’t happen overnight, you know, I think that’s it too, do it long enough and you’ll become the type of person who does that.
I am the type of person who has difficult conversations versus I’m the type of person who avoids difficult conversations. That’s actually a great answer to the next question I was going to ask. So in addition to the answer that you just gave, there might be an element of fear in in doing that. So, and you’re happy, I think to talk about the topic of fear, what have you learned about this particular topic that you would want to share? Oh man, Fear is this weird thing that you assume is stopping you, but only stops you if you let it stop you. So it’s almost like it’s your imagination playing tricks on you, but if you let the tricks when it actually becomes the distance that you travel in life so great. One of my favourite stories of all time, we had a listener reach out to us, her name is Amy and she said hey Kev, I’m like super afraid fear to approach people in public and just like have conversations in general, like I just I’m just afraid to do it and I was like okay cool, like let’s go to the mall, let’s just go to the mall and we’re gonna talk to people and she’s like okay and in my mind I’m like damn, I was hoping she’s gonna say no, like this is gonna be brutal and the day comes and I’m getting ready to leave and I’m texting Alan, I’m like hey man, like what can I lie about?
So I don’t have to do this because you know what, I’m just as afraid as her if not more afraid and I was like you gotta do this man, you said you’re going to do it and I’m the podcast guy like I did this. So we go to the mall, I meet Amy, we hug it out in the parking lot, like shout out to her for coming and meeting a stranger, which is like you know let’s let’s work on that, but we go into them all together and I remember going into Starbucks and I was like the boom boom test of, I don’t this is not good. Like I have done a bad thing here, I shouldn’t have done this. I don’t think I’m ready for this. But seeing the taking the leadership role of like Amy’s life can change if we do this right, motivated me to do it. So we go into a store and I said Amy I want you to go up to that person and I want you to ask them how much that chair is, that’s it. And she’s like that’s it. And I said go ask them how much that chair is. She asked them, they start a conversation, great, go into another store, do it again. Great. You know same thing in another store. Then I said okay I want you to go talk to that person at the food court. Just go ask them how their food is simple. She goes and does that by the end of the things she’s having conversations with people, we’re getting ready to walk out of the mall and there’s these motorised zoo animals that are like battery operated.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them? And I said Amy you know will be really fear chasing. That’s the word we use is fear chasing is if we rode those around the mall and I’m hoping she says no because I don’t want to do that, I wanna look like a fool. And she’s like honestly we should and it’s like oh God I did it again, I have a video of Amy and I riding mechanical zoo animals around the mall and just fear chasing. She went in and this is the point, right? She went into that experience with the belief that I am incapable of doing these things because I’m afraid to leaving that understanding. I am now capable of doing these things because I’ve proven them to myself. Now, Amy is on the team. Amy has travelled to speeches in Florida with us and she’s been at our other events like she is now one of the most pinnacle pivotal people on our team. So the point of that story is this all I did was shine a light on what was possible for her based on her own fears. Your fears are deeper seated. Like I didn’t want to ride those zoo animals because I have a fear of judgment simple.
I had to prove to myself that those me actually getting my fear my worst fear. These people are judging me for sure, it didn’t matter, it didn’t hurt. So my point on that whole story is it’s only real if you let it be, it’s genuinely only real if you let it be. There’s two types of people, there’s people who believe in ghosts and there’s people who don’t the people who believe in ghosts see them. The people who don’t, simple, right? Simple analogy if you’re afraid of your fear and it holds you back. It’s a fear forever. If you’re afraid of your fear and you get over it, it’s still a fear, but it doesn’t stop you anymore. I hate planes Thomas, I hate them. Can’t stand it’s the biggest fear, but it’s something I do now because I have to, if I want to be an international speaker, I can’t stay here forever. So that’s what I would say about fear. Great answer and I love the story as well. What distinction would you make between fear and limiting beliefs, if any? I think I think the limiting belief is the story that you tell yourself about the fear.
I think the fear is like a umbrella of something deeper. So the limiting belief is probably the root of the fear and the fear is like a symptom that’s what I would say, but it’s like we’re all afraid of rejection at some point, we’re all afraid of judgment at some point. I think we’re conditioned that way, We’re just conditioned like when I was a baby, I would run around in a diaper. I didn’t think of judgment, but we start to have these conditions. I’ll never forget. I was in my high school English class and I raised my hand to ask a question and the kid next to me laughed at me because I had, I was sweating. That was that fear that I had never thought of before, ever conditioned me for the rest of high school, I changed my deodorant. I used to not wear grey shirts, that literally that one fear of somebody’s gonna judge me because I’m sweating ran my entire high school career that was conditioned. So I think both fear and limiting beliefs are conditioned into us and I think they’re probably branches of the same tree that we just have to, again, the first steps, always awareness, admit that you’re afraid of, it is okay, right, I’m afraid of public speaking, I was afraid of podcasting for the 150 episodes.
I was genuinely terrified. I used to be afraid of doing guest appearances, but I did it enough where it’s like, yeah, this is that big of a deal, Not that big of a deal. And what’s the worst case, Thomas doesn’t like me and says, hey man, we’re not going to use that episode, like it was a right piece of garbage, I can’t do it. It’s like, okay, cool, like I’ll get better, I’ll get better from it. So I think it’s, it’s a, it’s a shift, it’s a shift of, this is something I can face, not something I have to run from forever. Well, I think based on your answers today, I think that scenario is fairly unlikely, so thank you for all this value. Just coming back to your goal for a minute about helping every individual with self-development would you like to elaborate or expand on any details within the goal. Sure, sure. So we are doing seven episodes a week, we want to do seven episodes a week forever. really based on what people are going through, but we also do a lot of speaking, we do a lot of coaching, we have a lot of different things going on. I just want people to know that it’s possible and it’s possible for them and building a business around this.
I think that’s the thing is like we started with something that we were really, really passionate about. Like Alan and I were passionate about talking about deep stuff and how to get better and when we decided the impact that we wanted to have, we had to find a way to make it profitable. So our goal was to find something that were super passionate about that we can impact people with that we can get better at that we can make profitable, that’s the goal is to have this life that I’m doing right now, but exponential forever, you know, that’s it, that’s what we’re playing for, it’s not about the money, it’s about the impact, but you can’t impact people, you can, it’s harder to impact people without money and it’s hard to build a business without money, you know, and I just think it’s one of those things of, there’s so many people in the world who feel alone, there’s so many people in the world who feel like they don’t belong to something, we want to help them figure out like look, you can belong wherever you want to belong, it’s just a matter of you becoming the type of person who feels that way and we’re trying to provide that community for people, it’s a great girl.
Is there anything that you would like to talk about, which I haven’t asked you about today that you think would be valuable to the audience? It’s a great question. I would say this understanding where your level of self-worth is, I think is an interesting topic that Alan and I have been doing a lot of diving into where I think of it like this, somebody will come to me and I’ll be talking to them and you can tell very quickly with relative precision what their childhood was like because if somebody comes to you and says like I’m so sorry, I don’t belong here, I’m sorry for wasting your time, I’m not good enough. Those things were conditioned in and a lot of people wonder why they’re attracting certain people into their lives. It’s because their level of self-worth is at that frequency. So there’s two things that we say filters and magnets, I was able to magnetise or Thomas was able to magnetise me in because we’re both podcasters awesome, but you also would magnetise in negativity if you were somebody who is negative, if you assume you’re only worth a certain level, that’s where your expectations will be.
So setting up yourself to improve your self-worth through, un conditioning yourself on learning things from your past, in keeping the promises to yourself. That’s one of the things that I’ve seen really, really, really shift people’s lives them going from. I don’t deserve this in terms of, I don’t deserve happiness two, I don’t deserve this person who’s taking advantage of me is just this pivot that opens and unlocks the door of all things possible moving forward for people. So I would say check in with that like on a scale of 1 to 10, how worthy do you feel? How healthy is your level of self-worth and really dig into that and think of why a lot of our, a lot of our results that we have today is based on past conditioning that we’ve never, we’ve never gone under the hood. It’s like our car is stalling on the side of the road and we’re assuming it’s like the wheel or the brakes or the gas tank. Like it could be all those things, but it also could be what’s, what’s under the hood that we haven’t looked at in a long time.
Is that a painful process generally speaking, what was it for you? Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. It’s, I have uh, I’ve forgotten so much of my childhood. So I’m when, when things become more open and everything’s, you know, back to somewhat normal, hopefully that happens soon. I’m very much looking forward to going back to like in person therapy so I can start untetherring and unwinding some of those things. But what happens is the higher your awareness becomes the dumber. I don’t wanna say dumber but less intelligent your old decisions seem Because now you have a new level of awareness. So I don’t know, I don’t know if you can see the scar, but I have a scar on my hand. When I was like 18 years old, I got really drunk and I decided to hit myself with a knife Because I was drunk and my girlfriend said something to me and I was 18 and I ended my baseball career. So I was a really good baseball player was our senior year, like we were supposed to win the championship and I cut one of my tendons, 90% of the way through.
I was in a cast almost had to get surgery whole thing. Looking back on that now, it’s like, oh my God, oh my God, like what were you thinking when you have a higher level of awareness, it tends to hurt more when you operated on a lower level of awareness. Yes, it’s painful. But I think sometimes more often than not, growth requires conflict. Like growth just, it does, it requires conflict there called growing pains for a reason because sometimes they suck, right? But if you really want to grow, I think you have to be okay with the understanding that it might be painful and the only decisions I’ll say the only mistakes I avoid are the ones I’ve already made. I just try not to make the same mistake twice. Like I’m gonna, I’ve screwed up something during this episode for sure. The way I wanted to say something might not come off right. And I’ll listen back and say like, oh, I could have done better. They’re just try not to make that mistake again. But mistakes are proof that you’re trying and not repeating the same mistakes are proof that you’re growing.
That’s what I would say for what it’s worth. I don’t remember any screw-ups. Even if you made them, I didn’t notice them. Good. Where’s the best place for people to find you or perhaps the podcast?
Sure. So Next Level University. We’re on all the podcast platforms, Spotify, Pandora, Apple, all that. And we’re also on YouTube. We have all our episodes up live from the studio on YouTube. It’s nextlevelofuniverse.com. If you want to find us there, you can, you know, learn about coaching and all that stuff and then I’m at Never Quit Kid. That’s where you can find me on Instagram and we’re on all the platforms. But if you are a podcaster who wants help with your podcast, I’d be happy to hop on a free call and help you. And if you liked what Thomas and I talked about, Alan and I bring seven episodes a week where it’s just focused on how can we help you get better with what you’re going through every single day? That is our goal.
Kevin, thank you very much.
Thomas. You’re very welcome. I appreciate you, my friend.