0:00

Somebody asked me the other day . They said how

0:03

do I become more

0:05

successful ? And I said when you're

0:07

feeling really , really , really good

0:09

, you have to start doing less . And here's

0:11

why Because when you're feeling

0:13

good , you overdo it , you burn yourself

0:15

out , then you need to take two weeks off , then

0:18

you feel bad about the fact that you took two weeks off

0:20

, then you feel good again and you overdo

0:22

it . It becomes this perpetual cycle that is jeffing

0:24

your success .

0:25

However , it also works both ways

0:28

. When you're down

0:30

and out , you also have to do the minimums . So

0:33

to Kevin's point when you're feeling really

0:35

good and you're flying high , don't overdo it

0:37

. Stay humble , Don't overdo it

0:39

. But when you're down and out , not feeling well

0:42

, you still got to hit your minimums .

0:43

Welcome to Next Level University

0:46

. I'm your host , kevin Palmieri , and

0:48

I'm your co-host , alan Lazarus

0:50

. At NLU , we believe in

0:52

a heart-driven but no BS approach

0:55

to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers

0:57

.

0:57

Our goal with every episode is to help you

0:59

level up your life , love

1:02

, health and wealth

1:04

.

1:04

We bring you a new episode every

1:06

single day on topics like

1:08

confidence , self-belief , self-worth

1:11

, self-awareness , relationships

1:13

, boundaries , consistency

1:15

, habits and defining

1:17

your own unique version of success

1:19

Self-improvement in your pocket

1:22

every day , from

1:24

anywhere , completely free

1:26

. Welcome to Next Level University

1:29

, next

1:32

Level Nation , today for episode number 2047

1:35

. One way you're burning yourself out

1:37

. We had a group coaching session last night

1:39

and this

1:41

is no shade to any of the other group

1:43

coachings , because we've had amazing people

1:45

throughout Maybe

1:48

my favorite group ever . Whoa , yeah

1:51

, this is my favorite . This is my favorite group ever

1:53

. I love you . If you're in , if you've been in

1:55

other groups and you're a good person , I love you

1:57

. But this , this one , is something special . And

2:00

last night was our first connection connection

2:02

session . And last night was our first connection session and somebody said

2:04

I feel like I'm

2:07

in this cycle of burnout

2:10

, then

2:12

feeling bad and having shame , then

2:15

being inspired and motivated , and

2:20

then it just becomes this cycle over and over

2:22

, and over and over again . And

2:25

she said how did you guys do it like ? How did you guys get there

2:27

?

2:28

and I have pain failure massive .

2:29

and I said that . I said , look , I I

2:32

don't think using us as an example is going to give

2:34

anybody anything they need right now . But

2:36

I said if , if anything , we

2:39

focus on consistent 70 , 80

2:41

days , even

2:44

when we're feeling good , I

2:46

don't do 120 , I mean again , the

2:49

70 now is way different than I thought it was going to be

2:51

. It's still . There's still a lot going on . But

2:53

I I had I used to have someone in my life

2:55

. They would

2:57

, they would get injured

2:59

from over exercising . They'd

3:03

be out of exercise for two , three , three , four

3:05

weeks . They'd go to physical therapy

3:07

. They get it taken care of and then , instead of coming

3:09

back and walking a mile , they'd run for , get

3:12

hurt . Rinse and repeat , rinse and repeat , rinse

3:14

and repeat . And what you're not seeing is behind

3:16

the scenes . That is drastically affecting

3:18

their self-belief and that is drastically

3:21

affecting their self-worth and

3:23

it's hurting everything

3:26

in their life . It's hurting their routines

3:28

, it's hurting their discipline , it's hurting

3:30

everything . That's more

3:32

. I mean , that's what we're talking about today . It's more an issue

3:34

of when you're

3:36

out of the arena for

3:39

a long enough period of time , you start to feel shame

3:41

about it and then you want to jump right back in time

3:45

you start to feel shame about it and then you want to jump right back in . And I think

3:47

the self-belief piece of this is super important , because if you

3:49

think , okay , I just lost

3:52

all of that time , I just lost

3:54

all of that progress , I just lost all

3:56

of that momentum , now I can't be successful

3:58

, that's an awareness

4:01

that I think we have to understand , that two

4:04

weeks off is not great , but it's not

4:06

the end of the world . It's not the end

4:08

of the world that you took two weeks off . It

4:11

can be the end of it If you take two weeks off

4:13

and then you go hard for a week and then you take two weeks off

4:15

. You're not going to get that many results If you do that . It just

4:17

doesn't work that way .

4:19

At next level , live . I said all of

4:21

us tomorrow , sunday , hypothetical

4:23

universe . All of us

4:25

tomorrow , sunday , hypothetical universe

4:27

. All of us , everyone in the room , we're

4:31

going to work out

4:33

, going to the gym for nine straight hours . It's going to be brutal

4:36

. I

4:39

said that would not change your life at all . However , if I took that same nine hours

4:41

and I broke it into half hour increments and you did 18 days straight of a half

4:43

hour of exercise , that

4:46

could create a habit that could change your whole life . Tortoise

4:52

and the hare thing . Now

4:58

imagine , in the tortoise and the hare analogy , the tortoise was getting

5:00

a little faster . So instead

5:03

of the tortoise just being super , super , super consistent and super , super , super persistent

5:05

, imagine that same story . Tortoise and the hare . Hare

5:07

is starts and stops , arrogant , starts

5:09

and stops , naps , starts

5:11

and stops talent . The

5:14

tortoise is just unrelenting , just

5:16

going

5:18

along . Now

5:21

imagine same thing , except

5:24

the tortoise gets a little faster

5:26

all along the way , and

5:29

sometimes the tortoise isn't feeling well

5:31

and it goes a little slower . Sometimes

5:33

it's feeling really good , it goes a little faster , but it stays

5:36

consistent . But the the next level , next

5:38

level , next level of the tortoise is a little faster , little

5:40

faster , little faster , little faster . That's why

5:42

I always talk about trend lines and I'll

5:45

explain it just for anyone who

5:47

is a new listener your

5:50

weight , your bank account , your

5:53

net worth , your relationship

5:55

. It's ups and downs . So on a graph

5:58

over time , it's ups and downs and ups and downs , and ups and

6:00

downs . Your mood and

6:08

downs , your mood ups and downs . I , uh , you and I were meeting at 12 30 . You got here

6:10

at 12 35 , but there was a moment 20 minutes prior to that where I was like

6:12

, wow , I'm fucking tired and

6:14

I I got some little caffeine

6:16

, caffeine to try

6:18

to pick my state up . Now again , it's not

6:21

always with caffeine . I also could do something

6:23

else , whatever . Usually , caffeine . Stimulant

6:26

timing is very important ? I think yeah

6:28

, but my point is is

6:30

everything is ups and downs , everything . You're

6:32

not going to be 100% all the time . You're

6:34

also not going to be 20% all the time . Every

6:40

time I ever get sick it's always like damn , why wasn't I more grateful for when I wasn't sick ? What

6:42

was easy for me three days ago is now so hard

6:44

for me to fucking do , and I

6:46

know other people have been there . When

6:50

you are up and you have a peak state , use

6:53

it , but don't overuse it . Don't abuse

6:55

it . When you're down and out and

6:57

you're struggling , you still got to hit your minimums

6:59

, you still got to be the tortoise , and I am

7:01

convinced that that is

7:03

one

7:06

of the most important success principles in

7:08

the game is just consistency is

7:10

an absolute

7:12

superpower .

7:13

For sure , and eventually your minimums

7:16

for

7:18

lack of better phrasing become more valuable . In

7:22

the beginning , the minimum might be I don't know if

7:24

I have a good example For us , the minimum is record

7:26

a podcast episode . That's always the minimum

7:28

I can't miss . Now

7:30

, do we do one every day ? We release

7:32

one every day . Do we record one every day ? No

7:34

, we usually don't record on Sunday and we

7:36

I

7:38

won't say oftentimes

7:40

we don't record on Saturday . Some days we do , but

7:43

that is one of the minimums

7:45

. But now some of the other minimums are like

7:48

for me batch WhatsApp . Essentially

7:50

, I look at WhatsApp every single day . Some

7:53

days it's mayhem and it's like oh no , here

7:55

we go . Other days I literally I've

7:57

been doing this where I batch it at like 8 pm

8:00

and

8:02

then I know when I go to sleep that there's no messages

8:04

I'm going to wake up to in the morning . Most likely

8:06

it's

8:12

one way to cure anxiety , to avoid what we might

8:14

be able to solve now for later

8:17

. But I just think it's . It's

8:20

not about this is what I said . This is what

8:22

I said to the person who asked the question . I said we have

8:24

to really check in with . Are

8:26

you thinking of how can I be successful

8:29

today , or are you thinking of how can I prolong

8:32

the amount of time I do this for ? Because

8:34

those are two very different conversations , depending on where you

8:36

are . If you're literally saying I have

8:38

to do everything today that

8:40

I can possibly do to be successful

8:43

, cool If that's sustainable . If

8:46

that's sustainable , cool Other

8:48

days . It's how do I just make sure I don't

8:50

lose any momentum ? And

8:52

we have to figure out what side of that ratio

8:55

are you on . If you feel

8:57

good and you say , okay , I have

8:59

this and this and this and this and this and I'm going to do all

9:01

this stuff , and then I do that for the course of a

9:03

week and I burn myself out . I

9:06

start resenting my goals , I

9:08

start resenting my habits , I start resenting my routines

9:10

, I start resenting my

9:12

passions , I start resenting my purpose , obviously

9:18

you're not going to want to do them . But what if we leaned so far

9:20

into self-awareness that we woke up and we said I'm

9:22

feeling really fucking good today ? And

9:25

every time I

9:27

feel really good , I go to the proverbial

9:29

gym and I try to squat more weight than I can handle

9:31

and I blow my shit out , not

9:33

gonna do . I'm going

9:35

to do a little bit less this

9:38

time .

9:41

Hello , hello , hello . Nlu listener

9:43

. Thank you , as always , for listening

9:45

to Next Level University . Real quick . I just want to

9:47

jump in and let you know about the Next Level

9:49

Dreamliner . This is a journal that

9:51

I use every single day . Achieve

9:54

your dreams 90 days at a time . It breaks

9:56

down your dreams into goals

9:58

, milestones and daily

10:00

habits . We hope you enjoy it . The

10:03

link will be in the show notes .

10:06

It's always dangerous saying do less . It's

10:08

always , always , always dangerous . But if you're somebody who

10:10

overwhelms yourself by doing more and

10:12

then you do nothing , doing

10:14

less to Alan's point is still going to move the

10:17

trend line in the right direction . Where again

10:19

? Lori Harder said this when we interviewed

10:22

her a long time ago . She said consistent 70%

10:24

days are better than spotty 100% days . And

10:27

if you , if you run the math on that I'm not

10:29

a mathematician , but if you run the math on that

10:31

if you do seven

10:34

70% days , do

10:45

seven 70% days , that's 490

10:48

, seven times seven , 49 . If you do , even if you do four 100% days and then three

10:50

0% days , that's only 400 . So 70% days will get you further

10:52

than spotty 100s for sure . And

10:55

it's just a matter of how do we get

10:57

that to land within ourselves

10:59

. Logically it makes a lot of sense

11:01

, emotionally it doesn't always .

11:03

I was in the gym earlier today doing push day and

11:05

I

11:07

was feeling really good . I

11:10

don't know why , but for some reason today

11:12

I hit several PRs . I

11:15

have PRs for my 20s and

11:17

PRs for my 30s , so this is PR

11:19

in my 30s . Interesting yeah

11:22

, I had to reset Interesting . I

11:24

was very thrilled about it , but

11:26

anyways . So I call it a PR because it's Alan

11:29

in his 30s . Pr pisses

11:31

me off . But I

11:33

was doing close

11:35

grip bench and I had already

11:37

PR'd and a couple other things and

11:39

I was like I'm feeling really good today . I

11:41

think I'm going to put on 185

11:43

for close grip . And I was like

11:45

Alan , don't be dumb . Emilia's

11:48

on the other side of the gym , no

11:50

, don't be dumb . So

11:53

I ended up only putting 45

11:55

, a 10 and a 15 . 10

11:57

and a 15 , a 10 and a 5 ? 55

11:59

, 60 , 120 plus 45 . So you're looking

12:01

at 165 . So I ended up putting 165

12:04

. I got it up for five by myself , unassisted

12:07

. But the old me probably

12:09

would have put on the 185 and only gotten two

12:11

or three and it might have gotten

12:14

injured . Yeah

12:16

, I think it's arrogant . I do , and

12:18

I don't mean to call anyone arrogant . I think

12:20

I'm arrogant and I don't think I'm

12:22

super arrogant . I think that sometimes when you

12:24

feel really good , you do . You don't

12:27

conserve . It's offense and defense

12:29

. When you feel good

12:31

, play a little offense , see

12:33

if you can do a trick , switch , kick or

12:35

whatever . Insert metaphor here I'm thinking soccer

12:38

. I don't know why I'm thinking soccer , but you're

12:41

on offense . Yeah , maybe try a 360 dunk

12:43

. If you're feeling really good , give it a shot , but

12:45

don't only try to dunk from the foul

12:47

line . Resource

12:50

yourself , take care of yourself . And when

12:52

you wake up and you feel like shit , one of my clients

12:54

is not feeling well , he he canceled

12:56

our call on Monday . He actually had his wife email me and

13:00

I said okay , no stress , let's see if we can pull

13:02

it off on Thursday . Because she said can we reschedule

13:04

it later in the week ? I

13:07

would rather you show up less than

13:09

ideal and imperfect than

13:11

not show up at all , and I do

13:13

think a huge , huge , huge

13:15

advantage is just keeping momentum when you're

13:17

down and out .

13:18

That I

13:21

have a question . We don't have time to do it because

13:24

it's a deeper question but what's the difference between

13:26

maximizing and optimizing

13:28

Nice ? That's

13:30

one of the things

13:33

that I have adopted Again 35

13:35

, alan's 36 , things are different than

13:37

they were in the 20s .

13:38

Are you 35 ? Still I'm still 35

13:40

.

13:40

My birthday's in August , so I still a

13:44

fairly good amount of time yeah . Another three months , almost

13:46

four months , three and a half months . I

13:49

was talking to one of my buddies at the gym and

13:52

I said I heard an interview with somebody one

13:55

time and he said the

13:57

older you get , the less it is about maximizing

13:59

your workouts and the more it is about making

14:01

sure that you can come back to the gym tomorrow . And

14:03

I was like Ooh , oh , that's , and that's exactly

14:05

what we're talking about today . Yeah , that is exactly

14:07

, except what it should have been , even when

14:09

you're young I know , I know

14:12

, but it's different

14:14

. It's different in productivity because , in theory

14:16

, the older you get , the

14:18

more you can do with less in

14:21

fitness . It's the opposite . As you get older , things get heavier

14:24

in your body . It's your body's just not what it used to . Opposite

14:26

as you get older , things get heavier in your body . Your body's just not

14:28

what it used to be .

14:28

But as you get older , cognitively , you're capable of more . Yeah , organizationally yeah

14:31

.

14:31

Right . So if anything

14:33

, as

14:36

you learn how to do this more and more and more , you just

14:38

showing up , tomorrow is going to be way better than

14:40

it was a year ago , and

14:42

we just have to believe that , because if you don't believe it , you won't do

14:44

it . Obviously Right . If , if , if something

14:46

does not seem worth it , it would be a logical

14:48

to do it . But if

14:52

you're falling into that position and you feel like you

14:54

resonate with that , yeah , I , I

15:00

have cycles . I feel terrible because I'm not doing it , and then I I guilt myself into doing

15:02

it and then I overdo it and becomes the cycle . This is something potentially that's

15:04

applicable to you .

15:07

What if I told you that consistency

15:12

compounds more than you think

15:14

, especially in the long term ? You

15:16

asked me about maximization and optimization .

15:19

We have a couple minutes . I have two minutes

15:21

because I got to get out of here and I got to get

15:23

into another room for a podcast episode because

15:26

I got to get out of here and I got to get into another room for a podcast

15:28

episode .

15:34

Maximizing is trying to reach a pinnacle point in the

15:36

future . I think maximizing is an infinite

15:38

game that never ends you never . There's no one on earth who couldn't

15:40

get a little stronger if they tried . So

15:45

maximizing is a long game . Optimizing

15:47

is how

15:49

you maximize . So optimizing

15:52

is what you do and don't do

15:54

in the present , based

15:57

on what you're trying to maximize . So

15:59

what are you optimizing for Right now ? I'm optimizing

16:01

for getting this said in the

16:03

next 30 seconds so kev can

16:05

get out of here . I'm optimizing

16:07

for the value

16:10

that I can provide in in the next 30 seconds

16:12

. I'm maximizing the value

16:14

of this podcast that's

16:18

it .

16:19

Okay , I don't know if that was a dramatic pause . You had

16:21

a couple seconds left . I thought you might want to use it up . No

16:24

, I think that's it perfect all right cool next

16:28

level nation . If you are looking to

16:30

see , that was a dramatic pause right there . If you are looking

16:33

for a group of like-minded humans who are into personal

16:35

development and talking about weird stuff and

16:37

, uh , self-awareness and self-belief

16:39

and hype for consciousness , we have a

16:42

private facebook group called next level .

16:44

We will have the link below in the show notes and

16:47

if you're looking for a

16:50

book club , nice

16:52

Reset by Dan Heath . This

16:54

will help you design your life in a way

16:57

that will help you be consistent , especially , yeah

16:59

, when you're down and out . Keep after it . Try

17:01

to keep momentum when

17:04

you're really flying high , stay humble Boom .

17:05

All right , as always . We love you , we appreciate

17:07

you , grateful for each and every one of you . And at NLU

17:10

we do not have fans , we have family . We will talk

17:12

to you all tomorrow .

17:13

Keep it consistent .

17:20

Next Level Nation . Thanks for joining

17:22

us for another episode of Next Level University .

17:24

We love connecting with the Next Level family . We

17:26

mean it when we say family . If

17:31

you ever need anything , please reach out to us directly .

17:32

Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes . Thank you again and we will

17:34

talk to you tomorrow .