Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Hello, welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. Today we have Kevin, my friend Kevin is here to share with us. First of all, you can listen to your intuition and how you can naively step into the unknown because of following your purpose and going after something that is much bigger than you. Kevin is a speaker, a coach, the CFO and founder of Next Level University. And before I go any further, please help me welcome Kevin Palmieri.
00:28
Roberta, thank you so much for having me. If our talk behind the scenes was anything, I know this is gonna be a wonderful episode. So thank you again. I'm very much looking forward to it. Your story is very intriguing now. Tekes, first of all, just give us a bit of your background. Yes, so I grew up in a single parent household. I was raised, technically I had two parents. I was raised by my mother and my grandmother. I didn't technically meet my dad until I was 27. I had spent time with him early on in my life, but I was too young to remember. So...
00:57
I met my dad when I was 27 and that was one of the most difficult and courageous things I ever had to do and that unlocked a lot in me. But I was kind of a townie person who went from job to job to job and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. And eventually I got the opportunity to work a great high paying job, but I was always looking for more. And I remember one day I opened up my final pay stub of the year and my goal for that year was to make $100,000.
01:26
with no college degree and I did. And when I opened that pay stub, nothing changed. I was still unhappy. I was still insecure. I was still wanting more. And that is when my life started to pivot from chasing a life of profit to chasing and pursuing a life of purpose. And honestly, the last, you know, that was five years ago, that whole situation, the last five years of my life has been the most extraordinary part of my life for sure. 100%.
01:55
Do you think that when you are raised in a single parent household, you become the odd kid because everybody in class is both their parents? Yeah. Was that how you felt or in the community where you live, maybe half the population had parents had been divorced? For me, it was really tough because I think back to my reference group and I think back to three or four of my best friends and they all had what was perceived as wonderful families. They had mom, dad, sister or brother.
02:24
mom, dad, sister, or brother. They all had houses. We had always rented. We have never, as a family, we had never owned a house and everybody had nice homes and they had backyards and they had dogs. And how did that make you feel being different? Yeah, I felt like I was the one on the island. I felt left out. I felt lonely. I felt like I couldn't connect with people. And I was blessed because a lot of my friends, their dads tried to take me under their wing, which. It's beautiful.
02:51
you don't understand in the moment. You don't really know what's happening. But now that I look back with a higher level of awareness, it's like, oh, they really were trying to be a father figure for me. That's very interesting. And I'm very grateful for that look. Congratulations on making a hundred thousand with a college degree, because I think that's always been sold as the idea of the only way you're going to get to those numbers is to have a college degree. First of all, when you were earning that kind of money, what is it that you felt missing if you say there was nothing inside of you that changed or felt different?
03:21
In 2017, that was the big year. That was the big year for me. The year prior, my girlfriend left me. If you think about it this way in 2016, I have my dream car. My girlfriend's a model. I have a brand new apartment. I just did a bodybuilding show. So I was in the best shape of my life. Everything seemed amazing. When my girlfriend left me at the end of 2016. And the reason was? After my bodybuilding show.
03:50
I was super depressed. I was developing anxiety that I don't know that I knew I had before, at least it was showing for the first time. I was just a shell of myself. I wasn't bad to her. I wasn't mean or any of that, but I just wasn't the man that I was in the beginning of the relationship. I wasn't, I was- You know when the depression started? I think for me, I've had it for probably forever. I just didn't know it. I didn't know, I didn't recognize, and I didn't try to fix it.
04:19
So if you don't know you have something, if you're not aware, it's really hard to put a stop to it. But I think what happened, Roberta, is when I started the relationship with this person, I was like, I'm going to do whatever I can to keep this. Right. And that's not abundant. But isn't that normal in a sense that when we started a new relationship, we always wanted to work out, we have the best hopes for it. Is that kind of normal or was there something more to that to you wanting to keep it because she's a model? That was part of it. Good in public.
04:48
Yep, that was part of it. It was because of my approval seeking, that was it. I was seeking approval. You know who I was probably seeking approval from? Subconsciously, other men. Hey, look, look at how awesome of a man I am. I have- So I'm handy, yeah. I have all these things. I have tattoos and I have the body in the car and she's a model, you know? I think I was looking for approval subconsciously from other men, most likely. As in representing your dad. Yeah, trying to find that piece that I had never had before, yeah.
05:15
Okay, so when she left and you found you had depression and anxiety. Yeah, that part in my life. So when she left, she took the kitchen chairs because the kitchen chairs were hers. So I was standing at my kitchen table because I didn't have any chairs. I remember it's like, not only is it silent in the house because I live by myself now, but it's silent and this empty, lonely, soul sucking feeling of everything I thought I had just went away.
05:44
None of it was real anyway. I wasn't confident. I wasn't happy, but I pretended I was because I thought I should be. Yeah. And when she left the whole front fell down and it was so much awareness at once, and at that point I had tried therapy in the past, I had tried it and it helped, but I don't think I really understood myself at a deep enough level. And when she left a lot of that resurfaced.
06:08
I took all of that pain. I took all of that despair. I took all of that uncertainty. And I said, this next year is going to be the most successful year of my life. And I worked my face off. I was on the road for the next 10 out of the 12 months, every week I was on the road. Yeah. Driving sometimes 12 hours to the job site, staying in a hotel. I did whatever it took to make the money. I thought that was going to fix it. That's been a theme in my life, Roberta.
06:32
that the money is going to fix it. Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't. But that's what's common though. We always chase it because we've been made to believe that that's what fixes everything. If I just had more money, I'll get the validation, the approval, being in the circles that I think I should be in, everything in my life, all the problems will go away if I just had more money. Yeah, well, I think human beings are naturally pointed towards chasing happiness. And I think what I have today that I didn't have back then is fulfillment.
07:00
Happiness is results driven. Explain that that's very key because we think what we are chasing will fulfill us. That's a very good perspective I just heard from you. What we think we are chasing, we think it's gonna fulfill us, but we call it happiness. Explain the difference. This is very intriguing. From my perspective, and a lot of this, I have to give credit to my business partner, co-host Alan too. He taught me a lot of this, but I think happiness is results driven. If I lose 15 pounds in the next 15 weeks, I will be happy.
07:29
If I drink this coffee, I will be happy. All right. Cool. I think due to what Alan has helped me uncover that fulfillment is the soul's recognition of alignment with its greatest potential, with its greatest self, with its ultimate purpose. There's a reason I was more fulfilled when I was broke podcasting than when I was wealthy doing something that was out of alignment, the problem with fulfillment is it doesn't lead to results right away.
07:57
And I think people assume that, well, how can it be fulfilling if I don't have any results? Yeah. It's always about the destination. The destination dictates the journey, but the journey is what you're on for 99.9% of the time you're on the journey for most of the time. So the journey has to fulfill you. And if it doesn't, you're going to end up getting to the end and saying, why was I doing that anyway? So you might even get the money that you think was going to solve everything. But if you went and joined the journey, that's why when you opened that last pay stop, you went fulfilled. You were happy.
08:27
So if your journey doesn't fulfill you, the happiness at the end is not going to be what you thought it was supposed to be. No, especially if you think it's the end all be all. There's no such thing as just being happy. What happens tomorrow though? If tomorrow you wake up and the house burns down, you're not going to be happy about that understandably.
08:45
But I do believe it's the intuitive part of why do I love doing this so much? What makes me love what I'm doing today so much? Well, I'm growing beyond what I ever thought I could. I'm contributing. We've been heard in 120 countries. Like we're contributing to the planet. That's amazing. That's awesome. We're making more money than I ever have before. I am engaged to be married. There's so many- Congratulations. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. There's so many things that have come together.
09:14
All of those things together are happy. Yes, I'm happy I'm getting married. I'm happy we're making more money. But the thing that motivates me more than anything is I am fulfilled because we're contributing to something greater than ourselves. And so the rest of the stuff just came after you started working towards that purpose. When I get better and not intrinsically better, I think intrinsically as humans, we're all wonderful. But when I become more competent and more capable, I am able to impact
09:44
more people. I am able to contribute at a deeper level. I am able to multiply my growth. That's when money, that's when opportunity, that's when everything comes. When you become more capable, you become more capable of impact, profitability, mastery, and everything that comes with it. But capability has to start. Like they say, you are what you attract, not just in relationships, but in kind of opportunities you attract when you seek validation are very different from the kind of opportunities you attract when you are on your purpose.
10:13
It's kind of off the beaten path here, but it does connect. I think of people who grow up in a family where their parents or whoever it is says, you're not just insert. You're not enough, not good enough, not tall enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not blank enough. That becomes that person's identity. And it's no wonder they attract those types of people into their life. It's no wonder why they tend to have negative relationships because they assume that's what they're.
10:40
capable of, you're only capable of attracting what you believe you're capable of. Do you just attract what's already there? Obviously we all want to learn, right? I have a bookshelf, I have books here. I love learning, I love reading, I love listening to audiobooks, I love all that. But what's just as important as learning is unlearning. Yeah, you can read every book in the world and you should, but you've got to read the book of yourself first to figure out why am I making the decisions I'm making? Very rarely are you going to read a book that teaches you about you.
11:09
you have to look into your past unless you wrote the book. I like the wisdom that comes with reflecting back, looking at how I did things then and how I can do them differently now to get different results. So that time to reflect, nobody's going to give you that. It's interesting because all you need is reconditioning. There's somebody on a team and I've been talking to this person for the last year. And I said, we were having this conversation about this person becoming a professional speaker. And I said, why can't you become a professional speaker?
11:38
This person was like, well, my family told me I wasn't good enough and blah, blah, all these things. And I said, what if they're wrong? And I'm right. I said, well, look at me. I've been paid thousands of dollars to speak. We've gone places and spoken. Do you agree? And think about this hard. Do you agree that I probably know a little bit more about what it takes to become a professional speaker than somebody who's never spoken.
11:57
Yes. And that's just unconditioning of the only reason you believe it is because you heard it for the first 15 years of your life. Of course you're going to believe it. Exactly. From people who did not speak. Why ask for financial advice from somebody who's broke? Don't we do that all the time? We ask our friends, should I open a business? And they say, no, of course they're going to say, no, they've never opened a business. Why do we do that? Why do we ask the most unqualified people for advice? Because oftentimes the most unqualified people are the ones that we love the most.
12:24
Yeah. And growing up, I thought everybody who was older knew better. I thought my family knew more. They had more experience in life, but I've read more books. Yeah. I would say that fairly confidently. I've probably read more books than my entire family. And that's okay. They want something different than I do, but just because somebody is older, just because they raised you, it does not mean that they know what's best for you. They most likely don't. You're the person who lays your head down at the end of the night on your pillow with your thoughts. Nobody else knows what you're actually thinking.
12:54
And in a weird way, nobody really knows what you're capable of because they can't really, they can't unless they've done what you want to do and you're walking in their footsteps. But other than that, I'm convinced of this, Roberta, most people are not afraid to lose relationships. They're afraid to lose love. They're afraid to lose what is perceived as love. Unfortunately, I think in many of these relationships, that love is just attention. That's all it is. It's attention.
13:23
It's company. There's people out there right now, if you're watching or listening. And again, our message at Next Level U is heart-driven, but no BS. So if anything I say comes off as hardcore, I apologize, but it's all with heart, I promise. If you're out there right now, and the people closest to you do not know your dreams because you're afraid of what they will think, or you're afraid that they'll tear you down, you're not not telling them because of love. You're not staying in that relationship because they love you unconditionally. You're staying in that relationship because you're afraid to be alone.
13:52
It's a tension. It's- We are tribal by nature though, to be part of a group. Yeah. But what if that's not where you belong? Cause it's not. When you are pursuing your purpose, it does feel lonely. Because like you said, you're the only one in your thoughts. You're the only one who understands where you want to go. So it is a lonely road. Yeah. Yeah. But nowadays, and this is the beautiful thing, and obviously the pandemic and quarantine and all that made it very difficult for mental health and all things connection.
14:20
Nowadays, you can go on Facebook and you type in entrepreneur, and there's a thousand groups that are going to come up that are filled with other entrepreneurs, podcasters, speakers, coaches, dairy farmers, anything you can find. So you've got to get comfortable with the space between who you are and who you want to be. That's you getting out of your comfort zone. So there's the comfort zone. That's the smallest ring. And the next ring out is the learning zone. And then the furthest ring out is the anxiety zone. I think most people either stay in comfort
14:48
or they bounce from comfort to anxiety, comfort to anxiety. You got to figure out where your learning zone is and then expand your learning zone. And that just takes time. Learning and unlearning, as you said, belief system that you held that was holding you back, having to unlearn that, having somebody mirror that back to you and say, hey, is it really true that you're not a speaker? Like you asked. Yeah, that's the hardest part. Everything else.
15:11
comparatively, depending on who you are in your circumstances, is probably a little bit easier because you looking into the book of your past and digging up old memories and then connecting dots of, oh my goodness, that's why I've been acting this way because of this fear, that can be very painful. And I think the reason we regret as human beings is because we look back with a higher sense of awareness and say, oh, I never should have done that. Well, you didn't know that at the time.
15:37
And if you did know better, you kind of got to be, because if you didn't know better, you couldn't do better. It's painful to look back, but you can use it now to avoid that happening again. And part two, you can use that now to help people avoid that at their point in that journey, but use your pain as your purpose. So when it comes to moving into that learning zone, did you do anything in particular in order to be comfortable in the discomfort and expanding your learning zone after you.
16:05
quit your very secure a hundred thousand dollar a year job? Yeah. So I wouldn't take my journey because I definitely lived in the anxiety zone for probably two years. There was no learning for me. It was going from making very good money. When I left that job, I had money in the bank. I moved in with my best friend. My rent went from $1,400 a month to 500. So I was saving money. For me, it was constantly doing things out of my comfort zone. It was hard. It was probably negative.
16:34
The amount of things that I did that were outside of my comfort zone, whether it was flying across the country when I'm terrified of planes or going to networking events, like one of the scariest things I've ever done. I hadn't been on a plane since I was like eight years old. So it had been 20 years since I'd been on a plane and I have huge anxiety around planes, huge anxiety. We get on a plane. We fly to Florida from Massachusetts to spend a week with one of our mentors who I had never met or no, I met once and we're living in his house for the week. Very strange.
17:03
I had an anxiety attack when we got there. Then we fly to Boston again. And then we fly across the country to Arizona for a Brendan Murchard event. That was four days. Oh yes. I know Brandon. Yeah. Big fan. I love Brendan. And the whole time I was there, I thought I had hair stuck in my throat because I didn't know what anxiety was. I had anxiety the entire time. It was a hundred degrees. We're eating lunch outside and I literally couldn't even eat because I had such bad anxiety, my throat was closing up. I had no idea what was going on. I thought I was dying. I had no clue.
17:32
what was going on, I was way outside my comfort zone, arguably too far outside of my comfort zone. It's hard because oftentimes it's the necessity of our situation that determines where we actually are on the spectrum of comfort. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to stay comfortable because I needed to find a way to start making money pretty quickly. You didn't have time to sit and feel sorry for yourself. No, no, that's now a giant benefit.
18:00
And now my grit and my perseverance is the highest it's ever been. And, you know, I was broke for four years. So there was a part, Roberta, where we had a podcast studio and my car had number one, the brakes were basically gone. So that was the whole thing. But anytime I would be going under 10 miles an hour, my car would just stall in an intersection, getting off a street, taking a right turn. Yep. Didn't matter. And I would have to turn on while I was rolling down the street and rev it up to get it going.
18:26
And I couldn't afford to fix it because it was going to be like 800 bucks to fix. And then the engine ended up blowing completely. And I kept driving it for several months after that, because I couldn't afford a new car yet. And you don't have the CTA in Massachusetts, like we're doing in Chicago. No, not like, not like that. No, not where I was living. So the point I'm making is your destination is going to determine your journey. Your destination is ultimately going to determine how much outside of your comfort zone you have to be. If you don't want to change at all, you never have to be discomfort.
18:55
ever. You stay the same. And that's easy. Do we admit to ourselves that we don't want to change at all? Or when it gets a little uncomfortable, we say, you know what, I like the status quo. So not that I like it. I prefer it. Then this discomfort and this unknowing, then this dark place I'm stepping into. Because we like the secure, I know, I know the devil I'm dealing with. Yep. Yep. It's so interesting because you, in a weird way, I'd like the devil I know versus the devil I don't, right? The devil I know, at least I know the devil I don't.
19:23
The devil you don't know also is the everything else you don't know. Like when you go through the devil, you don't know you get to paradise because everything is a possibility when you get through that, because you're leaving so much on the table, if you're out there right now and you were thinking the same way I was thinking of, I can never have a podcast. If I went through my life forever thinking I could never have a podcast. If I didn't have that belief that we could do it.
19:50
there's 0% chance I'd be talking to Roberta right now. Exactly. Zero. It's not even an opportunity. It's like going to a vending machine and wanting something and it not being in there. You can't purchase it if it doesn't exist. I think belief is the same thing. I really do. More than ever, I think belief is the most important facet in the human condition, because without belief, you're relying on luck or you're relying on somebody else to pull you along and neither of those are sustainable. You miss all the shots you don't take.
20:17
What is the one thing that people can do today to unlearn, start unlearning some of the limiting beliefs that they're holding right now? Yeah, I think one of the most important things is to start going a layer deeper. And what do I mean by that? So if you have an argument with your partner, I try to do this constantly, my partner and I are really, really good about this. What we'll do after is usually we'll go our separate ways for a little bit and we'll both reflect. And I'll think, okay, why did I say what I said? Why did I say it?
20:46
that way, why did I get so triggered? Oh, when she asked me if I could put the dishes away, maybe she said it in a way that felt like she was talking down to me. And my ego flared because I had to assert my dominance as a man. That's just me going a layer deeper. Okay, where did that come from? Oh, maybe it came from the fact that I assumed I had to be masculine all the time in order to get love. Boom. You just ask yourself why. Why did I do that? Because of this. Okay, well, why did that happen?
21:14
Well, I thought this was happening. Okay, why did I think this was happening? My last partner cheated on me. Okay, why did my last partner cheat on me? I think it was my fault. Okay, why was it my fault? And then you get to the root cause of maybe your last partner cheated on you because they were just untrustworthy. Doesn't mean you did anything wrong. And that changes the complete perspective.
21:34
the complete opportunity of your next relationship. I really just think it's asking yourself the hard questions and then answering them. And taking responsibility instead of obviously, yes. Like everybody's coming at me. Because I think that's where we usually jump to, ooh, Kevin just triggered me, you know, kind of stand him. Somebody else had said the exact same thing I did. Would I be just as triggered as I was? So is it him or is it me? For sure.
21:56
That has been the hardest part of my journey is dealing with different insecurities because in the business we're in, I'm in front of people often and I work with somebody who is a genius. My business partner and my co-host is a genius, not just saying that he is unreasonably intelligent, 1% of 1% of 1% intelligent. So for me being around that, I've had to face so many mirrors and say, okay.
22:19
Did Alan make me feel a certain way or do I feel a certain way because I feel a certain way? There's a big difference between somebody making you feel something and you making yourself feel something through something you've dealt with in the past. So they triggered something in you, not because they wanted to or they intended to. It was triggered by whatever was already there. People are mirrors.
22:41
If say at the end of this, Roberta and I were to flex and you looked and we both have bigger muscles than you. And you might say one of two things, you could say, wow, they've really been doing an awesome job in the gym. That's awesome. That's so inspiring. Or if you get triggered, you might say, what an egotistical thing to do. I cannot believe they just did that. It happens. It definitely happens. And, but this is the thing, there's people on both ends. Some people would flex to be- Always, always. We live in the social media world where everybody's-
23:09
comments on everything and they will always vary of comments. Let's support whatever said on the video, new comments that are totally against it based on their experiences. There is nothing to do with what is said on the hundred percent. It's hard to understand intent. It might not be my intent to trigger somebody. Again, when we talk about podcast things, I know sometimes when I'm talking to somebody, I can trigger them with however many listens or the level of perceived success, or some people are super inspired and they say, Oh my goodness, I want to do that too. I want to be where you guys are.
23:39
I'm just saying the same thing. And then you have to reflect on why did it inspire you? It inspires you because you believe you can do it. Why did it trigger you? Cause you probably don't believe you can do it yet. That's okay. I've been there too, a million times. But don't make it about Kevin. Is it all this guy? Trust me. I definitely don't. I have more limiting beliefs on a daily basis than more humans. I believe that. Kevin, you say your motto is your daily habits. What are some of your daily habits?
24:04
Please don't let this overwhelm you if you're watching this or listening to this. I track 24 habits a day. I track podcast listens, dollars earned and net income and all that gross and profit margin and all that stuff. I post on social media, I post on my story. I send a video to all of my new followers. I don't miss, I haven't missed the habit in six months. I think people are looking for ways into which they can establish that kind of discipline. Whatever it is they need to do. It starts small.
24:31
That's the thing is like, if you're listening, you say, oh, I can never do 25 things a day. Trust me, when I started this, I was doing five. I was getting 50% done. So this is what I like to say. Okay, we break things into health, wealth and love. Health, wealth, love. What are you doing right now today when it comes to your love? Whether it's self-love or love with a partner or love with a family, whatever it may be. Okay, cool. Write that down. For most people, it's not much. They're just like, I don't really know. I don't really have any systems. Awesome. I didn't either, I totally understand.
25:00
What's one thing you can do every day? Last night, my partner and I are lying in bed. Before we go to bed, every night we say one thing we're grateful for about one another. Every night, one habit, two minutes. Cool, okay. Wealth, start tracking your finances. You will not believe how much money you're spending on coffee if you're not tracking your finances. Every time you spend on coffee, put it on a spreadsheet and you'll see how much. Oh, it's painful, painful. $4 times five is 20 bucks a week. You know, that's 80 bucks a month. That adds up, $960 a year, 100%. And then health, weigh yourself.
25:30
Track your calories, make sure you're doing one hour of movement a day or five hours of movement a week or whatever it may be. Those small shifts, they don't seem like they're doing a lot, but what people don't realize is that small shift is the first of potential many. It's the first of potential many and another deeper level. If you want a result, say you want to have a successful podcast, because that's what I talk about because I'm a podcaster. What are the five most important things you should be doing?
25:54
I don't think people reverse engineer what actually goes into their success. They just don't understand the formula yet. Everything is a formula, right? People talk about the algorithm on Instagram. All the algorithm is, is a formula. Nope. That's it. And everything do you want to, okay. You want to become financially free, make more money, spend less money than you earn and less on coffee and invest the difference in something that will grow consistently over time. That is a life that leads to wealth. If you want to become in better shape, track your calories.
26:23
Eat under your maintenance amount. If you want to lose weight, eat more. If you want to gain weight, weigh yourself and then make sure you're drinking water. That's super important. And then love, it's just make sure you're focused on it. Make sure you're, make sure you have some sort of practice, some sort of weekly check-in, some sort of daily check-in, whatever it may be, it's just creating a system behind the scenes that people who have the best results in front of the camera, in front of the audience, in front of the stadium, they have the best systems behind the scenes. That's why they get to where they're actually trying to get to.
26:50
Daily habits, biggest difference between who you are and who you want to be is your daily habits. Thank you so much, Kevin. Now, before we close, please give us your social course. Of course. I appreciate it. I am at never quit kid on Instagram. You can find me at Kevin Palmieri on Facebook and LinkedIn and then next level university, seven episodes a week, all the major podcast platforms, YouTube, all that happy jazz. If you're trying to learn it, we most likely have an episode about it somewhere in the interwebs. Kevin, thank you so much. We're going to start this daily habits today.
27:19
Thank you so much, Roberta. And it's really a journey to fulfillment. I really enjoyed our conversation. Likewise.