November 5, 2024 • 48 mins
In this episode of The Wayfinder Show, host Luis Hernandez interviews Kevin Palmieri, founder and host of Next Level University, a top global self-improvement podcast. Kevin shares his journey from a troubled childhood, working various jobs, and struggling with mental health issues to becoming a successful full-time podcaster. They discuss the importance of vulnerability, overcoming limiting beliefs, and finding the right amount of fear to face. Kevin also shares insights on habit tracking, the value of progress, and the journey to financial and personal success.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
We could have faced the feartogether instead of you
thinking, I think you suckbecause you're nervous.
I'm always nervous.
You're fine.
You should just tell me.
We can do it.
We can do it together.
Vulnerability around the rightpeople is the best possible
thing you can do.
(00:23):
Welcome to The Wayfinder Showwith Luis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
area of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
(00:44):
Come join us and find the way toyour dream life.
Welcome back to the Wayfindershow.
I'm your host, Luis Hernandez.
I'm trying to build a great,podcast.
And now we're at a point where Ithink we're stabilized.
(01:05):
We've done over a hundredepisodes, been about a year and
a half.
And, to level up, I always talkabout surrounding yourself with
people who are just doing itbetter than you.
So today, we got somebody who'salready doing it at a really
high level and his name is Mr.
Kevin Palmieri.
Kevin is the founder and host ofNext Level University.
It's a top, a global top 100self improvement podcast with
(01:28):
over 1, 800 episodes andreaching over a million people.
In more than 170 countries,after a brush with suicide in
his younger years, he decided togo all in on his dreams of being
a full time podcaster andentrepreneur.
he believes in a heart driven,but no BS approach to holistic
(01:49):
self improvement and teachingothers how to get to the next
level of their lives.
Kevin, welcome to the Wayfindershow.
Louis, thank you so very muchfor having me.
We had a wonderful dialoguebehind the scenes.
you're a good human.
So I'm excited to chat and seewhere our conversation takes us
today.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, so you like I say you'repretty much already doing
everything I want to do when Igrow up this is a real privilege
(02:11):
for me So tell me all yoursecrets.
No, really if we could juststart off with you I've heard
quite a bit about you alreadyBut you know if you can just
share with our listeners whohaven't heard of you a little
bit about your origin storyYeah, I was raised by my mom and
my grandmother I didn't know mydad, I didn't meet my dad until
I was 27.
(02:31):
And definitely grew up lowermiddle class, talked often about
how we were gonna pay rent.
So that's something that hasstuck with me to this day, and
that's one of the things I'malways trying to uncondition.
I didn't really feel smart, Inever thought I was gonna be
smart.
So after high school I decidedthat college just wasn't for me.
The route for me, it justdidn't, I didn't know what I
wanted to do with my life.
And I didn't really want to pacesomebody thousands of dollars a
(02:54):
year to help me find out, So Istayed back when all my friends
went away to college and Ipumped gas at a local gas
station.
And then I left that job and Iwas a personal trainer and I was
a truck driver, forkliftoperator.
I cleaned bathrooms and floorsat a hospital.
I did many, many, many things.
I always thought that if I justmade a lot of money, that would
fix all my problems.
(03:15):
That was always my thing.
Let me find a job that pays mereally well and my life will get
drastically easier.
So eventually, I landed a job inan industry called
weatherization.
So it was our job to go intobuildings and make them more
energy efficient.
So we'd work in attics, we'dwork on roofs, we'd work in the
basement, whatever it was,windows, doors, that type of
stuff.
(03:35):
And I essentially went frommaking 15 an hour in
construction to anywhere from 60to 120 an hour doing this job.
So in my mind, Louie, I'veaccomplished the thing.
I made it.
I never thought I was going tobe successful.
Most people never thought I wasgoing to be successful.
And here I am making really goodmoney.
So if you were to look at mewhen I was 25, you would see a
(03:59):
young man who had a really goodjob.
I was getting ready to competein a bodybuilding show, so I was
quite literally in the bestshape of my life, out of anybody
I knew.
My girlfriend at the time was amodel.
I had a sports car, I hadeverything you could ever want.
But internally, I was verymiserable.
And I was depressed, and I wasanxious, and I was insecure, and
(04:19):
I was uncertain of the future,and I just was not a confident
human being.
Girlfriend left me, because Iwas a shell of myself, and it
was very hard to pour intosomebody else's dreams when I
could barely pour into my own.
When she left, I convincedmyself that I just hadn't made
enough money yet.
That's the issue is, I made goodmoney, but I haven't made good
(04:40):
enough money.
So then I spent the next yeargrinding my face off trying to
make as much money as humanlypossible.
And I made the most money I'dever made.
I opened my final pay stub.
And I realized that I spent thisentire year chasing this fake
dream, this thing that I thoughtwas a promise that really wasn't
a promise.
(05:01):
And I spent a lot of my lifeliving unconsciously.
The opposite of unconscious ishyperconscious.
So in 2017, I started a podcastcalled the hyperconscious
podcast, and that is where allof this began next year.
I'm still doing my job because Ihave to find a way to pay the
bills.
As you know, in the beginning,Louie, there's not a line out
the door of people saying you'vegot a great idea.
(05:23):
Let me give you a boatload ofmoney so you can podcast for a
living.
Unfortunately, it ended upgetting to the point where I sat
on the edge of a bed debatingsuicide because I was so
miserable and I love thispodcasting thing and I really
wanted to do it for a living,but I didn't think I could.
And I thought I was going to bestuck at this job forever.
And.
I was afraid to start over andlose my reputation and look like
(05:44):
a loser.
But then in 2018, I ended upleaving my job and I've been
doing this full time since 2018.
Yeah, that's amazing.
So I think that's the dream.
When I first started thepodcast, I had a partner and I
wasn't too sure where it wouldgo.
We both were, we said we'd giveit a year and we gave it a year.
And he bought a business andwent on to do that.
(06:05):
And I realized I love doing thismore than anything else.
I have a successful businessalready.
But the more I do this, the moreI realize this is what I want to
do full time, You wondersometimes, right?
Like, is it worthwhile?
Is it, you know, is my reallyproviding value?
Am I going to get anything outof it?
Is this just a big waste oftime?
How did, how did you deal withthat?
(06:28):
I'm very blessed because mybusiness partner is the most
confident human being on theplanet.
There is no self doubt in thisman.
So, he said, Kev, we will besuccessful.
It's just a matter of how longit will take.
You cannot add meaningful valueinto somebody's life for as long
as we will and not achieve somelevel of success.
(06:49):
So, I've had belief injectedinto me that I didn't
necessarily have myself.
I never thought I'd becomplimented on my speaking
ability or my podcasting abilityor my coaching ability or my
business acumen or my salesacumen.
That was never a part of this.
I did always have a deep beliefthat if I could survive long
enough to make this something,it would be worth it.
(07:10):
That was always something I had.
If I, to your point, I love thisso much that if I could find a
way to make a sustainable lifedoing it, I'd be the most
fulfilled person on the planet.
So.
It was really just probably to adetriment and probably to a
destructive amount gettingoutside of my comfort zone,
living outside of my comfortzone, and then trying to learn
(07:35):
all of the stuff that I didn'tknow yet that I needed to know
in order to succeed.
That was really the big piecefor me.
I'm not a natural entrepreneur.
I didn't know anything aboutbusiness sales people.
I didn't really know anythingabout that.
So it was really filling in thegaps that I needed to fill in.
I've had a coach since the verybeginning because my business
partner is a genius and a reallygood coach.
So I'm blessed that I've hadsomebody in my corner since the
(07:57):
beginning who has been coachingme on my weaknesses in the
places I need to grow since 2017essentially.
Yeah, how did you meet yourpartner?
I think his name is Alan.
Is it?
Yeah.
Yeah, we went to middle schooltogether and we played spin the
bottle with the popular girls inmiddle school in his basement So
we were very good friends.
And then in high school He wasgetting the president's award
(08:20):
and on a roll and super smart Iwas a jock going to the captains
of the baseball team didn'treally care about school So we
didn't really get along in highschool, then we didn't talk for
years after that.
And then a few years after hegraduated college, we
reconnected, he was actually thefirst guest on my podcast.
(08:42):
And then from there, we juststarted hanging out and talking
about life and talking aboutphilosophy.
And then when I left my job, wepartnered up, we said, look,
we're going to, we might as welldo this together.
We both love it.
I feel like I'm gonna be waymore successful if I have
someone like him in my corner.
I don't really know why hepartnered up with me.
I didn't, I don't think I hadthat much value to add at the
time, but I'm grateful it workedthe way it did.
(09:04):
So yeah, we grew up in the sametown and we knew each other for
a long time.
And then as we became young men,things kind of started to align
with each other.
and core beliefs and coreaspirations.
Oh, that's interesting.
was he already a successfulbusiness person when you started
to put the podcast together?
He was definitely moresuccessful than I was.
(09:24):
He went to, Worcester PolytechInstitute.
So he has a degree in electricaland computer engineering.
And a master's in business.
So he knew a lot about business,but he was kind of doing the
influencer fitness coach,fitness model route.
(09:46):
And it looked like a really coollife.
So it was something that madesense to me.
I was like, that looks reallycool.
I'd like to be a part of that insome capacity.
Yeah, I know exactly where thatschool is.
So, you know, right?
So I'm wondering were you allwhen you were going all in in a
podcast?
Was it did he decide to do thesame thing or did he keep the
(10:06):
other job no, no, he had a verysimilar path where he was making
really good money and In a verysuccessful sales role and he
ended up leaving a couple yearsor a year before I left my job
And then he was just kind ofmaking content learning growing
investing in himself And when Ileft I knew we were going to
(10:28):
partner up.
That was already kind of thediscussion We had already
podcasted together.
We were hanging out a lot.
We were working out a lot So hehad already left his job a year
or two before I did which is oneof the reasons I left mine
because I saw somebody who didit and it was like, all right,
he left a really lucrativecareer.
I'm going to do the same thing.
At least he has experience inthat.
Yeah.
(10:49):
So initially I imagine thoughyou, the podcast wasn't making
any money, right?
No, no, no, no.
So when did you get it, did youdecide, Hey, I'd, I'd had, we'd
have to make this much and thenI'd quit.
Or did you guys just go all in,save some, Yeah, I, after I had,
so in 2017 or early 2018, that'swhen I had the suicidal ideation
(11:13):
at my job and my job was a bigreason behind it.
It was just stressful and I wastraveling all over the place and
I just was trading in all of mycertainty and my freedom that I
wanted to be on the road all thetime.
So when I left, it was, we aregoing all in on this.
And this is going to be ourthing.
And we're going to work as longas it takes to make this
(11:36):
successful.
So there was no plan B.
I saved up, I think I had like10, 000 in the bank.
And then I had access to like30, 000 in credit cards.
So I had like a 40, 000 runway.
He had some money in the bank.
But not as much as we needed.
So we didn't make money for thefirst like 2 years.
And it got, it got dark over thefirst couple years.
(12:00):
Wow.
so what did you do to turn itaround and actually start
monetizing?
you just, you know, Joe Rogandiscovered you and you signed on
with him and that's it, right?
And he gave us millions ofdollars and that was it.
That was the end of the story.
I had burnt through all of mysavings.
I was 000 in credit card debt.
And I went to Alan and I said,dude, I need to start making
(12:20):
money.
I can't sustain this.
And he said, well, what youshould do is you should start
coaching for free.
And I said, I don't know if youunderstood what I said.
I need to start making money,dollars, any dollars.
And he said, well, we have aself improvement podcast.
Our audience is obviously intoself improvement.
You've studied self improvementmore than anybody in the
(12:40):
audience.
Why don't you start coaching ouraudience on self improvement?
But since you don't have anyexperience and you don't have
any credibility you could do itfor free just to get So I
reached out to five people who Iknew listened to the podcast and
I just messaged them and justsaid, Louis, I know you listen
to the podcast.
It's obvious to me that you'reinto growth because you listen
(13:00):
to a podcast about growth.
I'm thinking of doing coaching.
I've never done it before.
I will coach you for free for, Ithink it was eight weeks, every
week, no strings attached.
You don't have to give me anymoney.
You don't have to sign up withme at the end, but I want to see
what it's about.
Are you interested?
And everybody said, yes, allfive people said yes.
So then I went on to coach themfor the next couple of months.
(13:23):
And then at the end, everybodysaid they wanted to keep going.
So I got five clients.
They were all paying me 50 acall.
And that's where I started.
I started with five clients whopaid me 50 a call.
And to me, that was lifechanging money.
I mean, 250 bucks a week, I'mmaking a thousand dollars a
year.
Sorry.
A thousand dollars a month doingpodcasting.
(13:43):
Interesting.
So it all started there.
And then from there we haddifferent, you know, more
clients and prices changed andmore opportunities.
But yeah, it took us probablytwo years before we started
making any, any money at all.
And then, I mean, we've made it,it's a million dollar business
now, but the majority of thathas come in the last like three
(14:05):
years and the first four yearswere very slow for sure.
Wow.
so now you're offering coaching,you're offering retreats.
Yeah, you get sponsorships aswell.
No, we've never we'll never takea dollar from sponsors.
That's just not our it's not ourbusiness model Every dollar
we've ever made has been pouringinto the life of someone in some
(14:27):
way.
Sure.
So One on one coaching groupcoaching.
We have courses.
They're all free right now.
we have any paid courses up Wehave an app that's in beta.
We have a journal called thenext level dreamliner Now we
produce podcasts.
We do social media for like adozen clients.
So it's grown and evolved aswe've grown and evolved as a
(14:50):
business.
But I think like right now we'reprobably serving, I don't know,
probably like a hundred peopleon a monthly basis for clients.
Excellent.
So with all of the differentservices, first of all, how big
is your team now?
We have a 22 person team as oftoday.
Okay.
And with all of the differentservices you're providing, I'm
(15:11):
assuming they all stem off ofthe podcast.
So podcasting isn't all you doanymore.
What, what is your favorite partof what you do?
No, podcasting is pretty muchall I, I mean, I coach, but I
coach on podcasting.
I have another podcast aboutpodcasts.
So I am podcasting like 15 to 20times per week.
(15:32):
I'm coaching, whatever it maybe, like five to ten times a
week, depending.
Podcasting, bar none, is myfavorite thing to do.
I absolutely love it.
It's my favorite.
That's why I do so manyepisodes.
I love it.
So, yeah, that's still myfavorite part of this whole
thing.
I see.
Okay, so the retreats and allthe other things, you, you're
not involved with that so much?
I'm involved.
They're just not my favorite.
(15:54):
Got it.
Yeah, Alan's, Alan is far moreof a coach and a trainer than I
am.
I see.
I am far more of a podcaster anda speaker now than Alan is.
So a lot of that stuff is Alanreally wanted to do it.
And it's, it's the best way forus to monetize and build the
business so we can help morepeople.
Yeah.
(16:14):
Just coaching.
Isn't my favorite thing.
Podcasting is my favorite thing,but unless I wanted to do the ad
sponsorship route, then I'mnever really gonna podcast and
make money.
There's always gonna have to besome sort of value add after.
Gotcha.
Okay.
so you've now done over 1, 800episodes, right?
I took a quick look before.
Is it, you know, like 1, 806 orsomething like that?
(16:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
On that show.
And then I have 113 on my otherpodcast.
And then I've been on like 875other episodes.
So like 2, 900 ish totalepisodes.
Wow.
Okay.
So first of all, what's theother podcast?
I wasn't aware of that one.
Yeah, no, it's, It's calledpodcast growth university and
it's how to grow, scale, andmonetize a podcast ultimately.
(16:58):
Oh neat.
I'll look for that.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's a good one.
So, you, you mentioned being onanother podcast.
I'm assuming you did some ofthat to also help grow your,
bring awareness to your podcast,right?
Yeah.
That's one of the best ways todo it.
It's, it's, and we've alwaysthought to ourselves, one of our
goals is to get as good Ashumanly possible at podcasting.
(17:20):
So what's the best way to dothat?
It's just to do more episodesthan anybody else Yeah, so that
was kind of always part of thestrategy is if I want to get
really good at something Ishould just go do it more than
anybody else a hundred percent.
Absolutely So what let's startwith I don't know.
Give me like five lessons thatyou that you've gotten from
Doing 1800 episodes.
(17:42):
Number one, from day to day,progress is invisible.
From year to year, it'simpossible to miss.
I, I could do 10 episodes today,and I am no better today than I
was yesterday.
But if I go back and look atepisode 1 versus episode 100
versus episode 500 versusepisode 1500, it is a drastic
difference.
(18:02):
So I think most people justdon't do something long enough
to actually see the growth.
Because it just takes more timethan I think a lot of us or care
to admit, that's one.
One of the other big ones thatI've had is, when we started
getting guests on, I rememberthe guest would tell us their
(18:24):
story, and I'd say, what anamazing, incredible, traumatic,
overwhelming, tragic story.
We'll probably never hearanother one like that again.
Until next week when weinterviewed a guest, and it was
like, oh my goodness, they havea very similar arc.
Of the way their life hashappened.
My goodness.
(18:44):
Well, maybe it's just two in arow.
And eventually, it gets to thepoint where your adversity can
be your advantage if you knowhow to leverage it that way.
And that has been a reallyimpactful lesson for me because
for a long time I thought myadversity was my disadvantage.
I cannot tell you what createsthe momentum in the positive
(19:06):
direction versus adversitybecoming further trauma and
tragedy.
I don't know yet.
I haven't, I haven't gotten thatfar in life.
I haven't figured that out.
But that's something that reallyjumped off the page.
the other thing is if you, it'sreally hard to be yourself.
(19:26):
Being yourself is a really,really challenging thing to do.
But I think that's really what'sgoing to resonate with people
the most for a long time I triedto be very smart when I wasn't
and I tried to be like Alan whenI wasn't and I tried to be
Serious when I wasn't the moreI've leaned into just I'm me.
(19:46):
I'm the funny guy.
I like making jokes I don'treally take life too seriously
That's when I feel like we'veconnected with the audience The
incident, a deeper level.
So authenticity and beingyourself, there's nothing that
can really replicate that.
There's nothing that can make upfor that.
That that's a big lesson.
What else?
A lot can change in a couple ofyears.
(20:08):
I think that we assume that,maybe either we overestimate how
much can change in a year or weunderestimate it, but what I'm
dealing with this year isdrastically different than the
problems I had a year ago in somany ways.
But I didn't expect it to changeas much as it has.
So, so much can change in solittle time if you're willing to
(20:30):
put in the effort and you'redoing the right stuff.
And then I would say the lastthing is probably, I much prefer
the overwhelm of abundance tothe overwhelm of scarcity.
Right now, there is a lot goingon, and I am very overwhelmed
with all the stuff going on.
(20:51):
Five years ago, six years ago,seven years ago, I would have
wished for the problems that Ihave now.
So, it's really easy to say,When things work out, life is
going to get easier.
A big lesson for me is my lifehas not gotten easier as we've
grown and become quote unquotemore successful.
(21:13):
It's gotten way morechallenging.
Just the challenges have beenmore aligned and less scarce,
hopefully.
So yeah, I think that's five.
So good.
There's so much there.
I'd love to elaborate on Yourlast point about the the
underwhelm of you know You'reyou prefer the overwhelm of
abundance versus the underwealth of scarcity well put by
the way you know, there's beentimes in my 20s in early 30s, I
(21:36):
was very successful had a lot ofabundance, but I'd never
recognized it, right?
I got I was overwhelmed with allof the Everything that came with
it.
And I just thought life was notsupposed to be so hard because
I, I was, you know, grew up withso little resources and un and
very underprivileged environmentand, and I thought, all right,
once I have it, life's supposedto get easier.
And it never did It actually gotharder.
(21:58):
And now, you know, and we took atime where we kind of lost it
all, and now I'm back and, and,you know, we, we have a little
bit now again, and I realize it,it's a different journey now.
Like when you actually embrace,you know.
All of that.
Right?
When you embrace the overwhelm,like you said, that you, you
prefer it, it, it's so muchbetter.
(22:19):
You realize having, a certainamount of wealth isn't the
destination.
it's just a different journey.
Right.
And enjoy it.
You go enjoy the process.
That's right.
I used to think when we firststarted this, I thought
everybody should have massivegoals.
And I thought everybody shouldwant to be wealthy, and I
thought everybody should want tobe in the best shape possible,
(22:41):
and now I understand that it'sall about progress, and progress
is very personal.
Progress is, is very personal,and the goal is important, yes.
If you're not willing to put upwith the process that it takes
to accomplish the goal, The goalis kind of useless, right?
I would much rather, I tellpeople all the time, because a
(23:01):
lot of people will say, I won'twant to do what you do and I'll
say, that's fine.
But do you want to do an episodewhen you're sick?
Do you want to have to get up atseven o'clock in the morning to
do a coaching call because youcan't pay the bills?
Like, is that the life that youwant?
Some of that has been myexperience.
We can't just look at thebenefits of the results.
We have to look at thedetriments of the results.
(23:22):
Also, or the maintainers of theresults.
Right.
So now when I'm talking tosomeone, I like hearing about
their goals.
Of course, I'm always going tobe inspired by goals, but it's
my job as someone who haspotentially existed within the
reality they want to have totell them that the process looks
like this.
Do you still want the goal?
(23:43):
If the process requires you todo this, because it's, you know,
It might not be aligned for you.
The results of the goal usuallyare aligned.
The process to accomplish thegoal might not be.
And that's where a lot of us getstuck.
And I just want to be truthfulabout that always.
Because that's what I would havewanted to hear in the beginning
too.
Yeah.
Totally.
You know, I mean, the way I makemy living is in real estate and
(24:05):
I'm, part of what I do is as abroker and a lot of people come
to me because they want to getinto real estate investing and
they want to, and they come andjust say, Hey, I want to do
this, this and that.
And oftentimes, Tim, do you knowwhat that really means?
Everybody thinks it's like freemoney.
Like, you know, it's not, it'sall work.
So Hey, what's going to happenif somebody, you know, if, if a
bank calls your loan or, or, youknow, the proverbial toilet.
(24:29):
clogs in the middle of the nightor what, what have you, you
know, like people don't thinkabout all that.
And I think, when you reallystart to think, are you okay
with the pains that come withgetting your, you know, what it
is, are you really, truly okaywith that?
Then I think that's somethingyou should pursue.
Right.
I agree.
Yeah.
But it's, most people don't saythat.
(24:51):
Right.
Because even as like a podcastcoach, a lot of people would
say, Kev, you're, you know,Everybody would benefit from a
podcast.
To a degree, yeah, sure, butit's also, there's a lot of
people that shouldn't start onebecause they're not going to be
willing to do what it takes toaccomplish it, and they're going
to feel like failures, when inreality it just wasn't for them
in the first place.
That's right.
And that's okay.
That's totally fine.
(25:13):
Yeah, what about so you, a lotof what you do is same as us,
you, you interview badasses,right?
And you extract a lot ofknowledge from them and, and
learn.
Not anymore.
Okay.
So we don't, we don't interviewanybody anymore.
Okay, but we we did for thefirst however many years we we
did interviews and we had somereally big guests and some
Really great guests and yeah,eventually it got to the point
(25:34):
where It's when you're doing anhour interview with someone And
you run out of things to talkabout about their expertise and
then you start talking aboutother stuff my fear was I didn't
want the audience to think thatthey were as knowledgeable about
everything as they were onething And I didn't want to be
(25:57):
the bad guy who would say, well,Louie, I know, you know, a ton
about real estate, but like howmuch have you studied about
fitness and nutrition and sleepand hydration?
And I didn't want to be that.
I didn't want to be the guy whoI didn't want to be that So
eventually it got to the pointwhere we said, honestly, let's
just do this our way.
We can talk about ourexperiences.
We can talk about what we'velearned.
We can talk about what we'vevetted, and then we can just
(26:20):
have a truthful conversationwith ourselves in the audience
based on what we actuallybelieve works.
And we'll, we don't go outsideof that.
I don't talk about, I don't talkabout real estate.
I don't know much about realestate.
We talk about wealth and wealthcreation, but to the degree that
we understand it.
And then eventually we werelike, well, I've been
(26:41):
financially successful, but mymental health was terrible.
I've been very physicallysuccessful, but my relationships
were garbage.
We're going to do a wellrounded, holistic approach to
life, love, health, and wealth,knowing what we know and knowing
what we've studied, ultimately.
You know, it's funny you saythat because it's kind of the
season I'm in now that I feellike I'm going through, right?
We started, with an interview, Ihad a partner, we had an
(27:04):
interview podcast every once ina while, we do our own together.
Now it's, I'm on my own rightnow.
And, now I have a lot ofinterviews, probably more than I
can handle.
originally I was like in lovewith the story, right?
The human story.
And I love in particular theovercoming some struggle story,
right?
Somebody who comes on here andgets very vulnerable and shares
(27:24):
that and their learnings from itand overcomes it.
That's kind of was my favorite.
And then we got away from thatguy into a lot of authors,
right?
Usually self help type authors.
And now it's a lot of coaches,you know, and there's kind of a
natural progression.
What I'm realizing is, there'scommon denominators with all
these guests, right?
And I'm also realizing what Ilike more and maybe that I, I
(27:45):
probably will start backing offon having many guests and, and
doing more on my own as well.
But I think first thing is when,when you did have them, were
there certain guests you likedand, and were with the people
you did have, did you notice,start to notice certain common
denominators were just startedto feel like the stories were
the same over and over.
(28:07):
I mean, most people had kind ofthe hero's journey of Yeah,
they, they started somewhere.
They accomplished something,they had a very large fall from
grace, and now they're moresuccessful, fulfilled, in a line
that they've ever been.
we would see that, but then, andagain, this is not the majority
of guests, this is a veryfinite, small amount.
(28:27):
But we would see behind thescenes, and we'd learn about
these people, and most of whatthey were talking about was not
true.
They weren't walking their walk,they weren't who they said they
were on the podcast.
So it became that, I just don'twant to amplify.
This person's message.
I don't believe they're actuallygoing to be able to help people
at the degree that they saythey're going to be able to help
(28:48):
people.
Yeah.
So that became kind of one ofthe things, but all the guests
had different expertises andeverybody had different lanes
that they were in.
So that was always interesting,but.
It's just, yeah, sometimes youget rubbed the wrong way when
you have a really big guest onand behind the scenes, they're
completely different than theywere in front of the scenes.
(29:09):
Is that really a message thatyou want to amplify?
It wasn't for us.
So that was a big reason that westopped.
Oh man.
That's so interesting.
You say that, especiallybecause, um, I went through the
season where like everybodyaround me was getting these
coaches, right?
Mindset life coach types.
And I thought I needed one.
Right?
And we had a guy on the show andI hired him and then really
(29:33):
quickly I started to peel backthe onion and realize exactly
what you're saying now.
And it just changed for me and Istarted to try to get away from
that.
I do believe that there'sinternally, things that we
already have the answers to andwe just don't accept.
We almost need a validation fromsomebody else to tell us that.
And once we do that, that's whenyou really hit another stride,
(29:54):
you know, would you agree withthat or?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's a, I've had a lotof coaches, so I'm blessed.
I'm blessed.
I've had a lot of coaches, but Ithink finding an aligned coach,
if I've learned anything, I'velearned that more important than
a coach having quote unquote allthe answers is them
(30:14):
understanding who you are.
Yeah, because the way you coachone person should be drastically
different than the way you coachsomebody else And i've learned
that by being coached frompeople who just didn't
understand me as an emotionallydriven person One of the worst
pieces of advice I ever got waskev.
Why don't you just believe inyourself more?
Thank you I am trying I don'tknow how what are what what are
(30:35):
the steps?
What's the framework?
What do I do?
Yeah, but They never had tobuild belief because they
already had it.
So it's really hard to coachsomeone on something that you've
had naturally, or you didn'trealize you've got unconsciously
or whatever.
So I think a lot of the answersare there.
I do.
I think a lot of the answers arethere and that's why self
awareness is so important anddigging and learning for
(30:57):
yourself and unlearning superimportant.
I am somebody who has benefitbenefited tremendously from
having amazing coaches.
Maybe it's harder than ever tofind a good coach because it's
so easy to become a coach.
Somebody called me out on apodcast one time, Louis, it was
gentle.
It wasn't bad, but they said,what do you think about the fact
that most life coaches arefailed psychologists?
(31:18):
And I said, I mean, it's aninteresting play.
I'm not a life coach, so I'm notoffended by that, but I'm sure
there are some, right?
Just like there are some highschool baseball coaches that are
failed major league baseballcoaches.
Sure.
I mean, if you love doing it.
You're going to find a way to doit, and you're going to try to
find a way to make itsustainable, so I don't think
there's Anything wrong withthat?
(31:38):
I don't think it's, it should bea negative thing.
Yeah.
I think that there's just like,there's a lot of bad podcasts
out there.
Yeah.
It's not hard to start apodcast.
You pay your 12 to buzzsprout orSpotify for podcasters, and
you're kind of off to the races.
I think it's just about honingin on what do you need from a
coach?
And then who do you resonatewith the most?
I'm curious as to what your selfconfidence journey looked like.
(32:01):
You strike me as somebody with alot of self confidence, but what
were the strategies, in a goodway, in a very good way, I
appreciate that.
I'm a good liar, Louis.
I'm good at faking it.
It mostly, it's because you'reseeing me on the thing that I've
done more than anything else.
If I've done this almost 3, 000times and I don't come off as
(32:21):
somewhat confident.
Yeah.
I am messing up badly.
I am still somebody who dealswith self doubt on the day to
day.
Every day, where does that showup still just limiting beliefs
limiting beliefs of i'm not goodenough.
I'm not smart enough Before Ispeak before I go on podcasts.
I think one of the reasons I doso much research.
(32:44):
I know that you uploaded a lotof your episodes to youtube
yesterday I think or the daybefore so you're doing a push to
get on youtube.
Awesome.
I love it.
I listened to a little bit ofthe flow I think one of the
reasons I do so much research isbecause i'm terrified to
disappoint you I'm convinced ofthat.
My deepest fear is disappointingmen because my dad wasn't
around.
(33:04):
I think I internalized, Idisappointed him, and then he
left.
So that's something that I'mable to use constructively,
which is good, but for a longtime it was very destructive and
it was very hard to overcomethat so I've just done a lot of
stuff that scares me over thelast seven years And now I'm
just scared of less than I usedto be I think there's this
(33:25):
contrast where Most people areafraid of public speaking.
This is where I feel the mostconfident Okay, jumping on a
microphone with somebody I'venever met before I have the
utmost confidence that theconversation will most likely go
well and I'll be able to addvalue But this is like This is a
deep talk about awareness andthat I mean that's my jam I
(33:47):
that's what I live for I did apodcast today that was on sale
And I had a moment before I waslooking for excuses to cancel it
What can I do to cancel this?
Do I feel well?
Is that a tickle in my throatthat I feel I went and did it
and it was awesome.
It was amazing So that's how youbuild confidence.
You find the thing that scaresyou you go do it and then you
(34:10):
get proof that you could havedone it the whole time And then
you lock that in and when you dothat long enough you have
relevant and recent proof thatdisproves the emotional
dysregulation that you havegoing on so really that that's
all I I really did is I try todo Stuff that scared me I'd look
and say oh it went better than Iexpected Next time I want to do
(34:32):
it and it scares me, I just haveto remember this time.
Recent and relevant proof.
Those are really the two big,the two big R's that have helped
me the most.
Recent and relevant proof.
Wow.
That is very profound.
I remember as a kid, we hadmoved from Queens, New York to
Central Falls, Rhode Island andCentral Falls people don't know
is actually a really rough town.
(34:53):
And right away I encountered,you know, violence and
everything in the town and I wasscared.
I was scared to go to school, Iwas scared to go outside the
whole night, right?
But I had to, you know, I had nochoice.
I was more scared of, you know,my mother beating my ass if I
didn't go to school.
So, anyhow, I remember every daygaining like consciously gaining
(35:14):
more confidence by going, youknow, everything being okay and
then getting back home and it'dbe like, Oh, it wasn't so bad.
And then before you know it, youjust have a real confidence.
You have a swagger aboutyourself, on your walk to
school.
that was a really big thing.
You just force yourself to doit, put yourself uncomfortably
and you realize, Hey, it isn'tthat bad.
we make up these stories in ourhead that it's going to be so
(35:36):
bad.
it's just about finding theright amount of fear.
That's the thing that neverresonated with me is when people
would say if your goals don'tscare you, they're not big
enough.
I'm scared of life.
The last thing I need to be isscared of my goals and running
in the opposite direction.
I really think of it as like aladder.
What rung do you feelcomfortable on?
Okay, you feel comfortable onrung three?
(35:57):
Cool.
What is kind of a stretch?
Okay, standing on rung five?
Awesome.
That's where we go.
You don't have to go to the topof the ladder yet, because then
eventually rung five becomescomfortable.
And then we go to rung six, andthen we go to rung seven, and
then we go to rung eight.
It's really hard to compresstime when it comes to facing
(36:18):
fears.
I was having panic attacks atone point because I went way too
far out of my comfort zone Toofast for too long and I just
couldn't handle it.
My body could not handle it Iwas on the floor thinking I was
gonna die because I was havingpanic attacks too far too fast
for too long I would much rathersomebody Go from a level one
(36:39):
confidence to a level 1.
5 to a level 2 to a 2.
5 because at least that'ssustainable Yeah, it's going
back to one of the quotes.
We we said with one of thelessons It doesn't really feel
like you're making progressbecause it happens so Slow
right?
It's just little by little bylittle and it's hard to measure
it one of the best pieces ofadvice I could give on that in
(37:00):
the very beginning When Istarted tracking habits, it was
like learn every day exerciseevery day that type of stuff One
of them was track the amount offears that I faced.
So I would do somethingconsciously called fear chasing.
What can I do today that scaresme?
Alright, I did this thing.
Give myself a check mark.
And when you do that longenough, you have so much proof
(37:24):
that is against the emotionalsabotage.
And then you can say, I faced463 fears this year?
Holy crap.
Okay, what else am I capable of?
I think it's a really good habitto instill.
Oh, that is such a greatexercise.
I've never heard that onebefore.
That's great.
I've heard a lot of it.
Very helpful.
Yeah, it's very good.
(37:44):
And anytime you track it, likeyou're saying in the journal,
and you look back, it's like,wow, that's really good.
I love it.
Yeah.
Well, think of it this.
You introduce me and say, Kevinhas 1800 episodes.
Imagine if you introduced me andit was, Kevin has faced 5000
fears.
Just imagine that, for you, ifyou're out there.
(38:06):
The 1800 episodes is what peoplethink is, it's like, oh that's
awesome, he must be successful,he must know stuff.
Imagine if you chased 1800fears, imagine how confident you
would be, if they were in theright place.
Size at the right time.
I mean anytime you're measuringsomething you're proving to
yourself you're disprovingeliminating beliefs.
Hmm.
I love that.
(38:27):
Well kevin on that note, I thinkit's we can go on and on for
this.
this is really good stuff I'mhappy to come back for a part
two whenever you want louisgood.
I'm gonna take you up on that.
if you don't mind, we're gonnaswitch over to our world famous,
since you've been in over 170countries now, this officially
makes it world famous.
Our Wayfinder 4.
Are you ready, Kevin?
I'm ready, Louis.
(38:48):
All right.
So, give us a hack that you useevery day.
Habit tracking.
I track 25 or 26 habits everyday.
I don't get a hundred percentevery day.
I don't do them all every day,but if you want to focus on
staying on track, track yourhabits, it is going to be a game
changer.
Do you use an app or you justkeep it on a piece of paper?
(39:08):
What do you do?
We use Google sheets, but we arein the process of creating our
own habit tracking app for usand the community.
But right now we just keep itsimple.
Google sheets.
Okay.
I love it.
did you get that from anywhere?
My business partner.
my, he's an engineer.
So he's always reverseengineering.
What are the things that I needto do in order to, so yes, as
(39:29):
much as I'd like to take all ofthe credit, he gets all the
credit for that cause that washis thing long before he met me.
Okay.
How about a favorite?
Could be, you know, a favorite.
Book, show, activity, podcastepisodes.
My favorite sport, mixed martialarts, UFC.
if you're calling me on aSaturday night, I'm most likely
(39:51):
not answering because I'mwatching the fights.
I love it.
That's what I wanted to do for aliving for a time in high
school.
So it's something I'm veryconnected to.
Nice.
do you train now?
I was doing jujitsu and I'vedone Muay Thai and I've done
wrestling in the past, but theschedule just got too hectic.
So I canceled my jujitsumembership.
I still kickbox on my own, soit's still something I practice,
(40:14):
but not formally, I guess.
Okay.
It's amazing how far MMA has,you know, when I was a little
boy, I mean, we, we lovedwatching it too.
And it was only like, 10 or sofighters but now it's amazing.
It's taking over the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's wild.
so how about a piece of advicefor your younger self?
(40:35):
Man, one thing I would say toyounger Kev is it's not your
fault.
I was very angry for most of mylife because I think I
internalized my dad leaving ismy fault.
Somehow, right?
Just very emotional, highlyillogical.
But that's one thing I wouldtell him.
And then if I could sit Kevindown and say, Kev, I know it
(40:59):
doesn't seem super cool to talkabout feelings and to talk about
vulnerability and to talk aboutgrowth and evolution, but
eventually you, if you do that,you will be very successful in
life.
I would have sat him down andjust talked about how important
it is to grow.
Because a lot of my success hascome from learning about me and
(41:21):
growing and vulnerability andall that stuff It's really hard
to sell someone on that,especially like a 16 year old
Kevin, for sure.
Right, boys, in particular,we're just so, we gotta be
tough, we gotta put on thisfront, right?
and then we spend the rest ofour lives unraveling that and
realizing that we shouldn't.
The more vulnerable we are, thetougher we actually are, right?
(41:42):
100%.
so that that's really good stuffAnd I suspect from this episode
my wife listens to every singleepisode I know she's going to go
back to that part where youtalked About your fear of
disappointing men.
That was extremely vulnerable ofyou and yeah Thank you for doing
that.
I told you louis.
Yeah, i'm here to add value Andthe only way to add value is to
be, to be yourself.
(42:02):
I'm, I'm telling you that's, ifI've learned anything, I would
rather just be honest.
There's a piece of me, when youasked about the habit tracking,
there's that little ego piece ofme that doesn't want to tell you
that Alan created it.
There's that little piece of methat wants you to think that I
did it.
And I'm, I'm like the mastermindbehind this whole thing.
But I've done this long enoughwhere it's, it's, I'm not going
(42:24):
to be able to sleep if I, if Ido that.
I love that.
so how, you know, and it didn'tcome off in any way either,
like, I, I think we all gothrough that.
We want to say it to us and Inever thought any less of you
when you said that, you know, atall.
Yeah.
And most people wouldn't.
That's the thing.
But we, we make it up in our, Iwent on a podcast yesterday with
(42:45):
someone who, you know, They gotto the end and they're like,
dude, I was so nervous.
And I was like, you should havejust told me you were nervous.
We could have faced the feartogether instead of you
thinking, I think you suckbecause you're nervous.
I'm always nervous.
You're fine.
You should just tell me.
We can do it.
We can do it together.
Vulnerability around the rightpeople is the best possible
thing you can do.
(43:05):
Yeah, totally.
So what about, I'll let youchoose for our last one.
Either a limiting belief, Or abig opportunity man, in terms of
one I've gotten or overcome?
Yeah, yeah.
Either one you've overcome oryou just see and you know how to
overcome, or a big opportunitythat you see out there right now
(43:26):
or you're looking, you know,you're trying to capitalize on,
I would probably go limitingbelief just because that's
usually what I talk about, thenot smart enough thing.
Is something I've been workingreally diligently on over the
last seven years.
And I actually had a mentor tellme recently, I gave a speech and
(43:46):
a training to him, and it was infront of many successful people,
and he said, Kev, you're toosmart.
you got to dumb it down thewords you use the way you float
you got to go a little bit moresimple And it was like whoa This
person who I look up totremendously who I never thought
i'd have the opportunity tospeak next to is telling me i'm
too smart Whoa?
Interesting.
So I guess that suggests thati've overcome that I think
(44:10):
another piece to that is alsothe way we think of smart,
right?
We think of smart as like booksmarts, right?
and yeah, especially causeagain, when we're kids, you
know, that's how we get graded.
But.
I think as I've gotten older, Ijust realized like emotional
intelligence is just such agreater, you know, a street
smarts, you can, you can call itright.
(44:31):
It's just such a greater levelof intelligence.
You know, there's so many peoplewho are like, they got 150 plus
IQs out there, but they don'treally know what's in front of
them or, get what you say.
And Yeah.
And, I just think that that isjust.
The way we think of smartnessis, is something we need to
redefine as a culture because,so, and you strike me as being
(44:54):
really smart both ways.
I appreciate it very much.
Yeah.
let's, let people know a littlebit more about where they can
find your podcast and, connectwith you.
Next level university is thepodcast with 1808 episodes or
whatever it is.
That's on all the podcastplatforms That's on youtube.
And then if you're a podcasterout there and you're looking for
free help on your podcastPodcast growth university is on
(45:14):
all the podcast platforms andyoutube as well hosted by me.
And then if you ever have anyquestions, comments, concerns,
whatever it may be, my email isKevin at next level universe.
com I do my own emails.
So anything you need, I am justan email away.
Well, thank you so much forthat.
Of course.
Yeah, it's been great, man.
I want to, first of all, thankyou for all the research.
(45:35):
You probably know more about methan I do, you know, and I'm
kind of getting scared, so thankyou for that.
Thank you for being here, forsharing your wisdom.
I want you to know that you arenot a disappointment at all.
You, it was a real treat to haveyou here, and I hope to have you
back on, and, and, Hopefullyfoster a good long term
relationship with you.
I appreciate you.
You're a great host.
You seem like a very great man,at least from what I saw today.
(45:58):
you're a wonderful human.
I appreciate you having me on.
I appreciate your time and keepdoing what you're doing.
Awesome.
Thank you, Kevin.
Of course.
We hope you've enjoyed TheWayfinder Show.
If you got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a 5 starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
(46:19):
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
We could have faced the feartogether instead of you
thinking, I think you suckbecause you're nervous.
I'm always nervous.
You're fine.
You should just tell me.
We can do it.
We can do it together.
Vulnerability around the rightpeople is the best possible
thing you can do.
(00:23):
Welcome to The Wayfinder Showwith Luis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
area of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
(00:44):
Come join us and find the way toyour dream life.
Welcome back to the Wayfindershow.
I'm your host, Luis Hernandez.
I'm trying to build a great,podcast.
And now we're at a point where Ithink we're stabilized.
(01:05):
We've done over a hundredepisodes, been about a year and
a half.
And, to level up, I always talkabout surrounding yourself with
people who are just doing itbetter than you.
So today, we got somebody who'salready doing it at a really
high level and his name is Mr.
Kevin Palmieri.
Kevin is the founder and host ofNext Level University.
It's a top, a global top 100self improvement podcast with
(01:28):
over 1, 800 episodes andreaching over a million people.
In more than 170 countries,after a brush with suicide in
his younger years, he decided togo all in on his dreams of being
a full time podcaster andentrepreneur.
he believes in a heart driven,but no BS approach to holistic
(01:49):
self improvement and teachingothers how to get to the next
level of their lives.
Kevin, welcome to the Wayfindershow.
Louis, thank you so very muchfor having me.
We had a wonderful dialoguebehind the scenes.
you're a good human.
So I'm excited to chat and seewhere our conversation takes us
today.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, so you like I say you'repretty much already doing
everything I want to do when Igrow up this is a real privilege
(02:11):
for me So tell me all yoursecrets.
No, really if we could juststart off with you I've heard
quite a bit about you alreadyBut you know if you can just
share with our listeners whohaven't heard of you a little
bit about your origin storyYeah, I was raised by my mom and
my grandmother I didn't know mydad, I didn't meet my dad until
I was 27.
(02:31):
And definitely grew up lowermiddle class, talked often about
how we were gonna pay rent.
So that's something that hasstuck with me to this day, and
that's one of the things I'malways trying to uncondition.
I didn't really feel smart, Inever thought I was gonna be
smart.
So after high school I decidedthat college just wasn't for me.
The route for me, it justdidn't, I didn't know what I
wanted to do with my life.
And I didn't really want to pacesomebody thousands of dollars a
(02:54):
year to help me find out, So Istayed back when all my friends
went away to college and Ipumped gas at a local gas
station.
And then I left that job and Iwas a personal trainer and I was
a truck driver, forkliftoperator.
I cleaned bathrooms and floorsat a hospital.
I did many, many, many things.
I always thought that if I justmade a lot of money, that would
fix all my problems.
(03:15):
That was always my thing.
Let me find a job that pays mereally well and my life will get
drastically easier.
So eventually, I landed a job inan industry called
weatherization.
So it was our job to go intobuildings and make them more
energy efficient.
So we'd work in attics, we'dwork on roofs, we'd work in the
basement, whatever it was,windows, doors, that type of
stuff.
(03:35):
And I essentially went frommaking 15 an hour in
construction to anywhere from 60to 120 an hour doing this job.
So in my mind, Louie, I'veaccomplished the thing.
I made it.
I never thought I was going tobe successful.
Most people never thought I wasgoing to be successful.
And here I am making really goodmoney.
So if you were to look at mewhen I was 25, you would see a
(03:59):
young man who had a really goodjob.
I was getting ready to competein a bodybuilding show, so I was
quite literally in the bestshape of my life, out of anybody
I knew.
My girlfriend at the time was amodel.
I had a sports car, I hadeverything you could ever want.
But internally, I was verymiserable.
And I was depressed, and I wasanxious, and I was insecure, and
(04:19):
I was uncertain of the future,and I just was not a confident
human being.
Girlfriend left me, because Iwas a shell of myself, and it
was very hard to pour intosomebody else's dreams when I
could barely pour into my own.
When she left, I convincedmyself that I just hadn't made
enough money yet.
That's the issue is, I made goodmoney, but I haven't made good
(04:40):
enough money.
So then I spent the next yeargrinding my face off trying to
make as much money as humanlypossible.
And I made the most money I'dever made.
I opened my final pay stub.
And I realized that I spent thisentire year chasing this fake
dream, this thing that I thoughtwas a promise that really wasn't
a promise.
(05:01):
And I spent a lot of my lifeliving unconsciously.
The opposite of unconscious ishyperconscious.
So in 2017, I started a podcastcalled the hyperconscious
podcast, and that is where allof this began next year.
I'm still doing my job because Ihave to find a way to pay the
bills.
As you know, in the beginning,Louie, there's not a line out
the door of people saying you'vegot a great idea.
(05:23):
Let me give you a boatload ofmoney so you can podcast for a
living.
Unfortunately, it ended upgetting to the point where I sat
on the edge of a bed debatingsuicide because I was so
miserable and I love thispodcasting thing and I really
wanted to do it for a living,but I didn't think I could.
And I thought I was going to bestuck at this job forever.
And.
I was afraid to start over andlose my reputation and look like
(05:44):
a loser.
But then in 2018, I ended upleaving my job and I've been
doing this full time since 2018.
Yeah, that's amazing.
So I think that's the dream.
When I first started thepodcast, I had a partner and I
wasn't too sure where it wouldgo.
We both were, we said we'd giveit a year and we gave it a year.
And he bought a business andwent on to do that.
(06:05):
And I realized I love doing thismore than anything else.
I have a successful businessalready.
But the more I do this, the moreI realize this is what I want to
do full time, You wondersometimes, right?
Like, is it worthwhile?
Is it, you know, is my reallyproviding value?
Am I going to get anything outof it?
Is this just a big waste oftime?
How did, how did you deal withthat?
(06:28):
I'm very blessed because mybusiness partner is the most
confident human being on theplanet.
There is no self doubt in thisman.
So, he said, Kev, we will besuccessful.
It's just a matter of how longit will take.
You cannot add meaningful valueinto somebody's life for as long
as we will and not achieve somelevel of success.
(06:49):
So, I've had belief injectedinto me that I didn't
necessarily have myself.
I never thought I'd becomplimented on my speaking
ability or my podcasting abilityor my coaching ability or my
business acumen or my salesacumen.
That was never a part of this.
I did always have a deep beliefthat if I could survive long
enough to make this something,it would be worth it.
(07:10):
That was always something I had.
If I, to your point, I love thisso much that if I could find a
way to make a sustainable lifedoing it, I'd be the most
fulfilled person on the planet.
So.
It was really just probably to adetriment and probably to a
destructive amount gettingoutside of my comfort zone,
living outside of my comfortzone, and then trying to learn
(07:35):
all of the stuff that I didn'tknow yet that I needed to know
in order to succeed.
That was really the big piecefor me.
I'm not a natural entrepreneur.
I didn't know anything aboutbusiness sales people.
I didn't really know anythingabout that.
So it was really filling in thegaps that I needed to fill in.
I've had a coach since the verybeginning because my business
partner is a genius and a reallygood coach.
So I'm blessed that I've hadsomebody in my corner since the
(07:57):
beginning who has been coachingme on my weaknesses in the
places I need to grow since 2017essentially.
Yeah, how did you meet yourpartner?
I think his name is Alan.
Is it?
Yeah.
Yeah, we went to middle schooltogether and we played spin the
bottle with the popular girls inmiddle school in his basement So
we were very good friends.
And then in high school He wasgetting the president's award
(08:20):
and on a roll and super smart Iwas a jock going to the captains
of the baseball team didn'treally care about school So we
didn't really get along in highschool, then we didn't talk for
years after that.
And then a few years after hegraduated college, we
reconnected, he was actually thefirst guest on my podcast.
(08:42):
And then from there, we juststarted hanging out and talking
about life and talking aboutphilosophy.
And then when I left my job, wepartnered up, we said, look,
we're going to, we might as welldo this together.
We both love it.
I feel like I'm gonna be waymore successful if I have
someone like him in my corner.
I don't really know why hepartnered up with me.
I didn't, I don't think I hadthat much value to add at the
time, but I'm grateful it workedthe way it did.
(09:04):
So yeah, we grew up in the sametown and we knew each other for
a long time.
And then as we became young men,things kind of started to align
with each other.
and core beliefs and coreaspirations.
Oh, that's interesting.
was he already a successfulbusiness person when you started
to put the podcast together?
He was definitely moresuccessful than I was.
(09:24):
He went to, Worcester PolytechInstitute.
So he has a degree in electricaland computer engineering.
And a master's in business.
So he knew a lot about business,but he was kind of doing the
influencer fitness coach,fitness model route.
(09:46):
And it looked like a really coollife.
So it was something that madesense to me.
I was like, that looks reallycool.
I'd like to be a part of that insome capacity.
Yeah, I know exactly where thatschool is.
So, you know, right?
So I'm wondering were you allwhen you were going all in in a
podcast?
Was it did he decide to do thesame thing or did he keep the
(10:06):
other job no, no, he had a verysimilar path where he was making
really good money and In a verysuccessful sales role and he
ended up leaving a couple yearsor a year before I left my job
And then he was just kind ofmaking content learning growing
investing in himself And when Ileft I knew we were going to
(10:28):
partner up.
That was already kind of thediscussion We had already
podcasted together.
We were hanging out a lot.
We were working out a lot So hehad already left his job a year
or two before I did which is oneof the reasons I left mine
because I saw somebody who didit and it was like, all right,
he left a really lucrativecareer.
I'm going to do the same thing.
At least he has experience inthat.
Yeah.
(10:49):
So initially I imagine thoughyou, the podcast wasn't making
any money, right?
No, no, no, no.
So when did you get it, did youdecide, Hey, I'd, I'd had, we'd
have to make this much and thenI'd quit.
Or did you guys just go all in,save some, Yeah, I, after I had,
so in 2017 or early 2018, that'swhen I had the suicidal ideation
(11:13):
at my job and my job was a bigreason behind it.
It was just stressful and I wastraveling all over the place and
I just was trading in all of mycertainty and my freedom that I
wanted to be on the road all thetime.
So when I left, it was, we aregoing all in on this.
And this is going to be ourthing.
And we're going to work as longas it takes to make this
(11:36):
successful.
So there was no plan B.
I saved up, I think I had like10, 000 in the bank.
And then I had access to like30, 000 in credit cards.
So I had like a 40, 000 runway.
He had some money in the bank.
But not as much as we needed.
So we didn't make money for thefirst like 2 years.
And it got, it got dark over thefirst couple years.
(12:00):
Wow.
so what did you do to turn itaround and actually start
monetizing?
you just, you know, Joe Rogandiscovered you and you signed on
with him and that's it, right?
And he gave us millions ofdollars and that was it.
That was the end of the story.
I had burnt through all of mysavings.
I was 000 in credit card debt.
And I went to Alan and I said,dude, I need to start making
(12:20):
money.
I can't sustain this.
And he said, well, what youshould do is you should start
coaching for free.
And I said, I don't know if youunderstood what I said.
I need to start making money,dollars, any dollars.
And he said, well, we have aself improvement podcast.
Our audience is obviously intoself improvement.
You've studied self improvementmore than anybody in the
(12:40):
audience.
Why don't you start coaching ouraudience on self improvement?
But since you don't have anyexperience and you don't have
any credibility you could do itfor free just to get So I
reached out to five people who Iknew listened to the podcast and
I just messaged them and justsaid, Louis, I know you listen
to the podcast.
It's obvious to me that you'reinto growth because you listen
(13:00):
to a podcast about growth.
I'm thinking of doing coaching.
I've never done it before.
I will coach you for free for, Ithink it was eight weeks, every
week, no strings attached.
You don't have to give me anymoney.
You don't have to sign up withme at the end, but I want to see
what it's about.
Are you interested?
And everybody said, yes, allfive people said yes.
So then I went on to coach themfor the next couple of months.
(13:23):
And then at the end, everybodysaid they wanted to keep going.
So I got five clients.
They were all paying me 50 acall.
And that's where I started.
I started with five clients whopaid me 50 a call.
And to me, that was lifechanging money.
I mean, 250 bucks a week, I'mmaking a thousand dollars a
year.
Sorry.
A thousand dollars a month doingpodcasting.
(13:43):
Interesting.
So it all started there.
And then from there we haddifferent, you know, more
clients and prices changed andmore opportunities.
But yeah, it took us probablytwo years before we started
making any, any money at all.
And then, I mean, we've made it,it's a million dollar business
now, but the majority of thathas come in the last like three
(14:05):
years and the first four yearswere very slow for sure.
Wow.
so now you're offering coaching,you're offering retreats.
Yeah, you get sponsorships aswell.
No, we've never we'll never takea dollar from sponsors.
That's just not our it's not ourbusiness model Every dollar
we've ever made has been pouringinto the life of someone in some
(14:27):
way.
Sure.
So One on one coaching groupcoaching.
We have courses.
They're all free right now.
we have any paid courses up Wehave an app that's in beta.
We have a journal called thenext level dreamliner Now we
produce podcasts.
We do social media for like adozen clients.
So it's grown and evolved aswe've grown and evolved as a
(14:50):
business.
But I think like right now we'reprobably serving, I don't know,
probably like a hundred peopleon a monthly basis for clients.
Excellent.
So with all of the differentservices, first of all, how big
is your team now?
We have a 22 person team as oftoday.
Okay.
And with all of the differentservices you're providing, I'm
(15:11):
assuming they all stem off ofthe podcast.
So podcasting isn't all you doanymore.
What, what is your favorite partof what you do?
No, podcasting is pretty muchall I, I mean, I coach, but I
coach on podcasting.
I have another podcast aboutpodcasts.
So I am podcasting like 15 to 20times per week.
(15:32):
I'm coaching, whatever it maybe, like five to ten times a
week, depending.
Podcasting, bar none, is myfavorite thing to do.
I absolutely love it.
It's my favorite.
That's why I do so manyepisodes.
I love it.
So, yeah, that's still myfavorite part of this whole
thing.
I see.
Okay, so the retreats and allthe other things, you, you're
not involved with that so much?
I'm involved.
They're just not my favorite.
(15:54):
Got it.
Yeah, Alan's, Alan is far moreof a coach and a trainer than I
am.
I see.
I am far more of a podcaster anda speaker now than Alan is.
So a lot of that stuff is Alanreally wanted to do it.
And it's, it's the best way forus to monetize and build the
business so we can help morepeople.
Yeah.
(16:14):
Just coaching.
Isn't my favorite thing.
Podcasting is my favorite thing,but unless I wanted to do the ad
sponsorship route, then I'mnever really gonna podcast and
make money.
There's always gonna have to besome sort of value add after.
Gotcha.
Okay.
so you've now done over 1, 800episodes, right?
I took a quick look before.
Is it, you know, like 1, 806 orsomething like that?
(16:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
On that show.
And then I have 113 on my otherpodcast.
And then I've been on like 875other episodes.
So like 2, 900 ish totalepisodes.
Wow.
Okay.
So first of all, what's theother podcast?
I wasn't aware of that one.
Yeah, no, it's, It's calledpodcast growth university and
it's how to grow, scale, andmonetize a podcast ultimately.
(16:58):
Oh neat.
I'll look for that.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's a good one.
So, you, you mentioned being onanother podcast.
I'm assuming you did some ofthat to also help grow your,
bring awareness to your podcast,right?
Yeah.
That's one of the best ways todo it.
It's, it's, and we've alwaysthought to ourselves, one of our
goals is to get as good Ashumanly possible at podcasting.
(17:20):
So what's the best way to dothat?
It's just to do more episodesthan anybody else Yeah, so that
was kind of always part of thestrategy is if I want to get
really good at something Ishould just go do it more than
anybody else a hundred percent.
Absolutely So what let's startwith I don't know.
Give me like five lessons thatyou that you've gotten from
Doing 1800 episodes.
(17:42):
Number one, from day to day,progress is invisible.
From year to year, it'simpossible to miss.
I, I could do 10 episodes today,and I am no better today than I
was yesterday.
But if I go back and look atepisode 1 versus episode 100
versus episode 500 versusepisode 1500, it is a drastic
difference.
(18:02):
So I think most people justdon't do something long enough
to actually see the growth.
Because it just takes more timethan I think a lot of us or care
to admit, that's one.
One of the other big ones thatI've had is, when we started
getting guests on, I rememberthe guest would tell us their
(18:24):
story, and I'd say, what anamazing, incredible, traumatic,
overwhelming, tragic story.
We'll probably never hearanother one like that again.
Until next week when weinterviewed a guest, and it was
like, oh my goodness, they havea very similar arc.
Of the way their life hashappened.
My goodness.
(18:44):
Well, maybe it's just two in arow.
And eventually, it gets to thepoint where your adversity can
be your advantage if you knowhow to leverage it that way.
And that has been a reallyimpactful lesson for me because
for a long time I thought myadversity was my disadvantage.
I cannot tell you what createsthe momentum in the positive
(19:06):
direction versus adversitybecoming further trauma and
tragedy.
I don't know yet.
I haven't, I haven't gotten thatfar in life.
I haven't figured that out.
But that's something that reallyjumped off the page.
the other thing is if you, it'sreally hard to be yourself.
(19:26):
Being yourself is a really,really challenging thing to do.
But I think that's really what'sgoing to resonate with people
the most for a long time I triedto be very smart when I wasn't
and I tried to be like Alan whenI wasn't and I tried to be
Serious when I wasn't the moreI've leaned into just I'm me.
(19:46):
I'm the funny guy.
I like making jokes I don'treally take life too seriously
That's when I feel like we'veconnected with the audience The
incident, a deeper level.
So authenticity and beingyourself, there's nothing that
can really replicate that.
There's nothing that can make upfor that.
That that's a big lesson.
What else?
A lot can change in a couple ofyears.
(20:08):
I think that we assume that,maybe either we overestimate how
much can change in a year or weunderestimate it, but what I'm
dealing with this year isdrastically different than the
problems I had a year ago in somany ways.
But I didn't expect it to changeas much as it has.
So, so much can change in solittle time if you're willing to
(20:30):
put in the effort and you'redoing the right stuff.
And then I would say the lastthing is probably, I much prefer
the overwhelm of abundance tothe overwhelm of scarcity.
Right now, there is a lot goingon, and I am very overwhelmed
with all the stuff going on.
(20:51):
Five years ago, six years ago,seven years ago, I would have
wished for the problems that Ihave now.
So, it's really easy to say,When things work out, life is
going to get easier.
A big lesson for me is my lifehas not gotten easier as we've
grown and become quote unquotemore successful.
(21:13):
It's gotten way morechallenging.
Just the challenges have beenmore aligned and less scarce,
hopefully.
So yeah, I think that's five.
So good.
There's so much there.
I'd love to elaborate on Yourlast point about the the
underwhelm of you know You'reyou prefer the overwhelm of
abundance versus the underwealth of scarcity well put by
the way you know, there's beentimes in my 20s in early 30s, I
(21:36):
was very successful had a lot ofabundance, but I'd never
recognized it, right?
I got I was overwhelmed with allof the Everything that came with
it.
And I just thought life was notsupposed to be so hard because
I, I was, you know, grew up withso little resources and un and
very underprivileged environmentand, and I thought, all right,
once I have it, life's supposedto get easier.
And it never did It actually gotharder.
(21:58):
And now, you know, and we took atime where we kind of lost it
all, and now I'm back and, and,you know, we, we have a little
bit now again, and I realize it,it's a different journey now.
Like when you actually embrace,you know.
All of that.
Right?
When you embrace the overwhelm,like you said, that you, you
prefer it, it, it's so muchbetter.
(22:19):
You realize having, a certainamount of wealth isn't the
destination.
it's just a different journey.
Right.
And enjoy it.
You go enjoy the process.
That's right.
I used to think when we firststarted this, I thought
everybody should have massivegoals.
And I thought everybody shouldwant to be wealthy, and I
thought everybody should want tobe in the best shape possible,
(22:41):
and now I understand that it'sall about progress, and progress
is very personal.
Progress is, is very personal,and the goal is important, yes.
If you're not willing to put upwith the process that it takes
to accomplish the goal, The goalis kind of useless, right?
I would much rather, I tellpeople all the time, because a
(23:01):
lot of people will say, I won'twant to do what you do and I'll
say, that's fine.
But do you want to do an episodewhen you're sick?
Do you want to have to get up atseven o'clock in the morning to
do a coaching call because youcan't pay the bills?
Like, is that the life that youwant?
Some of that has been myexperience.
We can't just look at thebenefits of the results.
We have to look at thedetriments of the results.
(23:22):
Also, or the maintainers of theresults.
Right.
So now when I'm talking tosomeone, I like hearing about
their goals.
Of course, I'm always going tobe inspired by goals, but it's
my job as someone who haspotentially existed within the
reality they want to have totell them that the process looks
like this.
Do you still want the goal?
(23:43):
If the process requires you todo this, because it's, you know,
It might not be aligned for you.
The results of the goal usuallyare aligned.
The process to accomplish thegoal might not be.
And that's where a lot of us getstuck.
And I just want to be truthfulabout that always.
Because that's what I would havewanted to hear in the beginning
too.
Yeah.
Totally.
You know, I mean, the way I makemy living is in real estate and
(24:05):
I'm, part of what I do is as abroker and a lot of people come
to me because they want to getinto real estate investing and
they want to, and they come andjust say, Hey, I want to do
this, this and that.
And oftentimes, Tim, do you knowwhat that really means?
Everybody thinks it's like freemoney.
Like, you know, it's not, it'sall work.
So Hey, what's going to happenif somebody, you know, if, if a
bank calls your loan or, or, youknow, the proverbial toilet.
(24:29):
clogs in the middle of the nightor what, what have you, you
know, like people don't thinkabout all that.
And I think, when you reallystart to think, are you okay
with the pains that come withgetting your, you know, what it
is, are you really, truly okaywith that?
Then I think that's somethingyou should pursue.
Right.
I agree.
Yeah.
But it's, most people don't saythat.
(24:51):
Right.
Because even as like a podcastcoach, a lot of people would
say, Kev, you're, you know,Everybody would benefit from a
podcast.
To a degree, yeah, sure, butit's also, there's a lot of
people that shouldn't start onebecause they're not going to be
willing to do what it takes toaccomplish it, and they're going
to feel like failures, when inreality it just wasn't for them
in the first place.
That's right.
And that's okay.
That's totally fine.
(25:13):
Yeah, what about so you, a lotof what you do is same as us,
you, you interview badasses,right?
And you extract a lot ofknowledge from them and, and
learn.
Not anymore.
Okay.
So we don't, we don't interviewanybody anymore.
Okay, but we we did for thefirst however many years we we
did interviews and we had somereally big guests and some
Really great guests and yeah,eventually it got to the point
(25:34):
where It's when you're doing anhour interview with someone And
you run out of things to talkabout about their expertise and
then you start talking aboutother stuff my fear was I didn't
want the audience to think thatthey were as knowledgeable about
everything as they were onething And I didn't want to be
(25:57):
the bad guy who would say, well,Louie, I know, you know, a ton
about real estate, but like howmuch have you studied about
fitness and nutrition and sleepand hydration?
And I didn't want to be that.
I didn't want to be the guy whoI didn't want to be that So
eventually it got to the pointwhere we said, honestly, let's
just do this our way.
We can talk about ourexperiences.
We can talk about what we'velearned.
We can talk about what we'vevetted, and then we can just
(26:20):
have a truthful conversationwith ourselves in the audience
based on what we actuallybelieve works.
And we'll, we don't go outsideof that.
I don't talk about, I don't talkabout real estate.
I don't know much about realestate.
We talk about wealth and wealthcreation, but to the degree that
we understand it.
And then eventually we werelike, well, I've been
(26:41):
financially successful, but mymental health was terrible.
I've been very physicallysuccessful, but my relationships
were garbage.
We're going to do a wellrounded, holistic approach to
life, love, health, and wealth,knowing what we know and knowing
what we've studied, ultimately.
You know, it's funny you saythat because it's kind of the
season I'm in now that I feellike I'm going through, right?
We started, with an interview, Ihad a partner, we had an
(27:04):
interview podcast every once ina while, we do our own together.
Now it's, I'm on my own rightnow.
And, now I have a lot ofinterviews, probably more than I
can handle.
originally I was like in lovewith the story, right?
The human story.
And I love in particular theovercoming some struggle story,
right?
Somebody who comes on here andgets very vulnerable and shares
(27:24):
that and their learnings from itand overcomes it.
That's kind of was my favorite.
And then we got away from thatguy into a lot of authors,
right?
Usually self help type authors.
And now it's a lot of coaches,you know, and there's kind of a
natural progression.
What I'm realizing is, there'scommon denominators with all
these guests, right?
And I'm also realizing what Ilike more and maybe that I, I
(27:45):
probably will start backing offon having many guests and, and
doing more on my own as well.
But I think first thing is when,when you did have them, were
there certain guests you likedand, and were with the people
you did have, did you notice,start to notice certain common
denominators were just startedto feel like the stories were
the same over and over.
(28:07):
I mean, most people had kind ofthe hero's journey of Yeah,
they, they started somewhere.
They accomplished something,they had a very large fall from
grace, and now they're moresuccessful, fulfilled, in a line
that they've ever been.
we would see that, but then, andagain, this is not the majority
of guests, this is a veryfinite, small amount.
(28:27):
But we would see behind thescenes, and we'd learn about
these people, and most of whatthey were talking about was not
true.
They weren't walking their walk,they weren't who they said they
were on the podcast.
So it became that, I just don'twant to amplify.
This person's message.
I don't believe they're actuallygoing to be able to help people
at the degree that they saythey're going to be able to help
(28:48):
people.
Yeah.
So that became kind of one ofthe things, but all the guests
had different expertises andeverybody had different lanes
that they were in.
So that was always interesting,but.
It's just, yeah, sometimes youget rubbed the wrong way when
you have a really big guest onand behind the scenes, they're
completely different than theywere in front of the scenes.
(29:09):
Is that really a message thatyou want to amplify?
It wasn't for us.
So that was a big reason that westopped.
Oh man.
That's so interesting.
You say that, especiallybecause, um, I went through the
season where like everybodyaround me was getting these
coaches, right?
Mindset life coach types.
And I thought I needed one.
Right?
And we had a guy on the show andI hired him and then really
(29:33):
quickly I started to peel backthe onion and realize exactly
what you're saying now.
And it just changed for me and Istarted to try to get away from
that.
I do believe that there'sinternally, things that we
already have the answers to andwe just don't accept.
We almost need a validation fromsomebody else to tell us that.
And once we do that, that's whenyou really hit another stride,
(29:54):
you know, would you agree withthat or?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's a, I've had a lotof coaches, so I'm blessed.
I'm blessed.
I've had a lot of coaches, but Ithink finding an aligned coach,
if I've learned anything, I'velearned that more important than
a coach having quote unquote allthe answers is them
(30:14):
understanding who you are.
Yeah, because the way you coachone person should be drastically
different than the way you coachsomebody else And i've learned
that by being coached frompeople who just didn't
understand me as an emotionallydriven person One of the worst
pieces of advice I ever got waskev.
Why don't you just believe inyourself more?
Thank you I am trying I don'tknow how what are what what are
(30:35):
the steps?
What's the framework?
What do I do?
Yeah, but They never had tobuild belief because they
already had it.
So it's really hard to coachsomeone on something that you've
had naturally, or you didn'trealize you've got unconsciously
or whatever.
So I think a lot of the answersare there.
I do.
I think a lot of the answers arethere and that's why self
awareness is so important anddigging and learning for
(30:57):
yourself and unlearning superimportant.
I am somebody who has benefitbenefited tremendously from
having amazing coaches.
Maybe it's harder than ever tofind a good coach because it's
so easy to become a coach.
Somebody called me out on apodcast one time, Louis, it was
gentle.
It wasn't bad, but they said,what do you think about the fact
that most life coaches arefailed psychologists?
(31:18):
And I said, I mean, it's aninteresting play.
I'm not a life coach, so I'm notoffended by that, but I'm sure
there are some, right?
Just like there are some highschool baseball coaches that are
failed major league baseballcoaches.
Sure.
I mean, if you love doing it.
You're going to find a way to doit, and you're going to try to
find a way to make itsustainable, so I don't think
there's Anything wrong withthat?
(31:38):
I don't think it's, it should bea negative thing.
Yeah.
I think that there's just like,there's a lot of bad podcasts
out there.
Yeah.
It's not hard to start apodcast.
You pay your 12 to buzzsprout orSpotify for podcasters, and
you're kind of off to the races.
I think it's just about honingin on what do you need from a
coach?
And then who do you resonatewith the most?
I'm curious as to what your selfconfidence journey looked like.
(32:01):
You strike me as somebody with alot of self confidence, but what
were the strategies, in a goodway, in a very good way, I
appreciate that.
I'm a good liar, Louis.
I'm good at faking it.
It mostly, it's because you'reseeing me on the thing that I've
done more than anything else.
If I've done this almost 3, 000times and I don't come off as
(32:21):
somewhat confident.
Yeah.
I am messing up badly.
I am still somebody who dealswith self doubt on the day to
day.
Every day, where does that showup still just limiting beliefs
limiting beliefs of i'm not goodenough.
I'm not smart enough Before Ispeak before I go on podcasts.
I think one of the reasons I doso much research.
(32:44):
I know that you uploaded a lotof your episodes to youtube
yesterday I think or the daybefore so you're doing a push to
get on youtube.
Awesome.
I love it.
I listened to a little bit ofthe flow I think one of the
reasons I do so much research isbecause i'm terrified to
disappoint you I'm convinced ofthat.
My deepest fear is disappointingmen because my dad wasn't
around.
(33:04):
I think I internalized, Idisappointed him, and then he
left.
So that's something that I'mable to use constructively,
which is good, but for a longtime it was very destructive and
it was very hard to overcomethat so I've just done a lot of
stuff that scares me over thelast seven years And now I'm
just scared of less than I usedto be I think there's this
(33:25):
contrast where Most people areafraid of public speaking.
This is where I feel the mostconfident Okay, jumping on a
microphone with somebody I'venever met before I have the
utmost confidence that theconversation will most likely go
well and I'll be able to addvalue But this is like This is a
deep talk about awareness andthat I mean that's my jam I
(33:47):
that's what I live for I did apodcast today that was on sale
And I had a moment before I waslooking for excuses to cancel it
What can I do to cancel this?
Do I feel well?
Is that a tickle in my throatthat I feel I went and did it
and it was awesome.
It was amazing So that's how youbuild confidence.
You find the thing that scaresyou you go do it and then you
(34:10):
get proof that you could havedone it the whole time And then
you lock that in and when you dothat long enough you have
relevant and recent proof thatdisproves the emotional
dysregulation that you havegoing on so really that that's
all I I really did is I try todo Stuff that scared me I'd look
and say oh it went better than Iexpected Next time I want to do
(34:32):
it and it scares me, I just haveto remember this time.
Recent and relevant proof.
Those are really the two big,the two big R's that have helped
me the most.
Recent and relevant proof.
Wow.
That is very profound.
I remember as a kid, we hadmoved from Queens, New York to
Central Falls, Rhode Island andCentral Falls people don't know
is actually a really rough town.
(34:53):
And right away I encountered,you know, violence and
everything in the town and I wasscared.
I was scared to go to school, Iwas scared to go outside the
whole night, right?
But I had to, you know, I had nochoice.
I was more scared of, you know,my mother beating my ass if I
didn't go to school.
So, anyhow, I remember every daygaining like consciously gaining
(35:14):
more confidence by going, youknow, everything being okay and
then getting back home and it'dbe like, Oh, it wasn't so bad.
And then before you know it, youjust have a real confidence.
You have a swagger aboutyourself, on your walk to
school.
that was a really big thing.
You just force yourself to doit, put yourself uncomfortably
and you realize, Hey, it isn'tthat bad.
we make up these stories in ourhead that it's going to be so
(35:36):
bad.
it's just about finding theright amount of fear.
That's the thing that neverresonated with me is when people
would say if your goals don'tscare you, they're not big
enough.
I'm scared of life.
The last thing I need to be isscared of my goals and running
in the opposite direction.
I really think of it as like aladder.
What rung do you feelcomfortable on?
Okay, you feel comfortable onrung three?
(35:57):
Cool.
What is kind of a stretch?
Okay, standing on rung five?
Awesome.
That's where we go.
You don't have to go to the topof the ladder yet, because then
eventually rung five becomescomfortable.
And then we go to rung six, andthen we go to rung seven, and
then we go to rung eight.
It's really hard to compresstime when it comes to facing
(36:18):
fears.
I was having panic attacks atone point because I went way too
far out of my comfort zone Toofast for too long and I just
couldn't handle it.
My body could not handle it Iwas on the floor thinking I was
gonna die because I was havingpanic attacks too far too fast
for too long I would much rathersomebody Go from a level one
(36:39):
confidence to a level 1.
5 to a level 2 to a 2.
5 because at least that'ssustainable Yeah, it's going
back to one of the quotes.
We we said with one of thelessons It doesn't really feel
like you're making progressbecause it happens so Slow
right?
It's just little by little bylittle and it's hard to measure
it one of the best pieces ofadvice I could give on that in
(37:00):
the very beginning When Istarted tracking habits, it was
like learn every day exerciseevery day that type of stuff One
of them was track the amount offears that I faced.
So I would do somethingconsciously called fear chasing.
What can I do today that scaresme?
Alright, I did this thing.
Give myself a check mark.
And when you do that longenough, you have so much proof
(37:24):
that is against the emotionalsabotage.
And then you can say, I faced463 fears this year?
Holy crap.
Okay, what else am I capable of?
I think it's a really good habitto instill.
Oh, that is such a greatexercise.
I've never heard that onebefore.
That's great.
I've heard a lot of it.
Very helpful.
Yeah, it's very good.
(37:44):
And anytime you track it, likeyou're saying in the journal,
and you look back, it's like,wow, that's really good.
I love it.
Yeah.
Well, think of it this.
You introduce me and say, Kevinhas 1800 episodes.
Imagine if you introduced me andit was, Kevin has faced 5000
fears.
Just imagine that, for you, ifyou're out there.
(38:06):
The 1800 episodes is what peoplethink is, it's like, oh that's
awesome, he must be successful,he must know stuff.
Imagine if you chased 1800fears, imagine how confident you
would be, if they were in theright place.
Size at the right time.
I mean anytime you're measuringsomething you're proving to
yourself you're disprovingeliminating beliefs.
Hmm.
I love that.
(38:27):
Well kevin on that note, I thinkit's we can go on and on for
this.
this is really good stuff I'mhappy to come back for a part
two whenever you want louisgood.
I'm gonna take you up on that.
if you don't mind, we're gonnaswitch over to our world famous,
since you've been in over 170countries now, this officially
makes it world famous.
Our Wayfinder 4.
Are you ready, Kevin?
I'm ready, Louis.
(38:48):
All right.
So, give us a hack that you useevery day.
Habit tracking.
I track 25 or 26 habits everyday.
I don't get a hundred percentevery day.
I don't do them all every day,but if you want to focus on
staying on track, track yourhabits, it is going to be a game
changer.
Do you use an app or you justkeep it on a piece of paper?
(39:08):
What do you do?
We use Google sheets, but we arein the process of creating our
own habit tracking app for usand the community.
But right now we just keep itsimple.
Google sheets.
Okay.
I love it.
did you get that from anywhere?
My business partner.
my, he's an engineer.
So he's always reverseengineering.
What are the things that I needto do in order to, so yes, as
(39:29):
much as I'd like to take all ofthe credit, he gets all the
credit for that cause that washis thing long before he met me.
Okay.
How about a favorite?
Could be, you know, a favorite.
Book, show, activity, podcastepisodes.
My favorite sport, mixed martialarts, UFC.
if you're calling me on aSaturday night, I'm most likely
(39:51):
not answering because I'mwatching the fights.
I love it.
That's what I wanted to do for aliving for a time in high
school.
So it's something I'm veryconnected to.
Nice.
do you train now?
I was doing jujitsu and I'vedone Muay Thai and I've done
wrestling in the past, but theschedule just got too hectic.
So I canceled my jujitsumembership.
I still kickbox on my own, soit's still something I practice,
(40:14):
but not formally, I guess.
Okay.
It's amazing how far MMA has,you know, when I was a little
boy, I mean, we, we lovedwatching it too.
And it was only like, 10 or sofighters but now it's amazing.
It's taking over the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's wild.
so how about a piece of advicefor your younger self?
(40:35):
Man, one thing I would say toyounger Kev is it's not your
fault.
I was very angry for most of mylife because I think I
internalized my dad leaving ismy fault.
Somehow, right?
Just very emotional, highlyillogical.
But that's one thing I wouldtell him.
And then if I could sit Kevindown and say, Kev, I know it
(40:59):
doesn't seem super cool to talkabout feelings and to talk about
vulnerability and to talk aboutgrowth and evolution, but
eventually you, if you do that,you will be very successful in
life.
I would have sat him down andjust talked about how important
it is to grow.
Because a lot of my success hascome from learning about me and
(41:21):
growing and vulnerability andall that stuff It's really hard
to sell someone on that,especially like a 16 year old
Kevin, for sure.
Right, boys, in particular,we're just so, we gotta be
tough, we gotta put on thisfront, right?
and then we spend the rest ofour lives unraveling that and
realizing that we shouldn't.
The more vulnerable we are, thetougher we actually are, right?
(41:42):
100%.
so that that's really good stuffAnd I suspect from this episode
my wife listens to every singleepisode I know she's going to go
back to that part where youtalked About your fear of
disappointing men.
That was extremely vulnerable ofyou and yeah Thank you for doing
that.
I told you louis.
Yeah, i'm here to add value Andthe only way to add value is to
be, to be yourself.
(42:02):
I'm, I'm telling you that's, ifI've learned anything, I would
rather just be honest.
There's a piece of me, when youasked about the habit tracking,
there's that little ego piece ofme that doesn't want to tell you
that Alan created it.
There's that little piece of methat wants you to think that I
did it.
And I'm, I'm like the mastermindbehind this whole thing.
But I've done this long enoughwhere it's, it's, I'm not going
(42:24):
to be able to sleep if I, if Ido that.
I love that.
so how, you know, and it didn'tcome off in any way either,
like, I, I think we all gothrough that.
We want to say it to us and Inever thought any less of you
when you said that, you know, atall.
Yeah.
And most people wouldn't.
That's the thing.
But we, we make it up in our, Iwent on a podcast yesterday with
(42:45):
someone who, you know, They gotto the end and they're like,
dude, I was so nervous.
And I was like, you should havejust told me you were nervous.
We could have faced the feartogether instead of you
thinking, I think you suckbecause you're nervous.
I'm always nervous.
You're fine.
You should just tell me.
We can do it.
We can do it together.
Vulnerability around the rightpeople is the best possible
thing you can do.
(43:05):
Yeah, totally.
So what about, I'll let youchoose for our last one.
Either a limiting belief, Or abig opportunity man, in terms of
one I've gotten or overcome?
Yeah, yeah.
Either one you've overcome oryou just see and you know how to
overcome, or a big opportunitythat you see out there right now
(43:26):
or you're looking, you know,you're trying to capitalize on,
I would probably go limitingbelief just because that's
usually what I talk about, thenot smart enough thing.
Is something I've been workingreally diligently on over the
last seven years.
And I actually had a mentor tellme recently, I gave a speech and
(43:46):
a training to him, and it was infront of many successful people,
and he said, Kev, you're toosmart.
you got to dumb it down thewords you use the way you float
you got to go a little bit moresimple And it was like whoa This
person who I look up totremendously who I never thought
i'd have the opportunity tospeak next to is telling me i'm
too smart Whoa?
Interesting.
So I guess that suggests thati've overcome that I think
(44:10):
another piece to that is alsothe way we think of smart,
right?
We think of smart as like booksmarts, right?
and yeah, especially causeagain, when we're kids, you
know, that's how we get graded.
But.
I think as I've gotten older, Ijust realized like emotional
intelligence is just such agreater, you know, a street
smarts, you can, you can call itright.
(44:31):
It's just such a greater levelof intelligence.
You know, there's so many peoplewho are like, they got 150 plus
IQs out there, but they don'treally know what's in front of
them or, get what you say.
And Yeah.
And, I just think that that isjust.
The way we think of smartnessis, is something we need to
redefine as a culture because,so, and you strike me as being
(44:54):
really smart both ways.
I appreciate it very much.
Yeah.
let's, let people know a littlebit more about where they can
find your podcast and, connectwith you.
Next level university is thepodcast with 1808 episodes or
whatever it is.
That's on all the podcastplatforms That's on youtube.
And then if you're a podcasterout there and you're looking for
free help on your podcastPodcast growth university is on
(45:14):
all the podcast platforms andyoutube as well hosted by me.
And then if you ever have anyquestions, comments, concerns,
whatever it may be, my email isKevin at next level universe.
com I do my own emails.
So anything you need, I am justan email away.
Well, thank you so much forthat.
Of course.
Yeah, it's been great, man.
I want to, first of all, thankyou for all the research.
(45:35):
You probably know more about methan I do, you know, and I'm
kind of getting scared, so thankyou for that.
Thank you for being here, forsharing your wisdom.
I want you to know that you arenot a disappointment at all.
You, it was a real treat to haveyou here, and I hope to have you
back on, and, and, Hopefullyfoster a good long term
relationship with you.
I appreciate you.
You're a great host.
You seem like a very great man,at least from what I saw today.
(45:58):
you're a wonderful human.
I appreciate you having me on.
I appreciate your time and keepdoing what you're doing.
Awesome.
Thank you, Kevin.
Of course.
We hope you've enjoyed TheWayfinder Show.
If you got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a 5 starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
(46:19):
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
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