Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros with Next Level University

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. I have two guests on with me today. How lucky am I? You might recognize one of them. The other one is new, and they happen to be partners. So Alan Lazaros, who’s the CEO, and Kevin Palmieri as the CSO of Universe Next Level University. I think I did that last time. Alan. Sorry about that.

No stress.

Trisha Stetzel: Alan and Kevin, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you both on today.

Kevin Palmieri: Go ahead. Alan.

Thank you. I just want to give all the gratitude because at one point, this is a dream for Kevin and I, you know, and we both listen to podcasts ten years ago, and they really helped us sort of reconstruct our life in a more positive direction. And now we are podcasters helping people do that. So thank you for having us. We we don’t take it lightly. The most grateful.

Trisha Stetzel: I appreciate it.

Kevin Palmieri: The most grateful. You see, I’ve known you for like seven minutes now, and in the seven minutes I feel like you’re a wonderful person. So I’m very much looking forward to the next 15 minutes. She got you with the fishing.

Trisha Stetzel: Like, I feel like. Is this true? I don’t know, Kevin.

Kevin Palmieri: It’s true.

Trisha Stetzel: All right, gentlemen, so the the topic or the focus that we have today is really on this partnership that the two of you have had for the last eight years, like the beginning and the end in the middle, what you’ve figured out about yourselves. Um, some of you who are listening today may remember the conversation that Alan and I had back a few months ago around mindset. Uh, if you haven’t listened to it, you should, because it was a really good episode. So why don’t we dive into Let’s start with the end. Like, where are you at today? What are you guys doing? So that folks know exactly what you’re offering to your audiences. And then let’s back into that. Like, where did it all begin? So, Kevin, you always let Alan go first. So Kevin, I’m going to ask you to start.

Kevin Palmieri: No. Oh my goodness. What do I do today. So I’ll let Alan speak for for himself. But today I am predominantly in WhatsApp making sure that our wonderful clients that we produce, their podcasts are well taken care of. So the majority of what I do is customer service and making sure we are consistently over delivering on the promises that we make. I mean, I am obsessed with making sure that we do a good job with that. One of my mottos is be the last message. We are always supposed to be the last message. Nobody should ever be waiting on us for a message response. So that is pretty much what I do today. And then I, to Alan’s point in the preamble. I’m try to be creative with ideas. I try to be creative with episodes. Obviously we have next level university, so we do an episode every day. It’s my job to make sure that the show goes well and that I bring some level of value slash ideas so we can make sure we do our seven day a week cadence. So those are that’s kind of like the main focus for me right now.

Trisha Stetzel: Nice. Thanks, Kevin. Alan.

Alan Lazaros: So what what am I doing? I know your listeners kind of know me a little bit. If they did listen to the other episode, if they didn’t, I’ll presuppose that they didn’t, just in case. So my job is primarily these four things I’ve come to realize. And as you do these things, you kind of realize what you’re doing well and what you’re sucking at. So these are the four things I think I’m doing well and kind of the only four things. Uh, the first one is I’m believing in the team and I’m believing in the clients, and I’m really believing in the future more than anyone else. I’m just such an overly futuristic optimist. Like, I’ve been talking about self-driving cars for the last 15 years, and now they’re actually happening. So I’m just that obnoxious guy. Uh, number two is standards. I’m just. You even mentioned right there. Kev, be the last message. That’s a chAlanging thing to do, for sure, because if you want to have a life, it’s very hard to always be the last message. So we just have ridiculously high standards for how we operate and how consistent we are and for how we treat our clients and our customers. And then the third thing that I’m doing that is just keeping everyone in forward momentum. I always have this book with me at all times. It’s called The Flywheel. It’s not my book. I’m not selling a book on your show. Okay. Uh, have you heard of you obviously know Jim call. Yeah. Jim. Yeah, right.

Kevin Palmieri: Uh, Jim Collin’s books, I think, are the best business books ever written. You are nodding your head. So you’ve obviously. So there’s the flywheel concept of just momentum. The the companies that win are the ones that are the most consistent. And so I’m keeping everyone in forward momentum. And I always say I’ll be the pain in the ass. They think one day and maybe that second part won’t happen. And then the fourth thing that I’m doing is long term intelligent choices. I just don’t think short term. I never really have. And every time I did, I always regretted it. And I think most people do. They go on their feelings. And in business, if you go on your feelings, you’re screwed. And but you have to be creative and you have to be emotional because every business I think has a creative and a and a business mind, a creative and a mathematical thinker. And you can look at, you know, partnerships and businesses in the past, you know, Paul Alan, Bill gates, Steve Jobs, Wozniak, there’s a bunch of those. And then a lot of times the creative is the front facing person. And there’s someone behind the scenes running the company that no one knows about. Oprah obviously has her own unique version of that, that kind of thing. So Kev and I have gotten to this place where we kind of understand who we are now, and we’re leaning into it, even though that’s taking tremendous courage because I think I wanted to be liked.

Trisha Stetzel: You missed a pair. I’m just saying. You didn’t say Palmieri and Lazarus. I’m just saying that was missing from the pairs that you called out. Yeah. Oh. Thank you.

Kevin Palmieri: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. Not yet. I don’t think. I mean, one day, you know, that might be a thing. Thank you so much, I appreciate that. I didn’t even know what you were making a joke there. That’s how that’s that’s alarming.

Trisha Stetzel: I know, I saw your face. I thought you were frozen. I’m like, oh, my video froze. No, no, I confused you. You perplexed. I got it right away.

Kevin Palmieri: I got it right away. Yeah. Right away. Alan’s really good at like statue thing. So sometimes when he’s, like deeply thinking, you think he’s frozen, he’s still there. I didn’t mean to give you a thumbs up. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, so here’s what I know. I know Alan a little better than you, Kevin. But I do know that the two of you are different, yet share values. Um, one of the things that I brought up before we started recording is I happen to see one of your old board meetings, which was on a boat catching fish. So now that we know where you’re at today, let’s roll. All the way back to eight years ago, when you guys started building this business together. Talk about why and how you met. How do you guys know each other? And then second, what were some of the early chAlanges for you as partners?

Kevin Palmieri: I’ll start this. Alan. Right. I’ll start this because usually this is how it goes. So Alan and I went to middle school together. We grew up in the same small town. We played Spin the Bottle in his basement with the popular girls in middle school, which was like, that was cool. I mean, I peaked early for sure, but that was that was a bucket list for me at the time. Then we ended up going to high school together and in high school. Alan was an academic Focused on getting the President’s award and crush in school. I was the captain of the baseball team, focused on being good at baseball and hating all things education. So we didn’t necessarily get along. But the weird thing is, we didn’t understand this about one another at the time. But we both had very similar experiences where we both grew up without fathers. So that has always been something that has stuck us together is we grew up without fathers. The picture that you talked about with us having our board meeting on the boat. That was on Father’s Day. We used to go fishing together every Father’s Day. That was our thing because all of our friends were spending time with their families and we weren’t.

Kevin Palmieri: So after college, after high school, Alan goes away to college. I work a bunch of odd, mostly terrible jobs, and then I think I was like 20, I don’t know, was I 25 or 26? I went to a party and Alan was there and him and I reconnected and he had left his job. And his girlfriend was beautiful and he had money in the bank. And I was like, whoa! I want to be an entrepreneur. This looks awesome. That would be awesome for me. So at the time, Trisha Alan had a YouTube channel called Conversation Conversations Change Lives. He said, I’d love to have you on. I was like, I don’t. I sure, I don’t know what I’m going to do in terms of adding value, but like, let’s see how this goes. He had me on baby fitness, fitness, discipline and mindset. I got those I got those three mindset, maybe not so much, but the first two for sure. So at the end of this hour and a half interview, I said to my friend who was there, we had another friend there. I said, that went by and what felt like five minutes. Imagine if you could do that for a living.

Kevin Palmieri: And he said, well, there’s people out there that do. And I was like, interesting, okay. I did all the research, ordered the mic, figured out how to audio edit, blah, blah, blah, and Alan was my first guest and that was the best. It was the best. He was mentoring me at the time. He was coaching me at the time. I don’t know if I’m sure he knew it. I didn’t know it. So yeah, I fell in love with that, ended up doing some episodes, and then I had a really tough bout with Mental health where I was debating suicide. Alan was the person I reached out to, and then after that I left my job, and then him and I partnered up in 2018 and we said, look, we’re going to come together. We’re going to go all in on one podcast, which at the time was the Hyper Conscious podcast. And then, yeah, that was the beginning of this very strange, surreal journey that we’re on today. I’ll speak for myself, surreal for me. I feel like Alan knew all this was going to happen, so I get more excitement on the day to day than he does Trisha for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: But he gets an excitement from different things than you, that’s all.

Kevin Palmieri: Yes, yes for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: All right, so, Alan, what’s your side of the story.

Alan Lazaros: Yeah, so we did. I did the traditional path. So I did preschool, kindergarten, middle school, high school, college and corporate. Little did Kevin know, I had $150,000 in a Vanguard account that I invested all my money. And all that money that you saw me balling out with was made in corporate, sir. Not not an entrepreneur on the beach with a six pack. And I was like, I could do that for sure and buy six pack. He means abs, not babes, not beer. Although it was the beer in college for sure. But ultimately two two young boys grew up in a small town and a small minded town, quite frankly, and I’ve always had huge dreams, and Kev was always kind of the rebel who wanted to do things differently. I wanted to be a professional fighter. He was really into fitness more than anyone else. Early on, early on, we were both bodybuilders. For a while there I was a fitness model, fitness competitor, a fitness coach, and that’s we started working out together. That was like a big part of it, and we just bonded over that. And then I think unconsciously, we both grew up. So I was raised by my mom and my older sister. He was raised by his mom and his mama, his grandma, and we never really had dads, so we didn’t. I had a stepfather from age 3 to 14, but I never really got along with him and I certainly didn’t look up to him. So we didn’t really have any male role models, and we kind of found that in each other. We were also really lonely. And I’ll explain why. Obviously we were single so that that’s part of it.

Alan Lazaros: But we were lonely because we were so into personal development and growth and personal improvement and self-improvement and mental health and healing our trauma. We we were so lonely in that we call it lonely land now. But it was it was bad. We were the only entrepreneurs we knew, really. And so we found sort of connection with each other. And then we just built this sort of thing. Now the piece that I want to bring up, we never stopped the podcast, no matter how hard it got. Eight years ago, we started a podcast. I had conversations change lives. He had diaper conscious podcast. We went all in on the hyper conscious podcast. Changed the way you think. Changed the way you, uh, change the way you think. Change the way you act. Change the way you live. How dare I screw that up? How dare you? I know you’re going to say that, but then we rebranded to Next Level University, probably around episode 600 or something. I’m butchering that. I don’t know when it was, but we did one episode a week. Then it was two episodes a week, then it was three, then it was five. We jumped to five, then it was seven. And we do an episode every day now. And when you say that to other people, they think nothing of it. When you say that to a podcaster, they go, wait, what? So you’re talking like one minute episodes right now. The average length of our episodes now is probably 25 minutes. And we put work into these two. It’s not it’s not just, hey, let’s hit record and do it like there’s a lot of thought behind it.

Alan Lazaros: So the piece that I want to bring up is that’s been the one thing that has really made 90% of the difference for us. If you take that one thing away, Way. I’m a coach. He does podcast coaching. We work with 106 podcasters and business owners. I have one client I see four times a week. Just grinding. Improve, improve improve. But the Next Level University podcast is the glue that puts it all together. We have our own community now. It’s an 18 person team. I have 20 clients. He has 60 plus podcasts that we produce. But it all started with one train, the main train. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and we just never strayed from that. To this day, we actually are recording a couple episodes later today. I think Kevin has that on the schedule. I need to look at my schedule, but and now here we are going on other shows. So it’s become a really cool thing. And the thing that I think has been interesting is it’s always been deeper than, than just starting a business together. I think it’s always been about meaning and about purpose, and it’s always been focused on helping people in a way that we feel because we felt pretty lost in different ways. I felt less lost than he did. He felt a lot more lost than success, but I felt lost as hell in relationships. I. I felt like relationships never worked well for me. So now we have a podcast that talks about holistic personal development and success, and it’s been really cool.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s awesome. So do you still feel lonely as an entrepreneur?

Alan Lazaros: It’s a great question. Yes. Yeah for sure. Just in a different way. I, I don’t know, I feel like I’m pretty. I have pride around the loneliness because this is what I signed up for. And I don’t ever expect anybody to fully understand what I’m going through other than Alan. Really. I like one of my my other best friend. I know you’re only supposed to have one. Sue me, I get two, but my my other best friend’s an entrepreneur, so he gets it like I’m the best. Trisha. I’m the best man in his wedding. He literally told two of the other guys in the wedding party, just support Kev as much as he needs because he’s super busy. Like, oh my goodness. I feel so seen in that. Thank you. Thank you for that. Because I don’t know what I’m doing. What? You’re trying to grow a business. I can’t be worried too. Too much about booking flights. But yes and no. I feel the most seen I’ve ever felt by the people that I need to be seen by. And I feel the least understood by the people that I don’t really care if they understand me. I think nice, I don’t feel lonely anymore, but only because of my beautiful girlfriend Emilia. We own three businesses between the two of us, and she she she’s my best friend.

Alan Lazaros: She’s my my everything. I used to actually think that that quote was dumb. Before I met Emilia, I was like, she’s your everything. What are you talking about? You can’t have one person be your everything. Well, she’s my gym partner. She’s my business partner. She’s my future wife. She’s. She’s my everything. And, uh, I don’t feel when you ask that question, I smiled just automatically, because I just don’t feel lonely anymore. Which is weird for me because I felt like I was alone most of my life. Internally, not externally, externally. I had tons of friends in high school and college at corporate, and I always felt sought after as a man. But I never like friends and otherwise. But I never felt, um, belonging inside. And with her, I feel tremendous belonging. And so that’s new for me. That’s within the last five years. It took me 30 years, but I am so grateful for that part. And that’s the one part of this journey that I never anticipated. Like most of the business success and stuff, I that was by design. This was, oh my goodness, this is the coolest thing ever. I can’t even believe, like I thought I was gonna be alone forever. Honestly.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, both of you, when you talked about where your business is at today, talked about the community of people in your business and how you take care of them and the people, even outside of your business that come to you for things, your clients, your customers, right. And how you take care of them through, through the journey. What I hear is that you’ve built community yet there’s still some part of you, and I think all of us as entrepreneurs may feel this space, some larger than others. That is somewhat lonely, right? And there’s some void there in some way. But you guys have built this beautiful community around your business, and now you’re supporting people who are supporting you inside of your business. So here’s where I want to go next. What were some of the biggest chAlanges in this partnership when you guys first started working together?

Kevin Palmieri: You want me to start Alan?

Alan Lazaros: Yeah.

Kevin Palmieri: Easy. Easiest one in the world, Trisha. Everything I wanted to do was dumb and stupid. And Alan would be like, that’s kind of dumb and kind of stupid. I’m like, huh? Okay. And in a kind way. Not a bad way. I got you. I said it in way more than I got you. Okay. I think the most.

Trisha Stetzel: Alan didn’t say Kevin,that’s dumb.

Kevin Palmieri: Now, now he does. Now in a good way again. We we both have permission to be brutally honest with each other, because that’s what it’s going to take. The simplest answer is, Alan, is exactly what I needed, but the opposite of what I wanted. I wanted a business partner who was going to do reckless things with me, like, let me do what I want to do, let me laptop lifestyle. Let me take Fridays off, let me have a half day Wednesday. If I could have imagined what I wanted in a business partner, it would have been that it would have been somebody just like me. In the opposite, I. I do have a boss. Alan is my boss, I don’t care. Like, I know it might sound weird. He’s he’s the boss. And it’s really, really, really good for me. I’m not a natural number one. I’m a really good number two. And I think the chAlange was for the for most of the time, my ego was not ready to admit that. So I wanted everybody to think that I built this Trisha by myself. Brick by brick. With my bare freaking hands. And it’s just not true. It’s not true. So most of the chAlanges for me were the internal not feeling good enough imposter syndrome. Am I ever going to be successful? Is Trisha going to like me? Like that was the the big thing for me. The grind it out and work 12 hours like that. I mean, that is what it is. That’s not that bad. But the majority of it for me was all of the conditioning I had to do from like the personal development perspective as opposed to learning stuff in business. I mean, there’s pain associated with that too, but it’s a deeper pain when you’re just constantly getting poked of, like, you lost that client because you’re not good enough. You got rejected because you’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough yet. Like that was that was really the struggle for me for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: So, Kevin, I liked you before I met you. Because I stalked you on social media. I’m just saying, I knew you were going to be a cool guest. I just knew that. So. Alan. Alan, before I come to you, I just want to ask Kevin one question around the wanted versus needs. Right? What you want versus what you needed. Do you find that you have to use that with your clients these days, like they come to you and they’re like, this is what I want. But you know better because you’ve been through it before, and now you’re supporting them through something that you already fell down, skinned your knees, cut your elbows, got the black eye right? Um, how do you use that with your clients now?

Kevin Palmieri: We’re all coaches here, so I’m sure we’ve all experienced this. My firm belief now is a good coach helps you get the goals you want. A great coach helps you avoid the pain to accomplish the goals you don’t actually want. And now it is a conversation of do not tell me what you want. Tell me what you’re willing to do to get it. I don’t care with respect and all due love. I don’t care what you say you want. I care the process that you’re willing to practice. I always start there. For me, it’s that because we all want more, bigger, better, whatever. But the reason we don’t get more bigger or better is not because we don’t want it. It’s because we don’t want the process. So I just try to be very honest with my clients regarding what it’s going to take for them. Great. Quick story. I was working with a young man one time and he said, I want to be like you guys, but way more successful. Like, okay, love it, love that. I’m not exactly sure the way more successful part, but I can I can tell you how we’ve gotten here. And I said before we jump into tactics and all that stuff, let’s just have let’s just have real conversation. On a scale of 0 to 10. How important is it for you to be home every night for dinner? And he smiled. He’s ten out of ten.

Kevin Palmieri: Love it. Cool, man. Love that for you. You’re gonna have kids soon. Yeah. Next. Next couple of years. Awesome. You want to be at their sporting events when they get older? You want to parent teacher conference? You want time off that type of stuff. He’s like, yeah, man, it’s super important. Big family guys are cool with all the love, my friend. You don’t want what I have. Trust me, because I’ve traded all that in. I’m not having kids for a reason. Alan and I work 12 hours a day. He works more than I do, but I do work a good amount. I put in my. I put in my hours. But Alan Alan now works me. So the point of that story was, I know you see what we have. And you think that would be really cool to have, but what it would take for you to get there would require you to trade in all of your core values and all of your core beliefs for aspirations that you don’t actually want. Let’s have that conversation. So that’s usually where I try to start with people, because yeah, it looks really good to say we have 2070 episodes and we have $1 million business. What it has taken to get here is nothing short of brutal, and I think it is wildly unhealthy for the vast majority of humans to do it for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: Except for Kevin and Alan. And it’s been really even me. It’s good. Yeah, I can tell.

Kevin Palmieri: I told you, I think it’s good for Alan. I think this is what Alan is supposed to be doing. I told him, like, very honestly and very vulnerably. And I don’t regret it, but there’s there’s pieces of me that I will never get back from this journey. For sure. For sure. Yeah. If I can just jump in real quick. One of the things I love about Kev is how honest he is. So, Trisha, that we talked about the achievers. I don’t I haven’t taken a full day off in ten years. I don’t know if I ever will again. And people hear that and they’re like, you’re out of your fucking mind. Pardon my French. Please edit that out if it’s not explicit. Are you kidding? But the truth of the matter is, is sometimes it’s one hour a day, sometimes it’s 18 hours a day, and ideally, it’s somewhere in between. It almost always is. I don’t want to not build. I’m here on planet Earth to do all I can with all I have. And I’m not joking. I am going to reach my potential and help others do the same. And that is my main focus. And I said this on a podcast one time with a woman named Deborah. I’ll never forget it. I said, I’m just being vulnerable and honest here.

Kevin Palmieri: I haven’t taken a full day off in ten years. So while I love that, you know, other people aspire to do what we’ve done, I actually don’t think everyone should be an entrepreneur. She’s like, well, what do you mean everyone has? I said, I’m just saying, I know people who, quite frankly, are lazy and they love being lazy. Kevin and I, we we are just strivers. We’re not. We don’t arrive anywhere like the moment we hit a goal. We had a $70,000 a month. We just upped the ante. Like, I literally. How long did we celebrate that? Not as long as I. Not as long as I would have liked. I would have liked some sort of fancy dinner or something, you know, not not to be happy. To me, it’s about the next level. It’s not about the current one. Right? This is next level university. Not ordinary average mediocre university. So I, I understand this isn’t for everyone, and I do think that I love how Kevin is so honest about that, because I don’t think he was wired in a way where he was supposed to be as big of an achiever. Whereas for me, I’ve been hiding my achiever my whole life. I’m just grateful I get to be more of me now.

Trisha Stetzel: You get to be more of you. So, Alan, what do you see as the biggest chAlange when you, the two of you started working together?

Alan Lazaros: Being all of me, it’s still my biggest chAlange. Even on this podcast, I. It’s easy to villainize someone who seems like an arrogant, pretentious butthead who started on third base. I’m a six foot two white Caucasian American male born and raised in Massachusetts. It looks like I started on third base. I couldn’t even see the fucking ballpark. Dad died at two, stepfather left at 14, lost three families by the time I was 14 years old. And I have a level of tenacity and drive that I don’t think is normal, I know is not normal. And it it triggers people. And I’m just trying to be honest like I, I clients come to me and they say, well I want this, this and this. It’s of course you do. Who doesn’t want to mansion on the beach? It’s not going to happen. Like, look at the statistics. You can’t work two hours a day and have a multi-million dollar mansion on the beach. Unless you inherit the money or a generational wealth or win the lottery. And so to me, I’m a I’m an earner and I’m a striver. I’m not an arriver and an entitled person. So, so Kevin and I, it took me 30 years to figure this out, but I work really well with certain people and really not well with others, and I’ve finally figured it out.

Alan Lazaros: But the hardest part in this journey for me has been being all of me. And so people with high work ethic and high humility, inward humility, not necessarily outward inward humility, and who want to reach their potential. They love Kev. They love me. They love you like I’m read on this episode for a reason because socially I’m not easily acceptable. The people that I don’t work well with are entitled. They’re arrogant and don’t know it. They want big rewards for minimal effort, and they villainize me instead of face the fact that they’re kind of lazy. And I just. I don’t believe in this new age, 21st century, four hour workweek stuff. It’s not real. It’s a trust me, I’ve I’ve coached 400 plus people over the last ten years. They’re all freaking broke. Except for the ones that aren’t on social media. Like, social media has really distorted what it takes to actually succeed. And what’s good for productivity and success is usually not good for marketing and branding. And I understand why it’s that way. But the fishing video is not the reason we’re successful, that I can promise you we actually weren’t successful back then.

Trisha Stetzel: But you were having fun and it was Father’s Day, so I’m glad the two of you did some fun things together. And hey, Alan, take Kevin to dinner, for gosh sakes for having that 70.

Kevin Palmieri: Thank you so much for that. I’ll send you a gift card, man without me. Thank you so much. I’ll just let me buy a new car so I feel like it’s good. We’re good, we’re good. Only 20:05 p.m. w baby.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, this is a good thing. All right, I’m gonna sneak my Snuggie comment in here. Kevin was, um, somewhere while I was stalking him on social media on one of his podcasts, talking about how some people just want to put the Snuggie on because it’s warm and comfortable and it makes them feel good, and that’s the way they do business. And Kevin said instead, you should be making a fire. So the two of you are high achievers. And Kevin, maybe you went kicking and screaming, but you’re a high achiever as well, right? You’re in this space now. Thank you. Alan, um, you coach a lot of people in different ways, right? One in the podcast space and one in in the business space. And I know that there are people who come to you and say, but I just want to wear the Snuggie and you have to tell them in order to be successful. You get to go build the fire. So what are you providing to the bulk of your audiences? And I know you do a lot of 1 to 1 as well, but what are you putting out there in the way of energy and information and advice to people to really get them to shift from this four hour workweek to, you got to go do the grind in order to be successful.

Kevin Palmieri: Nice. I almost think of it as like, regretful truth. Like, I hate to be the guy to tell you this. I don’t want to be the guy to tell you this, but I do believe that my heart is big enough, and I have the courage to say, look, most of these people are lying to you. And here’s how I know I’ve met them, and I’ve been coached by them. And they’re not who you think they are. That that’s one part, that part of it. And I think one of my purposes is to help people raise their awareness. That is like there is some very big people in the personal development space who it seems like they got to where they are by accident. It’s all reverse engineered. It’s built on lies, it’s built on steel, it’s built on just garbage. And I just feel like. For so long, our industry was built on making people feel good. Making you feel good has value at times, but you can either change your behavior or you can change your perception. If I come on here and say, guys, I know business is a little bit hard, but here’s the thing the economy sucks right now, so don’t worry about it. I mean, when the economy strengthens up, I’m sure you’ll get more clients. That’s not helpful. No, that’s not helpful. The truth is, yes, the economy is maybe in a rough spot, but your resources and your resourcefulness and your grit and your relationships and all the things you’ve done to build this, to build this momentum, are what are going to set you apart from all the people that quit. Don’t freak and quit. That’s a heart driven but no B.S. approach. And that’s really what we try to do, is if you listen to our show, you’re not going to feel better about yourself most likely, but you will have more opportunity to get better.

Kevin Palmieri: And when you get better, you are going to feel better because you’re going to be in control. I would much rather somebody be in control of their future while dealing with some chAlanging feelings than us. Just reset their feelings every time they listen, because I wanted that at one point in my life, and it just doesn’t serve you. You’ll you’ll feel better. But then the next day it’s the same cycle. Feel good? Nothing changes. Continue running. The same behaviors feel bad, feel good. And it just becomes this. It just becomes this cycle. Growth requires discomfort. So you feel a little bad. You reflect on it, you change your behavior, you grow, and then rinse and repeat that cycle forever. And one is up and one is down. Unfortunately. And I’ve I’ve been in the downward cycle, and I feel like I want to be the guy who helps people get out of the downward spiral, even if it makes my life much harder. Which it does, because if we help people feel better all the time, we would be way more successful than we are for sure. But we decided pretty early on, like, ah, that, that ain’t it. To your point, they lie to your point, Trisha, where that came from for me is I was looking at a book review for somebody very big in the personal development space, and they said, this is a Snuggie self-improvement book. It’ll make you feel good, but it’s not going to change anything. It’s like, oh my goodness, that’s what that’s what’s working, unfortunately. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: So no snuggies for everyone. I’m just saying no snuggies for you or for you or for anybody else.

Kevin Palmieri: We’ll give you a hug. If you need a hug, I will give you a hug for sure. But then we got to get after it because that that was the whole point of it is if you always have the Snuggie, yeah, it’ll get you warm. But if you’re out in the wilderness with a Snuggie, you’re gonna die. You need to develop the skills to build the fire, to build a shelter, right? The Snuggie is comfortable at times, but it’s a Band-Aid far more than it is a solution.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, yeah. And you talked about you got to go into the woods and it’s whether it’s snowing or raining or hot or cold or fill in the blank, you’re going to go through all those things as you build your business. Right? I mean, that’s just the bottom line. Yeah, I appreciate you. And I’m a lead with the carrot, but I hold a big stick kind of gal, so I get it. Yeah. That’s good. Alan, how about you?

Alan Lazaros: Oh, well, the first thing I’ll say is I think leading by example is everything. If I want so I. Can too cowardly to say this in the past. I need to share it because I need to lead by example. I’m 1179 days of consistent exercise without a single miss. And I used to be too scared to share stuff like that because it sounds so arrogant. But with my clients, I lead from the front. I’m not asking them to do anything that I don’t do. And I started saying this before I because I used to coach anyone that would be willing. I mean, in the beginning I was I always say I’ve been mentoring for ten years, coaching for eight. Which basically means I started getting paid eight years ago. And I used to coach anyone I could because in the beginning, no one knows you. Sam’s Cola or Coca Cola? Everyone’s going to buy a Coca Cola because no one knows who the f sam is. And that’s why entrepreneurship is so brutal. So if you look at the statistics, I’m big on that. There’s 137,000 new businesses that launch globally every day. Very, very, very, very, very, very few of those even exist in ten years. And so I say this to my clients, if you want to be one of the ones who is still standing, that doesn’t even mean you’re profitable.

Alan Lazaros: It just means you’re alive. I’m going to have to tell you shit you don’t want to hear. And you can make fun of me all day for the fact that I work every day. But I’m still in business, baby. And I guarantee you I wouldn’t be, because I’m almost. We almost went out of business with that work ethic, by the way. I haven’t taken a day off in ten years, and we still almost went out of business. And there’s two of us. There’s 18 of us now. But you know what I’m saying? The point is, is that it might feel really good to hear that it’s all going to work out. But the truth is, you might work your face off and still fail. And so it takes humility, I think, and maturity to say, you know what? I’m going to give it all I’ve got. And I’m I’m not going to. I’m not going to pull any punches, and I’m going to have the courage to go all in and or have the courage to admit this isn’t for me. And I think that that’s really what I get people to do before I coach them. I was on with someone yesterday who said she wants to be the next Oprah. And I and I talked.

Alan Lazaros: I took her through my spreadsheet. I said, okay, great. That’s awesome. If you want to coach with me, here’s the deal. I care about your success first, your fulfillment second, and your feelings third. I’m going to be the person in your life who cares more about your success than you do the only human being in your life. No one else cares, Trisha. No one cares about your dreams. As a matter of fact, most of your peers would be pumped if you lose. Sorry, I’m not your immediate peers, but in general, the friends from high school, they’d be like, oh, Trisha fell on her face again. Yay! Because they just see how you constantly winning so no one cares. They care about other things. They care about the barbecue and whether or not you’re at their birthday. They don’t care about your success. So when I’m going to be the one person who cares more about your success and who has the courage to ruin our relationship if I have to, in order to help you hear the truth. Because one day I don’t care if it’s two years from now or ten years from now, you’re going to go, wow, that dude actually was saying what was real. And I have a coach. His name was Alex, and I lost him because I was late too many times, but he was that for me.

Alan Lazaros: And this would be the last piece I share here about this. I’ve had mentors and coaches galore. I’ve had dozens. Some of them I definitely shouldn’t have had. I mean, holy crap, those dudes don’t know shit. Right? But I didn’t know it because I was a kid. There’s one coach who shines through. His name was Alex, and he was the most Truthful and I didn’t want to hear it. But as I got older and older and older, he was 42. At the time. I’m 36 now and I’m going, that man never lied. Everything he said was true and everything my other mentor said was fluffy, feel good nonsense. It wasn’t real. Not everything, but most. So when you get older and older and older, certain people fall from the pedestal and other people go, wait a minute. Oh wow, that person actually cared about my dreams. They actually cared about my success. They cared so much. In fact, they were willing to risk our relationship to actually tell me the truth. And I’ve done that with Kev several times. And and that’s why I said I’ll be the pain in the butt that you’ll thank one day. Hopefully that second part actually happens. And if it doesn’t, I have to make peace with that as well, because at the end of the day, I can’t lie to anybody.

Alan Lazaros: And I know what this has taken, and I know the stats. And I spoke to a group of entrepreneurs four months ago, and I was their first exposure to business. They were engineers, not entrepreneurs, engineers. And I just was on this panel with these other two entrepreneurs, multi-millionaires. And they were talking about passion and purpose. And I said, wait a minute, hold up guys. How many times have you guys failed? They both start laughing. One of them seven times eight businesses failed. I said, real quick, let’s give them something real here. This is all fluffy. Let’s give them something real. How many? How many spreadsheets do you guys have? They both laughed. He said, Alan, I’ve got eight open on my computer right now. That is what success is. Success is spreadsheets and metrics and boring ass shit no one wants to talk about. And it’s not it’s not feel good stuff on YouTube that does well. You watch the biggest YouTube channels, watch the biggest. It’s it’s mental candy. It’s someone running with backpacks of money. It’s all nonsense. I love cats too, and I love cat videos. It’s not going to help you. And that’s just so. That’s just my truth. And thank you for giving me the permission to come out with it.

Trisha Stetzel: I knew there was another reason that I liked you. I love cat videos too.

Alan Lazaros: Oh, perfect. Yes I do, I do, but but they’re not gonna help you succeed. They’ll actually be the reason you don’t succeed, unfortunately.

Trisha Stetzel: Exactly. Because you’re scrolling through cat videos. All right. So circling back around, I think we’re going full circle here. So we we started where you’re at today. We went all the way back to the beginning. We talked about the chAlanges. You guys are very different from each other. Um, Kevin, I’m so glad that I got to meet you today. And, um, Alan, I’m so glad that you came back on with the two of you. Yeah, the differences are there, and I can see them. Yet. There are so many core values that you have in common. So, Kevin, what’s your what’s your favorite thing that you and Alan connect on from a just intrinsic and an intrinsic way or from a core values use perspective.

Kevin Palmieri: Being good men. Yeah. Being good. Being good men I don’t. We will not trade ourselves for success. What we feel about ourselves matters way more than the bottom line. At the end of the day. Like, I will not be able to put my head down on the pillow if I wasn’t a good man. And Alan’s the same that that I’m never worried. I’m not worried about that, ever. I’m not worried about our characters clashing. I’m not worried about that. And I think that’s rare. I think that’s especially in business. Like we know I’ve just been. So much truth has been revealed at how many people are just kind of lying and cheating and and they’re just not who they, who they say they are. If anything, very honestly, we’re more behind the scenes than most people think because we’re just so focused on that. I want to be successful in real life, not necessarily just on social media. So and Alan’s the same more he’s more of that than I. And that’s yeah, I would say that and I think we When the times get rough, right, wrong and different, whether it’s valuable or not, I tend to get more funny. And I love making Alan laugh. It’s one of my favorite things in the world if I can get him going. It’s one of my favorite things in the world. So we have very different humor, but when we are in the pressure cooker, we have some good giggles and I would say that’s probably my second. My second favorite thing that we have in common. Nice.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Alan, how about you?

Alan Lazaros: The same. Who we are and what we are when no one’s watching is just. It’s it’s the core. It’s the core. And anyone and I came to realize this. Anyone. And Kevin’s realizing this, too. And he’ll second that. I’ll let you speak for yourself. I will get along with someone. I’ve realized to the extent that, number one, they want to reach their potential. And number two, they’re not full of shit. And we’ve had we had a 24 person team at one point. I mean, we have gone through the the hard knocks of just bludgeoning of who to hire, who not to hire, how this hoof. I mean, it was really, you know, at one point I considered the team, my family, my chosen family. And I don’t do that anymore. Just just because I got to be careful with my heart. Uh. My favorite thing about us is who we are and what we are. When no one’s watching is always what matters most. Despite all the glitz and glam and the nice shirts and the beautiful like, we grew up with nothing. We both grew up with very little. Seriously. And that’s why I told Kevin once we were cleaning out the studio, I said, dude, I could never have worked with you if you were spoiled because we we make, you know, we make great revenue, but we were making no money in the beginning.

Alan Lazaros: Right. And and he’s just not he’s not entitled. He doesn’t have spoiled brat syndrome. He he’s willing to earn every penny. And he just got a 20, 25 brand new electric BMW. And it’s it’s less than the last one that we had. So it’s a good actually mathematical play, finance play. But he basically waited eight years for shit like that. You know, and it’s I just if you want big rewards for minimal effort, I can’t work with you. And I’ve just learned that. So that’s my favorite part about us is that we’re not spoiled. We’re not spoiled, even though we live in America. The number one economy on the planet Massachusetts, born and raised, we we don’t have any spoiled Brat syndrome. And whenever I get around people who have that entitlement of like, I should make more money without contributing more, it’s it’s what do you you need to go, like travel to Somalia or something. I need you to go. You need to get perspective. And every now and then behind the scenes, Kev will say that person needs to get their ass kicked. Martial arts. There’s nothing more humbling than than, yeah, somebody kicking your ass. Mhm.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. All right. I’d like to spend a couple of minutes before we close today talking about what you bring to your clients. So anybody who’s listening, who wants to engage with you, um, either on next level university or in a coaching, um, scenario one, how can they reach out? And to how do they know that you’re for them?

Kevin Palmieri: Good. Alan, lead the charge.

Alan Lazaros: Well, the first one is we. I think every business owner needs to find their absolutely people. And they’re absolutely not people. Actually. All people, not just business owners, but business owners especially. So I already mentioned our absolutely people. Hi humility, hi work ethic. And they want to earn it and they want to reach their potential in life, in business or podcasting. That’s our people. If you’re an earner who has humility and work ethic, you are going to I mean, we’re going to help you just amplify everything. You are part driven. The absolutely not people are people who already shut this off because they don’t like me. Um, which are people who are entitled and they want big rewards for minimal effort. We don’t work with people like that anymore. And we never will because it’s just not going to work. We just butt heads and, uh, so those are absolutely, absolutely not people in terms of what we do for people. So we have next level university level up yourself podcast Growth University as Kevin’s podcast. Level up your podcast. And then we have business Growth University that I just started. Level up your business. But ultimately underneath all of that it’s success and personal development. Identify your own unique version of success and then reach your potential through personal development physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. To bring this into one sentence. We’re going to help you reach the next level when you feel stuck in life, podcasting, or business. Well said. And where you can find us okay, where you can find us. I just left that whole part out. We have a website called Next Level universe.com. Next Level University is the podcast 1% improvement in your pocket every single day from anywhere on the planet. Completely free. Next level University podcast. The website is Next level universe.com. Because the person charging the person who has next level university.com was trying to get it. Yeah, we’re going to get it. Trying to charge us too much. We’re coming for him. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Next level universe. It’s okay. It’s it speaks to so many, right? It’s much quicker.

Kevin Palmieri: Just we we convinced ourselves of that too early on, Trisha. That’s how we got through. It’s like no universe is bigger than university. We win, you lose.

Trisha Stetzel: Hey. No, really. It’s fine. No, you’ll you’ll get it. Because I know both of you are after it, and you will win. I know, I know you will.

Kevin Palmieri: That’s the goal. I don’t know if we even want it at this point.

Trisha Stetzel: Right? That’s true. So, Kevin, from from your perspective, who are the people that you want to connect with?

Kevin Palmieri: Heart driven people. I work really freaking well with people who are amazing and super heart driven. But our martyrs. I work really well with people who are just amazing, but they’re afraid to show how amazing they are. That is like the my favorite people in the world to work with, because all we have to do is amplify your truth. You’re already amazing. To Alan’s point, if you’re trying to look way better in front of the scenes than you are behind the scenes, I’m not the guy for you. I believe in the process. So yeah, if you’re a podcaster out there and you want to grow and you want to scale and maybe turn it into a business and make some money, but it’s coming from a place of heart. You didn’t start your podcast to get rich. You started your podcast to help people, and you will go out of business if you don’t figure out how to monetize it. Those are the people I tend to to work really well with. And then as they grow and say, I really want this to be a thing, it’s like, cool. Let me pass you on over to Alan. That’s his specialty. I’ll get you rolling. We’ll get some things running and and then we’ll pass you on. So those are the people I love. Heart driven people who want to do good in the world. If I can help them amplify their message. Feels real good.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you both for being with me today. I don’t know where the time went, but we just blew through it. It is time to close the show. I’m just saying. So, Alan. Kevin, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure having you on and take us through your story. Uh, look forward to sending some folks over to you and having another conversation sometime really soon. Because we’re not done here.

Kevin Palmieri: Yeah. Trisha, thank you so much for having us. Thank you. We really wonderful. It’s wonderful. You’re an amazing host.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you very much. It’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation, share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach much. Reach more bold business minds like yours, your business, your leadership, and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and life you deserve.