Freedom Friday with Kevin Palmieri: Embracing Vulnerability in Therapy, Overcoming Self-Doubt, and Choosing the Right People for Future

Welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast. I am your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where we get to talk with either myself or a friend of mine about what we've been unlearning recently and why it has made us just a little bit more free. And I have a new friend with me. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Mr Kevin Palmieri. Welcome to the podcast, sir.

RA, thank you so much for having me. I didn't know you considered us friends, so I am very appreciative and very grateful to have made a new friend today very much on a Friday.

Oh yeah, man, come on, of course we are. We've had two conversations, so I mean that's friend status.

And they were deep. Our conversations were not long, but they were definitely they were deep conversations as we look.

It's amazing where you can get in a very short amount of time. You know.

Yes.

So there it is. We're new friends. So, kevin, if you don't mind sharing with people, just a little bit about what it is you do.

Yeah, so today I am a podcaster, I'm an entrepreneur slash business owner, I am a speaker and a coach. So that is the majority of the time I will be sitting in my chair in my studio talking into a camera, whether it's to be on our podcast, which we do seven days a week, to be on other podcasts, like this amazing one, coaching my clients, whatever it may be. And that is my dream. It's quite literally my dream come true. So I'm very blessed, I'm very privileged and I try to show up every day and give it everything I got.

You said something you said today. That's what you are and that's what you're doing. I love that. Yes, okay, so it was a great experience.

Oh man. Well, most of my days now are that way. But if we look back to old days, I have been man. I worked at a gas station, so at one point that would be it I'd be pumping gas all day. I worked overnights at a hospital cleaning bathrooms and floors. So that was another season of my life Construction, I did tiling. I was on call firefighter. For a very short period of time I was in weatherization. I have done so many different things and it's given me a lot of, I think, perspective. It's given me a lot of empathy and it's given me a lot of humility to understand how lucky and blessed I am to be where I am today, Because every other thing I've done in my life I pretty much hated and loathed. So that's why I try to stay positive with what I have today.

Wow, okay, that's interesting. So would you say it's important for people to go through processes where they hate things in order to get to the point to where they love something?

I think contrast is required. Contrast maybe it's not required, but I think of it this way If you've never been in a toxic relationship, you might not know how great it is to have a fulfilling relationship with a partner who supports you and lifts you up. If you've never seen rain, I don't know if you do appreciate sunshine and great weather as much as you could. So I think it's important to do stuff that you dislike, because I think it will lock in the appreciation of the stuff that you really really do enjoy. And there also is something to be said about. I'm going to do something, even though I don't like it, if it fulfills me at the end of the day. Now, those jobs didn't necessarily fulfill me, but I have days now where I wake up and I look at my schedule and I say there's no way I can do this, there's no possibility I'm going to get through it. And during the day it kind of sucks. I'm stressed out, I can't pee between meetings, it's just it's so busy. But when I get to the end of the day, I'm very fulfilled. I'm fulfilled in what I just accomplished. So, yeah, I think it's very important for contrast, and oftentimes I think that's where we grow and we find fulfillment from.

So, kevin, talk to me about what you've been unlearning recently and what's been shown up in your life.

Yeah. So just for context, when RA and I initially met, that was the question I was asked what have you unlearned recently, or what are you unlearning recently? And I said this is as of today, so you're getting the freshest unlearned stuff humanly possible for me. I am trying to unlearn my deep inner wounds, my biggest exile of disappointing people, and what does that mean to me? How is that controlling me? How does that make me show up on a day-to-day basis? What are the negatives of that? But also what are the productive positives that I can hang onto? That is really what I'm going through right now and it is highlighted a lot of my behaviors. It is highlighted a lot of the strengths that I have. But, like I mentioned to you in the preamble, I had a disappointing, difficult conversation today with someone that threw me off. I was triggered, I was pacing around the house, I was anxious and that just it sucks. That is a brutal way to start your Friday, but I'm trying to unlearn my response to that as well.

So you used a term your exile. So for those that may not be familiar with that, where did you get that term from? What is the? Where are you learning? Where did this really come from? You were mentioning that I think your business partner was going through something and like can you tell us a little bit what that is?

Yeah, so my business partner is. He started going to therapy and we're very open about this, so he wouldn't mind me revealing that and he's working with an IFS therapist. So internal family systems is what IFS is and I guess the framework, or one of the many frameworks in IFS is you have a firefighter, you have a manager and you have an exile, and your firefighter and your manager are the way that you combat your exile. And again, I'm not a therapist so I can't speak effectively, but the exile is kind of your deepest wound. So for a lot of us it might be being unlovable. I'm unlovable, ooh, like nobody could ever love me. Maybe that's the deep inner wound. For other people it might be I could never be successful, I'm a failure, I'm a loser, I'm never going to find success. For me it's a mix of not going to be successful, not good enough and disappointing people. That is the biggest one that gets poked for me. So it really is. It's the root of. Where do you get the most triggered is probably the best way and I would say, whether you're watching or listening, just research IFS and if you type in manager, firefighter and exile, they'll probably be able to explain it far better than I. I haven't studied it nearly as much as my business partner but that is one of the most valuable things I've learned, because it's the thing that hijacks you. I got hijacked today. I'm very good with self-awareness. My ability to catch myself quick is really high, but it almost seemed impossible today. I just I couldn't figure out how to get through it, so that's the best way to explain it. I think that's your exile and a nutshell.

So what are you doing about that?

So immediately, so immediately after this happened today, I went online and started looking at therapists because I need I need help with that. I mean, I can talk. I talked to my wife, I went out there and I had a conversation with her and that's great to pitch and catch, but she's not gonna be able to give me the level of intrinsic reflection that I'm gonna need. Right, she's not a specializing in that. So, yeah, the first thing I thought was okay, it's probably time for me to seek out a therapist who that our therapist, counselor or whatever it may be who has a deeper understanding of this, who has worked with many people that experience what I experience, because my firm belief is I'm a very open human. Hopefully that shows through. I think that will be very beneficial for me in therapy, because I'm not gonna. I'm just gonna say this is what's bothering me. I think this is where it's coming from. I've been vulnerable in front of people so often that being vulnerable behind the scenes with a stranger just isn't really that doesn't really scare me that much. I'm sure there'll be certain things that do. But yeah, I wanna find a therapist that specializes in what I need help in and that will help me learn more about myself, but also unlearn the things that aren't serving me man that's good.

Therapy is something that is a as much as I hate this term hot topic in the last I don't know decade or so decade, maybe 15, 20 years, and there's a lot of people that are now more open to therapy than would have been before. I may even include it myself. I don't even know that it's something I would have jumped to right. What do you think you know you being open? First of all, I wanna ask you how is it that you became so open? You're very and I've mentioned that to you in our first conversation I was just like man, you are one of the most. It is so refreshing your vulnerability and your transparency and just the way you the way you, it seems like you approached the world. How did you get there and what elements of therapy were you probably even implementing that you didn't even know, without necessarily a therapist? Because I think sometimes this idea well for two a practical reason sometimes therapy is not affordable for people, and then also, sometimes we may just need to put some things in practice that maybe we might already be doing and need to do more of, or that we can just be doing on our own, in order to at least open ourselves up. So what do you feel like has happened in your world that's allowed you to do that Like why are you so open?

That's a great question, because I think, at the deepest level, I care more about what I think than what I think others think. To a degree, I mean that's a fine line, right? I recorded a piece of content and right after I recorded it I was like oh God, am I actually gonna release this? Because it talked about how my biggest insecurity is being five foot four. And if I share that on social media and someone's having a bad day and they wanna tear me apart, I literally just gave you the. Here's the cheat code. This is all you have to say. So there's a part of me that is terrified to share it, because if somebody does call me out on that, it's gonna suck. But there's also a part of me that's like if somebody calls me out on it, it'll at least give me the opportunity to face that. If that's my biggest fear and I never face it, it's probably holding me hostage more than I realized. So I think it's number one, the intrinsic belief that me sharing my weaknesses does not make me weak, and I think, just for humans in general, I think that's helpful. If your assumption is me sharing my weakness therefore makes me weak, it's gonna be very, very, very hard to share your quote unquote weaknesses. But if you redefine what that means, vulnerability is strong. We don't not be vulnerable because it's easy, we do not be vulnerable because it's hard. That's how I try to reframe it in my mind. So that's part one. Part two my purpose that I believe at the deepest level is to be the person that I needed when I was struggling, and that person would be vulnerable and that person would just come out and say what it is. So that's a piece of it. And then I think the third big thing is I've done this 2300 times at this point Wow. So for me, sharing about growing up without a dad or having suicidal ideations, that for me is a, it's a scar, it's not an open wound. So I'm far more comfortable sharing it and I've shared it enough where I haven't got lashed back. And I remember I shared on a podcast episode that I was in a former time I was dealing with a porn addiction and my business partner was like I cannot believe. You just shared that and I said what are people gonna reach out and say, wow, you're dumb for having a porn addiction? It's like I'm in the. I am in the exception to the rule. At least I admitted it and I try to overcome it. Most people haven't even got to that Like somebody wants to reach out. I believe there'll be more. There'll be more this is just an analogy kisses on one cheek than punches on the other man, and I value the kisses on the cheek more. So those are really all the reasons that I would say, and I just think, at the end of the day, I'm not super fulfilled if I'm not being honest. I just this is just who I aspire to be. I aspire to be someone who can just come on here and just tell you I told you, today's been rough, just kind of been a rough day, but it is what it is. What am I?

Yeah.

I caught myself, because usually I say another day in paradise.

And I did, I did say that at the beginning you did yeah.

And I was like that's not true, that's not really true. Today. Kind of sucks it kind of sucks a little bit, but I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna give it everything I have, because that's what I do. So hopefully that answers the that 12 point response hopefully answers the question no 112.

I think it was 11, but it was 12.

No, Well, I appreciate it.

No, what I wanna ask you is you coach people, right? Yes, and what? So? You're on both sides of this. You are living out the. You're living out the story of a vulnerable person, but through coaching, you're also seeing some of the barriers that make people less vulnerable. Yeah, what are through your coaching experience, when you talk to people through your podcasting, what are you cause? You talk to a lot of people. What do you see as some of the key factors as to why people are not open and just won't get to the point where you're willing to be totally honest?

the circle, the community, the people around you. I think that's number one. I think that's probably number one because, think of it this way if I logged into this meeting and you and I weren't vibing and it was someone I just didn't feel safe with, they probably wouldn't get the same level you are. Just because I wouldn't, it's not worth the investment for me. I'm not gonna dig for you, you don't even care, you're not even here to you, don't even know who I am. The community aspect, I think, is so important because, if we're gonna define vulnerability in the simplest form, it's truth. Vulnerability is truth and living in our truth is so challenging for a couple reasons. One, it would be very easy for me to just give you a baseline, surface level interview and then get off and say, ah, I don't care that R8 didn't like me, that wasn't me anyway, that's not who I am. But when I give you the full, authentic version and you don't like me, you don't like me, you don't like the actual me and there's nothing I can cover that up with. So vulnerability is truth. And if you're surrounded by people who you don't trust or they're not vulnerable with you or you don't feel psychologically safe, it's a recipe for a sheltered relationship. So that's my first belief. And then I think the second one is we think way more from the frame of what does this mean about me? Not, what does this do for me. What does it mean about me that I experienced these feelings, these thoughts? Not what will it do for me ultimately, especially when we have a good group of humans around us? But that's hard to find. One of my favorite quotes is if you wanna find your people, you have to be yourself. But being yourself might be the hardest thing in the world, because there's a lot of other people who are pretending to be themselves, who aren't. They're living through ego, they're living through scarcity. They might even be living through abundance, and that's not who they really feel they are. If they tear you down, it's just hard to put yourself out there and show those deep parts of you. So I've seen that a lot. And then usually the big thing is people don't think it'll be worth it. That's a big thing. There's three beliefs as humans that we need in order to take a new action. One it's humanly possible. So it's humanly possible for me to be vulnerable. Yes, other people do it. It's possible for me. It's personally possible. Yeah, I've been vulnerable in the past. I feel like I could probably do that. It'll be worth it. Ooh, I don't know. I don't know if it's gonna be worth me being vulnerable. What's the point? What if it goes wrong? What if I get kicked out of the group? What if somebody judges me? So that's another big one that I've seen.

What does make it worth it?

Usually from what I've seen and from what I've experienced, if you can take your fear in security and you can attach it to somebody else's benefit.

So when you're others conscious.

You're less self-conscious. It's kind of the thought behind that. So you do it for a reason bigger than yourself. That I'm not vulnerable necessarily because it makes me feel better, I don't know. I mean, it fulfills me, yeah, but if I wasn't vulnerable, I don't know if I would know the difference when I first started. I have a deep belief that me being vulnerable will help more people. It's not about me, it's not about my story, it's not about not having a dad, or porn addiction or that. That isn't it. It's about what is that level of truth that you get hit with do for you, and that is just that is a deep belief I have. I believe that when you do something, when you do something for you, do something for the greater good. You do something greater than yourself. That's when you become more because you have to. You have to become more in order to give more, not necessarily get more, yeah. So I try to focus more on giving than I do getting. I would say.

What you're describing is such an uncommon belief, I think and I say that because of the society we live in. I mean, we just aren't. There are a lot of people that would, I think, nod and be like, oh yeah, I totally agree. But then you look at the world we actually live in and how much of that world is others focused? I mean, how much of our society can we honestly say is like, oh yeah, I'm caring more about somebody else than my family, I'm caring more about somebody else than myself. I mean, these are principles of life that I would say most people would absolutely agree are the best way to live. Why don't we do it?

I'm very glad you asked that question. It's very easy for me to say the things that I'm saying in the way that I'm saying them, because I'm very privileged to have the opportunity to be financially free to a degree and I have a business and I get to. I have I have pajamas on. Right now there are tacos, I have my taco pants on right now. Nobody can see that. But I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for the life that I have and I know I'm privileged because not everybody has the life and or opportunity to create the life I have. So that's part one. I think if we followed that through line, we would say, or get to the place where we understand that when you're scarce it's very hard to treat abundantly. It's very hard to see someone on social media who's doing better than you when you are struggling and say good for you, good for you, good for you, unless you have such high self belief that you know you'll get there eventually, and just most people just aren't there. So I think it really is that it's. I'm probably more positive now than I was at the very beginning, when I was struggling and suffering. I'm willing to bet my time perspective is different. My ability to give advice is different. My ability to root for others is different. I had so much scarcity in the beginning I would struggle to see people that I didn't feel like we're working as hard as me when. Not that I didn't want them to win, I mean, I didn't want to take anything away from them but it was like why not me? I'm grinding, I'm out here grinding and nobody cares. Why did you get to the front of the line? I'm out here working so hard? But then you get to the point where you realize, well, that's not that, ain't it. That's not gonna help me. If anything, that's gonna hurt me. If you believe in karma, the law of attraction, whatever it is you believe in, you put it out, it's gonna come back. It's gonna come back twice as much. So, yeah, I think it's the fundamental thought that when there is a lot of scarcity in the world, now there's a lot of abundance too, but unfortunately, abundance oftentimes gets villainized, and what you villainize you most likely won't become, you won't attract, you won't show up as you won't represent. So, yeah, I think there's just a lot of scarcity and when you're scarce, it's really hard to root for abundance. It really is, it's really hard to root for abundance. I've been there so I have nothing but empathy for it.

But I think that's one of the big reasons why so I like what you just said is abundance is villainized. It is Like it is. It is really abundance power, right, these things are, because we're shown negative pictures of them so often. And I think that freedom you were talking about like you are free now, in the sense of like you have the financial freedom, freedom of your time, you're in your taco pajamas, you're living the life, right, I mean, you're living the life you wanna live, yep, and that's. But in order to get to that place, what beliefs did you have to let go of to get there?

That I didn't deserve it, that I couldn't do it. I started this out with very low self-belief and very low self-worth. So just an exercise, whether you're watching or listening, just to hopefully help you identify each. When I sit down with someone, I'll say on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you believe in your own unique capability and competence to create externally the things that you want A podcast, a business, a dream relationship, all that stuff. How much do you believe that if I leave you alone in a dark room for long enough, you'll be able to do it? That's self-belief. Self-worth is on a scale of 1 to 10, 0 to 10,. However you want to do it. How much do you believe that after you create that, you are deserving of all of the amazing benefits that come with it and that new identity and the new perspective and whatever comes with it, feeling good about yourself? I've had many people say I have 12 out of 10 belief, but I have 2 out of 10 self-worth and that's going to get us stuck. So in the very beginning I didn't believe any of this was possible for me. I did not see us getting to 1,000 episodes. I didn't see us getting to 1,500 episodes. I didn't see us any of the places we are. I didn't believe that was possible. So in the beginning it was pretty much facing all of my fears every day and just continuing to do that. That was the big thing in the beginning. Then it was starting to set boundaries and understand that I am a valuable human being, intrinsically and, as I grow and evolve, more extrinsically, because I'm capable of influencing and impacting and growing more. Those were the big things. Those were the really, really big things, and I think that's where most of us get stuck. It's usually self-belief or self-worth. We either don't know how to do it or we know how to do it but we self-sabotage ourselves into not doing it for a deeper reason. It's usually awareness or implementation. That's where a lot of us get stuck. For me it was awareness. I'm an implementer. You tell me to do something, you tell me why to do it, I'll go do it. Usually, I didn't know why to do it. I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know the importance of it. I had a really, really low level of awareness in the very beginning. That was my big thing that I had to overcome, along with self-belief and self-worth. I think those were probably the three biggest. And then just being broke at the beginning of this journey as an entrepreneur, I'm a very certainty-driven human being who values money. I didn't have any certainty and I didn't have any money. That was a very humbling experience for me to learn about myself.

Since you went there. What made you go on this journey? What triggered that?

I achieved a quote-unquote financial success at $26. I made $100,000 at $26 with no college degree, which was my goal. I opened my final pace of the year and I realized that for most of my life, especially that year, I'd lived unconsciously. I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing. I had no clue. I saw $100,000 and that's what I was after. Cool, that'll fix everything. The opposite of unconscious is hyper-conscious. In 2017, I started a podcast called the Hyper-Conscious Podcast, because I wanted to help people become more conscious of why they were doing what they were doing. I wanted to become more self-aware because that became an unlock for me. I fell in love with podcasting in 2017. As I'm falling out of love with my job, I've reached the pinnacle of this career. I spent 10 months living on the road hotel to hotel to achieve this level of success. I don't want to do that again. I'm homesick. I'm single, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausted. I can't do another year of this. But, as you know in the beginning, the podcast journey is challenging. People aren't lining up to throw money at you, so you have to have some way to pay the bills. I started calling out of work. I started leaving the job sites early, showing up late. I was just so homesick because I'd be gone for weeks at a time. Homesick for me wasn't going to the office and then coming back 9, 10, 12 hours later. It was driving 7 hours to another state, staying there for 5 nights and then coming home for 1 day a week, just on repeat forever, which it felt like. I got to the point where I was in a hotel room and my alarm clock went off at 5.15. I was getting ready for work that day. It was just something broke in me that day. I broke mentally. I was thinking to myself if I take my life, I'll take all these problems with me. I'll take all this uncertainty with me. I don't have to worry about it as garbage anymore. It was just a dark, dull hotel room, but it felt like a dark, dull existence. That was my rock bottom basement. I texted a buddy of mine who's now my business partner. I said hey, man, you know stuff, you're in a self-improvement, stuff. He could probably help me. This is what I feel. These are the thoughts I'm feeling. This is what I'm going through. I don't know what to do. He said many things in his wisdom, as he does. He's very long-winded. That's where I get it from. He said over the last few years, your awareness has changed a ton, but your environments have remained the same. I think it's time for you to change your environment. I ended up leaving my job three or four months later, and then him and I went into business together. He joined the podcast that already existed. Then, from there it was all right, cool. We're going to turn this into the most successful podcast in the self-improvement space. We are going to grind our faces off and do whatever it takes within moral and ethical lines to have the level of success that we want.

You said that. He said you have more self-awareness, but your environment hasn't changed.

Yes.

I was writing something today for work, something I have to turn in and in the work that I do a lot of, I do work with youth and I do youth development. I get to lead a nonprofit and so we work with girls and I've been doing nonprofit youth development for over 10 years and we focus on building up individual kids. Right, I mean that's the idea. You bring into the program, the activities you do, you wanna pour into them, make their lives better, right, that's the general idea. I would say. A few years ago something really shifted in me to where I said we I mean this industry has been robust for the last I don't know 30, 40 years and we see very little change. Just to be totally frank, at a macro level, I mean, in a lot of the neighborhoods and spaces that I work, you see a lot of the same issues with the same families, same generational stuff, all that. And it occurred to me, we focused so much on trying to help the one child that we forget that we can't outpace environment and putting so much effort into really focusing on how do you build up the awareness of an individual as to what they need, who they are, all the things that we, that they need right. I mean that's important, but then stick them in the same place. It's counterproductive and it just consistently reminds me how important environment is. You said it earlier when you were talking about community, and it is important. The people around you is one of the most important things and decisions that you're gonna make, right? What do they say? If you wanna see your future, look at your friends and there you go. That's where you're gonna be. And environment like how do people effectively change their environment?

It's a challenge because even if you're talking about younger humans, like young adults, children, they don't really have that much control over their environment. Right, there's not a lot. They go to a school, they live in a house. There's not really much else they can do, unfortunately. But as you get older and older, you have to ask yourself why are these people in my life? The question that changed my life may be more than any Are the people in my life the best from my past or the best for my future? I know we used to go to the gym together and we used to party together and we used to do this and used to do that and used to do that, but I'm not doing a lot of that stuff anymore. So where are you gonna be in my life 10 years from today? Is there gonna be a spot for you based on my new core values and my new core beliefs and my new core aspirations? And that question changed my life for sure, because it made me start reallocating time with certain people. So I think what you do is you sit down and you say, all right, cool, who am I? Who is Kev? What are my core beliefs about the world? What are my core values, what do I value about myself and other humans and what are my core aspirations? What are my core goals? What do I wanna do? And you start figuring out who in your life has similar ones or who in your life has parallel ones. They don't have to be the same as yours, but there are some people that will have opposites. That's gonna hold you back. Just as an example, I don't have many friends who value quality time, because I don't have a lot of time. My wife values quality time. My wife's gonna get more quality time than anybody else, right, maybe, other than the business. The business and my wife are close because those are the two things I focus on the most. Our relationship wouldn't work if we weren't very honest with each other. This podcast, this mission, this purpose this is what I am here to do. And I told my wife in the beginning. She said you have to promise me you'll never make me be an entrepreneur. I said I would never, ever, ever put that on anyone who I didn't know really wanted it. And I said you have to promise me that you'll never try to take the podcast away, because if you try to take the podcast away, I have to go. I have to leave. This is it for me. I traded everything for this. I'm all in on this thing, this mission, this purpose, but that's based on core values, core beliefs and core aspirations. So I think starting there is a good place just to get awareness. And then you have to tap into where can we start setting better boundaries? Where can we lean into courage and say you know what? This just isn't aligned for me anymore. I know we used to do this, but I don't really wanna do it anymore. That's a very important key. And then I would say the last thing, and this is a challenge. I'll make it sound easy with words, but it's not in action. You have to figure out whether the people in your life or in your life because you're afraid to be lonely, or they actually pour into it. That's a big one. I think a lot of us have the fear of losing love when in reality, the reason the people in our lives and the people are in our lives in the first place, it's not because they love us, it's because they hold a position in our lives that we're afraid to replace or afraid to have empty.

Yes.

That's a real dark night of the soul conversation to have with yourself, because you might have five people in your life that love you more than anyone else but they don't get any space and maybe you just need those five people, not the 15 that you've convinced yourself. But that's a personal thing, right? It's a personal thing to take a look at, right.

That's good. I think what you said that last one, putting people being honest about where people really need to be and what they're actually the value at I mean there's a reality to that we don't have. You really just don't have energy to waste. I mean that's just the truth, especially once you have, especially once you've come to a certain level of awareness, to your point. It is more draining, once you have figured out some things about yourself, to then expend energy on things that don't serve your new self. It's almost, it's just it's almost worse than not knowing you and just going about life and the world without any kind of knowledge. But once you know, it's like well, you know better, you do better. And if you know better and don't do better, there is a deeper wound. I think yeah, because now you're inflicting it, you know.

When it sounds so cold. That's the hard thing about that. When I say that on stage all the time, are the people in your life the best from your past or the best for your future? And I always preface it with I know this is gonna sound cold, but I just want everybody to have the permission to do what's best for them. That's all, that's all. If there was someone in my life that said, hey, kev, you're not it, you're not right for me anymore. You don't bring to the table what you used to, I would want them to leave. I had an ex-girlfriend who did. She left. At the time I was distraught and I was probably like, ah, she's crazy. I wasn't that mature yet. But now, when I look back, she did exactly what she should have done. She shouldn't have pulled me with her necessarily. Now, that's a choice. If you wanna pull someone with you, that's up to you. You can't. I'm not telling you not to do that. This is personal. You get to make your own decision. But achieving the level of quote unquote success that you want is hard enough, nevermind doing it with people who subconsciously don't wanna see you get it.

Man.

That's the challenge. So, yeah, I think the kind of the through line of this entire conversation has been that it's the community, it's the people around you. I watched a YouTube video one time because I was looking for inspiration for podcast episodes, and the YouTube video was something along the lines of excuse me, five reasons. You shouldn't tell anybody what your goals are. And I was thinking, I don't know. I feel like what can I learn from this? Let me see what this is about. And I think the number one point was if you tell the people closest to you what your goals are, they'll make fun of you when you don't accomplish it. And I remember thinking that's the issue right there. It's not the fact that you're telling people your goals, it's the fact that you're telling the wrong people your goals. It's not the goals, it's the people. Now, since then, I think there's been studies that have come out that talk about the potential downsides of publicly stating your goals. So I'm not gonna say you should do that, but that was very highlighting for me, that video.

Yeah, that's I think, yeah, the wrong people. Yeah, I think that's an important qualifier, right. Yeah yeah, it's the wrong people. You can't tell the wrong people things, and this is so for those, just if you don't mind, just for those who might not know what exactly? What do you coach in? What is the podcast about? And I know you said self-improvement, but even more nuanced, what are you really trying to help people with? And then, how can people connect with you?

So our podcast is all about holistic self-improvement. So anytime I use the word holistic, I just mean three-dimensional well-rounded. So our main focus is we talk about love, health and wealth Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health. Mental health, internal health, physical health, love self-love, others' love, relationships. We talk a lot about boundaries, that type of stuff. And then money. How do we become more quote unquote externally successful? Where are the ways to do that? How do we save money? How do we rebuild our relationship with money? All of that stuff? We're always diving into the depths of that and it's usually pretty deep, like you and I talked about today. Now things have changed a lot where I predominantly coach podcasters. So I used to do a lot of mindset, peak performance, relationship coaching and then, as the business grew, there was just a large need to help podcasters. So I went and said I'm gonna try to become the podcast guy. Let me do that. Alan, my business partner, does a lot of peak performance, relationship, business, mindset coaching and we're also now training some of our other team members to be able to coach people so we can make sure we can keep serving that. And then if you wanna find out more, you can just search next level university. We are on all the podcast platforms. We're on YouTube. We do an episode every day, so you'll figure out whether or not we're your type of people pretty quickly.

I would say, man, that's awesome, and you've been doing this for how long?

now Seven years, seven years, seven years.

Seven years, over 1500 episodes You've got. I mean, this is your thing. This is your thing, man. I am so grateful that you took out a few minutes to talk to us, and I mean this. You are a breath of fresh air, man, like you really are, and I'm so glad we connected. Thanks for being on the Unlearn podcast, kevin.

I appreciate you having me. I will come back anytime you want you wanna do a part two, part three, part 12. I'm always a message away. I would love to join you. I appreciate what you're doing and you're a wonderful host.

Man. I appreciate you y'all. Of course, this has been another edition of the Unlearn podcast, Freedom Fridays. Let's keep unlearning so that we can be more free. We'll see y'all next week, Peace. Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearn podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.