Consistency: Where Purpose Meets Action With Kevin Palmieri
If change is the only constant thing in the world, is it possible to embrace and harness the power of consistency? This episode’s guest says it is and he has the success story to tell us. In today’s Eye of Power Podcast, Tom Dardick speaks with Kevin Palmieri, the CFO, Founder, and Co-Host of Next Level University—a Global Top 100 Podcast with more than 1500 episodes and over 900K listens in 160 countries. Together, they discuss the importance of consistency and purpose in action. Kevin shares the obstacles he has to fight through to maintain that inner consistency, giving us a glimpse of challenges many face in taking sustainable actions and following through. What is more, Kevin speaks about connecting to a bigger picture and why it matters in keeping that consistency habit. Tune in to gain invaluable insights as well as a powerful blueprint for success in this conversation.
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Consistency: Where Purpose Meets Action With Kevin Palmieri
It's my pleasure to welcome Kevin Palmieri to the show. Kevin is a lot more seasoned host than I am at Next Level University Podcast. He has over 1,500 episodes. He has been doing it for a little while, so I expect to learn a little bit of the ropes from him as I'm starting in the podcast world, at least as it relates to the interview format. He's got a lot of wisdom for a young man. I very much am looking forward to chopping it up as it relates to how we can move forward to be more of the full expression of ourselves as we possibly can. I'd like to welcome Kevin to the show.
Kevin, one of the things that I liked when I looked at your approach was your idea of consistency. That's one of the things that is so important and so fleeting a lot of the time because what happens? Life happens. I'd like to start by getting your viewpoint on that one thing, and then maybe you want to expand it out into your overall approach to how you got to where you are.
First of all, Tom, thank you for having me. I appreciate it very much. I am someone who comes from a fitness background. I’ve been exercising since I was sixteen. Somewhere along the lines, I realized if I am more consistent than the people around me, I'll probably get better results than the people around me. Eventually, it got to the place where we started a podcast and I realized that a lot of people weren't taking it seriously. My business partner said this. He said, “If we're around in 5 years or 10 years, we will be very successful. We'll be impacting so many people because we'll be more consistent than other people.”
When we think of consistency, oftentimes, we connect by doing the same thing repeatedly. That is consistency in a nutshell, but I think of consistency from a mood, an energy, the way you show up, your personality, and how reliable you are. Consistency not only is an external thing that we do, but it's also an internal piece of who we are as humans if that's one of the goals we have
What are the things that either you have to fight through or people that you work with have to fight through to maintain both that inner consistency as well as the habit of consistency towards whatever pursuit you're finding yourself in?
I would say juggling logic and emotion. It is the emotion of, “I am being consistent but I'm getting no results,” and the logic of, “I've only been doing this for three months. I probably shouldn't get results yet.” Expectations can set us up for success or failure. If you start something and you expect to be successful right off the bat and you're not, you might think you're doing something wrong, but in reality, you might be doing all the right things. We haven't accounted for enough time yet. Oftentimes, that's what I'm trying to do. I say, “You're doing the right things and you're doing the right things in the right way. We probably haven't done them for a long enough period of time yet.”
I was very guilty of that in the beginning. I thought we would be way more successful way faster. I assumed it had to happen. I didn't understand how this whole thing worked out. In the beginning, it was a question of how we know we’re doing the right things even if we’re not getting results. That's a billion-dollar question.
Depending on who you are, there are a lot of different ways you can go. You can look at what other people have done to achieve success. You can look at the growth of the results you're getting although it's not the level of growth you want. There are a lot of places you can dive into that. That's one of the biggest things. You’re like, “I know I'm doing the right thing. It seems like it, but why am I not getting any results yet?”
It sounds to me like one of the kernels of wisdom in there is to trust the process in a way. In other words, do enough homework that you have a process that you know is a reliable path forward and trust that process. It sounds like some of that anyway.
If you're going to trust the process externally, you have to create a process internally.
If you're going to trust the process externally, you have to create a process internally.
I like that.
I've worked with many people. I've had the privilege to see a lot of people succeed, but I've also had the pain of seeing a lot of people stay stuck. Usually, the people who stay stuck do the same thing, but they have diluted themselves into thinking it's going to work. They're not looking at proof around them. It's more the delusion of, “I know I'm doing the right thing and I know it's going to succeed when it should,” versus somebody else saying, “I believe I'm doing the right thing. I'll know it's working when I start to see some resemblance of success.”
The internal piece is, “Am I doing the right things based on my personality? Am I doing the right things based on my strengths? Am I only doing the easy things because they feel like the right things?” It's that juggling act of external success can happen without any self-awareness. It can. It's usually not sustainable. You can become very self-aware without any external success. They feed each other nicely if you're working on them separately to connect them together.
That makes sense. There are a couple of things I take from that. One is that your plan has to be your plan. It can't be somebody else's plan. If it’s somebody else’s plan and you haven’t internalized it, you’re not going to be able to sustain it. The other thing, at least thinking during that, as it relates to sustainability is making sure that whatever the feedback loops that you're paying attention to are leading you towards progress rather than leading you off track. Sometimes, we can get feedback loops that take us away. One thing's for sure. We're either going forward or we're going back. Forward can sometimes feel like back, so it's not a linear path. There's no standing still.
No. Unfortunately, that's not the way the universe works. If you're staying still, unfortunately, you're probably getting worse because time is continuing to move.
If you're staying still, unfortunately, you're probably getting worse.
I had a training company that dealt with how you go about communicating. We broke things down to fundamental training for skill. Like a gym, I was a little disillusioned because people would come, they would have good things happen, and then we wouldn't see them again. I was like, “What was going on here?” It's the same thing at a gym. It's not like the gym equipment doesn't work or that if you don't go do an exercise, it's not going to pay dividends. There are other things going on.
What I came to realize is that the how doesn't matter unless you have the why. The why is the thing that matters. If you got your why, you're going to figure out the how. If you don't have your why, no how is going to matter that much. Why I say that is I wanted to steer us into talking a little bit about purpose and intent and how we connect to a bigger picture in order to keep that consistency of habit. What's your view on that on connecting to purpose?
It is probably the biggest reason why I am where I am and so privileged to have the “success” we have. The purpose is almost like a one-liner for a restaurant or a business. Why is Apple such a strong business? It’s because it has a meaningful purpose. It's specific and they stick to it. That's one of the reasons why they're a successful business.
I would argue that a lot of other businesses that aren't successful don't have purposes and are all over the place. They go from one shiny object to another shiny object. As a human, for most of us, our purpose will fall into, “I want to help a unique person solve a unique problem in a unique way.” It tends to be that way. It's usually pretty simple. What I think we get caught up in is there's a drastic difference between our purpose and the vehicle to deliver the purpose. A lot of us get caught up.
As an example, there are probably a lot of people out there who feel like their purpose is to improve the environment in some way, shape, or form. Maybe they have a good idea for a product, service, or whatever it may be. Where things get stuck is when they say, “How could I make that profitable? How could I make that sustainable? How could I make that my life?” That's where things get challenging.
What I've noticed over the last however many years is that a lot of people who find their purpose are the people who have a lot of belief in themselves. It’s because they’ll locate their purpose, identify a vehicle, and then try to make it real. I have met so many amazing people who have amazing ideas but they don’t believe it's possible for them. They say, “It would be so nice if I could do blank,” but you don't have self-belief. I didn't in the beginning. I'm very blessed. My business partner believed in me way more than I believed in myself.
I had a purpose. I felt like my purpose was to help people. I never thought my vehicle was going to be podcasting or speaking with my voice. That got introduced to me accidentally and I fell in love with it. I always felt like I had a purpose, but I never knew what the vehicle was. In the beginning, transparently, I didn't have the belief to even attach myself to the vehicle.
Anytime I talk about purpose, I always try to talk about the vehicle because a lot of us have an idea of what our purpose is, but we have that R word, which is Realistic. We’re like, “Being a podcaster doesn't seem realistic,” or, “Being a coach or having this company doesn't seem realistic.” Anytime I talk about purpose, I like to talk about the vehicle as well.
I love that. In this Eye of Power community, we call a quadrant the purpose quadrant. As it relates to the model, it's action towards others. It's how we express ourselves in the world. What we always say is we find our sense of purpose by finding that set of unique gifts. In other words, I might not be a ten on any one thing. I might not be the smartest, fastest, or strongest, but I'm going to have my pattern or unique blend of attributes that is unique to me. Identifying them, developing them, and then finding ways to put them to best service and use to others is what cultivates our purpose.
That is very much in line with what you're talking about, that belief in self, where you start with that inventory of, “What is it that I've been gifted with? Let me work on that.” You don't know. Some people know and some people don't. That’s the truth of it. I have a daughter who knew. My son is still trying to find out. Maybe it's luck of the draw, destiny, or whatever you want to call it. It's universal that we all need to take stock and develop those things.
We know what it is. It's what you think about. It's what you care about. It's not a mystery. It's not hidden, but we have to have the courage to go there and develop that. I love what you said about sustainability. I could say, “I care about the environment. I'm going to start picking up trash and I'm going to do that every day until forever.” Maybe that would turn into something. It'd be an exploration I'm not sure if it would turn into a business or not, but some playfulness and some exploration in finding that. Too many people don't have it.
Unfortunately. One of my favorite questions is a remix of a question that got asked a lot when it comes to finding purpose, finding your dream life, or whatever it may be. If you don't have to worry about a dollar or money is not a thing you have to worry about, you must do something in the service of others. It could be for humanity, the world, the environment, the next generation, or whatever it is. If you must do something in the service of others, what would it be? I like that frame because you can't say drinking margaritas on the beach because that's not necessarily in the service of others. Even to your point, technology has made a lot of purpose and vehicles connect in ways that never happened before.
When I was growing up, if you wanted to play video games professionally, people laughed at you. Parents were saying, “You got to get out and get some sun.” There are people who make millions of dollars. I don't know all of them, but I'm sure some of them are positive. Maybe their purpose is to inspire the younger generation through video games. They found a way to make it work. Technology is going to lend more opportunities. Podcasting wasn't a thing years ago. Realistically, you and I wouldn't be able to do what we do now back then. Technology makes it a little bit easier but probably also harder on the other end because there are more options.
My show, in fact, that I'm about to publish is on that very thing. I use the healthcare industry in terms of how we make decisions and navigate such a dizzying array. We get more options and more choices. It's harder for both the practitioners as well as patients and consumers of healthcare to know what the right thing is, career, and all the things you're pointing to there. Tying back to our talk about consistency, working on our decision-making acumen and getting good as a skill at making decisions in this world is more important. Have you seen that in your work too?
Unfortunately, I don't know if you can make better decisions until you start making decisions. It's a double-edged sword. You can sit back and say, “That's what I would've done,” but until you do what you would've done, you can't understand what you would do next time. I'm of the firm belief more than ever that action is the cure-all. If you believe in yourself a ton, you need action to humble yourself. If you believe in yourself very little, you need action to prove to yourself. That action then becomes the recent and relevant proof for you to make better decisions next time.
Consistency: Action is the cure-all. If you believe in yourself a ton, you need action to humble yourself. If you believe in yourself very little, you need action to prove to yourself. That action then becomes the recent and relevant proof for you to make better decisions next time.
When we look back at regrets, why do we regret things? Oftentimes, we regret things because we're looking back on old awareness from new awareness. You have the opportunity never to make the same decision because your awareness is not the same as it used to be. I don't know if there's any way around that. You can learn, grow, and evolve by reading, listening to podcasts, and all that, but there's something about you signing your name on the line and saying, “This is what I'm going to put my time, energy, effort, and focus into. I'm going to see what I get out of it.” Next time, I'll know, “It felt right, but I went into it wrong,” or, “It felt wrong and I tried to make it right.”
I don't know if there's any other way, unfortunately. You have to go mess up. Sometimes, you get lucky when you make decisions. I do believe action is the thing that helps our decisions land and we can realize, “Do we do the same thing next time? What changes do we make?” or whatever the specifics are for you.
There's so much wisdom there. What stops us from taking action? It might be fear of failure, fear of looking bad, or fear of whatever. I had a conversation with somebody who's coming up on an episode. He said it very concisely. He said failure is our way of developing our judgment. That's a good framing because then, you're not failing. You're learning. You don't learn if you don't try, so you have to go out there. This idea of not getting it right, where'd that come from? You didn't do anything right the first time you did anything in your life. Why would you think something new that you're trying would be any different?
The ego. I used to get stories told about me that when I was however old or when I was an infant, I would run around naked. I would run around the beach naked. I didn't know what was going on, but I'm not going to run around the beach naked anymore. That's weird. As we get older, our ego sometimes is correct but also other times is incorrect in the things that it tries to protect us from.
If Tom doesn't like you, this interview might get weird and he might not even release it. You better show up in a certain way. Don't go up and ask that person for this because if they reject you and then tell their friends about you, you're going to be ostracized in the community. It's our ego's way of protecting us from things that it does not believe we are ready for yet.
To the whole throughline of this, I'm convinced one of the reasons we're afraid of the things we're afraid of is because we've never experienced them, or we experienced them a long time ago and we haven't seen them with new awareness. If you ask someone, “What are your thoughts on oysters?” I would immediately say to you, “I don't like them.”
One of the reasons we're afraid of the things we're afraid of is because we've never really experienced them or we experienced them a long time ago and we haven't seen them with new awareness.
If you ask me next, “Have you ever had them?” I would say, “I've never had them but I can tell I don't like them.” I said the same thing about many things, like Indian food, sushi, and salmon. I love those things. Fears are very similar. One of the reasons we are so against them is because we spend so much time being against them. Maybe if they happened through exposure therapy, we wouldn't be as against them because we'd say, “It's not as cold as I thought. It's not as scary as I thought,” or whatever it may be.
Two thoughts have emerged from what you shared there. One thing is that fear of failure, wherever it comes from, or the ego, that's pretty deep-seated. Built into our psychology is the fear of being rejected. Most of human history was in small groups. We didn't evolve in big cities and big groups. That's the exception, not the rule.
We're wired to be connected to a small few. We see the same people our whole lives. We have to be accepted by them. If we're not, that's equal to death. That's where that fear of public speaking comes from, or fear of being judged, fear of being ostracized, or fear of being rejected. It's deep-seated. It's the same thing as fear of death.
Action as the cure-all is such a strong takeaway because that's information. As a matter of fact, I was talking about this where if you're wanting to make a change, one of the things I find very useful is if somebody keeps a log. In other words, they keep score over a period of time. One of the major reasons there is, number one, you keep doing it. Number two, you create a database. You create something that you can look back on.
That's what the other thing was. You were talking about looking back in time and comparison between those two frameworks. That's a tricky bit of business because it's hard to remember. To get clear on it, we can use technology. Technology can be paper and pen or whatever it is, but something that helps augment our relatively fragile memories.
I always suggest this on podcasts. You and I are podcasters. We have a digital or audio recording of ourselves talking about what's going on in our lives at a specific point in time. I always suggest to people who are watching or listening, “Take out your phone and record an audio message or a video message to yourself about what is going on in your life right now.”
You’re like, “On a scale of 1 to 10, my relationship is this. My relationship with my body is this. This is my relationship with money. This is how I feel I'm doing financially. This is how I feel like I'm doing at work. This is how my life is going. This is how my mental health is going.” The next time when you are feeling either very low emotionally or very high emotionally, look back and you will notice the contrast.
Contrast requires measurement. That's why the holidays are so weird for a lot of us. We're thinking about where we were this time last year. It's either up or down usually. There really is no the same. It's timestamped. You could say, “Twelve months ago, this is exactly where I was. This is where I am today. Go me,” or, “Twelve months ago I was way up here. Now, I feel like I'm way down here. Now what do I do with that?” You can make it a habit but a practice that I suggest.
I love that. That's fantastic. That idea of consistency and paying attention is big. Let's say you have somebody who is checking those boxes. They're working toward whatever goal it might be, whether it be a physical goal like, “I want six-pack abs,” or, “I want to feel my best and look my best,” or whatever else it might be. They're doing the work. They're doing the consistency. What other factors do you notice that either speed them along or get them stuck off track? What are some of the things that you might, from your point of view, share?
They're a community 1000%. You can do the right things for the rest of your life, but if you're surrounded by the wrong people, it might offset, unfortunately. Climbing the mountain towards your own unique version of success is challenging enough. Never mind when there are people holding you back. That's one thing I have seen drastically over the last couple of years of this journey.
I would say self-awareness. It is understanding yourself at a deep enough level to realize why you want the things you want. We talked a little bit about why earlier. I've worked with a lot of people who come to me and say, “This is the result I want,” but when we dig into the why, it doesn't align with the lifestyle they want or the stuff that motivates them. It was manufactured somewhere else. They love the thought of the results it will bring, but they do not want anything to do with the process or maintaining the results. It is the self-awareness to say, “Why do I want what I want? Is it directly going against the things that I value?”
A young man, one time, said to me, “I want to do what you guys are doing. Eventually, I want to be an international speaker. I want to be all these things.” I said, “I love that and I wish the best for you, but I have a couple of questions. Are you going to be the type of father that wants to get your kid off the bus and be at every one of their practices?” He says, “Absolutely.” I said, “I don't know what it's going to be like to be where you want to be, but I can tell you right now it would be really hard for me to be at my kids' practices if I had them, and I am not 1/10 of the ‘success’ that you want to be.”
At least that awareness allows you to make a more intentional decision. I don't know what's worse. Thinking you want a certain level of success and never getting it or thinking you want a level of success, getting it, and then realizing you didn't want it. I don't know. It's a paradox. I'm sure they'll make a movie on it someday. That's another big one I see.
What's worse, not thinking you want a certain level of success and never getting it or thinking you want a level of success, getting it, and then realizing you didn't want it?
Those are great pearls of wisdom there.
Thank you.
I did not tell him nor pay him to say the thing about community. The reason I say that is because the Eye of Power is a community. The reason for that is for what you said. This work is not intellectual. If you want to get into shape, it's not a secret as to how to do it. Almost anything we want to pursue, be a great podcast or whatever, it's not ancient secret lore that you're going to have to somehow uncover and find something that nobody else knows. That's not how it works. It's the emotionality. It's your relationship with yourself and others that allows you to expend that energy in ways that mean something to you or not.
If you're in the dark, as you related to that self-awareness, and you’re not clear, those are two pretty dark fates that, unfortunately, have a lot of traps people fall into. The only way out of that is the courage for self-exploration right off the bat to get clear. That's what the Eye of Power is all about. To let you know, when you join, you are assigned a guide, and then shortly thereafter, you become a guide. You're doing it with at least two other people. Everybody's rooting for everybody else. You're not by yourself. It’s that sense of community. You have to be connected to other people. It's a beautiful thing.
I went to jiu-jitsu. I'm big into jiu-jitsu. Imagine, number one, if I go and I'm doing it by myself, I'm not going to learn a bunch. Imagine if I'm doing it with people who don't know what they're talking about and they think jiu-jitsu's the worst thing ever. They're afraid I'm going to hurt myself. They think it's stupid and they have all these negative thoughts on it.
I'm blessed to go to a school where I am one of the worst people there. I get a lot of time with people who are way ahead of me, which means I'm getting lessons that are invaluable. That speaks to the people around you. It’s the old adage of you're the sum average of the five people you spend the most time with. I don't know if there's anything in the self-improvement space that's as accurate as that. That might be the most accurate thing I've ever heard. I can second everything you said.
That's awesome. We're running up on time. Is there anything else you'd like to add as it relates to our discussion that we didn't get to yet?
Speaking of consistency, the biggest difference between the person you are now and the person you want to be eventually is your habits. It's the stuff that you're doing consistently. It's the stuff that you're skipping consistently. That is the stuff that's going to make or break the next 5, 10, 15, or 20 years of your life.
The last thing would be one of my favorite questions going to community. Are the people in your life the best from your past or the best for your future? I've had a lot of people in my life that we used to party and used to do this. Nothing wrong with them. No judgment. I still have love for them, but that might not be aligned with the person that I desire to be in the future. That's one of the questions that rocked me the most the first time I ever asked, but it also gave me the most growth as well.
You said you're 34 years old. For you to understand what you said at your age, I'm very impressed.
I appreciate it. Thank you.
For most people, it takes a little longer than that. It either speeds or slows your path, the associations we have. Kudos to you on that. That's awesome.
Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate the kind words very much.
You have a podcast. Let's make sure we mention that.
I appreciate it. It's called Next Level University. We do an episode every single day. We're on all the platforms, like YouTube and all that. We recorded our 1,500th episode or 40th episode. We're happy to have you. We talked about all the stuff that we talked about here with Tom.
Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
It is my pleasure. I appreciate you back.
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Thank you so much, Kevin, for being on the show. I enjoyed our talk. I hope we end up getting together again sometime soon. There are a couple of things that I'd like to highlight that Kevin shared with us. One is the idea of juggling logic and emotion and managing the expectations as they relate to our routines, habits, and aspirations. That's a good thing to spend more time on.
The degree of clarity that we can have around those things can affect our level of frustration. What is frustration? Frustration is when reality and our expectations don't match. We don't have a dial to adjust reality too much, but we do have a dial to adjust our expectations. Our frustrations are something we can control by paying attention to things like our emotions, how we're thinking things through, and making sure our plans are compatible and sustainable for us as a person. That's a big one.
The idea of connecting purpose to belief in self was something that I hadn't thought of precisely in that way before. I was very thankful that Kevin shared it in that way. He was fortunate to have a business partner who saw more in him than he had seen in himself and he was able to take that leap of faith forward. It's so important in our lives to have other people around us that can bolster us
We might even have a blind spot of our own where we underestimate ourselves. That's something that's close to universal. That underscores how important it is to be with other people. You mentioned that and I was thankful for that. That's the reason we structure the Eye of Power community the way we do with our guide system. The idea of action is the cure, we've been talking a good amount about that. That's so critical.
Speaking of action, one action he suggested, and I hope we all do this, is whenever you're reading this show or any show that's designed to move you forward, take out your phone and take a quick log. Take a quick inventory of where you are in the various aspects of your life. He mentioned a few. It could be finances, relationships, health, your spiritual health, or how you're feeling as it relates to the bigger picture of things.
Perhaps it’s creativity or projects that you want to do. Perhaps it’s the physical space around you, your environment, and that kind of thing. It’s whatever speaks to you. It can be 3 things or 10 things. That’s a very good habit. There’s also the idea of self-awareness. That's something we're all about here. That's a continual work in progress. Those were powerful themes. I very much respect Kevin's unique voice on that. I take inspiration from it, and I sure hope you do too. Thank you, Kevin, and thank you for reading. I’ll see you soon.
Important Links
YouTube - Next Level University Podcast
https://www.NextLevelUniverse.com/next-level-5-to-thrive-registration
About Kevin Palmieri
Some people find rock bottom... I found out that rock bottom had a basement.
In my mid 20's... I had it all.
I had a beautiful girlfriend, high paying job, sports car, my dream body... but I still ended up sitting on the edge of a bed debating suicide.
After my rock bottom moment, I went all in on holistic self-improvement.
I was determined to overcome my anxiety, depression and to finally live the life I'd always dreamed of.
Years later, I now host a podcast that impacts hundreds of thousands of people in countries all over the world.
At this stage, I've helped grow the podcast into a multi six-figure business, and I've recorded well over 1,500 episodes.
I've also given hundreds of speeches, trainings and coaching calls with people all over the world.
The main thing that changed was ME.
I focused on learning what I didn't know (unlearning a lot too), and my life started to shift.
I love talking about Consistency, Commitment, Habits, Mindset, Confidence, Fear, Relationships, Limiting Beliefs and everything in between.
I believe in a heart-driven but NO BS approach to holistic self improvement, and I look forward to teaching even more people about what it really takes to get to the next level!