Feedback Keeps You Humble (2368)

We just got off of a call where we are designing Next Level Live 2026 and the perspective

from last year and the changes and the differences are absolutely crazy and I think there's

a lesson in that for all of us. It is humbling and wild to see how much

Kevin Amy and I have evolved in a single year. Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host

Kevin Paul Mary and I'm your co-host Alan Lazarus. At NLU we believe in a heart-driven but

no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers. Our goal with every episode is to

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Next level nation today for episode number 2,368. Yeah, what Alan just said, it's super humbling to

realize how much can change in a year. I went on, so this is a cool story. I went on a podcast

today as a guest for the first time in like six months. Nice. And I was dog shit. Really?

Compared to, yeah, yeah, I found myself, I was really good at some things but I had a moment of

like it's just, it's not as, it doesn't connect as well as it used to. Like I used to, it just used

to go. It was still really good. It was valuable but in my opinion, from my perspective, it was dog

shit. A couple lessons from that. One, when you do something every day and you stop doing it,

your skills degrade fast. Yeah, that whole, it's like riding a bike. Bullshit. I mean, yeah,

but you're not going to win the Tour de France. Like you can get on that thing and pedal it,

but you're not going to win. You're not going to go from not riding to winning the Tour de France. I

don't think a lot of things are just like riding a bike. I did a timed mile and it was, you know,

I wasn't trying to win the Tour de France in this metaphor, but in a minute mile, I was like, wow,

that was like humbling, pretty humbling. I think time, we've done, we've done this type of episode

along many times, but I think it's super valuable. You're either getting better or you're getting worse.

And the only true way to know is to have mile markers along the road because you could say like,

I had, okay, I am somehow like incredibly strong at the gym. And again, incredibly strong from me.

I'm incline barbelling like 205 to 15 working up to 225. I haven't done that in years,

but I've been doing a lot of incline heavy incline presses. You don't really know you're getting

stronger until you go do something that you used to do and it's way better and it's weird because

you don't want to do the thing you're not strong at necessarily, but when you go do it, you realize

how far you've come in time, time. That's the, that's the episode time. Well, I'm trying to think

of how to frame this. Amy, Kevin and I just spent, I don't know, three hours plus in deep flow,

going through the curriculum that we've created over the last nine years at next level. So we did

go back and we looked at the dates. We did two events in 2019. We did an event every year.

So this will be our ninth event total and that is confirmed.

Nine years in business, nine events. Awesome. Every single year we have grown so freaking much.

And just to take everyone behind the scenes here, what we do is we basically look at all the

frameworks that I teach in one-on-one coaching, all the frameworks we teach in group coaching,

all the frameworks we've basically ever taught and or used and or doubled down on triple down

on over the years. So and every single year I'm, I have this folder called my everything folder

and it has everything in it that I need to coach effectively and all my clients know this. I'll

pull up randomly a picture of this, a framework of that, a picture of this, framework of that,

these concepts that I think are really powerful. Every single year I'm not even every year,

probably every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year. I'm constantly adding more

to it and getting rid of shit that I don't think is super valuable. I'm always curating. It's like

a revolving door of content that I believe in deeply. It's like, uh, okay, that I don't think

is as valuable as I used to think. I've evolved. Let's get rid of that. This is actually really

something and we just went through the entire folder, us three. We wrote out all the frameworks

that we've ever taught, believed in, executed practice taught and we broke it into the event. So

it's going to be three separate speeches with a Q&A at the end. There's going to be an opening

with Kevin and I telling NLU story. It's going to be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you're interested,

we're only doing 30 people. So we talked and we're like, you know what, I don't want to make it some

big blow out. I don't want to try to fill it. I don't, I want it to be exclusive with our people.

And you'll notice NLU has gotten a little more exclusive and a little less inclusive over

the last few years because I just, I don't think we're for everybody anymore. I really don't. I know

I'm not for sure. So it's going to be very exclusive. Um, it's $47. The link will be in the show notes.

There's no promo codes. There's no, no free tickets. Nothing. No bogos by one. It's literally like

if you want to come 47 bucks from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. And it's going to be the very best that we've ever

written, seen, heard, practiced, taught, coached on. You name it. Success principles.

Six hour day. We are recording it and uploading it to a private Google Drive folder with only your

email. We'll have access to it. But my point of this for this episode isn't just that. It's

we did this in March of 2025. And it felt to me like five years ago, like March of 2025 was one

year ago. And the version of us, me, you and Amy that taught this, not this exact thing, but like

curated year eight of curation for next level live is so exponentially different

than your nine of curation. And not that, but we're we're different. It's almost like

even last year, it was health, wealth, and love. This year, it's success principles.

When you change everything changes. Yeah. That's that's the weird thing about growth. And that's

the weird thing about evolution and self improvement. And when you change, when your perspective on one

thing changes, essentially your perspective on everything changes to a degree. So let's let's imagine

you believe you live somewhere safe. Okay. Yep. We live somewhere safe. Awesome. We don't have to

lock our doors. We don't need a security system. Yeah, everything's good. Leave the dogs outside

whatever. The second you learn that you live in a place that's not as safe as you thought, everything

changes. Every you lock your doors all the time that whatever the kids can't walk to school anymore,

you got security systems, whatever, whatever it is. One thing changed and then everything changed

because of that. But I just I just think as humans, we don't have enough. There's not enough like

mile markers. There's we I guess most of us have yearly ones because we have a birthday. So you

can check in or if you if you're married and you have an anniversary, you can check in, you have a

work anniversary, your kids have birthdays, whatever. But what about your growth? What about your

understanding of finances? What about your physical body? What about your mental health? Like,

I don't think we check in on that stuff enough and then we wake up one day and we've drifted

so far away and usually not in a positive that the reason it's better than it was last year for

us is because we've done thousands of reps since then. Yeah, I felt much better. I didn't feel

right. I was still humbled by the process because it was like, wow, this is a whole thing. Yeah,

but I felt like I'm so much more than I was last year. I'm so much more aware, so much more

capable. So much more fulfilled. Would you know that if we didn't do it? At some point you would,

but like when when not to the extent that's my favorite part about next level of it's just

going back and looking at a year ago because quarter over quarter and month over month it's harder

to notice, but a year for us is a really long time. Like I don't want this to come off pretentious,

but I have to be me. I do think so every now and then I'll hang out with people who don't do this

for a living, understandable. And when I leave a lot of times it's like, oh, they just had a really

deep meaningful conversation with us about life and health and wealth and love and personal

development, self-improvement, personal growth and goals and dreams and habits and metrics.

I do that every day. I talk about that every single day. Any million I will talk and we'll go,

it must be interesting. Like our normal, sometimes I think we probably learn and grow and discuss

and brainstorm more in a day than some people do all week, maybe even all year. Like

and while I don't want to be on kind to anyone else, I do think that sometimes I get slapped in

the face with that reality. Like if I run into someone, there was someone who wanted to talk

about our car and came over and was like, it was a nice day. When days are nice and the sun is out

in New England, everybody wants to talk and connect. Everyone's super happy. It's like the best.

It's spring is awesome. And I'm not interested. I'm trying to get in the gym. We're on time crunch,

we only have 40 minutes. I don't know who you are, like leave. But I was polite. But my point is,

I had a moment with this kid and I was like, oh, he is extremely unaware and young and naive

and is very clearly doesn't have anywhere to be. And it's like, okay, that's a good moment for

me to go, oh, all right. So he has no clarity on like his goals and his dreams and what he's

dialed in on. Metrics habit skills identity. Like he doesn't, he, you can tell he's just drifting

around, right? And he's just running it and talking to random people. And that's fine. You do

you. He's young. But I think we do this for a living. So one year for us is so much growth and

learning because we're, we're studying, practicing and teaching every single day basically. Well,

and it's a lot of reps. A lot of reps. It's a lot of reps. I said, I said that on, so the person

that had me on their podcast was a client of next level podcast solutions. She said, I want to

have you on so we can talk about it. It's like, yeah, cool. I love it. It's a huge fan, great, great

human. And I was telling the story of how this hall happened. And I said, well, it got to the point

where when we were like 500 episodes in, people started asking for help on podcasting. And she's

like, I feel like he just like glazed over the fact that you were 500 episodes in. And I was

like, I probably did because I mean, now we're, it's just so normal. Maybe do an episode every day.

I don't even think about it anymore. It doesn't even, and I don't mean that again, I don't mean

that sound like cocky or whatever. But if you, I don't know, you cook dinner every night. You

don't think about it. You just do it. That's just something you do. So that's, I think that's

an easy way to lose perspective is yeah. Since last time, we've done 365 of these.

However many shows you've been on, however many coaching calls you've been on, however me,

you know, like it's, that just adds up. Yeah, compounds. It compounds so much more than I ever thought.

It, uh, and it goes in both directions. And I want to make this as clear as possible. Like,

last time you and I talked about a time mile, I said, what do you think you could do six? You said,

no, seven, no, eight, no. The mile markers are really important. This is why I like measurements so

much because I'm decent at running. I don't, I don't run or I don't run often. But I started

doing a mile a day every day for the next 33 days to hit my 10 pound and 10 week challenge because I

am behind. And the first one I was like, I'm going to jog it. I jog it. And I think I ended up at

like eight, 30 or something like that. And then the next time I was like, I'm going to see,

I'm not, I'm not crank. And I got probably 0.75 through and I really slowed down. There was

hills. It was cold, whatever. The point is is I, I, I wasn't like, let me get a PR.

I'm not going to go for a PR. I'm just going to crank it up a notch. Crank it up a notch.

Eight minutes. I'm like, is this thing right? Like I was kind of flying. It's going fast, right?

The, the point that I'm making here is I don't run miles off it. And I bet you, if I keep doing this,

which I'm going to do, I'm going to get that fucker down to seven for sure. For sure. Are you

going to measure it every day and then make like a little graph? That'd be cool. It would be cool.

Here's my concern. Do it for the exam. Yeah, yeah, you know it. I'm not going to do it for the

grand. But here's my concern, brother. And I'm glad you mentioned this. I'm afraid that that's

going to take time and effort away from what I really care about, which is weight training. My weight

training, like I do know my numbers. I know what I'm benching. I know what I'm squatting. I know

what I'm deadlifting. I know I know my volume. My weight times reps times exercises times sets.

Like I know all of that. I know my macros. I know, like I don't want to become a runner.

And I know myself, dude, I will run every day and like get that thing down to five minutes

eventually if I don't stop now. Like, so I have to like consciously decide not to do this,

because if I really want to max out, it's going to take away from other things. So that's my

concern. Again, a little bit about me. My point, though, is you and I had a check-in with Amy

right before this. Three hours deep work. Here's the curriculum. Boom, boom, boom. It's a little,

it's so much has changed in one year, so much has changed in one year. And that's awesome.

In this case, because it's in the positive direction, we've gotten way more clarity of who we are,

who we serve, who we definitely don't, who are absolutely listeners are, who are absolutely not

listeners are, why we do the things the way we do, website, everything. It's marketing branding,

all of it's clear, much clearer, clearer. Okay. But on the opposite direction, I last time I

timed my mile, did a seven pretty easily. So it's like, what the hell now? I also gain 20 pounds.

Some muscle lots of fat. The truth is you kind of have to check in. Otherwise, you will be,

it's like you when you were at the sort, the carnival. Well, brother, in your identity,

you're a baseball player, but you haven't thrown a fucking baseball. First of all, that game is rigged.

I know. First of all, you didn't even hit the thing. I came close at the end.

But no, you do, you do, you need, you need the checkpoints, you need the mile markers,

you need the check ins. You do, because the weird thing is like, I don't remember, I don't

know what the stat is. It's high. I think it's like 80 or 90 percent. I think it's like 80 or 90

percent of people don't ever sprint after 40. Like they never sprint after 40. So what happens is

you get drunk at a party and you're your BS and with somebody and they're like, let's erase and

you go and you blow your shit clean out because you haven't done it in so long you haven't got the

feedback. I know. That is what happens to people. Familiarity is a great thing because you get good

at stuff and you feel comfortable, but I think you forget what it's like to either not feel comfortable

or what it was like to start. You get diluted into normalcy. Talk to us about

the knock on on shows for a while and then going on. I'm scared because I know,

I mean, going on shows every day is like a superpower for communication. Again, I still do a show

every day, but it's not the same. This is different than being a guest and being asked questions

and telling your story. Yeah. It's noticeable. You really can't. You really can't

might take away for the listeners is if it's something you want to be really good at and

continue being really good at, you really can't stay off it that long. No. I can't just show up on

the basketball court and start draining three is just because I did that in high school. Like

I didn't play in high school, but I played pickup. The point is you can't rest of that long anymore.

No, it's not just stay good at stuff. You really don't. You either do it consistently and get

better at each time or you kind of are going to suck. I think you're still you could still be

above average. Yeah. Agreed. But it's not going to be. Is it my minute mile above average?

I have to imagine. I don't know. I have to imagine. I'm comparing to my old my old best. Same. And

it's like, are you fucking kidding? Nobody else. I don't think anybody else would listen to that

episode and say, Kevin, that was terrible. I don't think so. I don't think anybody else would.

Right. Right. But I would make that's not that's not up to my standard. So I have to go back and

do the right. And that's something we're doing. And again, things have been busy. That's why I

haven't been doing it. But that's an important lesson. I went on a show knowing it wasn't going to

be great. I already know I've done this before. Right. Left excited to get back to the process of

mastery again. Nice. But if I didn't do that and I wasn't aware of it, who knows what would

happen? I might have got a big opportunity gone and cocky. It's like, yeah, I've done this

before. This is fine. And then blown it. And then it's almost like humility is created from feedback

and mile markers and check ins. You get cocky if you don't test yourself consistently for sure.

And speaking of test yourself, we got a jump to group coaching. But for anyone who who's out there

might take away main one is test yourself consistently so that you stay humble because

just because you were good in high school or like maybe snowboarding would be humbling for me.

I don't know. I mean, I was great last time I did. But at the end of the day, you need to measure

and check in and have these sort of check ins in order to stay humble and test yourself daily.

Yeah. Test yourself daily. I think that's a good that's a good thing. All right. April 11th is

next level live 2026 info will be in the show notes below website is by the time you hear this

it should be up and good to go good to go I believe. Maybe. Okay. As always, we love you. We

appreciate you. Great for each and every one of you. And if you are as committed as you say you are

to getting to the next level, make sure to tune in tomorrow because we will be your every single day

to help you keep leveling up to reach your full potential next level nation.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of next level university. We love connecting with the

next level family. We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to

us directly. Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes. Thank you again and we

will talk to you tomorrow.