Beyond Success with Kevin Palmieri: A Journey of Self-Discovery

Are you chasing after success but still feel a void in your life? In this engaging episode, we dive into the journey of Kevin, a remarkable individual who transformed his struggles into a powerful narrative of growth and fulfillment. He opens up about his background, where he faced significant hurdles, including a challenging upbringing and his battle with depression despite having what seemed like a successful life on the surface. 

We explore the profound realization that success does not solely hinge on external achievements but rather on aligning your life with core values and personal aspirations. This compelling conversation also delves into the role of gratitude as an essential ingredient in finding true joy and fulfillment. Kevin introduces the concept of “grateful ambition,” highlighting the importance of maintaining a balance between appreciation and the drive to achieve. 

Listeners will gain valuable insights on how to redefine their understanding of success, learn practical strategies for taking actionable steps toward their goals, and understand the emotional landscape that accompanies the journey of self-discovery. Kevin's story serves as a powerful reminder that the pursuit of happiness is not about ticking boxes but embracing the growth and challenges that shape our lives. 

Join us for this eye-opening episode that promises to leave you inspired! Don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help others discover the journey of overcome yourself!

TLDR:

- Kevin shares his inspiring story of overcoming significant challenges  
- Identifies the real definition of success beyond societal norms  
- Explores the importance of grateful ambition in personal growth  
- Discusses actionable steps for taking imperfect action toward goals  
- Encourages aligning core values with aspirations for greater fulfillment  
- Imparts insights on choosing struggles that lead to growth and joy  

Stay in touch with Kevin:

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Overcome Yourself
• 11:37 Kevin’s Inspiring Background Story
• 19:20 The Shift From Struggle to Success
• 1:17:15 Defining Real Success
• 1:40:00 The Role of Gratitude in Personal Growth
• 2:28:00 Taking Imperfect Action for Big Results

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole. I'm so excited to be here today with Kevin. Kevin, take it away. You have an incredible story, so please let us know about who you are and who you help.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Well, first of all, nicole, I appreciate you having me. I am excited to chat so today. I am the founder and the host of Next Level University. We're a global top 100 podcast with we just recorded it 1,990 episodes. That's amazing. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. We have listeners in 175 plus countries and we do an episode every day. So our thing is we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth self-improvement in your pocket, every single day, from anywhere on the planet, completely free. But obviously that is not where I started, right. That's where I am today. That is not where I started.

Speaker 2: 0:55

I am somebody who was raised by my mom and my grandmother. I didn't know my dad. I didn't meet my dad with the understanding that he was my father until I was 27. Well, obviously that plays a role in a young man's life and it plays a role in my life today. Still, we grew up lower middle class, didn't have a lot of money. We talked often about how we didn't know how we were going to pay rent. So that is something that affected me as a young man and still affects me to this day.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Outside of that, childhood was pretty normal, where things got kind of weird for me was in high school. I knew I didn't want to go to college, wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But it didn't make sense to me to go to college and pay $25,000 a year to just kind of try to figure out my life. So I got a job at a local gas station and that was my first big boy job. From there I was a personal trainer, I was a truck driver, I was a forklift operator, I cleaned floors and bathrooms at a hospital overnight, construction tiling, on-call firefighter many different things all over the place, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Eventually I got a job in an industry called weatherization. All that means is we would go into large buildings and make them more energy efficient the easiest way to explain it. So I essentially went from making $15 an hour as a construction laborer to anywhere from 60 to $120 an hour at this new job. Nice, it seemed it. Nicole.

Speaker 1: 2:31

It definitely seemed it.

Speaker 2: 2:32

And I was thinking the same thing. I thought well, here I am in my mid twenties. I'm going to accomplish things. I'm going to be way more successful than I thought. What is there to really worry about? So if you looked at me when I was 25, I had this job. I was getting ready to compete in a bodybuilding show, so I was quite literally in the best shape I'll ever be in. My girlfriend at the time was a model. I had a nice car, we had a new apartment, I had great friends. All of the things seemed like they were just amazing. How could you possibly be unhappy? But I was. I was super depressed, I was anxious. I was self-conscious. My girlfriend ended up leaving me because I was a shell of the person that she fell in love with.

Speaker 2: 3:14

And I ended up sitting on the edge of a bed the next year contemplating suicide because I was so. I felt so hopeless, I felt so stuck. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just I Felt like I should have been way happier and way more fulfilled and way more grateful for the things that I had accomplished Than I was, and I think that was just really really hard for me. So I ended up leaving that job a few months after that suicidal ideation and then I had a podcast. I went full-time into this trying to figure out how to make it work.

Speaker 2: 3:44

And here we are eight years, seven or eight years later and now we get to do this full-time and a lot of the things and the goals and the dreams that I had have kind of come true quote unquote. But I still deal with imposter syndrome. I still have days where I don't believe in myself. I still have limiting beliefs. So while I think my story is a good example of having very little expectations, of yourself, kind of over-delivering what you thought was possible, I still deal with stuff. I am not complete, I am not whole. There are still things that I'm going to have to work through and with for the rest of my life, and I don't mean that as like a downer, but I don't want anybody to have false expectations of what growth will do for them.

Speaker 1: 4:29

I absolutely love it. I think this is such an important topic and it's a whole chapter in my book where I talk about success and what does it mean? Because it's not going to mean the same thing for everybody. And what's the point of having this great big house and this brand new car and all the money in the world if you don't have, like, a family, and that's what you actually wanted? You know, like you pushed everybody away because you're so busy doing the thing and I got to get all the things and then everybody hates you, like what's the point, right? And so learning to really set our what is success for me? What does it mean? Does it mean being nice to my kids? Or does it mean, like, being mean to them, but I gave them everything in the world, right? So can you talk to me a little bit about that? And I want to know the where's the switch, like what happened from when you were in your like, low point where you know how did you overcome yourself? So talk to me a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 5:32

So, now more than ever, I think essentially, success is just an alignment of core values, core beliefs and core aspirations. Love it. So you essentially just said it right. I've I've met a lot of people that say I want to be, I want to be a super successful business owner who has this, this, this and this. And then when you sit down and say, hey, how important is it for you to be at, like family dinners every night? Oh, it's the most important. Okay, cool. What about? Like your kids' sports games and stuff like that? Oh, it's the most important. Honestly, I don't think you should do what I'm doing, because even if you do accomplish the goals that you think you want, I think you might regret it. That is just a realignment of core values, core beliefs and core aspirations. So I 1,000% agree with that.

Speaker 2: 6:16

This is always a hard question for me, because so I had suicidal ideations. I was sitting on the edge of a bed just thinking to myself if I was just to take my life, I would take all my problems with me. I messaged my business partner, who was just a friend at the time. He gave me perspective, he gave me hope, he gave me support, he gave me a shoulder. I ended up leaving that job a few months later and, honestly, when I left that job, my depression essentially went away, circumstantially, I understand not everybody has that opportunity. So I'm not saying leave your job. I was single, I didn't have any car payments, I didn't have a mortgage, I didn't have a family. It was a little bit different, right. What I would say is I think I went from a life that had very little fulfillment and it had momentary bouts of happiness, to a life that it was essentially filled with fulfillment and still had momentary bouts of happiness. So I did something that I really, really, really loved. It felt deeply meaningful, it felt like it was more than about me and it required growth and contribution, which made me really feel like I was growing as a human.

Speaker 2: 7:30

That was, I think, one of the biggest things I did was I made my life about more than myself, and that was the first time I'd ever done that. It was always about me. It was always about how much money could I make, it was always about how good can I look, and I still care about those things I do, but I care about growing to the point where all of those things are going to happen. So it now is way more about growth than it used to be. So I think there's something to that for me, where I stopped focusing on what I could get and I started focusing on how much I could grow, and I feel like that was one of the unlocks for me. That was a big one.

Speaker 2: 8:08

And then I think the other one was I was somebody who just never really believed in myself. I didn't really think I was capable of much. So when I started self-improvement and I started saying, okay, today I'm going to state that I'm going to do one thing that scares me Cool. All right, what am I going to do? Whatever it is, I'm going to go to the mall and have conversations with strangers Cool.

Speaker 2: 8:31

Then I proved to myself that I was actually capable of doing that. And then I self-assigned you said you were going to do it. You did it. Now we have proof that you can actually believe in yourself a little bit more. That might be like the most powerful thing I ever did. And then I just tried to do that for the last eight years and I think now I'm more confident than I've ever been, but that's because I have more proof than I ever did. So I would say those, those two really, really optimizing more for fulfillment and then just proving to myself through state-proof, self-assigned, that I actually am worthy of success and I actually should believe in myself more than I do. I think those are probably the big two.

Speaker 1: 9:12

I love that, and you touched on something that's really big and really important for me. Another chapter like you're on fire today. You have not read my book. I know that Because it's coming out soon.

Speaker 1: 9:26

But happiness, happiness, one of the things you know, I was chasing happiness and you mentioned something similar along that vein. But happiness is a chemical reaction that happens in our brain, and so when you realize that it's literally physically impossible for you to just be happy all the time, because then it becomes your, your normal, and then you're not happy, and so I think it's more important to focus on living in joy, right, because joy is kind of something that permeates everything. It's more of a state of mind versus an emotion, the way I'm talking about it, like hope, where it's, it's a state of mind. It's not necessarily like the emotion that we feel, like hunger, Right?

Speaker 1: 10:08

Um, the other thing you touched on that's super important is the trust deposits, doing tiny things to show yourself hey, I can do this, I can, you know I can. I can make a phone call, I can go to the mall and talk to someone. Like I can record a podcast episode. I can post one. The mall and talk to someone. I can record a podcast episode, I can post one thing on social media, so I think those are really really important topics. Thank you, and it's on the trajectory of success. These are things that we have to face. We have to be really honest with ourselves, like you were, and we have to choose our hard.

Speaker 2: 10:45

So I just said a lot of stuff, so just tell me what came up for you because I think, unfortunately, a lot of us are kind of sold a lie where life people say life should be easy and you should be able to get to do what you want all the time and it shouldn't be hard and you shouldn't have any resistance and you shouldn't have any tragedy, and I think that sets you up for a lot of resistance later, a lot, a lot, a lot of resistance. So I think, choose your heart, choose your struggle. I think that is really a lot of resistance. So I think, choose your heart, choose your struggle. I think that is really a good thing to think about. I would rather have the privilege of saying I'm going to go do a really hard workout today. So when I'm 75, getting out of my recliner isn't hard. Now will it still be hard? I don't know. I'm not 75. I've got a ways to go.

Speaker 2: 11:56

No-transcript. Imagine my life is the most challenging it's ever been, through choice and through privileged pressure. But I mean it's stressful and some days it sucks and I don't know how I'm going to get through the day and I get to the end of the evening I'm laying in bed saying I don't know if I can do that again tomorrow, but I'm so fulfilled. So I agree, I think happiness is it's you get momentary bouts of happiness, but you got to be very, very cautious about how you get it, because, yeah, you can go watch porn and be happy, but that's not really what you want. You want what's under that. More than probably you want the happiness. You can watch nine hours of Netflix on a Sunday and, yeah, you might get happiness when you're doing that, but you're not necessarily going to get fulfillment right. So I think there's something to be said about that.

Speaker 2: 12:51

I think it's it's very important to understand joy, happiness, pleasure, fulfillment what do they mean to you? What do they actually provide for you? Fulfillment what do they mean to you? What do they actually provide for you? What do you regret that you do? That makes you happy in the moment. What do you find gratitude in? That you find fulfillment in, but it takes a while to feel the fulfillment. I think there's a lot of self-exploration in all of that and I think it's always worth doing.

Speaker 1: 13:17

Gratitude huge, that's one of like. Like the whole first third of my book is all about me discovering the power of gratitude. Right, it's so important. So talk to me about how gratitude played a role in your journey from you know, the side of that bed to where you are now. Because, like, like you know, we work. I work with so many entrepreneurs and to hear you say that you have, you know, almost 2,000 episodes like that's, that's insane. So talk to me a little bit about how gratitude played a part in that for you.

Speaker 2: 13:47

If it did it. Yeah, it definitely did. It was I. I think it probably wasn't the way that maybe a lot of people might think. There was a time where I was journaling every day, and every day I'd sit down and write out three things I was grateful for. I still do. I still journal pretty much every day.

Speaker 2: 14:02

But for me, what I like to do is I like to have grateful ambition. So I like to have the juggling act of I'm grateful for what I have, what I've created and what's in my life now, but I'm also very ambitious to create the things that I want. I don't want to fall into contentment. I don't want to be content because if I'm content I'm going to stop growing. I want to be grateful and ambitious at the same time. So I think it comes to the point of grounding myself in what I already have and making sure I don't forget about that, and then really looking to the future to see what we want to create in the future. So yeah, for me it's kind of the juggling act of, of both of those and trying not to go too far into either. I don't just want to be grateful, right, I want to be. Let me show my gratitude through my action. But I also can't just be ambitious and say I haven't accomplished anything and all of this is useless and it doesn't mean anything until I get to blank part there. There's something to be said about that and, just as a story because I think this if I heard this at the beginning, I think this would have helped me a ton there was a day it was last year somewhere, I think it was like a random Wednesday or Thursday where we crossed a million dollars in the business and a million listens on the same day. Wow, cool. It was interesting, like what a coincidence, and I didn't feel nearly most of the feelings that I thought I would have felt, and there's something to be said about that. I think the reason is I was ambitious to get to that but so much had changed in inside of me along the way. It's not like I went from one to a million. I went from 990 something thousand to a million, so I had already been grateful for it long before it happened and I was so ambitious to get there that when I got there it was kind of like okay, now what? I think that's a really good example for all of us. There are so many things in your life that maybe you haven't been giving the gratitude that it deserves. But also don't be afraid to say that there are still some things that I really want to accomplish and there's some some stones that I haven't turned over yet.

Speaker 2: 16:20

But just make sure that you're not expecting the ambition to make you feel a certain way. I think it's just that. Just make sure that you're not expecting the ambition to make you feel a certain way. I think it's just that. Just make sure you understand what gratitude is really doing for you and what your ambition is really doing for you, because if not, we can fall into like an if-then. If I get this, then I'll be grateful. Yeah, it doesn't really work that way. If I get this, then I'll be ambitious. Yeah, it doesn't really work that way. If I get this, then I'll be ambitious. Yeah, it doesn't really work that way.

Speaker 1: 16:48

Just understanding that has been super helpful for me. I love that, um, the other side of that. So, um, when I was about 21, I went to the doctor and he was like yo, you have the back of a disabled elderly woman and if you don't change something, you're gonna be able to wheelchair in less than five years. That was more than 10 years ago, right. And so now I'm walking like 35,000 steps when I go to Halloween horror nights. You, right and like I built up to that. But I discovered gratitude was what helped me, like to, to, to. To compliment what you were saying.

Speaker 1: 17:22

I was grateful for pain, because pain meant that I still had a fighting chance. Because if I couldn't feel my legs anymore, well then now you know, I have a friend that that happened to and then that's it. She couldn't walk anymore and she had to go have surgery, right. And so I looked at the pain as, hey, I'm grateful for this pain because I still have a chance to fight. That means that I still have a chance to get stronger, to do something about this, and so I think it's really, really important to focus on. You know what I talk to my clients what can I do from right here? I'm grateful that I have internet access through my phone, so I might not be able to like blog on my website because I don't have a keyboard right, but you can still do something from your phone.

Speaker 1: 18:06

And using gratitude to create action. I'm grateful for where I am, because right now is the only thing that exists, but I'm also grateful to be working towards this thing, and I love to teach using gratitude for future things. I'm grateful for the million dollars. Right, that's quantum physics. Like you believe, you have it, it's going to appear in front of you. There's going to be action that has to happen. But quantum physics says, hey, what you're focusing on, right, I forgot the name of the law but what we focus on, that is our perception and that's how we're going to see the world. Right, and so looking for opportunities. But, yes, taking action, taking imperfect action. You can't just be grateful. I'm grateful for a million dollars and then sit down and wait for it to fall out of the sky.

Speaker 2: 18:58

That's not going to work either, I wish. Well, that's that's why it's hard, because there isn't really. The answer is almost never one thing. Yes, it almost never is, because we are beings that are moving and evolving, and it's usually somewhere in the middle of two things, but the middle is personal and it's a sliding scale. So there are some people out there that need way more gratitude, for sure.

Speaker 2: 19:24

Yeah, there are other people out there that probably need more action. Maybe you're, maybe you're locked up with gratitude. You're good, you do gratitude every day, cool, that's the the next step. But I think that's what self development, self improvement, whatever personal development, whatever you want to label it, as it's figuring out what you're already good at, cool. We don't need to pour as much into that. Where are our opportunities for growth? Let's focus on those. Let's feel the feelings of, ah man, I wish I was better, or I didn't realize I had as much opportunity for growth there, or I'm embarrassed. That's where I'm at, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 20:01

But to your point, I think it's very important to have the admittance factor. Admit the situation you're in, don't make it worse than it is. But it might not be super beneficial to pretend it's better than it is, but that's where I think there's an opportunity for gratitude, right? Yes, I got a really bad diagnosis and that kind of sucks, and I've also had people in my life who got that same diagnosis and haven't didn't get the second chance that I got. Yes, I'll preface all that with way easier said than done. All of it is way easier said than done, but that is kind of the container we live in. For most people almost everything is way easier said than done, but it doesn't mean you can't do the thing eventually in small enough digestible bites.

Speaker 1: 20:52

Yeah, absolutely, and it goes back to choosing your heart. Right, when I was sitting there and I had this option, like exactly what you said, do I want to choose the heart of getting strong now and going through the pain of whatever it means to actually strengthen my back and fix everything that, because it's the cascading effect, right, when something you know, a big domino, falls, everything else is going to start hurting because it's supporting that right. Or do I want to choose the hard of I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing until I can't do it anymore. And now I don't have any other choices. I'm just going to have to sit here and be miserable and look at woe is me. And I was like no, I'm going to choose the hard of facing it head on.

Speaker 1: 21:33

You know my house is like a physical therapy office because I've got all the things you know, like my inversion table, all my. You know the the oh my God, the name just went away the cords. You know, like the tension cords, right, yeah, the bands. I have all the things right and it's because of that journey of choosing my heart and looking at it in the face and being honest and be like, hey, if you don't quit your job as a server right now carrying those trees like you're literally not going to be able to walk, dude. So like which one is it? And that's what led to my book, that's what led to this podcast. So I love that. I just I admire your journey. I think it's amazing what you're doing. You've got so many episodes. That's like so impressive. I appreciate it. Okay, yes, of course. Now talk to me about how we can stay in touch with you, cause, like I mean, who wouldn't want to?

Speaker 2: 22:29

I always suggest just listening to the podcast. Again, we do an episode every day, so it's probably the best way to stay in touch. If that isn't it, I literally just give my email out. So my email is Kevin at next level universecom. If you have questions, comments, concerns whatever it is, I do my own emails. That's my personal email, so feel free to message me. You'd be surprised. I always give it out. You're not going to annoy me, you're not going to bug me. I'm not going to get overwhelmed with that, like I promise. If it resonates and you want to shoot me a message, just do it. I challenge you. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe that's the thing that's outside of your comfort zone. You just heard a stranger on a podcast that you've never met and you may never meet in person. It's nervous to start new conversations. Shoot me an email and we'll see how it goes. I'm sure it'll go better than you think.

Speaker 1: 23:18

I love it and you know, like in the four hour work week that's one of the things that Tim Ferriss talks about like send the email, because so many people could send the email and then they talk themselves out of it. And so sometimes those people on top, like these people, they're they're excited to read your email. They're like, oh, it's just, you know, someone that's not asking something of me, they don't. You know, they don't want money, they don't want this, they don't want that. They just want to say hi, um, and so shoot your shot.

Speaker 1: 23:43

I love it like message kevin shot yes, yes and um, you mentioned something about a gift for the audience, was it?

Speaker 2: 23:52

yeah, so we have a free course. I'll have to I gotta get nicole the link because I don't know there's been a lot of stuff going on the website and a website redesign and all this but we have a free course. I believe it's called the next level five to thrive, where we talk about the five things that make the biggest difference in growth. If that's not it, we have another one. We get a lot of free stuff, so I'll make sure you get something free and valuable. That'll. That'll be the uh, my, my homework after we get off of here.

Speaker 1: 24:18

That sounds awesome and that link will be available down in the show notes and it'll be just for you guys. So make sure you check out Kevin's podcast and get access to your free gift. All right, kevin. So last, before we sign off, final tip like what's that big tip, like the one that helps your clients get the best results? Like what do you tell?

Speaker 2: 24:39

them, honestly, one of the things, and it sounds so unsexy. But if you're struggling to start something new, one of the reasons you're struggling to start, it might be because it's too big, so break it down into bite-sized things.

Speaker 2: 24:55

I think we're recording this towards the end of February, given up on their new year's resolutions, and the reason is we took a year's worth of goals and results and we put them into one statement and it's just. It seems inedible, and for a lot of us it is. So don't be embarrassed to break stuff down into very, very, very, very small, accomplishable goals. I'm willing to bet you will get much further that way. While we're at 2000 episodes today, it started with one and it started with doing one at a time and it was one a week for a long time and eventually it went to two and it went to three. We didn't start at seven, we started at one, just like everybody. So I think that there's something to be said about that. It's not sexy, it's not going to go viral, that type of thought process, but I'm willing to bet it will help you in a very, very meaningful way.

Speaker 1: 25:47

I love that Taking baby steps and being grateful for that contribution right, because every day, if you do that, one thing, one episode every day, you have 365 episodes at the end of the year.

Speaker 2: 25:59

That's insane. And all you did was one a day. Big things start small. All you did was one a day. It adds up Big things start small. I love that.

Speaker 1: 26:06

I love that. So take imperfect action, guys. You heard it here first, so I love that. Thank you, guys, so much for joining us and we will see you next time on the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. Thanks Bye.