The Power of Consistency: Learning to be more Consistent with Kevin Palmieri

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Kevinin, what is the most important takeaway you want people to hear today? I would say your reality becomes the parts of your imagination that you hold onto and pour into the longest. The only reason I'm here doing this interview is because I said I imagine what it would be like to be a podcaster full time if I could just do that for a living. And that's the thing that I focused on and I worked at every single day. I let a lot of other things go, and I got rid of stuff that wasn't aligned.

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The reasons I have the results that I have are because those are the results I was the most focused on. So in five years, your life will look different than it does today. I just want you to make sure it's different in the way that you want it to be. Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential and grow into the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves?

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That's the question in this podcast will help you with those answers. My name is Brent, and welcome to the The Fallible Man LLC Man Podcast. Welcome to The Fallible Man LLC man. Podcast. You're home for all things man, husband, and father.

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Big shout out to the The The Fallible Man LLC Man LLC. You guys make this possible. And a warm welcome to our first time listeners. My name is Brent, and today my special guest is CFO, founder, and co host of Next Level University, a global Top 100 Self improvement Podcast, Kevinin Palmieri. Kevinin, welcome to the show.

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Brent, thank you so much for having me. I am excited to chat and see where we take this interview today. Kevinin, let me start off right off the bat. How badly did I butcher your name? You were 99.9% of the way there.

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You just got to throw the eye on the end. Paul mary. Perfect. Okay. All good.

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I'll mess that up at least three more times to count on that. Par for the course. Podcaster to podcaster. It happens. It's all good.

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Kevinin. I don't do big intros. Who is Kevinin Palmieri in your own name words? Kevinin Palmieri is somebody who wants to help people at the deepest level possible. He is somebody who struggled in life at certain points, and he wants to help people avoid the struggles that he dealt with.

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That is me. In the simplest, probably most accurate form. I would say fair enough. Next level university. Podcast is killing it.

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Congratulations on that. Tell us a little bit about your show. So, Next Level University is a self improvement podcast based on holistic self improvement. So our description that I tell people is heart driven, but no BS. Holistic.

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Self improvement for Dream Chasers. There's a lot of places you can go to learn about sales or learn about money, learn about relationships, self worth, self belief. But we do our best to take all of that and put it together. How does self worth and self belief affect money? How does it affect relationships?

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How does it affect you chasing your dreams? So at the end of the day, our goal is to have a place for everybody, no matter what their personal development set point is, or no matter what their financial set point currently is. We believe that if you can impact somebody every single day, you can help them more. And that's why we do seven episodes a week. And we've really built our business around impact, not profitability.

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That's really been our main focus. And we do believe the more you impact, the more you can ultimately make in return for that. But we set it up based on impact. Okay, what brought you into the podcasting space? Out of out of curiosity, right?

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Because there are so many arms for personal growth and development. Selfhelp. What brought you to the podcasting platform? I think it was by luck, and I think you probably hear that often when you ask that question. I was interviewed on a podcast.

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It was like a YouTube show, actually. And I remember when we got to the end, it was an hour and a half, and I said to one of my buddies, I said, imagine if you could do that for a living. I can't believe how fast that went by. It was so effortless, it was so seamless. And he said, well, there's people who do it.

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I mean, you can do it. So what happened was, I ended up making the most money I'd ever made that year. And I had this moment where I realized that I basically lived that year of my life and most of my life unconsciously, just kind of going through the motions, just going with the flow, seeing what happened. I thought to myself, the opposite of unconscious is hyper conscious. And now that I had this podcast experience, I said, what if I did a podcast on that?

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And that was really where it started for me. I wanted to help people raise their awareness. I think that's the most valuable tool in the world. And the fact that I could just have conversations with my friends and go deep, that's what we used to say. Like, you want to go deep?

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Let's do it. I don't like hearing myself talk. I'm used to it now, but that's not why it was because I really, actually felt like I could have an impact on somebody with my voice, which was a weird level of control to have, because that's not something I was used to. So short version of it. I was interviewed on a podcast.

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I said, wow, imagine if you could do that for a living. I went and got the equipment shortly thereafter, and the rest is history, so to speak. It's an interesting world, podcasting. Some people just really connect with it, and it's amazing to me. It's growing.

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It's just the people who are listening to podcasts. I love the possible reach. I ran into a forestry guy. I was out hunting last year. I didn't go this year, but I was out hunting last year.

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I ran into a forest ranger, right? We started talking in this course of casual conversation, asked me if I got anything, and I told him I did a podcast. He's like, Dude, I listen to podcasts all day. I drive around Central Washington. We have a lot of wildlife plans out here.

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And he's like, I'm driving constantly. I'm in my truck. I listen to podcasts all the time. I love it. It's like, wow, I'm out here in the middle of nowhere.

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I was way off the beaten path when I ran into him. And he's like, man, it's like, wow. Okay. Podcasting is just growing and growing, and people are connecting with it. Why do you think it's such a personal connection with a podcast?

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It's one of the rare places where you can actually be a fly on the wall of somebody's conversation. And I think the other interesting thing, too, is it leaves a lot up to the imagination. What does Brent look like? What does Kevinin look like? What are their studios look like?

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I don't want to say it's voyeuristic, because that's an interesting turn, but I do believe there's that part of it that I can have this look into a conversation that I may never, ever have the opportunity to look into. What would that be like? And then I think people fall in love, quote unquote, with either the personality or the delivery, and they get to the point where they self identify as I am the type of person who would listen to this show. I am the type of person who would be a part of this community. And I think that it's one of those places where you get to join some sort of movement for an hour a week or 2 hours a week or however long it is, and you feel like you're part of something.

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I really think it helps people feel like they belong, they're part of that community. And I think that's one of the reasons why it works the way it does. Yeah, it's been a whirlwind since I started dating, man. Just getting to know other podcasters and getting to have these conversations with other podcasters like, dude, this is such a cool space to be in, just getting to work like this. And I love that I get to meet people from around the world.

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I've interviewed people all over the world, and it's like, man, being able to connect at human levels no matter where we are, which is always cool. One thing I usually don't share is how impactful the podcast has been for me personally. There's a lot I love and appreciate because I have the podcast, I become somebody who can approach people easier. I have a better network of people to call upon when I need them. I get to meet new people all the time from all walks of life and all over the globe and connect with them at a depot level.

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And I have a voice to do what I love. I'm always put into situations where I'm having to stretch and learn something new. I've really grown as a person and a professional since I started doing my podcast, and that was even before my show really started growing. I hired a company called Grow Your Show, who's our sponsor, by the way, and I wanted to share them with you. The owner, Adam, has one of the very best podcasts for teaching you how to be a podcaster.

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I honestly wish I had found it sooner. One thing that they've done to help me is to bring me to a much larger listener base so that my voice is being heard around the world. There's a good chance, in fact, they helped us connect, but they also do editing and post production. They can even help you launch and start your podcast, which could really help you in your business or whatever you're trying to achieve. So I just wanted to give them a quick shout out.

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I love to share great people and companies that I believe in that I use personally so that's growyourshow@growyourshow.com. I have a link in the show notes, and if you have a podcast or you want to start a podcast or you're thinking about it, just scroll down there, click that link, and go work with my friend Adam. He's going to treat you right. Kevinin, if you could have a conversation with anybody, living or dead, who would it be and why? I would say Eminem Marshall Mathers.

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And the reason is he was one of the rappers I listened to growing up. I do believe he's one of the best lyricists to ever walk the planet. You have to listen to his songs five or six times to actually understand what he's saying, which is a good thing. And I have a very simple question I'd like to ask. Why didn't you quit when everybody thought you were terrible or everybody said you couldn't make it?

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There's something about the resilience that it takes to overcome that level of judgment or being critiqued, whatever it may be, that it would be him. And I just want to know what kept you going. And that question of did you really believe you'd make it? Did you know this whole time that you could be the best? Or did you think, I love this, I'm just going to do it for as long as I can?

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I think that's such an interesting question, and I'm sure you've probably seen this or maybe you've interviewed people about it. A lot of the people who make it didn't necessarily reverse engineer that journey. I want to know if he did. I want to know if everything he did was based on an outcome or if he just did what he loved and then it ended up working out the way it did. Very curious about that.

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Okay, you guys, if anybody knows eminem need to hook him up. Kevinin wants to talk to him, please. He's got a great platform for it. And I want to tune into that show because that's a really great question. I like that a lot.

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I appreciate it. What is your favorite ice cream? If you can nail this one, you've. Got the show made 100% mint chocolate chip. Any brand, really.

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But friars, for some reason, it's not green. It's white mint chocolate chip that is better than any other ones. That is my jam. A little whipped cream and some chocolate sprinkles, and we're off to the races. Nice.

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Okay. Oh, me. I'm a chocolate guy. Chocolate, chocolate. It gets really complicated, right?

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Because then you go to, like, are we talking custom made ice creams? Because I know this amazing little ice cream shop in Denver, Colorado, that makes some of the best ice cream I've ever had, but it's so localized right there. I'm just chocolate guy. I'm pretty happy with my chocolate, okay? Plain and simple.

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I can do anything. But really, if I want to take it to that next level, I'm a dark chocolate ice cream with guinness float. I respect that. The guinness brings out the cream. The creaminess not ice cream together is crazy.

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If you never had it, you'd try it. I've never had it, but so my wife, when she was my I was dating her this was many years ago, she got me this guinness ice cream from a local creamery. I guess it's considered it was the best ever. So I don't know if you've ever had guinness ice cream, but it's really good. I had a chocolate stout that a chocolate here on the coast did, and I would get my mother in law to ship me, like dry ice, packed me shipment for that because it cost a small fortune, but it was amazing.

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Well worth it. Yeah, for sure. So, Kevinin, life wasn't always great, right? You're at a good point now with your business and what you're doing, but life wasn't always so good from the outside. Things looked really good for a lot of people's perspectives, right?

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You had a nice car. You had a good job. Things seemed to be going well, but it really wasn't. So will you share that story with us a little bit? Yeah, of course.

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So the real inflection point in my life where things shifted, because I think we forget that humans are a certain way before they become the way they are today. I was never into self improvement. I was never into growth. I was never into the things that I'm into now. I was 25 years old, and I again, from all outside standards, if you looked at me, you would think I was crushing it.

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I had a high paying job. I was making anywhere from $60 to $120 an hour, depending on where I was doing that job. My girlfriend was a model. I had a sports car, I had a new apartment. And I quite literally had the body of my dreams, because I had just done a bodybuilding show.

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Everything from the outside seemed like it was amazing. How could this person not be unreasonably happy and super fulfilled? But the truth is, I was very insecure. I hadn't dealt with a lot of the inner stuff that was running my life. And one day my girlfriend at the time came to me and she said, I want to move across the country, I want to move from the East Coast, and I want to go to California, and I want to chase my dreams.

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And in my scarcity, in my insecurity, in my fear, I gave her every reason in the world why she shouldn't do it, because I was just afraid I was going to be left behind. I thought she'd find somebody else. She wouldn't come back to me, whatever it may be. She ended up leaving me, as she should have, and she went and chased her dreams, and that's exactly what she should have done. And we've since spoken, and we're on good terms, and that was an interesting time in both of our lives.

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But when she'd left, I had to look in the mirror and I had to ask myself some questions. And I remember one of the questions I asked was, how could anybody possibly love this version of you? And I sat with that for a little bit, but for some reason, it was easier for me to say, I think the problem is that you didn't make enough money. You haven't made enough money. You don't have enough things yet.

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So that next year, I said, I'm going to make the most money I've ever made my entire life. And that was my intention. I will grind it out, and I'm going to make six figures this year. I didn't have a college degree, but I did have work ethic, and I thought that would pay off. So the beginning of the year comes and I get a promotion at my job.

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I worked in the weatherization industry. All that means is it was my job to go into buildings and make them more energy efficient. So we would work in schools, fire stations, police stations, anything that was state owned. The vast majority of our work was on contracts that were out of state. So I lived in New Hampshire at the time.

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Most of our jobs were in New Jersey, which is like a six hour ride. We worked in New York, we worked in Pennsylvania, we worked in Virginia, Delaware, all over the place. So if you fast forward to the end of that year, I had been on the road for ten months out of the twelve months, every single week I was just grinding, driving, staying in different hotels, working out at different gyms, but I didn't care, because that was in alignment with the goal that I wanted. So I remember I got to the end of the year, I had my final pay stub, the golden ticket in my hand. And I remember before I opened it, I said, okay.

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Did I do it? My intention was to make six figures. Did I do it? And I opened up my final pay stub, and I did. I made $100,000 that year at 26 with no college degree.

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But much like before, none of the external things that I had accomplished were helping me at all internally. They weren't filling the voids that I didn't realize I had that needed to be filled. Like we discussed earlier, that's when I created the podcast, because I realized that most of my life was unconscious. The opposite of unconscious is hyperconscious. When I created the podcast, for the first time in my life, I really felt like I was doing something worthy, like I was having an impact, and I was kind of in control of what I was doing, and that was very different for me.

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So almost overnight, I fell out of love with my job and the amount of money I was making, and I fell in love with podcasting. So I started interviewing my friends. We're having deep conversations. One of my friends debated suicide, so we were talking about that. Another one of my friends had two children by the age of 21 or 22.

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We were talking about that. I loved it. So I start calling out of my job. I'm leaving the job site early, I'm showing up late. And it got to the point where I would have to be in New Jersey, which again is like 6 hours from where I lived.

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I'd have to be there 07:00 a.m. On a Monday to start the job. I would sleep in my bed in Massachusetts. That's where I lived at that point. From 09:00 p.m.

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Until midnight on Sunday, I'd get up and I would drive straight to the job site. I'd work an eight hour day, and then I would go to the gym after because I just couldn't be in a hotel for an extra night. It was brutal, and it just kept getting worse and worse, and my physical health was taking a toll. My mental health was getting worse, and I just didn't know what to do. But I felt like I was stuck.

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I didn't think I could leave that. And it all really shifted for me. One morning, I woke up in a hotel room in New Jersey, probably 515. My alarm clock blows off. I sit up, I slide to the edge of the bed.

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I'm lacing up my work boots, and the best way to explain it, Brent, is there's ten televisions on in my head at the same time, and every single one is on a different station. And it's just all the limiting beliefs. One, you're stuck at this job forever. Two, if you did work up the courage to leave, what would your friends think? You make a lot of money.

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They all look up to you. There's some ego there. If you did leave, what will your family think? They all are proud of you. They look up to you, too.

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There's some fear and scarcity there, and this was the loudest one. If you do manage to just leave this behind, do you think that this podcast thing is going to be the light at the end of the tunnel? Is this going to be the thing that you ride off into the future? And I didn't believe this. In that moment, I felt that if I was to take my life, I would take my problems with me.

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One of the things I talk about often is the importance of the people around you. I had a really good friend who is now my business partner, and I messaged him and I said, hey, Alan, I'm really struggling. I don't know what's going on. I feel hopeless, I feel helpless, I feel trapped. I feel stuck.

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I don't know what's going on. I don't know what to do. Alan had studied self improvement for most of his life. So in his wisdom, he said, well, Kevin, a lot has changed for you over the last couple of years, but your environments have stayed the same. The people you surround yourself with have stayed the same.

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Your day to day has stayed the same. I think it's time for you to make a change. And then three or four months later, I ended up leaving my job and then becoming a very broke entrepreneur and trying to figure out business and podcasting and all that. And that was really the day that I think it reinforced my purpose, it reinforced the mission, but it gave me a lot of perspective and it gave me a lot of necessity, which I think is important. But I always want to tell people that I didn't go from quitting my job and going all in to where we are today.

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That was like five years, four and a half years. So it's very important. I don't want people to think I had a really tough moment that shifted my life. And then I went on to, boom, here we are. There was a lot of painful nights, there was a lot of mirror moments, there was a lot of fear, a lot of scarcity, a lot of doubt in between when I left my job and where we got to today.

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But in retrospect, it was one of the best things that's ever happened to me. That's awesome story, Kevinin. Thank you for sharing that. Of course, it's hard sometimes to go back and revisit some of the dark places that brought us to where we are. People have asked me like, well, would you ever change anything that you've done, any of your decisions, right?

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Would you go back and tell yourself to do something? No. I'm a culmination of all the decisions I made up to this point. But it is time difficult sometimes to look back at some of those old choices and go, yeah, I know, it got me here, but man, that was not a good time. Now, Kevinin, you've gotten here and I really like the fact that you brought up that it wasn't just a slap, quick change, right?

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That's the American dream at this point. I like to joke about it because the American dream used to be what the white picket fence and the small family in your own house. But the American dream has changed. It's instant fame. Everybody wants it now.

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Everybody wants quick. Everybody wants easy. Nothing worthwhile really comes instantly. And so people jump off and try and chase their dreams and two weeks later they haven't hit their dream yet and they're like, oh man, this is all junk, right? All those guys in the podcast, they're all liars.

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None of this happened that fast. I did what you said for a whole week and it didn't work. I hate some of those self improvement programs just because people were like, well, you did it for like, three days. You didn't do anything. Right?

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So I'm glad you brought that up. How do we make that transition, right? You've said that consistency is important to you. It's been said that consistency is what transforms average into excellence. So let's set the stage for the second half of this conversation.

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How do we define consistency going forward in this conversation? Because that's really where we're going to go to today. I would say that the process or the definition of consistency is the process of showing up repeatedly regardless of the outcome. I think that's probably the best way to at least start it, because in the beginning, nothing is going to change. And I really like, okay, I went to the gym today, and I went to the gym yesterday.

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Absolutely nothing has changed. But if I do that for a year, a lot will change from the day to day. Change, growth, evolution is invisible from year to year, decade to decade. It's impossible to miss. But so many of us are looking on the day to day.

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And to your point, I had this thought the other day in the shower. That's where the good thoughts come from. Well, yeah, right, for everybody. I think I was across the board. I used to feel bad that when people would ask me what the keys to success, podcast, growth, whatever are, I didn't have some sort of hack.

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I didn't have some sort of cheat code. I didn't know. I don't know. I can't tell you the one thing. Then I realized that the fact that I can't do.

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That means I probably actually know. And that was a really empowering part for me to understand because I can't tell you one thing thing. I can tell you everything we've done, but I don't know the one thing. I don't think anybody really knows the one thing. I think they know the one thing that's worked for them, or they don't know what's work.

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They're just going to sell you on what they think you want. And that's a whole other conversation that I'm happy to have. But, yeah, I think consistency is you showing up every day and saying, look, I know this is what's best for the long term. In the short term, I'm going to see almost no results. But you don't really see any results with bad habits either.

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It's the time that tells the truth. A year, two years, five years. A lot can happen in that amount of time, whether you're doing positive things consistently or you're doing negative things consistently. Well, it's like I tell people in the gym, it didn't take one bowl of ice cream for my belly to get too big. That was a lot of consistently bad food choices.

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That may have been an unhealthy relationship with food, but it wasn't a today I decided to have an unhealthy relationship with food. I had an unhealthy relationship with food. Right. You're not going to lose that instantly because it didn't get there instantly. And people, like said, we live in this microwave society, right?

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We've just programmed ourselves 30 seconds. It's done. That's all we need. Right? I love those commercials.

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Three minute ads. Dude, if you could have ABS in three minutes, everybody would have ABS. The product would sell itself. The first time you prove that, they would sell it to the entire world almost overnight. Right?

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Well, it's an awareness problem. I mean, that's really and think about it this way. I don't know. You might know stuff about cars. I'm not very well versed when it comes to mechanics.

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I can get taken advantage of. It a garage. You could say your flux capacitor is broken, and I'd say, yeah, that sounds about right. How much is it? $5,000.

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Okay, cool. Here it is. But you can't take advantage of me when it comes to fitness because my awareness is high. So that three minute ABS, I know that doesn't work, but everybody out there that doesn't have the awareness to understand how ABS are actually formed and diet and all that, those are the people that get taken advantage of. We did an episode on this where we literally talked about why people get taken advantage of.

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It's because the person who is taking advantage of you has higher awareness. They understand your lack of awareness, and they know the delta in between. That's why self improvement and learning in general is so important. When you become aware, it's very hard for people to take advantage of your lack of. Awareness.

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And I think that's one of the reasons I'm so big on it, because I see so many people get taken advantage of where there's no such thing as three minute ads. There's no such thing as scaling a seven figure business in a month. It doesn't happen. It defies the laws of physics. That's not how it's supposed to work.

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Well, you know, that's just how everything works now, isn't it? I mean, come on, it's the age of the Internet. I'm sure assume we can just download that program, right, and it's going to rewrite our DNA. We don't have to go to the gym anymore. Have you seen that ad for I think it's called Colin Broom or something on social media I keep seeing is some new fad drink for doing some kind of clear or whatever, and people are like, you don't have to change your diet.

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You don't have to exercise. I'm like, you're all a bunch of liars. And what are you pouring down your gut that will do that? Because nothing can be healthy that will do that to your body. Yeah, the old cleanse.

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If you want to lose £30, you need a cleanse. It's a new spin on the cleanse. That's all it is. It's the latest one. My cousin got into the juice cleanse years ago.

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I remember telling him it was like, this isn't going to work, man. Seriously. He gave up coffee. He gave all kinds of stuff because they said it was bad and did this juice cleanse. I'm like, do you feel better?

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He's like, no, I feel like I'm going to die, pretty much, yeah. So, guys, we've been spending a little time getting to know Kevinin because I want you to understand where he's coming from. In the second half of the show, we're going to really dive into the power of consistency and how you can use that to chase your goals, improve your life and go the way you want to go. We're enrolled at our sponsors and we'll be right back with more from Kevinin. How well do you sleep at night?

[00:26:31]

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[00:26:55]

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[00:27:11]

Hey, guys, we're back. We're here with Kevinin. I just totally blew it again, didn't I? No, it's all right. You're good.

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You're good. Discussing the power of consistency, Kevinin is being very nice of the fact that I can't say his name. Kevinin, what purchase of $100 or less did you make in the last year that's had the biggest impact on your life? Wow, that's a great question. Probably it's either a book or my wife and I bought we bought a water cooler because we had a bridge in the fridge, and that's fine, but you got to take it out and you got to fill it up.

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And I drink a lot of water. I try to drink, like, a gallon a day. So we got one of those water coolers that you would have at the office that has five gallon jugs, and it quite literally is one of the best purchases I've ever made my entire life because I always have cold water. And it's way easier to get hydrated when the barrier to entry is low. When you're talking about consistency, if you can make it as simple as humanly possible, you're more likely to follow through.

[00:28:08]

I would say that might have been a little more than 100, but I'm going to claim ignorance for the answer. Fair enough. I always like to see what people think, because it can be a book. It can be. I had one guy who was like, he bought a $70 pair of shorts, and he's like, they're the best shorts ever.

[00:28:25]

I went and bought, like, six more pairs. Like, wow, I'm cheap. $70 for a pair of shorts is not happening. But I'm glad they impacted your life somehow. Kevinin, you mentioned that making it easier to hydrate was an easier way to stay consistent in that.

[00:28:43]

So that's a great bridge into you. Talk about consistency. How did using consistency helped change your story? Because we got into your story a little bit. How did that transition how did consistency really start to make that transition for you?

[00:28:59]

Yeah, in the beginning, when I first became and this is air quotes for those who are listening an entrepreneur, I didn't know what to do. So my business partner, who had studied entrepreneurship and personal development and self improvement, he helped me create systems. And he said, well, this is what you're going to do, Kevin. I want you to take out a notebook, and I want you to come up with five habits that you can consistently practice every day. And I said, all right, what should they be?

[00:29:24]

And he said, well, it should probably be something with social media to help grow the business. It should probably be something for your mental health, whether it's Journaling Meditating, some sort of fitness, some physical fitness. And then I would say maybe one thing could be prospecting, and one thing could be tracking your finances so you have health, wealth, and love. And I was like, all right, cool. So that's really where all of this started.

[00:29:44]

It literally started with me every day waking up and opening a notebook and saying, all right, these are the five things I'm supposed to do. Let me check off what I've done and let me erase it before I go to bed so I can check it off tomorrow. That's really where it started for me. I do believe at a deep level that human beings are consistent creatures, just not always in the proper direction. So if you identify as the type of person who is not consistent, do you hit the drive through every day on the way to work?

[00:30:14]

That's a consistent behavior. It's just not consistent with your goals. So I think that's an interesting part for humans is I do believe we are consistent creatures. Usually it's consistent towards the consistency, towards the path of least resistance, not necessarily towards the life of our dreams. I would say, okay, now I completely didn't.

[00:30:35]

I'm a character like creature of habit. Dude, my wife will tell you I'm just annoyingly boring. I go to the same restaurants. I eat the same exact thing at the same exact restaurants. I do the same things.

[00:30:47]

I don't like new things. I'm a little bit boring that way. I like my boring routine because it lets me focus on the other things I want to focus on. Right. I don't spend any emotional or mental capacity on those things, and so that is Brenteficial.

[00:31:03]

Now, those have not always been consistently healthy choices. Worked in construction over the years. I ate a lot of gas stations, a lot of greasy spoons in the Midwest, the kind where they bring you a plate the size of your head covered with biscuits and gravy, and there's grease standing on top of it. So a lot of bad consistency. Now, this doesn't just apply to business, right?

[00:31:26]

We can apply this idea of consistency to every facet of our life to chase the things we want to correct. Yeah, 100%. I was on a podcast. I don't remember what it was, but it was a continuous improvement podcast, and I challenged the host. I said, Why do we focus so much on being really good at work and business and making money?

[00:31:50]

But we don't practice that consistency in our own lives with our partners. And I said, one wonderful behavior you can have is every night before you go to bed, just say one thing you're grateful for about your partner and have them reciprocate. If you're riding solo and you don't have a partner, say one thing you're grateful for about yourself or one thing you're grateful for about your life. That's a very important practice that can really, really help you improve your relationship. My wife and I, and we've been messing up this.

[00:32:17]

We got to get back on track. But every single Sunday, we would do a check in where we would sit down and say, hey, what did you like that I did this week? What didn't you like so much that I did this week? What do you want more of? What do you want less of?

[00:32:29]

We would check back in with the Love languages. It's an opportunity to have proactive feedback that you can then take action on. So you can do this with life in general. You can do it with love, you can do it with health, you can do it with wealth. Anything that you can really measure, you can adjust the input to adjust the output, but you've got to be consistent.

[00:32:51]

That's the really interesting thing is, and this is always my analogy, I can't do the splits. Brent. If you said, here's $1,000, do the splits, I might try really hard, but things would probably go horribly wrong if I said, well, give me 365 days and I'll be able to do it. I'm only going to be able to do it if I practice it enough. So if I did it every single day for 365 days, I would say, odds are I should be able to do it.

[00:33:15]

But if I start taking off a day here and there and I'm doing it five days a week, that's way less. If I'm doing it three days a week, that's way less. If I only do it once a week, that's 52 times versus 365 times. I might not even get to the goal, but if I do, it's going to take a lot longer. But the interesting thing is, after the first week, I'm probably going to have the same amount of results whether I do it seven times or one.

[00:33:39]

There's not going to be a lot of change. There two weeks in, probably not, but it starts to compound as you go. So anything that you can adjust the input and then measure, you can use consistency to your Brentefit with. Here what you're saying. Okay?

[00:33:56]

That was a powerful statement where he said, if you cut it from seven days a week to five days a week, that's a lot less.

[00:34:07]

It's funny how badly we conceptualize time sometimes, right? We don't process. A lot of people don't think very long term. We think about this week, we think about maybe next week. It's a holiday season, right?

[00:34:18]

So someone's thinking about Thanksgiving or Christmas, but we don't necessarily think in long terms. And so that consistency starts to become really kind of up and down. It's like, oh, I'll have time for that later. I'll have time for that later. And all of a sudden, like you said, seven days goes to five days.

[00:34:36]

That's a lot less. Three days. I look at people talk about work out three days a week. Well, if you're new to working out, that's not a bad suggestion. If you're building the habit, if you're building up to it, that's great.

[00:34:50]

If you've been working out for most of your life, that may not serve your goals because that's a really small number for someone who's worked out for a long time. Right. Things scale as we go but we have this problem showing up consistently. Now on that note how practically do we start to build consistency and things we want to do? Yeah you got to find a way to add so a couple of ways.

[00:35:19]

Number one and to your point in the very beginning make it as simple and sustainable as humanly possible if you've never gone to the gym and a lot of like james Clear has a book called Atomic Habits that he just goes so deep into. But one of the examples he uses is if you've never been to the gym and you want to go you're really overwhelmed and you feel like you're disappointing yourself. You think all right I'm going to go to the gym. A good step is put your shoes out like you would go to the gym. That's step one.

[00:35:45]

Just put your shoes out and get your gym bag ready like you would go do that for a couple of days. Then after that drive to the gym and you don't have to get out of your car. Just drive to the gym and then drive back home. Do that a couple of times then just walk into the gym and step on the treadmill. You don't even have to walk.

[00:36:00]

Then do that. You just get into the routine of okay this is just a little bit more than I was doing. Just a little bit more than I was doing. Just a little bit more than I was doing. So step number one I think is creating actual small steps not assuming well I need to lose £50 in this month.

[00:36:15]

I need to get to the point where I can actually consistently show up. Let me create sustainability first before I create consistency. It must be sustainable first. I think after that there's a couple of really powerful things you can do. But usually the most powerful things are the most scary things.

[00:36:31]

One public accountability. If you are the type of person who wants to run 26.2 miles there's two ways to do it. There's one tell nobody and just say well I'm going to try to run 26.2 miles. Or two sign up for a marathon raise however much it is $5,000 $10,000 and tell everybody in your social media that you're going to do it. It's a lot harder not to do it when you know there's people who are at least watching.

[00:36:56]

It's the old gym analogy. If Brent and I are going to the gym tomorrow at 06:00 a.m. I might not want to get up but I know you're going to be there. I don't want to let you down. You'll do more for other people usually than you'll do for yourself.

[00:37:08]

That's another way to do it. Public accountability a peak performance partner. So accountability of somebody close to you creating necessity through potential loss. And this wasn't set up, but I have $100 bill on my desk. I told my wife last week, I said, hey, if I don't go to the gym five days in a row this week, I want you to take this $100 bill and I want you to rip it up in front of me.

[00:37:35]

And at first she was like, no, I will not do that. And I said, babe, I promise I won't let you down. I promise I will not let you down. I promise. What does that mean?

[00:37:44]

If I don't do it, I quite literally lose $100. Humans are more conditioned to avoid loss than we are to gain wins. So creating some sort of accountability like that where the pain? Quote, unquote. Let's just say this, the discomfort of not doing something must be greater than the discomfort of doing it.

[00:38:03]

I went to the gym every single day last week. It was awesome. And now I still have my hundred dollars. That's a really good way to do it. Alan, my business partner, does that with his clients.

[00:38:14]

We had a client recently who said, I'm going to transfer $1,000 to you guys if I don't take a picture every time I go to the gym for the next 30 days. I want you to have it. You want to talk about ultimate necessity, that's a great way to have it. So that's another thing to do is you don't have to necessarily put your money where your mouth is. $1,000 is a lot of money.

[00:38:34]

$100 is a lot of money. And it's a little reckless to be ripping up money. Maybe for you it's something different. If I do blank for X amount of time, I'll get myself this treat that cost $100, whatever it is. But understand that humans are more afraid to lose than we are excited to gain.

[00:38:50]

You have to use that psychology and that human conditioning against yourself. I was trying to laugh as you were talking because I recently did a fundraiser and it involved physicality, right? It involved like a ruck march. And so I post purposely did it on Facebook. So it's very visible public fundraiser, because I have made the normal error that a lot of guys do when they're starting to build a business, right?

[00:39:18]

I spend more time behind my desk and the first thing that goes out is my workout habits and then my healthy eating choices, right? They're the first things I sacrifice in time to be more focused on my business, right? And so it's like, okay, I really need to push myself to start being more physical and getting active again. So I purposely did a public fundraiser on there just for the accountability, because like, okay, I'm not going to tank this in front of all these people who see my Facebook post all the time, because that would just be horrible, right? Reinforcement is an uncomfortable concept for a lot of people, and I hate to use that term, but it's the same idea, right?

[00:40:01]

It's lost negative reinforcement, and we've kind of made that a bad thing in society anymore, right. Social political correctness has moved us towards this point where negative reinforcement has bad connotations, and, oh, you can't do that anymore. No, you can't. But it is an incredibly powerful motivator in the human psychology. We respond to that somehow better than aiming for what we're actually trying to do.

[00:40:30]

You were talking about James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, and I love that book. It was a brilliant book. But one of the things he talked about in that book that just really jumped out at me was this idea of breaking down to the smallest possible steps. He tells that story and he talks about going to the gym, right? His client going to the gym and just going to the gym over and over again for months without working out.

[00:41:00]

He was going to go spend five minutes at the gym to where it was just second nature. We leave out the small steps. I think that's why everybody tanks on New Year's resolutions and stuff like that, right. It's February, so by now 40% of New Year's resolutions have completely gone by the wayside for all the people who are still making them. So little habits are huge in building that consistency, but you have to do those little habits.

[00:41:25]

You said set the shoes out, right. You talked about getting your water cooler and having that present rearranging your life, like physically and emotionally to make things easier. Can you talk into that a little more? Yeah. One of the challenges that we had in the very beginning when it came to podcasting is we were podcasting in Allen's mother's house, and at one point, we used to have to take down our equipment every time we did an interview, and we'd have to put it back every other time when we went back.

[00:41:55]

That's hard. It's making it hard, it's making it challenging. On the other side. There was a time, I don't know if it was last year or the year before, where I had a little too much time on my hands and I was playing PlayStation in between calls. So what did I do?

[00:42:11]

I took the PlayStation off of the TV and I would disconnect it every time I was done with it. So next time I wanted to play, I'd literally think to myself, I don't want to connect that. I had to go behind the TV and plug it in and plug in the HTML to do that. So it stopped me from doing it. Our environments aren't necessarily set up for success, especially if you have your cell phone near you, especially if you have your menus for fast food out and you're trying to diet, or you're watching certain channels that have food wherever it may be.

[00:42:39]

You have to understand that so many of us are products of our environment to a degree, not 100%, but your environment is influencing you. Let's just say that one of our mentors, Evan Carmichael, he literally has, I don't know if it's a bag of cheese It or Cheetos Doritos, he has a bag of Doritos on his desk as a challenge to himself. I do not advise you to do that. He's probably a very right. He's a very consistent human being, disciplined.

[00:43:05]

But we don't think about that. We don't think to ourselves, what could I do to shift my environment to make it a little bit easier for me to accomplish my goals? Is my environment creating more resistance than I realize? And I would say for most people it does. I started at the end of the night when I'm done work.

[00:43:21]

I leave my cell phone in the office now and I can't tell you how much better I feel because I don't have the pull. The phone isn't in my environment. It's not within eyesight, it's not within reach where I can just do some mindless scrolling to kill time when my wife goes to the bathroom, whatever. I feel so much better because I eliminated that from my environment. So, yeah, it's very important to understand, is your environment serving you or is it taking away from your productivity?

[00:43:46]

Is it creating more resistance than you need? Are you making it harder for yourself to accomplish those goals? Very, very important to ask yourself and understand. Okay, so let's lay this out for any of our listeners who are listening right now who want to become more consistent, right? They set a goal and we talk about smart goals here all the time, guys.

[00:44:05]

So set smart goals. Right now that you have that goal, what are three steps that they can start taking right now to make sure they're more consistent in their pursuit of that? I would go find a peak performance partner or I would hire a coach. You're not going to let yourself down if you're spending money and you're not going to want to let somebody else down, that's number one. Number two, I would say make sure you're tracking and measuring it.

[00:44:31]

I want you to write it down. Don't keep it in your head. This is what I'm going to do. These are my goals. Make sure you're tracking it.

[00:44:37]

Give yourself the dopamine. Hit every day of saying, yes, I did that, I did that, I did that. And I would say the third thing is create some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. When you accomplish blank, what are you going to give yourself? Now that's a fine line too, because if you're working on a diet, you don't want to give yourself a pint of ice cream because that's going to directly interfere.

[00:44:57]

But again, a lot of us, we want to get something when we do something good and there's nothing wrong with that? Just make sure whatever you're getting is going to make you proud, not necessarily be pleasure filled. And it's also something that's going to pour back into you, keeping that momentum. Yeah, you don't want to be dieting and then have a giant meal that's going to wreck all the progress you've already made. I would say those are three really simple things.

[00:45:24]

The other thing too, and this is a challenge, but it's important to at least touch on it. One of the reasons people don't stick to their goals and they don't stay consistently with what they should be doing is because they don't adopt it as part of their identity. Somebody asked me the other day, why don't you miss episodes? And I was dumbfounded. I didn't have a good answer.

[00:45:45]

I was like, I don't know. That's who I am. That's who we are. That's what we do. Public accountability.

[00:45:50]

We've told our audience all that. And then I said, honestly, do you know what it is at this point in my life? It's my identity. I am the podcaster who does an episode every day and never misses. That's who I am.

[00:46:01]

It's in my blood, it's in my bones. That's just who I am. When your habits, when your lifestyle becomes parts of a part of your identity, that's how you lock it in and it becomes subconscious. I don't consciously think I have to record an episode. It's just what I do.

[00:46:18]

Now, your identity right now is a certain way. My question is, is it the way you want it to be? Is it serving you? I'm just not athletic. I've never been athletic.

[00:46:27]

I'm just super shy. So I can never do that. I'm not consistent. I always let myself down. That's a wonderful I would say wonderful.

[00:46:33]

That's an important place to at least look because there's a lot of things that are being created in your identity that it takes time for those to come out to habits or results later in life. Well, on that thought, guys, the way you talk to yourself is incredibly important. I used to blow this off and think this was completely that's all correct. No, the way you speak to yourself, your inner conversations are incredibly important. So start future casting yourself.

[00:47:04]

If you want to be healthier, then start identifying yourself as I am a healthy person. Now, don't wait till you are healthier. Start identifying yourself as I am a healthy person. Because as that becomes ingrained as part of your identity, it will help make those choices easier. As you're faced day to day with those choices, as you get that dessert in front of you, as you're out to lunch with your friends, as you're out having a few drinks.

[00:47:33]

I am a healthy person. Ingrained in your head will help you make better choices. I am a gym goer. I'm a workout bus. Even if you're not put it in your head right.

[00:47:44]

I am a successful person. I've heard some good guys that the multi big billionaires like Grant Cardone and all those guys, the way they talk to themselves has always just it was mind boggling as I started interviewing guys in that income range and success range. The way they talk to themselves, they're all very careful about it. Now, I like what you said about the dopamine hit, because we all have this negative connotation at this point about dopamine. Right.

[00:48:16]

We hear about it all the time. Oh, social media is rigged to feed your dopamine response, and it's addictive, and it's starting to have this really negative connotation. But you're saying to re engineer it and use it to positively reinforce what you're doing. Yeah, I would say all you're really doing is you're lengthening the time you have between it's just lengthening instant gratification. So the dopamine isn't necessarily the issue.

[00:48:44]

It's the fact that we can get dopamine without accomplishment. Just like, scroll, like dopamine. Scroll, like dopamine, bikini, picture, car, dopamine. Dopamine. It's not replicating the actual art of accomplishment.

[00:48:55]

That's usually when you get dopamine, when you do something good. So, yeah, I think that this is the other thing, too, and this is why you have to vet all the advice you get and run it through the filter of, how does this affect me as a human being? Not everybody wants to delay gratification for a year. Not everybody wants to delay gratification for five years. You have to figure out, what is your balance?

[00:49:15]

My business partner could delay gratification forever. That's not the way I'm set up. I don't like it that way. I've sacrificed so much. I want a little treat.

[00:49:22]

I want a little treat along the way. That's just the way I'm wired. So it's important for me to understand, well, what does this journey look like for me? How should I set that up? When I did a bodybuilding show, I would get a cheat meal.

[00:49:35]

My coach would give me a Cheat Meal every week. But I bet you, and I'll guarantee it, I worked harder knowing that if I worked harder, I get a Cheat Meal, because I wanted that dopamine. I wanted that treat. I wanted that gift. I wanted that present.

[00:49:50]

I wanted that celebration that I think it's important. Many of us, it's very hard again, myself included. I'm not a visionary. I don't think ten years into the future, I need some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I need that.

[00:50:03]

My business partner and I were talking the other day, and he said, when you get to X Amount and you're part of the business, you can get a new car. And I made five sales that week. Why? Because I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. But if it's we're going to have a billion dollar company in 30 years, I can't connect with that.

[00:50:18]

The light at the tunnel is too. Far away. I can't see it. I can't believe it. I can't emotionalize it.

[00:50:22]

I just can't imagine it. So, yeah, I think it's important. You have to make sure that you're treating yourself to the success that you're creating. The problem is a lot of us are treating ourselves at the expense of our success, quote, unquote, whatever that means to you. Just out of curiosity, what was your cheat meal when you were lifting?

[00:50:41]

Unfortunately, it wasn't as cheaty as I would like. It was usually steak, mashed potatoes, and then at times, I would get a half a pint of Brent and Jerry's, depending on how lean I was. But sometimes I would get fries, which was nice. And I don't even like steak, so the fact that I was demolishing steak, it says a lot about how hungry I was. It wasn't as cheaty as I would have liked.

[00:51:03]

Most people have no idea the immense amount of hunger involved in getting ready for a bodybuilding show. Yes, those guys, some of them are huge, but, man, everybody on that stage is miserable. It's probably one of the hardest things I've ever done, being at noon and saying, okay, I have three meals left. I don't know if I can wait another 3 hours. I am starving, and then having to go do cardio.

[00:51:31]

Whatever it is, it was a challenge that I definitely proved a lot to myself. But I will never, ever, ever be doing again. Ever. So we're not seeing you on the runway soon? Never.

[00:51:44]

Not soon. Never. I can't and this is the other thing, too. I realize now, how much would that take away of my cognitive function? I could barely put together sentences when I was that hungry, so there's no way the business would fail if Alan and I went and did bodybuilding shows again.

[00:52:00]

Kevinin, where's the best place for people to find you? I always send people to the podcast next level university. I don't want people to just come and give us money. I want you to get value. That's what we're all about.

[00:52:12]

So we're on all the podcast platforms as well as YouTube, and if you have any questions about anything, podcasting, whatever, my handle on Instagram is at never quit, kid. I'm happy to answer any questions you got. And guys, we'll have all those links in the show notes in the description. As always. Kevinin, what is the most important takeaway you want people to hear today?

[00:52:32]

I would say your reality becomes the parts of your imagination that you hold onto and pour into the longest. The only reason I'm here doing this interview is because I said I imagine what it would be like to be a podcaster full time if I could just do that for a living. And that's the thing that I focused on and I worked at every single day. I let a lot of other things go, and I got rid of stuff that wasn't aligned. The reasons I have the results that I have are because those are the results I was the most focused on.

[00:53:02]

So in five years, your life will look different than it does today. I just want you to make sure it's different in the way that you want it to be. You can't hope for much more than that. 100%. Kevinin, thank you for taking the time to be on the show today.

[00:53:16]

Pleasure to talk to you guys. As always. Be better tomorrow because of what you do today, and we'll see you on the next one. This has been the The Fallible Man LLC Man podcast, your home for everything man husband and father. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show.

[00:53:33]

Head over to www.theThe Fallible Man LLCman.com for more content and get your own The Fallible Man LLC Man gear.