Brandon Held - Life is Crazy

Episode 59: Finding Purpose Beyond the Paycheck with Kevin Palmieri

• Brandon Held • Season 3 • Episode 59

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Developed by a team of Practitioners, men's health scientists, neuroscientists and peak performers. MNLY harnesses the power of blood analysis, machine learning, and AI to evaluate data from four essential components: Biological, Environmental, Nutritional, and Clinical analysis. By leveraging this advanced technology, we develop precise, evidence-based solutions that are tailored uniquely to each individual.

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Kevin Palmieri shares his journey from making six figures but feeling empty to finding true fulfillment through podcasting and personal development. His story reveals how external success couldn't fix his internal struggles with anxiety and depression until he discovered his true purpose.

• Found external success as a bodybuilder with a model girlfriend and nice income but was hiding inner emptiness
• Experienced rock bottom during an intense bodybuilding competition that led to depression and anxiety
• Made $100,000 at age 26 but felt exactly the same as before, realizing money wasn't the solution
• Started podcasting as a way to explore fulfillment and eventually left his six-figure job
• Discovered the critical difference between happiness (fleeting) and fulfillment (sustainable)
• Uses fitness as a cornerstone for mental health while maintaining a healthier relationship with it
• Found that setting smaller, achievable goals creates momentum that leads to real progress

Follow Kevin on Instagram @neverkid.quit or email him at Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com.

If you found value in this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast for just $10/month at brandonheld.com for additional episodes and to support our mission of helping people through their darkest moments.

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Their supplements have been developed by a team of Practitioners, men's health scientists, neuroscientists and peak performers. MNLY harnesses the power of blood analysis, machine learning, and AI to evaluate data from four essential components: Biological, Environmental, Nutritional, and Clinical analysis. By leveraging this advanced technology, they develop precise, evidence-based solutions that are tailored uniquely to each individual.

https://www.getmnly.com/ 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome. Welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy. Today we have a special guest. Kevin Palmieri is his name. He's the founder and host of Next Level University and I'm very excited to have him on the show. And I'm very excited to have him on the show. He's had two global top 100 podcasts and he's just phenomenal in the field and I'm excited to have him here and we're going to talk about his life journey today and what he's done and what he's gone through and how he has gotten to where he is today, both ups and downs, because that's what we do here at Life is Crazy. We tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and we got to take the bad with the good. Life's not all good, so you have to take the bad with the good. So let's dive right in. How are you doing today, kevin?

Speaker 2:

I'm living the dream on a Monday, brandon. I appreciate you having me. I'm excited to chat and I listened to your first episode. As promised, I told you I would. I'm a man of my word. And you said in the preamble how deep do you want to go with your story? And after hearing your story, that makes me want to go as deep as we can go in the time we have together.

Speaker 1:

That's great. I respect and appreciate that you're willing to do that. Not everybody is, so I'll just be upfront. I meet up with people and they say I don't know if I'm ready to throw this out there or throw that out there, and of course I don't put any pressure on anybody. It's you do what you can do. But the whole point of my podcast is I'm here trying to save lives. That's what I want to do. I want to help people who are in the lowest point of their life, maybe considering suicide or whatever the case is. Dig out of that and get through that and help them understand. Where I'm at right now is temporary. This isn't my life. This is temporary. So that's what we want to do. So, kevin, before we get into the full story of your life, just a thousand foot overview of what you're about.

Speaker 2:

I am somebody who feels like personal development and self-improvement can save lives, because I was somebody who was successful but I was wildly unfulfilled. I was dealing with a lot of mental health stuff. I sat on the edge of a bed contemplating suicide and I am now living a new life and it seems weird to even understand that I am where I am today. But I think personal development essentially saved my life and now my mission is to share that with other people because I think it's so valuable.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. Also, we'll get into it, but I'm sure fitness is a part of that process as well as it is for me. So let's just start from the beginning. Let's tell everyone what was your childhood like.

Speaker 2:

I was raised by my mom and my grandmother. I didn't know my dad. I didn't meet my dad until I was 27, with the understanding that he was my father. Lower middle class, didn't have a lot of money. My mom worked night shifts, so my grandmother essentially raised me and honestly I don't remember a ton from my childhood. So I know you have two year old. When you were a two year old you have that.

Speaker 2:

I don't have almost any memories from my childhood so I feel like it was and this is in quotes for anybody listening normal. Okay, based on whatever your weird definition of normal is, because what is normal really? There was nothing outstanding or, yeah, super specific that happened in childhood worth noting, I would say, other than just growing up without a dad. Obviously, that creates internal stuff. I always felt different than other kids, but we didn't have a lot of money, but I never went hungry and I always had Christmas presents. So, all things considered, I would say I was pretty, pretty lucky.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and like you're saying and alluding to, everyone's definition of normal is different and it's sometimes till you grow up and you get out there and you see what's going on in the rest of the world that you realize oh shit, my normal wasn't normal.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Right. So sometimes it takes getting out of that to realize it's a little different. And also, as you already know, I grew up without a father as well, and that does as much as maybe you're saying your childhood was normal and you're overlooking that it does impact you. It impacts you because you don't know what it means to be a man, because you didn't have someone teach you. So you have to actually become a man and then learn on the fly. Oh shit, this is what I have to do. This is what it means to be a man. And you're how old right now 35.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to be 36 in August how old?

Speaker 1:

right now I'm 35. I'm going to be 36 in August, 35, 36. Yeah, so you probably feel pretty good and pretty solid of what it means to be a man at this point in your life, but I would guess your early twenties, your mid twenties. It probably took a little while to figure that out.

Speaker 2:

I would say my early twenties and my mid twenties were disastrous. I think it took me a while to figure out is putting it very kindly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so go through that Tell everyone how that went down.

Speaker 2:

I don't think I was ever anyone who really tried to put out negative ego. I never tried to be toxic. That was never it. I was never that guy. But I never wanted anybody to get close enough where they could see how frail I was behind the scenes.

Speaker 1:

Wow, okay, all right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was a bodybuilder in really good shape, I was making good money, my girlfriend was a model, I had a sports, I had a nice car, I had a new apartment. I had all of the things and my belief was, if I have all of that, you won't ever really have to get close enough to look to see behind it.

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

And I think I was just under the delusion that so many people, and especially men, are that external things will fix internal voids. Having a beautiful partner is going to fix all your problems. Having money being jacked it makes for momentary happiness and momentary peace, but that is not going to sustain you long-term. And I just I thought that was the key. I, when I was younger, I felt insignificant because I was short, I felt overlooked by women and I was sick of being broke. So let me go make money, let me get in really good shape and let me date someone attractive. That should just dissolve my problems, right? No, no newsflash, it didn't. Yeah, I think for the most part it was an exploration of all the things that I thought would fix me and then eventually realizing that they didn't fix me and freaking out over why, that didn't work.

Speaker 1:

Those are good points. I'm never really, in any of my podcasts, I don't believe touched on any of that, but it was the same thing. When I was 16, 17, trying to figure out what I'm going to do, how I'm going to grow up and be a man, I had those same superficial thoughts. I thought, all right, I'm going to make $100K salary that was the goal of mine. I'm going to drive a nice, nice, expensive sports car and I'm going to date model type women. I'm going to have these beautiful model type women because, even though I didn't feel overlooked by women because I was six foot one, blonde with blue eyes, I was doing all right for myself. I still wasn't attracting the level of woman that I thought I deserved or I could get. So I did look at all that superficial stuff as well, considering that to be this is what a successful life would look like.

Speaker 2:

I think it's now. It's way worse than it's ever been, because we see the Instagram stuff and we see the cars and we see the mansions and we see all that stuff and we assume and I think this is where it gets stuck, I assume that if I was that person, I would feel really good, because they must feel really good because their life looks really good. And it is a trap. It is essentially happiness and fulfillment are two very different things. Happiness is fleeting. Fulfillment, in being fulfilled, is something that can sustain you for a longer period of time, and I just think we were never taught that. Nobody ever said hey, kev, what makes you fulfilled? Nobody ever asked me that until five years ago. There's got to be something to that.

Speaker 1:

Right. So, yes, good point, sam, because we do see it that way. And then we do hear oh, americans are becoming millionaires the fastest rate. It's just everyone around you is becoming a millionaire, so you feel like you should be doing it too. I'm intelligent, I can do some things. I should be a millionaire too. The pressure is out there because we're surrounded by it. So let's go into that. So you were doing that stuff, you walking that life. When did it become dark for you?

Speaker 2:

I was doing a bodybuilding show and at the deeper I got into my bodybuilding prep, the more of a recluse I became. It was bad, it was. I was exercising seven times a week, twice a week, twice a day, excuse me over essentially yeah it terrible and eating the least amount you can eat.

Speaker 2:

And that's when I was afraid of my own shadow. I had really bad social anxiety. I was definitely getting depressed. I didn't understand when it really crossed for me. Probably a week after my show. My girlfriend at the time sat me down and she said, hey, I'm leaving. And I was like what, what do you mean? What do you mean? And she said you're just not the man that you were at the beginning of the relationship. I just I don't think that you're capable of supporting me in the goals that I have set. Yeah, you're factually correct in that. And this is when I realized that something was off. She said I was going to leave you during your bodybuilding prep, but I was afraid if I did, you might kill yourself.

Speaker 1:

Wow, and I, she saw it.

Speaker 2:

She saw it and this wasn't. I've had some people say, oh, that was terrible. For her to say this was like constructive.

Speaker 1:

She wasn't tearing me apart. No, it didn't sound like it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I know some people are like, oh, she was terrible, it's no, she was good. That was very much needed. But that was a part where I sat there and said how the hell did I get here? What do you mean? You thought I was gonna kill myself, and this is like a self-worth thing. There was a piece of me that was actually grateful and relieved that she was leaving, because I knew it was gonna happen eventually and I was glad to just get it over with yeah, yeah, that's weird as that is.

Speaker 1:

No, I get, I totally get it.

Speaker 2:

That was a big piece, so she ended up leaving. Work got slow even though I was making money. I wasn't making money at this point because work got slow. I had an eating disorder from my bodybuilding show for sure. And now here I am, heartbroken in a nice apartment all by myself. So that was my initial rock bottom and I think I fell into the trap that a lot of us fall into. I was into self-improvement. For a week I was posting positive quotes. It was like I'm going to turn my freaking life around.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I was like, nah, I need to go make as much money as possible because right now I have financial problems. I think that'll dissolve the rest of them. So that became the next piece of my journey. So the mental health thing was, I was aware of it and then I put it in my pocket and then I said I'll worry about that later and then I began the next leg of my journey of trying to quote unquote be successful. That was the next leg, unfortunately.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and did you have suicidal ideations at that time?

Speaker 2:

Not at that point. No, not at no. I had what I would call uh. I don't even know, I don't think it's considered an ideation the year prior. I just remember thinking if this is what life is, it's dull, it's dark. I don't know if I want to do it. It wasn't I'm, I want to take my life. It was just like there's got to be more to life.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's where it begins. Yeah, that's like the first phase that leads you into those thoughts later, if not right away. So it just goes to prove the same thing for me. I've always been into fitness and I was an athlete Really. I played four sports and I also did some weightlifting and bodybuilding when I was younger. And then when the athletics stopped and the sports stopped, it just became strictly lifting and bodybuilding. So it just goes to show you, even though we talk about how important exercise is, exercise alone isn't the answer. It doesn't solve all your problems. It's just part of the regimen. It's part of everything you have to do to be your best self.

Speaker 2:

I dialed it up too much. That was the thing I was working out one day and I was always pretty lean. I always stayed pretty lean. And this guy came up to me and said hey, man, have you ever thought of doing a bodybuilding show? And I was like, no, not particularly. He said you do really well, Interesting. And he said I have a coach I can connect you with him. And I was like, all right, cool, Connected me with a coach, terrible coach, the worst coach ever of all time. He just he was, he just was ghosting me. He was not reliable at all.

Speaker 2:

So I reached out to somebody who was in the area and a very well-respected coach, and he took me on. And maybe the best advice I've ever gotten for anything that crosses over to life is, he said, if you want to win the show, it's going to be terrible and you will suffer more than anybody else. Are you in or are you out? And I was like I'm in, yeah, this is going to be awesome. It was. It was good and bad, but for a while, man, I had such a resentment for fitness. I resented fitness and I resented bodybuilding for years after that.

Speaker 1:

I imagine, yeah, if someone would have said that to me, I would have been like I'm out because I'm just not going to suffer like that for something, all right. So you dive into this, right, if you've lost your career, you know the way it was going and you lost your girl, and so you dive into this head first. And so what happens after that?

Speaker 2:

So I remember one night I was going to bed and I was lying in bed and I remember I was saying positive affirmations because it was like, all right, I'm going to start, I'm going to start this thing, I'm going to start the self-improvement. And I remember the last thing I said was before I went to bed this is the year I'm going to make the most money I've ever made in my entire life. And then that became the main focus, so that next year started. I got a promotion at my job and we got really busy. So it went from very slow to extremely busy over the course of a couple of months. And what kind of work were you doing?

Speaker 2:

I was in an industry called weatherization, so we would go into large, usually government or state owned buildings and we would make them more energy efficient.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right, that was that was my job.

Speaker 2:

So when we work on government contracts, sometimes you're really slow, other times you can't keep up. Sure, slow season happened during the heartbreak, can't keep up season happened during the, I guess, the retribution phase. So I got a promotion. I'm now a foreman, so I'm running jobs. That year was the busiest year they'd ever had as a company and I spent 10 months living on the road because most of our contracts were in other States.

Speaker 1:

Damn it was brutal.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is, but I was making anywhere from 60 to 120 bucks an hour.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like stack it. Give me all the hours.

Speaker 2:

I don't need sleep. I remember one time we worked so we were working an hour and a half away from the shop Our boss called us like seven hours into our shift and said hey, I need you guys to go to New York tonight and New York was like five hours from where I live, so we had to drive two hours back to the shop. I had to drive an hour home to get clothes, an hour back to the shop and then six hours to New York to wake up at 5 am to work the next day and it was like this is awesome, this is great, this is exactly what I need.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, you didn't have time to think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there was no time to think, brandon, it was just let me achieve and maybe something will come of it.

Speaker 2:

So that was that year. I spent 10 months living on the road, every single week, and I got to the end of the year and I had my final pay stub in hand. I was standing at my kitchen table. I was not home to the point where my ex-girlfriend had taken the kitchen chairs and I never bought new ones because I was never home, so I didn't even have kitchen chairs at my table. Yeah, so I'm standing there, I opened my final pay stub and I made $100,000 at 26, with no college degree, and I expected everything to change and I felt exactly the same as I did before. Yeah, and that was the. That was a gentle wake up call, and I remember thinking that for most of my life especially now, like it all just felt so clear. I had lived unconsciously, no idea why I do anything, not a clue.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh no, I was just going to say it's funny you say that because the first year that I pulled in over a hundred K in salary, it felt so unsatisfactory. It felt, ah, this is, this was my goal, my to get to this and do this, do this, and it just didn't feel worth it. It felt like I was giving so much of myself that the return, even though it was this goal I was trying to reach for, didn't feel worth everything that it costs. Is that what you felt? A hundred percent?

Speaker 2:

I regretted it. Yeah, I was like I just spent. I grinded my face off and I thought it was going to fix all my problems. And it fixed my finance problems to a degree. I was illiterate financially so it didn't really, but I thought it was going to make me feel good about me and that's what I thought was going to happen. And I remember thinking that I want to be hyper-conscious. I want to know why. I don't want to be under delusion anymore. I want to know why I do things. I want to know how to be successful. I want to know how to love myself. I want to do all that.

Speaker 2:

So I did what any 27 year old man would do I started a podcast. That was like the next leg was I'm going to have a podcast. It's called the it's going to be. It was, at the time, called the hyper-conscious podcast. I'm going to have cool conversations with cool people. And the way you started your podcast reminds me of the way that I started mine, cause I just wanted to talk about my life and what I was going through and that became the next journey of. I hate my job. I know money is not going to be the key to what I think it's going to be. I like podcasting. I want to do more of that. That became the next leg in the journey Introduction to fulfillment. We would call that if it was a chapter, probably.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that was what 10 years ago for you, close to 10 years ago.

Speaker 2:

Nine, nine years ago. Yeah, coming up on nine years ago.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, so not everyone was podcasting nine years ago, so it was uh, I'm an OG, brandon. Yeah, you are an OG. For sure, I feel a little late to the game, but I absolutely love it, and I'm a consultant for the government right now and I get to work from home, so I have nothing to complain about in. But I do want, when that ends and it will end at some point to have podcasting be my full-time career as well, so hopefully someday I'll get to that point. But so you started your podcast and did that? Did that make you feel fulfilled? Was that your? Was that the thing that made you go? Oh, I really enjoy this. This makes me happy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it became this thing of now. I know my job is not going to give me the good feelings that I think it's going to, so everything became less worth it. I don't want to travel. Yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't want to go here. I don't want to stay up all night.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I fell in love with podcasting as I fell out of love with my job and then I started calling out and I started showing up late and I started leaving early and I just I was not committed, I didn't care, it just wasn't the same. I was just tapped out. But I had to keep going and I was getting more depressed. I was getting more anxious. I would be homesick while I was packing my bag. To this day, I still get hyper anxious whenever I pack a bag to go somewhere. Wow, and this is we're talking eight years later. Yeah, yeah, even for like a vacation, I get anxious. Yeah, like we're traveling the end of the week, I'm going to be okay, it's fine. I've I worked through it enough. But if that doesn't speak to how trauma is stored, no, that's PTSD.

Speaker 1:

Everyone talks about PTSD just being war related or military related, but you can have PTSD many types of ways. I was in two branches of the military. Well, many types of ways. I was in two branches of the military. Well, you know what I have PTSD from. I've been laid off twice in my professional career and that gives me PTSD. I have the hugest fear of being laid off from my job. So you can get that from anything, For sure and I didn't realize.

Speaker 2:

I remember I was later in the journey, I was getting ready to drive somewhere with my business partner and I was like dude, I think I'm gonna have a panic attack.

Speaker 1:

And he's like why?

Speaker 2:

And I was like, oh my goodness, because I'm packing a bag and we're getting ready to drive five hours and that was my life for however many years and I have so much negativity stored up for that. Yeah, so when did it start to turn around for you? When did you start? What made you get to explain it is that morning. I don't know why it was that morning, but that morning it was like there was 10 televisions on in my head at the same time and every single one was on a different station. Wow, and it's just one is saying you're stuck here forever. We used to joke my coworkers and I used to joke about how we would kill ourselves if we ever lost this job because of how lucky we got to get the job in the first place. Right, it was like a running joke in our company. You're never going to get a job like this again. Yeah, better off being dead If you did leave. What would your friends think? A lot of significance tied up in making a lot of money.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and who you are, and who you are my identity.

Speaker 2:

This is what I am. Yes, what's my family going to think? I'm the most successful person in my family ever of all time. There's something to that. And then, are you going to be a podcaster? That's what you're going to do. You're going to leave the six figure job and you're gonna be a podcaster? That's what we're going to do.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't have to worry about any of it, and it just multiplies it when you're in a crusty hotel room, six hours away from anybody who cares, getting ready for a job that you hate. So that was the moment, for me, really, where it was like okay, I'm in a really bad place. Nobody has any clue. Nobody could have any clue, except for there was one person who did, and he's my business partner now, and I reached out to him and I explained what was going on and he said many things, but he said Kev, over the last couple of years, your awareness hyper-conscious means acutely aware your awareness has changed a ton, but your environments have remained the same. I think it's time for you to change your environment.

Speaker 2:

So I ended up that, for me, knocked me off the ledge and it was like wait, this job doesn't have to be the job. Now there is a light at the end of the tunnel of my job and there is an end date and I have a built-in business partner. Now, what does all this mean? And I ended up leaving that job three or four months later and beginning the terrible journey of trying. I left my job In a weird way. That was it my depression. Do I have days where?

Speaker 1:

I don't want to get out of bed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I'm a very peak performing, high performer. It doesn't really affect me almost at all. My anxiety got drastically worse, though, when I left my job.

Speaker 1:

That's another good point. It's not really something we ever talk about, at least with other people. We talk about what everyone else is going through and how they dig out of that hole, but it's mostly mental or whatever else point. So when I was in the army in my late twenties, early thirties, I got my MBA. And when I got out of the army and I had my MBA, I thought what is my next move, what is my next step? And where I live in Tucson, arizona, everyone said, oh, you have to work at Raytheon's the place, raytheon's the dream job. And so I got so freaking super lucky that it almost felt like it had to be my path right. It had to be what was chosen for me. So I was a personal trainer when I first got out of the army and I was training this guy and we were casually talking while I was training him. I had trained him a few times before and we were getting along really well and he was really cool. And I just mentioned casually yeah, I have an MBA, I'm just doing this personal training thing until I get a real job. And I laughed and he looks at me and he goes, you have an MBA. And I said, yeah, he goes. Oh my God, I'm a director at Raytheon, you should come work for me, me. And so he just freaking, opened the door and walked me right into raytheon literally when there's people from all over trying to get into this place, and it just felt, oh my god, I'm so lucky. So, literally, I still had to go through the interview process. But so the day that my son was born, I was up all night in the hospital and he was he's going to be 18 in August, just to give you a reference to how long ago this was he was born. And then, an hour after he was born, I had to go to my Raytheon interviews and it was being interviewed by multiple people at one time. And so I went and I was like flying on adrenaline at that point and they offered me the job within hours. I got this offer, job offer. So my son was born, I got this job offer at Raytheon and I just thought that was it. Life was going to be great.

Speaker 1:

And when I was working at Raytheon, I was so fucking miserable. I woke up in the mornings and I thought this is the dream, this is everything that I worked for. This was supposed to be what I was striving for and I hated it. I hated it. I was miserable and it that was the beginning of during that time of, if this is going to be my life, I don't want it, I don't want this life. And so I had these thoughts in my mind, but at the same time, I was the provider for my wife who, after that I had my one son, was two the one that was born and the other one was an infant, newborn pretty much.

Speaker 1:

And then Raytheon laid me off and I thought, wow, I didn't like it here, but shit, I wasn't ready to be unemployed when I have a family to take care of. And I was totally depressed and struggling after that just because I felt terrible not being able to be a provider, because that's what I was supposed to do. And what am I getting at? Why do I go through all this? Because the point is, you left what was supposed to be this amazing thing that you had was supposed to make your life great, and it wasn't. I had this amazing thing that was supposed to make my life great and it wasn't. And we went in different directions and we went and found different things to do and guess what? Hey, life actually is great, so you're not stuck in that thing that you think you're supposed to be stuck in to have a great life. I went through all that just to get to that point.

Speaker 2:

I dig it because I think there's so many stories like that but are unique Like everybody. Oftentimes people say what's the biggest lesson you've learned from hosting so many podcast episodes? In the beginning, we would host an episode with a guest and I would say to my business partner we'll probably never hear a story like that again. Until next week we heard the same exact version of a unique version of that story.

Speaker 2:

It was like has everybody gone through something that I can't imagine? Yeah, probably, yeah, probably imagine. Yeah, probably, yeah, probably. I think the difference now is people like you and I are willing to speak about it, because I it's not. It doesn't make me weak, it doesn't make you weak that you went through that it. That's not what it is. I think it's number one, an unfortunate human experience for most of us. And then it's what do you do with it? And then how can you tool up and have the resources and the community and the self-belief and the self-worth. So I think it's maybe the most important point ever of all time. It's easy to lose sight of the journey when you see somebody at the destination, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's why I really wish not enough people listen to my life story. And I don't say that because I'm full of myself and I want all people should know all about Brandon. Blah, blah, blah. No, I have these segments in life that a lot of people that I interview that is one deep, dark part of their life. I have multiple of those throughout my life. So the fact that I didn't kill myself is like a miracle and I think unless you listen to my full life story, you don't really understand that. I lost a daughter. She was newborn premature and I had to hold her in my arms and watch her die in my arms, knowing at birth this was going to happen.

Speaker 1:

I was laid off again at one point in my life when I was going through a divorce and I lost my wife and my kids and my job and my house and I was literally homeless, jobless, lost everyone. I love the stories. I have more than that, but the point is like, even with all these downs that I had in life, in these really tough spots, I still always managed to bounce back and get through, but I was struggling just to get to the next point. But it's been I don't know eight, eight ish years that I've been on top of a mountain. Happy life's great. Don't think about suicide, all those things. And that's what I want people to understand that you can have ups and downs and you can have multiple of them, but eventually, if you keep making the right decisions and doing the right things, you will hit that mountaintop and you will stay there.

Speaker 2:

And the quality of your ups and the quality of your downs both increase right, that's the thing. I don't know if this might not seem true. I'm not as happy as people think oh really no, this is pretty happy I'm super fulfilled, my it's. It is so challenging, I am under so much pressure all the time, I'm almost always overwhelmed, it's just mayhem, but it's very fulfilled, privileged pressure. Okay, but when I woke up and looked at my schedule today, I was not happy.

Speaker 1:

Hell yeah, I can't wait.

Speaker 2:

It was like I'm excited to get to the end of the day, but I'm super fulfilled, yeah, and there's just something to. Am I ever happy during a workout? No, no, but I'm fulfilled, I'm fulfilled, and there's a difference between that, and I think that's why it's so important to talk about the in-betweens, because people say all the time oh, you left your job and you started podcasting. It must've been awesome. It was terrible. No, it was terrible. I was broke. I couldn't afford Christmas presents for my now wife. At one point, car broke down. I got sent to collections. I was having panic attacks on the floor. It was freaking terrible.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't afford anything yeah, terrible, but I was also the most fulfilled I had been at the time. So there is a correlation and a connection between happiness and fulfillment that I don't think a lot of people really understand and or leverage.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is hard to find the right balance. Right Like we weren't. Neither one of us were happy when we had more than enough money to sustain a life and live a decent lifestyle. But also you can't go to the opposite extreme and do just do things you love but also be so poor that life is a struggle financially. So it's that balance you have to find for sure it's purpose passion and profit.

Speaker 2:

If you're there, you go. If you're just like, if I'm just passionate about whatever, it is like writing cursive there might not be a career in that, unfortunately, but if you are passionate about something and you're really purposeful and there's a way to make a profit doing it, I think that really is what we aspire to. There will be pleasure in there as a byproduct, but pleasure isn't the goal. At least for me, it's not. It's not the goal. I had a really good cheat meal yesterday. It was great burritos and taco. It was amazing. If I only do that, though, I'm in trouble yeah, I'm in trouble, it's funny.

Speaker 1:

So my wife's from brazil and her mom is you know she has an amazing body, like I'm not even going to bullshit you, it's just great. And she taught my wife, which I'm thankful for, you can either eat delicious or you can look delicious. So that's her saying, her big saying for that, and my wife follows that as well. My wife is way more structured when it comes to eating, the way we're supposed to eat. I like sweets, I like pizza. I get thrown off all the. I'm easy to get thrown off the diet train or I don't even call it a diet. It's just more of a lifestyle, of way you live and eat.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about fitness a little bit, cause I never really I never really talk about it that much. Frankly, I don't even know how much people, even my audience or listeners, even know how much I'm into fitness. But I love weightlifting and, like you, it's a, it's not, it's not something. While you're doing it, you're going oh, I love this so much, it's painful, it sucks. You feel like, oh my God, I'm tired, I'm weak, you're feeling all these things that are making you realize you're not where you want to be or need to be. But when it's over, you do feel good about yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I just did so. We do an annual 10 pound in 10 week challenge that we talk about on the podcast. We have a WhatsApp group and Alan and I lead it. Like look, we're consistent. If I say I'm going to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks, I will. I will do whatever it takes with an alignment. Here we go. I just weighed in yesterday at 168. I did my weight Awesome, I'm done.

Speaker 2:

But it is the linchpin of everything. It's like that is the morning routine, that is the mental health thing, that is a stress reduction, that is the getting in touch with your body, that is the all of it. So it it doesn't have to be bodybuilding, it doesn't have to be weightlifting, it can be whatever it is that makes someone feel like they're pouring into themselves. But the reason I like weight training so much is because the weights just don't care. Yeah, oh, you made the most money you've ever made, it doesn't matter. Oh, you had a great day, it doesn't matter, you had a bad day, it doesn't matter. I think it's really easy to lose sight and lose humility when you don't test yourself daily, when you always feel like you're winning, it's like it's not.

Speaker 2:

It's hard to stay humble when you are well, go weight train because you're always going to have a chance to lose and I think there's something super important to that. And it doesn't have to be to an obsessive degree, like I track my calories and I weigh myself every day and all that, but that works for me right, it's gonna work for you.

Speaker 1:

Do you track your workouts and how much weight you're doing each workout? Do you track that?

Speaker 2:

when I'm bulking, like when I'm focused on, like, strength gaining, I do when I'm cutting, not as much because I know it's gonna, it's gonna suck so is your business partner, alan Lazarus.

Speaker 1:

He's my business partner, yes, okay, yeah, he's pretty fit too.

Speaker 2:

We follow each other on Instagram by the way he has exercised every day for the last 1,400 days, hasn't missed a day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't do that. That's overkill for me at 52. But here's the deal. The reason I bring this point up is this as a weightlifter, I always track what I'm. I don't ever cut, by the way, that's not a thing for me. I just want to get as big and nasty as I can be. So let's just say, one day I'm pushing I don't know 95 pound dumbbells, doing shoulder press, and I'm feeling pretty. I'm doing 10, 12 reps with the 95 pound dumbbells and I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

Speaker 1:

And then I go through my different body parts and different days and I come back to shoulder day and I'm really pumped and I'm like, oh, I'm going to go for a hundred today, I'm going to use a hundred pound dumbbells. And then you get there and you can't even do 95s. Right, you were just doing 95s last week and now you can't even do them this week. And you think what the hell is wrong with me? And it's your body's way of saying I'm not as great today, right, you're just not as great that day. That doesn't mean you lost what you did from the week before. It's just a bad day for you. And then you turn around the following week and then you can do it again Like you did two weeks ago. It's, your body is just so finicky like that.

Speaker 2:

That's why consistency is so important, because there's days I go in and it's like I'm not going to be able to do anything, and then I have great days. And there's other days where it's like I'm on top of the world. Here we go. Oh, my goodness, I am nothing.

Speaker 2:

And one of my favorite quotes ever of all time from day to day, progress is invisible. From year to year, month to month, whatever it's impossible to miss. I think fitness is a really good example of that, because you never leave a workout necessarily knowing you were better than the day before. It doesn't really work that way, yeah, but then, when you look back, it's oh my goodness, I lost or I gained, or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my wife and I are big on taking pictures for remembering where you are and where you were, because if you easily get lost in oh my God, I've been working my ass off, I've been eating so strictly and perfectly with my macros or whatever and then you can go I'm not seeing it in the mirror, I don't see it. I step on a scale, I weigh the same. I don't see it. But then you go back to the pictures and you go oh yeah, I look totally different than I looked six months ago.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, perspective is key and I tell people all the time this might be the best thing I could ever suggest to anyone, just because it's helped me so much. Many of you out there are not going to be podcasters, you're not going to be content creators, whatever. If you can take out your phone and do a video or an audio message to yourself explaining where you are. Where are you when it comes to health? Where are you when it comes to health? Where are you when it comes to wealth? Where are you when it comes to love? Check in on that in a month. Is it trending up or is it trending down? It might be trending up to your point and you might not even realize it, or it might be trending down and let's catch it early instead of doing damage that we might not. I don't want to say we can't undo, because you can always undo it, but it'll be harder to undo later, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good point. All right, I think we should leave people with your. I guess want to say best nugget of advice. If someone comes to you and says what's the best nugget you can give someone? Kevin, from everything you've gone through in life to where you are today, what would you say to people?

Speaker 2:

I would probably say most of the sexy advice the set massive goals that scare you, that if your goals aren't big enough, or if your goals don't scare you, they're not big enough. I don't think almost any of that advice works. I don't agree either. When you feel good, you do good. So that would be my advice. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

No, I think that's great, because you don't want to. You don't want to put this goal of Mount Everest and then you never get there, so you just feel defeated and dejected all the time. If you put a smaller goal that you reach, you can always make your goal higher, always. But make something that feels good about yourself and let you know I'm doing something here, and that's great advice. I like it. I found that I was someone that when I got my MBA and got out my career, I stopped having aspirations, I stopped working towards something and I found myself really down and depressed because I felt like I had no direction in life. Oh, I achieved everything I wanted to achieve. So now I'm just going to be a zombie and walk through the motions every day, but then I learned giving myself new goals and new things to achieve really got me motivated and really helped me enjoy life again. Yeah, that's great advice.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate it man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, is there any way you want people to reach out to you or get in touch with you, or do you want to promote social media or anything?

Speaker 2:

Sure, yeah, my handle on Instagram is at never quit, kid. That is my handle on Instagram, and then my email is Kevin at next level, universecom. If I can help in any way, I'm just a message away. Seriously, I do my own emails and my own DM, so anything I can do to help.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, All right. And we? Why aren't we following each other on Instagram Am?

Speaker 2:

I not following you, I don't know I if we are.

Speaker 1:

I don't remember seeing, maybe you don't post that often in my trip and I don't know If we are, I don't remember seeing maybe you don't post that often, Am I tripping?

Speaker 2:

No, I post too much.

Speaker 1:

All right. So I don't know, we'll figure that out.

Speaker 2:

We're going to figure it out. That right there is not allowed. We're going to figure that out. Yeah, yeah, so we should be doing that for sure.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, thank you, kevin for coming on the show. It was a great chat. Again, just another person proving that when you're in the pit of life and you think what's this for? And you think I may as well just end it because I don't know why I'm even here, you have a reason to be here. You just have to find it and you just have to work towards it and you'll get there. You'll get there. So don't give up. Don't give up this thing, don't give up.

Speaker 1:

All right, thank you all for joining us and giving us your most valuable asset, which is time. We always appreciate that. Never take that for granted. And for me, if you could go to brandonhellcom and just click on subscribe to podcast it's right there at the top of the page it's only 10 bucks a month, which is pretty reasonable, I think, and you get extra podcast episodes along with supporting this show trying to help people not commit suicide, to avoid committing suicide. So do that at Brandon held dot com. And if you want to follow me on Instagram, bh underscore Life is Crazy on Instagram. And thank you again for joining us and I'll talk to you next time. Outro Music.

People on this episode

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Brandon Held

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Guest