Reach Your Next Level of Greatness through Holistic Self-Improvement with Kevin Palmieri

Yeah, seven strangers in a house, you know, working a job.

I love it.

Welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and I'm excited to welcome you inside.

This is the kind of place where your glass will never be anything other than half full.

Because we choose to focus on the positive side of life.

Now this doesn't mean that we shy away from the real talk.

No, not a chance.

Matter of fact, we explore all aspects of life.

From the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But all of that is done with one purpose.

unknown: One purpose.

SPEAKER_02: To inspire you to never give up on life.

Even when it may seem like life has given up on you.

Now I get it, life is hard.

But starting today, you've got grit, grace, and inspiration.

Well, hello, and welcome to episode 147 here on Grit Grace and Inspiration.

My name is Kevin Lowe, your host, and today we are kicking off the new year.

It is 2023, and this is the first episode of the new year.

Now, I got some pretty high hopes for this year because I don't know, there's just something about the number 2023 that kind of just makes me feel like, hmm, baby, something good is coming our way.

Now, my positive energy was confirmed when talking with a friend who reminded me, of course, it's going to be a good year.

The number 23 is Michael Jordan's number.

I thought, oh, baby.

I guess we could consider that this year is already a slam dunk.

To help kick off this slam dunk of a year, I thought I ought to do it with a man named Kevin Palmary.

Kevin Palmary is the founder and co-host of a podcast called Next Level University.

Him and his co-host, Alan, they are helping you to level up your life, your love, your health, and your wealth seven days a week.

The guys are absolutely incredible.

And I am blessed enough to have Kevin Palmary in the studio today.

When you hear Kevin Palmary, you'll think to yourself, wow, what a positive, uplifting, energized guy.

He must have it all, have had it all, been doing great his whole life.

Well, the fact is that his story is just like everyone's.

It has the ups and the downs, the good times and the bad.

Because there was a moment in his life when, from the outside looking in, he had it all.

He had the perfect body, he had the beautiful girl, he had the money, the fast cars.

Life was amazing.

And yet, why does he find himself sitting on the edge of a bed contemplating suicide?

Here's what I want to tell you is that you in your life right now, I don't care how deep of a hole you think you're in, or how dark and scary that hole may seem, there's always a way out of that hole.

You just gotta be looking for a ladder to climb, or sometimes you just gotta look up and see the hand reaching down from a friend who wants to pull you up.

Because no matter what hole you find yourself in, there's a way out.

Kevin Palmary, he came out of that hole.

He dug deep into himself and realized that how he was gonna get out of that hole was by focusing on him.

And that's what makes his story so powerful.

Before I get to my interview with Kevin Palmary, I do want to extend an invite to you.

I want you to get to kick off this new year in an awesome way.

And that is by you having a roadmap to take you from where you are right now to where you dream of being.

And to do that, you're just gonna head on over to a website that is workwithkevin.coach.

Again, head to workwithkevin.coach where you're gonna get to sign up for a free 30-minute roadmap planning session where me and you we're gonna sit down and we're gonna map out your roadmap that's gonna take you from where you are to where you dream of being.

But here's what's really cool about it it's then going to be aired as a future episode on this very podcast.

Now, I understand that you may not want to let the world know about your problems and your struggles, and that's okay.

You can remain anonymous, or at most, your first name is the only thing that will be mentioned.

But this is my opportunity to help you to get a head start on the new year.

So head on over to workwithkevin.coach and sign up today.

With that out of the way, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Kevin Palmary.

Well, I am excited to be joined in the studio today by another Kevin.

Some may call him a better Kevin, maybe worse.

I don't know.

We'll find out.

Kevin Palmary, welcome to the podcast, man.

SPEAKER_00: Kevin, thank you so very much for having me.

We had a wonderful discussion behind the scenes.

I love the energy, I love the positivity, and I'm sure I will love the conversation that we have today, my friend.

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, dude, man.

Well, well, I'm excited to have you here today and and to share your story and and hope, so you know, always that that somebody can hear something said that can, you know, kind of be that spark to be like, hey, you know what?

I'm not the only one going through this.

That's what it's all about.

Exactly, exactly.

Well, cool.

Well, well, listen, before we start talking about all the stuff happening in life today, I'd love to get some backstory.

And so if you would take me back a little bit, give me an idea of kind of what life was like for you growing up, and and you know, let's work our way up to, you know, where you are today.

SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah.

I was raised in a single parent household.

So I was raised by my mom and my grandmother.

I was born in a small town called Milford, Massachusetts, and I was raised in a town called Uxbridge, Massachusetts, which most people haven't heard of.

It's a small town, probably an hour outside of Boston.

And we definitely grew up lower middle class.

We never had a lot of money.

I never went hungry, which I'm very grateful for, but we definitely had routine talks about how we were going to pay rent, and there was just a lot of scarcity around money.

But I was raised by my mom and my grandmother.

I didn't meet my dad until I was 27.

And that was a huge, a huge important time in my life, and I'm more than happy to dive into that later in the in the episode here.

But I didn't really have anything stand out in my childhood, Kev.

I rode my bike on the street, we play in the woods, I'd go sledding in the winter, I'd hang with my friends, we'd play hide and seek, we'd play manhunt, we'd do all the all the normal kid things.

But when life started to really shift for me was during school, because a lot of my friends early on knew that they were gonna go to college and they knew what they wanted to do with their lives.

And I remember having a conversation with my guidance counselor, and my guidance counselor said, These are some schools you should apply to with your grades, you can get in here.

And I remember saying, I don't, I don't want to go to college.

I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I know for certain I don't want to go to college.

And all of my friends went away to their schools that they got into, and I picked up a job as a full-time gas station attendant.

So all of my friends were out partying, meeting new people, having quote unquote the time of their lives.

And I was waking up at five in the morning and pumping gas from six in the morning until two in the afternoon.

And that was my really my initial dive into making my own money and having responsibilities.

And I guess I would say I became an adult at that point.

So that's really early life for me.

I don't remember a lot from my childhood.

There, there's nothing really that stands out for me.

I played baseball, I played sports, I loved martial arts, I was always athletic.

Things really started to take place and shape me when I was in my early teens and then later in life.

SPEAKER_02: Okay.

Okay.

So now talking about the aspect of college and stuff, why do you feel like from that age, early age, you had this idea that college was not for you?

SPEAKER_00: I think one of the reasons, Kev, is because nobody in my family went to college.

So I think, and I do believe this is a benefit for me in the long run, but a lot of people, their parents push them.

They say, if you want to get a good job, you got to go to college.

If you want to have a family and be able to buy a house and do all these things, if you want to be a productive member of society, you have to go to college.

I never had that.

My my mom and grandmother didn't go to college.

So they weren't necessarily pressuring me to do it.

So I didn't really have anybody's footsteps to follow in.

So I think that was one of the big reasons why.

But another thing about me that's interesting when you look back retrospectively, I have always wanted to be different.

I never wanted to have a quote unquote normal life where I did what everybody else did.

That was something I don't know where that came from.

I just always wanted to do different things.

I never wanted to really fit in.

That really wasn't my goal, which again, I don't know where that came from, but that definitely still holds true to this day, I would say.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

Now, growing up, did you have any siblings?

Were were they the same mindset about college and in school in general?

SPEAKER_00: I was uh an only child.

It was just me, Kev.

There was there was only they could only handle one, and it was me.

SPEAKER_02: Well, I gotcha, I gotcha.

So, so getting back up to kind of where we left off.

So, so you're out of school, you're working at the gas station.

So, where does kind of life go from there?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was um, that was a very interesting, that was an interesting place in my life.

So I wanted to fight professionally mixed martial arts.

That was something I always wanted to do.

So I remember I would get up at like five, I would go down to the gas station, I'd work from six to two, I would go home, and I lived like five minutes down the road.

I would drive home, I'd change into my gym clothes, I'd go to the gym probably from you know 2:30 or 3 until 4 or 4:30.

I'd go home, I'd shower, and then I would drive a half hour and go train martial arts.

And that was really my life in a nutshell.

I mean, I was basically working or working out from six in the morning until seven or eight at night.

And I have very fond memories of those times because number one, life was simple.

Number two, I felt like I was making a ton of progress in life.

And number three, I was really not stressed about much.

There wasn't a lot to stress about when you're 18, 19 years old.

So I remember thinking to myself, okay, I think I've overstayed my welcome here doing this gas station thing.

So I want to get another job.

I want to become a personal trainer.

I'm in the gym all the time.

I'm in really good shape.

I'm already helping a lot of people.

People ask me for advice all the time.

The next logical step is for me to make money doing it.

So I try to be a virtuous man.

And I went to the owner of the gas station and I said, Hey, I just want to give you a heads up.

I'm gonna start applying for personal trainer jobs here in the near future.

I just wanted to make sure you could find somebody to fill my position.

And he said, Awesome.

Thanks for letting me know.

I appreciate it.

I get a call the next day at like 5:30 in the morning.

I'm supposed to be there at six.

I got fired.

So my boss fired me the next day.

I was trying to be kind, but evidently that didn't work.

And I wasn't at the place yet where I could get a personal trainer job.

So I had to figure out what I was gonna do.

I had no idea what I was gonna do.

So I started applying to a bunch of different jobs, but I had no college degree and I didn't have a lot of work experience.

So I ended up going and applying for a job at a hospital for what was called a project person.

So a project person at the hospital does some sorts of maintenance, but mostly they strip and wax floors at night.

So yeah, I got this job, Kev, third shift, 11 to 7.

And my job was to go and find the floors that needed to get the wax stripped off of them, cleaned, and then re-wax the floors.

And all things considered, that part of the job was actually pretty cool because it was very easy.

I worked in quiet places in the hospital where there was nobody else.

I could listen to music, I could kind of do my own thing.

But I only really did that one or two nights a week.

And the other nights, I was cleaning bathrooms and I was emptying needle boxes and cleaning, cleaning rooms when people would leave.

And I remember that was an interesting time in my life because I really started to see how people looked down on different people depending on where they were and depending on where you were.

And that was a very interesting study in humility for me.

And I learned a lot about myself at that job.

But that was that was the second quote unquote real job I had.

And it was definitely a challenge working 11 to 7.

But again, I learned a lot about myself.

There was a different level of responsibility, there was a different level of sacrifice and some struggle there as well.

And it was overall, I would say, a positive learning experience.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

No, I love that.

I love that.

Now, during this time, was there ever a time when you thought to yourself, maybe I should go to college?

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.

I definitely had times where I was like, oh my goodness, did I make a giant mistake here?

What have I done?

Yeah, there was definitely times like that.

Yeah, but I didn't really plan it.

It wasn't like I never had a moment, Kev, where I said to myself, Oh, I really wish I went to college.

And then I started looking.

It was more, eh, maybe things would have gone different if I did.

Okay, what's the next thing that I have to do?

Like, what's next?

What do I do next?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Focusing forward.

Trying.

SPEAKER_00: Trying.

SPEAKER_02: Exactly.

Exactly.

So, so where does the entrepreneurial journey go from there?

From from waxing floors and cleaning uh toilets?

SPEAKER_00: Uh, from there, where did I go from there?

Oh, oh, I so this is what happened.

I went and I applied for a job as a personal trainer, Kev.

I got my certification.

I was good to go.

And I ended up getting a job as a personal trainer in a high-end one-on-one facility where it's it's a private gym that only has four workout rooms, and we only allow four people in at a time.

So it's it's a high-end, high membership model.

So you're paying anywhere from, I mean, like$1,000 up to$25,000 for a package, which was awesome because I was making good money as a personal trainer.

But I remember when I started there, one of the contingencies was if we train you to be on this team and to work here, you have to work here for at least a year.

Or when you leave, if you break the contract before a year, you have to pay a thousand dollars.

And I was like, that's not gonna be a problem.

I'm I love personal training.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna be here forever.

This is gonna be awesome.

So if you fast forward probably six months, I had already had my pay cut twice because I was not performing well in terms of sales.

My clients were getting results, everything was great, but I was not converting people to bigger packages.

I just, that wasn't my strength.

And honestly, that's not what I signed up to be a personal trainer for.

So I called out a couple times and I was just over it.

I went in one day and I said, Hey, this is my two weeks.

I'm done here.

I can't do this anymore.

This just isn't something I want to do.

And they reminded me, they said, just so you know, if you leave, you're gonna have to pay us $1,000.

And I said, Is cash or check?

Like, how do you want it?

Because I'm I'm done.

Now I'm over this, I don't care.

So I quit that job.

And uh, I remember I went down to Newport, Rhode Island with one of my my friends at the time.

We partied for a couple nights.

I had no idea what I was gonna do next.

I had no plan B, no job lined up.

And uh that was my time as a my short time, Kev, as a personal trainer.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Isn't it isn't that like the craziness of life, though?

Like how like there's something that we think we want so bad until we get it and we realize, wow, maybe the desire to have it was better than actually having it.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

I think that there's noise that comes with everything.

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

SPEAKER_00: Really, I mean, even I'm I'm living the the best life I could possibly live.

The podcast is doing great, clients are doing great, but there's stuff that's like I spent 35 hours over the past couple days, quite literally, I think 32 hours in spreadsheets because we have to get our books right for the next tax thing that's coming up.

And it's like, I never anticipated that when I started this journey.

So I think that there's there's static in in every station, even the best stations.

There, there has to be a little bit of static.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

So we're all curious what type of clarity comes out of a couple of day binger with friends.

SPEAKER_00: Not as much as you'd think, honestly, not as much as you'd think.

So I remember going home, and it was, I think it was like a Monday or Tuesday, and I didn't it, I didn't have work because I was not employed at the time.

And I remember, I think I talked to my mom and my grandmother, and I said, Okay, so I just quit a job without having another job, which is not necessarily ideal, but I need to figure out what to do next.

Like, what should I do?

And I I remember either my mom or my grandmother said, Well, your uncle is the logistics manager at a building supply company.

Maybe he could get you a job.

And I was like, I don't know what that means.

Well, I don't, I've never worked there.

What does that look like?

And they they said, Well, maybe he can get you a job as a forklift operator.

And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I can drive a forklift?

Like, that's awesome.

Okay, cool.

So I went and interviewed there and I ended up getting a job as a forklift operator at this building supply company.

And again, this is kind of the story of my life.

It started out awesome.

It was great running the forklift, going into the warehouses, doing a bunch of different stuff.

Eventually, it got to the point where I got my own truck and I would be making deliveries.

So I would be out on the road all day, and I absolutely loved it.

I loved leaving the yard in the morning and saying you got a three-hour drive to Connecticut.

You know, when you come back, we'll have another quick load for you, and then you're done for the day.

Awesome.

The problem was the company was more focused on profit than they were the morale of the employees.

So it was basically expected that you would work 12-hour days every day.

And if you pushed back on it, nobody really cared.

Like they needed people to come in on Saturday.

If you were the one up to work Saturday, that was it's too bad.

It doesn't matter if you want to go do things.

So I remember routinely, I would leave, I would leave at 4 40 in the morning.

And some days I wouldn't get back until six or seven at night.

And I said, there's no way I can do this long term.

So I did what Kevin does.

I uh figured out, okay, well, I don't like this.

This isn't what I wanted to do.

What would I really, really like to do?

And I came up with, I'd like to be a firefighter.

I think that would be number one, it would be noble.

I'd be able to give back to the community.

And honestly, I love the capabilities that I've always seen out of firefighters.

They all they seem to know everything and they seem to be super confident in any problem they come across.

So I did a little research.

I figured out what will that take.

And I went into the building and I said to my boss, I said, I'm this is my two weeks, I'm quitting.

And they said, What are you gonna do?

And I said, I don't really know what I'm gonna do in the meantime, but I'm gonna go to the Volunteer Fire Academy and I am gonna become a firefighter.

And a lot of people honestly laughed at me.

They were, they basically said, You're gonna quit without another job.

Little do they know that I have a history of this, but I ended up quitting.

And then I went down to the fire station and I said, Hey, I I want to be a volunteer firefighter.

What does that look like?

And they said, Well, there's a class coming up.

We'll give you everything you need.

You just got to go twice a week for whatever it is, three months, four months, something like that.

And then you'll end up becoming an on call firefighter.

So I quit that job and then I started doing a fire academy.

SPEAKER_02: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

So now, volunteer though, but I mean, was this gonna be paid at some point?

SPEAKER_00: That was the goal.

The goal.

So one of the things about, and it's really any any industry like that, fire, police, anything like that, medic, it's very hard to get on full time in a in a short period of time.

Military, you know, if you're a former military, a veteran, you get first dibs, and I didn't have that, and I didn't have a lot of experience.

So for me, it was very much let me see if I can do this fire academy thing, and then maybe I can get a job and hold out until I can do this full time.

But again, Kev, uh full disclosure, I didn't always think a lot of these decisions through.

I when I got to a certain point of miserableness, I just said, honestly, I'll figure something out.

I just know this isn't for me.

So when I started it, it was more, let's just see what happens here.

And it obviously it evolved from there into different things.

But yeah, I wanted to be paid.

I don't think I had any expectations of how long it would take to be paid.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah.

So so how long did that last with fire?

SPEAKER_00: So I uh very quickly, so there was, I think there was, I think there was probably there were five people going through the fire academy in my town at the same time as me.

So we were kind of grouped together.

We would drive to the weekly classes together, and one of the guys is this big tattooed guy, his name's Zach, scariest human ever, but the nicest guy on the face of the earth.

And I kind of told him what was going on.

I was like, Yeah, I left my job.

I want to become a firefighter.

I don't know what I'm gonna do in the meantime.

And he said, Well, I buy and flip houses.

Do you have any experience when it comes to construction?

And I was like, No, not really, but I'm willing to learn.

And he said, All right, cool.

We're flipping a house.

Come to this address on Monday, we'll pay you$15 an hour.

And yeah, you can kind of make your own hours.

And I was like, what?

And he said, Yeah.

And all right, cool.

I'm in.

So while I was going through the fire academy, I think it was probably, I think the job probably took like three months.

I would work 40 hours a week at this house.

I would paint, I would do demo, I whatever, whatever had to get done that was in my scope of expertise, I guess.

And that was probably, I think that took me to the end of the fire academy.

And I remember I graduated the fire academy after I failed one of the practical tests and I had to take it again, which was devastating.

But when I graduated the fire academy, something very interesting happened for me, Kev.

So one of the things during the fire academy that I regret to this day is I didn't have the courage to ask questions when I actually had questions.

I was afraid of being laughed at.

So I never asked questions and I never really had the courage to say, look, I need to learn more because this is serious business.

So I graduate the fire academy, and then I become a volunteer firefighter.

So when you're a volunteer firefighter and you're on shift, you're given a pager.

And the the rule is if that pager goes off and you're on call, you go to the firehouse and you go out.

So I think it was one of the first nights I had this pager.

I was sleeping.

I think the pager went off at like two in the morning, and I was like, oh my goodness, this is real.

This is happening.

Okay, cool.

I get in my car, I drive down to the fire station, probably a three minute ride.

I get my gear on, I hop onto an engine, and we drive out to this house, and there's a car on fire in the driveway.

And very quickly, I realized how big of a mistake I made by not asking more questions in the fire academy because it is just absolute mayhem.

And the captain's saying, Kev, grab the grab the two and a half and connect it to the outlet.

And I'm like, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

I don't know what any of that means.

I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here.

And it was just, it was stressful, but it was very, very embarrassing for me to not know what I was doing.

And I made a decision that night.

I said, look, if this was a like a life or death situation and there was somebody in that car that was on fire, and I was the reason that they didn't get out, I would not be able to live with myself.

And I definitely didn't take the fire academy as seriously as I should have, especially from the perspective of asking questions when necessary.

So I made a decision shortly after that that I probably was not going to be a firefighter just because I felt like I had, I'd let myself down, but I felt like I felt like I didn't take it as seriously as I, as I should have.

That that really was the breaking point for me.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

And and and especially like I look at that and I think, what a valuable lesson.

And I think it's something that we all get caught up in, is you think when you get older, you think that you would grow out of that that feeling of being inferior, like you have as a kid along around your peers.

And you don't want to be the person who doesn't know, and you don't want to ask questions.

And yet it just follows us.

It's it's our peers, no matter if we're little kids or grown adults.

And so, but I think that is again from from the point you made, is it is so vital to step outside of that comfort zone and admit, hey, I don't know what's being talked about.

Tell me, you know?

Yeah.

So, and especially when we're talking about something, you know, like like this.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: So it's it's the reason I try to tell that story as much as I can.

Obviously, I'm past the point now where it's emotional for me.

It's like, yeah, it sucks and I'm embarrassed that I didn't ask more questions, but I realize that's just a great story and a great analogy for one of one of the things we say often is you're always gonna get some sort of feedback.

You can either get the feedback along the way or you can get it all at the end at once.

And I did not get any feedback along the way.

I got it all at the end at once, and it was just too much for me to move through.

So I tell that story with the hopes that somebody out there might hear it and say, you know what?

Maybe I'm doing that right now, and I don't want to have the same outcome that that Kev had that night.

SPEAKER_02: Exactly.

Absolutely.

So what happens then?

SPEAKER_00: What happens then?

Okay, after that, I was still on call with the fire department, but very shortly after, I was like, look, this isn't gonna end up being a full-time gig for a long time.

The contractor that I was working for, Zach, he ended up slowing down.

So there wasn't any work for me.

So I was like, all right, it's time for me to find another full-time job.

Okay, what do I do?

My girlfriend at the time, her aunt worked at one of the, it was like a town or a state building, and their focus, their job, their mission was to help people get jobs.

It was kind of like a like a little job fair I went to.

And I went to this job fair and they said, we're gonna put you in this class for weatherization.

So all weatherization is is making buildings more energy efficient.

In this case, it was houses, making houses more energy efficient.

And I was like, all right, I don't know what any of this means, but let me go take this class and see what happens.

And it was, there was some construction.

There was like air sealing where you would you'd take a piece of foam and you'd put it in a gap and you'd seal around it to prevent any air from getting into the house or out of the house.

And I was like, this seems like a pretty cool job.

I think I could see myself doing this.

So we get to the end of the class, and I go up to the room to kind of get like an exit interview with the head of this company, whatever, whatever this company was, the state company.

And she said, Kev, you have an awesome personality.

You're really positive, you have a great attitude.

We're gonna connect you with the best company that's looking for a new person to go work there.

And I was like, All right, I don't, again, I don't know what any of this means, but tell me more.

And they said, This company pays anywhere from 40 to$100 an hour.

And I was like, okay, what's the but?

There has to be a but, right?

There's there's no way this is gonna happen.

And they said, Well, the biggest but is there's traveling involved.

So the first job that you would be on is actually a giant job in Delaware.

And I lived in Massachusetts.

So Delaware is like an eight-hour, nine-hour ride, depending on where you're going.

And I was like, okay, um, what else do I need to know?

And she said, honestly, that's it for now.

The the owner will reach out to you and you can have an interview with him to see if it's something that you would like to do.

And I was like, all right, cool.

So I left there that day with the hope and maybe the prospect of a new job, but I didn't have a job that day.

And I remember I was actually very broke at that time because I didn't save a lot of money.

And I went to the movies maybe a month or a month and a half later with my friend and a couple of girls we were dating.

And I remember thinking to myself, I should not have gone to the movies.

I shouldn't be at the movies because I don't even have enough money.

So I barely have enough money to pay for the movies.

And I got a call from my potential boss when I walked out.

And he said, Hey, Kev, come in for an interview next week.

How does that sound?

And I said, Yeah, it's that's cool with me.

So I next week comes, I dress up in the finest khakis and button-up shirt I have, and I go meet my boss in this.

It's behind this nice building, but there's like a sketchy trailer that's filled with tools and tanks that have foam in them.

It's this, like this dirty, dirty area.

And I was like, hey, I'm Kev, nice to meet you.

And my boss introduces himself and he says, Hey, do you mind grabbing that tank and bringing it over here?

And I was like, Yeah, yeah, sure.

And my interview basically was like 15 minutes of us just talking.

There was no questions.

It wasn't, I wasn't like, you know, getting felt out for how I was gonna be in the company.

And my potential boss said, said, So, Kev, we got a spot for you here.

And actually, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna jump you to the head of the line because you're very positive.

You have a great personality, and I think you're gonna fit in well here.

And I was like, Okay, cool.

What does all this mean?

And he said, Well, as you know, our first job that you'll be on is gonna be in Delaware.

And he said, the only thing is you're gonna be making$10 an hour less than everybody else.

And I was like, hmm, see, I knew there was a but.

He said, Since you're you're new, we just have to test you out, right?

You're kind of you're gonna kind of be on probation.

And he said, So you'll be making $40 an hour.

And I was like, what?

And he said, Yeah, the the state rate down there is$50 an hour.

But since you're an apprentice, you'll be making$40 an hour.

And I said, Okay, what else do I need to know?

And he said, pack your bags, I'll tell you when we're gonna leave, and you'll meet me here and we'll drive down.

So I went home, I told my family, hey, I'm balling.

I'm gonna be crushing it.

Like I got this job.

It's awesome.

Uh, here are the sketchy details that I'm gonna be traveling with people I've never met before.

So I don't know if it was a week, maybe a week and a half later, I get a call from my boss and he says, Hey, we're ready to roll out.

Meet me at the office tomorrow at 6 p.m.

And, you know, we'll do this thing.

Maybe not 6 p.m., maybe like might have been like two.

So I drive to the office and then I proceed to get into a vehicle with a man I've met one time.

We drive seven, eight, nine hours, however long it took us from Massachusetts to Delaware.

And then I moved into a house with seven strangers I had never met to learn how to do a job I had never done in a state that I had never been to.

And that was the beginning of my weatherization journey.

SPEAKER_02: This sounds like now the start to the real real world.

Yeah.

Seven strangers in a house, you know, working a job.

I love it.

SPEAKER_00: It was it was an interesting time to say the least.

I remember, I remember when I got down there, two things I did.

Number one, I found a gym because I had I have uh anytime fitness.

So you can go to any gym in the country that has a certain swipe in.

So I found a gym and I was like, cool, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lift at this gym.

But I remember we went to the grocery store and I was so broke at that time, I literally could only get deli meat, bread, and chips.

So that was what I ate for the first week.

I literally ate the same thing every single day.

That's what I ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And that's that's it.

That's all I had enough money for.

And I'll never forget when I got my first check, I was like, there is no way this is real, and I am never, ever, ever leaving this job.

SPEAKER_02: That's how it starts.

So now, like what kind of work were you doing?

SPEAKER_00: So, what we would do is we would go into a school.

So we would get contracts from either the government or from states, and we would go into any state-owned buildings, usually schools, and we would do a bunch of different work.

So we would do weather stripping on doors, we would do weather stripping and caulking around windows, we would go up into the attic and find like gaps and we would seal them.

We blow in cellulose insulation, we'd go above the ceiling in the classrooms and seal above the windows.

So it was oftentimes it was very difficult, very hot work if we were in attics.

But when I started it, I loved it.

I loved the fact that the company trusted us enough to pack up our own van.

They gave us a credit card.

They said, this is where you're staying, this is when you start the job.

You here you go.

This is your contact information for the people you gotta get to let you in the building.

And we were off to the races.

I loved the fact that I was very much on my own.

It was kind of like, in a way, you're kind of like a mini entrepreneur where you're kind of doing your own thing.

You can do it in your own way.

You just gotta make sure you're you're getting your work done in the allotted time.

So that yeah, that's really what we did.

Our job was to make buildings more energy efficient, and it all depended on the building, but it was usually windows, doors, and attics is where we worked the most.

SPEAKER_02: Okay.

Okay, that that's awesome.

So now, how long did you end up working there?

SPEAKER_00: So this was the this was the unicorn job.

I believe I was there from oh man, I think I was there for five years total.

Okay.

There was one time where work got really slow because we were just in between contracts.

And this was a level of perspective that it was very, very important for me at that time.

I remember I reached out to somebody on Craigslist.

It was a demolition company, and I got this job to go do demolition in in Boston.

And again, I lived like an hour outside of Boston.

So the guy says, Come meet us here at this house on Monday.

We're gonna be demoing this bathroom and something else.

And I was like, All right, cool.

So I left, I think I left for the job at like 5:30 in the morning.

And I don't think I got there until like 7:45.

I think I was like 45 minutes late.

And I thought to myself, there is no way I'm gonna be able to do this consistently.

I'm not driving through Boston traffic every day.

So I get to the job and I make peace with the owner and I said, I'm so sorry.

I Boston traffic, I'm not used to it.

I didn't know, you know, all that stuff.

And then I remember it was one of the hardest days of work I had ever done in my entire life.

And we got to the end of the day, and I had already made this decision probably halfway in.

We got to the end of the day, and I said, Look, uh, thank you so much for this.

I appreciate it.

Everybody here is awesome.

The attitude's great.

I can't do this for 12 bucks an hour.

I there's no way I can do this.

I'm quite literally losing money because I'm gonna be driving four hours back and forth.

I can't do it.

And he said, Well, it's clear that you're a leader, you're a great worker.

What if I bump you up to$14 an hour?

And I said, No, I can't.

I can't do this.

Like, I would rather just sit at home.

There's no way.

There's no way I can do this.

So I remember calling my real boss on the way home, and I said, Hey, just let me know when work picks up again.

I'm here, I'm waiting.

I don't want to go anywhere else.

Like, this is really, this is where I belong.

But what happened to me, Kev, this is really where everything started to kind of make sense and also break down at the same time.

When you look at me when I was 25, I was making really good money.

My girlfriend was a model.

I had a sports car.

I was in really good shape because I had just done a bodybuilding show, new apartment.

And everybody thought I was super confident.

They thought I was super successful.

I was really miserable.

I was super insecure.

I was depressed.

I was anxious.

I was quite literally a shell of myself.

And my girlfriend came to me one day and she said, Kev, I want to move across the country and I want to chase my dreams.

I want to move to California.

And I gave her every reason in the world, Kev, why she shouldn't do it.

It's gas prices, housing, job market insert, scarce excuse here.

And that was the end of that conversation, but I could tell that wasn't the end of the conversation.

And she came back to me a week or two weeks later and she broke up with me and said, Kev, I need to do this.

This is something I need to do.

I'm gonna leave you and the apartment's yours, and you're gonna pay for everything, and you know, everything's gonna be good.

You got to take care of this.

I'm going across the country.

And I remember when she left, that was the initial rock bottom for me of having to look in the mirror and realizing I didn't like who I was.

And that was just such a challenge.

Yeah.

That's when I initially got into self-improvement.

But the problem is, I thought more money would make more problems go away.

So the next year, we're off, you know, the year started, and I said, I'm I'm in this place now.

I've healed from my ex leaving me.

I feel like I'm in a good place.

I'm ready to make as much money as humanly possible.

This is the year where Kevin makes$100,000.

Let's do it.

So early that year, I got a promotion and I was a foreman, which means I was on way more jobs.

And if you fast forward to the end of the year, I had been on the road for 10 months out of the 12 months.

Every single week, I was living in hotels, working in a different city, working in a different state, in a different gym, on a different hourly schedule, whether it's seven to three or second shift, like three to nine.

Sometimes we worked third shift, depending on where we were working.

And I remember I was so happy because I was just grinding my face off and I was making money.

And there were times where I had checks that I didn't even have time to cash, so it didn't matter.

But I got to the end of the year, Kev, and I was standing at my kitchen table because my girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, took the chairs.

They were her chairs, and I never was home, so I didn't buy new ones.

And I opened my final pay stub and I made$100,000 at 26 with no college degree.

And I remember I expected to feel a lot different than I did.

Nothing changed internally.

Nothing, it didn't fix me.

It didn't fill any of the voids I thought it was going to fill.

So in that moment, I had a lot of mental shifts.

I realized that for most of my life I had lived unconsciously.

I wanted to live hyperconsciously.

I wanted to know why I was making the decisions I was making.

I wanted to understand myself at the deepest of layers.

So I did what anybody does, I started a podcast called the Hyper Conscious Podcast.

And shortly after I started the podcast, I realized that me having conversations with people, talking about their fears, their relationships, their dreams, just talking about what's real was my favorite thing in the world.

And it was very hard for me to do that while traveling on the road as much as I was.

So I just stopped caring about my job because I didn't care about the money anymore.

I knew more money was not going to make me happy, especially if it cost me my mental health and all the traveling.

So I started calling out of work.

I'd show up late, I'd leave the job site early.

It got to the point where I would have to be in New Jersey at 7 a.m.

on a Monday to start the job.

I would sleep in my bed in Massachusetts from 9 p.m.

until midnight.

I'd get up and then I would drive six hours straight to the job site, and then I'd work an eight-hour day, and then I would go to the gym after.

And I just was so homesick.

I just needed to be home.

And I remember it was a cold morning.

I was staying in New Jersey in a sketchy, sketchy hotel, and my alarm went off at 5:15.

I sat up, I slid to the edge of the bed, and I was lacing up my work boots, and I had done it a thousand times at this point.

This was just routine.

And this morning was a little bit different because there was like 10 televisions on in my head at the same time, and every single one was on a different station.

It was just mayhem in my mind.

One was saying, I know you want to leave, Kev, but you're stuck here forever.

You're never going to make$100 an hour again.

If you do leave, what will your friends think?

If you do leave, what will your family think?

And if you do leave, do you really think you're going to be a successful podcaster?

That's probably not in the cards for you.

And in that moment, Kev, I felt that if I was to take my life, I would take my problems with me.

Now, luckily, I have a very, very supportive group of people around me.

And I messaged who was a friend slash mentor to me at the time, but since has become my business partner, my co-host, and the co-founder.

And I said, Alan, I'm really struggling.

I don't know what's going on.

I'm having these dark thoughts.

I don't know if I can do this anymore.

You know, life and my job.

And he said, Kev, so much has changed for you over the last couple of years, but your environments have pretty much stayed the same.

I think it's time for you to make a change.

And three or four months later, I left my job and I went full time into being an entrepreneur and being very, very, very, very broke.

I would say I had a lot of difficult times, obviously, with that job and the travel took a lot out of me.

But the next three years, like the first three years of being an entrepreneur, bar none, are the hardest years I've ever experienced in my entire life.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no doubt.

Now, I want to back up a little bit because when we when we talk about this idea of it's one thing to be depressed.

It's one thing to be like, oh my gosh, I hate this job.

But it's it's a whole nother thing to wake up and actually.

Sit there and think, I want to end my life.

Yeah.

Had you been, when especially looking back on it now, had you been suffering from depression for a long time?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

It's it's interesting and scary that that wasn't the first time.

That wasn't the first time I had thought about it.

I remember my girlfriend.

So before my girlfriend and I moved in together to New Hampshire, where she ended up leaving me, we lived in Boston together.

We lived in this really, really nice apartment with another couple.

And I remember one day I was home alone.

Nobody else was there.

I had the day off from work.

And I remember sitting in bed thinking to myself, if this is what life is, I do not want to be a part of it.

I didn't have a plan.

It wasn't like I was taking action.

But I remember when my girlfriend got home, I told her that.

I said, I had this weird moment today where I didn't care if I was dead or alive.

And she suggested I go to therapy.

So I went to therapy in Boston.

I was terrified.

Number one, parallel parking on a main street in Boston is a nightmare in its own.

That's that's a whole nother thing.

You gotta find the meter and it's this whole thing.

But I remember I walk into this old Boston brownstone style building, and there's these creaky stairs, and I'm walking up this spiral staircase to the top and sitting in this waiting room waiting for my therapist to come get me.

And I remember thinking, number one, I'm gonna cry for sure.

And this person's gonna think I'm weak and I don't want to talk about my feelings.

I don't want to do any of this.

And I cried for sure.

And I definitely, I definitely talked about my feelings, but I remember when I left, I felt stronger.

I was something that was such a, it seemed like it was gonna be a negative experience actually became something that I looked forward to doing.

And I went to therapy.

I probably only went like six or seven times because my work schedule was so hectic.

But I had definitely had those thoughts before.

I just didn't understand what depression was.

I didn't realize that I was depressed.

I one of my favorite thoughts to really go down is how do you know if your normal is normal?

It's very hard to understand that.

So I didn't know that I had depression.

I just thought maybe I was sad or maybe I was tired or maybe I was frustrated.

I didn't really have a name for it.

I didn't have a definition for it.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now, were you able to to kind of move on in this period of life with just going to the therapist, or did you have to explore the the use of any medications, if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_00: No, no, you're you're good, Kev.

Kev, I am a stubborn, stubborn man.

And I said when I went to therapy, I said, I will not take medication.

I refuse to.

I do not want to.

A lot of it was pride and ego of I should be able to do this on my on my own.

So I have nothing against it.

But no, and I told my therapist that.

I said, I'm not taking medication.

Like I need to figure this out for myself.

I don't want to, I don't want to be reliant upon something.

That really is what it was for me.

So it's interesting because I think that the mission that we're on and like what we're doing has probably helped my mental health more than anything.

Honestly, I don't think I ever had any purpose before.

It was really, it was jumping from the thing that was going to keep me alive to the thing that was gonna help me make more money to the thing that, you know, it never was about alignment.

It wasn't about service, it wasn't about purpose.

My life before that was just me trying to trying to figure out and trying to survive.

And I don't think I ever felt like I had a bright future.

And that's such an important key for me, at least, when it comes to my mental health and really believing the future can be bright.

I think that's where I got stuck, is I found the future in that job that I thought I wanted.

And I found the money that I thought I needed, and nothing changed.

And I think that was just a heavy awareness for me at that time.

But when I started understanding myself at a little bit of a deeper level, and I started questioning why are you thinking this way?

Why are you acting this way?

Things started to unravel in a positive way for me a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So now what happens at this point?

Now, now that you've you've had this, you know, kind of awakening, this realization that the path you're going isn't the right path.

You've been exploring this realm of podcasting.

What happens then?

SPEAKER_00: Right after I left my job, he was my good friend at the time, Alan.

He had a YouTube show that he was kind of in, kind of out.

It just, it wasn't something he was super focused on.

But he said, Well, I want to be a podcaster.

You already have a podcast.

We both believe in self-improvement.

Why don't we just partner up and do this together?

He has a business background.

He's a very, very intelligent human being.

I never knew what would happen, but I knew I'd be more successful if I partnered with him.

So that's what we did.

We said, All right, cool.

We're gonna partner up.

And we rebranded the podcast from a picture of me to a picture of him and I.

And our goal was to have hyper-conscious conversations.

It was how do we unravel layers of awareness to help people understand themselves and everything at a deeper level?

And that was it in a nutshell.

It was very much, it was very much a startup where, you know, we'd be posting on social media every day.

We'd be trying to build relationships with the people who are listening.

We'd go to networking events, we'd try to get creative and and figure out ways to make money.

But in the very beginning, it was I I did a post about this recently, Kev.

My mindset was I just have to find a way to make enough money to pay rent.

I just have to stay in the pool long enough.

I just have to stay in the pool.

I have to keep learning how to swim.

I always had this weird fear that I was gonna have to go back and get another job.

I always felt like I was on borrowed time and I wasn't gonna be able to sustain this long term.

I remember that was a heavy, heavy thing that I felt quite often.

But for us, it was very much how do we just get to the next week, get to the next month, and then kind of go from there.

The first couple years for us were very much about character building.

They were, okay, our audience is primarily women or humans who identify as women.

So I want to practice being vulnerable.

I want to make sure that I'm a character-driven, virtuous man.

I want to make sure that the responsibility that we have to help these people, it's something that I'm focused on.

And in order to help them at the deepest level, I have to be the best man I can possibly be.

It's not about the money, it's not about any of that.

How do I become a better man so I can help more people?

That was the very beginning of our journey.

And honestly, at times the most painful part because when you're learning about yourself, you usually don't learn about the good stuff first, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

Now that that's kind of a perfect segue.

And I wanted to circle back around and talking about learning about ourselves.

Is you, I am assuming it's around this time in your life when you learn about your father.

SPEAKER_00: It was actually before I was living in New Hampshire.

I was 27 at this point.

I was living in New Hampshire and I was home for the weekend.

And I remember I was just sitting on my recliner going through Facebook, and Facebook had this folder called message requests.

And it was from people who you weren't friends with, but they wanted to send you a message.

And I found it and I was like, Oh, I wonder what's in here.

Maybe, you know, maybe there's something cool in here.

I don't know.

And I came across I came across this message, and it was from a woman, and she said, all I could see was the first line.

And she said, Hey, I'm your father's girlfriend.

Dot, dot, dot.

And I remember I literally threw my phone on the floor.

I fell on the floor and started crying.

And I was like, I can absolutely not do this right now.

I cannot do this right now.

I collected myself and I opened up the message.

And I don't remember exactly what it said, but it was something along the lines of, hey, Kev, I'm your father's girlfriend.

He wanted me to let you know that number one, he is proud of you.

And number two, if you ever want or would give him the opportunity to meet you, that's something that he would like to do.

And I remember I texted my friend right after that.

And I said, Hey, my dad just messaged me, basically, and I have to go see him.

And my friend said, Do you want me to come with you?

And I said, No, I have to do this myself.

This is something I have to do for me.

Intuitively, I knew this was an important thing for me.

So I messaged back and I said, Yeah, let's do it.

Let's meet at this restaurant that's halfway between us at this time.

The day that I was meeting him, I remember driving down and I was so, so nervous because I didn't, I didn't know what we are gonna talk about.

Is he gonna cry?

Am I gonna cry?

How weird is this gonna be?

So I get there early and I walk in and I get a seat.

And then I remember having this interesting thought, Kev, where I said, I don't even know what he looks like.

So I don't, when he gets here, I'm not even gonna know if it's him.

This is gonna get like super, super weird.

But I remember I saw a man walk by one of the windows and I was like, ah, that's him.

I don't know how I knew.

I could just, I could just tell.

And he walked in, he found me, he sat down, and it was a very, it was like a surface level conversation.

It wasn't anything super deep.

There was a couple points where he cried where I was like pretty numb to it.

Like I didn't, you know, it my goal was never to make him feel bad.

Like that wasn't why I did it.

I don't, I didn't want him to feel bad, but I also didn't feel good.

I didn't really have any positive feelings, so I couldn't really support him in that.

So we met that day.

I would say it was a positive meeting and a positive experience.

Then from there, I think we spent a couple other afternoons together where I'd go see him.

And it just got to the point where for me it was like number one, my schedule is very, very packed.

And it's hard for me to put somebody into a place that they're supposed to be, like societally.

You know, he's your dad, you're supposed to see your dad X amount of time, whatever, whatever's supposed to happen.

It was very hard for me to keep up with that.

And honestly, I don't think we've talked in the last, I don't know, it might have might even be a year at this point.

But I don't have anything against him.

That whole thing allowed me to forgive at a at a pretty deep level.

And here's why.

And I don't mean this with any negativity or any ego.

My life turned out, all things considered, like pretty good.

I mean, I'm I'm very happy with where I am.

I get to do what I love every day.

I'm married, everything's great.

And I had a moment where I actually felt bad for him.

And that helped me have empathy for the understanding that look, I've worked so hard on myself for the last however many years it's been, I'll just say five years.

He probably never worked that hard on himself.

And that's why he is where he is, and maybe that's why things happen the way they did.

He probably had me, or he was, you know, obviously he took part in having me.

And he probably didn't plan it.

He probably didn't want it, and he probably didn't know how to react to it.

Could he have made better decisions?

Absolutely.

But everybody makes mistakes.

Some mistakes are bigger than others, and I think it was important for me to forgive that because if it's holding space inside of me that's anger or, you know, negativity, it's not serving me.

And it was a very important thing for me to do.

And I'm I'm grateful I did it, and I definitely learned a lot because of it.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I was gonna ask if it's something that you are indeed grateful happened that you did get to meet him.

SPEAKER_00: I I am.

Yeah, I am, I am grateful, but it it's definitely a weird thing where you know you're supposed to love someone because they're blank, and it's like, I don't know that I I mean, I've I don't think I've I've never said I love you to my dad.

I probably never will because I don't know that I ever will truly feel that.

I'm grateful I got the opportunity, but it, you know, the other interesting thing too, Kev, is when you open a door, usually people want the door to open more and more and more and more.

And that was the challenge for me of like, my dad doesn't understand, he doesn't know what I'm doing.

He doesn't know that I'm a podcaster and a speaker and a coach and I have this business, and he doesn't understand what I'm doing in the world.

So the expectations of, oh, you didn't answer my phone call, it's like I don't answer anybody's phone call unless it's on my calendar.

I don't have that's not how it works for me.

It's it's just an interesting learning curve for sure.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

And then and and to you know, what you were saying there at the start, you know, when talking about it, you know, kind of being like this weird thing is I wanted to say is, you know, there's definitely a difference between being related to somebody and having a relationship with somebody.

SPEAKER_00: 100%.

100%.

SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah.

So so we have this period.

So we kind of backtracked a little bit to go back to catch up on the story about you meeting your father.

So you you start this podcast, you and your buddy, you're you're doing this now at the same point, you you've entered a realm that is not, you know, it's not an hourly rate.

You're no longer an employee, you're now an entrepreneur, you've left the security of it.

What was the thought of family, the close friends?

Were they, did they think you were out of your mind?

Were they supportive?

SPEAKER_00: I think many people, although they thought I was out of my mind, they were, they were very supportive.

My I remember my grandmother was like, so you're gonna get right after I left my job, she said, You're gonna go get another job, right?

And I said, I will never, I will never work for somebody else as long as I live.

I I won't.

I can't do it.

I can't, I cannot do it.

And my mom's always been very supportive.

She, she just wants me to be happy.

That at the end of the day, my mom just wants me to be happy.

And I'm very, very grateful for that.

My circle around me all were very supportive.

So when I started planning this whole thing, like when I was thinking to myself, I am out of this job, I can't do it anymore.

I ended up moving in with my best friend, my my other best friend.

And he's an entrepreneur and he understands the hustle and he understands the grind.

And he said, Look, I just bought a house.

I'm gonna rent the upstairs.

You and I can live in the downstairs, 500 bucks a month.

You and I living together, it'll be awesome.

And I was like, Cool, sounds good to me.

So I literally lived with my best friend and worked with my other best friend.

And I lived with him for probably the first, I don't know, two years, two and a half years.

And I got so much support, so much support.

So I'm very blessed because I have a very interesting relationship with relationships where if you're not supportive and positive, I just don't have a place for you.

I just can't.

I because there's other people who want to be supportive and positive.

And if you don't create the void to bring that into your life, it's not gonna happen.

So a lot of people I know get a lot of hate and they get a lot of doubt.

I had my own doubts, probably greater than anybody else's, but I definitely was supported.

Not a lot of people doubted it, not a lot of people questioned it, at least to my face.

I'm sure behind the scenes they were probably thinking, what in the hell are these kids doing?

But, you know, nobody really tried to shoot down my dreams, which I'm I'm very grateful for.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.

Well, I absolutely love it.

So, so talk to me a little bit about the podcasting journey and what it's been like from the time that you guys started, from the time that you quit the job, you said, I'm all in until now.

What has that been like?

SPEAKER_00: It's been strange.

I think strange is probably the best, the best word that can encapsulate it all.

It's been very fulfilling because I started this for impact.

I never started it for money.

And I had people reach out in the very beginning saying, hey, this is a great conversation, or hey, you know, that changed the way I think about something.

So that aspect of it was it is just so amazing.

Somebody messaged me yesterday.

It's like, it's just that's the beautiful thing about it is sometimes you forget how much impact you're having because it's often seems like I'm just sitting in front of a microphone talking seven times a week, which I am, but there are a lot of people on the other end.

So in the very beginning, it seemed, I'll put it this way, it seemed more like a hobby, even though it was my career, but there wasn't a lot going on.

I mean, you know, we can record an episode.

I might have one free coaching call, and then I would hang out and kind of do what I thought I was supposed to do as an entrepreneur.

So in the beginning, I wasn't taking it very seriously because I didn't know how serious to take it.

As we continued doing it and we went from one episode to two to three to four to five to six to seven, that's when things really started to ramp up.

And one of the things we've always focused on is just building a community where I want to get on the phone with our listeners.

I want to do Zooms, I want to DM.

That's something that's been a through line for our entire journey.

And I think it's one of the reasons we're successful is because I'm trying to scale the unscalable.

I want to have conversations with people.

I know I'm not gonna be able to answer my own DMs forever or do free calls forever, but I like doing it.

And that's why I started.

I started to talk to people.

I started so I could actually impact people.

And I think the busier I get, the more impact I can actually have because that's when people stop replying to DMs.

So the very beginning was slow.

There wasn't a lot going on.

And as we continued, we took it more seriously and we got mentors and we upgraded equipment.

Our first studio was in Alan's mom's house.

It was in his sister's old bedroom.

Our second studio was in Alan's mom's basement.

Our third studio, we got a custom podcast studio where we put up walls and we had a really nice camera and we had multiple TVs and lights and curtains and a microwave and a fridge.

And that was our that was our spot, a big whiteboard.

And then it got to the point where we said, look, there's there's no reason for us to do this anymore.

We might as well just go virtual.

We'll we'll have home studios.

We have a 17-person virtual team, a whole bunch of clients, which I'm super grateful for.

And now we get more listens in a day than we did in the first year.

So it's it's definitely, I think, strange, Kev is probably the best way to say it.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, it it's it's an evolution, you know?

And and when and when you no longer are fearful of change, but embrace change, embrace the unknown.

It lets you grow, lets you try new things, and and that's how you get bigger and better and and see where it goes.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

It's been such a focus.

I I know in the beginning, like I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, or every, I don't want to say every moment, because I I have the nights and I take RR, but I think back then it was more about saying I was an entrepreneur, saying I was a podcaster.

Now it's like, I mean, that's that's just who I am.

I am an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner, and I'm a podcaster, and I'm a coach.

And now it's more, that's my identity.

Where back then, I think I was more, more of a entrepreneur than an actual entrepreneur.

Where now it's like, you know, we're definitely business owners and we're doing the, we're doing it really now, for real.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

Now, one question that that came to mind was being in the podcast space, it's definitely a business of communication.

It's literally taking interest in people's stories, sharing your own stories, learning about other people.

And I'm curious to know how that developed for you because when I think back to the stories that you've shared of your past, I think of, you know, bodybuilder, guy chasing the money, doing the that doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would then want to be like, oh my gosh, let me hear about your story.

Let's, you know.

And so I'm curious, was that really your personality all along?

Or was this something that you developed?

SPEAKER_00: I definitely developed it, Kev.

I I think I always tried to do what I was rewarded for.

I really, when I was in high school, I remember I came across this.

I don't know if it was a blog or a website, I don't know what it was, but it was literally one of the other high schools that we played against accusing me of being on steroids.

And that made me feel good.

I was like, hell yeah.

The fact that you think I'm on steroids is amazing.

Like I love that because it made me feel like I was doing really well in fitness.

And I've never, I've never touched any any supplements like that.

But I got rewarded for being in shape.

I got rewarded for being good at sports.

I got rewarded for being good at jujitsu or whatever it is.

And I think that I always tried to lean into if you're good at this, you'll get rewarded.

When you're rewarded, you feel good.

But I've always, I don't want to say always, I definitely started thinking deeper in my mid-20s because I remember, I think it was 2016, and this was long before the podcast, I did a video on Facebook before Facebook had Facebook Lives.

You had to like do it on your laptop and then upload it.

And the video was called, Do you deserve to be happy?

And the entire thesis, the through line, the theme of this was, I believe you deserve what you work for.

If you're working every day for happiness, I think you deserve it.

If you're working for an extraordinary relationship, I think you deserve it.

I don't think anybody deserves that by default because it does require some sort of competence.

And I mean, even that, like that's a fairly deep level of thinking.

So I think I always wanted to have deep conversations with people, but it wasn't necessarily rewarded.

It didn't it didn't always get a positive result.

And I think when I had the podcast, it was kind of like it it's a precursor to if you want to talk with me on this medium, it's gonna be about deep stuff.

So it kind of it kind of weeded out people who weren't into it, I think.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.

I love it, dude.

It's all About going deep, man.

I love it.

Yes.

Well, well, listen, man, dude, such a tremendous conversation with you today.

And do you have any last just kind of piece of advice for somebody listening to this today who who maybe they're in the spot that you were at?

They're in a career that maybe on the outside is is good, is what they should be doing.

But on the inside, it's not what they're passionate about.

And I would love if yeah, if you could just share something speaking to that person.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that you have to understand how much can change in five years for you.

A lot of us are told to think realistically.

And I think we think way too realistically, like overly scarce.

When if you imagine five years from today, if you're doing something that you love, making less money, maybe that's more aligned in the grand scheme of things.

You have to believe that the future is brighter.

And for everybody, that requires something different.

Maybe that's a career change, maybe that's a relationship change, maybe that's pouring into health, whatever it may be.

But I think at the end of the day, Kev, I really think you have to start asking yourself questions about yourself.

Because that's what shifted for me is I started asking why, and I started looking into my past.

Why am I making the decisions I'm making?

Because I've always been rewarded for things that made money.

I am a very money-driven human being.

I will literally burn everything else to the ground, relationships included, to make money.

You have to get a new level of awareness for yourself.

Nothing changes until you do.

And I think a lot of people they want to say, okay, what do I do?

It's not necessarily what do you do?

It's what do you understand about yourself more that will help you change what you do.

So that's what I would say.

I would say focus on self-awareness.

Focus on asking yourself, why?

Why am I doing this?

Why am I not doing this?

Focus on looking back into your life and connecting some dots of how you got to where you are today.

I think a lot of us assume change is in the future.

And of course, change is in the future.

But a lot of the change starts today, which is based on our past.

So don't be afraid to look into your past.

Find some dots that connect, find some patterns, and then see how those patterns could play out to the future.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, Kevin, dude, such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to be here.

SPEAKER_00: Of course.

Kev, this was one of my favorites I've ever done.

You're an amazing host.

Your community is very blessed to have such an awesome person at the helm.

And I love the questions.

I love the flow.

And I I love you, brother.

SPEAKER_02: Oh man, well, I appreciate that so much.

Dude, real quick before before we uh let you get back to life, sure.

Please tell my listeners where's the best place for if the fact that they've not had enough of you already and they want more of it, where can they go?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

So our podcast is called Next Level University.

We talk all things holistic health.

So life, love, health, and wealth.

Our goal is to help you level all of those up.

Seven episodes a week.

So if you aren't sick of me yet, you can come get sick of us because we do a new episode every single day.

And we're on all the podcast platforms as well as YouTube.

So you can find out more about us there.

SPEAKER_02: Well, fantastic.

Well, well, Kevin, man, it's been an absolute honor to have you on the show today.

And uh, for you listening, I hope you've enjoyed another incredible guest here on Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Until next time, this is Kevin signing out.

Hey, real quick before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guest has to share, and think, wow, I wish I could be like them.

I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing, but I just can't.

Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

You are capable, you are able, and you darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life.

There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life.

And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do it too.

Now, of course, if you would like help along that way, reach out to me.

Whether that's as a listener of this podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach.

My contact information is inside of every episode's show notes, just like this one.

So go down, check out my contact information, and reach out to me today.

With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day with grit, grace, and inspiration.