Episode Transcript
Frank Hereda (00:01.634)
What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of Focused Free Fit. We have an exciting guest today, Mr. Kevin Palmieri. Welcome.
Kevin Palmieri (00:11.895)
Frank, thank you so very much for having me. I'm excited to chat with
Frank Hereda (00:15.626)
Absolutely. Absolutely. well, I, I'm excited for this conversation today because I think that it's going to pertain to almost everybody. if not everybody, and, and I think that there's a lot to take away from these conversations. So I'm excited to get into it. Why don't we start with you telling us a little bit about yourself. I like to start with the early years. So, you know, tell me about your upbringing. I always think it's interesting to tie where.
people are now in their lives based on where they were and if that had any impact and how much of an impact if it did. So tell us a little bit about your early upbringing and then we can kind of segue into what you got going on
Kevin Palmieri (00:57.325)
Yeah, so I was raised by my mom and my grandmother. I didn't know my dad and I didn't meet my dad until later in life and we definitely grew up lower middle class. There wasn't a ton of money. I mean, I never went hungry. I never went without clothes, right? But there was always the undertone of we don't have enough money and things are going to be scarce. Even if it was just energetically, that was always the vibe that I
My mom worked night shift, so she worked overnights, and I literally lived with my mom and my grandmother. So I kind of had a mom and a dad in a way, except they were both kind of like also a mom in a way. My mom was more the mom, and then I would say my grandmother was kind of more the dad, depending on the situation. I was the type of kid who didn't like school, I didn't like learning, I was very athletic.
But I always lacked confidence. Now, looking back, it's easy to recognize that, because at the time, I don't think you really know. You don't have anything to compare it to. But I always had a chip on my shoulder, because growing up without a dad, always made me feel like I was defective. It made me feel like I was an outcast. It made me feel like I was kind of a charity case, because the friends that I had, their families would always kind of like swoop in and try to take care of me.
we're going on vacation. Do you want to come on vacation with us? You want to come over for dinner or whatever it was? We're having a party. Do you want to come over? So I think pretty early on, Frank, that already created me not fitting in. And then I almost rebelled against fitting in because it was like, I don't need you to save me. I don't want to be saved. I don't know if I'm going to be fine. I don't know if I'm ever going to be successful,
I don't want to feel like a charity case for my whole life.
Frank Hereda (02:57.498)
Can you explain real quick? So it is really interesting Do you think that you had the confidence issue? I mean obviously so did you innately just feel like because you didn't have a dad he didn't care about you or it was that what the story your mom told you or Like why did you or was that just a feeling you had and it just was what it
Kevin Palmieri (03:18.583)
Yeah, it was the feeling. I assumed, not even that. I think it's just when you're that young, you don't really know how to process information logically. So it automatically goes to some sort of trauma. So it was, I must not be good enough if my dad left. I he wouldn't have left if I was a child having excitement for. Eventually there was conversations around why he left. So have you ever seen Liar Liar? Have ever seen that movie?
Frank Hereda (03:48.214)
Yes, with Jim Carrey? Yeah. That's a good movie. It's funny. Very funny.
Kevin Palmieri (03:49.303)
with Jim Carrey from it's very, very good movie, very good movie. Evidently, that's kind of what my dad was like, except worse. He wasn't Jim Carrey and he wasn't a lawyer. So it wasn't, it wasn't kind of the same, but that's the story that I was given Frank was your dad would always say he was going to come get you and take you to wrestling and take you here and take you here. And he never
And there was definitely trouble with the law. There was trouble with alcohol. There was trouble with substances. I think there was gang activity at one point. So it probably was for the best. But my mom told me, I basically told your dad not to come around. If he wasn't going to be consistent, he does not have the privilege of coming around. I always had the opportunity to seek him out if I wanted to. My mom said that from the beginning. If you want to meet your dad, I can make it happen. I can find a way to make it work.
That's totally up to you. But I just think that I always felt different and maybe for me, different meant worse. And even as I got older and I started playing sports, I made the All -Star team from the time that I was nine until I graduated high school. And I always just thought I got luckier than everybody else when it came to baseball. I didn't feel confident. I didn't want to be up to the plate with the game on the line.
I didn't have that, whatever that was. Alan, Alan has that self -belief. That is not something I evolved
Frank Hereda (05:21.76)
And do you think that would, do you think that would change? Did you think that would change if you had a dad, just out of curiosity or, or maybe, no,
Kevin Palmieri (05:32.409)
Yeah, I think it would change in some way, shape, or form. Would it necessarily change for the better? I don't know. Because upon meeting my dad, and I'm happy to go into that at some point now, whatever, but upon meeting my dad, I realized, hmm, maybe it was better that you weren't around. But that's a perspective that I didn't get until I was 27.
Frank Hereda (05:57.422)
Well, that's what I was going to ask next was no, this is interesting because I don't know what I would have done, but if you know, from a young age, you have the option at any time to meet your dad, even though he's not around at what time did you say, I want to meet my dad. I'm shocked you waited till you were 27 and tell us about why and what, what went through your process? What process was it that you were like, I'm going to wait till I'm 27. Cause I can think of a gazillion.
reasons why you would have wanted to reach out to your dad before 27.
Kevin Palmieri (06:29.753)
was very angry and I think my ego was protecting me from the vulnerability it would have taken to go through the experience. I...couple things. There were times in my life, Frank, where I didn't even know if my dad was alive. I would hear through the grapevine that, your dad has cancer. It's like, okay, I don't... What am I supposed to do with that? What do want me to do with that information? What am I supposed to do? And then there was other times where it's like, yeah, nobody has talked to him. He's doing really well. He's sick again.
Frank Hereda (06:50.71)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Palmieri (06:59.897)
So I think I was just very stubborn from a young age. I was working on myself, trying to become successful, trying to figure out this whole thing. And I think I just closed off to it because I kind of wanted to stick it to him. Yeah. And I didn't even want to see him when I was 27. I didn't want to do it. I was sitting on my recliner one day and
Frank Hereda (07:17.218)
That makes sense. Okay.
Kevin Palmieri (07:29.845)
I was going through my Facebook messages and I didn't realize at the time that if somebody sends you a Facebook message and they're not friends with you, it goes to a requests folder. Didn't know that. So I'm going through this request folder and I saw a message from three years prior. Yeah. Yeah. And it said, Hey, Kev, I am blank. I am your father's girlfriend. And I could only see the first line of it. And I remember I threw my phone on the floor, Frank. And I said, no, no,
Frank Hereda (07:46.325)
my gosh.
Kevin Palmieri (07:59.563)
No, no, no, no, we are not doing this. It's Saturday, I wanna have fun. I don't wanna do this today. But I got curious. So I picked up my phone, I opened it and it said, hey Kev, I'm blank. I'm your father's girlfriend. He has seen you on Facebook and it seems like you're doing really well and he wanted you to know that he's very proud of you and he's very happy for you and if you ever wanted the opportunity to meet, he would appreciate that very
And I remember again, hot potatoing the phone on the floor. I fell on the floor this time and I started bawling my eyes out. Because it's very easy to say bad things about someone when you don't ever think you're gonna have to look them in the eye. So that scared me. A lot. But it was one of those, I'm 27 now, I've done some work on myself, I'm more self -aware, I understand my ego more, I understand my trauma, I've been to therapy at this point.
And I messaged back and I said, yeah, let's do it. Let's meet halfway between where we are and let's see what happens. And one of my friends at the time, I told them that I was gonna do it. And they said, do you want me to come with you? And I said, no, this is one of those things I have to do by myself. So it wasn't even that I wanted to do it. I didn't proactively seek him out. It was more the fact that it happened at a time where I was really focusing on trying to work on me.
And if I can imagine, you know, the amount of work for lack of better phrasing, I could get done in one hour of doing something like that that scared me. That might be the most pivotal thing I've ever done in my entire life. I just didn't know it and I didn't want to do it, unfortunately.
Frank Hereda (09:44.918)
So you're saying that going through that process helped you so much you wish you would have known earlier because of how powerful it was. So two questions around that. One being if he hadn't reached
When, if at all, would you have reached out? Okay. And tell me about the meeting with him and why was it so powerful? Because I think there's other people out there who can learn from this experience and how it relates to them. Because I also would like you to talk a little bit about, after you talk about how this first meeting went, how did that affect everything in your life, especially business?
Kevin Palmieri (10:04.556)
Never.
Frank Hereda (10:32.274)
how, how did that improve you as a person? How did that help yourself improvement? And, let's just go that route, but let's hear about the meeting
Kevin Palmieri (10:41.783)
Yeah, so we set a date, we set a place, this little diner halfway between where we lived. I leave to go that day. I intend on getting there early to make sure I can get a seat and all that happy jazz. I'm anxious, so I'm clinging to certainty. So I get there, I park my car, I walk in, hey, table for two. And I remember, this was one of the most surreal feelings ever. I sat down and I said, I'm not even gonna know when he gets
because I don't know what he looks like. So I don't, this is gonna be, I thought it was gonna be awkward. This is gonna be way more awkward than I thought. So I'm sitting in a booth facing a window and I saw a guy walk by and just intuitively it was like, okay, that's him, that's my dad. And just, you know, cue sweating, cue nervous sweating. So he finds me, he comes and sits down and the beginning of the conversation was very much, if you've ever watched a boxing match when they're feeling each other out in the beginning,
It was very much that, like just feeling each other out, seeing what the energy was. And then I think he opened up more than I did because I was very stoic. I was protecting myself. I'm not going to get my hopes up here. I, I don't know what to expect. And then that eventually evolved into him apologizing and him crying and him talking about the stuff that he had gone through. And, and I was just very numb. It was like, I don't really, you're not going to see much from me. I'm here,
I need to I need to be reserved. And as the conversation, we were probably there for like an hour, an hour and a half as the conversation continued, we got closer and closer and we had some really good conversation. The thing that jumped off the page for me and the reason it was such a big, important thing for me to do is Frank, I realized in our relationship, I am the dad. I had done more work on myself in 27 years than he had done
however, I don't even know how old he is, however many years he has been on this planet. He was very ignorant, very fixed mindset, very victim mentality. And me sitting across from him, I actually felt bad for him. I had empathy for the fact that my life turned out pretty darn good and his didn't. That did something to me. It gave me a lot of empathy. That was one.
Kevin Palmieri (13:06.411)
It really opened the door for the opportunity for forgiveness. That was number two. And then number three, it made me realize that I had given so much power to him in terms of the story I had about him. He wasn't even capable of handling that power. He could not possibly be that responsible for my life. So it also made me realize that
I tried not to take it as personally as weird as that may sound. He didn't wake up one day and say, this little kid, I'm going to try to mess up his life. I'm really going to, I'm really going to try to mess up his life. So that was the initial meeting. After that, I saw him a couple more times because I said, you know what this, I feel like this went well. I'm, into seeing what this does. And I think there's more for me to
Frank Hereda (13:38.414)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Palmieri (14:03.725)
So I spent, I think I went to his house two more times for lunch. And then it got to the place where I could tell the amount of time and energy and effort and focus that he wanted from me was just something I was just incapable of giving. And I kind of just let it die because I felt like I had learned the lessons that I needed. And honestly, I didn't really want to lead him on. It's hard to explain what I do and my life
If you don't know what a podcast is, it's going to be really hard to explain to you what I, what I do every day. So I'm not the guy that you can call at Tuesday at 11 a I'm not going to answer. I'm doing this. And I just didn't think I would ever be able to get him to understand that. And I just wasn't willing to do it. So I haven't talked to him in, I don't know, maybe two years, three years at this point. What did it unlock?
I don't know. wouldn't say that. I think if anything, I got less angry. I think that was a piece of it. I definitely had more of a temper back then than I do now. But honestly, it might've highlighted my deepest fear more. My deepest fear is disappointing others, especially men. And I don't think I would have gotten to the point where I was able to highlight that if I didn't go see him because
Nothing he said showed me that nothing he said prove that to me. But there was something about sitting in the garage with him having a father for the first time. That just was a feeling that I had never had before. And I think that unlocked something I've never even saying the word dad is weird for me. I've never called anyone dad. It's a foreign. It's a foreign
Frank Hereda (15:57.056)
It's a really interesting response that you had to me. Thinking of my dad, thinking of I have an eight year old and it's just a really interesting, I did not expect you to say that, which is really interesting to me because I would have, when you were telling the story, I was like, okay, where's the?
I don't want to call it a happy ending, but it's like, okay, you find some common ground and then you end up doing these things together. And, you know, I don't know, I wasn't prepared for, yeah, just, you know, it didn't work out. And I'm like, well, wait, what? Like, that's not the ending I expected. So I just think that's really interesting. And so, but everybody's got their journey. And do you have kids? You don't have kids, you're too young.
Kevin Palmieri (16:29.549)
Ha ha
Kevin Palmieri (16:41.273)
Yeah, no. Hey, thank you. So I'm 34. So I could definitely have kids.
Frank Hereda (16:47.31)
That's great. Okay. Well, I waited till I was older still after you so to have kids but You know, I just think about my relationship with my son. Does that change? Does that make you think about? Differently about the type of dad you want to be or how or do you want to be a dad? Maybe not I don't know if that changed anything in your life in that
Kevin Palmieri (17:06.849)
Yeah, so for the longest time, I was convinced that I was gonna have children and then the ultimate goal and the ultimate thought and the ultimate measure of success as a father would just be not being like my dad was to me. And then when my wife and I got together and started dating and started having conversations about children, we both kind of agreed that we didn't wanna have kids. And maybe one day we'll adopt.
That might be something down the line, I don't know. But we kind of determined that we didn't want to have our own children. One part of it is, for me at least, I think it would be very selfish of me to bring somebody into the world just so I can prove to myself that I could be a better dad. I just, for me, that's just not what I want. That's a piece of it. The other piece is I am very honest with myself about what this journey is gonna take of me. And I don't know if I could be
Frank Hereda (17:54.318)
Fair enough, yeah.
Kevin Palmieri (18:04.737)
If I was gonna be a dad, I wanna be the dad that's at the sporting events. I wanna be the dad that's at the recitals. I wanna be the dad that's at parent -teacher conferences. I don't know if I would even be capable of that with what we're doing and if I'd actually want to prioritize that. So for me, that's kind of, as I've evolved, I've just understood I can have a very large level of impact with the podcast and the business and that's amazing.
And I think that's kind of where I want to put my focus. Will we adopt in five years? I don't know, maybe. But if so, I'm really going to have to sit down and say, what does it look like for you to be an aligned parent figure? And I'm going to be very honest about whether or not I think I'll be able to do
Frank Hereda (18:49.912)
I think it's a really responsible take
being a parent, but I, for what it's worth, I think you'd be an amazing parent. but, and it, and it's definitely absolutely one of the most difficult, know, you know, marriage, you're married, so that's very difficult. It's not all roses. It's difficult, right? But it's also the most rewarding thing. It's very, it's great when it's great. And, I think having kids, the same thing is very difficult, but one of the most amazing things that you could do. that'd be.
Kevin Palmieri (18:58.369)
I appreciate
Frank Hereda (19:21.986)
I'd love to see you do that eventually one day, but that's, that's your, that's your job. but enough on enough on the personal stuff. I look, I appreciate you sharing your, your story with us, cause that's amazing. And, I think that really helps. So you're through talk to me about where you're at in business right now and tell us a little bit about that journey.
Kevin Palmieri (19:32.984)
Thank
Kevin Palmieri (19:43.705)
Man, today we have, I have two top 100 podcasts. We have Next Level University that has 1 ,780 episodes, I think, as of today. And then I have a podcast about podcasts called Podcast Growth University. think there's like 106 episodes. So today, as a business, we do eight episodes a week. I coach a bunch of podcasters. I lead several departments within the business, our social media team, our podcast production team.
And really the ultimate goal for us is how do we help people get to the next level of their lives, whatever that means. Some people are entrepreneurs and business owners. Other people are stay at home parents trying to be more confident, have a more accurate understanding of self -worth and self -awareness. So every day it really is this. It's sitting here doing this for eight hours a
Frank Hereda (20:36.664)
Sure. And for everybody out there who's trying to start a business or struggling in the beginning stages of their business, some might be growing and they're having issues with growth. What are some pointers we can give them? Talk to us about the journey of entrepreneurship. Talk to us about how that has been going for you and the challenges you've had and how you overcame.
Kevin Palmieri (20:58.745)
Yeah, I the beginning was brutal because we had no money. Alan and I had left our jobs to pursue this. And I burned through all my money and I was like $30 ,000 in credit card debt. I think it's very easy, especially in the beginning to overcomplicate things and just put your time, energy and effort into too many buckets. I had a client, I literally had a client call yesterday and this, I coached this person.
a year ago, and then they kind of went off into their own thing. And they just booked eight calls on my calendar. So I'm like, something is going on, like something there is an issue going on. And they said, I'm struggling really bad. I've made a lot of not so great choices. I need to turn things around in six weeks. These are all of my ideas. And I said, you have far too many ideas to do in six weeks. I said, you choose one of those, we have to choose one idea and you have to spend the next six weeks, digging and digging and digging and digging and digging that hole.
I think that's a common mistake for people is when they start, it's like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this and I'm going do this. If you only have 10 units of time and you're trying to do 10 things, that's only one unit of time per thing. But if you only focused on two things, you could five X the amount of effort you put in. So in the beginning, we were very, very simple creatures where it was podcasting. And then it was go get better as a human. Eventually we ran out of
because you can only do self -improvement for so long before you run out of money. And then it was, don't fall into the trap that a lot of people talk about when it comes to entitlement as a business owner. I know we didn't start this to trade our time for money, but in the beginning, you might have to do some stuff that isn't scalable and you don't want to do to get the ball rolling and build momentum so you can do less of that later.
I think we're in a dangerous place, Frank, where there's a lot of people saying like, well, you should never trade your time for money. I don't agree with that. I think in the beginning, you have to do what you have to do to get to the next day. So that's always a piece of advice I try to give people is try to detach your self -worth from a lot of the behaviors you're having in the business, because you're going to probably work for less than you deserve. You're probably going to work more than you want to in the beginning. Go ahead.
Frank Hereda (23:20.398)
Yeah, sorry. So what I hear you saying, and I totally agree with, if this is what you're saying, which is, Hey, sometimes you're not going to want to do some of the things you got to do. Sometimes you got to work with the clients you don't want to work with. Sometimes you got to get your hands dirty and do the things that maybe the future assistant will do. Or, you know, you've got to do those things in the beginning sometimes to make sure you keep going and you make it to the next level.
Kevin Palmieri (23:43.319)
Yes. Yeah. Because a lot of advice you hear out there, people, I think we've given at times entitled business advice. And even us, like we still have people that say you charge too little, do this, you should do this, you should do this. That's the way our business is set up is based on the way we're doing it. So that's a really common thing. And that's something that obviously, you we dealt with in the beginning.
very transparently, Frank, most of the stuff I dealt with in the beginning was internal stuff. It was not believing in myself, feeling like an imposter, not thinking I could be an entrepreneur, because I didn't have a lemonade stand, I didn't have a paper route when I was a kid, I didn't go to college. Yeah, I didn't have that. I didn't know math, I didn't know business, marketing, sales. So a lot of it was the internal stuff for me and getting over the fear of not being good enough. That has been the
Frank Hereda (24:23.842)
Yeah, the same story as everybody else, yeah.
Kevin Palmieri (24:39.149)
biggest barrier for me for pretty much my entire life and just being scared of everything that I do and then just trying to do it anyway. Those are, it's been the internal stuff for me. That's why I'm so focused on internal stuff because that was the barrier for
Frank Hereda (24:47.533)
Mm -hmm.
Frank Hereda (24:54.104)
So I think that some people, a lot of people, it's probably internal. They may not just not know it. Some know it. Some are so self -aware they get it. And some, I think a lot, aren't. They're just like, it's not me. It's everybody else. Where do you recommend they start on the self -improvement side? Are we talking books? Are we talking seminars? Are we talking all of it? What should someone be doing on the self -improvement side to make
that as they focus on their business, I mean, I get it, focus, right? Pick one or two things. Don't go 50 and go wide. What I hear you saying is don't go an inch deep and a mile wide, go an inch wide and a mile deep. When they get that down, where are we going for self -improvement? How do we determine?
Kevin Palmieri (25:35.801)
I think it's, yeah, it depends on, it depends on, so we have something called the drive to five. I don't know if Alan talked about the drive to five. When Alan and I started business together, I know, I can't believe he didn't. That's like the best thing we have. How dare he? When we started business together, we realized that Alan is supremely confident, Kevin is supremely insecure. Alan is a 10 on the drive to five, Kevin is a zero. I am self -loathing.
Frank Hereda (25:43.085)
I don't think he did.
Gosh dang it, Alan.
Kevin Palmieri (26:05.825)
Self -deprecating, don't believe in myself. He thinks he can accomplish anything. The drive to five is trying to get to the middle where you're confident yet humble. That's what we aspire to every day. Alan's self -improvement was therapy. Because he believes he doesn't need another tactic. He doesn't need another strategy. He needs to know why he's operating the way he is. He needed to work on vulnerability. He needed to work on being more emotional, emotional intelligence.
communication to the masses. I needed to work on strategy, being more organized, being more logical, being more business savvy. So if you're an emotionally driven person, the best answer I can give is you need to work on the stuff that you're afraid of working on, that you don't want to work on and you think is a waste of time. And it's the same on the other end. If you're supremely confident, you need to work on humility.
You need to work on emotional intelligence and you need to work on communicating with people who don't think like you because Alan and I have been doing that for seven years and we have so many lessons that other people might not have the privilege of having because most people like me don't spend time with Alan's. He's triggering. He triggers the heck out of me. Most Alan's don't spend time with Kevin's because they think I'm soft and I'm emotionally driven and that type of stuff. So it's usually
The self -improvement you need the most is the one you want the least, and you don't think it's gonna be valuable, but that's because you already have the other stuff. You probably don't need to keep pouring gasoline on a fire that's already burning that break.
Frank Hereda (27:50.242)
Gotcha. Okay. Interesting.
If you're on one extreme, you want to work towards the other side to get to the middle. And if you're on the, you know, I get it. Okay. So that's what someone's going to do. They're going to focus on one and go towards the other. I believe in investing in yourself. I'm curious to know, you know, how do you find that balance when you're building a business,
I think there's a lot of people out there that are building a business and they're like, you I don't have time for the self -improvement stuff. I've got to run this business. I've got to get new clients and customers. My processes and systems are all over the place. I'm not organized. How much time should you be spending on self -improvement while you're trying to run a business?
Kevin Palmieri (28:36.409)
You'd be surprised at what a half hour a day can do. I would say start with five minutes. And then when five minutes become sustainable and easy, add another five and keep going. But my goal has been 30 minutes a day. That's been my goal for the last probably five years. And 99 % of the time I hit that. And it's helped me tremendously. So for me, it's more about the fact of what is something that you can do sustainably
You can do it consistently and then you can improve it as you go. I think that's probably the best answer I could give is start with whatever time you have. Do you mobility before you go to the gym in the morning? All right, cool. Is that 15 minutes? Awesome. What can we do to have it stack? Are you doing cardio? Awesome. Let's do that. Do you have a ride somewhere? You're driving somewhere. Awesome. Do it then. I would start very, very, very small because it adds up. If 30 minutes a day is that adds up quickly.
Frank Hereda (29:31.736)
Sure, of course. Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so if you had to say, I'm building a business no matter what stage I'm in, what are the top three, I hate to say the word things, but what are the top three priorities that would help me build my business as far as, you talked about podcasting, so I'm guessing podcasting's gonna be one of them.
But what are the things that we can do for branding slash marketing our business? What would you say? What's, what's been the best for
Kevin Palmieri (30:08.429)
Yeah, podcasting for sure. I would say podcasting, social media, and honestly, one that we didn't do and we avoided like the plague, probably networking events. Because you can kind of, I went to, I spoke at a high level mastermind recently, and I realized that all the people there want to help other people win. So it's almost
It's not weird when you talk about what you do and whether or not it's aligned to work together, because it makes sense. It's like, yeah, you do this, I need that. We know each other, let's just do it. You're able to skip steps when you do stuff like that. We were anti -networking, probably to a fault. We just stay in our own little cove and grind our faces off and we'll be successful eventually. But I think there's something to that as long as it's with aligned people. Podcasting is a great way to create content. It's a great way to create potential lead gen.
but it's a great opportunity to form the momentum of a group. Podcasts do not create communities. You create the community from the podcast. So that's a whole nother thing that obviously, right? Social media is a great way to talk to your potential clients and audience. Email lists too, but I think social media is different. And then I would say networking, yeah. You can, you never know. You might just find someone who wants something that you do.
and you can skip the entire sales and marketing process and just have a one -on -one conversation with
Frank Hereda (31:38.446)
totally agree, I love the networking piece. I feel like a lot of people are missing that nowadays. Let's stay on the social media and podcasting piece for a second. So I hear social media and I don't put, and you can do video on social, but I don't put YouTube in the social media category. Do you or do you
Kevin Palmieri (31:56.779)
No, I put it, I put that in its own, it's almost like YouTube slash podcast. I kind of connect
Frank Hereda (31:59.79)
So do I. Yeah. Okay. I do too. So if we're doing social, all channels, are you picking certain channels? What's the strategy? Because I feel like there's a lot of people out there that get there. I feel like a lot of people in the branding slash marketing side are where you said you don't want to be. They're trying to do 50 things because they don't understand it. And that's what they're doing. And nothing's getting done well. They're just put, if they do anything, they're just putting stuff out there that has, there's no strategy.
Talk to me about what your strategy or what you would recommend for anybody out there that's an entrepreneur.
Kevin Palmieri (32:35.735)
Yeah, my strategy has always been, it's my job to find people, it's not their job to find me. So what I did in the very beginning, and I still try to do, is every time I get a follower on whatever platform, I send them a video. Hey Frank, thank you so much for the follow, I appreciate it my friend, please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you. Nobody's gonna forget that. That person might never be a client, a listener, whatever it is.
but they're gonna look at me a little bit differently than they ever would have if I didn't send that message.
Frank Hereda (33:08.802)
But Kevin, I don't like video and you're saying it sounds like a lot of work, Kevin. Are you sure I need to send a video to everybody?
Kevin Palmieri (33:10.905)
It is yep, You don't have to but Imagine that you listen to a podcast you listen to them every week You've been listening to him for three years and one day The host of that podcast sends you a video message. You ever gonna listen to another podcast. No, you're good You're in you're in the community. It's one of those things that I consider highly unscalable, but hyper valuable Doesn't have to be to everyone
You can send a custom written message if you want, but anybody can copy and paste that. You can't copy and paste a video where I use your
Frank Hereda (33:47.406)
Well, it engages more senses
Kevin Palmieri (33:49.337)
100 % and it's just personal we're going we're going so far away from personal now so the more that you can stay there, but I again I understand it's hyper unscalable and there are potential fears there if you're afraid of being on video my my perspective in my Strategy for lack of better phrasing with social media has not been gain as many followers as possible Go viral. It's more Look at the
look at the metrics and then I start conversations with people that are potentially engaging with my content. That's really it for me. I don't care how many followers I have. I don't care how many likes I get. I look at my story every day. Who's watching my story? I haven't talked to Caitlin in a year. Let me message Caitlin. Hey, Caitlin, long time no talk. How are things? It's just more to stay top of mind than anything from from my perspective. I'm not looking for conversions. I'm looking for conversations on
Frank Hereda (34:45.304)
Sure, sure. tell me about time, like, you know, lot of entrepreneurs, my advice to them is to make time, time block time, set time aside, whatever you want to call it, to do this working on your business or working on your marketing, right? So how do you get people to do this? I mean, is that, would you recommend that? What would you recommend?
Kevin Palmieri (35:09.337)
We have been very much tracking habits. So the way I've always done it and the way I've suggested it to other people is I kind of treat it like Tetris, where let's say I have 10 habits that I'm trying to accomplish. I will look at my calendar and see whatever blank space I have and then I'll say, all right, cool. I have from one to 1 .30 open. All right, I'm gonna spend 10 minutes on social and then I'll send those. have three emails I need to send. I'll take care of that. And
Cool, I'll be able to fill my water, use the bathroom and get on my next call. So I always treated it kind of like a game of Tetris where it's my job to fit in these habits within the amount of time that I have. I think time blocking is really, really, really good. You can always do certain days where like if you have a podcast, Monday's recording day, Tuesday is whatever, lead gen day where I follow up with people. I find that works really well too because you're not habit switching.
It's really hard to be on a podcast and then do a coaching call and then do back office work. It's like, I'm not prepared. I want to be on camera all day or I don't want to be on camera at all, but that's also a privilege or you can't necessarily do that in the beginning. So one of those two things, track habits, because that way you have the metrics and you can play Tetris or yeah, to your point, Frank, I think it's important to, to time block if you can, you just have to understand
Some days you're gonna wanna do something more than you are doing the thing that you are supposed to be doing, but that's what tomorrow's for, or that's what the next block is for. It's a fine line between patience and procrastination. I think it's a very, very fine
Frank Hereda (36:49.144)
Sure. We're going into, I would even say we're already in, but we won't go there. we're in an interesting market, let's say interesting. And I think that no matter what your business is, I shouldn't say no matter what your business is because some are not as affected as others, but many businesses are gonna have an interesting, tough time, tougher time over the next six months to a year. I'm curious to know what habits, you mentioned habits.
What habits would you say serve you well or might be five or eight habits that are definitely habits that should be front and center or disciplines maybe even?
Kevin Palmieri (37:29.561)
I would say learning for 30 minutes a day. That will never go out of style ever ever ever ever ever if anything It's only get more valuable Tracking your finances every single day doesn't matter how much money you're making or how little you're spending You can't go wrong with tracking your finances Some form of connecting with a potential client every day Because the if you wait, it's like I need clients now. It's your six months too late It's gonna take six months to for that cycle to catch
That would be one for sure. Anything you can do to focus on client delivery. So if you're not tracking your time spent for client delivery, that's a whole other thing because client delivery leads to recurrence and referrals.
Frank Hereda (38:14.936)
When you say delivery, you mean like serving the client? Yeah.
Kevin Palmieri (38:18.369)
Whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah for us. It's me and whatsapp every day. I batch my whatsapp every day So that would be one batch Batch connection channels to team slash clients as well as emails You never know you miss an email for three days a person might not respond They might they might have gone somewhere else already. I'm guilty of that for sure. So that's Man I would say exercise
Frank Hereda (38:47.566)
Hmm.
Kevin Palmieri (38:47.573)
I know it has nothing to do with business, but there's something about it. There's something about it when you're dialed in and you're getting up and you're moving your body, your mental health probably going to be better. You know, you're doing hard things. You're to be able to do more hard things. That's one for
And then I would say, I think it's important to track the amount of R &R that you
for a long time, it was, for me, was a minimum of one hour a day, R and R. Because if I don't take that and I get burnt out, if I lose two days, I'm not gonna be able to keep momentum. I'd rather have one proactive hour per night so I can actually work every day like I'm supposed to or whatever it may be. So I would try to figure out whatever that is for you. Maybe it's not an hour, maybe it's a half hour, maybe it's two hours. But we're talking about sustainability.
We're trying to create sustainable long -term systems. And they have to start with something that you can actually do and do for the long run. So those are probably the ones that I would start with.
Frank Hereda (39:56.398)
I mean, that's a good list. It's a good list. I could probably add a couple, but there you could probably interchange them. It's, it's tough because there's, there's actually a lot and it's, know, you, you do a lot in a day. know I do. And to, choose, you know, which are important or how many there are, but, these are all really good. It's a good list. So, you mentioned track finances every day, which I totally agree with,
Kevin Palmieri (39:58.263)
Yeah, I appreciate
Kevin Palmieri (40:15.385)
I appreciate
Frank Hereda (40:24.472)
You know, I think the last person I heard even mentioned tracking finances on a daily basis is Grant Cardone. He's so big on tracking finances daily. But I'm curious, what should you be tracking? Like what of your finances? So are you saying, hey, did I make money today? Are you tracking what's in your bank account? Both? What you spent on expenses? What are we looking at? A balance sheet? What do you think?
Kevin Palmieri (40:49.571)
Yeah, money in, money out, and cash on hand. Those are really, it's very hard to change your behavior if you do not have hyper awareness of the behavior. And that's why a lot of the stuff we do is, it's not, it's systematized, but it's systematized through effort. That way, our awareness is always the filter. Like I didn't realize I spent, we had a, this was years ago. We were doing
Frank Hereda (40:52.535)
Okay.
Kevin Palmieri (41:18.617)
a finance check. And we got to the end of the month and I was like, I spent $600 on food this month. And that doesn't include groceries. my goodness. that's where my money's going. I was tracking it the whole time, but I wasn't paying attention. It's like, yep, 24. Okay, 36. All right, cool. I think taking five extra minutes and saying, okay, last week I spent X amount. It was on this, it was on this, it was on this, it was on this. Awesome.
Frank Hereda (41:26.733)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Palmieri (41:48.313)
my numbers for last week were lower than my average weekly income by 30%. Why? What happened there? yeah, we lost that big client. So it's just an awareness thing. It's an awareness thing for
Frank Hereda (42:00.034)
Yeah, I agree. Tracking and measuring everything is important. I think that's huge. I don't, I mean, most people don't even do it once, twice a year. I think that also ties in with having, you know, most people that have a small business. mean, maybe not, but they should have a CPA. a lot of them probably use like a, an accounting software, but they should have a CPA in my opinion. But I think that's important twice a year, at least.
Maybe four times a year on a quarterly basis, bookkeeper, something regular like that. it's from a tax standpoint. I think that's really
Kevin Palmieri (42:35.243)
I agree. agree. Understandable in the beginning if financially it's hard to do, but it's like you're going to save money most likely.
Frank Hereda (42:38.507)
Yeah, sure.
I agree. Okay. And you mentioned exercise, which I love. Absolutely important. There's no doubt about it. how much do you exercise every
Kevin Palmieri (42:54.713)
I'm not like Alan. I think Alan's every day for the last two and a half years he hasn't missed. I'm not as much a robot like him. I do more bodybuilding style than he does. So I think I've been in the gym 29 out of the last 30 days or
Frank Hereda (43:10.2)
Got a good record going there, man. Two and a half years every day. That's that's solid. Yeah. Well, he's that's definitely you think maniacal, you think discipline like for sure. Good for him. That's awesome. Okay. So anything else that you think is important, if I'm an entrepreneur that that we haven't talked about that you're like, Hey, this would definitely make a difference.
Kevin Palmieri (43:11.405)
I'm trying to keep up with him. It's almost impossible, Frank.
Kevin Palmieri (43:25.677)
Yeah, that's Alan.
Frank Hereda (43:38.742)
Anything else that we think is important that you would definitely recommend to somebody for their business.
Kevin Palmieri (43:44.697)
Yeah, a couple things. One, I would sit down, I would write out a list of your core values, your core beliefs and your core aspirations and have an honest conversation about are the desires for your goals today the same as they were in the beginning? Because if any, if there's any resistance going on, some of it might be because you don't want the same results you once did. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. That's let's have that awareness now instead of five years down the line when we chase this thing we don't want. That would be one. And the other one would
If you're systematizing your business, make sure your relationships are systematized too, especially your intimate relationships. So one of the things we didn't really discuss that I do is every night, my wife and I play the gratitude game. So that's one habit I have on my list. I have another one called kitchen man, where Kevin takes care of the kitchen because when the kitchen is clean and the dishes are clean and the sink is clean, my wife's mental health is better, which means our relationship has an opportunity to
higher quality. And then I also have something called proactive thoughtfulness, a habit that I track every day. It's called proactive thoughtfulness because it's very easy to get lost in the day to day and forget that I haven't gotten my wife flowers in six months. So it's a nice reminder that, you should do something nice for your wife today. We're trying to systematize growing the business and social media and this and this and this. But I think at times we forget that our relationships
unfortunately if they're not a priority they will come last and the people on the other end of that coming last are probably not going to be super happy so adding those habits in has been a genuine game changer for me because when my relationship is great I'm on fire and I'm not worried about whether or not we're connected and I can go to battle every day knowing that my partner is is right there with
Frank Hereda (45:37.132)
I love that. I love that list, but it made me think of questions. So let's say I'm sitting here and I'm like, man, you know, I'm a little lost or I'm doing a bunch of things and I'm trying to figure out what is the most important things I need to be doing right now. And that comes to the awareness you mentioned. So I'm curious, what questions should I be asking myself to say, okay, am I, do I really want this? Is this the goal I'm really after?
Am I doing the tasks that are gonna get me that thing and is that thing still the thing that I want?
Kevin Palmieri (46:08.673)
Yeah, it's always hard because it's a very tough process. think one of the reasons it's so hard is because we determine goals first and then we start the process. I always try to reverse it and say, tell me what you want your day -to -day life to look like, and then we can set goals based on
Frank Hereda (46:10.936)
It's a tough process.
Frank Hereda (46:28.514)
That's interesting. So I'm gonna say what I want to do every day and then I will say, okay, well, what is this gonna get me essentially?
Kevin Palmieri (46:39.339)
Yeah, because I don't know. I feel like the reason most of us don't accomplish our goals is not because we don't want them. It's because we get to the place where we realize, I don't want to do this process anymore. I don't want to do it like I'm doing it. So in my mind, the goal was actually never aligned to begin with because you were never going to do the behaviors long enough to get
Frank Hereda (46:59.638)
Okay. Okay.
Kevin Palmieri (47:01.421)
So it's a really challenging, it's like, I would sit down and really, okay, what are your top core values? Do you value family time more than you've ever admitted before? And has that changed since your partner now works from home or your children are older or you're about to have children? All right, let's get honest about that. Do you value fitness? Do you value health? Like, okay, why aren't we doing more of that? Why are we putting our health on the backseat to grow the business?
when that's not actually what you want. The core beliefs are, what do you believe about the world? Go
Frank Hereda (47:36.714)
Okay. I think I get where you're going. So this would be where I tell my clients to clear their schedule and they're making a schedule. And I say, put down your non -negotiables first. And that's, that's what I hear from you on it's you're just using core values instead of non -negotiables core values. Absolutely important. I also believe that if you have your four to seven ish core values, then you can, you use that to base all decision -making off of. So it's like, is this aligned with core values? I hire, I fired this, I make decisions for the day, you know, that kind of thing.
But okay, so I hear what you're saying. So if I have a business and I say, okay, well, it's exercise, it's family time, done, but I also wanna do, like, I'm doing three or four different things. So you're saying, well, I would put in my schedule, well, to do these four things, I would have to do X, Y, and Z to get my day full of working with this client.
doing this thing on this other business, you're just backing into it that way. It's just the reverse of backing into it the other
Kevin Palmieri (48:37.399)
Yeah, it's almost like you prioritize your priorities first and then you figure out based on that what do you think you can get for goals? And again, it's not for everyone, right? That's not the way to do it for everyone.
Frank Hereda (48:46.156)
Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. But it's interesting take. Yeah, it's an interesting take. think everybody, so many people go to goals first, I agree with you. But I think it's an interesting take on maybe a different way to do
Kevin Palmieri (49:00.281)
It's one of those things where when I signed up to do a bodybuilding show, my coach told me exactly what it was gonna take. He said, Kev, if you want to win, you will suffer more than anyone else. Okay. I'm glad he said that because he told me exactly what it was going to take. He told me exactly what I was gonna have to sacrifice. If I signed up to do that again and he said that, I wouldn't do it. I
I can't do it anymore like I used to. got a business, I have a wife, I have a household, I can't go to the gym three times a day like I used to. It's not feasible
Frank Hereda (49:35.48)
Sure. Yeah. And I think that it's, it makes sense because it's interesting. I would, I might be able to make the case that we make goals in hopes that if we achieve that goal, we can then have the daily schedule we want. And what you're saying is start with the daily schedule you want. And then that gets you what it gets you essentially is what you're saying.
Kevin Palmieri (49:59.129)
Kind of, yeah, because I've seen so many people who, one of the weirdest things about coaching, Frank, and I don't know if you coach different people for sure than I have, but I have taken so many people, had a conversation with them, and then by the end of the call, they go do something completely different because they realize what they wanted wasn't aligned at all. Right? And it's like, if we didn't have that conversation, were you just going to chase that for the next five years and then wind up wildly unfulfilled one day?
Frank Hereda (50:17.334)
Yes, that happens.
Frank Hereda (50:26.092)
Or probably quit earlier because they would come up their own realization at some point. Just wouldn't have taken. It would take longer.
Kevin Palmieri (50:29.633)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's where that perspective even came from. For me, it's like, I don't think people quit because they don't want the goal anymore. I think they quit because they hate the process. It's like, okay.
Frank Hereda (50:39.554)
Well, think that, and I think these are great points, but I think also it takes some sort of, some level of self awareness to like, you've got to do this check. It's almost like an audit on your, on your time slash what am I doing? Because you can design a schedule that's great and you love, but it may not get you anything that you need. Like it won't, you won't make more money cause you want to eat donuts all day or, you know, be in good shape.
You know what saying? So you've got to have some level of discipline to be like, okay, I got to be real with myself. What are the things I really want in my day, but that will get me to what I want to
Kevin Palmieri (51:07.214)
Yeah.
Kevin Palmieri (51:17.431)
Yeah, you can't put down spend four hours a day at the beach and then expect to be a multimillionaire by the end of the year, most likely not going to happen unless you're a supermodel. And that's what you do at the beach. You take pictures like maybe that's a line. But you Yeah, you have to be. I don't like to use the word realistic, but you have to be realistic with it. Just like you have to be realistic with when you're setting your goals. If I want if I say I want to be a trillionaire, it's like, I got to do some different stuff than I'm doing. But if I want
Frank Hereda (51:22.242)
That's right. That's right.
Frank Hereda (51:42.766)
That's right. That's right.
Kevin Palmieri (51:45.303)
you know, whatever, make a million dollars next year. It's different. It's just a different set of habits. Last thing, don't be afraid to let things change. We have check -ins, Alan and I have check -ins weekly to see what is aligned and what's no longer aligned, but there's always the big three, building demand, client delivery, and self -improvement. Those three always stay, but sometimes
I didn't post on social media for this week. didn't do this for this week. I didn't do this. There's a lot of flexibility in the constraints.
Frank Hereda (52:23.02)
I like the big three.
for
Kevin Palmieri (52:26.967)
And podcasting is one of our big three, we never miss.
Frank Hereda (52:30.35)
So that's That's hilarious. That's cool. So wrapping up, where can people find you? yeah, well, where can people find you? That's the best, that's the best question.
Kevin Palmieri (52:32.407)
well you need you need for if you want to have a a successful podcast
Kevin Palmieri (52:52.663)
Yeah, I always just say search Next Level University. It's free. It's the best way to get to know us and see what we do. We're on all the podcast platforms. Every episode is on YouTube and in 4K. So that is the best place.
Frank Hereda (53:05.336)
Cool. awesome. I appreciate it, man. Thank you for your time today. Great conversation, man. And thank you for sharing your personal story with us. It's cool. It is. It really is. And I'll put all the links in the show notes as usual. Everybody knows where to find me frank, rita .com and, that's a wrap. So thanks for joining us everybody. And, we'll catch you all on the next episode. Take care everybody.
Kevin Palmieri (53:09.785)
Likewise, I appreciate you, Frank. You're wonderful. Thank you. You as well.
Of course, that's what it's all about.
Information:
Frank Hereda (Business Coach): www.frankhereda.com
Kevin Palmieri: www.nextleveluniverse.com
