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From Despair to Podcasting Powerhouse with Kevin Palmieri · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let's go.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:36
  Tom: Hey, hey, hey, heart-led heroes, get ready to prance through the podcasting world with the king of the airwaves himself, Kevin Palmieri.
• 0:45
  Tom: Master of mirth and motivation, Kevin turned tragedy into triumph, tripling up as an esteemed entrepreneur, unrepentant role model, and a pioneering podcaster.
• 0:57
  Tom: He's here to unpack his podcasting prowess and pour out his passion on today's fantastic episode of the Heart-Led Business Show.
• 1:06
  Tom: So, sit tight and get set for some awesome hearty laughs on this electrifying episode.
• 1:13
  Tom: Kevin, welcome to the show.
• 1:15
  Kevin Palmieri: What a wonderful introduction.
• 1:17
  Kevin Palmieri: I appreciate that so very much.
• 1:19
  Kevin Palmieri: I am excited to chat.
• 1:20
  Kevin Palmieri: Hopefully again, I can live up to the reputation you have created for me.
• 1:23
  Tom: Well, you know, you wrote it.
• 1:25
  Tom: No, I'm just kidding.
• 1:27
  Kevin Palmieri: There's that Peter background right there.
• 1:29
  Tom: That's exactly it.
• 1:30
  Tom: It is all true.
• 1:32
  Tom: I'm really excited to have you on the show because I think your story really embodies what the show is all about, being a heart-led business.
• 1:39
  Tom: But let's first start with what is your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:44
  Kevin Palmieri: My definition is you put people over profit because I have a deep belief that if you treat people like people and you constantly over deliver, ultimately you're going to end up profiting from that in the long-term anyway.
• 1:59
  Kevin Palmieri: So yeah, people over profit relationships over revenue.
• 2:03
  Kevin Palmieri: I think that's one of the best things I ever learned early on in business.
• 2:06
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 2:07
  Kevin Palmieri: And it's so interesting though, that many businesses fail to recognize that.
• 2:12
  Kevin Palmieri: And it's always you just wonder why, you know?
• 2:15
  Kevin Palmieri: Well, it does seem very counterintuitive.
• 2:17
  Kevin Palmieri: I mean, I went to a conference one time and this is how I knew the conference wasn't for me.
• 2:21
  Kevin Palmieri: The first line, the opening line was everybody here knows business is about making money.
• 2:26
  Kevin Palmieri: Business is about facilitating change.
• 2:29
  Kevin Palmieri: It's about creating opportunity.
• 2:31
  Kevin Palmieri: It's about creating transformation, whatever it is, solving a problem.
• 2:35
  Kevin Palmieri: Money is a wonderful byproduct of that transformation.
• 2:38
  Kevin Palmieri: And after that, I don't want to be here anymore.
• 2:41
  Kevin Palmieri: These aren't my people.
• 2:42
  Kevin Palmieri: This isn't why I'm doing it.
• 2:44
  Kevin Palmieri: So, we ended up not staying for very long.
• 2:46
  Kevin Palmieri: We ended up leaving shortly thereafter.
• 2:48
  Tom: Wow.
• 2:48
  Tom: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Tom: What about value though?
• 2:50
  Tom: Like is a business about creating value?
• 2:52
  Kevin Palmieri: I would say yes.
• 2:53
  Kevin Palmieri: And I think depending on the end consumer value is just different.
• 2:58
  Kevin Palmieri: This was always my thought.
• 3:00
  Kevin Palmieri: No matter how busy we get, no matter how quote unquote big we get, I always want to have the time to send somebody a video on Instagram.
• 3:07
  Kevin Palmieri: And the reason is, as you get less and less and less accessible, that gets more and more and more and more valuable.
• 3:14
  Kevin Palmieri: That value is not necessarily going to help them make any money or have a better relationship.
• 3:19
  Kevin Palmieri: It's just, wow, this person that I value took the time out to send me some love.
• 3:24
  Kevin Palmieri: So yeah, I think value is very contextual, but yes, I do believe business is about creating, facilitating and delivering value.
• 3:32
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 3:33
  Tom: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Tom: I just wanted to, because when people say like business is about making money, part of that is value.
• 3:39
  Tom: Like to me, I think business is about creating value for other people and money.
• 3:45
  Tom: It's the side product of that.
• 3:47
  Tom: Yeah.
• 3:48
  Tom: Okay.
• 3:48
  Kevin Palmieri: I agree with that.
• 3:48
  Tom: Cool.
• 3:49
  Tom: So what inspired you to create a heart-led business?
• 3:52
  Kevin Palmieri: I am not a natural entrepreneur.
• 3:53
  Kevin Palmieri: I didn't have the paper route.
• 3:55
  Kevin Palmieri: I never had the lemonade stand.
• 3:56
  Kevin Palmieri: I wasn't trading baseball cards, you know, selling candy bars, any of that.
• 4:01
  Kevin Palmieri: I am someone who didn't have a lot of success in life.
• 4:05
  Kevin Palmieri: And eventually I got success at a job, I ended up sitting on the edge of a bed contemplating suicide because I was just so miserable, and I was so misaligned, and I was so unfulfilled, and when I started this journey, my thought was helping people feels really good.
• 4:23
  Kevin Palmieri: Being the type of person that I needed when I was really suffering, it feels right to me.
• 4:28
  Kevin Palmieri: That's where I feel like I should be.
• 4:30
  Kevin Palmieri: And if I could ever find a way to make that financially stable and sustainable, I would have the best life ever of all time.
• 4:39
  Kevin Palmieri: That has been the deep belief that has kept me going this whole time.
• 4:43
  Kevin Palmieri: So really, my ultimate goal is to hopefully be the person that I can be when I was at my lowest point and that person wouldn't say, well, thank you so much for DMing me.
• 4:55
  Kevin Palmieri: Unfortunately, I can't answer unless you send me 25 dollars or 50 dollars or whatever it is.
• 5:00
  Kevin Palmieri: I don't want to be that person, even if that's at the detriment of other things.
• 5:06
  Kevin Palmieri: I'd rather be me.
• 5:08
  Kevin Palmieri: I'd rather be real.
• 5:09
  Kevin Palmieri: I'd rather be authentic.
• 5:10
  Kevin Palmieri: So, I would say for me, it comes from a deep pain of not resonating with most people, and not feeling like the person on the other end of whatever it was ever really cared.
• 5:22
  Kevin Palmieri: It always seemed more transactional in everything I did.
• 5:25
  Kevin Palmieri: So my goal was to make a company and a business and a journey that didn't revolve around transactional experiences.
• 5:32
  Tom: Yeah, that's really, that's profound.
• 5:34
  Tom: Thank you for sharing that.
• 5:36
  Tom: Going back to like, what was the business that you were in before changing that where you got the success and, but it wasn't fulfilling for you?
• 5:43
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah, so I was a foreman at a company that did weatherization.
• 5:48
  Kevin Palmieri: So I worked at a company where we would go into large buildings, usually schools, and we would make those buildings more energy efficient.
• 5:56
  Kevin Palmieri: And since we were working for the state slash government contracts, I was making anywhere from 60 to 120 dollars an hour.
• 6:03
  Kevin Palmieri: So in my mind, I found my gig.
• 6:06
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm going to do this forever.
• 6:07
  Kevin Palmieri: This is the best thing ever.
• 6:08
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm making a boatload of money.
• 6:10
  Tom: At what age?
• 6:10
  Kevin Palmieri: And you know, I was twenty-four when I got the job, 23 or 24 when I first got it, yeah.
• 6:18
  Kevin Palmieri: And I only lasted until I was 28.
• 6:20
  Kevin Palmieri: It was just too much, but I had so many powerful lessons from that of, do you know what I did, Tom?
• 6:26
  Kevin Palmieri: I put money over everything.
• 6:28
  Kevin Palmieri: I put money over my health, my physical, my mental, my emotional, my spiritual health.
• 6:34
  Kevin Palmieri: I put it over relationships.
• 6:36
  Kevin Palmieri: I put it over the things I valued.
• 6:38
  Kevin Palmieri: So I also had that lesson early on that.
• 6:40
  Kevin Palmieri: If you want to start a business, that's amazing.
• 6:42
  Kevin Palmieri: If you want to start a business that makes a lot of money, that's also amazing.
• 6:45
  Kevin Palmieri: But if you trade in your core values and your core beliefs for that, it's going to be a very empty journey.
• 6:51
  Tom: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:52
  Tom: 100%.
• 6:53
  Tom: So what was that journey like, you know, where you were sitting at the corner of your bed?
• 6:58
  Tom: And then what was the switch to, one, keep you here.
• 7:02
  Tom: So thank you for not doing what you're contemplating doing and make a shift.
• 7:07
  Tom: So what did that look like when you made the shift?
• 7:09
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah, it all started when I was 25 from the outside looking in, you would think I had everything.
• 7:15
  Kevin Palmieri: And we hear this story, right?
• 7:17
  Kevin Palmieri: So this is such a common, common, common story.
• 7:19
  Kevin Palmieri: My girlfriend was a model.
• 7:21
  Kevin Palmieri: I had this high paying job.
• 7:23
  Kevin Palmieri: I had a sports car.
• 7:24
  Kevin Palmieri: I had a new apartment and to top it all off, I was competing in a bodybuilding show, so I was quite literally in the best shape I've ever been in.
• 7:33
  Kevin Palmieri: I have pictures.
• 7:33
  Kevin Palmieri: You can see every vein.
• 7:35
  Kevin Palmieri: It was brutal.
• 7:36
  Kevin Palmieri: It was brutal.
• 7:36
  Kevin Palmieri: So anybody looking in would be like, oh my goodness, health, wealth, and love.
• 7:41
  Tom: Yeah.
• 7:41
  Tom: Picture perfect.
• 7:42
  Kevin Palmieri: He's got it all.
• 7:43
  Kevin Palmieri: And then my girlfriend left me because I was just not, I was a shell of a man.
• 7:48
  Kevin Palmieri: I was depressed.
• 7:49
  Kevin Palmieri: I was anxious.
• 7:50
  Kevin Palmieri: I was insecure.
• 7:52
  Kevin Palmieri: I had no idea who I was.
• 7:55
  Kevin Palmieri: So that was my initial rock bottom.
• 7:57
  Kevin Palmieri: When she left, I'm thinking who's ever going to love me.
• 8:00
  Kevin Palmieri: How am I going to continue this?
• 8:02
  Kevin Palmieri: How am I going to continue this charade?
• 8:03
  Kevin Palmieri: I wish that was the point where I started going all in on me and self improvement.
• 8:07
  Kevin Palmieri: It wasn't.
• 8:09
  Kevin Palmieri: I convinced myself that I just hadn't made the right amount of money yet.
• 8:12
  Kevin Palmieri: And that keeps coming up, right?
• 8:13
  Kevin Palmieri: That's a theme in my life.
• 8:15
  Kevin Palmieri: So I said, well, if I make like a hundred grand next year, I'm sure a lot of these problems will just start to fade away.
• 8:21
  Kevin Palmieri: That was my deep belief at the time.
• 8:23
  Kevin Palmieri: So, that next year I spent 10 months living in hotels, because most of our contracts were in other states.
• 8:29
  Kevin Palmieri: I lived in New Hampshire at the time.
• 8:31
  Kevin Palmieri: I spent months in Virginia, months in New Jersey, months in Connecticut, New York, all over the place.
• 8:38
  Kevin Palmieri: So we get to the end of that year, and my final pay stub in hand, I open it up.
• 8:43
  Kevin Palmieri: Ooh, there it is.
• 8:44
  Kevin Palmieri: I did it.
• 8:45
  Kevin Palmieri: I crossed that, that six figure mark, but nothing changed.
• 8:49
  Kevin Palmieri: I still was insecure, if not more insecure than I had been in the past.
• 8:53
  Kevin Palmieri: I was still depressed.
• 8:54
  Kevin Palmieri: I was still anxious.
• 8:55
  Kevin Palmieri: I still didn't know who I was.
• 8:57
  Kevin Palmieri: I still didn't know what I valued.
• 8:59
  Kevin Palmieri: So I realized in that moment that for most of my life, I had lived unconsciously.
• 9:03
  Kevin Palmieri: Don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing.
• 9:05
  Kevin Palmieri: The opposite of unconscious is hyperconscious.
• 9:08
  Kevin Palmieri: So in 2017, I started a podcast called the Hyperconscious Podcast.
• 9:11
  Kevin Palmieri: That was my dipping my toes into this whole world.
• 9:15
  Kevin Palmieri: Much like you, I can tell I fell in love with the podcast, but there weren't people lining up saying, Kev, you're amazing.
• 9:21
  Kevin Palmieri: Let me give you a bunch of money so you can talk into this microphone.
• 9:25
  Kevin Palmieri: So I had to keep going to this, this job and I started to loathe it because I already achieved my goal and I'm not willing to do what it takes to achieve that goal again.
• 9:34
  Kevin Palmieri: Every time I'd leave on Sunday, I'd pack my bag and I would get this empty feeling in my stomach.
• 9:40
  Kevin Palmieri: I was homesick before I got out of the driveway.
• 9:42
  Kevin Palmieri: I just didn't want to do it anymore, right?
• 9:43
  Kevin Palmieri: So, I started calling out of work, I started leaving the job site early, I started showing up late, and I just wanted out.
• 9:50
  Kevin Palmieri: And that all led to a morning where I woke up in a hotel room in New Jersey, probably five, five thirty in the morning, sat up, slid to the edge of the bed.
• 10:00
  Kevin Palmieri: I was lacing up my work boots as I had done a thousand times before.
• 10:04
  Kevin Palmieri: But the best way to explain it, that morning it was like there was ten televisions on in my head at the same time, and every single one is on a different station.
• 10:13
  Kevin Palmieri: And it's just noise and distraction and, and overwhelm.
• 10:17
  Kevin Palmieri: And one of these channels is saying, Kev, you are stuck at this job forever.
• 10:23
  Kevin Palmieri: People like you, no college degree, no real skills, don't get opportunities like this.
• 10:30
  Kevin Palmieri: Never mind leave them behind.
• 10:31
  Kevin Palmieri: If you did work up the courage or stupidity to leave this job, what would your friends think?
• 10:37
  Kevin Palmieri: They all look up to you.
• 10:38
  Kevin Palmieri: There's a lot of significance there.
• 10:39
  Kevin Palmieri: What would your family think?
• 10:41
  Kevin Palmieri: I make more money than anybody in my family ever has.
• 10:44
  Kevin Palmieri: And then this was the big one.
• 10:46
  Kevin Palmieri: Do you really think you're going to have a podcast that you turn into a business?
• 10:50
  Kevin Palmieri: That's what we're going to do.
• 10:51
  Kevin Palmieri: That's it.
• 10:51
  Kevin Palmieri: That's our plan C or plan D, whatever it is at this point.
• 10:55
  Kevin Palmieri: So it was in that moment where I had that thought of, well, I'm six hours away from anybody who cares about me.
• 11:02
  Kevin Palmieri: If I was just to take my life, I would just take all my problems with me.
• 11:06
  Kevin Palmieri: I was very, and I am very blessed to have a wonderful friend who's now my business partner.
• 11:10
  Kevin Palmieri: And that's one of the reasons our business is as heart-led as it is, as heart centered.
• 11:15
  Kevin Palmieri: I reached out to him and I said, Hey man, I'm really struggling.
• 11:17
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm having these thoughts, these feelings, these emotions.
• 11:19
  Kevin Palmieri: I don't know what to do.
• 11:20
  Kevin Palmieri: And he said, Kev, over the last couple of years, your awareness, hyperconscious has changed a ton, but your environments have remained the same.
• 11:27
  Kevin Palmieri: I think it's time for you to change your environment.
• 11:30
  Kevin Palmieri: And for me, that was like a light at the end of the tunnel of, Oh, maybe I'm not stuck at this job.
• 11:36
  Kevin Palmieri: So, three or four months later, I ended up leaving my job.
• 11:39
  Kevin Palmieri: And then, him and I partnered up.
• 11:42
  Kevin Palmieri: And then in, yeah, in 2018, I went full time into trying to figure all this out.
• 11:47
  Kevin Palmieri: And in the very beginning, trust me, it's not.
• 11:49
  Kevin Palmieri: I left my job and then boom, here we are at where we are today.
• 11:53
  Kevin Palmieri: I was 30, 000 in credit card debt.
• 11:55
  Kevin Palmieri: I couldn't pay my bills.
• 11:56
  Kevin Palmieri: My car broke down and I couldn't get it fixed.
• 11:58
  Kevin Palmieri: I couldn't buy Christmas presents one year for my now wife.
• 12:02
  Kevin Palmieri: it was a challenge.
• 12:03
  Kevin Palmieri: But I will tell you that when I left that job and when I started doing what I loved and what felt right to me, I may have been the least externally successful I ever was, but I was the most internally fulfilled.
• 12:16
  Kevin Palmieri: And to me, that was a really good suggestion of you're probably on the right path now.
• 12:21
  Tom: Yeah, that's so interesting, and probably at those times where you're having difficulty paying the bills and buying Christmas presents and all that.
• 12:30
  Tom: You were still fulfilled though.
• 12:31
  Kevin Palmieri: Hundred-percent.
• 12:31
  Tom: But you had that now you had that inner drive to actually make a change, create success, whatever that looks like and get out of that issue.
• 12:42
  Tom: That's really good.
• 12:43
  Kevin Palmieri: I appreciate it.
• 12:44
  Kevin Palmieri: I think a lot of people in the past, I was guilty of having my peas in the wrong order.
• 12:49
  Kevin Palmieri: I put my profit over purpose.
• 12:52
  Kevin Palmieri: It just I didn't think I had a purpose.
• 12:54
  Kevin Palmieri: So when I started doing what I loved, it became.
• 12:57
  Kevin Palmieri: I feel like I am in my purpose.
• 12:59
  Kevin Palmieri: What is the vehicle that I can actually make profit with?
• 13:03
  Kevin Palmieri: So this becomes sustainable.
• 13:05
  Kevin Palmieri: I wanted to learn how to swim.
• 13:07
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm in the pool that I love.
• 13:08
  Kevin Palmieri: I need to fit.
• 13:09
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm treading water and not well right now, but I'm treading water.
• 13:13
  Kevin Palmieri: How do I learn how to swim?
• 13:14
  Kevin Palmieri: So yeah, to your point, it became more of that.
• 13:18
  Kevin Palmieri: If only I could figure out a way to make this sustainable.
• 13:21
  Kevin Palmieri: My life would be incredible.
• 13:22
  Kevin Palmieri: I would be able to get to do what I love every single day.
• 13:25
  Kevin Palmieri: Are you kidding me?
• 13:26
  Kevin Palmieri: That never seemed real.
• 13:28
  Kevin Palmieri: So yes, 100 percent accurate.
• 13:30
  Kevin Palmieri: Yes.
• 13:30
  Tom: Yeah.
• 13:31
  Tom: Nice.
• 13:32
  Tom: So then, so fast forward to today.
• 13:34
  Tom: What does your life look like today in your business look like?
• 13:36
  Kevin Palmieri: My goodness.
• 13:37
  Kevin Palmieri: So today we have a top 100.
• 13:40
  Kevin Palmieri: I have two top 100 podcasts.
• 13:42
  Kevin Palmieri: One has 1,727 episodes.
• 13:45
  Kevin Palmieri: The other has 101, I think as of today.
• 13:50
  Kevin Palmieri: So we do seven episodes a week for one.
• 13:52
  Kevin Palmieri: I do one episode a week for the other.
• 13:54
  Kevin Palmieri: So I do a minimum of eight episodes a week, which again, is a dream come true.
• 13:58
  Kevin Palmieri: As overwhelming as it sounds we have a 22 person team all over the world, totally virtual.
• 14:04
  Kevin Palmieri: Canada, West Coast, East Coast, Spain, Philippines, all over the place.
• 14:10
  Kevin Palmieri: Like we have a team and they're all amazing human beings that are super aligned and hear-driven and heart-led.
• 14:16
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm married.
• 14:17
  Kevin Palmieri: I have an amazing relationship with my wife.
• 14:19
  Kevin Palmieri: And I'm the most externally successful I've ever been, but I'm also the most internally fulfilled.
• 14:28
  Kevin Palmieri: And I get to talk to amazing people like you every day.
• 14:30
  Kevin Palmieri: And I coach podcasters and I coach speakers.
• 14:33
  Kevin Palmieri: And it's very weird.
• 14:35
  Kevin Palmieri: It's very weird that I get to do what I get to do every day, because I don't always know how I got here, transparently.
• 14:42
  Kevin Palmieri: I coach people all the time and they say, how'd you get here?
• 14:44
  Kevin Palmieri: It's like, I can't condense seven years of all of that into an hour call.
• 14:47
  Kevin Palmieri: Like there's so much that goes into it.
• 14:50
  Kevin Palmieri: So yeah, that's what my life looks like now.
• 14:52
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm pretty much on camera all day, every day, which is a good way to either like yourself a lot or not like yourself a lot.
• 15:00
  Tom: The day, the hair day, right?
• 15:01
  Tom: So talk about your coaching business or just like, how do you balance the profit side and then leading with heart as well, like how does that look for you?
• 15:13
  Kevin Palmieri: So in the very beginning, I was guilty of saying, okay, I'm going to have a podcast production company and what's everybody else charging, everybody else is charging like 1 to 2,000 dollars a month.
• 15:27
  Kevin Palmieri: That's what I'm going to charge because I want to make as much money as possible.
• 15:29
  Kevin Palmieri: And then I started to realize that for the people that I wanted to help, that wasn't sustainable.
• 15:35
  Kevin Palmieri: I like helping people who are new.
• 15:37
  Kevin Palmieri: I like helping people who are also on a heart-led mission, and sometimes in the beginning, oftentimes, I think heart-led missions start with very little money, and that's okay.
• 15:47
  Kevin Palmieri: That's okay.
• 15:48
  Kevin Palmieri: So it dawned on me pretty quickly that it would be nice to charge 2,000 dollars a month?
• 15:54
  Kevin Palmieri: Sure.
• 15:54
  Kevin Palmieri: Would I be able to help the level of amazing people that I'm able to help, and the people that are in our community, and the people that I actually want to spend time with?
• 16:03
  Kevin Palmieri: Probably not.
• 16:04
  Kevin Palmieri: So it really, for us, was about, okay, how do we get efficient?
• 16:09
  Kevin Palmieri: Whether it's through systems and SOPs and that type of stuff.
• 16:13
  Kevin Palmieri: And then outside of pricing, because our prices are going to be low, right?
• 16:18
  Kevin Palmieri: Our prices are going to be low.
• 16:19
  Kevin Palmieri: What can we do to make sure that we're adding the most value humanly possible?
• 16:24
  Kevin Palmieri: And it was, I don't want it just to be pricing.
• 16:27
  Kevin Palmieri: I don't want us to be the cheapest one.
• 16:30
  Kevin Palmieri: That's why you work with us.
• 16:31
  Kevin Palmieri: I want it to be affordable.
• 16:33
  Kevin Palmieri: I want it to be reliable.
• 16:35
  Kevin Palmieri: I want the communication to be super high.
• 16:37
  Kevin Palmieri: And I want the authenticity to be super high.
• 16:40
  Kevin Palmieri: And that's how we've balanced it.
• 16:42
  Kevin Palmieri: And I guess transparently, the other thing is, I work a lot more than I would if we were making more money.
• 16:49
  Kevin Palmieri: It's, I'd rather keep the mission going.
• 16:52
  Kevin Palmieri: For me, it's not about making the most money and then selling the business or making the most money and then delegating everything.
• 16:58
  Kevin Palmieri: I love what I do.
• 16:59
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm blessed to be able to, to get to do what I do.
• 17:01
  Kevin Palmieri: So that's a, another piece of it.
• 17:03
  Kevin Palmieri: And then a lot of it's delayed gratification.
• 17:05
  Kevin Palmieri: I went to Scotland a couple of weeks ago with my wife and that was the first real vacation I've taken in seven years.
• 17:12
  Tom: Oh, wow.
• 17:13
  Kevin Palmieri: And it was nice.
• 17:14
  Kevin Palmieri: It was really nice.
• 17:15
  Kevin Palmieri: So yeah, those are a few of them.
• 17:17
  Kevin Palmieri: And then I think the last thing is.
• 17:19
  Kevin Palmieri: I understand at the end of the day that the business, the level of success we have, the level of impact, the level of profitability, it will never exceed me.
• 17:27
  Kevin Palmieri: It will never exceed my ability to work on myself, and develop myself, and overcome my fears, and overcome my insecurities and my bottlenecks.
• 17:36
  Kevin Palmieri: We work really, really diligently on ourselves, because I think that's one easy way to increase profitability.
• 17:44
  Kevin Palmieri: Is making yourself more valuable as a human.
• 17:47
  Kevin Palmieri: So that's another cheat code for us is I'm just going to get as good as humanly possible at everything that I do.
• 17:53
  Kevin Palmieri: That's why I have so many podcast episodes.
• 17:56
  Kevin Palmieri: I just want to get good, you know, reps create strength.
• 17:58
  Kevin Palmieri: So yeah, that's another way we do it.
• 18:00
  Tom: Oh, that's good.
• 18:00
  Tom: And how do you work with the team to instill that same work ethic, that same heart-led in the team as well?
• 18:07
  Tom: Cause it, it obviously it has to come top down.
• 18:11
  Kevin Palmieri: The team comes from our community, so they already have similar core values, core beliefs, and core aspirations.
• 18:17
  Kevin Palmieri: If anything, the thing that we help our team with is how not to abandon yourself for the mission.
• 18:24
  Kevin Palmieri: Our team is so heart, heart-led.
• 18:27
  Kevin Palmieri: It's the old adage of, I don't know if it was Starbucks or a hotel chain where someone came in and said, how do you teach your staff to be so nice?
• 18:34
  Kevin Palmieri: And they say, we don't, we just hire nice people.
• 18:36
  Kevin Palmieri: And then we teach them the SOPs and that stuff.
• 18:38
  Kevin Palmieri: Very similar for us.
• 18:40
  Kevin Palmieri: Our team is amazing.
• 18:42
  Kevin Palmieri: We have some of the most heart-driven people, but that's because they listen to the show and they're in the community.
• 18:49
  Kevin Palmieri: And they listen to us because they resonate with who we are as people.
• 18:52
  Kevin Palmieri: That's the beauty of being so public.
• 18:55
  Kevin Palmieri: Is some people are only going to listen to us because they like us.
• 18:58
  Kevin Palmieri: Some people are only going to listen to us because they get value from us.
• 19:00
  Kevin Palmieri: The people who stick around the longest and move their way through the community have a weird way of ending up on the team.
• 19:07
  Kevin Palmieri: And it's amazing.
• 19:09
  Kevin Palmieri: It's amazing that we kind of have this process where this person is super humble.
• 19:15
  Kevin Palmieri: This person is super trustworthy.
• 19:18
  Kevin Palmieri: They're super consistent.
• 19:19
  Kevin Palmieri: They're super reliable.
• 19:20
  Kevin Palmieri: Oh my goodness.
• 19:21
  Kevin Palmieri: I feel like that would make a great team member.
• 19:23
  Kevin Palmieri: Awesome.
• 19:23
  Kevin Palmieri: Let's see if they're interested in coming aboard.
• 19:26
  Kevin Palmieri: So yeah, it's, the community kind of molds that, and it makes it really easy, honestly, it makes it really easy.
• 19:34
  Tom: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Tom: I see that a lot in many coaching businesses where a lot of the coaches in that business are people that were coached by the business.
• 19:43
  Tom: And I think that makes it makes a really great employee.
• 19:45
  Tom: One, they already know what the coaching is all about.
• 19:49
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 19:49
  Tom: And, but two, they are aligned in the core values of the business.
• 19:52
  Kevin Palmieri: It's the mission is such a big piece.
• 19:54
  Kevin Palmieri: Like what we found is a lot of our team members, they haven't felt like they fit in yet at a place.
• 20:02
  Kevin Palmieri: And then you come on, we brought somebody on recently.
• 20:05
  Kevin Palmieri: And I said two things, like the big two things that you need to know to be successful here.
• 20:09
  Kevin Palmieri: Simple.
• 20:10
  Kevin Palmieri: One, this team will pour into you so much that it's going to be overwhelming.
• 20:17
  Kevin Palmieri: I promise.
• 20:18
  Kevin Palmieri: You're going to get told you're doing amazing more than you ever have.
• 20:21
  Kevin Palmieri: You're going to be loved, supported, appreciated, and valued at a deeper level than maybe you ever have.
• 20:26
  Kevin Palmieri: And on the first team call we have, don't be surprised if someone's crying.
• 20:32
  Kevin Palmieri: Those are the only two things you need to know crying good or crying cause they're going through it.
• 20:37
  Kevin Palmieri: That's the team that we have.
• 20:38
  Kevin Palmieri: We share.
• 20:39
  Kevin Palmieri: I can't tell you how many times I've cried on these team calls, my business partner and the CEO, Alan, he's cried on these calls.
• 20:46
  Kevin Palmieri: We're a self improvement company first, right?
• 20:49
  Kevin Palmieri: So that's what you're going to get with us.
• 20:52
  Kevin Palmieri: I want to help you win in your real life.
• 20:54
  Kevin Palmieri: I want your relationship to succeed.
• 20:55
  Kevin Palmieri: I want you to be able to make and save money, all of that stuff outside of the business.
• 21:00
  Kevin Palmieri: I want you to be successful because I think the more successful and fulfilled you are outside, the more happy you're going to be inside as well.
• 21:09
  Kevin Palmieri: That's a deep belief I have.
• 21:10
  Tom: Yeah, no, that's great.
• 21:12
  Tom: That's, that's, that's amazing.
• 21:14
  Tom: You know, one, one thing that I've done with my team is very first, like in the hiring process.
• 21:19
  Tom: And after the, they've been hired, they always have a one on one with me.
• 21:24
  Tom: And I was say, there's one thing that will be completely different working on our team than probably any other business that you are, you've worked for is it's okay to fail.
• 21:34
  Tom: Actually, I want you to fail because that's the best learning that you'll have.
• 21:38
  Tom: The only issue will be if you keep failing doing the same thing over and over again, then we'll have a discussion, but it's okay.
• 21:43
  Tom: And we'll celebrate that failure.
• 21:45
  Tom: And, and we had a mistake happen last week and the the employee was, I'm really sorry.
• 21:51
  Tom: I'm really.
• 21:52
  Tom: Hey, no, no need to apologize.
• 21:54
  Tom: Let's celebrate.
• 21:55
  Tom: Like, what did you learn?
• 21:56
  Tom: Like what a great learning opportunity that you had.
• 21:59
  Tom: Let's celebrate that.
• 22:01
  Tom: And it was, it was a complete like shift from what he had experienced at another company.
• 22:06
  Tom: It's like, this is weird.
• 22:07
  Tom: Like, Tom, you're weird, but you get so much more productivity from a happy, healthy workforce and people that are supported and feel safe as well.
• 22:20
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Tom: You had a previous podcast guest that was talking about that safety of employees, and that will increase your productivity tenfold or something like that.
• 22:29
  Tom: It's a crazy amount of productivity you'll get.
• 22:31
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 22:31
  Kevin Palmieri: We've seen a giant, it's, it's huge.
• 22:34
  Kevin Palmieri: It's huge.
• 22:34
  Kevin Palmieri: But to your point, it starts with the leader and that's what makes it challenging.
• 22:39
  Kevin Palmieri: If you have any ego or insecurity around failing in front of people, that's been one of the hardest things for me is I.
• 22:46
  Kevin Palmieri: I didn't like failing at all.
• 22:48
  Kevin Palmieri: I want to win.
• 22:48
  Kevin Palmieri: I started this because I want to win.
• 22:50
  Kevin Palmieri: I didn't realize that if you want to win 10 times, you have to fail 100.
• 22:53
  Kevin Palmieri: I didn't know that at the beginning.
• 22:55
  Kevin Palmieri: I do now.
• 22:57
  Kevin Palmieri: But yeah, I've instilled that.
• 22:59
  Kevin Palmieri: I've tried to instill that in everybody I work with.
• 23:01
  Kevin Palmieri: Look, I don't care.
• 23:02
  Kevin Palmieri: I don't care if you make a mistake.
• 23:03
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm not perfect.
• 23:04
  Kevin Palmieri: You hear me talk on the podcast all the time.
• 23:06
  Kevin Palmieri: I forget words.
• 23:07
  Kevin Palmieri: I laugh so hard my chair breaks.
• 23:09
  Kevin Palmieri: Like, I'm the least perfect human you're ever going to meet.
• 23:13
  Kevin Palmieri: The core values are humility, reliability, and consistency.
• 23:18
  Kevin Palmieri: If you're a humble human, we did an interview with a gentleman one time, and we said, what are the unique skills that you feel that you bring to the table.
• 23:27
  Kevin Palmieri: And he said, honestly, I don't really feel like I have any skills, but I'll work really hard and I'll earn everything I get.
• 23:33
  Kevin Palmieri: Welcome aboard.
• 23:34
  Kevin Palmieri: Welcome aboard.
• 23:35
  Kevin Palmieri: You're so humble.
• 23:36
  Kevin Palmieri: You're so humble.
• 23:38
  Kevin Palmieri: And he is an amazing human that if you can find amazing people, hang on to them.
• 23:44
  Kevin Palmieri: Hang on to those people.
• 23:45
  Kevin Palmieri: That's that's it.
• 23:46
  Tom: Absolutely.
• 23:46
  Tom: 100%.
• 23:48
  Tom: You know, I have friends that kind of churn through jobs because they're always in those environments of the boss, in the, you know, the toxic work environment.
• 23:57
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 23:58
  Tom: I was like, what?
• 23:58
  Tom: What keeps you going back to those type of toxic work environments is a question that I always ask, but, you know, it's just so different from kind of how I like to be treated.
• 24:10
  Tom: And one of the reasons that I left corporate America was that it just wasn't a good environment for me.
• 24:16
  Kevin Palmieri: Same, same.
• 24:17
  Kevin Palmieri: They used to say there's a line out the door of people that want to do your job.
• 24:21
  Kevin Palmieri: So make sure you appreciate it.
• 24:22
  Kevin Palmieri: It's like, I understand what you're saying, but you don't have to phrase it.
• 24:25
  Kevin Palmieri: That way.
• 24:26
  Kevin Palmieri: I mean, there's a better way to phrase it, but...
• 24:28
  Tom: You're a diamond cousin, Kevin.
• 24:30
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 24:30
  Kevin Palmieri: It's like, well, I've seen you hire like 12 people and they all left in the first week.
• 24:34
  Kevin Palmieri: So I don't think it's, it's that, but when you're used to that.
• 24:37
  Kevin Palmieri: I worked at a gas station.
• 24:40
  Kevin Palmieri: I was treated like garbage.
• 24:41
  Kevin Palmieri: I was not treated well.
• 24:43
  Kevin Palmieri: I was not treated well when I was cleaning hospital bathrooms and toilets.
• 24:46
  Kevin Palmieri: I felt like everybody was looking down on me.
• 24:48
  Kevin Palmieri: I didn't feel like I was very respected, right?
• 24:51
  Kevin Palmieri: I come from a place of, I try to take what I can get.
• 24:54
  Kevin Palmieri: It was like, I'll take any opportunity that I can get because I need to pay the bills.
• 24:58
  Kevin Palmieri: So I've been on the receiving end of that treatment since I was 18 years old.
• 25:02
  Kevin Palmieri: I don't want to be that.
• 25:03
  Kevin Palmieri: I would much rather somebody be happy, fulfilled, feel like they're on a mission.
• 25:08
  Kevin Palmieri: That's what it's all about.
• 25:09
  Kevin Palmieri: That's what it's all about.
• 25:10
  Kevin Palmieri: And I have a deep belief that a lot of people say, like, what's your legacy?
• 25:15
  Kevin Palmieri: You hear that word legacy?
• 25:16
  Tom: Yeah.
• 25:17
  Kevin Palmieri: Legacy for me is just the way that somebody is going to remember me.
• 25:20
  Kevin Palmieri: Like my legacy with you is this interview.
• 25:23
  Kevin Palmieri: Because we may never talk again.
• 25:24
  Kevin Palmieri: I hope we do because I really enjoy you.
• 25:26
  Kevin Palmieri: I think you're an amazing human, genuinely.
• 25:28
  Kevin Palmieri: But if not, this is my legacy with you.
• 25:31
  Kevin Palmieri: Same thing.
• 25:32
  Kevin Palmieri: I'm okay if somebody comes on the team and sticks around for a month and then decides it's not for them.
• 25:37
  Kevin Palmieri: But my legacy with them is how they were treated while they were there and how they treat, how they're treated as they leave.
• 25:42
  Kevin Palmieri: I think the most successful relationships are not necessarily the relationships that last.
• 25:47
  Kevin Palmieri: They're the relationships that after they die, you still have a good connection with that person.
• 25:51
  Kevin Palmieri: That's a very deep belief I have.
• 25:52
  Tom: No, that's a hundred percent true.
• 25:54
  Tom: And I think it was Maya Angelou that her famous quote, you know, people won't remember what you do, what you say, but they'll remember how you made them feel.
• 26:02
  Tom: And in business, that's so important because I'm sure you saw it in the corporations that you work for that churn was just costing them money after, you know, you know.
• 26:12
  Tom: I think the stat is a third of somebody's annual salary is what it costs to replace somebody.
• 26:18
  Tom: And if a company is just churning through employees, that's a huge expense.
• 26:22
  Kevin Palmieri: It's hard to keep going like that for sure.
• 26:25
  Tom: Yeah, and all you have to do to fix that is treat people good.
• 26:28
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 26:29
  Kevin Palmieri: It seems super simple.
• 26:30
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Kevin Palmieri: Have some heart, have some heart.
• 26:32
  Kevin Palmieri: A hundred percent.
• 26:32
  Tom: Oh, awesome.
• 26:33
  Tom: So, Kevin, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 26:36
  Tom: We're about at that time.
• 26:38
  Tom: How can people learn a little bit more about you, your podcast and the coaching that you do?
• 26:43
  Kevin Palmieri: Yeah, I would say just check out Next Level University.
• 26:45
  Kevin Palmieri: It's on all the podcast platforms.
• 26:47
  Kevin Palmieri: We're on YouTube.
• 26:48
  Kevin Palmieri: Holistic self improvement is our jam.
• 26:50
  Kevin Palmieri: If you can't tell by this conversation today, I'm very big into self improvement and yeah, my coaching, there's a bunch of different stuff, but we have podcast coaching, we have business coaching, we have coaching for someone who is just looking to get through some limiting beliefs.
• 27:05
  Kevin Palmieri: So whatever that looks like, we got it, nextleveluniverse.
• 27:09
  Kevin Palmieri: com is our website, which is currently down.
• 27:12
  Kevin Palmieri: So depending on when this episode launches, you might not be able to go to it.
• 27:16
  Tom: It'll be bad.
• 27:17
  Tom: You'll get there.
• 27:18
  Kevin Palmieri: I hope so.
• 27:18
  Tom: Awesome.
• 27:19
  Tom: Well, thank you very much for sharing your story, sharing your journey as well.
• 27:22
  Tom: I really appreciate it.
• 27:23
  Tom: And I wish you all the best in the future.
• 27:26
  Kevin Palmieri: Thank you so much for having me.
• 27:28
  Kevin Palmieri: I appreciate it very much again.
• 27:29
  Kevin Palmieri: You're a wonderful human and I'm glad you're here doing what you love.
• 27:32
  Tom: Awesome.
• 27:33
  Tom: And thank you viewers and listeners for tuning into today's show.
• 27:37
  Tom: I really appreciate it.
• 27:39
  Tom: I know Kevin really appreciates it as well.
• 27:41
  Tom: So make sure you're checking out everything that Kevin's doing.
• 27:43
  Tom: All that is going to be linked up into the show notes.
• 27:46
  Tom: And also if you could do us a favor and do what other smart and considerate listeners and viewers are doing, and that's giving us a rating and review that really helps spread the word about the Heart-Led Business Show and help more people find heart in their business and maybe make that transition from a toxic work environment into a environment where they're growing and thriving as a person and feel valued.
• 28:09
  Tom: So until next time, lead with your heart.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to the Heart Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.