Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. 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. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let's go. Let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom: 0:36

Hey, hey, hey, heart-led heroes, get ready to prance through the podcasting world with the king of the airwaves himself, Kevin Palmieri. Master of mirth and motivation, Kevin turned tragedy into triumph, tripling up as an esteemed entrepreneur, unrepentant role model, and a pioneering podcaster. He's here to unpack his podcasting prowess and pour out his passion on today's fantastic episode of the Heart-Led Business Show. So, sit tight and get set for some awesome hearty laughs on this electrifying episode. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Kevin Palmieri: 1:15

What a wonderful introduction. I appreciate that so very much. I am excited to chat. Hopefully again, I can live up to the reputation you have created for me.

Tom: 1:23

Well, you know, you wrote it. No, I'm just kidding.

Kevin Palmieri: 1:27

There's that Peter background right there.

Tom: 1:29

That's exactly it. It is all true. 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. But let's first start with what is your definition of a heart-led business?

Kevin Palmieri: 1:44

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. So yeah, people over profit relationships over revenue. I think that's one of the best things I ever learned early on in business. Yeah. And it's so interesting though, that many businesses fail to recognize that. And it's always you just wonder why, you know? Well, it does seem very counterintuitive. I mean, I went to a conference one time and this is how I knew the conference wasn't for me. The first line, the opening line was everybody here knows business is about making money. Business is about facilitating change. It's about creating opportunity. It's about creating transformation, whatever it is, solving a problem. Money is a wonderful byproduct of that transformation. And after that, I don't want to be here anymore. These aren't my people. This isn't why I'm doing it. So, we ended up not staying for very long. We ended up leaving shortly thereafter.

Tom: 2:48

Wow. Yeah. What about value though? Like is a business about creating value?

Kevin Palmieri: 2:52

I would say yes. And I think depending on the end consumer value is just different. This was always my thought. 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. And the reason is, as you get less and less and less accessible, that gets more and more and more and more valuable. That value is not necessarily going to help them make any money or have a better relationship. It's just, wow, this person that I value took the time out to send me some love. So yeah, I think value is very contextual, but yes, I do believe business is about creating, facilitating and delivering value. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Tom: 3:33

Yeah. I just wanted to, because when people say like business is about making money, part of that is value. Like to me, I think business is about creating value for other people and money. It's the side product of that. Yeah. Okay.

Kevin Palmieri: 3:48

I agree with that.

Tom: 3:48

Cool. So what inspired you to create a heart-led business?

Kevin Palmieri: 3:52

I am not a natural entrepreneur. I didn't have the paper route. I never had the lemonade stand. I wasn't trading baseball cards, you know, selling candy bars, any of that. I am someone who didn't have a lot of success in life. 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. Being the type of person that I needed when I was really suffering, it feels right to me. That's where I feel like I should be. 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. That has been the deep belief that has kept me going this whole time. 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. Unfortunately, I can't answer unless you send me 25 dollars or 50 dollars or whatever it is. I don't want to be that person, even if that's at the detriment of other things. I'd rather be me. I'd rather be real. I'd rather be authentic. 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. It always seemed more transactional in everything I did. So my goal was to make a company and a business and a journey that didn't revolve around transactional experiences.

Tom: 5:32

Yeah, that's really, that's profound. Thank you for sharing that. 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?

Kevin Palmieri: 5:43

Yeah, so I was a foreman at a company that did weatherization. So I worked at a company where we would go into large buildings, usually schools, and we would make those buildings more energy efficient. And since we were working for the state slash government contracts, I was making anywhere from 60 to 120 dollars an hour. So in my mind, I found my gig. I'm going to do this forever. This is the best thing ever. I'm making a boatload of money.

Tom: 6:10

At what age?

Kevin Palmieri: 6:10

And you know, I was twenty-four when I got the job, 23 or 24 when I first got it, yeah. And I only lasted until I was 28. It was just too much, but I had so many powerful lessons from that of, do you know what I did, Tom? I put money over everything. I put money over my health, my physical, my mental, my emotional, my spiritual health. I put it over relationships. I put it over the things I valued. So I also had that lesson early on that. If you want to start a business, that's amazing. If you want to start a business that makes a lot of money, that's also amazing. But if you trade in your core values and your core beliefs for that, it's going to be a very empty journey.

Tom: 6:51

Yeah, absolutely. 100%. So what was that journey like, you know, where you were sitting at the corner of your bed? And then what was the switch to, one, keep you here. So thank you for not doing what you're contemplating doing and make a shift. So what did that look like when you made the shift?

Kevin Palmieri: 7:09

Yeah, it all started when I was 25 from the outside looking in, you would think I had everything. And we hear this story, right? So this is such a common, common, common story. My girlfriend was a model. I had this high paying job. I had a sports car. 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. I have pictures. You can see every vein. It was brutal. It was brutal. So anybody looking in would be like, oh my goodness, health, wealth, and love.

Tom: 7:41

Yeah. Picture perfect.

Kevin Palmieri: 7:42

He's got it all. And then my girlfriend left me because I was just not, I was a shell of a man. I was depressed. I was anxious. I was insecure. I had no idea who I was. So that was my initial rock bottom. When she left, I'm thinking who's ever going to love me. How am I going to continue this? How am I going to continue this charade? I wish that was the point where I started going all in on me and self improvement. It wasn't. I convinced myself that I just hadn't made the right amount of money yet. And that keeps coming up, right? That's a theme in my life. 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. That was my deep belief at the time. So, that next year I spent 10 months living in hotels, because most of our contracts were in other states. I lived in New Hampshire at the time. I spent months in Virginia, months in New Jersey, months in Connecticut, New York, all over the place. So we get to the end of that year, and my final pay stub in hand, I open it up. Ooh, there it is. I did it. I crossed that, that six figure mark, but nothing changed. I still was insecure, if not more insecure than I had been in the past. I was still depressed. I was still anxious. I still didn't know who I was. I still didn't know what I valued. So I realized in that moment that for most of my life, I had lived unconsciously. Don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing. The opposite of unconscious is hyperconscious. So in 2017, I started a podcast called the Hyperconscious Podcast. That was my dipping my toes into this whole world. 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. Let me give you a bunch of money so you can talk into this microphone. 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. Every time I'd leave on Sunday, I'd pack my bag and I would get this empty feeling in my stomach. I was homesick before I got out of the driveway. I just didn't want to do it anymore, right? So, I started calling out of work, I started leaving the job site early, I started showing up late, and I just wanted out. 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. I was lacing up my work boots as I had done a thousand times before. 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. And it's just noise and distraction and, and overwhelm. And one of these channels is saying, Kev, you are stuck at this job forever. People like you, no college degree, no real skills, don't get opportunities like this. Never mind leave them behind. If you did work up the courage or stupidity to leave this job, what would your friends think? They all look up to you. There's a lot of significance there. What would your family think? I make more money than anybody in my family ever has. And then this was the big one. Do you really think you're going to have a podcast that you turn into a business? That's what we're going to do. That's it. That's our plan C or plan D, whatever it is at this point. So it was in that moment where I had that thought of, well, I'm six hours away from anybody who cares about me. If I was just to take my life, I would just take all my problems with me. I was very, and I am very blessed to have a wonderful friend who's now my business partner. And that's one of the reasons our business is as heart-led as it is, as heart centered. I reached out to him and I said, Hey man, I'm really struggling. I'm having these thoughts, these feelings, these emotions. I don't know what to do. And he said, Kev, over the last couple of years, your awareness, hyperconscious has changed a ton, but your environments have remained the same. I think it's time for you to change your environment. And for me, that was like a light at the end of the tunnel of, Oh, maybe I'm not stuck at this job. So, three or four months later, I ended up leaving my job. And then, him and I partnered up. And then in, yeah, in 2018, I went full time into trying to figure all this out. And in the very beginning, trust me, it's not. I left my job and then boom, here we are at where we are today. I was 30, 000 in credit card debt. I couldn't pay my bills. My car broke down and I couldn't get it fixed. I couldn't buy Christmas presents one year for my now wife. it was a challenge. 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. And to me, that was a really good suggestion of you're probably on the right path now.

Tom: 12:21

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. You were still fulfilled though.

Kevin Palmieri: 12:31

Hundred-percent.

Tom: 12:31

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. That's really good.

Kevin Palmieri: 12:43

I appreciate it. I think a lot of people in the past, I was guilty of having my peas in the wrong order. I put my profit over purpose. It just I didn't think I had a purpose. So when I started doing what I loved, it became. I feel like I am in my purpose. What is the vehicle that I can actually make profit with? So this becomes sustainable. I wanted to learn how to swim. I'm in the pool that I love. I need to fit. I'm treading water and not well right now, but I'm treading water. How do I learn how to swim? So yeah, to your point, it became more of that. If only I could figure out a way to make this sustainable. My life would be incredible. I would be able to get to do what I love every single day. Are you kidding me? That never seemed real. So yes, 100 percent accurate. Yes.

Tom: 13:30

Yeah. Nice. So then, so fast forward to today. What does your life look like today in your business look like?

Kevin Palmieri: 13:36

My goodness. So today we have a top 100. I have two top 100 podcasts. One has 1,727 episodes. The other has 101, I think as of today. So we do seven episodes a week for one. I do one episode a week for the other. So I do a minimum of eight episodes a week, which again, is a dream come true. As overwhelming as it sounds we have a 22 person team all over the world, totally virtual. Canada, West Coast, East Coast, Spain, Philippines, all over the place. Like we have a team and they're all amazing human beings that are super aligned and hear-driven and heart-led. I'm married. I have an amazing relationship with my wife. And I'm the most externally successful I've ever been, but I'm also the most internally fulfilled. And I get to talk to amazing people like you every day. And I coach podcasters and I coach speakers. And it's very weird. 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. I coach people all the time and they say, how'd you get here? It's like, I can't condense seven years of all of that into an hour call. Like there's so much that goes into it. So yeah, that's what my life looks like now. 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.

Tom: 15:00

The day, the hair day, right? 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?

Kevin Palmieri: 15:13

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. That's what I'm going to charge because I want to make as much money as possible. And then I started to realize that for the people that I wanted to help, that wasn't sustainable. I like helping people who are new. 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. That's okay. So it dawned on me pretty quickly that it would be nice to charge 2,000 dollars a month? Sure. 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? Probably not. So it really, for us, was about, okay, how do we get efficient? Whether it's through systems and SOPs and that type of stuff. And then outside of pricing, because our prices are going to be low, right? Our prices are going to be low. What can we do to make sure that we're adding the most value humanly possible? And it was, I don't want it just to be pricing. I don't want us to be the cheapest one. That's why you work with us. I want it to be affordable. I want it to be reliable. I want the communication to be super high. And I want the authenticity to be super high. And that's how we've balanced it. And I guess transparently, the other thing is, I work a lot more than I would if we were making more money. It's, I'd rather keep the mission going. For me, it's not about making the most money and then selling the business or making the most money and then delegating everything. I love what I do. I'm blessed to be able to, to get to do what I do. So that's a, another piece of it. And then a lot of it's delayed gratification. 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.

Tom: 17:12

Oh, wow.

Kevin Palmieri: 17:13

And it was nice. It was really nice. So yeah, those are a few of them. And then I think the last thing is. 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. It will never exceed my ability to work on myself, and develop myself, and overcome my fears, and overcome my insecurities and my bottlenecks. We work really, really diligently on ourselves, because I think that's one easy way to increase profitability. Is making yourself more valuable as a human. 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. That's why I have so many podcast episodes. I just want to get good, you know, reps create strength. So yeah, that's another way we do it.

Tom: 18:00

Oh, that's good. And how do you work with the team to instill that same work ethic, that same heart-led in the team as well? Cause it, it obviously it has to come top down.

Kevin Palmieri: 18:11

The team comes from our community, so they already have similar core values, core beliefs, and core aspirations. If anything, the thing that we help our team with is how not to abandon yourself for the mission. Our team is so heart, heart-led. 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? And they say, we don't, we just hire nice people. And then we teach them the SOPs and that stuff. Very similar for us. Our team is amazing. We have some of the most heart-driven people, but that's because they listen to the show and they're in the community. And they listen to us because they resonate with who we are as people. That's the beauty of being so public. Is some people are only going to listen to us because they like us. Some people are only going to listen to us because they get value from us. The people who stick around the longest and move their way through the community have a weird way of ending up on the team. And it's amazing. It's amazing that we kind of have this process where this person is super humble. This person is super trustworthy. They're super consistent. They're super reliable. Oh my goodness. I feel like that would make a great team member. Awesome. Let's see if they're interested in coming aboard. So yeah, it's, the community kind of molds that, and it makes it really easy, honestly, it makes it really easy.

Tom: 19:34

Yeah. 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. And I think that makes it makes a really great employee. One, they already know what the coaching is all about.

Kevin Palmieri: 19:49

Yeah.

Tom: 19:49

And, but two, they are aligned in the core values of the business.

Kevin Palmieri: 19:52

It's the mission is such a big piece. Like what we found is a lot of our team members, they haven't felt like they fit in yet at a place. And then you come on, we brought somebody on recently. And I said two things, like the big two things that you need to know to be successful here. Simple. One, this team will pour into you so much that it's going to be overwhelming. I promise. You're going to get told you're doing amazing more than you ever have. You're going to be loved, supported, appreciated, and valued at a deeper level than maybe you ever have. And on the first team call we have, don't be surprised if someone's crying. Those are the only two things you need to know crying good or crying cause they're going through it. That's the team that we have. We share. 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. We're a self improvement company first, right? So that's what you're going to get with us. I want to help you win in your real life. I want your relationship to succeed. I want you to be able to make and save money, all of that stuff outside of the business. 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. That's a deep belief I have.

Tom: 21:10

Yeah, no, that's great. That's, that's, that's amazing. You know, one, one thing that I've done with my team is very first, like in the hiring process. And after the, they've been hired, they always have a one on one with me. 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. Actually, I want you to fail because that's the best learning that you'll have. 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. And we'll celebrate that failure. And, and we had a mistake happen last week and the the employee was, I'm really sorry. I'm really. Hey, no, no need to apologize. Let's celebrate. Like, what did you learn? Like what a great learning opportunity that you had. Let's celebrate that. And it was, it was a complete like shift from what he had experienced at another company. It's like, this is weird. 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.

Kevin Palmieri: 22:20

Yeah.

Tom: 22:20

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. It's a crazy amount of productivity you'll get.

Kevin Palmieri: 22:31

Yeah. We've seen a giant, it's, it's huge. It's huge. But to your point, it starts with the leader and that's what makes it challenging. 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. I didn't like failing at all. I want to win. I started this because I want to win. I didn't realize that if you want to win 10 times, you have to fail 100. I didn't know that at the beginning. I do now. But yeah, I've instilled that. I've tried to instill that in everybody I work with. Look, I don't care. I don't care if you make a mistake. I'm not perfect. You hear me talk on the podcast all the time. I forget words. I laugh so hard my chair breaks. Like, I'm the least perfect human you're ever going to meet. The core values are humility, reliability, and consistency. 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. 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. Welcome aboard. Welcome aboard. You're so humble. You're so humble. And he is an amazing human that if you can find amazing people, hang on to them. Hang on to those people. That's that's it.

Tom: 23:46

Absolutely. 100%. 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.

Kevin Palmieri: 23:57

Yeah.

Tom: 23:58

I was like, what? 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. And one of the reasons that I left corporate America was that it just wasn't a good environment for me.

Kevin Palmieri: 24:16

Same, same. They used to say there's a line out the door of people that want to do your job. So make sure you appreciate it. It's like, I understand what you're saying, but you don't have to phrase it. That way. I mean, there's a better way to phrase it, but...

Tom: 24:28

You're a diamond cousin, Kevin.

Kevin Palmieri: 24:30

Yeah. It's like, well, I've seen you hire like 12 people and they all left in the first week. So I don't think it's, it's that, but when you're used to that. I worked at a gas station. I was treated like garbage. I was not treated well. I was not treated well when I was cleaning hospital bathrooms and toilets. I felt like everybody was looking down on me. I didn't feel like I was very respected, right? I come from a place of, I try to take what I can get. It was like, I'll take any opportunity that I can get because I need to pay the bills. So I've been on the receiving end of that treatment since I was 18 years old. I don't want to be that. I would much rather somebody be happy, fulfilled, feel like they're on a mission. That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. And I have a deep belief that a lot of people say, like, what's your legacy? You hear that word legacy?

Tom: 25:16

Yeah.

Kevin Palmieri: 25:17

Legacy for me is just the way that somebody is going to remember me. Like my legacy with you is this interview. Because we may never talk again. I hope we do because I really enjoy you. I think you're an amazing human, genuinely. But if not, this is my legacy with you. Same thing. I'm okay if somebody comes on the team and sticks around for a month and then decides it's not for them. 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. I think the most successful relationships are not necessarily the relationships that last. They're the relationships that after they die, you still have a good connection with that person. That's a very deep belief I have.

Tom: 25:52

No, that's a hundred percent true. 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. 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. I think the stat is a third of somebody's annual salary is what it costs to replace somebody. And if a company is just churning through employees, that's a huge expense.

Kevin Palmieri: 26:22

It's hard to keep going like that for sure.

Tom: 26:25

Yeah, and all you have to do to fix that is treat people good.

Kevin Palmieri: 26:28

Yeah. It seems super simple. Yeah. Have some heart, have some heart. A hundred percent.

Tom: 26:32

Oh, awesome. So, Kevin, thank you so much for being on the show. We're about at that time. How can people learn a little bit more about you, your podcast and the coaching that you do?

Kevin Palmieri: 26:43

Yeah, I would say just check out Next Level University. It's on all the podcast platforms. We're on YouTube. Holistic self improvement is our jam. 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. So whatever that looks like, we got it, nextleveluniverse. com is our website, which is currently down. So depending on when this episode launches, you might not be able to go to it.

Tom: 27:16

It'll be bad. You'll get there.

Kevin Palmieri: 27:18

I hope so.

Tom: 27:18

Awesome. Well, thank you very much for sharing your story, sharing your journey as well. I really appreciate it. And I wish you all the best in the future.

Kevin Palmieri: 27:26

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it very much again. You're a wonderful human and I'm glad you're here doing what you love.

Tom: 27:32

Awesome. And thank you viewers and listeners for tuning into today's show. I really appreciate it. I know Kevin really appreciates it as well. So make sure you're checking out everything that Kevin's doing. All that is going to be linked up into the show notes. 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. So until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 28:13

You've been listening to the Heart Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.