The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 289: Philip McKernan- Relationships Move At The Speed Of Vulnerability

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Episode #289: Philip McKernan - Relationships Move At The Speed Of Vulnerability Show Notes: Commonalities of sustaining excellence: Moments where they feel like a fraud, question themselves.  They are more comfortable within those moments This allows them to bounce back quicker They seek and attract things that are outside of their normal comfort zone The Picasso example -- The courage to face the failure and own up to it "Vulnerability is the only way to truly deepen relationships" "When you say, "I don't know," it helps others feel empowered to help" Philip felt worthless at age 14. He felt isolated and alone, a burden to try and fit in.  "That pain had a purpose." How to go from an isolated and alone 14 year old to a keynote speaker who moves people to tears? How to deal with skeptics? "That's okay. But, I would address it now. Couples typically wait five years too long to get counseling.  Do it now." What do you do? "I create environments for people to go deep. I meet them where they're at." The story of starting this business on the side in an Irish pub. "The hardest time of my life was at the beginning, but I didn't allow lack of money to impact what I did." "What are you willing to give up to do what you want?" "I stopped making the journey about me... It was about them." Why Philip will not send his kids to college... "Spend time learning. You need to understand who you are. A classroom is not built on how to get to know who you are." The "Planes, Trains, & Automobiles" test: Kevin Bacon started his career with no lines... But kept working. "Be willing to put in the work. Run for the cab." Is "follow your passion good advice?" "Yes and no.  There is a big difference between excitement and passion.  I believe we all have gifts and so many people use their talents." "For you, sales was a talent, but your gift is connecting with people. To lift them, to help them, to build confidence." "We are all leaders but a lot of people lead from an inauthentic space. It's not what we do, it's how we do it." What is One Last Talk? "If you had 15 minutes left to live to share your message, what would you say? You need to share with the world to free yourself." The process creates freedom.  People want to connect.  This is "team deepening." Why write a book? "Everyone has the capacity to make an impact. I believe all of us carry some demons." "It's like five years of therapy in one book." "The book is by me, but it's not for me.  I will never sign it." "One of the greatest burdens a child can bare is the unlived life of their parents."

What are you willing to give up to pursue what it is you want to do? A lot of us don't want to do that. We want to make sure we have our holiday. We want to make sure we have our car. We want to make sure we have our apartment. And I'm not judging that. But be aware and be real about how much you want something. I would have lived on the street to do what I do now.

I would have lived on this street. And in some ways I did, whether it's emotionally and mentally, we were in a tough place. I wanted this so badly that I was willing to pay the price. This episode is brought to by Mugsy jeans. Mugsy jeans are the most comfortable men's jeans ever made. That's no exaggeration. After I bought a couple pair, I so badly wanted to learn more about them. So I called their founder and CEO Leo and asked them about them.

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And to support the Learning Leader Show, they've created a code. It's lead, L-E-A-D. Type in the code L-E-A-D lead for $10 off at Mugsyjeans.com. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thanks so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Text learners to 44222.

in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world. Text learners to 44222. Now on tonight's featured leader, the great Philip McCurnan. He works with entrepreneurs and business leaders all over the world. When people are seeking clarity about their future, they call Philip. He's caddied for the president of Ireland. He's made wine in Australia. He's traveled to 80 countries around the globe.

He's written five books despite being dyslexic and his first documentary film was released in 2016. As a speaker, he has inspired and challenged the Canadian Olympic team and the Pentagon to name a few. Phillips, incredible. A few of the topics we got into. The difference between a talent and a gift and why that is important for you. Then what it means to be truly vulnerable and why this is so crucial for leaders. And then your one last talk, you have 15 minutes to share your message. What would you say?

Philip goes really deep in this one. It's so good. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Philip McCurman. All right, Philip McCurton. Thank you so much for coming back on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Yeah, thanks. It's my pleasure.

It's been a few years, man. And been a few years since we saw each other actually seating. Jason Gaynard sat us next to each other. Ohio, California. So it's cool to reconnect with you. It was great meeting you both on the podcast and in person. But, Philip, to get us going right away, man, question around leaders who have figured out how to sustain excellence over an extended period of time, not the one hit wonders, not the one good year and then have struggled, but the ones who have sustained it. I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be the commonalities among those people?

Two things that come to mind straight away. One is that the perception from the outside might be that they've sustained or being able to sustain excellence. But they know themselves. The truth is that they themselves would question that reality as people observe that in them. In other words, they would probably be perceived to be excellence on the outside, but they have moments where they feel like a fair, feel like a fraud, have moments where they doubt their own ability. I just think they're more comfortable in the uncomfortableness of that. In other words, I think they're more self-aware. I think they're more comfortable with people knowing a little bit more about them

from a slightly more emotional place. And I think they've become very comfortable in the possibility and the reality that life is going to throw curve balls at us and we are going to fail. So I've had to sum it up, I'd say that they're just more comfortable with not getting things right, which allows them to bounce back at a much more accelerated rate where a lot of us are trying to we're trying so hard not to fail in front of anybody else so anybody else can see it that I think when we do have a failure it takes us weeks or months or days to get back when other people just bounce back immediately and say great we failed let's move

on do you think those types actively seek out opportunities that are far outside of their natural comfort zone yeah I think that I think they do I They attract it and they seek it out at the same time. I think that when you become comfortable enough in your own skin, that, you know, I'll give you an example. I mean, this was one of the biggest days of my life, right, where we launched our first documentary. We had DVDs flown to Zurich.

I was speaking at it. I was doing a keynote speech the following morning. The DVDs arrived. I was so excited to give out a DVD to everybody in the room and officially launched the documentary. And without getting into two, much detail, but my background, dyslexic, you know, feeling stupid in this world and not good enough and so on and so forth. I'm sitting in my hotel room. My heart's beating. I'm loving the cover. I'm

looking at the CD and it's got the streaming information inside. I'm so excited. And then I look at the front cover and the only quote we have in the front cover is by Pablo Picasso and didn't, would you believe we spelled his name wrong? We call him Pablis. And my heart dropped. My heart dropped. I, because of my story, not because of the mess up or the mistake, but it dropped in that moment. I rang my wife and I was crushed. It brought me right back to being in school at 14 years old, feeling like an idiot, feeling like I was worthless. My wife would just chat it through it and she said, is anybody going to notice?

And ordinarily, if this was like five years ago, not that I would have been out of integrity, I don't think, I don't think I would have tried to lie about it, but I just may not have mentioned or whatever. The following morning, I walked up on a stage, lifted up the CD and I told him this story and I named it to the room and to the world and to myself. In other words, I faced it head on and arguably, and I'm not, it might sound very self-serving or arrogant, but arguably I went on to probably do one of the best keynote speeches I've ever done and to get one of the best reactions I've ever got. And I think I just in that moment had the courage to face and to name my mini,

or catastrophic failure depending on your perspective. And without throwing anybody else under the bus, the designer or the spell checker. anybody else, I took complete ownership of it, which I think allowed me to get beyond it much more, much faster. That makes me think of leaders who are willing to be vulnerable. And this has come up a lot. I think lately, Bernay Brown has made this more common than probably most people out in the world.

And vulnerability now is sexy. It's desired. And I'm curious from your perspective, Philip. Why is it so important for leaders, leaders in all types of organizations to be vulnerable? It shows that they're human. Vulnerability is the only way. It is the most powerful way to deepen any relationship on Earth. And if you think about it and you take a step back, not right now, but if you take a step back or either pause this now and really just reflect on a relationship that you have nurtured,

or you feel that you've gotten to a deeper perspective with. What you'll realize is whether it was conscious or not, if you go back in history, you'll find that there was moments of vulnerability. And vulnerability can come in in ways that we're aware of where we share a deep truth or a part of our story that we're ashamed of or embarrassed about that no one knows. But also vulnerability, the best piece of vulnerability that I know in humanity right now is when somebody turns around and literally says, I don't know. And what you do in that moment, particularly as a leader, is you're showing that you're human, you're making people feel empowered as opposed to inadequate.

You're taking yourself off a pedestal from an unhealthy standpoint and you're standing shoulder to shoulder with people. But the one downside or one concern I have about vulnerability is because it's become sexy, it's now seen in some quarters as a tool, as a way to connect with people. And when people use vulnerability and they force vulnerability, whether it's even subtle, it borders on manipulation. It borders on they're trying to be vulnerable to make a point. And if you sit back and you observe, you can tell when someone's being vulnerable to try and achieve an outcome and someone's being vulnerable because they truly are connected to that vulnerability in that moment. And that is the only shadow side I see of this emergence of vulnerability. but it is truly the thing that brings people together and allows people to see who you really are, all of you, and begin to accept you.

So you accept yourself and the people around you accept you. And then I suppose the ripple effect continues. How can we tell if somebody is faking that? If you're in your head, you won't know. But if you get out of your head, just, you know, close your eyes, just even put your hand on your belly and just connect and just just say, right, my head is telling me that this is a real, authentic, vulnerable moment, but I just don't feel it. So, for example, we had a speaker at an event that we run, and Pauline, my wife was sitting next to me, and after he spoke, it wasn't a bad talk,

he wasn't a bad person, he's not out of integrity, he's not a liar, he's not a manipulator, any of those things intentionally, I just turned to my wife and I said, what do you think? She goes, I just didn't believe him. And what this man chose to do is to share a vulnerable story because that's what he thought he needed to do to affect or to connect with the audience. The challenge is he shared a story that he hasn't worked on. He shared a part of his narrative, his truth,

that he had never processed. So he shared this thinking that it would connect with the audience and it did with many, depending on their level of self-awareness, but many people in the room didn't connect with it because they could tell, they could feel that he hadn't connected with this story himself.

It's kind of an intuition a gut feel. It's a good feel, 100%. Philip, I'm not going to forget that you said when you were 14 years old, you felt like you were worthless in school. And I believe I've read or seen you speak and say, a teacher at one point asked you why you even showed up at school. And I think this had to do with your ability or lack of ability to read, perhaps from

dyslexia. I don't want to share your story. But when you say you felt worthless, I can't help but want to ask you, what is that all about? Yeah. I mean, as a young man, I was not a very happy bunny. I wasn't very happy in my own skin. I wasn't going through. I didn't have a fun time, but I masked it very well.

I was in a lot of, you know, I was just very out of myself. I just wasn't, you know, comfortable with my own skin. I went to my own mother. And I just said, listen, you know, I want to change my name. And she was stunned. I wanted to change my name, Philip, to something. else. And I think that was my way of attempting to escape and run away from my, my truth. And by changing my name, I thought I could change my story. And now, even though we have a small

boutique coaching business, the name over the door is essentially Philip McCurnan. And I'm incredibly proud of what we do. So yeah, it was a tough time, but I do believe, I really believe to my core is that that pain had a purpose, that that time has equipped me with an ability to see and to connect and to move through the world in a different way than maybe if I breathe through school and could read like everybody else and the teachers were all good to me, I wouldn't be as connected to the work I do. I don't know. What was the pain? What was it from? The pain was just feeling isolated alone. Yeah, just feeling like, I'm not, I'm feeling the heaviness and the burden. And I feel a lot of people feel this today of wearing these heavy masks to try and fit in.

desperately trying to fit in, desperately trying to connect with those around me. And I think if I had to sum it up in one word, I just think a deep, deep, deep loneliness within myself. Was that from dyslexia? It wasn't, no. Dyslexia was probably, in hindsight, looking back, probably the thing I pointed at, because I couldn't read, I couldn't fit in, and therefore whatever. I think it came from a lack of confidence, which I think is a huge challenge in leadership

today and parenting today and in humanity. Just a dreadful lack of confidence. And the dyslexia certainly didn't help that. But for the longest time, I thought dyslexia was the problem. And reality, that that wasn't true. That was just the story I was telling myself. Hmm. So, I mean, I've had the good fortune of being in the room when you've spoken to a crowd.

A crowd of, I was very lucky to be in the room, a great leaders at mastermind talks in Ohio, California. mentioned and the impact that you had that day on a lot of people that have been quite successful in their own right, they've sustained excellence, was amazing. And that I think is hard to do. And so for me, it's, it was, it's really interesting to learn how somebody could come from that worthless feeling to growing up and having an awesome. audience of 150 plus leaders on the edge of their seat for an hour. Some brought to tears at times, which you're known to do. What is that like? What was the process to go from a worthless

feeling 14 year old to being someone who can have a room full of, in the most cases, multi-millionaire business owners on the edge of their seat and a good portion of them move to tears? How does that? that happen? Well, I mean, partly I really don't know the full process of that, or maybe I just haven't stopped to think about it. I mean, I've done a lot of deeper work in myself and continue to do so. I think the one thing I want to make very clear is that I'm not beyond anything. There's nothing fixed. I haven't dominated. I haven't mastered anything. I'm still moving through that process and will do until the day I leave this earth or the day I die or whatever. I think,

think I had to, if I had to sum it up in a few words, it was self-acceptance. And I know we're in kind of deep what some people might think, fluffy territory, but I can absolutely, with every part of my body, tell you that leadership, which is, I know, a major focus of yours and your listenership and your community, I've never met a leader, no matter what level they're at that doesn't suffer from a degree of lack of confidence, low self-esteem, feeling like a fraud. So I had to face that. I didn't have to. I chose to lean into the demons.

I chose to look at my past. I did a lot of deeper reflective work and looked at parts of me. And really what I realized was there was a large part of my story. I hadn't accepted. I basically was like a book. Chapter 1 to 5 was great, but chapter 6, 7 and 8 of my life. I didn't want. I wanted somebody else's.

I wanted Ryan's six, seven, and eight, and then nine and ten were cool. And by the way, I want to talk about 11 for the rest of my life, particularly on Facebook, because it was sexy and cool. And what you do is you walk through this earth, not accepting all of who you are. And therefore, expecting the world to see here and be inspired and be moved by you or in some cases, you know, allow them to, allow them to see how much of a leader you are. And yet you haven't stopped and accepted all of who you are. And it wasn't until I accepted the pain and it wasn't until I accepted the darkness and the shame and all the bits and pieces that I didn't want to deal with. Did I start to believe that I was worthy of bringing a message to the world and speaking and doing what I do in the world today? How do you deal with people who are skeptical of this, of that answer, right?

You talked about we're getting into some territory that some would say is pretty deep. is obviously I wouldn't have had you on if I don't think it's extremely valuable to have this conversation you've taught me so much over the years so I'm I am all in here but but I would imagine that there are skeptics from time to time to say Philip like I just don't need to go that deep man like I have a job I do it well I don't really need to focus that much beyond that I have a family I pay the bills things are fine things are good most days I don't know if I feel like having to get, get, you know, just that level of thought and be so reflective. I just don't want to do that.

What is your response to people like that? Because I'm certain there are people like that that are listening. Tons. Sorry, I don't know about listening. That's, but tons in the world. In general, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Great.

Good luck. And I hope it works out for you. And I don't mean that in a flippant sense. You know me well enough to know I care deeply about humanity. But what I know is this is that every week, At least every week in some shape or form, somebody reaches out to us. And we're not the only solution. I'm not here saying my work is the only work in the world.

Reach out to whoever it is you feel aligned or drawn to. But every single week, we get an email or a phone call to our small office saying, I heard you speak three or four years ago. I was going to go to that workshop. I was afraid of you. I'm afraid of your work, which I hear all the time. I didn't want you to make me cry, which I can't do because I'm not that powerful. and that we might address that in a few minutes.

But I ignored you and I kept working hard. I kept my head down and I've hit a wall in myself, in my marriage, in my relationship with my kids, in my relationship to my work, with my leadership style, my business have let me go, my business has hit a bit of a wall. I'm not suggesting that's for everybody, but people who avoid the deeper work, I'm not expecting them are suggesting that they spend four hours a week in deeper. reflection and deep questioning. But all I'm asked you to do is to bungee jump in every now and again to even come out

the other end and say, yeah, I'm good. I'm perfect. I'm in the right place. Everything's cool. But don't leave it to chance. There's too many people that, you know, are hitting, having wake up calls, if you want to call up that, that if they had addressed stuff earlier on in the process, I think they could have pivoted and made changes.

Marriage is a great example. It's now been proven scientifically that couples, wait five years too late to work on the relationship. So the socks are the underwear in the floor, which is pissing somebody off, suddenly becomes politics, suddenly becomes about parenting. And what's a hairline crack today becomes a Grand Canyon in the future, a disconnectiveness within ourselves and our relationships. All I'm asking people to do is to consider addressing some things earlier on so it doesn't become a problem in the future. And if that's not for you, cool, brilliant. I hope it works out. I really do.

When you're at a dinner party with people who don't know you and they say, nice to meet you, Philip, what do you do? How do you respond? I don't know how to answer that question. And I have tormented myself for many years trying to figure that piece out. I've gone obsessed about the elevator speech, this 30 second intro, you name it. I have obsessed about it. I even jokingly said to Clay, who you and I know, Clay Hey Bear, you know, said, what do you do? I make people cry. And he just thought, oh, my God, that's amazing. And the reality and the truth is I don't make people cry, create environments where perhaps on occasion they need to cry because they've been holding so much emotion or truth in a certain area. I don't know how to describe what I do. And what I've realized is that's okay. I allow other people to describe what I do for me. Everything I do is very personal. So when someone comes and work with me, whether it's one-to-one or treat or a small environment, what the feedback I get is it's different for everybody. I meet them where they're at.

And that's the same. Now I run experiences that I can talk about, but essentially I pretty much say I don't really know how to describe what I do. How do you make money? Coaching. So, you know, many years ago, I worked in the wine business. I worked in the coffee business. And the story I told myself, which was a very logical story, was that when I make enough money, I'll give myself the freedom. I love the freedom to give myself permission to do what I really want to do.

And deep down, I kind of knew what I wanted to do. But it was a financial thing, which really in hindsight was a bit more of an extent. excuse in hindsight, but also a lack of belief. So I've decided to go all in in coaching and how I coach is through retreats, live immersive experiences, one to one. I work with couples. And then I do some team deepening, we call it, experiences with smaller entrepreneurial businesses.

I'm curious about you said I decided to go all in. I'm curious about the, um, that point. So what were you doing prior to this? What was your job? How were you making money? So I was in the, uh, the coffee business. And then we pivoted in and I started to invest in real estate. And we basically had a real estate fund that we were raising money to buy a lot of real estate in Canada at the time. And they were bringing the funds from Ireland. And then the Irish economy went off, not off a hill. It went off a cliff and went straight down. Okay. So you lost, do you lose a lot of money? We lost a lot of time. We lost a lot of energy. We poured every penny we had financially into setting the business up. And we thankfully didn't lose, like we didn't raise tons of money or any money for that matter.

We were just about to pull the trigger and raise tons of money. And we had about 40, probably a 30 to 40 million dollars lined up in real money to deploy in Canada. And thankfully we didn't raise that from family, friends or anybody for that matter. And we were left holding this business. We'd spent two years setting up all the legals, all the contracts, everything. And suddenly we had nothing and nowhere to go with it. So then what happened? By the way, when was it?

And what was it like at the beginning stages of you starting this coaching business with immersive retreats and keynote speaking and counseling and one-on-one type interactions? Approximately, but maybe 10 years ago, maybe a little bit less than that. And base I'd been doing it for years before that on the side in a pub in Ireland upstairs. in this little landing area, we'd have a cup of tea, and I'd work with somebody one to one for an hour every week for six weeks, and we would give the money at the end of it. Whatever they felt it was worth, we'd give that money to charity.

And when the whole real estate thing turned on its head, I looked at my wife, we were in my parents' kitchen in Ireland, and my wife said, I'm not going back to North America, and we're living in Canada at the time. And I said, why? She's not working. And I looked at her and excuse my language in advance, and I said, fuck it, I'm doing this coaching thing.

And she goes, what? And I said, you know I've wanted to do this for the longest. time, I just can't, the pain of not doing what I know I'm here to do suddenly surpass the pain of doing the shit I didn't want to do with all its justifications and rationalizations around it. And I remember sending out an email to, I didn't have an email list. I don't think I was even on Facebook at the time. And I sent out an email to about 20 people that had different ways inquired about engaging or what I did. And I just said, listen, just let you know I'm going to be coaching for the first time. And one email came back in, I promise you no more than, I think

it was like 20, 30 seconds, but it was probably like 15 minutes. And it came back and it said about effing time. And I clarified with this gentleman. I said, excuse me. He said, what do you mean? He goes, the day I met you. And every day subsequently, I've known this is what you're meant to do. I'll be your first client. I said, you don't know how much it is. He says, I don't care. and he became my first client and then we moved to Vancouver and I sat in this apartment and I had two clients and I I lived for those phone calls because that was my outlet. That was my way of connecting. That was my way of helping them to, you know, being a support for them. And then it just organically grew from there over a, I would say, a longish period of time.

Was it tough at the beginning though? I mean, probably not making a ton of money. I think the reason I asked this, Philip, is because there are people currently. who are doing things on the side, which I think it's a good way to start. I think it's when you don't necessarily need the money, but you can start honing your craft and working on it on the side. I did this for a few years, and so I'm living proof of this. But what was that like?

So you make the change, and this might be happening for people listening. And you love the work. Absolutely love it. It's obviously a calling. You're built for it. Your life experience has led you to be very good at it. I've witnessed it, right, and experience it myself. But the beginning still, though, you still have a wife and responsibility and you need to make money and you're living in an expensive part of the world.

I mean, I like to get both, I like to get practical too. So I'm curious, what was that like? Probably the hardest time in my life. Oh. Probably the hardest time. Because of the money or? Everything. The money was insignificant.

I mean, I'm sorry. And it wasn't because I had money. We had $200 in the bank account. My wife went out and took a job to give me the freedom and to put bread and butter on the table, literally. And one thing I didn't do is I didn't allow the money to dictate, the lack of money to dictate my direction. I think we do that too soon. We throw in the towel too soon. I have people coming to me all the time, Ryan, saying, how do I coach like you do?

How do I become a speaker and also maintain my lifestyle? I mean, what are you willing to give up to pursue what it is you want to do? a lot of us don't want to do that. We want to make sure we have our holiday. We want to make sure we have our car. We want to make sure we have our apartment. And I'm not judging that. But be aware and be real about how much you want something.

I would have lived on the fucking street to do what I do now. I would have lived on this street. And in some ways I did, whether it's emotionally or mentally, we were in a tough place. I wanted this so badly that I was willing to pay the price. I sat in that apartment on my own for eight hours every day until my wife came home. And there was two things I looked forward to was my phone call every week with my client and my wife coming home every evening. And we went through the toughest time and people say that the reason that couples break up, the number one reason is stress over money. I disagree absolutely 100%.

I've worked with enough couples over 10 years to know that it can create and expose the cracks in a relationship. But it's not the thing that breaks a relationship. and it was so hard. It was so, so difficult. Emotionally, mentally, it challenged me at every level. It brought me back to school. It brought me back to sitting in that room, feeling like, you know, inadequate, feeling like the world didn't want to hear my message.

There was days, many days where I contemplated walking away, giving up, getting a job, and doing something that I didn't necessarily want to do. But I knew deep down, this is what I wanted to do, and I had to dig really hard. But the one thing I did, I think I did very well, and I don't say that likely. You can scar the internet and I tend not to compliment myself in terms of stuff I do. That's for other people to do or not to do is I stopped making the journey about me. I stopped making it all about Philip McCurnan and my happiness and my fulfillment. And I made it about everybody else.

I made it about everybody that I came in contact with, whether they were a paying client or otherwise. If someone consulted with me with the idea of working with me, my job was to make sure that even on that call, if they didn't sign up to my coaching, that I gave them at least some nugget that they would walk away with and contemplate or pivot their life with. I made it all about my clients. And there were days I made it about me selfishly. And that's when I got depressed and pissed off and contemplated giving up. But it was all about everybody else. I live daily to this day of the impact of the work makes that my client. do. I'm just a catalyst.

For somebody who is 22 years old and graduating college, what advice would you give to them when it comes? And they don't, let's say they don't know what they want to do. They have a degree in business. And they're graduating and they're saying, Philip. And obviously there's probably more questions you would ask them, I'm guessing. But I'm curious, how would you go about giving advice to that person who isn't, this was me when I was graduating. I was playing football and, you know, I tried to keep playing and I did for a little bit of few years after college, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. And so I'm curious, what advice do you give to those people earlier, less maturity, less life reps and aren't quite sure yet what they

want to do? One is, assume what you've done for the last four or five years in terms of college is going to be a complete waste of time. I'm not saying it's going to be a waste of time, so I want to be very clear on this, but assume it's, because what happens is with a lot of people that go through college or spend four or five years in university. And I didn't go to college. And I don't, I'm not an anti-college guy, but I admire people who have something they want to pursue. But I do have an issue with people going on to college simply because they don't know what they want to do. And just saying, well, I don't know what I want to do. So that's enough of a reason to spend four or five years studying something else. You're still going to have to face the ultimate

reality of who you are. You're still going to have to face that mirror someday. And who you are, what it is you're on this earth to do and how you can go about doing it. And the longer you leave it, the more difficult it becomes. So when you come out of school, and I'm not going to send my kids to college, if my kids want to go to college,

they'll go out into the workplace, they will work for a couple of years, and if they really want to pursue something, then I will support them doing that. That's a personal philosophy. But let's assume somebody has pursued something. They have spent four or five years in college. Don't assume that because you have a business degree,

that it's going to solve your problems. Don't assume that because you have a business degree, you're going to find fulfillment in the work that you do. My biggest advice to somebody is, is spend some time, you've spent four years learning something, okay? How much time have you spent really understanding who you are as a human being? Because when I walked down to the corridors of my school, I don't know about you, Ryan, they had geography and they had English and they had philosophy and they had Irish or Gaelic, they had French, they had Spanish, they had, you know, name it, but not one room, not one room had a sign over the door, hey, come in here and spend an hour and get to know who you really are. And that is the most powerful thing, because I believe the past has created the present and the present is creating the future. Who we are today has been designed

by where we came from. And where we're going in the future is being designed by who we are today, our relationship to money, dysfunctionality around money, our lack of confidence, our beauty, our brilliance, all of those things. Understand who you are. Do a deep dive. into who you are as a person, understand your identity, start to uncover the difference between your gifts and your talents, consider how you can impact the world and the byproduct of those three things, which is the essence of what I do every day with people, you will leave a meaningful legacy and just don't rely on your degree. I don't think, I think that's the mistake a lot of people make when they come out of college. They assume things are going to be okay. There's a movie called trains,

planes, and automobiles. Yeah, it's great. And when I ask anybody who the actors are on it, they talk about John Candy and Steve Martin. And I go and who else? They go, and that was it. John Candy, Steve Martin. I said, no, who else? Kevin Bacon is the third person. And what happens in the opening scene of that movie is when I think it's one of the

actress comes out. He looks across the road and for a moment he catches eye to eye contact with a young. Steve Martin. Young Kevin Bacon and they run for the cab and I don't know what happens. Kevin Bacon doesn't speak. He doesn't say one word in the movie. and what people assume is they look at Elon Musk and they look at Steve Jobs and they look at whoever and they look at you and they go God look at all the listenership and look at the downloads

and look at this and look at the speaking is doing everything else and they're looking at that as being the objective that's been the outcome and when someone comes to me and says how do I become a coach if that's what they want to do I go one client one client and they go no no no you didn't answer my question I said no I answered your question you just didn't like the answer I think we're looking for stuff to happen so fast. Doesn't mean we shouldn't have dreams and aspirations, but be willing to put in the work, be willing to be a grafter, be willing to be the Kevin Bacon who runs for a cab, doesn't even say one word two years later to be in multiple movies where he has seen, heard and loved and admired in many cases by millions of people. Be willing to put

the work in and what you'll find is it's an easier journey to begin with. But if you want the outcome without the work. Good luck with that one. Do you give the advice to people of all ages to follow your passion? I do and I don't. I'm getting a bit frustrated and concerned about the invitation of following your passion. For the following reason, here's the challenge. We are taking the passion sticker, if you like, the bumper sticker and we're sticking it on to everything. Oh, but I'm passionate about Harleys. I'm. I'm sure you are. I'm passionate about wine.

I'm sure you are. I'm passionate about this and I'm passionate about that. And what I'm realizing is there's a big difference between excitement and passion. And excitement runs out. And I meet so many people who have become, they've stepped into something. They were deeply excited about it, thought it was their passion, have pursued it for three to five years, whether it's a relationship, a business, to find out that it's now waning a little bit. It's starting to get a little bit bored.

or complacent around it or just doesn't have the edge. And then they're going, shit, I thought this was my passion. What's wrong with me? And now they're internalizing it. I think there's something wrong with them. Where I would argue, depending on, I don't know, unless I know the situation, I would argue that, yeah, you were just excited about that. It offered something exciting out of something mundane where you were previously.

So, but it's not necessarily the thing where you light up the most. I do believe, however, we all have a gift or maybe gifts, but I would say that we all fundamentally have an ability, a gift that has been given to us by whatever you believe in the universe. And unfortunately, so many people pass and move through this world and pass away, having used their talents, but never having honored their gifts. And to me, that's a tragedy. Because, you know, I talked to Cal Newport about this on episode, I think it was 114. and he said, follow your passion is bad advice. In fact, you should work to become great at something and create career capital.

And once you become great at something, you will probably develop passion for this. It was interesting. I was talking to my daughter, Elwood, this morning. She's 10. And I said, what is your favorite subject in school? And she said, it's math. And I said, why is math your favorite subject? And she said, because it's my, it's the subject that I'm best.

at and I like doing something that I'm really good at. Hmm. Interesting. It made me think of you. It made me think of Cal. And for me coming out, finishing up my football career, Philip, got a job in sales. A lot of former athletes do that because they don't really know what to do. And it's easier to get hired because salespeople, especially entry level jobs like I got, they go, he's competitive, he's got a work ethic. He's got an attitude to go in here and grind. And so we can teach him to sell. That's actually what happened. And I grew to become quite passionate about it and got promoted. And then I loved, absolutely loved managing and leading people, which was the first promotion. And if you were to ask me when I was 22, 23, finishing my football

career, I would never have said that. Now, I led people. I played quarterback, but I would have never, I didn't know that that was the path. I almost needed to get a random job to figure out that passion. So when I share that with you and share the fact that I, I'm hopefully this is relating to others who are in similar spaces. What's your thoughts on, on that? I mean, as I would see that,

sales was just the, the talent. You're, you're, that's just the talent. But your gift is how you connect with people. And what you used is you use your talent, your vehicle,

if you like, to honor your gift. And I, I love it. But I, but when you break it down, you look at it, you most likely will find that it's about people.

It's some sort of interaction. It's about being able to lift people to help them up, to get them to see how great they are, to develop them in some shape or form, to build their own individual confidence. And that's when we talk about that space, that's more in the gift space. But I don't see, and you can correct me, it's your story, it's not mine, but I don't see sales as being the thing. I see that's just, you know, was the vehicle to get you into using, you know, something in a more gift space, if that makes any sense. What do you think about nature versus nurture, specifically when it comes to leadership? Are leaders, and I know the answer is probably gray, but more gray. But are they born or are they made?

Leaders? Yes. I think we're all leaders. I think every human being I know is a leader. Every single human being I know is a leader, but not many of them would agree with that. And therein lies the problem. And I think the other thing is that a lot of us, there's a lot of great books out there. There's a lot of leadership techniques and everything else.

And I think we can bring some of those into the play. but I find that a lot of people lead from a very inauthentic place. It doesn't mean it's a bad place. It's just a place of others. They model other people in terms of how they, how they, and sometimes we don't create enough bandwidth or we don't create enough space to bring our own individual authenticity, if you want to call it that, another word that's been bantered around for years into that leadership role.

And often it's not, you know, what we do, it's how we do it. So I consult with a lot of. people daily who are out of alignment. They feel, you know, just they're off. They feel there's something missing. And sometimes they need to make a pivot, a significant one. They need to get out of their career and do something different or sell their business or change companies or change industry.

Absolutely. But sometimes they just need to honor themselves and bring more of who they are into that leadership role. And that can be enough to ignite them. And that's a confidence thing. That's giving yourself permission to bring that part of you out into your work and to play with that and to experiment with that every single day. So, Philip, you have a book that came out recently called One Last Talk.

And you also have a series of events where people deliver their one last talk. And I've watched some of these videos and really interested in this. What is one last talk all about both the book as well as the events? So if you had 15 minutes, as it relates to the event, 15 minutes to stand on a stage. and to share your one last talk with the world, what would you say and who would you say it to? That is the basic premise of one last talk. But you don't have to be a speaker.

You don't have to stand on a stage. But what we encourage people to do is to go through the process of extracting your one last talk, which is not about global warming. It's not about Donald Trump. It's not about the economy. It's about a part of your personal narrative. It focuses you to really understand what's important,

what part of your narrative, that you may not want to address, you may not even be proud of, that you need to share with the world to free yourself and in turn to allow other people to feel that they're not alone. In other words, free them as well. And what we're finding is that the freedom the speaker gets from going through the process is extraordinary. The audience get to the privilege of listening to these extraordinary sacred talks where they can start to give them permission, themselves permission to realize, shit, I'm not alone. And what we didn't see coming was companies and organizations bringing one last talk in to their organizations as a methodology to help their teams connect. Because the research is showing that people really, really want to connect within themselves, within their companies. They want to feel competent at what they do and they want to feel authentic in their lives.

There's a whole body of research in this. And one last talk is a way to allow teams, we use the term team deepening, teams to, teams to, to deepen as opposed to team build, which is something that's been around forever. So that's the basic premise behind it. What was the process of writing this book? It's different to write a book to get all the words out on. It's not the first book you've written, obviously, but what was the process to get this down? And why did it need to be in book form as opposed to just doing it on stage?

Yeah, we have been doing the live event for a number of years. has been kind of quite not secretive, but just kind of, you know, very organic within our community. And we're starting to get, you know, a lot of traction around the people very intrigued by it. And people saying things like, oh, you know, I know this friend of mine, Ryan, he'd be, he'd have an amazing one last talk. But not me. I mean, geez, I wouldn't know where to start. I don't have a significant story. And I wanted to demystify that.

One of the challenges is people don't feel they have a story that has the capacity to impact. you could argue and say, therefore, their story doesn't really matter. Their story is not as significant to somebody else's. And I want to debunk that. I want to challenge that. And when we said about writing the book, and I say we, because of my learning disabilities, I had to get someone to extract and to draw it out of me, a guy called Tucker Max, who I'm sure you know, and he gets a lot of judgment, but he's got a big heart,

believes immensely in this concept. Has it been a huge believer. and we originally were setting out this is a how to book, how to write your one last talk, and to deliver to at least one other human being. And what we realized very quickly is that we had to address why people should do it. So it's a why two book with the finishing of the book, the end of the book showing people how to do it.

Because really people need to be educated or convinced or at least understand the power of crafting your one last talk for you and the even more immense power of sharing it with at least one other human being, the cathartic, therapeutic and inspirational effect it has on other people. Why should the regular person who's not a speaker who doesn't get up on stage, why should they read the work as well as then put it together and go through that sometimes probably painful, right, deep introspective process? Why should they do that?

Well, I believe that all of us carry some sort of demons at some level. And those demons always come out. So you can be proactive in that process or you can be reactive in that process. When we actually wrote the book, we sent the first manuscript out to 10 people who knew me, who are obviously biased and they came back with typically great feedback, some changes, little tweaks on clarifying questions. We then took the manuscript and sent it out to 10 people who didn't know me, in some cases at all, or just barely knew me.

And two people came back with very venomous, very angry comments around the book. They basically hated the book. They just could not stand the book. And they couldn't stand me as a result of it or vice versa. And one of them was interested. We couldn't use any of their feedback, though, because it was just so angry and so so venomous that it wasn't constructive. Like we couldn't take anything from it. And one of the men that was so angry, Bacy decided that he's going, he's so mad.

He hates the project so much that he's going to go and he's going to deliver his one last talk, in his case, to his parents, just to prove that this thing is crap. and it transformed his relationship with his parents. They had the most extraordinary conversation that had ever had, a conversation that he should have had maybe 10 years ago. And it created this incredible mending and bonding and healing and connection within them. He's now our single biggest,

well, not the single biggest, but one of our fans, if you want to call it, are believers in the concept. So if you're skeptical, I'm not here to convince you to read it. That's not my job.

If you're drawn to it at some level, fine. If you're repulsed by the idea, or you feel you're rejecting it or you're responding to it. Well, then I'd also be curious about that. But if you're not drawn to it, that's cool. But I would encourage you to give it a go, go through the process, and then judge it afterwards.

But it's somebody said to me, and I'm not sure this is, I'm not going to use this from an advertising standpoint, but somebody said to me, it's like five years of therapy in one book. I'm not saying that's the case. Somebody else said that to me. It just, you learn a lot about yourself.

And I think the beneficiaries of you going through this process are all the people around you who will see the impact that potentially that this book can make on you. I think I read that you said you won't sign the book. Correct. Why? This is not, this is, this book was written by me, but it's not for me. This book is written on behalf of the extraordinary, courageous men and women, most of which have never spoken publicly before. And that's one thing I should have mentioned earlier on is that this is not a space for professional speakers.

Yes, professional speakers come to this event and deliver. And by the way, they have arguably the hardest time delivering a one last talk because they're not allowed deliver their traditional keynote. But 80% of the speakers at these events have never spoken publicly before. And I feel that the book is written on behalf of them and on behalf of the people who are going to have the courage to deliver their one last talks in the future. Therefore, I believe that it's not my book to sign, if that makes any sense. it does um philip man i really appreciate your willingness to share uh in depth this is different

than most episodes i realize that and i love it man i really do and i appreciate uh all that you're able to do and willing to is there anything that i may have missed during our time together that you want to share with my audience no and i want to just thank you because you know jason gainer who who brought me to master my talks where you opened up with. And then I got the privilege to meet you through that, through that. You know, I admire that and I admire you because, you know, my work is not typical. It doesn't fit necessarily into a box and therefore it frightens some people. So I just want to say thank you for bringing this conversation to the table.

And if people don't like it or don't want the book, that's cool. That's no problem. But at least thank you for giving me the opportunity to share what I believe about the world and what I see. And my job is to, is to, you know, make sure that people, I heard, quote, and I'll butcher the quote, but it was actually Jason has sent it to me. One of the greatest burdens, and it's not this, this is my variation of one of the greatest burdens a child can bear is the unlived life of their parents. And, you know, for me, my mission on this earth is to

make sure that no one goes to their grave with a regret. 90% of people scientifically die with major life regrets. I believe it's 99%. And my job is to remove as many of those regrets as possible before people leave the earth. And none of us wake up. Not one human being wakes up saying, hey, I'm going to make a decision today that's going to lead to a major life regret. Yet statistically, most of us do this.

So there's something that we can see in ourselves, and my job is to awaken us to that. And I just want to say thank you for having me on. Absolutely, man. Obviously, my pleasure. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Yeah, philipmukernan.com is my main website, but One Last Talk.com and their podcast is out, which gives you a sample of some of the stories.

And so One Last Talk.com. Awesome, man. Well, Philip, I know we're going to continue our dialogue as we both progress. It's been great over the last few years and already excited to record with you again in the future, man. Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate having me on. All right. Thanks, Philip.

You know when you're going to have a talk with Philip that it's going to be incredibly deep and I love that. I really look forward to it and appreciative for Phillips' friendship over the years. And as I said, I was fortunate to see him move a crowd of leaders, most of them, to tears through the course of a one-hour keynote. But whether he's talking about following your passion or advice to a young person or why he wrote one last talk or why you should give your one last talk, all of it was very meaningful, impactful to me. I hope it was to you, and I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. If so, I'd love it if you would write a review, subscribe, and rate the show wherever you listen. Write a review, subscribe, rate the show, five stars of its iTunes, Apple Podcasts. And to do me a favor, I'd love it if you would spread this message to a friend who perhaps has never listened to a podcast or never listened to this one.

and that is what continues to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis, and I am forever grateful for that. Thank you so much. We'll talk next week. Can't wait. This episode is brought to you by Mugsy Jeans. Mugsy Jeans are the most comfortable men's jeans ever made. That's no exaggeration.

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That was really good. I almost thought we're not going to get to one last talk. There's so many other things that you're talking about that I was just fascinated by and was just kind of following my curiosity. I really appreciate that, man. I love your style. I love your style. And I told the story recently of the day.

I know if you remember this, but the day we sitting beside each other at Mastermind talks and Jason said, just talk to the person next to you and ask you what they do. And I turn to you. I remember. And I'll never forget how gracious you were in my moment of total idiot. So what do you do? And you looked at me, I run a podcast.

And anyway, you kept going down this road. And then I turned out. I'll tell you what I do. And then that night or a couple of days later, I realized, oh, my God, I was on the podcast. And you were such a gentleman and so kind with my idiotic mistake. No, I mean. Without exposing me. No, no.

I mean, it was, I was, one, I was grateful for Jason just to just to be able to sit by you. And two, I don't expect, you know, I try to be realistic. in life, you know. I think obviously the podcast as it goes, it makes more of an impact and becomes more memorable. And certainly I'm happy that that's happened. And next time we see each other, obviously, it'll be different. But that, you know, it's life, man. You do a lot of stuff. You do a lot of things. And I don't expect anybody to think, I think we're all kind of right. You know, we're all human and that happens. So I never expect anybody to be aware of me or what I've done. I think I've been brought up to where my parents say, you know, I would, a funny story. My dad, I was really worried

about what I was going to wear to this event. And my dad, who's the best. And he would say, hey, they're not worried about what you're wearing. They're worried about what they're wearing. And I said, that's true. And he's that he's not cynical. He's the most optimistic human on earth, but he's also realistic. And I said, yeah, that's right. And so when when that happened, it wasn't a big deal. And I knew we would probably reconnect anyway. So it wasn't a big deal. But I do appreciate at you because, uh, even acknowledging it because most people wouldn't. And you did. And you're like, oh, man, I'm an idiot. And that, that alone was great. That was great. So it was cool. It's, it's, I'm glad we got to reconnect. Where's home for you? Dayton, Ohio.

Dayton, Ohio. I've got an invitation for you. If you want to come along as my guest, I'm doing an event at the only time I'll be doing it in 2019, I believe in the States, 28 and 28th of February 1st of March. It's called Brave Mind. I won't get into the details, but have luck in my website. If you want to come along as my guest, I'd love you to, I'd love to have you there. So which one is this? Is it, where is it? Colorado.

It's a two day event in Boulder, Colorado. Oh, wow. Okay. And I do three live immersive experiences, a two day, a five day, and a seven day. And this one is really cool. We're getting an amazing feedback on it. And if you want to fly in to Boulder, spend two great days with some beautiful people. You'll meet some amazing people.

Some people from the mastermind talks community and et cetera, et cetera. And I'd like to have, you know, comes to my guest and love to have. Love to have you. Man, that would be awesome. All right. I'm writing it down. I'm going to check on it right now as soon as we hang up. Have a look at us.

And then just email, let us know if something you want to do. Okay. Thanks so much, man. And by the way, I'll let you know when this episode gets, gets, goes live probably be in a couple weeks. You're a star. Thanks a million, man. Thanks, so.

Okay. Bye.