Philip McKernan - Create A Life That Means Something - Part 1

Full transcript: Create A Life That Means Something (Part 1)

0:12 Brian Rose: Okay, everyone, good evening. Thank you so much for coming to London Real studios. I think we all deserve a hand. Luckily it wasn’t yesterday, so it’s medium-hot in here, but I feel like we’re all kind of part of the sauna experience. So, you know, it’s funny. I was getting ready for this event, and Phil and I had spoken a few weeks ago, and I was talking to Mariana and I was like, “Where are we gonna do this?” And I was calling different places and we were getting online and finding a place in Angel, a place here, and then I had a really intelligent moment, baby. I woke up in bed and I said, “We can do it at London Real studios.” What an idea.

0:53 Brian Rose: So I’m a little slow on the uptake. We’ve never had anything like this here. I think three years ago we had the Eden Knights, which was a band I interviewed, perform live here, and we streamed it back when no one was doing streaming. But other than that, this is usually just me and a guest, and lately it’s been Luis in studio when we tape. So this is a really new experience. Thanks for coming. I feel the energy here, and it’s perfect to have Phil, and I’m gonna talk a little bit about Phil later and how I met Phil.

1:23 Brian Rose: But this studio space, it just means so much to me. I was telling Phil earlier, when I first walked in here it was probably four and a half years ago. London Real didn’t exist, and I walked in and it felt right being in this space, and I had no idea what was gonna come. I quit my job as a banker and I was unemployed and I was really directionless, and it was scary. And I thought, am I gonna start a company or be the startup guy? Or should I go back to banking, because I can still maybe make some money? But none of that stuff felt right. And so I was here and I just wasn’t doing anything, was I, babe? I wasn’t really grabbing hold of anything.

2:09 Brian Rose: And there was a moment, and if you heard my TED talk you know, I was walking with my Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor in the West End and I literally turned to him and said, “Let’s start our own podcast.” And he was like, “Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it.” And for me, I was like, but when I do it, there’s no coming back, because all of my buddies in banking, they’re gonna see me on YouTube and they’re gonna laugh, think it’s a joke, and once I go there I can’t go back. And so I thought about it for about 48 hours, and then I came here and, I kid you not, I built the desk that was London Real, like, right there.

2:44 Brian Rose: I mean, baby, remember? I just built it. It was an old desk that I had in my previous flat and I hadn’t built it here because there was no room, and I just built it knowing that I was gonna start broadcasting myself. And it was a strange moment. I got the microphone arms, I got the mixing board, and I built it all with the webcams, and about a week later we filmed our first episode. So this space means a lot to me. I’ve had some of the most amazing moments of my life sitting right there, having the deepest conversations ever.

3:15 Brian Rose: One of those being with Mr. Peter Sage. Thanks so much for being here tonight. I think you all know that one conversation between two men on that afternoon. I had never met Peter before, he had never met me. We were joking about this the other day. You know, he was busy, you were doing something up north and you took a train ride down here to shoot this episode with me. Actually, one of our London Real interns had sold me on Peter, and he was like, “You’ve got to interview this guy,” and I was like, “Who is this guy?” And I watched this YouTube video with Peter where he was just talking to camera, I think it was in a restaurant or somewhere, and a guy was asking you questions and Peter was just answering from the hip, and I liked his vibe right away. I was like, this guy’s real. It’s not an edited video. And I was like, yeah, let’s do this.

4:03 Brian Rose: And so Peter didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know who he was. I think some guy rode in a car on the way down from Leicester, wherever it was, just to talk to you on the way, and I was like, “Is that a friend of yours?” He’s like, “No, he just wanted an hour with me.” And I was like, okay. And Peter and I locked in for an hour and a half and we just had this most organic, amazing conversation that resonated with so many people around the world. And I literally have had emails from people that have said that it changed their life, and I don’t mean in a way where they changed jobs or something, but they were having a really stressful moment or something really tweaked.

4:40 Brian Rose: So that 90 minutes really affected people. I know you got the same thing. Yeah, and thank you. And so it was just two guys having a moment, and it was so organic. You can feel it when I watch it back. I’ve got funny hair going on, on my face, but you can see we’re both really engaged with this conversation. And so that’s the epitome of London Real, I think, is just what we did there. And so it’s come and progressed, and like I said, so much good energy has happened in this room.

5:10 Brian Rose: If I want to be completely frank with you, I’ve actually had two ayahuasca ceremonies in this room. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that. And the second one was one of the big ones that made me finally make the decision to move in with Mariana and our daughter, which was just a big moment in my life, and it was when I finally just stopped being so protective of myself and opened my feelings up to other people. It’s a big moment in my life for me to just make that change. So a lot of special things happen in here.

5:41 Brian Rose: I was lying on a sofa here. I was crying so much during my ayahuasca ceremony that the tears were streaming, I remember this, they were streaming down my face into my ears and it was dripping off my ears. And I was just having all these emotions. And I’d actually just come back from a trip with the girls in Barcelona and they drove me absolutely nuts on that trip, and I told you, baby, I said, “We’re not moving in together, right?” And this is what you don’t do before you go into an ayahuasca ceremony, because you’re just gonna get hammered. And I did get hammered, and I was told in about 30 seconds, “You’re an idiot, don’t do that.” And then we went deeper into some of your problems, Brian. And so it was a big thing, but all that stuff happened in the studio. And so it’s really nice to have you here for that energy. So I’m glad we decided on this place.

6:31 Brian Rose: A little bit about Phil. I met Phil probably two months ago in Napa, California. I was there for an event called MastermindTalks, which is run by Jayson Gaignard, who runs, I think, the best in the business when it comes to a grouping of people. And I think there were about 140 of us out there, and it was a two-day event. A lot of former guests from London Real: Kelly Starrett was there, you would have known him from Becoming a Supple Leopard, Tim Ferriss was there, others that are escaping me were in the audience. And it was just an amazing time, an amazing venue.

7:04 Brian Rose: And Saturday there were a bunch of talks, and then Sunday Phil came on the stage, and there were all these, I don’t know how to describe them, type A entrepreneurs, or people that were really quite accomplished in their own space, and in a matter of 20 minutes everybody was kind of hanging on Phil’s every word, and it got really emotional in the crowd, and some people cried. And there’s the line that resonates with me that Phil said, and I’ve said it, I think, on one of the webinars when I talked about how to manage money. Phil said to everyone in the room, “What is your relationship with money?”

7:39 Brian Rose: And everybody, Rika, you were there, and everybody just, like, everything stopped, and all of a sudden people were raising their hand, and a guy was like, “You know, I run a business that makes 10 million dollars a year and I hate it.” And I’m gonna get emotional thinking about it. And one guy raised his hand and said, “I’ve been rich all my life and I hate that I have money. I just feel wrong about it.” And so everyone started opening up, and it was powerful. And Phil was cold reading people, and he was just like, “Okay, tell me more about your story. That doesn’t seem right to me. No, no, I don’t believe that. Okay, that I believe.” And he was just talking to people in the audience and it was really powerful.

8:15 Brian Rose: And so I told myself I’ve got to introduce myself to Phil, but I was really worried what he was gonna say to me. And so we had this final dinner on Sunday at a place in Napa, and it was busy, and I really wanted to say hi to Phil, and I knew he’s from Ireland originally, and tell him what we do and just say hi. But I thought he might be like, “Brian, you’re obviously not doing what you’re happy with,” and I thought it was just gonna ruin my whole weekend there. But I was like, okay, I’ve got to say hi. And I was like, “Hi, Phil, how are you? I really loved your talk. I’m with London Real and I’d love to have you on some time.”

8:49 Brian Rose: And Phil, you know, he looked at me and he was like, “Brian, I don’t know what your audience is, I don’t know what your reach is, but I would love to be on your show. I like you and you have good energy.” And I quickly said goodbye. I must be okay. So that was my introduction to Phil, and it was really funny. I was really nervous. And so I got the A-okay from the first meeting with Phil, and we stayed in touch, and we had a Skype call, and we were just trying to make it fit for our event in September, and it wasn’t gonna work.

9:23 Brian Rose: And Phil was like, “Well, I’m gonna be in London, or in Ireland doing one of my retreats,” and he said, “Why don’t I just fly in and we’ll do a show, and why don’t I do this one night?” And it was really just off the cuff, and I was like, what a great idea. So that’s why we’re here tonight. Really, Phil was being generous, and I was like, okay, let’s do it. And the Academy had just started, and we really didn’t plan this, and so that’s kind of how it happened. So I’m really glad that you suggested that. So we’re doing an interview tomorrow and it’ll all be on tape, but tonight it is Phil. I’m gonna pass the stage over to him.

10:00 Brian Rose: We titled this “Create a Life That Means Something.” And what I like about Phil is I think he tries to figure out what’s going on in your head and what’s going on in your heart, and a lot of times for me, and maybe for a lot of you, they’re two different things. And for me, when I was banking all the time and trying to make the money, it wasn’t congruent with what was in my heart, and I think London Real was more what’s in my heart. But quite honestly, I think we all fight with this, and I fight with it too, to try to figure out what’s in my heart and what my head is telling me I need to do. And so that, I think, is Phil’s strength. So without any further ado, let me introduce the man himself, Mr. Phil McKernan.

10:49 Philip McKernan: Thank you. It’s obvious you’re not living your passion, so we’ll talk about that tonight. Leave that there. Thank you. In fact, I’ll elaborate slightly on that little gathering we had that last night of that event, MastermindTalks, where Brian asked me would I, you know, turn up and do an interview on a show. And I did say to him, I said, “I don’t care, I don’t know what your reach is, and quite frankly I don’t care if it’s just yourself and your grandmother.” I said, “I’m in,” because I lean into people. I don’t chase opportunities. Okay? I’ve let go of chasing opportunities in my life.

11:25 Philip McKernan: And what’s happened in my world is possibilities have started to open up for me that I could never have fathomed. I couldn’t have set goals for the **** that I do in my life right now, and that’s not a reflection of how great I am. That’s a reflection of hard work. It’s a reflection of belief. It’s a reflection of being more intuitive, and a combination of meeting wonderful people like Brian who buy into what they see. So that’s one thing that I’ve done over the last four or five years: I’ve stopped chasing opportunities, the financial opportunities, the bums-on-seats opportunities, and the possibilities started showing up, and I’ve got myself into some unusual situations over the last three or four years in the context of the work that I do.

12:05 Philip McKernan: I’m here to do one thing and one thing only here tonight, okay, and that is to sell you **** that you don’t need. Okay? That was me just testing to see if you guys actually have a sense of humour, because I speak in Canada and the US sometimes and sometimes they don’t get my sense of humour. As a great friend of mine said, “It’s not that they don’t get your sense of humour, you’re just not funny. I’ve known you 23 years, you’re not funny.” I’m not here to sell you anything. Okay? I do work and whatever, but that’s a different day, and you can look up my site or whatever you want to do later. I’m here to serve you 100%. That’s all I’m here to do. But all I ask you to do is lean in 50% of the way. Okay? Fair enough? Yeah? Okay.

12:40 Philip McKernan: That’s all I ask. The further you lean in, the more I can serve you, potentially, and some of the greatest insights tonight you’re gonna get, most likely, are from this room here, the audience, not from up here. Okay? What I do is I create a space where, hopefully, conversation will unfold. Okay? That you guys will lean in. But maybe we can’t force it, nor do I want to. Then maybe you’ll open up about aspects of your life, and then someone over here will get something from it, and someone over here will get something from it.

13:08 Philip McKernan: Because there is only one, the most magnificent story on this earth, and it is the story that you have. The story that you’ve lived, the story that is rolling out as we speak, and the story that you’re yet to move into. It is the only story in the world that is magnificent, and should be magnificent to some extent to you, because if it’s not, you’re ****, because it’s the only one you have. So many of us want other people’s lives. You want aspects of that. “Well, I don’t want that part of my childhood. I don’t want those seven years where it was unhappy. I don’t want the failure in my business. I don’t want that marriage that went to hell. Now, if we can get rid of those pieces, yeah, my life’s pretty good.”

13:49 Philip McKernan: But what you’re basically saying is, “I don’t accept who I am.” And what you do is you carry that into your future, and you wonder why sometimes you hit against walls, sometimes things don’t work out perfectly. And what happens is that residual stuff that you haven’t necessarily accepted as part of your existence is actually starting to eat away. People call it self-sabotage, whatever you want to call it. If I had to distil one thing that I absolutely do with people, it’s I get them to believe in themselves more. I don’t say that on my website. It’s a little bit too fluffy. Okay? I position it and I talk about it. I’m not trying to hide it, by the way. I’m not trying to hide it at all, and if you dig enough you’ll probably get that sense.

14:23 Philip McKernan: But if there’s one thing that I could ask any human being to do, invite any human being to do on this earth, it’s that they can shift their value in themselves, how they are on this earth. I promise you, I guarantee, two big words off the bat. You’re from Canada? Yeah, okay. Yeah, that’s a bit of a weird one, sorry. That was an insider job there. A friend put us in touch today and I just saw your name, sir. If you shift your value internally, everything in your life is going to shift. You’re gonna demand more for yourself in this world. I’m not talking about putting more pressure on yourself. You’re just gonna demand better quality conversations. You’re gonna demand to be treated with respect.

15:05 Philip McKernan: You’re not gonna stay in a **** day job that you don’t want to do and rationalise and justify to yourself that you’re doing it to pay the bills for the **** that you don’t even want or need in the first place. You’re gonna say, “I don’t love that job. It’s not nurturing my soul. So I am gonna move on.” I work with some of the wealthiest, literally some of the wealthiest men and women in the world. Obscene wealth. I’ve dealt with Olympic athletes. I was in London, whenever it was, three or four years ago. I deal with mom-and-pops, I deal with people who are trying to make their first million, people who’ve lost all their money, the most unusual mix of people you can imagine. I work with the US military.

15:42 Philip McKernan: I’m not trying to impress you, but the one thing I will try and press upon you is the fact that the same characteristics show up time and time and time again. Time and time and time again. So I’m here to serve you, and after that I’m here to have some fun with my wife Pauline, who’s over here, okay, because we don’t get a huge amount of time on our own, because our two kids are in Ireland being looked after by my parents. So I’m gonna pour as much as I can in here tonight, we’re gonna have a conversation tomorrow, and then myself and my wife are gonna have a little bit of time off in this great city.

16:15 Philip McKernan: So what I’d like you to do first of all, and it’s an invitation, I’m not telling you what to do, I’m gonna ask you to put all your notebooks away. Okay? I’m gonna ask you to put your notebooks away. I’m gonna ask you to put your iPhones away. Okay? I literally had a guy one day, and he had his hand on his iPhone like this, or his phone, and I said, “Can I get your phone?” It was a bit more of a longer session we were doing, and I said, “I just want to put all the phones outside the door,” and he says, “No, it’s turned off.” And I said, “No, I get that. I just want to take it outside, because it’s to support you.” “No, no, no, it’s not even on vibrate.” I said, “I’m not asking for your child. I just want your phone.” Okay?

16:51 Philip McKernan: So why am I asking you to take your notebooks away? Now, I know some of you are gonna argue and debate, potentially, that this is how you learn. “You don’t know me, Philip. This is how I learn. I take notes, okay, and then what I do is I reflect upon them and sit with them, and then I take them down six months from now. That’s how I learn.” I get that, but I don’t want you to learn. I don’t want you to absorb information. Okay? I don’t want you to have intellectual conversations and thoughts tonight. I want to move you, if I can, and I can’t control that, because you’re gonna lean in. I want you to move into a more emotional place, because I don’t want you making shifts six months from now. I want you to perhaps gain awareness tonight and make shifts in this room.

17:36 Philip McKernan: Because here’s what I believe. And I’ve chosen not to, what the hell is that? Is that a bulldog? I’ve chosen not to, was that Winston? Okay. I’ve chosen not to put a scripted speech together here. I’m just coming and seeing what’s going on, because I want to understand what’s going on for you. I want to understand the challenges you’re facing. If you want to spend all day, you know, massaging each other and telling each other how great we are, setting goals for the future, brilliant. That’s not what I do. Unfortunately, some of the greatest growth in the world is growth through the ****. That’s what I take people through, as well as acknowledging the beauty. Okay? As well as acknowledging the good stuff. We have to find a place for that. But some of the greatest growth we’re going to get is moving through the ****.

18:18 Philip McKernan: But here’s the problem with, sorry, one of the issues in the world today is that we are consuming vast quantities of information at the speed of light. Never before in the history of mankind has there been such information available, and never has it been so accessible, through our phones and through our computers, et cetera, et cetera. But here’s the issue, and I’ve only been sitting with this, so I haven’t fully wrapped my head around it or sat with it long enough, but it’s just started to emerge as, I suppose, an invitational philosophy, or something for us to consider, and that is: are we allowing the information that we’re consuming to shift into, ultimately, the end goal, which is potentially awareness?

19:03 Philip McKernan: Because I believe with the information that we’re consuming, often we’re obsessed with reading the next book. Let’s just use books as an example. Okay? I see people, there’s almost like a badge of honour: “I read four books a month.” Great. Okay, five books a month, sorry. You’re the guy that reads four or five books. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I just want to offer an invitation to you. Okay? What I tend to do is challenge some of the status quo. I don’t do it intentionally. I don’t just go out and make up **** and try to challenge you. But if I can softly challenge you, and you could open up and say, “Okay, maybe there is something in that. Maybe I’m consuming too much information.”

19:39 Philip McKernan: Because when we’re consuming information, when we’re too busy getting to the next book or the next podcast or the next thing, we’re not allowing it to shift into knowledge, necessarily. And that knowledge doesn’t get an opportunity to transfer into wisdom. And almost never in society is that wisdom transferring into awareness, because we’re too busy consuming, consuming, consuming. When was the last time you met somebody who said, “Oh my God, you’ve got to…” I was gonna pick up one of the books, but I don’t mean to come across like I’m knocking the author. I don’t even know the books behind me. But when was the last time you met somebody who said, “Oh my God, I read this book, it changed my life”?

20:14 Philip McKernan: So the next time that happens, and it’s not to catch them out, just say, “Great. How?” “No, no, but you’re not listening. It was amazing. It just changed everything. It’s great.” “But just give me, like, one example of one thing that you fundamentally changed, that you stopped doing, that you started doing on a consistent basis,” as opposed to just doing it for 30 days or 21 days or whatever the theory is. And what you find is, often, not always… Some of the greatest insights you’re going to get, and obviously the podcast or the interview that you did was exceptional. In fact, Brian has mentioned it a number of times to me, and I’m sorry, I haven’t listened to it, but I promise you I will. There’s incredible stuff out there.

20:57 Philip McKernan: But it sounds to me, if you just listened to that one episode, but took your time around it, took space, went back another few days later and just watched the entirety of it again, and sat with it and said, “What are the things in that interview that are stirring my imagination? What are the things in that interview that are pissing me off? Why did that thing that Peter said bug me? What is that? How does that relate to me? Why do I not want to hear that message?” If we did that, and we sat with these opportunities, they transfer from simply pure information into knowledge, move into wisdom, and there in that translation we have this beautiful window to sit there and say, “Okay, I hear it, but what part of this speaks to my intuition? What part of this speaks to my soul? What part of this is authentically me?”

21:54 Philip McKernan: Because what happens is we grab the entirety of a concept, or a book, or a speaker, or an author, and we model their lives, because we want to be like them. But we don’t know who they are, because we haven’t lain in bed beside them at night and seen that they toss and turn all night and they don’t have peace of mind. We hear the bits that they want us to hear, we see the bits that we want to see, and we hear the bits that the media or the introduction allows us in on. But there has to be a place in this world to be open to insights, awareness, being challenged in this world, and before you start making anything, in the middle here is to start translating. So what part of this is me? What part of this will serve me as a human being? What part of this is aligned to not just my values? Because I think values sometimes are great, but I think there’s a depth even below that. Does this speak to my soul, or am I just doing this because I want the results that I think that person has?

22:55 Philip McKernan: So, as I said, I don’t have a script here tonight, but, you know, Brian mentioned money. So I’d like you to take a moment, and I’d like you to consider money for a moment. I’d like you to think about money, and I’d like you to come up with one word, just one word, that kind of sums up how you feel about money. Just one word. Take your time, take your time, take your time. I appreciate the answer, but just take your time. Sometimes we’re a little bit too fast. You’re dying to get going there, aren’t you? It’s like the hands up.

23:39 Philip McKernan: Okay. Freedom. Freedom, okay. Freedom. Anybody else? Sorry? Time. Okay. Opportunity. Control. Energy. Exchange. Easy. Easy. A pain. A pain. Thank you for the honesty. Ability to choose. Ability to choose. Enough. Options. Perception. Bastard? You’re calling me a bastard, or the money? Because I have been called a lot of things. I’m just clarifying. Thank you.

24:25 Philip McKernan: You know, guys and girls, again, sometimes I come across as, people might think, “He’s telling me…” You know, and for those of you who don’t like to be told how to live your life, sometimes you might feel that I’m rubbing you up the wrong way. Maybe I am. Maybe I am being an **** the way I’m saying something. Maybe I am being obnoxious. It’s not my intention. I think if you get nothing from me other than understanding, at a really deep level, I care so deeply for people. So deeply. And unfortunately the reality is that so many of us are misaligned to who we are. So many of us are doing copious amounts of things and **** in our lives that we just don’t need to do. We just don’t need to do it in this world anymore.

25:03 Philip McKernan: We’re staying in relationships that are dysfunctional and we’re telling ourselves that it’s not bad, but our only reference point is the relationship before that, which we got out of because it was ****. We’re staying in jobs and we’re telling ourselves, we’re running businesses and we’re telling ourselves, “Well, it pays the bills.” Like, if that’s the life that you want to live, that’s fine. I’m not here to tell you that you’re weak. I lived that **** for 35, maybe more, years of my life. Problem is I can’t lie tonight because my wife’s here. It’s a pain. My wife rarely ever comes to hear me speak. Ever.

25:35 Philip McKernan: And we’re walking around this world with relationships with ourselves, views of ourselves, which I think dictate the whole picture, that we just don’t need to. And we can tell ourselves, we can do affirmations, and we can tell ourselves we’re brilliant a million times a day. We can tell ourselves we’re wonderful. We can wear T-shirts and even say, you know, “I love you,” maybe on the inside this time, because we don’t want people to think we’re arrogant, because we’re so consumed by what people think of us. But if you shift not just the perception, but if you shift how you feel about yourself as a human being, everything else changes. Everything.

26:09 Philip McKernan: I was wondering what was wrong with me when I’d go to wealth-building seminars and I couldn’t make it happen. Then I heard some guru saying, “You’ve got to meditate twice a day.” I said, “That’s it. I haven’t been meditating.” And then I meditated twice a day and I hated the guru and I hated meditation. And then I’m thinking, ultimately, bottom line, you know, the real issue here is I’m broken. I’m actually broken. We don’t often go around saying those things, but often we imply those things. Often we hold this sense that we come from such a place, in society or within our family or poverty or whatever, we think at some level, or we hold this possibility, that we’re kind of broken and therefore we won’t be able to achieve what other people achieve. What I’m here to suggest is that’s all to do with value. It’s all to do with value.

26:58 Philip McKernan: So, money. I hadn’t planned on speaking at all about money, but, you know, let’s just touch on it briefly, which might mean we’ll be here talking about it in four hours. But think about the emotion and the charge behind the words that you used. So let’s just absorb this for a minute. So the people that spoke, can you share that again, please? So: enough, perception, control, perception, control, fast, energy, exchange, pain, pain, freedom, easy. You didn’t share, but I’m going to ask you to share now. It’s in the small print. Brian got you to sign it.

27:49 I would say fear.

27:51 Philip McKernan: Fear. Options. Thank you. To me that’s extraordinary. There’s no right or wrong, by the way. God, his sounds so much cooler than mine. But let’s just take freedom. I’m not here to debate with you and argue with you. I find people who debate a lot are very heady. Often I’m asking you to sit back, and not necessarily agree with me. Okay? It’s not to agree with me, but just open yourself to what you cannot see. Just open to the possibilities. Okay? Just open to the possibilities that you cannot necessarily see.

28:26 Philip McKernan: Anybody heard of the golfer called Pádraig Harrington? Paddy Harrington, Pádraig Harrington. I speak a little bit funny, by the way, just a heads up. It’s not an excuse, but I was saying to Brian earlier, I am under a little bit of pressure, quite a bit of pain, because I had dental surgery which didn’t go particularly well and it’s been pretty badly infected. So I speak funny at the best of times, but bear with me if I don’t pronounce something and you want me to go back and explain it. So I am in a little bit of discomfort tonight.

28:55 Philip McKernan: But even, actually, on that, you know, if this was five years ago, when I was in a previous industry, I was in the coffee business, I was in the wine business for five years, respectfully, I probably would have cancelled tonight, or I just wouldn’t have done it. But when you’re doing something that you want to do, when you’re doing something that you are put here to do, which sounds very dramatic maybe, and probably I wouldn’t have said that even two years ago, when you’re here and it’s not about you, it’s incredible what you will put up with, to attempt to shift somebody’s perspective, to attempt to make yourself available.

29:40 Philip McKernan: Brian was asking me about a talk I did in Vegas. There were about three and a half thousand people in the audience. It was definitely the biggest stretch I had done. And by the way, was I nervous? Yeah, I wanted to puke. Not because of 3,000 people. If there were two people in the room, I want to puke every time before I speak. And I was the sickest I’ve ever been. And the lady comes up to me and says, “When we introduce you now, do you want to run down the middle to the stage?” I said, “I can hardly **** walk. I don’t want to run. I’m gonna puke.” And I got on that stage, and I’m not saying it was good, bad or different, that’s not for me to decide, but I can tell you I found something within myself I didn’t even know existed. A depth, or some other fuel tank. I don’t know what the hell it was.

30:21 Philip McKernan: But that’s another thing for me, and it’s just a personal thing, but it’s something I encourage the people that work with me to consider: stop making this journey about you. So many of us will give our hearts and souls for other people, but there’s another part of us that makes it all about us. “I want to be happy, and I want to be this, and I don’t want to be miserable, and I want to be wealthy, and I want to live my passion.” I get it. Okay? I get that. I did it for years. But if you start making it about other people, in the context of what you know and what you do, or even what you don’t do…

30:58 Philip McKernan: I mean, I’m not going to challenge Brian now, necessarily. Okay? And, you know, Brian says it’s all about London Real, and it probably is, but if you dig a little bit deeper, and I’m not suggesting Brian’s not, it’s about what London Real does, potentially. It’s what it means to people. It’s the effect it has on individuals. It’s the interview. I mean, when Brian speaks about the interview and he says, “You know, people are emailing me saying it changed my life,” look at his face. He starts to, like, lift and just grow, and it’s like, you can’t lie through your eyes.

31:29 Philip McKernan: And the reason I didn’t call **** when Brian says, “I don’t run London Real the same way, because it’s real…” Maybe he’ll change his model. Maybe he’ll do bigger events. Maybe he’ll do live events. We’ll put hundreds of people in the room. Hint, hint. Maybe. But no, we talked about this, and he says, you know, it scares him. I’ll say one thing I love about Brian. It’s very rare, guys, that the people that are leading a community, people that are on the precipice of teaching, or they’re the ones that are bringing people forward, so many of them get to a point where they don’t believe they need to work on themselves. They don’t believe they need to be vulnerable, because they shouldn’t be, because they need to have all the answers. One of the reasons I’m here is that you’re okay, and I’m sure you’ve got your stuff like I do, but you’re okay being vulnerable in front of people who are maybe not following you but leaning into your community, and that’s rare. That’s really rare.

32:22 Philip McKernan: What was I talking about before that? Money. But somewhere else I was going to go. It’ll come back to me in a minute. Thank you. Thank you, at least somebody’s listening. This is where I’m just a little bit less sharp than normal, so I do apologise. But Pádraig Harrington did something that only one other golfer has done, maybe one other in the last hundred years. He won the British Open back to back, or what’s now called The Open, which is an extraordinary feat. Okay? I’m not just telling you that story because I’m Irish and I’m proud of Pádraig Harrington. I’m proud of the connection, et cetera. I’m telling you the story because there’s a cool little nuance to that story that not many people know.

33:01 Philip McKernan: So when Pádraig was interviewed, and he had many, many interviews after that, when he also won another major, I think it was the PGA in the United States, he won three majors in 15 months. I mean, most golfers never win a major in their lives. He won three in 15 months. Now, I have a whole theory about why and how he did it, not in terms of his strategy, but in terms of what allowed him to actually get to a point where he believed he could do it. And then the domino effect, if any of you are into golf: how then suddenly, you know, people like Darren Clarke came out of nowhere, and G-Mac, and all these other golfers, like four or five, from a tiny country, punching way above our weight. But when Pádraig did it, and he doesn’t have a great golf swing, when he did it, he saw what was possible. He said, “****, you know what?” And the other guys around him saw that if he can do it, I can do it too. If he can do it, I can do it too.

34:00 Philip McKernan: But when he was being interviewed, one of the interviewers asked him, “Did you ever have a bad day?” And he says, “Do you want to hear the worst day I’ve ever had?” “Yeah, absolutely.” We love bad days, don’t we? We love reading all the ****. He said, “Yeah, tell me about it.” He said, “The day somebody videoed my golf swing. The day somebody videoed my golf swing, I was 15 years old.” And the interviewer’s looking, going, “Yeah.” And he goes, “And then they showed me the video. They played it back.” He said, “Up to that point, I thought I had a majestic golf swing.” That’s the exact words he used. “I thought I had a majestic golf swing.” In other words, he thought he had the golf swing that was going to allow him to go on and win majors.

34:44 Philip McKernan: Now, we’ll never know what would have happened, because after that video, after him witnessing his golf swing, which he thought at that point was average, and he was probably right, he’s still got an average golf swing when you consider him against other golfers. But this is not a golf story. This is an opportunity to read into it and take something for yourself. He couldn’t see it because he was too close. And for those of you who are not golfers, literally, you know, this is a golf swing. You cannot see the mechanics. You cannot see the balance. You cannot see where the knees are. You can’t see the grip. You can’t see it cupped at the top, et cetera, et cetera, and all the way down. I believe the same applies to our own lives.

35:22 Philip McKernan: So what would it be like to leave what you believe at the door and come into this room and say, “You know, maybe what I believe isn’t serving me”? And then, if you really believe it, when you leave here, pick it up again and bring it home. But I find that we get so attached to things, attached to beliefs and values and stuff. That’s an old typewriter. I wouldn’t pick it up. It’s probably worth 20 grand or something. We’re so consumed by attachment. And what I do is I ask people, challenge people, to consider what they believe on a very fundamental level, about religion, about money, about work, about where they live, who they are, who they should be, their identity. Not to undermine them as an individual, but so they can detach and then grab onto the things they truly believe. Truly believe.

36:17 Philip McKernan: But going back to money, if we continue to hold on to the belief, and we attach to the belief, that we need money to be free… Because you used the word freedom. So what you could do is interpret it as saying, basically, money buys you freedom. That’s maybe not exactly what you’re saying, but a lot of people would say that. Basically what you’re saying then is you won’t be free without money. People think that money buys them happiness, opportunities. Now, we can debate this all day long, and there’s some truth to some of it. And yet we all probably, or possibly some of us, buy into the notion that money doesn’t buy us happiness on an intellectual level, but it doesn’t necessarily stop us chasing it.

37:02 Philip McKernan: Now, I’m not an anti-money guy. I’m not about getting rid of all your money and then you become blissfully happy and go and hug a tree for the next 50 years and everything’s going to be perfect. I’m not about that. I’m about making money, absolutely, but not at the cost of our peace of mind, not at the cost of not doing what we’re here to do on this earth. And one of the greatest examples of that happened only a couple of hours, maybe a 55-minute flight, from here, to be precise, in Dublin, Ireland, where we saw one of the greatest economic stories in the history of mankind. Not because the Irish were smarter than anyone here from the UK or Canada or anywhere else. I think we got lucky, or maybe not so lucky.

37:41 Philip McKernan: Ireland went from one of the poorest countries in Europe to the second wealthiest country on the planet, per head of capita obviously, within a space of about 12 years. 12 years, which is a blink of an eye. It’s a sneeze in economic and historic terms. And I believe it didn’t give us the wealth that we all said it did. On the journey the country went absolutely berserk. Make hay while the sun shines. Make as much money as you can, and then someday, you know what, when you build enough wealth, then you can come back and do what you want to do. I don’t believe that theory. I don’t believe that. I don’t buy into that. Partly because of the work I do, but mainly because I tried it myself.

38:31 Philip McKernan: I was buying real estate all over the world. I bought real estate in seven different countries, and it was all based on ego. Sorry, most of it was based on ego, and the balance was based on this feeling that I had that unless I had money, I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. And then the other excuse, which sounds harsh, or the other reason I used, was I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so just keep doing what I’m doing. Anybody here want to change their career, if they don’t know what it is, but they have a sense that they want to change their career? Thank you for the honesty. Come on, raise your hand, be proud of it. ****, everyone. Most people, many people. Brian, is that a hand? I won’t ask the relationship one, just in case my wife raises her hand. Then it’ll be a really awkward situation.

39:18 Philip McKernan: So often we use the money thing. Certainly I did. So rather than me trying to point the finger, which is not my intent, I did, and I used this thing that I don’t know what it is. So anybody, forget about the money for a second, anybody not know what it is they want to do? They want to make a transition, they don’t know what it is. Raise your hand. Come on, raise your hand. So some of you know. So, less people. So if you did, what would it be? You looked at me as if I’ve… So if you did know, what would it be?

39:50 I want to design shoes.

39:53 Philip McKernan: She was great.

40:00 I’m composing.

40:02 Philip McKernan: Okay.

40:03 Startup innovator.

40:05 Philip McKernan: Doing what?

40:08 Exceptional projects. I mean, radical innovation.

40:13 Philip McKernan: Okay.

40:15 Bulldogs. Chandeliers, lighting.

40:17 Philip McKernan: Doing what?

40:19 I would start from creating infrastructure for exceptional people, building off-the-grid hack bases.

40:29 Philip McKernan: What was the last piece?

40:31 Hack base, which is co-living and co-working space.

40:34 Philip McKernan: Okay, okay.

40:38 Medical field.

40:39 Philip McKernan: Okay. So these are things that you know. So for the people that don’t know, the question still stands: if you did know, what would it be? Because here’s my theory. I think you all know exactly what you want to do. Exactly. Now, if you don’t buy that theory, you’re also screwed, because you’re the only one that should know. But what happens if you do know, but you’re just afraid of it? What if you know exactly what it is, but you just don’t want to see it? What if you know exactly what it is, but you don’t think you can do it? Or perhaps you know exactly what it is, but you don’t believe you deserve it.

41:21 Philip McKernan: I was brought to London three… When were the Olympics here? Three years ago? Four years ago? Three. I was brought here, okay, as part of the Canadian team, but I wasn’t brought officially, because I don’t have a sports psychology degree. In fact, I don’t have any degree. Did you tell them that? Everyone probably wants their money back. I don’t have any qualifications. I was dyslexic, couldn’t read and write, in a bad way. In other words, college and all that was a disaster for me. In fact, high school, or secondary school as they call it in Ireland, was also a disaster. And I had all my own inadequacies about it, because I knew I wanted to work with people, I just didn’t know in what capacity.

41:57 Philip McKernan: And I kept chasing the real estate thing, kept chasing the real estate. Nothing wrong with real estate, best asset class, I believe, still in the world today. However, I was using that as a reason to stay away from what I loved. So I’m going to tell you a story based on my inspiration here, the typewriter, and it’s a story I’ve shared a few times, so if you’ve seen some of my YouTube stuff you may have heard the story. But the one thing I’ve learned over the years is, you know, I never used to tell the same story twice, for so long. And then I realised that actually that was more my stuff, because I was afraid that people would see me here sharing the same story, “You’ve used that before,” and it was all about me. But then I realised that actually somebody in the audience who might have heard the story once or twice or three times is in a different place today, and they hear the story and they feel the story and they take the story and absorb the story differently. Okay?

42:45 Philip McKernan: Why don’t we just get some lights and point them straight at me, in addition to the heat? Am I sweating? I feel I’m sweating a lot here. So there’s a gentleman who came to work with me, and he wanted to build his real estate portfolio. He wanted to bring his business to the next level, which, I love “the next level.” I often want to inquire about what the next level is at all. It’s often a million dollars, 20 properties, 100 properties, always these round numbers which tend to have very little depth behind them. Not to say they never do, but sometimes they don’t. In fact, more often than not they don’t.

43:20 Philip McKernan: And he said to me, “Yeah, I want to build my real estate portfolio.” In fact, he wanted to buy 50 properties, five zero, and I said, “Great.” I said, “Why?” And he said, “Well, then I’ll have some financial stability, and then I can, you know, sit back and think about what I want to do.” And I said, “What would that be?” And he says, “I’m not sure.” And I said, “Well, you know, just play with it. If you did know…” One of those annoying questions that I ask: “If you did know, what would it be?” Which most people roll their eyes at and say, “****, is this all I’m gonna get for this time and energy?” And he said, “I don’t know.” And I said, “No, seriously, what would it be?”

43:48 Philip McKernan: And then he just let this thing out. Just let it out, it just slipped, and he said, “Oh, I do a bit of writing sometimes.” And of course I can be, you know, on purpose, a real ****, and I said, “Oh, you’re a writer.” And he goes, “No.” Which is the point. And I said, “So tell me about writing. What do you write about?” I could see him getting really annoyed. Imagine living with me. And I said, “What’s going on?” He said, “Philip, just so we’re clear, I’m not here to speak about my writing. I’m here to build a real estate business, and I’m asking you to help me do that.” I said, “Great, thank you. Just so I’m clear, we’re talking about nothing other than writing, because I believe I’m onto something in the context of your life, and whether you like me or not for the moment is irrelevant.”

44:39 Philip McKernan: Because it’s easy to find people who will tell you what you want to hear, but it’s not necessarily easy to find people who will tell you what you absolutely, at your core, need to see, feel or experience. Because I still think we’re consumed by what people think, which we might get to later on, and why that drives us so dearly, often in directions that don’t serve us. And after about two hours of complete frustration, I should have asked him if we can use F-bombs, but we can bleep them out later, I’m sure, he said, “Okay, **** it.” He said, “You know what? Let’s just get it out there. All I’ve ever wanted to do since I was a young kid is write and travel the world. Okay? You happy? Can we get back to the real estate now?”

45:21 Philip McKernan: And this is one story, and I can give you dozens and dozens, not writing stories, dozens of these types of stories. Dozens. I put an entrepreneur up in front of a whiteboard one day and I said, “I want you to draw what this vision is.” “Vision for what?” I said, “You’re in a **** business that you don’t like, you’re making tons of money and you can’t break free. But if you didn’t have that business, what would it be?” And he stood up in front of about 20 people. He said, “But Philip, there’s nothing.” I said, “Great, but let’s get comfortable. I hope you don’t get cramp, because we’re not leaving this room until you draw something.”

45:53 Philip McKernan: Now, sometimes I push hard. Other times I will give you the greatest hug that you’ll ever imagine, of compassion, because sometimes that’s what we need. But other times we need a kick in the face. We really do. And I **** you not, about 20 minutes later, okay, partly out of frustration, he was getting angry, which is great, the emotion was coming out of his head, he started to draw. He started to draw on this big mass of whiteboard. It was a stillness centre for kids, to help them with concentration. It wasn’t just meditation, it was stillness. He had the whole concept. He drew it all out. I’m talking about Toronto. He drew it all out, and the clients were just sitting back, and we all got to know and love this guy. We’re sitting back and he’s **** explaining it all.

46:36 Philip McKernan: And then he finished. He dropped the pen and I brought him back to the back of the room, and I said, “Look at that,” and he starts to tear up. And I said, “Where’s it gonna be?” And he goes, “I don’t know.” And I said, “You know where that story’s going. Get up there.” He knew exactly, almost the corner of the street that this place was going to be. And people think, you know, I did that. I didn’t do that. I didn’t do **** in that context. Sorry, that’s not entirely true. That’s not very fair either. I created the environment. I structured it. I challenged him. I asked the questions, et cetera, et cetera. But it came from him.

47:08 Philip McKernan: But if I gave him the 10-step system to living the perfect existence and he adopted it, and he was successful… Because one thing I was very good at is achieving goals. Problem is, no one told me how to create authentic goals that were truly aligned to who I was. So I found myself achieving **** I didn’t want and feeling even worse about myself. My friend, the writer, travels the world, and he’s writing books as we speak. That’s all he does.

47:38 Philip McKernan: There’s a musician that came to me, and he was also building an investment business of some sort, and music was in his soul. And he hit me with the usual one where people get into a corner: “You don’t know me. You don’t know my mother. You don’t know my wife.” I don’t need to. “You don’t know my genre of music. It’s electronic music and it’s so small. Trust me, I can’t make money playing it.” I said, “Whoever said you need to play it? I just want to have the conversation. You’re arguing something. We haven’t even had the conversation yet and you’re debating with me. I just want to have a conversation. I want you to be open to what you cannot see.”

48:23 Philip McKernan: And today, what does he do? He has an online academy teaching people this niche all over the planet. He’s the biggest in the world now. He’s got one of the biggest YouTube followings on the planet in the electronic music industry, and now he runs tutorials and classes of all sorts of ranges of financial income, and that’s all he does, full-time. You see, what he was missing was he didn’t see that there was another way to approach his love and his passion, because he was too busy telling himself that he couldn’t do it. He was too busy telling himself that it wasn’t possible. And he wasn’t open to the possibility that he could do it, but just in a different way. But we’re so quick to dismiss the possibilities, because we’re so consumed chasing the opportunities.

49:13 Philip McKernan: But I’d like you to challenge, not so much what you think, but how you feel about money. How you feel about money, because it comes up to bite you in the **** every single day, whether you know it or don’t. It will literally sabotage situations, relationships, opportunities, business opportunities. It will also consume you in terms of its drive. But I am here to challenge you firmly, not just this gentleman here, but everybody. If you believe money buys you freedom, if you reverse the psychology, what you’re saying is, “I will not be free unless I have money.” I do not believe that. I will not believe that, not because I’m determined to hold on to what I feel about it, it’s because I’ve lived it.

49:54 Philip McKernan: And I feel that if you go after what’s in your soul… And it’s the old cliché, and by the way, a cliché that used to drive me insane because of my **** around money: do what you love and the money will follow. People would say that and I’d want to smash their teeth out. And then I’d say, “That’s easy for you to say, because you’re doing this, or you had a background, or you got an inheritance,” or whatever. And I’ve been very fortunate to be part of businesses. We built a company called Java Republic in Ireland. I was a small part of it, with my brother. You can go anywhere in Ireland, Java Republic’s everywhere. It’s a big business. So we were making great money, building equity in that business. I just knew it wasn’t who I was meant to be.

50:34 Philip McKernan: Last year we had the biggest year we’ve ever had, by miles. We had a really big year financially, and I’m not into money. I’ll never forget, when we moved to Canada the first two years were horrendous. Most people say, “Oh, because you didn’t make money.” No, just everything. We were in a foreign country. We were in a basement suite in Edmonton, of all places. Are you from Edmonton? Jesus, that was great. Anybody else from Edmonton before I insult them? Beautiful people, amazing people, but I just don’t get why anybody would live there. Maybe, you know, a bear or something, but not people. It’s just like, you can’t go out at night, and during the day it’s freezing, and everything else.

51:10 Philip McKernan: And we’re sitting in this basement suite, and it wasn’t Edmonton. The people were brilliant to us, I promise you, they were brilliant. But it was just so hard leaving everything we loved. It would have been easier if our family hated us, or the cops were chasing me, or the economy had fallen off the cliff, which it did about two years later, and we were running from something. But we went to Canada because I knew in my heart and soul something needed to change. And to be fair, Pauline, you know, had that vision as well and wanted to do that.

51:34 Philip McKernan: And that brings up another thing, is that, you know, so many of us are running from poverty. We’re running from the things that we don’t want to be. We’re running from the things that we’ve determined that we will never become. “Well, I’m never going to be like my father. I’m never going to be poor. I’m never going to be that father. I’m never going to split up from my wife or my husband. I’m never, I’m never, I’m never.” Do you think that is really great, positive source of energy? And maybe it gets you to a point. But maybe you could turn that sucker on its head, and maybe spend the rest of your life going, “Okay, maybe it’s time to stop running away.” To use the bear analogy, stop running away from the bear. “Maybe it’s time to start moving towards the things that I want to do. Maybe it’s time.”

52:24 Philip McKernan: So how many of you in this room are moving towards what you really want, as opposed to allowing the motivator to be what you don’t want? And I’m not suggesting that doesn’t work. It works to a point. But think about it energetically. Think about even the language, which I’m exaggerating to make a point: “I’m not going to be that,” or, “I really, really want this. This is what I need to be. This is who I need to be. This is what I need to give a go in this world.” I’ll allow you to choose which is better. I spent most of my life in this place. Did it serve me to a point? Yes. This is where I live right now, most of the time. I still have my fears, my insecurities, a lot of insecurities, and I always will.

53:10 Philip McKernan: Who wants to know how to eradicate fear? Completely eradicate fear? Raise your hand. Okay. Can you get the bullets out of my bag? The silver ones, little small ones, next to the M&Ms. Guys, why don’t we do something with fear? Why don’t we get to know it? Why don’t we understand it at the core? Why don’t we sit down across from it at the dinner table and invite it into our lives, and get to know what it is, where it comes from, why it’s in our lives and what it’s costing us? Because, you know, the problem with fear is it doesn’t need Red Bull. It doesn’t need caffeine. It doesn’t need juice. It doesn’t need water. It doesn’t need air.

53:59 Philip McKernan: And when you’re running and spending all of your life running from the very thing that scares the **** out of you, and when you finally have to stop, because you’re getting old or you’re getting tired or you need sustenance and you need water, and you stop to take a breath and you look around, the bastard’s right behind you. But yet we will obsess ourselves with trying to eradicate fear, not seeing there are steps we can take to loosen it. But if you get to know it, it loosens its grip on you. It loses its control, its grasp of you.

54:24 Philip McKernan: And you turn around. When I go on stage, or I’m gonna go and speak… I don’t speak a lot. A lot of people think I speak all the time. I don’t really. Partly by design, and mainly because no one has a clue who I am, which actually I’m fine with, honestly. No one really has a clue. Everywhere I go it’s, “Who are you? I’ve never heard of you before.” Initially I was a little bit upset with that, but it’s fine. It’s actually kind of cool. But honestly, I’ve just taken a **** of time to really get to know who I am. And now, when I have that fear coming back, honestly, I just literally stop and go, “How’s it going?” I don’t literally have that open conversation, but I just acknowledge it: “You’re back.” “The bastard,” you know, sometimes I’ll whisper that. “You’re back.” And it’s kind of like I’m accepting it, and then it just starts to go away.

55:11 Philip McKernan: So if you’ve got a fear about something, what you’ll find is it’s not a fear about the bungee jumping. It’s not a fear about money. It’s not a fear about success. If you go far enough back, you’ll find out that it’s an old fear, and it’s just showing itself in a different way. It’ll show itself at the top of the bungee jump today, in a business decision tomorrow, and in your inability to have an awkward conversation in a week or a month from now. But the fear is the same. It just attaches itself to different things in your life. Get to know who you are, and you’ll get to know what you need to do in this world.

55:52 Philip McKernan: The greatest journey, the greatest thing I’ve ever done, is not a two-day quick-fix course, not a wealth-building seminar or strategy. The best thing I’ve ever done myself is get to know who I am at the core. Like, really get to know myself. It’s a frightening, scary journey for a lot of people, but it is the most rewarding journey on the planet. What does that mean? Well, I’ll allow you to find out for yourself. But I always remember the very first time. I was running a coaching programme. It was very much about focus and strategy, which again is great. And I remember meeting this guy who was a psychotherapist, and he comes to me and he says, “I’m sure on occasion you get people who kind of need deeper work.”

56:34 Philip McKernan: Now, he wasn’t chasing the business. He just said, “You know, if you honestly want to refer somebody, there’s my card.” And I said, “Well, I won’t refer anybody unless I’ve done it myself.” “Oh, that’s fair enough, don’t worry about it.” I said, “So when do I start?” “Oh, you want to do something?” I said, “Yeah, man, so how does it work?” He says, “Well, it’s six one-hour sessions.” I’ll never forget getting to this guy’s house, and I walk in, and there’s a big box of Kleenex. It’s like Jerry Maguire. “You’re not gonna make me cry, buddy. You know, I don’t cry. I’m a guy. I’m way too cool.” In my world, I’m Pádraig Harrington. Okay?

57:07 Philip McKernan: And I’ll tell you one thing: within the first, honestly, four minutes, it was like, “****, I hope this Kleenex box is full,” because I was ripping through that sucker, and there was **** that was coming up for me. And it was like, well, how is that relevant to the context of my life? How’s that relevant to my business, my relationships? But if you stop and keep asking those questions, you’ll never get anywhere. I just went with it. Holy ****, did I learn some **** about myself. And then the awareness of how it was affecting me and how it was holding me back in business and life and in relationships, and I still am. I will always, always, always be learning. I will always be seeking the awareness that I don’t currently have. Always.

57:50 Philip McKernan: So, a question. I will take questions, loads of questions. I have no problem with questions. What is the greatest challenge you’re facing today, in your life? What is the greatest challenge you’re facing in life today?

58:17 Going all in.

58:18 Philip McKernan: What does that mean?

58:32 Philip McKernan: Okay, so that’s the challenge. Why?

58:36 I don’t know. I guess there’s a little bit of fear that it might work out, right? At the same time you’re kind of like, I know it’s gonna work out. The thing is, I know it’s gonna work out. It’s just, I don’t know why, something still keeps me from going all the way. And it’s kind of like, I was listening to the Bukowski poem the other day, and he says, like, “go all the way.” And it rang so true with me. I was like, it’s true. If I want to do something, I seriously need to just go all the way with it. And I just really want to be able to just take that last bit and just say okay.

59:07 Philip McKernan: Okay. So are you, like, a starter or a finisher? Which one would you be?

59:11 I’m definitely, I start quickly, so I can get stuff going quickly, and I’ll just say I’m probably not a finisher.

59:18 Philip McKernan: So, I don’t… ****. Sorry, respectfully. That’s cool. You’re a fit-looking guy and I’m a skinny little guy, so one flick and I’ll end up out there. But seriously, yeah, for your benefit: ****. Yeah. Because if you find something that you want to do, you will start it, and I swear to God you will finish it. So there’s something else going on here. Okay? So let’s just say it doesn’t work. What’s the worst thing that can happen?

59:43 Nothing, really. I just start again, because I always have ideas, new things are always coming to me. So I’m not afraid that I won’t have things to do, because I know I’ll always have more ideas. It’s just…

59:53 Philip McKernan: So what’s stopping you, then? Because you said earlier on you’re afraid of it failing. So if you’re afraid of failing, but that’s not really an issue, as it turns out, then what is the thing that’s holding you back from finishing? And just for a moment, let’s assume that you are a finisher as well. Just play with it. So what’s… Yes, you do. Forget about finishing.

1:00:24 It’s that same thing, and the same reason probably why I love reading loads of books and stuff. It’s like, how much do I have to learn before I feel I deserve to have that? So that for me is probably the main thing.

1:00:33 Philip McKernan: So what’s the new project?

1:00:36 Oh, I do a podcast. It’s starting to get traction, and I really enjoy it, and I just find that I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is switch it on and look what’s going on. So for me, I love learning and helping other people.

1:00:48 Philip McKernan: So what’s the podcast about?

1:00:50 It’s mindset, entrepreneurship, psychology. I’m really fascinated with psychology.

1:00:54 For graduates as well. I mean, I came out of university and I had that whole problem of getting jobs, and I didn’t like that feeling. And it goes back to the whole London Real mindset of, like, you feel like you’ve been fed this **** the whole time. And then I kind of got that started, doing my thing on my own, and then suddenly I was just like, wait a minute, other people need to feel this way.

1:01:15 Philip McKernan: So what’s the other project? What’s the other thing over here?

1:01:17 The thing that’s happening is I do video production work. So I actually quit my job, I went freelance, and then I did video production, because I could basically do stuff that earns me, like, a month’s worth of wages in one video. And so for me it was like, okay, I’ll do that video and it means I can carry on doing the podcast.

1:01:36 Philip McKernan: And so you don’t really enjoy the videos?

1:01:37 No.

1:01:38 Philip McKernan: Okay, so hang on, just slow down for a second. So give me a… So you’ve done a few podcasts? You’ve done a few episodes, or…? Holy ****, I thought you were… It sounds like you’ve just done one or two last week. So, but obviously it’s ****, because it’s obviously not working.

1:01:53 No, it has, because recently we just got our podcast sponsored by our university.

1:01:59 Philip McKernan: Okay, so, but you don’t get any emails of, like, “It’s helped me in my life, and it helped me get through anything”?

1:02:03 Yeah, we got one today, actually.

1:02:05 Philip McKernan: Oh, did you? Oh, that’s interesting. It was probably spam. We’re probably sending it to Brian or to Peter. It just landed in your inbox. So what did the email say?

1:02:17 “I’ve been reading your notes for a while now and I really appreciate what you did.”

1:02:22 Philip McKernan: So you helped somebody. So why can’t you allow that in?

1:02:28 I don’t know. I just think, go away with it.

1:02:34 Philip McKernan: You’re just struggling so deeply not to even allow the fact that you have the capacity, the capability, to actually impact other people’s lives. You won’t take any part of that. And you’re too busy trying to hold on to the tears and the emotion right now, because you’re afraid of what other people will think, or whatever it happens to be, or some ****, because you think I’m something I’m not, or whatever. Trust me, guys, I’m a **** human being, and I’ve got probably more insecurities than the rest of you put together. Okay? It’s true.

1:03:11 Philip McKernan: And I am really super smart when it comes to people. Okay? Okay, and I don’t mean here, but I mean here. And I’m telling you right now, and I don’t say this lightly, and you can look at any YouTube video I’ve ever done or any talk that I’ve ever been on, any Q&A: you have something. Okay? Now, Brian probably already knows this, or the people in the room know this. Anybody else know this man? Nobody. So you have no friends either. You start the friendships but you don’t keep them going. You guys been drinking before you came? All I get is water. What kind of a show is this? Bet you Peter got a glass of wine.

1:03:56 Oh, yeah. I’m down for it.

1:04:01 Philip McKernan: So I appreciate your honesty, and to be fair to you, you got there pretty quickly. And forget about whether my talk stirred that up in you, with the self-worth pieces. So why don’t you believe you deserve it?

1:04:12 I don’t know, really. I don’t know where it comes from.

1:04:14 Philip McKernan: And if you did, where would it come from? That’s that really annoying question, right?

1:04:20 Yeah. I heard that now. I need you to ask me the question again.

1:04:37 Philip McKernan: So look back over your life, growing up as a kid, your parents, work, whatever. What would be one contributing factor? It could just be one thing, not the thing. There could be many things. But what is one thing that stands out, one story, one nuance, that might just give us an insight into why perhaps you don’t deserve this?

1:04:59 I don’t know. You just think to yourself, you’re like, why should I stand out? Why should I be the person that people look at?

1:05:04 Philip McKernan: So, “Don’t stand out. Don’t be the person people look at.” So whose… When I hear you say that, I feel that’s a different voice. So whose voice could that be, other than yours?

1:05:14 I don’t know. No one’s ever said that to me.

1:05:24 Philip McKernan: Okay, they may not have said it to you, but they may have implied it. It’s not often what parents or people around us say. It’s often what they don’t say. I told my beautiful, loving mother that I was going to Canada to try and reinvent myself. She says, “Oh, that’s gonna be great.” Now, if I told everybody on Facebook, as you know, because obviously you only share the good **** on Facebook, because we want to make sure everyone thinks we’re happy, if I told everyone, “My mother says, ‘Oh, that’s great that you’re going to Canada, go,'” what a supportive mother. She’s obviously going to miss you because you’re her son, but she’s saying, “Great, go for it, live your dreams.” But basically what she was saying is, “I’m not **** able to do what you’re talking about.”

1:06:01 Philip McKernan: Yeah. Why don’t they know what you’re doing? Do they know you’re doing a podcast? Why not?

1:06:13 Again, because I just feel like I’m not there to say it yet. It’s not happening enough, or… I guess it’s one of those hard things as well, which is to say to someone, “I’m on a podcast, I do this.” I guess I don’t feel like it’s done enough yet before I can start shouting from the rooftops. That’s why I was excited to kind of get my T-shirt on today and to say, yes, I am a podcaster.

1:06:37 Philip McKernan: You didn’t say that. Okay, so now you just got stabbed in the back. Okay. Yeah, exactly, they’re the sort of guys you need to be hanging out with. Exactly. So why are you trying to protect your father? You’re trying to protect your father. Pauline, there’s a pencil case in my bag, I think there is. Can you throw that to me, please? Don’t worry, I’m not going to stab you or throw it at you. So thank you. Thanks, guys.

1:07:16 Philip McKernan: So I want to share something with you that a wise man shared with me years ago. Now, I’m definitely a little bit slow, because it took me about a year to get this. And the man said to me, he picked up his glasses case, he said something absolutely profound to me. He said, “You can love the person, you can love the person, but you don’t have to like their behaviour.” You can love the person but you don’t have to like their behaviour. When it comes to parental influence, we’re too busy trying to hang on and protect our parents, because we love them.

1:07:52 Philip McKernan: “Yeah, my dad was harsh, but, I mean, that’s the way he grew up. It was a different era. But he loves me, and he’s great, and he’s everything else.” And what we’re trying to do is we’re defending them, and what we miss is this beautiful opportunity to recognise and realise that perhaps your dad is brilliant and he’s wonderful and he’s everything else, but he didn’t necessarily serve you with his language and what he said, and often what he didn’t say. Doesn’t make him a bad person.

1:08:21 Philip McKernan: I remember running a summer camp, and I’m going to do this. I’ve had the beautiful opportunity to work with definitely the most difficult audience in the world: young people, young adults, 12 to 16. I’ve spoken to many schools, and there’s probably not a month goes by that I’m not working with somebody, either on the phone, or, like, I don’t charge for it, but a client’s daughter or son is in my living room or on the phone with me. And I’ve spoken to many, many schools and I get to see both sides of it.

1:08:47 Philip McKernan: But I remember years ago running a one-week camp on the west coast of Ireland. I was a part of this, and this young girl showed up, and she was absolutely beautiful, and there’s something that drew me to her, and it wasn’t just her beauty. It was the fact that she had her hair down and she kind of hunched over like this, and she kind of walked along. Now, she didn’t want to stand out. A lot of young women particularly, not just young women, but young women particularly, will kind of hunch over, because they don’t want to stand out. They don’t want to stand out, they don’t want to be seen, because they don’t think they deserve to be seen. They don’t think there’s anything to see.

1:09:19 Philip McKernan: And this young girl, and I think I know why I kind of moved towards her: it’s because I could resonate with her. My confidence was shot as a young guy. Just because I spoke a lot, people said, “Oh my God, he’s so confident.” Inside, it was turmoil. Turmoil, absolute turmoil. I thought I was a piece of ****. That’s the truth. I don’t normally get there within the first, you know, whatever. But that’s the truth. For years, I thought I was a piece of **** underneath all the talk.

1:09:48 Philip McKernan: And I remember this girl, just kind of trying not to make it look like I was giving her too much attention, we just looked out for her and encouraged her, and as the week went on, she started, like, you could just see her body just start to stand up. And again, our physicality often gives us an insight into how we are psychologically on the inside, how we hold ourselves and walk and stuff. Sometimes you can over-read into these things. I’m not talking about body language. That’s not my area. I don’t know anything about it.

1:10:18 Philip McKernan: But I remember the day she walked into the room, her hair was tied back, and her face, oh my God, she was stunning. And it wasn’t like she was stunning as in just beautiful, but just the energy this woman gave off. Now, I’m married, I’m not single, right? Very happily married. But you are a stunning guy, not just because you’re good-looking, but you’ve got this **** energy coming out of your eyes, and I can see it, and other people will probably see it in you. But it means **** nothing until you see it and own it and feel it. And we’ll come back to that in a minute.

1:10:50 Philip McKernan: And this girl started to blossom and open up in ways that… And again, it’s not to do with me. It’s to do with the experience, the event, or whatever. And the last day, I heard that her father was there to pick her up, and I said, “Do you mind if I walk down the corridor with you to see your father?” And she said, “Yeah, no problem, go for it.” And I walked down the corridor, and honestly, I didn’t measure it, it wasn’t like I was taking multiple photographs, but I could just feel her starting to carry herself differently again as she came down the corridor. And she comes around the corner, and her father was there, and by the time we got to her father, she had shrunk back a little bit, but not retracted completely.

1:11:26 Philip McKernan: And I walked up to her father. The first thing I said is, I said, “This girl’s amazing. Well, you probably already know that, but I mean, she did this and she won this competition,” whatever she did in the week. And the first thing out of his mouth was not “Hi, good to see you,” hugs. The first thing out of his mouth, as I complimented her, he said, “Yeah, but she’d never beat her dad in a 100-metre sprint.” Where the **** did that come from? Now, I’d love to say that I understood what was going on, I was very compassionate, took a step back, thought about it strategically and tactically. I wanted to **** box him in the head. I wanted to kill him.

1:12:12 Philip McKernan: But I learned a wonderful message or insight that week, or that day, which is that as we took him aside and fed back what we had just witnessed, he was one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. Because in that place, what a lot of parents would do is, “Yeah, just so you know, I sent my child here to work on her life, whatever. I didn’t come here for parenting skills.” He didn’t do that. He sat down. He just goes, “Oh my God. I just can’t believe that. Did I say that?” I said, “That’s exactly what you said.” And I can promise you, that was his father. That was his father. What he said to his daughter was exactly what he heard as a child, in different language. I’m not suggesting this is happening at home for you.

1:13:03 Yeah, I’m 100 metres too fast.

1:13:06 Philip McKernan: And then he uses humour to deflect. Pretty good at that. Okay. Which is fine, because you are kind of funny now and again. But sometimes we use it to deflect. So you’re protecting your father, brilliantly and beautifully, and your mother. And sometimes we think it’s our father or our mother, but actually sometimes it’s the other person. So are you seeking approval or validation from either of your parents?

1:13:38 Yeah, I guess in some ways. To be fair, probably everybody is in some way.

1:13:40 Philip McKernan: Okay, forget about everybody. I don’t care about anybody right now other than you. Okay? On a scale of one to ten, I want you to break it down, ten being you’re seeking a tremendous amount of validation from them, irrespective of how embarrassed or judgemental you might feel towards that. Break it down: mum and dad.

1:13:59 Mum, like, nothing.

1:14:01 Philip McKernan: Okay. Okay, that sounds a little bit more than what you just shared a few minutes ago.

1:14:08 That’s because she’s the story bit.

1:14:12 Philip McKernan: And if we kept going, you’d probably find it could be higher. You might be surprised that your mother would be even higher again.

1:14:19 Philip McKernan: Guys and girls, when I went to London… Because I rarely ever come to London. We fly through here a lot. It’s not that I have some issue with London, I just don’t come. When I was in London three, four years ago, I went to the embassy, the Canadian embassy, and I met a lot of the athletes and I met the parents. And I remember going up to two separate parents. Because one of the teams I worked with was the rowing team, and when I was first brought in to work with them, I said, just to be clear, I think it’s a ridiculous sport. And I basically said that not because I was trying to be rude. I just wanted them to know that I don’t really care about their sport. I have no real interest in it, but I’m there to serve them as men and women. And by God, that’s what I did.

1:15:04 Philip McKernan: I ended up falling in love with this sport and really appreciating it at such a fundamental level, because of the commitment, and because of what these men, and particularly the men on the team, had to kind of give up and put into actually doing this. But when I was in the embassy, I went up to two parents, and I said, “My God, I’m such a small cog in this wheel and I’m so excited. What is it like to have your son in the Olympics?” The first father said, “It’s like every other race.” Now, I’m talking about big, giant, massive guys, and you could just see them, energetically, just fold. Is that just an anomaly?

1:15:46 Philip McKernan: I went to another parent and I said, “What is it like?” I wasn’t trying to test them. I was just truly, really interested. I’m obsessed, well, yeah, I’m kind of obsessed with human behaviour and people. I said, “What is it like to have your son in the Olympics?” “Yeah, he could have gone faster, couldn’t he?” That’s exactly what they said. So what do we do? Do we focus on the dysfunctionality with the parents? Do we judge the parents and say they’re ****, or they’re idiots, or they’re obnoxious, or they’re unfair, or whatever it happens to be?

1:16:20 Philip McKernan: Or do we just look a little bit deeper and ask, why are the athletes there? They’re there for the country, the maple leaf, Queen and country, whatever terminology different countries around the world use, and they’re there to be the best they can be. Are they actually there to seek approval from somebody a little bit closer to home? Honestly, I did not meet one athlete that was there because they absolutely wanted to be there. Not one. Not one. Not to say that there wasn’t some…