Full transcript: Philip McKernan on London Real
0:11 Brian Rose: I always ask the people in this chair a bit about themselves, and I was wondering if you could humor me with a few answers. Is there anything that, if you look back over the years, that you changed about your game, maybe a personal habit or something that just had a huge increase on, you know, the quality of your life or the quote unquote success that you have? If you look back, is there any one thing that made a big difference for you?
0:37 Philip McKernan: I think working out.
0:38 I’m not a big guy as you can see. I think working out, but it’s how I got to that point. To me, it’s the biggest lesson. So, somebody might be listening to this and watching this, making a note. Working out.
0:49 Yeah, I must work out. I must go to the gym four days a week. I must meditate nine times a week. Whatever. But can you get to a point in your life where you want to go to the gym because you want to nurture your body?
0:58 You want to go to the gym? And it’s just the gym, walking, hiking, running, eating better, where you because you actually value yourself. And that’s the missing link, often in the dietary challenge that we have in the world today with obesity and energy and all these different things, is that people feel they have to do things, but I’d love to bring them to a place where they actually feel they want to do things, they want to look after themselves, and that’s a very fundamental emotional shift.
1:23 So it’s not the working out, it’s actually what happened to get to that place. So, actually, working on my personal value, which was a journey and will never stop, by the way. The other one was wearing the clothes that I want to wear.
1:37 Brian Rose: Can you explain?
1:38 Philip McKernan: Just wearing the clothes that I want to wear, and not feeling I need to dress up to impress people, but actually wearing clothes that actually I think are a representation of who I am.
1:49 Last night, for example, I brought a shirt and I turned up in a t-shirt. So, it’s still there. This expectation that you need to wear a shirt in a particular environment. Now, there is some respect and all that in there. I get that.
2:02 But I showed up last night with a pair of, you know, kind of casual pants, nice shoes, and like a black t-shirt, and I stood there and I spoke, and that’s what I felt really comfortable in. So, showing up. So the clothes that we wear have a big impact on how we are in this world and how we walk this earth. It’s a small thing, but it actually spoke quite deeply to me. Right.
2:27 For example, getting rid of my suits. Got rid of suits.
2:30 Brian Rose: You used to wear suits.
2:31 Philip McKernan: Used to wear suits all the time, right? Gone.
2:34 Gone because, right? And then my somebody might be sitting there and go, “Yeah, but that’s fine, but I have to wear a suit for my business or I have to wear a suit in my industry.” And I would question and say, “Okay, are you in the right industry?” Because if you’ve dressed into a uniform that you don’t want to every single day, are you really congruent with what you do? Is what you do aligned to who you are?
2:53 And they go, “Listen, I love accounting, for example, just using accounting.” So, fine, but maybe you need to go out and be an accountant on your own. Maybe you need to go out and change the goalpost. Maybe you go, you need to go out and change the way accounting is done and wear ripped jeans and t-shirts. And what ends up happening is you attract the people who have ripped jeans and t-shirts as clients.
3:13 And for God’s, you know, maybe for once you start to have some fun doing accounting when you wear, it’s not just what you wear, it’s who you are. If you rub somebody up the wrong way, that’s fine. Guaranteed, you rub somebody up the right way at the same time. And then you end up attracting the right people. One thing that people say about us is, how do you attract the people that you attract to your work?
3:37 That’s one of the most common questions we have. And I can sit here and say, “Well, it’s because of me. It’s whatever.” It’s because I speak my truth, and I say what I believe, and people who believe that come. And then what ends up happening is you have this energetic space in India later this year, in Ireland in a few weeks, or wherever it is, of these incredible people who are all like, they’ll make friends for life.
3:58 That’s not why we do it. It’s not a networking thing. To me, it’s about networking with yourself. If you want to network with other people, there’s a million ways to do that. But you attract the right people.
4:09 So, the way I dress is just a further expansion and representation of allowing myself just to be Philip McKernan, right?
4:19 Brian Rose: What’s your metric for success when you look at the end of the year? We all have something. You know, you mentioned India, Ireland, back in Canada. What is your metric?
4:32 How do you judge your own success?
4:35 Philip McKernan: I used to do that in kind of a materialistic way. I refuse to set goals right now in my life for most things. I might have things that I want to achieve, which you might argue as a goal. I don’t get attached to them.
4:51 So there’s an event that I want to create, for example, something very different and unique. I just, I hold it a little bit, and then I let it go, and I trust that it’ll circle back and if it’s important enough, it’ll come back to me. It’s like last night I asked people not to take notes.
5:06 Brian Rose: What really got people’s attention?
5:08 Philip McKernan: Yeah.
5:08 But if it’s important enough, if something hits you, you won’t need to make a note. It will, it will, it will hit you in your heart. It’ll hit you in your soul. Nor is it about how many people I impact. Nor is it, to me, it’s a personal thing.
5:23 To me, it’s about, you know, my peace of mind, because if my mind is at peace, it means that I’ve left it alone.
5:30 Brian Rose: Good. I wasn’t expecting a numerical answer from you. When you think of the word successful, who comes to mind?
5:38 Philip McKernan: So, just one thing before we do that, and the other thing is, I don’t set financial goals at all, because I’m dealing with people.
5:46 I’m dealing with lives, so think about this. Let’s just say I want to turn over a million. Then I break it down. Say I want to, I have to run this retreat. I have to run this retreat.
5:54 I have to get this many coaching clients. I have to do this many corporate workshops or events. I have to have this many private clients. And I break it all down. And then it becomes strategic and tactical, and it becomes bums on seats.
6:05 And then I’m have a conversation with you or somebody who’s contemplating doing one of my events, going, “We need 20 people in that, we need 50 people in that.” Yeah. No, Brian. And I may not do that, but at some level it’s been driven by that. And that’s why I don’t do it, because to me it’s about doing the right work with the right people, and trusting at some level that the money will show up but not being attached to it.
6:29 And that is working incredibly well for me.
6:31 Brian Rose: Right. And you’re having your best year because you’re not attached.
6:34 Philip McKernan: Well, actually, we’ve just had our best year financially in my entire life.
6:37 Brian Rose: And that’s probably most likely because you’re not attached to that.
6:40 You let it go. Held it and let it go. Y I love that concept. Holding, letting go. Back to that successful word.
6:49 Brian Rose: Who comes to mind? Historical, current day, someone you know?
6:54 Philip McKernan: Can you give me the question again?
6:56 Brian Rose: When you think of the word successful, who comes to mind?
7:01 Philip McKernan: Yeah.
7:01 You see, I think the definition of success or what we feel is success is a big part of this. For me personally, there’s a couple of people that come to mind. One is my father-in-law, Willie, who’s basically a farmer, with respect, a small farmer in Donegal, who puts on his wellie boots in the morning after his breakfast, and heads out into the fields with his walking stick and a sheep dog beside his side and wanders the land and drives around.
7:32 Brian Rose: Is he smiling all day?
7:34 Philip McKernan: No. But you can, there’s a contentedness that he gets from the land that’s be kind of envious of actually. There’s a simplicity to it. And I’m sure you may not agree that it’s simple. I mean, I’m sure they’ve had, they wouldn’t be very necessarily very wealthy and farming a small sheep farm in Donegal.
7:51 Land is not great up there, etc., etc. But there’s something about him, and I’ve never shared this before, is that he’s kind of successful in his own way, you know, and this, and it’s, and it’s great. He loves it. And we came to Vancouver, came to Canada, we drove him around the Rockies, and I’m sure Canadians will be very insulted by this, but he looked up at the Rockies and said, “Oh, sure. There’s fields at home that are nicer than this.”
8:16 And he wasn’t trying to be rude. He just, he doesn’t need to leave his farm. He’s happy out in his farm every day. Loves his kids. He could, there’s no doubt about loves his grandkids, but out into the farm.
8:29 So, that’s one. The other one is in, and I’m sure he’s going to be insulted when he hears this, but James, I think his name is Koul Hon. I’m a disaster on second names often. I don’t retain them, but he’s the filmmaker for, and his wife Laurentine as well. I would, I put both of them as a couple, and I’m sure they don’t have the perfect life, and I’m sure they have, you know, frustrations and challenges, etc.
8:51 And I would highly recommend you have one or other or both of them on your show someday. If I may, and I don’t say that lightly. He made the movie Food Matters and Hungry for Change. Those two movies, and it kind of came by accident, in a way. They did it organically.
9:09 They went out and just bought some equipment and started interviewing people, and the story is stunning because he wanted to help his father, who was, you know, had some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome and sickness, and his father wouldn’t listen to him because he was a son, and of course my father doesn’t listen to me, my mother doesn’t listen to me. So he went out with just a series of cameras and interviewed experts on nutrition and brought it back, and his father watched it and suddenly recovered, and suddenly it was going from being bedridden to walking and running and whatever. And then somebody said something, and maybe I’m sorry if I’m not completely getting the story, but this is my recollection of it.
9:45 You have a documentary here, and that’s where, you know, Food Matters came out of, and what it’s done is it’s impacted millions of people around the world on a very fundamental level. Hungry for Change was their next movie, and then they went on to build FMTV, which is Food Matters TV, which is like the Netflix for the health and wellness industry. Now I’m not here to say I know James personally. I think we use this word friends and buddies and best friends very flippantly, and I really don’t, because I have very few friends in my life, but the ones I do have, I’m very, very grateful of.
10:20 But I mean, I’ve had been fortunate I guess, spoke at an event and I got to, you know, meet James at that event I spoke at, and I stayed in their home one night, and we connected, and I would say that he’s very successful on the following basis: when you look into his eyes and he speaks, you can, it’s, you couldn’t call b******t on what he does and what he believes. He doesn’t make it all about him. I’d personally love to hear him speak more, because I think he’s got a stunning story and he’s got a very effective way of communicating.
10:51 It’s about the impact in people. I love the way they connect as a relationship, his, himself and his wife and his beautiful little boy called Hugo. And he’s making an impact, and they, Laurentine themselves, are making a big impact around the world, and they’re making good money, and I believe, I would imagine, it’s going very well for them financially, but that’s not the, that’s my impression is not the driving force. Now, I haven’t lived with them, so I don’t fully know them.
11:18 So that’s my caveat here. You know, if we just look aesthetically, I say, oh, I read Hello Magazine last week. The guy owns, I don’t know, Harrods or Best Buy or whatever. Oh, you know, he’s successful. Have no idea who they are.
11:30 You look into their eyes and they tell you they’re happy and they’re successful, but do you really buy it? So, I would encourage people to consider, how do they feel about somebody as opposed to what do they think about them? And this is where intuition again guides us, because we model a lot on what other people have done and how they are in their own lives, and then we wonder why we’re not really that congruent and living an authentic life. So, they’re the two people that come to mind.
11:57 Brian Rose: Last night you said I’m not perfect in front of the crowd. You said I’ve got all my own hang-ups and issues, and insecurities.
12:05 Philip McKernan: Did I?
12:05 Brian Rose: Yeah, you did.
12:06 Philip McKernan: Yeah, I was.
12:07 I’m totally perfect.
12:08 Brian Rose: What are you working on yourself? I mean, you said when you were younger, you used to be the guy that was talking all the time and talking and appeared really confident, and you said down inside you were just the scarest one there, but on the outside you were talking, and what are you still working on?
12:25 Philip McKernan: Parenting. Okay.
12:26 People often comment, say, “Oh, you’re an amazing parent.” I don’t agree. And I think there’s a place to find that we’ve done some beautiful things with our children, but parenting would be a big one for me. That’s a primary focus for me in my life. It’s a tricky one, because the game always changes.
12:42 The game always changes. And I suppose that’s the point, is that sometimes we work on ourselves for a period of time, and then we don’t do it for years, and what we don’t realize is that we’ve changed along the way, and it’s important to constantly check in. Compassion towards myself, or lack of compassion towards myself. That is a huge one in life. Most people walk this earth for their entire existences and never ever ever find a moment or a day or an afternoon or a month where they actually experience any compassion towards themselves, the lives they’ve lived, and the pain they’ve gone through, and the challenges they’ve had.
13:17 And that’s, to me, is, yeah, compassion towards myself, because that allows me to be really compassionate on a very deeper level to other people around me, and therefore be patient and be understanding, and so on and so forth. And just, I’m constantly, not constantly, but taking, reminding myself to take space for myself.
13:38 Brian Rose: So there’s a couple of things, because you’re always engaging with others, others’ emotions. Sometimes you need to take.
13:46 Philip McKernan: Absolutely.
13:47 Brian Rose: Do you have to take time? Like, I know you’re doing a retreat soon, and you’re doing these pieces. Do you have to take a few days out at the end and just get back to you, because it feels like you’re going to, while I’m sure you get energized from people, you’re still taking on a lot of emotion.
14:02 Philip McKernan: Yeah. I mean, I’m in about a week’s time, there’s about 20 people flying in from different parts of the world for retreat in Ireland.
14:08 And there’s lots of space in between to get out into hiking and everything else, but you’re constantly around people. And one thing I do is I make myself very available. I’m not the guy who disappears to his room at six, and you can’t see me until the following morning. I’m very available. So, I’m in the bar having a pint.
14:21 I’m the guy hiking with you. I don’t outsource all that. I’m very, very, very pered. I will be absolutely empty at the end of that week. Empty.
14:33 There will be nothing left for anybody. And there was a time where my wife didn’t understand this, where she’d say at the end of a week, you want to you want to take a few days at the end of a week, and people still judge this. I know they do. But what they don’t understand is I expel so much of, not just my energy, physically and mentally, but emotionally, I pour so much of myself onto the floor to invite and encourage people to make movements and shifts and awarenesses in their own lives.
15:01 At the end of that week, there is nothing left. And I don’t say that lightly. Nothing. So I have no choice now. I have to take time.
15:10 But if I’m, if you’re around me, I may as well be. I’m a box. There’s more life in this guy here than there is in Philip McKernan at the end of a week, right? And people say, you know, you put too much in. And my, you know, if my wife was sitting here, she would probably say that.
15:23 She says, “Sometimes I believe he gives too much, but that’s why I’m here.” And will I die maybe a little bit younger than perhaps you know other people, because I’ve expelled so much energetically and emotionally, possibly. But to me that’s a small price to pay for the work that I do.
