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Summary

What’s possible?

What’s possible for you, your future, and your family?

What’s possible is a question you probably don’t ask yourself very often, but it’s a question you should learn to love and embrace, because it is through asking what’s possible that you will uncover the most important realization of your life:

You have a unique gift.

What that unique gift is no one but you can know—it’s something for you to uncover—but it’s there inside you right now, even if you can’t see it with clarity. All you have to do to uncover it is learn to love and trust your intuition because intuition is what will lead you to your gift.

However, “uncovering” is just one part of the process.

Once you uncover your gift, you need to find the courage to pursue it, and not let yourself be led by what society thinks your “course” should be.

And that can be extremely difficult, which is why it helps to find an inspirational coach like Philip McKernan—today’s guest on Making Bank.

Philip is a clarity coach, with a love-fueled obsession for people. His goal is to help his individuals—including members of the Pentagon, US Olympic Team, and Sir Richard Branson—create environments of simultaneous safety and challenge so they can facilitate reinvention that leads to true alignment.

Join host Josh Felber as he talks to Philip about his storied career as a coach, and hear what Philip has to say about reaching a place of alignment, including…

• Why what we do “off the ice” determines what we do “on the ice”
• How “uncovering” and “finding” are radically different
• When it’s right to listen to intuition above all
• Who suffers from self-worth challenges
• Reactivity VS Proactivity

And more…

PS – Check out www.giveandgrow.com/makingbank to view Philip’s latest documentary for FREE

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Align and Build Your Business with Zero Regrets with Guest Philip McKernan: MakingBank S2E40

Josh Felber:        [Welcome to Making Bank, I’m Josh Felber, where we uncover the success strategies and the secrets of the top one percent so you can amplify your life and your business today.

I’m really honored and excited for today’s guest on Making Bank, Philip McKernan is an international speaker, author, film maker and has been said, entitled hooligan, who coaches entrepreneurs and businesses leaders all over the world. He’s also worked with the Canadian Olympic Team as well as the Pentagon. He has shared the stage with other speakers including the Dalai Lama and Richard Branson. Philip helps those seeking clarity in their future and to move through road blocks, seen and unseen. He has a recent film entitled, Give and Grow, which helps people uncover and understand, as well as unleash their gift to the world.

So Philip I want to welcome you to Making Bank today.

Philip McKernan:              Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Josh Felber:        Give the audience a little bit of your background, who you are and I guess how you got down this path of helping people uncover their greatness, finding their passion, uncovering their passion and everything else. I guess let’s just start, who you are.

Philip McKernan:              Yeah, well I think I’m a bit of a pain in the ass. I mean, my wife would probably agree with that, my kids on occasion and many of my clients, even though they know that I have this really weird balance between, I can be so incredibly compassionate in one level and another time, then another time I can take a sledge hammer out and hit em straight over the head. Because I have an obsession, I have an absolute love for individuals, for people, and one of the greatest tragedies in the world today is, I walk the earth bumping into people, I was one myself for many years, and I don’t think I’ll ever finish that journey and I haven’t arrived at some place that will give your audience and listeners and viewers a sense that I’ve arrived at some place because I haven’t. That would be a lie and that would be bullshit from the get-go. I love creating environments of safety, of challenge, to really push people to let go of the life that they know what they’ve learned to know. The conditioning, the schooling they’ve had in life, and re, kind of, re-invent themselves.

There’s two words that’ve re-emerged in the last couple of years that I absolutely love, and they’re the words called “What’s possible?” What’s possible that you can’t even imagine for your life right now, and what I’ve discovered in that process is that everybody has a greater gift within them, that they themselves can’t often imagine. A lot of them are relying too much on their talent and not necessarily honoring their gift. So what I do is I coach people and run retreats all around the world. I speak and I work one-to-one with a lot of leaders and entrepreneurs in this world today.

Josh Felber:        Throughout this journey, what’s one of the biggest challenges that you’ve seen? What’s that main roadblock that people run into all the time?

Philip McKernan:              [00:03:11] Well I think, very simply, you said it in the bio or intro if you like, is helping people work on roadblocks seen and unseen. I mean, the roadblocks that are seen are very easy to overcome. Everybody says “Well [inaudible 00:03:22] X marks the spot,” and I think Indiana Jones said “X never marks the spot,” and to some extent there’s a lot of truth in that. I often, often, not always, often say to somebody who has X as the spot they want to work on, I say “Well what if we just ignore X for the moment,” worked on why, and inevitably you get that defensiveness: “No, no, no, that’s fine. No that area of my life is great. No, no, no, I’ve dealt with that before.” So on and so forth.

Alright, so if you’re not listening to me, and I am, I’m not listening to you. I’m hearing you, I’m feeling you. I sense your defense around this area because you don’t want to deal with the shit that you don’t know the answer to or that scares you, and in reality, when you deal with it, X, inevitably always looks out for itself. Always shifts. It’s not to perfection, that’s never the outcome. Nor should it be the goal, but it’s amazing that when we deal in something that so often with leaders and entrepreneurs in particular, it works—and this is my specialty—everything off the ice. So that they can be better on the ice. And a lot of us in the entrepreneurship world struggle off the ice. I would take the same methodology as we were talking off camera, here, a few minutes ago, take the same methodology they use in their business to fix and to develop and to create services and to amplify and to scale—they take it home and they’re wondering why it doesn’t land at home. So I help them in that space so they can shine on the ice and in their businesses every day.

Josh Felber:        [00:04:36] You’ve worked with some, obviously, top people whether it’s the Olympic teams, the Pentagon, top business thought leaders and everything. Through this process, working with them, how do you see you making a difference in the world through these people?

Philip McKernan:              Yeah, I don’t want to get caught on the so-called high level examples you used there. I think, honestly, if I’m truthful, as you read that bio I’m not sure that bio is a representation of who I am anymore. I think that bio, and I say this very respectfully, you read it out because we gave it to you so it’s not a reflection on you at all, I think it’s a bio that’s based on a degree of insecurity. Me falling into the trap that everyone falls into, our society pushes us to do, and that is you have to be seen to work with high profile people, elevate your stature, elevate whatever [inaudible 00:05:20] ego, whatever it happens to be. And, yes, I do work with some high profile people, but that’s a very small minority.

And I probably use that to showcase or try to show the world that I’m something. In a very integral way, that’s my intention, but I think it’s important to know that probably 95 percent of my client base are not world class leaders. They’re not multi-millionaires. They’re not billionaires. They’re successful and they’re growing, but a lot of my clients are smaller entrepreneurs and mid-level entrepreneurs that are getting going, starting start-ups and everything else. And what I’m trying to do is prevent the pitfalls that I see very mature, successful entrepreneurs and leaders make. So in other words, I am trying to get them to have the conversations today so that they don’t have the regrets in the future. To make sure that the work they’re doing, the businesses that they create, are in alignment with who they are. They’re not something that sits outside of them. And when you can align somebody’s intellect to their intuition, what I call soul set, not mindset, when you can do that, it’s extraordinary to watch how they pivot, they shift, they get aligned, and they move in a way that is very congruent with who they are as an individual.

Josh Felber:        One of the things you just mentioned, I know you just said soul set instead of mind set, can you elaborate a little bit more on what soul set?

Philip McKernan:              Absolutely. For some it might sound very fluffy off the bat, but trust me, there’s a lot of thought in this. There’s a lot of science behind it. It’s very tangible both in business and outside of business. So, really if I had to simplify it, it’s allowing yourself to not just be led by your own personal intellect and what society has mapped out for you. What its doing is it’s also getting you to stop, create some space, and consider intuitively “Does this business decision make sense? Does this relationship make sense? Where is my truth in all of this?” And it’s aligning that kind of intuitive feeling that all of us is born with, but a lot of us forget about, and bringing that back into business, back into life.

For example, I had a conversation recently with somebody, and it was fairly sizeable amount of money that we’re talking about whether this investment was made or not made. And they came to me with all the intellectual rational, why this business decision made sense, and I stopped them and I said, let’s leave the numbers out. Let’s leave the intellect aside. Tell me what’s going on in your life. Tell me about the work that you’ve done all the [inaudible 00:07:35] with myself. How you’ve simplified your life. How your businesses are running more effectively. How you’re taking more time out. How you’re working better at home. How your relationships are better and how your health and own piece of mind has never been better. Talked about that for five to ten, fifteen minutes, and say, listen, let’s go back to this decision. She says, “We don’t need to. I know the answer.” I said, “What do you mean?” And she say, “I know the answer.”

And that, to me, is allowing your intellect to speak and not to dictate, but we have put our intellect and our mind set on a pedestal next to money, next to celebrities, next to formal education. To me, I think it has to be put in its place. And soul set to me has to come first. Mind set second.

Josh Felber:        [00:08:14] I think that’s awesome, and I’ve never heard it explained that way. Like as soul set first off, and then just taking a look at that perspective. Because as an entrepreneur and business, we get so focused. Like, “Hey, here’s the logical process. Here’s this whole A, B, C, D, and this is the process that we follow to get whether it’s building our company, or whether it’s like you said earlier in our relationships, and hey, why isn’t this working—well, let’s just do this and this to fix it.

Philip McKernan:              Nobody wakes up in the morning, Josh, no one wakes up in the morning and says, “Hey, I’m going to pre-complex here in my life. I’m going to create a complex [inaudible 00:08:50]. I’m going to confuse things.” No one. I’m going to step into work, that’s somewhat misaligned even though I’m telling myself and overriding my intuiting by telling myself intellectually and rationalizing that this makes sense and it will all make sense. And it’s going to give me freedom in the future. No one wakes up every morning and says, “I’m going to put my work first and my family and my relationships second.” All be it, because again they’re rationalizing to justify that even if that’s true it’s only temporary because when I build this amazing financial freeing, this marvel of this business and everything else, it’s going to give me the freedom to go.

Here’s the problem, science is even now proving, and of course what I typically say about science is that science often tells us what we’ve known intuitively for many many years, it just now officially allows us and gives us permission to consider it. Not all science does that, but there’s a degree of that. So what’s happening now is, for example the context for relationships, and [inaudible 00:09:37]. They’re now saying that couples wait five years too late to work on the relationship. In other words, what is a little hairline crack today, why do you leave your underwear on the floor, why don’t you do this, why don’t you do that, now becomes communication problems then spreads, spreads, spreads and before you know it you’re standing on the side of the Grand Canyon, your partner’s on the other side, and you’re looking at each other going “I recognize your face, but I don’t know who the hell you are.” Now, that to me is a couple, and it’s not a judgment, it’s a couple that are unwilling. Don’t see the value, are not taking the time to have the harder questions today so they don’t have to face them in the future.

The same happens with our individual relationship today. So when I have an entrepreneur who comes to me and says, “Hey McKernan, I want to build my business can you help me?” I say, “If all you want to do is build your business, I’m not your guy.”If you want to grow a business who is in alignment with who you are so you don’t hit a wall in five years or ten years, when you hit that summit and sit there going “Shit, I thought I’d feel better. I thought this would no just financially, I thought I would feel more fulfilled when I achieved this.” Because I pick up the pieces from people who have built businesses over ten-to-fifteen years, and now realize that it was out of alignment. I don’t want that for anybody, and it doesn’t need to be the case.

Josh Felber:        Yeah, I mean I think that makes 100 percent sense with being able to realign your focus and understanding “Hey, this is where we also need to spend our time, not just as an entrepreneur building the business and keeping our focus.” You know, tunnel vision I guess you could say.

Philip McKernan:              Yeah, and often people say to me “I want to grow my business.” My first question is, why are you in this business? “Well, but, uh uh, well it’s obvious. This business has been here for 12…” And I say great, but why? Why are you in this business? And is it even in line to begin with? And sometimes it occurs people to pivot within their business, and sometimes it requires them to consider moving out of their business and into something that is in alignment. A lot of people use the greatest block, one of the many blocks, but one of the greatest blocks they use is “Even if I was to change what I do, Philip, I don’t know what’s next.” And that to me is bullshit because everybody knows what’s next. Everyone knows I believe intuitively what they’re here to do, but they don’t give themselves permission to dream about it, or in some cases, ever execute it.

Josh Felber:        [00:11:40] I think that brings up a great question. Is owning multiple businesses over the years as entrepreneurs a lot of times do, and you know, start ups and failures and some that work out, you get into that position—and I’ve been there—is what is that next phase? Or how do you uncover what is that real purpose of the path I’m supposed to head down?

Philip McKernan:              Did you use the word “uncover?”

Josh Felber:        Yeah. (laughing)

Philip McKernan:              Wow, I thought we were in a society that thought about finding it somewhere under a bush or under a tree. I love that word “uncover” because that’s implying that it’s already there. And I love that word, Josh, uncover. It’s a big difference if you say find and uncover.

Josh Felber:        Sure

Philip McKernan:              Finding, we could say to find, but when we say I need to find my purpose, find my passion, it’s almost implies that it’s behind a rock somewhere in the mountains here in front of me, or it’s under a tree somewhere, or it’s in a book in a library, or it’s contained within some incredible mantel or coat. They have the golden ticket for you. The reality is, it’s in you. But can you work through what’s blocking you?

For a lot of people they don’t want to find. Here’s a bizarre one, and this might come across as, this might make a lot of sense or this might absolutely throw a lot of people off, is that people will pay me thousands of dollars, travel thousands of miles to sit in front of me for the clarity that they do not want. Because if I help them uncover, which is the word you used, uncover what it is they are on this earth to do, the reason, and again there’s a number of reasons and I’m going to give you probably the most common reason, the reason they don’t want to uncover is that it’s okay to run the risk failing and doing something that really doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning and something that’s not really aligned to your soul.

But, shit, if I uncover what I’m here to do, it’s hard to lie about that and suppress it. I almost have to honor it and act upon it, Now I’m running the risk of failing doing what I’m on this earth to do, which is absolutely an expression of my soul, my heart, my wisdom, intuition, whatever you want to call that. And then the chips are on the table. Now, this is scary. This gets very real very quickly. But I also believe if you can help somebody to uncover what they’re here to do, call it a passion, I call it their gift, I don’t believe they can fail. I’ve never seen somebody fail on what they’re actually here to do. I’ve see people fail trying to find their passion. I’ve seen people fail on stepping stones, meaning businesses or activities, or projects on the way to uncovering what they’re here to do, but I’ve never seen somebody fail at what they’re ultimately aligned and here on this earth to do. Never.

Josh Felber:        [00:14:07] Hearing that, then what’s the process, or how do you get in to find that point or break through those different challenges or holding limiting thoughts or beliefs to really uncover what that is?

Philip McKernan:              Yeah, to me I’d love to tell you I have a four step process. I don’t. I know that will disappoint some, but I’ve never sat down and taken the methodology I have and try to put it into a step system simply because it’s very personal to each individual. I start, so my coaching style is different to some, or maybe a lot. I’m told it’s quite unique in that sense, not better, but just different. And that is I never tell you what to do. It’s never about “Here’s what you should do, here’s how you should live your life, here’s the four things you must do to live a better more fulfilled more meaningful life.”

It’s all about the premise that you have all the answers. The challenge is you don’t want to see them, you don’t know how to get to them. They’re blocked, whatever. Or they’re layered down so deeply. You’re too buys trying to keep everybody happy in your life. You’re still trying to live out this brilliant dream that your dad is going to ring you some day and tell you he loves you and he’s proud of you. So you’re building stuff. You’re almost looking for that kind of attention or acceptance and so on. They’re many different reasons.

I start on the premise that you already know exactly what you’re here to do. You have absolute immense clarity. Now, all we have to do is discover what are those roadblocks, and those roadblocks are some of what I just described. Some of those roadblocks are actually you don’t want to discover because you don’t feel deserving of it for example. So a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business leaders, even the ones that are iconic as a term we might use, or we look up to or want to be suffer from self worth challenges. In the entrepreneurship world, we don’t necessarily want to admit that, but we suffer from confidence. We suffer from, what’s that syndrome, where you’re pretending to be something you’re not. You know, it’s an identity challenge.

Josh Felber:        Kind of like fake it till you make it kind of a thing?

Philip McKernan:              Fake it till you make it. So there’s a lot of these challenges that are going on in the entrepreneurship world, leadership world, that a lot of people would be surprised. There’s not a lot of spaces in which we can have this conversation and honor this conversation.

So when I work with leaders, some leaders don’t want to be seen in a retreat anda group environment because they don’t want to be seen working on themselves and showing people that they have inadequacies. That they have vulnerabilities. That they have weaknesses in their armor, and inevitably it’s the same pattern. To me its about discovering what’s blocking you, and when we start breaking, taking those away, it’s interesting when you get close to somebody they get nervous, and they start getting defensive and sometimes they retract. But you’re getting really close to their truth, and sometimes their truth is the very thing that number one will set us free, I think it was the Bible that said that, but ultimately it scares us because it’s the very thing we are on this earth to do.

And it also, when you get somebody in touch with what they’re here to do, their gift, it always equals impact. It always equals impact. And I’m not talking just bottom line, it can do that as well, but impact in terms of community, family, country, world, society, whatever you want to call it.

Josh Felber:        Yeah I know for myself even over the years, it’s like “Okay, what is that next step?” I’ve owned businesses in all areas since I was 14 years old, and now you kind of get to that point of, alight what is next? I love my family and my kids and raisin them, and right now I’m kind of helping my wife. But then it’s like, okay you look to God and everything. But what is that next real purpose moving forward? And it’s a struggle. I know other entrepreneurs who are friends of mine that are currently in the same situation and stuff. It’s like where do we go from here? What is that next phase in my life that’s going to make a huge impact in the world?

Philip McKernan:              [00:17:51] Well I’ll tell you something that I do, and this is not me attempting to promote my work necessarily as I am here to deliver value. But I’ll tell you what I’m doing. What the starting point is for me. So someone comes to me and says “Okay, McKernan I’m going to do one of your experiences. One only and I’m never going to look at your ugly face every again.” Where do I start? I would ask them to go on an experience where I work on their identity. There is a huge identity issue in the world today, and what I mean by that is so few people, as corny and cliché and as fluffy as this may sound to some, trust me, there’s a lot of real and depth in what I’m saying here. Not just because its coming out of my mouth, but because of what I’m talking about.

Whether it’s the US military, whether it’s wives and mothers who say goodbye to their children, whether it’s business men or women who pour so much of their identity into what they do. There’s an identity crisis that we don’t, a lot of us don’t know who we are at the core. We don’t have a really strong sense of who we are. You go to different parties, who are you? Oh I’m the host of whatever. Who are you? I’m an accountant? Who are you? I’m a father of three. That’s not who you are, that’s what you do. That’s the circumstances in some cases of where you find yourself. Who you are as a man, as a human, as a soul, like who you are at the core, if you could discover or uncover more of that understanding and that essence, then what we are here to do is an extension of that.

I do a retreat in Ireland in the west coast. Bring people through this process, and I’ll tell you what happens every single time. People come with so much complexity. Where am I going to go here? What am I going to do with my business? Do I pivot, do I change? What’s my next level? Do I grow? Do I scale? They come in the door with all of this. I get them to disconnect from society. I get them to disconnect from their reality that they live. I get them to disconnect from iPhones and computers and we spend a week reflecting on our past and what has made them who they are today. What has created their behaviors, their patterns, understanding their current reality, doing a real dive facing the real reality of it and envisioning the future.

What ends up happening by the end of the week is everybody walks away with what I would call a knowing. Just a feeling, not of arrogance of I know it all, and knowing what I’m here to do. And the simplicity of it is staggering. I mean staggering. They come in with complexity, they leave with a knowing and a simplicity. Now it’s not easy to implement the simplicity if you like. One of the hardest things to do in the world of writing or editing is taking seven thousand words and creating 100 words with it. So its very, very challenging in that regard, however, the one missing link for a lot of people is none of us have really taken time out of our lives to understand who we are and understand our identity. Our own personal narrative, and therefore, who we are at the core and what we are on this earth to do. That to me, is the missing link. And for some people, they don’t see the value in that which is unfortunate.

Josh Felber:        [00:20:37] Definitely. I can see how that’s a massive benefit just to sit there, not sit there obviously. You’re there working on who you are and your identity. I think as entrepreneurs we do have a lot of identity that’s tied into the different businesses that we’ve owned and where we are going. So I think that’s an awesome retreat.

Philip McKernan:              And by the way…

Josh Felber:        Yeah, go ahead.

Philip McKernan:              Just on a side note is if you’re talking extra strategy, I work with business owner right now, and he’s going to leave millions of dollars at the table simply because his identity is so tied to his business that he’s so scared shitless to sell his business that he’s coming up with every reason and excuse not to sell it. The partner’s not right. The timing’s not right. The economy’s not right. Well the economy wasn’t right when it was on the floor. Suddenly now it’s still not right. And I said to him, “I think you’re full of shit. I think you’re just scared to sell it because you don’t know who you are and what you do next.” And he looked at me and said, “Okay,” now he was almost vibrating with fear. And he said, “Okay, you’ve nailed it.”

And I said you’re going to leave millions of dollars at the table because what he’s ultimately doing, he’s not addressing the fact that he needs and wants to sell this business so he’s going to keep it going, keep it going, keep it going, and what ends up happening is he’s going to end up having to be reactive in that sale as opposed to proactive in that sale. And inevitably that’s going to cost him a lot of money off the table as well. So there’s a commercial reality to this conversation. Not just some and kind of intuitive and emotional reality to this as well.

Josh Felber:        Right. Its interesting how they’re correlated with who you are and then your identity to your business. And a lot of that too determines how successful you’re going to be as well and effects who you are, obviously.

Philip McKernan:              Totally. 100 percent. I’ve got one of my clients, I saw him recently, his business is exploding, and he says I haven’t done anything other than do the deeper work, the inner work, the work off the ice, the clarity piece, the alignment piece. Pivoting some ways I do making sure I’m aligned within the business to make sure I’m doing what I want to do. He said business takes. And I said of course it’s taking off because you’re an expert in your business. I don’t even know what you do. I don’t really care what you do. In that sense, I do care whether it brings him joy and passion and excitement and engagement. And that to me is absolutely critical.

But a question for your audience to consider is if you stripped away your business, if your business was taken from you, if your business collapsed tomorrow morning, who would you be?

It’s just a really interesting, very simple question, but not one that’s easy to answer. If we took your kids away, who would you be? You’re a mother. If we took your label away who would you be? And if that question scares you, and if you don’t have the answer to that question, I would strongly encourage you to address that at some point in your life. Please. For yourself, not for me, but for you.

Josh Felber:        Tell me real quick, what were three defining moments in your life that really made a transformation?

Philip McKernan:              Wow. Probably one I the realm of speaking, I did a best man’s speech in Ireland, in Dublin, and it just happened to be in an old theater and it was my worst nightmare standing on a stage speaking. And long story short, I decided not to be clever, not to be funny, not to be smart, and I eventually let go and spoke from my heart, and at the end of it I got a standing ovation, which basically frightened the shit out of me and was not fun and people they almost [inaudible 00:23:42].

I walked off that stage an absolute and utter stranger. Young guy comes up to me with tears rolling down his face, hugged me, and as he parted the embrace he looks at me in the eyes and said, “If I ever get married will you be my best man?” To which I looked at him and said, “Excuse my language, but fuck off basically.” And which is a very common kind of term that we use in Ireland. You can edit that out if you need to, and he goes “No man, I’m serous.” He’s not really serious with the best man thing, but he says you’ve got a gift.

Now, it was a shift in my life. I didn’t act upon it initially, but it certainly stirred something deep down. How could an absolute stranger tell you something that your mother could tell you a thousand times but you don’t listen to her? Number one. And in no particular order.

I suppose number two was when recently, actually. I had a very difficult time in school. Dyslexic. Was judged by a lot of the teachers, was called lazy, good for nothing, will amount to nothing. Well, pretty much every teacher except one. And I basically hadn’t seen him in 25 years, and I did a screening for a documentary that we just released recently and he was sitting in the audience and I just acknowledged him. I feel the emotion coming already. I acknowledged him because he was the only teacher in my entire school that believed in me and gave me the space and honored me and he stood up from the audience, walked down in Dublin and stairs in Ireland. And he didn’t say anything. He just hugged me. And he didn’t hug me, he held me, and he just held me for what felt like an hour. And there wasn’t a dry eye in the house including mine. That was a massive moment for me. Not a place of arrival, but a place to acknowledge him and my journey, and the impact he had on me. There’s two.

I mean there’s so many. There’s so many. Another one doesn’t come to my mind straight away, but there’s two that have definitely shaped me as a man recently and previously.

Josh Felber:        No, that’s awesome. Do you have any daily habits that you know consistently that you need to do day-in and day-out that’s led to success in your life?

Philip McKernan:              [00:25:33] Not daily. Like I don’t meditate daily, and I don’t journal daily and stuff like that which a lot of people might assume that I do. It’s not that I don’t believe in those things. I’m not drawn to them.

Actually, there is one thing that I do daily. It’s actually more of what I don’t do if that makes any sense. I’ve never said this before. It’s the first time I’ve ever said this, but I don’t read copious amounts of information. I don’t absorb tons of information every day. So I don’t do that, which a lot of entrepreneurs and leaders, and again it’s not a judgment, but one of the challenges is when you’re absorbing information through your intellect, through your brain, and your absorbing tons of information, I do believe it aids suppressing the intuition.

What I’m hugely about is when I go on a retreat or work or my go-to plans, I give them a journal, this is the journal I give them. And that’s it. I give them a journal and pen. I’m really intrigued with the wisdom they have inside them. I’m interested in who they are, what they’re on this earth to do, what is their mission, what is their gift. What’s possible for them that they have not dreamed about before. What do they know about the world that no one else knows? Or what do they know about the world they didn’t even know they knew? Drawing that wisdom out, information is great to a point, but I think it’s informational [inaudible 00:26:44].

So number one is I don’t absorb copious amounts of information. Number two. This is something I do, and it’s not a daily practice. I absolutely, it’s probably the single most powerful thing I do, and that is I take time away for myself. I’m just booking a trip today for three nights four days away on a beach in the middle of no where away form the world. I love my family, but I don’t want to be with them every single day, every single moment of every single. I need my space. They need the space from me, and I go away, but here’s the thing. People go, “Oh yeah, go away and brainstorm.” No. No technology. I bring a journal, but I have no intention whatsoever.

People go, “But what are you going to do there? Are you going to write?” No. Are you going to brainstorm? No. Your going to..? No. Nothing. And it’s very weird initially. It’s like, Jesus, what am I going to do? Who I am I going to talk to? Myself? This is weird. And I’ve become comfortable in that uncomfortableness. I can’t tell you scientifically how this works. I can’t show you on a spread sheet the things I’ve gotten out of it. Every time I come back from that I feel energized I feel connected, I feel alive, I feel creative, and all I can tell you is after that, shit happens that I don’t think would have happened.

That’s a quarterly or at least once or twice a year that I recommend to everyone. I don’t care how busy you are. I don’t care how much pressure you’re under. Go to some dumpy shitty clubbing somewhere. Drop a couple a hundred dollars on Airbnb and take that space. It is beyond powerful.

Josh Felber:        That’s totally different than most people who have a list “Hey, every day I do this, every day I do this, every day.” I think definitely having known space. I know whenever I’ve traveled for events or anything. But just taking that extra time and maybe coming in a day early or staying a day extra, and just be there for myself. It just re energizes you. You can just sit there and think and just let yourself be creative. So, for sure.

Philip McKernan:              And to me it’s about creating the space where you get out of your head. If you talk about athletics or you talk about sports stars or athletes or whatever, they talk about this context or concept of flow. And I think flow is available to all of us, but I think flow, in a very simplistic term, is when you get out of your brain. If you talk to a golfer and they hit the greatest shot they’ve ever hit on the 18 to win the Masters or whatever, I guarantee, listen to every thing they’ve ever done, they went through mental preparation, they visualized, but ultimately, when they hit this shot they were not in their brain. They were out of their brain. They were feeling it. They were just in this space of flow. There were shots that they hit that they couldn’t even imagine they could hit that they could not even pull off in practice.

So, to me, it’s about getting out of the brain and connecting intuitively and feeling where you’re at and what you’re doing and what’s next. What is the vision. And that’s where really, that’s a very powerful place to come from.

Josh Felber:        Awesome. We got just a few minutes left. Tell out audience where they can find more about you. I know you just released a documentary as well, and we can give our audience access to that. You have a gift for them?

Philip McKernan:              Yeah, absolutely. So PhilipMcKernan.com is my main website if you like. So that’s a bit about me, on PhilipMcKernan.com. And then Give and Grow is the film. So GiveAndGrow.com, and if nothing else, people go one and watch the trailer. If they’re drawn to it great, if they’re not so be it. But the other thing is, this is one of the first times we’ve done this, and we’re actually going to give it to your audience if they want to download it. I have high definition through a platform called Vimeo, and if they go to GiveAndGrow.com/makingbank. So GiveAndGrow.com/makingbank. They can access it directly from there, and they can get a high definition streaming version of the film called Give And Grow. And if you’re intrigued about the difference between the talent and the gift, and that idea of that, what is different, if it’s intriguing to you, I think you might enjoy the film. And hopefully you do.

Josh Felber:        Definitely. And I’m excited to watch it. I was watching the trailers a few days ago and I definitely want to dive into it and check it out for sure. Just maybe one or two last words of advice or success or thoughts for our audience? Before we go?

Philip McKernan:              I think if I had to link myself historically to another professional I think I was like a chiropractor where I would get at lot of people coming into my work. And this is not me or my work, this is a challenge for anybody, and I contextualize this in second. I would get a lot of people historically who have hit a pin point, in other words, they come into the chiropractor with their back out and then they want the chiropractor to fix their back. And where I go to a chiropractor, whether you believe in chiropractor or not, I go once a month for maintenance because I put value on my own skin, I put a value on my health and so on and so forth. I don’t want to get to that point.

I encourage everybody to find somebody who’s not connected to the outcome, emotionally, financially or economically, and to really just check in and challenge them about the alignment and the path they’re on right now. Because I’d rather somebody say to me, “Yeah, I’m absolutely on the right path now,” than wait another five or ten years whether it’s in your relationship, work, your relationship with your own skin which is the most important relationship in the whole world. Or the relationships you have to other people in your life. Please have the courage to take a step back and find somebody in your life who’s really going to challenge you.

Entrepreneurs and leaders tell me that they always have somebody who’s prepared to challenge them. My experience is entrepreneurs and leaders don’t have that. They have somebody who’s a yes man or woman, and they’ll challenge them initially, but when they push back two or three times that person gives up. Somebody who’s willing to go to battle, that you almost run the risk of disliking them to get to your truth. And the reason I ask you to do that, I’m telling you one thing. So much pain can be avoided, and so much joy can be brought into your life and fulfillment. If you address and be proactive and not reactive in your personal and professional growth.

Josh Felber:        Awesome. It was so really cool to have you on today and definitely got to have you back because there was so much more I wanted to dive into today. (laughter).

Philip McKernan:              (laughter)

Josh Felber:        As we kept getting [inaudible 00:32:42] I was like ugh, man I wanna ask this and this and this, but I like to just flow with what’s going on and with what you’re saying to dive in deeper. It was an honor to have you on Making Bank today, Philip, and I really appreciate your time.

Philip McKernan:              The honors all me. To be asked to speak in any podcast and to be here as a guest is a huge honor, so thank you.

Josh Felber:        I am Josh Felber. You are watching Making Bank. Get out and be extraordinary.