Dr. Phil's Keys For Creating Success In Your Life EP 1172

This is episode number 1171 with Dr. Phil. Welcome to the School of Greatness.

My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.

And each week we bring you an.

Inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now let the class begin.

Welcome back everyone. My guest today is Dr. Phil McGraw. And if you don't know who he is, he is one of the most well known and trusted mental health professionals in the world, best-selling author of nine books, and the host of TV's number one daytime talk show, Dr. Phil. He focuses on presenting compelling stories about real people with a variety of emotional and behavioral problems, stripping away the shame and embarrassment that too often keeps people from seeking help. He continues to value his academic training and professional qualifications and insists that the information provided on his show is based on evidence-based treatment options and state-of-the-art research in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and medicine. And our conversation was so powerful that I wanted to break it in two parts. In this first episode, we discussed the mindset of success on how he's built Dr. Phil, becoming successful without the knowledge of how to deal with it and how to manage all that, why you should always be in business for yourself. Dr. Phil's gut check moment when he said that he didn't want to do this anymore. why he thinks it's so important to write letters of gratitude to those who helped him in his life. And he shares an incredible story about why he does this every year with Oprah. What happens when you aren't clear about who you are and so much more. This is extremely powerful about the mindset of success, the mindset of growth that I think you're gonna really love from someone who's been doing this at a big level for the last 20 years. Share this with someone that you think would be inspired by this as well. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, please subscribe over on Apple Podcast or Spotify and leave us a review with the part you enjoyed the most from this interview. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Dr. Phil McGraw.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. I'm extremely excited. We have the iconic Dr. Phil in the house. Good to see you, sir. How are you doing?

I'm good. Glad to be here.

I'm very excited to know that you're a former all-star football player and a current star in tennis. and that you continue to change lives and impact people right now in your life. It's amazing, everything that you've done, so congratulations.

You use those superlatives pretty freely there, all star and star. I'll let those slide by, but okay.

You're in your 20th season of your show, number one talk show right now on TV, it's incredible. You've changed millions of people's lives daily. I'm curious, it seems like you've worked with so many people, what do you feel like is one of the main things that holds people back from just living a better, happier, healthier life. As simple as a question that might be, but you've worked with so many people. Is it fear? Is it insecurity? Is it the shame they hold on to? What would you say is kind of the main thing?

I would say it's comfort zones. I think people limit themselves and get in their own way. I think everybody does that, me included. you know, we, everybody gets comfortable in their own life. And before you know it, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into years. And you look and you go, wow, you know, I've been doing this for a long, long time. And I think it's really difficult and something that you have to consciously do to continue to challenge yourself to go to the next level. And then on the other hand, you can do that so much. that you get what I call called inescendancy where you're never satisfied where you are and so you're always reaching for the next level and there's some balance in between where you always want to better yourself and challenge yourself to go to the next level but that doesn't mean you're not satisfied. You know, I'm very gratified with the things that I do and I'm very proud of the things that I do but it doesn't mean that I'm not always looking for a way to do it better. you know, we just started our 20th season, for example, but every summer, you know, when we wrap the season, we take, you know, three or four weeks to everybody decompress and go off on their own and stuff. But then we start meeting on a regular basis to start saying, okay, let's deconstruct that season. Let's start saying, what are some ways that we can do to tell our stories more effectively, to reach more people, to get out there more effectively. We're always trying to reinvent ourselves and stay relevant and say, how can we come back and do a better job than we did last year? Not that we didn't do a good job, but we want to do a better job.

Sure.

I think people get in a comfort zone and that's real easy to do.

What's your comfort zone right now?

You know, I think I have been doing Dr. Phil, and I'm not talking about myself in the third person, I'm talking about the show.

The show.

You know, the actual platform for 20 years. And you hear people say, this is the way we've always done it. Well, that doesn't mean that's the way we should do it. And I'm always challenging the staff to say, look, it doesn't matter how we did it last year or last two years, is this the way we should do it? For example, people's viewing habits are changing. Pacing has to change. The expectations of people are going to sit passively in front of a TV screen and let you dictate what they take in for an hour is pretty obsolete now. People get their information in smaller bits at a faster pace than they did when we started. And I think my number one competition now is myself on the internet versus watching me on broadcast television.

Interesting.

You know, I get billions of views on the internet versus broadcast where people, you know, they want a 18 minute bite or a 20 minute bite. and I generate that content on broadcast and distribute it on the internet. And, you know, that's really the number one competition. Cause nobody else in broadcast is even attempting to do what we do. They have different subject matters. There's some great shows out there. They're just not trying to do what we do.

Right.

Uh, you know, I'm gonna add another.

You'Re a star also on TikTok. I saw you've got like 50 million views in your last video that I was like, you're like the, you're like crushing TikTok. You're all over YouTube. I mean, it's amazing how you've, reinvented yourself to stay relevant with the different platforms. I was listening to an interview you had with Oprah. I know I started with Jay Leno, where you were like, you know, when we started this 20 years ago, there was no social media.

There was no-- Think about it.

Really, the internet, I mean, it was kind of like just getting started.

It was. And there weren't any of these social media platforms, which means we've had to really adapt over the years because.

There.

Was no such thing as cyber bullying, for example. And we've now had to learn, research and study that because kids are taking their own lives by being cyber bullying. I read a study, I read all the time. I can't add two and two and get five every time, but I read really fast. And so I'm a voracious reader. I just constantly and gathering information and data. And I was just reading a study.

That.

Like one in three girls, we're talking about the negative impact of Instagram.

One in three, like in the country or just teens or?

Yeah, teens, young girls. And so there's this impact of social media and putting expectations on girls in terms of their body image. all of that. And so those were things that weren't challenges we had to face then. And having to teach young people where they have to realize, look, I put this stuff out on the internet. They don't think that a college admissions committee is going to go look at that stuff when they're considering them for admission. A human resources group is going to look at that when they're considering them for hire. They're going to go back 10 years, 15 years and see, what they were doing when they weren't applying for a job to see who they really are. And so you've got to teach them, look, you've got to think about this stuff because once it's on the web, it's out there forever. It doesn't go away. And so just a whole different set of values that we're having to deal with that weren't even on the radar when we started.

What were some of the problems, I guess, 17, 20 years ago that are still the same today from human beings that you're seeing and what is different?

Well, you know, all the dynamics are the same in terms of, I think, interpersonal relationships. You have the same things from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s in terms of interpersonal relations. The number one need in all people is acceptance. The number one fear is rejection. And you can put synonyms in there, acceptance or rejection. success, belongingness, rejection or failure, you can put synonyms in for those things.

Embarrassment, humiliation, yeah.

And those things have been consistent generationally across time. But what's different within that framework is we're jumping a lot of steps right now. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, Relationships formed in steps. My mom would take, her mom would pick up. We would hold hands at lunch. We would then go to a movie together and stuff. A lot of that is jumped over now because kids, they move so much faster. What we were exposed to on television then, there were three channels. I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Dick Van Dyke, they were sleeping in separate beds on network television. You watch Lucy and Ricky, they had them in twin beds and they were sleeping in they looked like snowsuits for pajamas.

In the same room, but in different beds.

In the same room, but twin beds. That's what network would allow on. They wouldn't let the public see a husband and wife sleeping in the same bed. They were in twin beds with a nightstand in between. Wow. I didn't know that. Well that's what network television showed. Then that's what was acceptable, that's what the censors would allow. Look at what's on network television now. That's what you would consider pornography back then. And our kids at 10, 11 and 12, that's what they see now. 10, 11, 12 year olds weren't seeing that back then. So they've jumped way ahead on the curve in terms of what their expectations are and what they're exposed to. So I think they get exposed to a lot higher levels of deeper levels of physical, interpersonal and emotional intimacy at an earlier age than they were back then and they've jumped over all those steps. So what are they? Well, they get deeper into a relationship without having done those preparatory steps. so they're much further into a relationship without having these trials before they get there. And so when the wheels come off, they're not prepared for it. We have things in life that prepare us for things that come later. Like we lose a goldfish. We lose a pet bird. We lose a cat before grandma dies. And that prepares us for death. we have dolls and pets that prepare us to raise babies and things. We learn on with lesser stakes for later in life when the stakes are higher. And now we're jumping over a lot of those steps where we get to high stakes interactions without some of those interval steps. And then when the wheels come off, we're not prepared. We haven't had those interval steps of learning before we got to the high stakes losses and we're not prepared for it.

So what happens when people achieve success before they're prepared for it?

I think it's the same thing as experiencing loss before you prepare for it. You haven't had those plateaus, those steps where you had a little bit of success and then you had some more and you learned to appreciate that. And, you know, with the internet bubble and some of these things, we've had some very young people that went to insane levels of wealth.

And fame.

Yeah. And they had no idea of what really usually goes into earning that kind of wealth and financial freedom and stuff. And you see it now in some of the pro sports leagues. I saw a statistic not long ago that 80% of professional athletes two years out of the league are either bankrupt or in serious financial dire straits financially because they go from having very little, if any kind of financial independence or income, let alone wealth, to millions of dollars and they don't know how to handle it and then next thing they know, it's gone and they haven't prepared for it. They don't know. Shaq talks about the first time he got a $20 million contract. He didn't stop and think about, wait a minute, half of that goes to taxes. So he was spending $20 million. He thought, okay, I've got 10 I can spend here, five here and five here. And then they came in and said, no, no, no, wait a minute, you only had 10 to spend. You spent 20. And he's like, holy. and, you know, he, he says that. He says, I, I wasn't, nobody taught me about that. I wasn't prepared for it. And then I got caught in a rears in the beginning. I had to play catch up. So they haven't been through those steps where they learn, hey, you got to pay taxes on this. You got to hold some things in reserve. And, you know, most people think that when you see all of these people get in trouble, with credit card debt, they think, oh, people just went out and went crazy with their credit cards. The number one reason they get in trouble is some kind of medical problem. Really? We have double income families and then one can't work because of a medical problem. That's where they get in. It's not that they're out spending crazy, it's that they had a double income family and then one couldn't work and now they're in serious trouble.

So, I'm curious about your story a little bit because when you were in college, you were studying psychology, but also you were this all-star football player, turned all-star tennis player in college on a scholarship. And then for essentially, call it 30 years, you were working, but it wasn't until you were 20 years ago when the season started, the first season started for Dr. Phil. and really that success kind of took off to another level by being one of the top talk shows. What was the challenge that you faced at that stage of your career or since you had 30 years of working experience roughly, did you feel really prepared for that level of success and fame?

Well.

It was not a rags to riches story for me. That makes a great story, but that wasn't the story. I had, I was raised by a mother and father that were very loving, but my dad was a terrible alcoholic.

Really?

And when I say terrible alcoholic, I.

Mean.

Really bad alcoholic. When he finally, got a job. He had Wednesday afternoons off and every Thursday morning was spent finding the car because he'd come home drunk and have no idea where he left the car.

Wow.

I had to find the car and get to school by noon because if you weren't in school by noon on Thursday, you weren't eligible to play in the game on Friday.

Right.

I had to find that car and get to school.

So you're running around town trying to find the car.

Yeah.

And I was in Kansas City. You had no idea where the car was. you finally kind of learned what his haunts were and you'd go around and find them.

And.

It was not a good situation. But when I got on my own, I've always been very fortunate to kind of have a knack for making money. Really? When I was very young, I was making more money than my dad was when I was 19. Really? And I've always been able to, you know, to me, and it may sound cliche to say it, but I've always.

Thought.

Money was the cheapest commodity I had. It was time that was so critical. Money you can replace, money you can make. It's time that's really precious. And when I got married and had kids, that really came into focus then. And I've never, since high school, never really had a job. I had a job in high school, and since then I've always been in business for myself.

Really?

And I mean always. I had a job in high school working for Hallmark cards. I worked in their underground warehouse in Kansas City. They had an underground warehouse on 31st Street where they kept all their greeting cards. And I got a job working in it. It was carved out of actual rock. I mean, it was just carved out and I worked there. But after that, I never had a job. I loved working for Hallmark. What a great organization that is, I can tell you. but I've always been in business for myself and that really carved a philosophy for me. I used to read all these people that would say, well, you know, so and so's philosophy was. I always thought, I must not be very smart because I don't have a philosophy. And I don't think those guys thought they had a philosophy at the time either. You never have a philosophy until you get older and people assign it to you.

Right, right, right. The wisdom you had. Exactly.

And then they assign you a philosophy. I look back now and realize I've always had a philosophy that everybody's in business for themselves. I don't care if you're working for the post office. I don't care if you're working for General Motors or some large company. Everybody's in business for themselves. They just don't realize it. Even if you're an employee, just rank and file, you're still a company of one and you've got to approach it that way and say, I am in business for myself. How am I doing? How am I presenting myself? What's my marketing plan? How am I moving up the chain? How am I, what am I doing? And I actually have been in business for myself all my life, but I've always thought everybody was, they just don't think about it that way.

But when you got into psychology, were you thinking, I'm going to build a business and make a lot of money in the field of psychology, I guess, 50 years ago?

Well, I certainly approached it with kind of two things in mind. And one was, I recognized very early on that if you're going to get in to a helping profession, you have to acknowledge that there are multiple forms of currency.

Okay.

If you're purely motivated monetarily, you don't want to get in a helping profession.

Right.

Because you can't leverage it. It's not scalable.

And usually a one-to-one practice is not scalable.

It's just not. And so, if you don't have.

Social.

Currency, spiritual currency, the currency of giving something back and impacting people's lives, if those things don't matter, if those things don't fill the void for you, then you shouldn't be in that profession. And I told myself, if I ever got to the point where those things mattered less, then I'd stop doing it. And I really had a gut check moment for myself in that regard because the average income for a PhD psychologist back in the 80s was like $48, $50,000 a year. Right.

Not much.

I mean, it really just wasn't much. And at that point, you know, I was making, you know, maybe a couple of million a year as a psychologist because I took an entrepreneurial approach to it.

Sure.

But I remember over Christmas break one year, I was down at the office with Robin and we were just kind of wrapping up for the year and stuff. And I went up to the receptionist desk and the appointment book was out there and I looked at it and it was solid for the entire year.

Oh man.

I mean it wasn't a 15 minute walk in there and I thought, oh my God. I still want to do this. Wow.

What year was this?

This was in '88-'89.

Wow.

And I thought, I just don't want to do that. And there was a time when I would have thought, wow, this is great. You know, you're building a practice. This is great because I had a hospital practice and another hospital practice and we had groups and we were doing a lot of biofeedback type things for pain management and stuff. And it just, everything was just, couldn't be better. And I thought, it just looked to me like nine miles of bad road.

Wow.

I was just fatigued at it. I thought, I don't want to do this anymore. And that was my gut check moment. And if I ever got to that point, I'd say, I won't do this anymore. And to walk away from that.

Was.

A real gut check moment. And I talked to Robert about it. I said, you know, I said if I ever really wasn't all in, I would shut this down and walk away. And she said, Are you serious? And I said, yeah, I'm serious. And I did.

Shut it down.

Shut it down.

Did you wait till the next year and like finish the commitments or the appointments that were scheduled or were you just like, this is the last year?

I referred them all out. I did everything you're supposed to do.

Sure, sure.

To get them to the proper places and checked all the boxes, shut it down and moved on. What'd you do?

I mean, did you have a game plan? Did you have a dream after that? Was it just, well, let's give it a year and figure it out what comes to me?

Sort of, but not really. Really?

Well, yeah, I'm assuming you had savings.

And investments to... No, it wasn't. We didn't like move into a cardboard box or anything. But I started two new enterprises and it was clearly a It was clearly a gut check time. And I know Robin was talking to my boys a couple of years ago and she said, you know, your daddy's taking chances that would make grown men throw up. So don't think this was an easy road.

Yeah.

That was one of them she was talking about.

Sure. That was one of them, yeah. I mean, it's hard, how does someone wrap their heads around, you know, maybe 10, 20 years prior, or maybe five years prior, that would have been the dream for you to have your whole year booked out or to have clients and referrals coming in and opportunities like that. Wonder should people know that it's time to leave a dream they've accomplished or that it's so good, but it's not what they want anymore. Like, how can they let that go?

You know, the worst thing you could ever do is if you're pursuing the wrong dream or if your dream changes and you don't change with it. For example, let's say that you work to become the best accountant in the entire world and you achieve that goal only to find out that being the best accountant in the whole world was not what you really wanted to do. What you really wanted to do was be a drummer. or sell shrimp out of a van down by the river. And you worked to become the best accountant in the world, and you did. But once you got there, you realized this isn't what I wanted, or it's what I wanted at one time, but it changed. I changed, and I didn't evolve my goals with it. And, you know, when I left that, I actually started a company in trial sciences called CSI before CSI was ever on TV, Courtroom Sciences, Inc. And it was a trial science firm where we did trial strategy, jury selection, mock trials, shadow juries and trials.

That's how you met Oprah, right? Didn't you help her with the trial she was doing?

I helped represent her in the Mad Cow case in Amarillo.

And.

I did that for 12-15 years. And I came to a point then, is right when I started Dr. Phil. And I remember the day that I hit the wall in that profession. I had done everything you could do. Every, I represented every major airline in the world. I represented all the nine major film studios out here. I represented half of the Fortune 100. I represented, I was involved in the tobacco litigation, the breast implant litigation, everything you could imagine. I had done virtually everything you can do in that profession. And I remember a day of building a truck pulled up in front of our building was literally an 18-wheeler pulled up with a file for a case. And the copy bill for the file was a million dollars.

Oh, my gosh.

And it pulled up, and I had one of those moments where I went, Oh my God. And it was like, I really wish they hadn't pulled out.

Oh my gosh.

That's when it's time to go do something else.

Interesting.

When the just to copy the files a million dollars, that's good business. That's a good case. And you're going, oh God.

You don't want to do it anymore.

That means I got to read it. That means I got a get involved in it.

And I thought, It wasn't worth it anymore.

I just, I'd done it all. And I was living on the road. I had trials going in Pittsburgh, LA, Houston, I mean all over the country. And I was traveling all the time. And I thought, I've done it all I don't want to do anymore. and that made the decision to launch Dr. Phil real easy.

Right.

I mean, did you have Dr. Phil already before then?

I've been doing Oprah in Chicago on a weekly basis for four or five years. Then it was time to launch Dr. Phil itself.

And.

I could have done both and I decided, no, I'm going to sell my interest in this and just go all in on What do you think.

Would have happened if you did both as opposed to saying, I'm gonna put all my effort and energy into this one platform?

I don't think I would have done justice to either one because I think I fastly found out when I got into doing my own show here, I fastly found out that this is not a part-time thing.

No.

I mean, this is a you've got to be body and soul.

Yeah.

And, and be here just really involved in, in content, format, story selection, everything from designing the studio to, I mean, everything. It became all consuming. And it, I was into that about. a month or two and realized that before we ever got on the air, a year before we were on the air and said, this is not something that you can do.

No.

As a part-time thing, you either got to go all in or not at all.

And it sounds to me like you are extremely invested in the whole process of the show, of the production, of the crew, of the stories, every decision you're involved in. And I think a lot of people, I think I heard you talk about this somewhere, actually, that People don't know how hard it is to do a talk show or anything of a big production. They think they can go in with their expertise and it'll be great. But you had decades of expertise, but then you had to develop so many other skills, it sounds like, right? To learn about TV, learn about content, learn about storytelling, and you haven't stopped.

It depends on, you know, you can come out and be talent. and show up and be a pretty face and do what you do. But if you're really going to succeed, and it's a different situation from the beginning, I own my own show 100%. Wow. And, you know, that just doesn't really happen. you know, nobody really does that, but I approached it, you know, as a business and and run it as a business. And to do that, you've got to be involved. And then we launched the Doctors, which we own 100%. Wow. You know, we've launched other shows and, you know, we we have a very large involvement in it. at every level, production, distribution, international, formatting, everything, and all the shows that we do.

So.

It'S not just a matter of showing up and doing that episode. It's a matter of your distribution deals, domestically, foreign, formatting, your facilities, everything. So there's a lot that goes into it.

How long did it take for you to, to learn that process to be able to own 100 because you didn't own 100 at first, did you?

No, I didn't. But the third year, really, I, I took over ownership of it at that point.

That's impressive because it's a big undertaking. I mean, it's a big investment. It's a lot of, like, could easily fail and, you know, lose all this money.

Yeah.

When we started out, I was a Harpo owned it. and I was a profit participant.

Okay. You had a talent fee plus an executive producer fee plus... Yeah.

And it was a sharing in the profits. And then at that point we flipped and I became the owner and she became a profit participant and she said exactly what you said. She said, yeah, if you want to do it, you can, but understand you're taking on all of this and all the liabilities and stuff and She said, I know you know that, but just know that's what you want to do. You can do it. I said, I understand. And I did, and it's worked out great for her and for me, and we're still partners and it works out great.

So there's still profit sharing there for her, then. That's amazing.

Yeah.

So it's no risk for her and she's still involved and that's exciting.

She's a great partner.

And I saw that you, I love this about you, that you really care about your relationships. You really, Continue to acknowledge people for years after they've believed in you and supported you. And I saw that you you send Oprah two letters a year for the last, I don't know, 20 years, it sounds like. And this is something I think people don't understand, the power of an acknowledgement and a continued acknowledgement of just like a thank you and here's how much it means to me. When I saw a clip of you and her I was talking about that, she was like, you have no idea how much this means to me. Every year I get those. And you said, you don't get thanked enough in your life. Why is acknowledgement so important for you to continue to do? Not just like, I thank you for giving me this, you know, opportunity. I'm done telling you thank you. Why is it important every year to do it for you?

Well, you know, I think you got to dance with who brung you. And, you know, I hate these people.

That.

You know, wake up on third base and think they hit a triple, as the old saying goes. I don't think there would be a Dr. Phil if it wasn't for Oprah. And so, you know, here we are 20 years on and, you know, I've got a well-established brand and people know Dr. Phil and all of that. And, you know, that's all well and good today. But 20 years ago, that wasn't the case. What was the case was that Oprah generously, unselfishly pushed me to the forefront. And I will never forget that. There were times when I was on the Oprah Show that she got off the stage, went into the audience, set up a table beside her chair for some hot tea, and said, take over the number one platform in the history of television. It's yours. What do you got for me today?

And you hosted it.

And turned over the show. Wow. On a regular basis. You know, a lot of people, and you know, I enjoyed great success on the Oprah Show. And there were a lot of people that would be threatened by that, that those were the highest ratings of the week. Most of the time, there are a lot of people that would maybe be threatened by that or whatever. Not her. She just kept pushing me to the forefront, pushing me further, pushing me further, pushing me further. And just unselfishly and generously did everything she could to establish me and my brand and support me and everything that I did when I came out here to launch the show. The first one I shot, she was in the control room. She came out at the break. She was there. I shot my thousandth show. She was there on the stage in the control room. 2000 show, she was there in the control. 3000 show, she was there in the control room. She was there in the control room. Just, you know, just has been such a loyal, generous, supporter and till the day I die, I will thank her for everything she's done for me and for my family. And I don't now enjoy this success and forget who brung me to the dance.

That's beautiful. And so do you have like a certain dates that you send these letters or is it... I mean you guys talk all the time I'm assuming on the phone and.

Chat but We do, but... Why do.

You still think it's important to send letters, even though you're talking on a consistent basis and telling her, like, thank you again so much and seeing with her all the time?

Yeah, I just think it's important to sit down and thoughtfully kind of recount what's happened during the last year with myself and Robin and Jay and Jordan, who she's very close to. just let her know what's evolved. And, you know, I call it the O factor because, you know, you always think about the metaphor, throwing the pebble in the pond and the ripples out. But the O factor is like throwing a meteor in the pond. There's a tsunami everywhere, and it just keeps going and going and going. And it's impacted my boys, which she was. has such a close relationship with Jay and Jordan and how it's affected their lives and all across time and just had such an impact. And I just don't ever want her to forget that we know that.

You're not too good for her. You think it's all you now and you're the one who created this success on your own.

No, and I hope I've given back to her along the way as well. She's called me in some tough times and I never ceased to take that phone call, but you know, I spend the rest of my life and never repay her for everything she's done for me and mine. And I never hesitate to say that. That's why I said people say, what's your secret to being number one? I said, Oprah, quit. She's number one.

Right.

It's just she retired.

You kept showing up.

Yeah. That's right.

Who would you say is the most influential person in your life growing up, the most influential figure, whether it be a parent or a coach or mentor or family friend?

Clearly it was my dad, both negatively and positively. I haven't had a drink in over 50 years because he was a bad alcoholic and I just said, I will never go down that road. He was also the hardest working man I've ever seen in my life. I got a tremendous work ethic from him. I've never seen anybody work as hard as him. He was never tired. He never gave up. He always fought. I respected him for that. I hated that he was an alcoholic, but I also understood it too. I know a lot of what he went through growing up. He self-medicated a lot. I don't excuse it, but I understand it.

He.

Was a big factor in my life. I had a football coach in high school that was a big factor in my life. He helped me graduate.

Got you to show up to class and make sure you showed up.

Yeah.

He did. and, you know, I think that you, you take those lessons along the way and you, I used to have coaches tell me when I was playing football, you know, they give you that, you've heard it.

Yeah.

You know, man, football teaches you about life.

You know, roll your eyes.

Yeah.

It does, though. And, you know, you roll your eyes and the, yeah, right. come on. But the fact of the matter is, it really does. I can't think how many times it was a minute, 10 seconds left in the game and you're 13 points behind and somehow or another you wind up winning and you lose. It ain't ever too late. You never quit till it's over. And I've, I've, I've learned that.

And.

Even playing tennis, there are days that I'll be scheduled to do two shows. We wind up doing five.

Oh, man.

And if I didn't play tennis every day and stay in shape and stay sharp and work out and stuff, I wouldn't be able to do five television shows in a day. I, and the, the competition and the conditioning and stuff, I mean, it's just, I've just been a jock all my life, and, yeah, that's when you reach down, pull it out, and gut it up and get it done.

Dig deep, Doctor Phil, I like it.

You know, you have to, and you can be tired later. That's it. That red light comes on, you do what you got to do.

I'm curious, what was the biggest lesson your dad taught you? And also the biggest lesson this coach taught you?

Yeah, they both said it kind of the same way. big time players make big time plays at big times.

I love that.

And they both said that to me.

And.

I've been captain on the teams that I've played on and it kind of pushed me into a leadership role from a very young age. And I really think I'm fortunate in.

That.

I really feel like that I'm in one of those jobs where everything I have ever done has prepared me for what I'm now doing. And, you know, there are a lot of jobs that you wouldn't be able to say that about. Right. you know, if I was a heart surgeon, for example, I wouldn't necessarily be able to say that. But because I deal with human nature and human interaction and all of those things, then being parts of a team, you know, having been very poor, having been homeless when I was a teenager, having been in these different situations and scenarios, I think has allowed me to, A, not be judgmental of people because I've been where most people have been. And I also understand what they face. I know what it's like for a kid to say, I could never take my friends home. because I never knew what I would find when I opened that door. I never knew if the utilities would be on or off. I never knew if my dad would be drunk in the driveway. I never knew if he would have attacked my mother. I never knew if, you know, when they talk about that, I understand because I've been there.

Right.

And I don't, relish that, and I'm glad that my children didn't go through that. But since I did, I've at least been able to apply it in relating to the people that I sit with sometimes that are looking for some guidance. And having been in those scenarios, both negative and positive, I'm able sometimes to relate.

Yeah.

And they understand, you know, he gets what I'm saying. I can see it in his face, he understands.

How do you think you stay so relatable to people? Even though I think Ellen had a show, I think it was called Relatable or something, like a Netflix series that was about trying to stay relatable as she earns however much she earns a year. How do you think you stay relatable with, you know, just the success you have, being a TV personality, a big entrepreneur and businessman, how do you keep that relatability?

Well, I hope I do. And I think part of it is growing up in the South.

The accent?

Maybe that's part of it. But we moved around a lot. It almost sounds military because I went to first, second and third grade in Tulsa, fourth, fifth and sixth in Denver, seventh, eighth and ninth in Oklahoma City, 10, 11 and 12 in Kansas City. Then off, I mean, I was, we moved every three years, not by design. It just worked out that way. And so I was always the new kid. I always had to be making friends. I always had to be taking down barriers and finding a way to to fit in. And I think that's why athletics were such a big part of my life. Because as you know, I mean, God, you've been a decathlete and you've played all of these different sports. You know, when you're a jock, you have an immediate peer group.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

If you don't, you're guy friends right away.

Exactly. If you don't, you're just standing there, you know, looking around like nobody to sit with at lunch. But if you, if show up and you can run fast and jump high, then you have something in common with somebody. And so I always found a peer group everywhere I went and fit into the group in that way. And that helped me in so many ways. Like I said, I went to high school in Kansas City and half of the team was black and half the team was white. And boy, you've fastly realized there's just absolutely no difference. And you've learned right away that there might be cultural differences in practices, but human beings are human beings. And I got comfortable with that from a very early age. And I was so glad that I did.

Yeah.

And that served me well, you know, my whole life. Whereas there are a lot of kids grew up where they were never around. They lived such a homogeneous life. They were never around anybody any different than themselves. And that's not true in athletics, as you know. You know, it doesn't matter. Somebody can run fast and jump high. That's all that matters. You don't care if they're polka dot.

Can you help? Can they help you win?

Exactly.

Are they a good person on your team? Do they have a good attitude? Do they work hard? That's what you look for those characteristics. I played football in arena football in Alabama for a year. I was one of the only white guys on the team. And they cared, could I play the game?

That's right.

Could I ball? If I can ball, then I'm good.

Enough to hang with them. Yeah, doesn't make any difference. And then it extends off the field. Absolutely. And so right away you learn, you know, we're all the same.

And.

I think I got that instilled in me really early. And you just relate to everybody.

You talk about being a big time, big time players make big time plays at big moments, big times. If someone's not a big time player in their life right now or in their career or relationship or business, how can they become a big time player? to be able to make big time plays at the right time.

Well, I think everybody can. I think that's the whole point. Look, if you don't star in your own life, who's going to?

Absolutely.

I mean, think about that. I think it starts with this. I think you've got to decide that you're going to be who you are on purpose. Don't wake up every day and let the world tell you who you are, who you're gonna be. And I think a lot of people do that.

What do you mean by be you on purpose?

Well, the world is gonna tell you who to be and where you fit in. Your parents have an expectation set for you. Your job has an expectation. Your community, your church, everybody has a slot for what they expect you to do. And that may or may not be who you really are. And I think you have to make a decision about who you really are, what your values are, what you believe, what matters to you, what doesn't matter to you. And you've got to decide, I'm going to embrace those values and pursue those goals, and I'm going to do it on purpose. And I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm going to be who I am, and I'm going to do it on purpose. And so when what are you doing and why are you doing it? I'll say I'm doing A, B and C and I'm doing it on purpose. Like me, don't like me, but that's who I am and I'm doing it on purpose. This is not a mistake. Look, I believe in a defined brand.

A defined brand.

A defined brand. Look, do you think anybody's gonna confuse me with somebody else?

No. No.

Seriously, you're not gonna confuse me with somebody else. There are a lot of people out there have fine brands. They're good people and they what they do is good and they have a lot to contribute. But like Marianne Williamson, I know Marianne, she's a wonderful woman. She's very spiritual and she's kind of ethereal and she's into those, that's not me.

Yeah, we've had her on the show.

She's terrific. She's terrific.

She's great. But it's not your brand.

Not me. She's not a, and she's not me and I'm not her. But there's a place for both of us.

Absolutely.

And there's room for both of us. There's a place for both, but you're never going to confuse my message with hers or hers with mine. But I love her. I think she's got a great message, but she's got to be who she is and I got to be who I am. And it's like McDonald's and the Palm. You're not ever going to go into the McDonald's and expect to get a five pound lobster. And you're not ever gonna go into the Palm and expect to get a Big Mac and fries. They have defined brands. They are distinct. They're good at what they do. You can't ride two horses with one ass. You gotta decide, all right, this is my brand and this is who I'm gonna be and I'm gonna ride that brand. That's me. And I think that's what I mean when I say you gotta be who you are on purpose. I'm very straightforward. I'm gonna tell you the truth as I see it. Now you may disagree, and if you do, and what I say won't withstand challenge, throw it out. 100% I'm not the repository of all knowledge. And if what I tell you won't withstand challenge, hit the eject button and move on. If you don't like what I'm saying, that's why you have a remote control. Hit that up or down button and move on to something else. Got it. But I'm going to be who I am on purpose. I'm going to sink or swim, not based on what somebody else decides I should say or do. I'm going to do it based on what I believe at the core of my soul I need to do. And, you know, there are a lot of psychologists that take the approach like, well, how does that make you feel? Well, tell me how does that make you feel? That's a valid approach for people to discover certain things. That's not me. Mm-.

That's not me.

I'm not gonna talk to somebody for six months and then say, you,'re an asshole. Right. If I know that in the first five minutes, I'm gonna tell you. You're an asshole. Yeah, you don't need to talk to me for six months for me to tell you you're a narcissistic jerk. Work on that. Right. I'm gonna tell you right now. And if I'm wrong, then fire me and go get somebody else. But I'm not gonna wait six months to tell you that. I'm gonna tell you what I believe. and I'm straightforward. And I know a lot of 75 cent words, I just try not to use them. I can tell you you're a schizophrenogenic mother with conflicts here, there, and other, or I can just explain what that means. I would rather just explain what it means. And that's my brand. I don't think common sense is nearly common enough. And so I try to present Common Sense information to people's homes every day for free. Yeah. And that's worked for me. And that's a brand that I embrace. And so I am who I am on purpose. I don't apologize for it. Some people may think I'm a barbarian. Some people may think I'm the second coming of Common Sense. I wouldn't disagree with either one of them. Right.

You are who you are though. What happens if we don't get clear on our values and we aren't, we're being someone else on purpose but not ourselves. What happens to us?

It's not authentic. It's not ever gonna work. Look, if you're not authentic, if you don't really if, look, to me it's congruency. if you're not congruent with what you really believe at the core of your soul, then you're incongruent. And it's not going to work. It's like an airplane that's not aerodynamic. It's like flying with your gear down. It's not clean. It's not going to move. And if you are congruent, then it's going to feel right to you. When you were a kid, we've all done this. When we were kids, we'd get in the swimming pool, we'd have a beach ball and we'd try to hold it underwater. And it pops right up. Wear yourself out holding it underwater. It keeps popping up this way and that way. To me, that's what it's like when you're denying who you really are. Oh man. You're holding that beach ball underwater. It keeps trying to pop up. Let it pop up. That's who you really are. And that's what I mean when I say be who you are on purpose. Let that beach ball pop up. That's who you are. And that's what I do. I'm not, and you got to know who that is and you got to stay in your lane. You've never, I don't know how many of my episodes you've watched, but you've never heard me tell anyone what to do with their 401k. You've never heard me give anybody investment advice. That is not my lane. That is not what I do. Now I might have an expert come on and advise a company. couple or something, but that's not me.

Right.

You might be good at it yourself because you've been doing it for a long time, but it's not your expertise.

So I'm not going to talk about it. I have a lane. Now, fortunately, human functioning is a pretty broad lane.

Right.

So I can talk about marriage, parenting, individual pursuit of goals, mental health, mental illness. There's a lot of, I have a broad lane so I don't lap myself right away. But there are things outside my lane. I leave those alone. And I'm gonna stay in my lane and I'm gonna do it authentically. And I think we have to know what that is and be authentic and own it. And I think that's very, very important. And then I think you have to star in your own life. I don't care if you're a teacher or a plumber or a butcher or baker, a candlestick maker. You have to decide I'm going to take pride in who I am and I'm going to be good at what I do. I'm going to be proud of what I do and I'm going to be the star of my own life. And maybe that's in the way you give to other people, the way you parent your children, the way you spouse with your partner or whatever. But I think we generate the results in life that we think we deserve.

And.

I can follow someone around and never speak to them and tell you a whole lot about that person. If I see somebody in a gray suit, a gray shirt, a gray tie, a gray bag slumped over, shuffling along the street, I know that's what that person thinks they deserve. I don't have to talk to them because they generate the results in life they think they deserve. And if they're disheveled and they're tired and they're bent over and they're depressed and they're lonely, they're generating the results they think they deserve. We all do that. And if you see somebody that is genuinely happy, they're engaged and involved and they're looking around and they think that's what they deserve. People generate the results they think they deserve. And I can watch somebody and tell you what they think they deserve. Because it's who they surround themselves with. It's the activities they choose. And the problem is you model that for your children. Somebody comes home and says, How was your day at work? Oh, it was horrible. You know, it's another day. You're modeling for your child to sell out, take a job you hate, but do it every day of your life. Don't model that for your children. What is that about? That's terrible. That's not being who you are on purpose. That's being who somebody else wants you to be. And modeling for your child that you you grow up and sell out to what somebody else wants you to do, whether you like it or not. Wow. I hate when people do that. And I try to get people not to do that.

Right.

They say, well, it's easy for you. You've got enough money to do what you want to do. It's not about the money. It's about finding a way to be who you are in your own paradigm. And it's, it's not about, you know, quitting your job and go flying freight out of Africa. It's finding a way to shine in your own world, in your own orbit in some way. It's how you do what you do, not necessarily what you do.

That's true. And if someone has been stuck though for a while, or maybe they've been living in this kind of limiting belief for a while, maybe it's years, or they've just been in that pattern, how can they start to think differently and believe themselves when they've never seen the results or evidence that they deserve more?

Well, I can tell you this.

Really.

Small changes accumulate across time.

Absolutely.

And you and I are sitting here right now in September, and people are listening to this whenever you're gonna drop this, and the rest of this year is gonna go by whether they're doing something about it whether they're not.

Right.

Let's say there's 12 weeks left in this year. Those 12 weeks are going to go by, whether somebody spends it losing a half a pound a week, setting a goal to look up a college curriculum, to explore a different job, to redefine their relationship with their spouse, to re-engage with their children, to what, whatever it is, making a small change each week or each day, it's astounding how much those small changes accumulate to big differences in a short period of time. We don't have to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Just make a little difference today and another one tomorrow and then before you know it, wow, I'm really in a different place. And that time's gonna go by whether you're doing something about it or not.

Absolutely.

So you might as well be doing a little something.

What would you say is the thing you get to work on to get you out of your comfort zone over the next 12 weeks? That maybe you've been, I should be doing more of this or I need to take a look at this thing or assess this part of my life. Is there any area?

Me personally?

Yeah, you personally. This season of your life.

Next chapters. because I'm always asking myself, and I know at this stage, my world's supposed to be getting smaller and I'm supposed to be slowing down and kicking back. But I look, I still look at expanding my rides that I'm looking at what is a new chapter I can challenge myself with? And I like to do things that I like to take on things that are really outside my comfort zone. Like I mentioned, I'm not good at math. So when I was in graduate school, my teaching assistantship was statistics.

Okay.

Because it It scared the bejeebers out of me. So I think I'm only nine or 12 hours short of a PhD in statistics because it intimidated me so bad. I took every statistic course I could, non-parametrics, parametrics, malinovas distance, analysis of variance. I took everything I could get because I thought I will not turn away from that. I will take this one, that one, this one, that one. I will not let this intimidate me. so I like to lean into stuff that intimidates me, except going to the dentist.

Oh, that's the worst, right?

Yeah.

I had 18 teeth, well I had 14 teeth removed plus my four wisdom teeth when I was 17.

Oh my gosh.

And because I was supposed to get braces right afterwards, this was in the summer before football season. And my, I was like, man, I don't want to get braces right now and then have to wear this, you know, My braces all messed up with the mouth guard in. I was like, let me wait till after the season. It's the worst. After the season turned into 20 years.

Yeah.

And it wasn't until two years ago, I've had these 14s missing in my sides for 20 years. And then two years ago, I finally said, I gotta, you know, time is gonna pass. Let me get my Invisalign. Now I gotta get some implants back in. All this stuff that's happening in the next, like, few weeks, but it's, I put it off because I did not want to do it.

See, that's what I mean about relatability. I hate going to the dentist. Oh man, they give you all this bullshit about it's painless. Oh no, the name is painless, but it's not anxietyless.

For weeks leading up, they're like, oh man. So what is the thing that's intimidating you or scaring you now?

You know, I haven't decided yet. I'm, I'm really, I'm really studying that in my life right now and, and, and talking to Robin about it. And I don't know, I don't know what it is, but I know there's another chapter that I'm getting ready to open. I just don't know what it is yet. But I know, and, and I wasn't even thinking about that two, three, four years ago, but now, It's a really hot topic with me now, so I don't know what it is, but I know it's... You feel like there's an.

Itch for a new season, a new.

Chapter of something... Yeah, something. And I'm not sure what, but... Is.

There any potential realms of what ideas or industries or where... Not yet. Not yet. But you know there's something, there's something calling you, pulling you.

Yeah, 100%. Wow. And, but I don't know what it is yet, but I feel it. I feel it. I don't think it's going to take the place of anything I'm doing. Sadly, it's going to be an addition to what I'm doing.

They're going to add to the plate.

Exactly. Robin's already interrogated me about that.

What's the thing you're most proud of that maybe most people aren't aware of? You know, obviously people know about the success. They know about the you know, the impact you've had on people's lives, they know about the, you know, the financial abundance you've created and all the lives you've changed, but what's maybe something they aren't aware of that you're really proud about?

I'm really proud, and this isn't gonna be a shocker to people, but I can be specific about it. I'm really proud of the young men that our two boys have become. and they're both very financially successful. I don't mean that. I mean, I've watched my two sons are both fathers now. Jay has a daughter, Avery, and she's just 12 and his son London just turned 10. And my youngest son Jordan, who's a musician on tour right now, and he has a young daughter that's just five months old and another one on the way. They decided to have them close together by design. He and his wife Morgan, and Jay's married to Erica. And I've watched these two young men become fathers. And I've seen the depth of.

Their.

Commitment and their loving and caring and the gentleness with which they've stepped into that role. And I'm really, I'm not surprised, but I'm really proud of the way that they've done that, the sacrifices that they've made is as simple as being up at 3 o'clock in the morning with a smile on their face, you know, feeding the baby and stuff like that and, and the husbands that they've become. And you always, you always want your kids to thrive and be happy and I've, my goal was always, I was going to work until I knew that my family was well provided for if I fell off the world tomorrow. And I didn't mean just financially, but that they were, you know, happy and secure in their lives.

And.

I've had to revise that goal because they're way past that. They're both really happy and they're good citizens. They're good people. They treat people well. They're polite and caring. I see, you know, Jordan's on tour right now and I see him with thousands of fans around. He's always kind and nice to people and the same with Jay. I like who they've turned out to be.

That's cool. That's a good thing.

We'll be proud of that. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, then make sure to share this with a friend and leave us a review of the part you enjoyed the most from this interview. And if you loved this, part two is gonna blow you away. It's all about relationships and how to really thrive in a healthy long-term marriage and relationship. And Dr. Phil gives his three pieces of advice for a happy and successful marriage. Why you need to heal yourself before getting into a new relationship. the non-negotiables in Dr. Phil's everyday marriage routine, the power and importance of making eye contact with your partner on a daily basis, and so much more. This is a relationship master class, so make sure to be subscribed and stay tuned for the next episode all about mastering relationships with Dr. Phil. Again, if you enjoyed this one, then please text a friend, post it over on social media, make sure to tag Dr. Phil and myself over on your stories, over on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all the places and let people know about this episode. And I would remind you, if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter, and you know what time it is, it's time to go out there and do something great.