Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney and I'm your host. Today's guest is Phil Reed. Dr. Philip Reed earned his doctorate in ministry in 2023. He. He is the founder of Phoenix National Business Group, llc, also known as Phoenix National Network, llc, a media and broadcasting company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and businesses achieve their goals through online platforms. The company has developed its own app and broadcasts on its own network, available on Roku and Amazon Fire TV. As a podcast platform developer Phil Co produces 15 different programs that are broadcasted on up to 45 different platforms and continues to expand. He is also the producer of the Bishop's Corner, a program that tackles challenging subjects such as racism, trafficking, abuse, mental health, human dysfunction, and more. Enjoy the show.
Dr. Philip Reed, so good to see you, my friend.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Man. It is awesome seeing you as well, brother. How's everything going?
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Things are going well. Things are going well. Better now that I get to see you, man. It's been a while and you know, whenever I have a guest, I always wanna. I always wanna thank the individual who introduced us, and in this case it was our special Oscar Capel introduced the two of us. So the Oscar, if you're listening or watching, thank you, sir, for introducing Phil and me. There's a reason why these kind of things happen.
So, Phil, you may be wondering why I wanted you on this show. And, you know, before we hit the record button, we did talk a little. And I often talk about how when we're young, our family tells us that life is linear. It's a straight line. If you feel, if you do A, B and C, D is going to happen. And by the time we're 18, 90% of our belief system about the world and ourselves is already formed. So we just go about what we're taught. And it's not a malicious teaching. They want that for us. And for the most part, life is linear until it's not right. It's linear until that external circumstance, something happens that shakes us to our core and it's all relative. Trauma is all relative. External circumstances impact people differently. But there's a time in our life where we're like, you know what? Life can be different. And I often talk about three different men.
Man number one, man number two, and man number three. And during even the course of a day, we might be all three of those men, depending on what happens, where our mindset, our consciousness level is, and man number One is the man who has a ton of blind spots, and he's so overwhelmed. They're so preoccupied with life the way he's been living. He doesn't notice anything different where he can change things. Nothing changes. He goes through life, and he's one of the, you know, regrets when he's on his deathbed, you know, but then there's man number two. And man number two is the man who sees that stuff's happening, yet he's the victim, right? He's blaming everybody. Like, I can't change this. Life's doing this to me.
The man I have on this show is man number three. That's you, Phil. He's the man who finally, after a time, he looks, he says, things are happening. But you know what? They don't have to be a barrier. These can be opportunities. There can be something different. This is life happening for me. I'm going to take this on as a challenge, as an opportunity to be a different person, do things differently. And you break away from that old belief system, and I know you've done that, and you've gone through stuff, and we all have these defining moments in life. I'd love for you, Phil, reach back as far as you need to and grab that defining moment or defining moments that made you man number three. And you said, I'm going to do something different, and I'm going to become the man I am right now and lead us through that and bring us to where you are now personally and professionally, and how that consciousness of that defining moment has shaped your life.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Okay, so there's several that come to mind, but I want to thank you first, Drew, for inviting me on your show. This is a high honor coming from you, and I really appreciate the opportunity, my friend. Well, the first, I could maybe place two major turning points that changed my perspective on life. And the first one was when my. My father passed away when I was about 7 or 8 years old, right? I got that. That first reality of permanency right at that age. And it was funny to me because that's when I started making some radical decisions about who I wanted to be and how I wanted my life to go.
And so, you know, I started searching, you know, I started searching for God. I started searching for, you know, answers like, you know, why now? And all of those questions started coming to me. And, you know, it was funny because as I started seeking that and I started getting answers little by little, you know, as far as, you know, death is not the end of things. It is actually the Beginning of a new life. And I, you know, started digging into that even more, and so I started seeking out the purpose of this life. And that's the. That is the kind of, you know, pivotal turning point in kind of understanding permanency versus temperance. Right, right. You. Once you realize that this isn't permanent, your priorities shift to, okay, so what do I. What decisions do I need to make now in order to make a mark in this time, in this season that I'm born? And it's funny that we weren't born in, you know, during the time of World War I or World War II, which we call, like, the great generation. Right. You know, we were born now and in this time, in this season. And there has to be a purpose for that. There has to be a reason for that.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: You know, skipping up into years, I'd say that the second major marker was my divorce.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Which is like a death in itself. Right. You know, and so we.
I never expected it. I thought. Of course, all of us think once you. When you're getting married, it's gonna be bliss for the rest of my life. So is this gonna. You know, I'm gonna grow old, and I'm gonna be the old man with white house, picket fence, two dogs. This is the. This is the way we're gonna live.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: But, you know, to kind of, like, reach that conclusion and having to make that major decision, I. You know, and seeing how it affected my son and my family, it didn't match the kind of person I wanted to be or who I saw myself as at 7 and 8. Right. During that major first change. You know, so it brought me to a place of questioning and examining again, you know, who am I now? Why am I here?
What is. What is. You know, what is. What is the lesson in this entire thing? And how do I. How do I learn? How do I learn that lesson? Right. How do I become better because of it and not stay bitter? Because I went through some really dark moments. It wasn't. It wasn't like, okay, I got a divorce.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Yay.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I'm happy. You know, let's have a party.
It was that. And you can relate to that. Right. You know, it. It was just. It was not a celebrative. It was very more like, I couldn't believe what was happening.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: And it felt like a huge failure. This is. This was major, major failure for me. And so after that second moment, I started learning more about myself. I started learning more about who I am under pressure.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Right. Right.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: You know, what does Phil look like without pressure. And what does Phil look like under pressure?
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Right. And there's a two. Those are two different guys.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: I found the guy that was not under pressure, you know, would be lackadaisical in some ways. You know, take things for granted.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: You know, like, oh, you know, I have tomorrow. I don't have to really focus in on today and take advantage of today.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: I, I always had tomorrow with the relaxed guy.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: With the guy under pressure, it was, oh, this needs to be done today. I need to be focused on the moment and not the future, not the past, you know, the now. And, and so I, I said there's got to be a middle, there's gotta be a middle ground.
Right. There's the balance of. Okay, how do I walk that line of this? And my key answer was mindset.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: The frame of mind you're in on a constant level determines where you're going to go.
Right. And you learning from where you've been.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: And I think we said this right before the program. It's really not what the world has done to you, but is your effect on the world.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Absolutely, yeah.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: And I say that because you can't change the world. No.
Right. You can't change people. I can't force you to be, become who I want you to be. But I can definitely focus on who I am as a person. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, all of it. If you notice, your, your whole body is like a universe in itself.
You know, it's true. Your body has its own way of functioning with a, you know, chemicals, molecules, you know, all those things in here has its own way of dealing with things. But your emotions affect you chemically.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: And your chemicals affect you emotionally. It's, it's, it's a cross breeding of everything you are and how you focus that in and release it into the world tells the universe and the world how to respond to you.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: I think so you bring that definition in.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: True. Well, a lot of it too is, is your level of awareness.
Because, you know, sub. There's so many things happening subconsciously that we don't realize. But if we're aware that we have a lot of subconscious thoughts, I, I believe that we have about 70,000, 70,000 thoughts a day on average. The human, human. And we only bring about 1.4% to our conscious level. It's like 1400, something like that, whatever the numbers are. But the point is, if we're not aware of those thoughts that become conscious, then we miss out on Something because, you know, there's always this. This chicken or the egg thing. What comes first? The thoughts are the emotions. I mean, I do believe the thoughts come first. Some people say the emotions come first. But the thoughts, there's so many subconscious thoughts that stir emotion. You know, it's not always the conscious thoughts that stir the emotion. It's that subconscious stuff. All the stuff you talked about, all the compilation of what happened in our lives. It's. It's never out. Out of our brain. It's, you know, it's in us no matter what. It's just a matter of once we're able to live in the moment, like you said, you know, not dwell on the past and not be afraid of the future. The more we're in the present moment, the more consciously we are aware of our thoughts and we can impact that. And I think the awareness piece is so important. And a very low percentage, especially of men are aware.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Examine that. Yeah. We're oblivious.
And on a basic level, we would rather not think about what we think about.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: True.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: You know, and just basically live in this mode of, you know, it's going to get done. It's easier not to think about it. Just like, that's why we zone out. I forgot who said it, but he said that we have this blank space. We have this empty room that we always go to and just kind of like.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: And women don't silence. That's the funny thing. Women don't have that. They're like both sides of the brain working 100% of the time. So it's funny you mentioned that, because, like, if a woman asks a guy, what are you thinking? And we say nothing, we mean it. And they're like, no, really? And then we. If we're not comfortable on our own skin, we make something up and make it worse. Really? I'm thinking on nothing.
Oh, God. It's funny.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Is that. You know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking about what you're thinking about right now.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: There we go. Yeah, exactly. Big go. So let's. All right, so let's take the death of dad and I'm sorry that happened, especially at such a young age, and the divorce and the fact that you go. We humans go through a grieving process for both on the other side, you're in a better place now in many ways.
Tell us where you are now personally and about your children and then professionally, what you're doing now as the Phil Reed of now versus before those two impactful moments.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: So where I am now is I'm at a place of really.
Peace is the only word I can really look at because I know what I can control and I know what I have to change within myself in order to make my environment better.
And, you know, there's this joy factor. I want to call it the joy factor.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Of waking up with an attitude of gratitude.
Right. Because you're the energy you project is the energy that's going to come back to you.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Right. So if your mind is in a place of, well, you know, I hope I have a great day today.
I hope this is. If you're not expecting good things to happen.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Then automatically is almost like your turnkey. The power of your dominion, the power of your authority in this world diminishes because of how you see your. Who's at the controls.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Right. If it's okay, it's just a universe, the universe is at the control. So I don't have any control, then everything is just going to happen to you.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Right?
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Right. But if you say, man, today is a great day, God, you know, there's a scripture that says, you know, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. It adds. It's showing you your how your morning perspective should be because they're always going to be things that you could consider bad. That's going to happen.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Right. I mean, there's. Oh. And so it's really about your perspective, even if it's something that's disappointing.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: You don't have to frame it as a negative.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: I. Exactly. And that. That's a. That's challenging for most human beings.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: It is. It is.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: If we have that mindset of the. The silver lining in every potentially negative moment that there's something. And I tell you, that takes a lot of work, Phil, that, that, that's. You got to create a habit of thinking, okay, this. This sucks. Yet what can I take out of this sucky situation that's going to help me grow?
I try to tell my kids that we don't win and lose. We win and learn. And at a young age, it's hard to see that. But if you don't see things as losing or a failure. You mentioned the word failure earlier.
These are lessons that we can learn to not repeat what we may have done to create the circumstance we're in. Because truthfully, and I never really thought about this or believed it, but, Phil, you and I, we made decisions in our life that led us to where we are now.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Right on.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: We Did. Whether they were subconscious decisions or conscious decisions or without all the information we needed, we may have made bad decisions, good decisions. Whatever we did to us what. Where we are right now. And. And it was very challenging for me to believe that because I'm not in the situation I want to be in now. For you. And God bless. You're remarried and you're happy. Can you tell us, for we men who are divorced and not haven't found that next person, how can. How did love happen the second time around for you?
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Okay. What.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: I'm gonna say your version and then later on.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Wife. And I'll have her version, but go ahead.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. So I. I would tell you this way. I. I gave up the notion of perfection.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: I realized that no matter what the issue, no matter what the situation.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: It's a one human being connecting deeply with another human being.
And there are so many factors and layers. Everything, I mean, everything wasn't for us. Our. Our bonding together. Our. Our oneness. Yeah. Is. Did not come at. Without sacrifice, of course. Right. And without risk or without saying, you know, like taking thoughts. You know, taking thoughts captive. Right. You've got to. You've got to look, you know, everything isn't your thoughts.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: True.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Some thoughts are really external, trying to come in and influence your thoughts. Right. And once it becomes a part of your mindset and your thinking, that's when it. That's when it starts causing damage.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: You've got to just basically say, all right, this is. This thought does not align with what I want.
So therefore I'm going to. You have to be like a police officer. I'm going to take this thought, I'm going to put. I'm going to lock it up. I'm going to put it in mental prison.
And it will not come out forever. It will be. It will be there forever. Right.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: And, you know, I think like you said, this is not something I would say. The premise of this is where I learned to separate, you know, permanency from temporary.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: What do. What do I want to live in permanently?
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: And what do I want to live in temporarily?
[00:20:07] Speaker A: I love that. Right. I love.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Right. And be being able to separate it. Like.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: The moments. The moments you have with your family is permanency in the sense of it becomes a memory.
Every moment you have, you can turn it into a beautiful, wonderful memory. You know, And. And so even the stuff that doesn't. That is not permanent. You know, your electric bill isn't permanent. You know, the bills aren't really permanent. There are just things that you have to do on a regular basis, but it really isn't, you know, if you lose one thing, you go grab another thing. You know, it's.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: It's.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: It's not per. It doesn't affect your life, like, in permanent ways.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: And so sometimes we. We contaminate our minds with the temporary, and we. We have that become permanent. Like, you treat your, you know, you treat your loved ones based on the temporary thing. Oh, my goodness. And I'm short of money today, or I'm short of money this month, or I'm short of money this week. And then the person you love comes into that mental space and your whole. Right. Your entire emotions are wrapped around it. You've thought about it as. Guys, we percolate it so much and so deeply that it controls our whole atmosphere to where we start responding to everybody based on the mission that we weren't able to accomplish.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: No, it's so true.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Right?
[00:21:38] Speaker A: That's so true. So we gotta, you know, we gotta reframe that, man. So, Joe, what are you doing now, professionally? Now? I have a question for you. Your background, virtual or real?
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Virtual. This is my virtual. This is my dream. Projection.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Dream. I love that.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: One day, one day you and I are going to sit in this studio and we're going to talk about when it was virtual. And you're going to be like, hey, Phil, I remember you had this like. Yeah, Me too.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Around September 16, 2024. It was virtual. And it's going.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: It was virtual. Yeah.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: It's gonna be real.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: So tell. Tell me, since you want a studio like that, what are you doing now to. To get to that virtual.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Okay, so now Phoenix National Network is an international network, right? And it didn't. It didn't become that.
It didn't become that by intention, per se. We started just putting out. I just focused in on what the message was, which is we want to bring a message of hope. We want to cultivate people's minds, educate them, and also bring awareness to all the different things they can do with their life and, you know, options that they have. And so just by pursuing those three basic things, you know, we developed over time. We started connecting like I started connecting with you, Oscar, you know, Richard and Cam and all these different awesome people started coming into the circle and really improving it to where now we're launching into something more aggressive in the sense of being a. More a business solutions group for entrepreneurs. Right. You know, for people who want to, you, you know, that There are different levels. You know, not everybody can get like an angel investor, like right away or, you know, you can getting, you know, finances just kind of flowing in and, you know, you become this million dollar company overnight.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Sometimes you need to connect with the right people and, you know, have the right support in order to make it there. And that's, that's what we've become. We've gone from just being a media podcasting environment and we're morphing. I feel the, the metamorphosis happening to where us collaborating have become, okay, let's be a business solution, you know, for entrepreneurs to where they can earn, make an income.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: You know, they can cultivate their dream. They can become, you know, more involved in their, you know, in their pursuits. And it eventually, you know, it's just going to be where we start making dreams come true like Disney.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: It's more tangible what you're doing though, because, you know, entrepreneurs need business solutions that are coming from people we trust. How many entrepreneurs out there start out and don't have that community and the network of trust? Right. And we look for people and we find these scam artists and we get, we get pummeled. And whether it's financially or abused, you know, with our business, and it does take connection with good human beings and takes patience. Right. And you know who you are and feel comfortable in your own skin and love yourself in order to start attracting those people who want to bring you up and not knock you down. And I think what you're doing, you're providing an opportunity for entrepreneurs to go to one place where they trust Dr. Phil Reed to surround himself with trustworthy individuals who have business solutions that apply to entrepreneurs. So we meet Phil and then we meet his team, and then we become part of that team and a community. And that what that does, it reduces the overwhelm an entrepreneur has of, how do I do this, how do I do that, how do that? Oh, shoot, I can ask Phil. And Phil introduced me to, or to Oscar or to Richard or Whitney, you know, that kind of thing. And I think you're building is wonderful, Phil. And I'm looking forward to see this grow. And I'm looking forward to sitting in that studio when it's real and not virtual.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: You make me smile when you say that.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: I love it. So I know by now the audience has captured the essence of Dr. Philip Reed and they're going to want to get in touch with you, Phil. So, folks, and I suggest you do, even if it's just a conversation to to get to know the man, reach out to him. The website is PNN for Phoenix National Network, PNN station plus dot com. Or you may text him at 732-698-8225.
Bill's a great man. Just to get to know, even if it's a casual conversation.
Okay, so I have two final questions for you, sir.
The first one is I want to give you the opportunity of sitting down with that 7 to 10 year old young Phil, where we had one of your defining moments and you want to sit down and give him advice about life. Phil, what would you tell him?
[00:27:08] Speaker B: It's going to be okay.
You know, everything may not work out how you may picture it, but all things work together for good. To them who love the Lord, you know, I love that. And, and you just include love in his life. No matter what, you know, never succumb to bitterness. Never succumb to shame or bitterness.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Right. Actually, it's a very good point. You can change one letter better bitter to better. Right? Get rid of that. I in bitter and turn into it.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Make it better.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Make it better, man.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: I love that. All right, so switching hats now, you're sitting down with young Phil, the young businessman, young entrepreneur. And knowing what you know now, what type of business information or advice would you provide him?
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Partner with the right people and be influenced by the right people.
Find a mentor for every area that he wants to be successful. Love that. And finally, don't quit. Don't quit. Don't quit. Love it. Quitting is a period and you need a comma in order to continue.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Keep going. I love that.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Keep going.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Well, Phil, great advice. We know that our younger self wouldn't listen to us, but somebody out there is going to listen to you. And we're going to hear about it. We're going to hear about it. That's right. That's right.
Thank you again for coming on. Thank you for coming into my life and for being my friend.
I look forward to us growing as human beings together.
This is not a one and done conversation and I wish you all the best, my friend.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Thank you, brother. Appreciate it.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Take care, everybody.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it, I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way. Please go to my website at www.prophetcompassion.com.
feel free to also email me at drewrophetcompassion.com I'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: For.
