Phillip Stutts — How Accepting Your Emotions Leads to a More Conscious Life

“The ignorance of an entrepreneur is a beautiful thing.” –Phillip Stutts

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Phillip Stutts is fighting a rare, incurable disease. Diagnosed in 2012 with the esophageal disease, Achalasia, he spent five years ignoring it. Frankly, he put his head in the sand, taking medications that did more harm than good, and waiting for the inevitable. Then he woke up and said no more. His mission today is to find a cure and pursue a life of constant growth and giving. And he’s making progress.

Phillip is also the best-selling author of Fire Them Now: The 7 Lies Digital Marketers Sell, and one of the masterminds behind the curtain of political marketing. With more than 20 years of political and marketing experience, Stutts has worked with multiple Fortune 200 companies, has over two decades of experience working on campaigns with billions of dollars in political ad spend, and contributed to 1,273 election victories, including hundreds of U.S. House campaigns, dozens of U.S. Senate campaigns, and even three U.S. Presidential victories.

He is the founder and executive chairman of Go BIG Media (a political media firm) and the founder and CEO of Win BIG Media (a corporate marketing agency). Together, these companies have won more than 42 national awards for marketing and creative content.

In addition to being represented by Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerSpeakers and a keynote speaker for one of the country’s largest privately held speakers bureaus, Keppler Speakers, Phillip has made more than 260 national media appearances including CBS, ESPN, FOX NEWS, FOX BUSINESS, MSNBC, and CNN. He has also appeared on some of the world’s most popular podcasts including Gary Vaynerchuk’s The DailyVee, The James Altucher Show, The Adam Carolla Show, The Dr. Drew Podcast, Jay Abraham’s The Ultimate Entrepreneur, Big Questions with Cal Fussman, and The Dr. Gundry Podcast.

He has been lauded as a “marketing genius” by FOX BUSINESS, “the political guru” by ESPN, and “The Michael Jordan of Political Marketing…” by Mike Dillard.

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with marketer Phillip Stutts. They discuss how he came to realize he was living an unconscious life, the steps he took to be more present, and the ways it has improved his quality of life since. Learn about how Phillip’s rare disease, Achalasia, has impacted him, and the psychedelic therapies he has used to come to terms with difficult things in his life. Also discover how you can use the current pandemic to your business’ advantage.

Episode Highlights:

Over the past few years, Phillip has undergone psychedelic, plant-based therapies to learn about himself.
During a 5 hour MDMA therapy session, Phillip realized he was displaying narcissistic behaviors that he had developed over the last 35 years of his life and began the process of unlearning it.
He felt incapable of experiencing deep feelings and wasn’t sure he had ever experienced love, and eventually realized he had been using alcohol to mask his feelings.
His businesses weren’t growing as quickly as he wanted and knew they were capable of, and realized his companies had no culture; he was merely telling people to do things and manipulating his friends and family.
Phillip had a habit of not acknowledging his feelings and instead channeling them into bad behavior towards other people, like yelling at customer service workers.
He has been mentored by Keith Cunningham, and he couldn’t recommend him more highly.
Phillip stays grounded and celebrates how far he and his companies have come by looking back at where they were a year ago instead of looking at how far they want to go.
His attitude before was assuming that everyone around him was trying to screw him over, in both his business and his personal life; now his intention is to grow personally in order to help others.
In 2012, Phillip was diagnosed with the incurable condition Achalasia, which means his esophagus muscles stop working.
Phillip avoided researching the disease for years, until he was told he would eventually need a feeding tube and that sent him on the search for an alternative.
He found a doctor, Steven Gundry, who could help him with a specific diet to keep his gut healthy and prolong the life of his esophagus.
With no money behind research of this disease, Phillip published an article about his condition and worked with a physician at Johns Hopkins to assemble a research team and petition the FDA for a compassionate use case of stem cells as treatment.
One of Keith Cunningham’s techniques that Phillip uses regularly is “Thinking Time,” in which you write down a question that is bothering you and then with no technology, just pen and paper, you write for 45 minutes.
Several of Phillip’s clients are gone as a result of COVID-19, like a timeshare company, but others realized they could position for success like an organic foods company.
Digital advertising on Facebook and Google are now dirt cheap and not competitive.
In marketing, it has nothing to do with what you want to talk about with your business and everything to do with what the customer wants from your business.
The influencer marketing space is less expensive than it has ever been.
50% of all purchasing decisions right now are coming down to trust in a third-party validator.
Phillip wrote an article on Medium that ended up on their front page about how to grow your business during the pandemic.
What living a conscious life means to Phillip is being authentic, present, and vulnerable.

3 Key Takeaways:

If you ignore and bury your emotions, they are going to find other, destructive ways of coming out.
Seemingly terrible things like incurable diseases can become one of the best things to happen to you if you let it.
Living consciously is not only important but it’s something free that you can start to do right now.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I understand that I’m going to have a much higher quality of life if I’m okay being in an uncertain position.” –Phillip Stutts

“If I’m to look back at where we were a year ago, I’d go oh my god, that is insane. But if I’m just to think right now in my head where I need to be, then I’m going to get depressed over that. And so I constantly say where was I a year ago?” –Phillip Stutts

“The ignorance of an entrepreneur is a beautiful thing.” –Phillip Stutts

“The disease is the best thing that ever happened to me, because it got me to realize there was a finite time in my life and I need to live it with purpose and to serve others.” –Phillip Stutts

“Being present means understanding how other people feel, listening to them, and being in their world, and being in their presence. And I think if you’re doing those three things, you’re living a conscious life.” –Phillip Stutts

Actions:

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Resources Mentioned:

Phillip Stutts — How Accepting Your Emotions Leads to a More Conscious Life

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