What True Strength is About: The Courage to be Vulnerable | EP 030

Do you ever feel like you’re wearing “false armor,” pretending to be strong while quietly battling internal struggles? In this transformative episode, Phil Bohol unpacks the truth about vulnerability and its role in true strength. Using personal stories and raw honesty, he explores the dangers of denying unhappiness, bottling up emotions, and clinging to survival-mode habits that no longer serve us. Phil shares actionable steps for reflecting on the past year, releasing old baggage, and stepping into the courage required to lead your family, business, and life with authenticity.

Welcome to The Phil Bohol Show, hosted by USMC veteran, mindset coach, sales expert, self-made entrepreneur, husband, and father, Phil Bohol. On this podcast, we don't just offer strategies — we offer a war cry, a call to arms, a challenge to rise, to break free from the shackles of mediocrity. You’ll learn the raw truth on how to break your limitations, scale your business to 7-figures, and level up every area of your life. Together, we won't just face challenges. We will crush them. Relentlessly.

(00:00) Introduction and Purpose of the Show

(00:59) The Importance of Reflection

(01:36) The Burden of Pretending

(02:19) The Power of Vulnerability

(04:07) Facing Internal Struggles

(06:05) The Courage to Change

(07:59) Letting Go of the Past

(09:46) The Path to Self-Discovery

(16:25) Breaking Free from the Matrix

(20:36) Reflecting on the Year

(23:11) Final Thoughts and Challenges

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[00:00:00]

You know, I got a wife, I got kids, I got people looking up to me. I'm the provider, I create security, so how does somebody like me Stop pretending.

What's going on you guys, it's Phil Bohol and welcome to the Phil Bohol Show, where we have real talk about family, fitness, finance, and everything that would hold you 

[00:00:30]

back from leveling up in every area of your life. 

And more importantly, how I personally got through them. Everybody else in this world wants to bullshit you.

I'm here to give you the truth.

What's going on you guys. It has been a minute since we've done a little bit of a podcast episode. 

So we're just going to catch up on some things, especially as we wrap up this year. 

I really want you to 

[00:01:00]

 spend some time reflecting. 

I don't think a lot of people reflect enough. 

You get so caught up in your day to day, you get so caught up in the busyness of life.

If you don't reflect, you don't actually learn, you don't extract the teachings or the wisdoms that you need. 

So that way you can elevate in every area of life. 

The whole mentality of go, go, go only serves you to a certain extent. 

And if you don't take time to reflect, then you're not going to know where the gaps are in your operating system, in your 

[00:01:30]

mentality, in your spirituality, in your emotional control and emotional mastery.

And so when we think about why a lot of people operate in this life wearing what I call false armor, they pretend to be a very specific way. 

Let's say that you have a family that you lead. It's very easy to get caught in this mentality of, well, I have to look strong. 

You know, I got a wife, I got kids, I got people looking up to me.

[00:02:00]

Um, the provider, I create security. So how does somebody like me stop pretending? 

I have to be strong for the family. 

I have to be this. 

I have to be that,

All you have to do is really be yourself. 

That's the good, the bad, the ugly. 

And men, if you're married, the best thing that you can do for your marriage, the best thing that you can do for your family is to stop trying to pretend to be Superman.

See, because when you 

[00:02:30]

pretend to be Superman, that everything is good. 

Whether business is actually doing good, but you're not good, or you're pretending you're happy right now, but you're not actually happy, whatever it is for you, you're hurting the people that could potentially step up to help you carry some of that weight.

So I was talking to somebody and they weren't telling their wife all of the hardship they're experiencing. And this happened for like two years 

[00:03:00]

straight. 

And the guy just felt like he was crumbling and crumbling and crumbling like everything was just going to shit. 

I said,” have you told your wife any of this?”

He said, “no, you know, she's busy with the kids. She's trying to do her thing at work. And it's just it's not the right time to do it.” 

I said, “man, it's been two years though. 

You've been struggling with this internal battle by yourself for two years and you haven't even told your partner, your spouse, the person you're going 

[00:03:30]

 to do life with.”

How does that make any sense? 

And he says, well, I'm trying to protect her. 

I said, how is it protecting her though? 

Because for you to carry this false armor, this burden, you don't think that energetically, your family doesn't feel that every day. 

They don't see the look in your eyes when you're lost in your own thoughts, in your mind, even though you're supposed to be at the dinner table, or you're supposed to be hanging out with the kids, or you're supposed to be on a date 

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night with your wife.

You don't think that they, they don't feel any of that. 

And they probably didn't. 

They probably do. 

I said, “look, man, the hardest thing that you can ever do is to be completely open, honest, and transparent with your wife about how crappy you actually feel.” 

And I invite you to do that. 

And he's like, “Oh man, I'm just, I'm breaking down.”

I'm crying. He's like crying. And, um, he's like, “I don't know. I 

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don't know what's going to happen. 

I don't, I don't want her to feel like I couldn't do it.

That I, that I, that I'm breaking down right now.” 

I said, “just see what happens, man.”

And so he goes and he has this conversation with his wife and he hits me back, you know, a couple of days later and he says, “bro, I don't know why it took so long for me to finally talk about what was going on with me.

But my wife said she's got my back. She's going to support me no matter what and that I got 

[00:05:00]

this and the whole purpose of me telling you this story is to help you understand that a lot of the time.

Especially when you're the provider of a household when you lead a household or you know, you're the person that people go to. 

It's sometimes difficult to feel like you can take off the armor for a little bit and be human. 

That's the most powerful thing, the most courageous thing anybody can do. 

So it takes a lot of courage to be weak.

[00:05:30]

The only time it's actually a weakness is when you start to judge yourself or become afraid of people's judgment of you. 

But I want you to really ask yourself, is that the quality of life that you want to create and establish for yourself? 

And is that the example you want to set for your kids that when you got all this shit going on internally, that bottling it up is the solution?

The powering through it, even though it feels like a void. 

That's the solution. 

Is that what you want to show your kids? 

Cause whether you say it or not, they're going to follow in 

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the actions. 

 

They're going to follow in how you carry yourself throughout life. 

And so what I invite you to do is ask yourself where this past year, have you been pretending?

Where have you been pretending to be good? 

When have you been pretending to be happy when you're not? 

When have you been pretending that there's nothing going on? 

See, I was really struggling with this for, for a large portion of my life. 

You know, after my parents got 

[00:06:30]

divorced at an early age, I was like, in denial for a majority of my life, all the way up until adulthood.

Literally until I met my wife.

And I kept lying to myself that this is what life is supposed to be like. 

You go through hardship in your life and you just power through. 

And you just do your best, but what you think is your best when you're at your weakest is not even close to your best. 

And for a long time in my life, I held myself back from self actualization, from healing, from really being 

[00:07:00]

able to absorb life for what it's supposed to be.

It wasn't until I was brutally honest with myself that number one, I was actually extremely unhappy, which is probably why at 16 years old, I was miserable and that I was actually making this void much bigger and bigger and bigger. 

I was unhappy with myself. 

I didn't love myself. 

I didn't even know that was a thing.

And I made decisions that would make me more miserable 

[00:07:30]

because I thought those temporary things, you know, getting drunk, getting high, doing the things, those little glimpses of happiness was happiness. 

That's not the case. 

And so the reason why I'm bringing this up is so that you become aware.

That a lot of the times when we start going to these things, these vices in our lives, it's because we think that that's temporary happiness that replaces true happiness.

True happiness comes from having the courage to say, I'm not good. 

[00:08:00]

So wherever it is in your life, in your business, in your marriage, in your family, with yourself, take some time to reflect. 

Ask yourself what parts of you that don't serve you anymore, what parts do you want to leave in this year? 

Not bring it into the new one.

If you do this and you practice this. 

What you're giving yourself the opportunity to do each and every year is to create. 

More space for the new self to emerge, for the new self to be built.  

[00:08:30]

A lot of people like to bring old baggage into each new year. 

And then they wonder why each year they can't take the quantum leap.

Well, you can't quantum leap if you're holding on to baggage. 

You can't quantum leap if you're holding on to the old self, because you have no space for the new self. 

And I want you to really start asking yourself, you know, is this the quality of life you want to settle for? 

Because that's what it is, you're settling.

And how many months? 

How many years need to pass by for you to finally realize that 

[00:09:00]

you haven't been happy? What do you need to lose? What, what, what major life event needs to happen for you to finally stop for a second and really stop looking outward for the solution and start to look inward, start to look within and start to ask yourself like, man, why am I so unhappy?

Anybody else that has what I have, a job, good business, a wife, kids, 

[00:09:30]

they would be happy to have this because some people can't have it.

 So why am I not happy? 

And when we say comparison is the killer of all joy, that can also be dumbing down your unhappiness because you think that you should be more grateful.

Sure. 

You could totally be more grateful, but that doesn't mean that. 

The negativity that you feel and the unhappiness that you feel is not valid. 

That's part of the problem. 

You're not acknowledging the pain that you're experiencing 

[00:10:00]

because you should be more grateful. 

Again, it's not a one or the other type of situation.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a balance. 

It's a harmony of things that yes, maybe I do need to be more grateful, but at the same time, I also need to acknowledge that I don't feel good that I probably need to be doing more stuff for myself. 

Start filling up my own cup. 

Because if you're like me, the reason why you tune in to these episodes is because you're cut from the same cloth.

[00:10:30]

Highly driven individual. 

Will do anything and everything for their loved ones. 

No matter how much it takes from them. 

No matter if they got nothing left in the tank. 

They're gonna give, give, give. 

But I want you to become aware that the more that you give in that capacity, the less you're gonna be able to give in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah, sure. 

It'll make you feel proud. 

It'll stroke your ego that you can do this for a couple years. 

But what happens when it's a couple years down the line, and you really got nothing? 

[00:11:00]

You really think you're gonna give the best of you to your family? 

You think you're gonna give the best of you to your marriage?

You think you're gonna give the best of you to your business? 

To your career? 

You think you're gonna give the best of you to you? 

You think that you're gonna live the best possible life when you're running on fumes? 

And I think this is where a lot of people get it twisted, right? 

Because hustle culture, you have the fake alpha males out there talking about how you just got to keep running and gunning.

There's a time and a place for it, a hundred percent, 

[00:11:30]

but it's not a hundred percent of the time because nobody runs and guns a hundred percent of the time. 

That's, that's just a, uh, a false armor people wear. 

So that way they look unstoppable on the internet. 

But the truth is just like anybody, pro athletes, bodybuilders, anybody that's high performance, the amount of time you stay in a peak state, you must spend equal amount of time.

Resting, recovering, recharging, reflecting, so that way 

[00:12:00]

you can give that same a hundred percent, but just like a battery, it depletes. 

You can't give a hundred percent at 20%. 

Can't give a hundred percent when you got 0%. 

So I really want you to start thinking about this because especially after this past year, as I reflect into all these conversations I'm having with a lot of you, there's unhappiness there, but at the same time, while there's unhappiness, there's also like this denial.

Denying self. 

Denying the unhappiness. 

[00:12:30]

Denying the bad feelings. 

Why? 

Because of ego. 

Pride. 

I don't want to look like I don't got it. 

I don't want to look like I'm weak. 

The weakness comes from worrying too much about the opinions of others with how you're going to be perceived. 

That's weakness. 

Strength is I know myself and I know I'm not at a hundred percent.

And if I'm really going to lead this family, if I'm really going to lead this business, if I'm going to really lead myself and in this life, I have to know that 

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my cup needs to be full at all times. 

And my cup being full is a selfless act because everything that overflows is what I give to the world, what I give to my family, what I give to my business.

And that overflows where I need to learn how to operate from. 

I think it's because, you know, you might be like me, you might have had to live a large portion of your life, even up until this point in survival mode. 

So all you know how to do is survive. All you know how to do is run away from the demons.

You don't know how to transition into 

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abundance. 

You don't know how to transition into something more than running away. 

Cause survival and running away is all you've known. 

So when you get to a point, where you start to transcend from that, then it's like, well, how do I, how do I do this new thing? 

If all I've known is the running away and the survival and, and that's how I've gotten myself to this point, just straight hustle and grind.

How do I then transition to this other thing where I actually have to spend more time on myself, make sure my cup is full. 

[00:14:00]

And that's what's going to get me to where I want to, not where I need to get to just to survive. I don't understand, Phil. I don't understand the art form. Well, you're not supposed to.

Not yet, at least. You're supposed to give it enough time and that space for you to understand a new operating system. 

But again, just like I mentioned, to reflect on that, to understand that, we'll teach you how to let go of things that no longer serve you. 

An identity, an old way of thinking, an old way of being.

Leave that here. In this year, don't bring 

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it to the next one. Those are old ways of thinking. They might have gotten you to this, this point. Now don't lose the hustle, don't lose the drive, don't lose the driving force, don't lose the, the, the, the spark in yourself, the amber, the flame. Don't lose that. Don't let that go.

Don't get complacent. But start to ask yourself, if I continue thinking down this path, if I continue thinking about things in this manner, what is that preventing me from becoming? 

[00:15:00]

Anything related to fear is preventing you from becoming who you need to be. A lot of people lack purpose, and that's why they don't know which direction they're going.

There's no intention behind their daily actions. 

But you can't focus on the future if you're still looking backwards at the past. If you're still looking for that boogeyman. 

If you're still looking for the darkness that's following you. 

You can't grow in that space. 

To go from dark to light, 

[00:15:30]

you have to fully step into light, and that's a scary thing.

It's kind of like when you are on land, and you have dirt under your feet, you know exactly what's around you, for the most part. 

You can see, you can feel. 

But the moment you start going into these open waters, it's like going into the ocean. 

You don't know what's beneath you, you don't know what's in front of you, to the left, to the right of you.

You don't even know, and what's being asked of you is to swim forward with faith.

[00:16:00]

The question is, can you trust yourself that you won't drown, that you're going to be good, that this path that you're on right now is purposed that you're supposed to be here. 

You're supposed to be in the “not knowing”. 

And that's where the wisdom comes from to really learn how to trust yourself in the space.

It's a very different way to experience life. 

See, when we think about the matrix, the matrix, the programming 

[00:16:30]

that most people in this world start with, and you'll either do it or you don't in your lifetime. 

You break free from it, which is now understanding that the way the world works is the way of the sheep and that the herds go in that direction.

And in order to live a different life, you have to be courageous enough to go a different path. 

And there's far less going down that path because it's the unknown. 

It's, it's very secure and 

[00:17:00]

safe to follow the sheep, to follow the herd, because you at least know that you're going to be surrounded by all of these people who are just following their programming.

And so it creates a sense of safety, but the reality is that's not safety. 

You don't even know where the herd's going. 

You're just following blindly, the blind leading the blind, but being controlled by other forces. 

So at the point where you decide to go a different direction, to have the courage to go a new path, 

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that's when you really start to find yourself because now you're going to be forced to look within.

You're going to be forced to look inside of yourself and ask yourself, where are my flaws? 

Where don't I believe in myself? 

Where am I? 

Where's this fear coming from? 

Where am I scared? Where am I not good? 

Where am I not happy? 

And now you got to start facing some demons. 

You gotta start winning some of those internal battles.

And again, it takes a very courageous individual to look inside and face those demons. 

The sheep don't have to worry about that because the sheep just follow 

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the next person or the next sheep and they just follow and follow and follow. 

And eventually they get to the end of their journey and that's it.

They're just following blindly. 

You have to choose what type of life you want to have. 

What type of life you want to experience because you got one shot. 

Once I finally broke away from the programming, you know, and I did it at an early age, I realized like, I don't want a normal 

[00:18:30]

life. If, if, if normal life is all that misery and darkness, and yeah, it might be easier just to submit to it and give up.

I don't want that. 

If, if I got one shot and I decided not to, not to end everything at 16, what does the world have to offer me? 

I'm going to go figure out what that is. 

And I've spent every day since then, and it's been hard. 

It's been difficult. 

I spent every day since then. 

Trying to figure out the purpose of my life, 

[00:19:00]

and that's when you start to live life with purpose.

Because it's kind of like a question that's never answered. 

But you're like Albert Einstein, you're just geeking out on it on a whiteboard. 

You're trying to figure out the answer to this puzzle of life. So every day, every hardship you go through, you're like, it's insignificant in comparison to this big puzzle.

I'm trying to figure out, what is the purpose of my life? 

What is my life's purpose? 

If I have a century, if I have a hundred years, or eighty to a hundred 

[00:19:30]

years to figure out this problem, is it worth it for me to invest my life to figure it out? 

If you're not thinking at that level, again, this is when you start surrounding yourself with different ways of thinking so you can stretch the mind a little bit.

Stretch your vision of what your life could be. 

And if it's not for you, then again, the herd is always there. 

It's always available to you. 

So why not spend some 

[00:20:00]

time just taking a risk on yourself and going a different path? 

The scary path. 

The path you don't want to take. 

The path of the unknown because you've never been there before.

Knowing that if it ever gets too scary, If you really don't feel what I'm telling you, you'll probably gonna feel by finding the courage to go that direction. 

You can always turn around and follow the herd. 

'cause the herd's always gonna be there. 

You'll, you'll, you'll plug back in with them exactly where you left them.

[00:20:30]

Nowhere they didn't move, they're just there doing nothing. 

As we end this year, want you to reflect back on the year, where were you the most happy? 

Where were you the most unhappy? 

Who did you love being around? 

Love, not like. 

Who'd you love being around? 

Would you like being around? 

Who did you despise being around?

Get rid of everybody you despised. 

Make a decision on the people that you just liked and how much time you're 

[00:21:00]

gonna give them in this new year. 

Spend more time with the people that you love. If you do that, you'll be a much happier person by the end of 2025. 

In 365 days, you're gonna be in a totally different space in your life.

If you have the courage. to walk a new path and to fully commit to the path. 

It's one thing to take your first step. It's one thing to even think about going that direction. 

It's another thing to follow the path, have 

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faith and surrender in that process. 

Even when you experience some eyes and lows, some turbulence, cause you will, it's not a pretty path.

It's not an easy path for a reason. 

It's designed to weed out the weak, but those who fully commit to the path. 

Well, at some point reach a second wind and realize that that's life that they're breathing in all the fears, the doubts, all of the uncertainty is because you've never been there. And that's the whole beauty of life.

[00:22:00]

The more unknown it feels, just remember this means you've never been there, which means there's something to be excited about. 

Don't always look at it from the point of darkness. Well, what's creeping in behind the corner over there, there's nothing. 

That's just the mind of the past. So again, always ask yourself, am I looking forward or am I still looking back?

Am I still in the cage? 

It's very easy to flip back and forth between them, but the more aware you are, the more intentional you can be about breaking free and staying free. 

[00:22:30]

Some things to think about. 

I'm going to be more active with doing these and sharing thoughts and guidance. 

You know, whenever I get feedback in the comments, emails, or other social platforms.

These always seem to help the right people who need the message when the message is dropped. 

So in 2025, I'm going to invest a lot more time sharing a lot of different things that have changed my way of thinking that have helped me. 

[00:23:00]

When you understand the knowledge, download the knowledge, but more importantly, implement the knowledge, have the courage to take the next thing.

So my challenge to you as we end this year is to do something scary that's been calling to you, but you haven't taken that leap yet. 

Take the leap. 

If there's a version of you that you've been wanting to let go, I invite you to leave it in 2024. 

Leave it.

[00:23:30]

It doesn't serve you anymore. Have the courage to do that.

And finally, if there's a conversation you should have with your spouse, with your family about pain. 

So you can stop pretending because you want the real you to emerge. 

You want to meet that version of you and your family, meet the real you, have that conversation. 

I can guarantee you will feel more free simply by allowing yourself to drop the weight that you don't even have to carry.

It's never 

[00:24:00]

been your responsibility to carry it. 

So drop it. 

You don't need it anymore.

That's the show. 

Don't just listen to everything I just fucking said and do nothing with it. 

Take everything you learned, go out and execute. 

Send it.