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How are YOU driving vision, today?
Vision defined: "The ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom." Today, visionary leaders are changing the world, in Automotive, Sports, Entertainment, Science, Education and Space...to name just a few. Join us, as together we search out those agents of change and explore their vision, its impact, and how they are driving their vision, TODAY.
I had to do it every freaking meal, every freaking step on the cardio, every freaking rep, every set. It had to be highly intentional because I knew that everybody else wanted the same damn
Sam D'Arc:thing. Welcome everyone to the Driving Vision podcast brought to you by the Zigler Auto Group. I'm your host, Sam Dark. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Like it if you do, and leave a comment.
Sam D'Arc:Driving vision fans. This week, we bring you part 2 of our session with 7 time mister Olympia, Phil Heath. Phil spent time with team Ziegler sharing his experiences as a professional bodybuilder and how he overcame significant adversity in his path to being a 7 time mister Olympia. We took a lot of notes and hope you gain as much insight into winning as we did.
Phil Heath:My first bodybuilding show, April 4, 2003. A year prior, that was my last basketball game in March of 02. You laugh. I did my first bodybuilding show, didn't really know what the hell I was doing, still jumped in there anyway. And look, in life, you make a commitment.
Phil Heath:You declare that I'm gonna do this. And then once you have to get up there on stage wearing nothing, oh boy, it's your worst nightmare come to life. And what did I do? I walk out there and I'm very stiff and rigid and I turn around and I'm like, yeah, this is what they're supposed to do. Like, yeah, I'm tough and I'm badass.
Phil Heath:Like, hell yeah. The whole crowd is doing what you're doing right now. They're laughing. Now I'm thinking they're laughing at me, how I look. I look like garbage, all this other stuff.
Phil Heath:I'm taking what I don't really know what they're thinking as to my own reality. But in fact, I had already smoked the whole damn show. Did not know it, so I'm just like even more like almost to the point where I'm getting emotional, like tears, like I don't am I really supposed to be up here? This my friends told me to do this and I'm just I don't I don't really feel like doing this. And luckily, thank god, there was a lady in the audience that said, smile.
Phil Heath:You're beautiful. And I still know the lady's name. Her name is Margaret, and she was an older bodybuilder. And it was funny because the minute she said that, I perked right up and was like, okay. I'll do my quarter turns and, yeah, I know what I'm doing now.
Phil Heath:You know, I got it going on. I ended up winning that show. I ended up staying undefeated pretty much as an amateur. Ended up signing with Joe Weeter, who was the godfather of bodybuilding, any flex magazine muscle and fitness. It was created pretty much by him.
Phil Heath:And I was on this fast track to success, but it didn't mean that I didn't have, you know, personal stuff. Personal stuff meaning like imagine being a bodybuilder, you make $0. Like, you don't make is you're not an NFL NBA player. You're just not. You may look like it, so just a word to the wise, when you go online and you see a lot of these influencers, they ain't making no money, but they're doing it for a reason.
Phil Heath:They're doing it because they really truly love it. I was doing it just because it was something that was keeping me, occupied while dealing with the traumatic experience that that I did have in, college sports. I got to watch numerous friends of mine play in the NBA and I was stuck behind and I was and I felt left behind. I felt like I was nothing. And in fact, I had to learn through having that competitive spirit that you have to have this thing called gratitude and faith, and I learned that I have to just open my eyes to see what's the world has offered me and it offered me another path.
Phil Heath:So with bodybuilding, I was like, wow. I already won my first show. I won my second, won my third, won my 4th, won my 5th. Now I'm getting handed some money, and I'm like, mom, I'm actually holy crap. I'm actually getting paid to lift weights, eat, and train.
Phil Heath:She's like, oh, that's nice. You got some parking tickets from college that are outstanding. I need you to pay those. But what I was gonna say is even while I was winning and stuff, I would, you know, have like different levels of hardship and that's in like physical injuries, stuff like that, mental mental problems. And when I say by mental problems, I mean, I dealt with a lot of, personal hardships such as, you know, I won, my first Olympia in 2011.
Phil Heath:And when you win the Olympia, like what Mike was saying, it's the Super Bowl of bodybuilding. This year, we'll be hosting the 60th Mr. Olympia contest. There's only been 18 champions in 60 years. So it's pretty special.
Phil Heath:Right? I've won 7. This guy named Arnold won 7. And there's 2 guys that won 8, Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman. When I won that first one well, even going into that first one, you know, you realize you have an opportunity to be great, but you have to conquer this thing called your own ego, and you have to conquer this thing called your own fear.
Phil Heath:You have to conquer this thing that a lot of us deal with, which is performance anxiety. How many times can you succeed? How many times can you do it at a high level? And are you willing to declare it in front of everyone? Are you willing to hold yourself up to that standard?
Phil Heath:And and those habits have to equate to that victory each and every day. And a perfect example was the year prior that I won my 1st Olympia. It was in 2010, and I ended up getting 2nd. And you would think, since the previous year I got 5th that I would be excited. I was excited for a brief moment, but then I realized I when they announced Jay Cutler as a 4 time mister Olympia champion, I I did one of these.
Phil Heath:And I remember going home and then watching the webcast again. And I rewound the tape because I wanted to understand what my body language was looking like when I was announced basically second because I feel like that tells a story. That story basically told me that I was not ready to win. I was willing to say it. I was willing to declare it.
Phil Heath:I was willing to do the interviews. I was willing to do the everything that was going to deliver that win except own it all. And when I say own it all, that means just like in this business, you say you wanna be the best, you gotta own everything that comes within. That's a lot of unknowns. That's being your best when your resources are taken away, when you actually have someone maybe pass away in your family.
Phil Heath:Some even physical hardship may come your way. How does your mental fortitude adapt to those things? And I really wasn't able to answer those questions at that time and that's probably why I exhaled because I figured, well, second is always a little safe. 2nd is like right there and you know that everybody will root for you because we all know even this guy named Tom Brady, when he would get ready for the Super Bowl, they would show the map of, like, who is supporting him and who hates him, and it would be like all red, like hate. But he was the one that would stand up and say I can take it because I already deal with the war within.
Phil Heath:And I know what the hell I want and I know that the actions that I have and the habits that I have, the gratitude of being able to play the game are gonna deliver me into a triumphant moment. And if it doesn't this time as still one step closer and that's what I had to do, but I didn't just have to do it the week of the show. I had to do it every freaking meal, every freaking step on the cardio, every freaking rep, every set. It had to be highly intentional because I knew that everybody else wanted the same damn thing. And, how fast forward, you know, in 2014, I was getting ready, for the Olympia and, you know, I get a phone call that my father, had this rare blood disease called amyloidosis and that he didn't have much time to live.
Phil Heath:And I remember just like, what? I'm just now getting to know my biological father and now his life is being told he got 1 month. So I fly up to Seattle to go visit him, and I remember just telling him, I was like, actually, it was 2013, August of 2013. And I said, why aren't you eating? They said you gave up.
Phil Heath:I thought you had drive. He was from Dallas, Texas, so I'm, like, throwing some stuff back at him. I thought you were tough. I'm not here to shame you, but I have the same I have DNA that is shared. I wear your last name everywhere I go.
Phil Heath:I'm your first son. How can you brag about me but not fight for your own life? If you can't do it for the if you can't do it for the years you weren't there, do it now. Prove to me that you give a shit. He did not cry.
Phil Heath:He's one of those, but there was a tear in his eye. And I said, I'm gonna see you later. Got on the plane, left. I get a phone call, they're like your dad's eating. I said, oh.
Phil Heath:So I fly back after I won and I said I'm going to keep coming back every week until we beat this. And unfortunately, that following spring, he passed. In fact, he passed as I was on stage at a local amateur show in Cleveland, Ohio. I had just done a guest appearance, get in the car, get the call, and now I gotta do what? I gotta drive to a meet and greet where I gotta, hey.
Phil Heath:How you doing? Nice to meet you. I can shake your hand. It's all good. You know?
Phil Heath:And I'm, like, over here, like, acting like nothing happened. But something did happen. Something horrendous happened in my opinion. I felt like I got cheated. I felt like I got robbed.
Phil Heath:And then I had to look in the mirror and say, are there any tears? I had to do that self audit we talked about. None yet. K? Maybe it hasn't hit me yet.
Phil Heath:And I did what a lot of people, I think, do prematurely. You guys may wanna think about this one. When you've lost somebody, we go immediately to social media and start writing out stuff before we actually sit with what just occurred. So I sat. I sat in that room and I was just like I literally opened the freaking laptop before I actually looked at myself in the mirror and asked myself, how am I doing?
Phil Heath:And that's when I started feeling emotional and I was like, okay, no one needs to know this right now. You need to figure out how you're doing and be able to figure out some words for yourself to deliver yourself through this because you really do have the answers. But in order to do that, you can't just stay stimulated with your phone and with your computer and and run everybody else to kinda look at you and kinda console you. You need to figure out. So I was able to do that, but I bring that up because these are relatable things.
Phil Heath:I lost my father. I lost my stepmom, his wife. I have a brother who's high functioning autistic that, he's very smart and as tall as this and wider than this. He's like 6, 7, £300. Where did I get screwed?
Phil Heath:Damn. But now I gotta figure out how am I gonna help him out. A lot of stress. Right? But we all deal with stress.
Phil Heath:We all deal with hardship. It's you know, things happen, but it's how we maneuver through it. So I chose to maneuver through it by not being in taking the pain, trying to leverage the pain, and try to remind myself that I have an opportunity to do something great, which is win more of these shows. Right? Pour more into me so I can help other people through their pain because I know that everybody's lost a parent.
Phil Heath:I know everybody's lost, you know, someone that is near dear to their heart. I know every not everybody, but I was divorced once, so I know what that feels like and still have to perform. I didn't give myself a chance to have excuses. And when you talk about teamwork, I had a team, chiropractor, massage therapist, girlfriend who turned fiance turned wife who helped cook all my meals, thank God, and also managed the hell out of me because I would travel just under before COVID, I was averaging about 180 to 200,000 miles a year. So I was sitting in about 20 countries.
Phil Heath:Yeah. Bodybuilding's in over a 190 countries. They may not know us here, but they know us at other places. You know? But, yeah, having those teammates and being able to communicate with them, being able to say there's no I in this team, but to remind everybody that when I decide to go out there, I represent each and every one of you.
Phil Heath:So I do congratulate you as much as I get congratulated by others. And I think that's something that we all should remember is that when we're out there and we're actually doing our job, we have to remind ourselves that there's other people that have poured into us. There are some people that have stolen from us too. There are some people that have tried to rob us, whether it be, you know, the emotional vampires that just, you know, drive you insane and try to talk to you on the phone a little too long, that don't really pour into you, that just wanna suck you dry. But when you realize this, there's so many people that you could be writing on the wall saying that those are the people that actually gave a damn and actually helped me, those are the ones that you if you run into a snag, those are the ones that you should probably do it for.
Phil Heath:One of the things that I wanna remind us all here is that we're one of 1. We have an opportunity for, know, excellence, but we most importantly have to continue to stay in gratitude. We essentially went through this nasty thing called the pandemic. We all went through it, and people are still dealing with some of the ramifications from it. So we have to be able to show compassion.
Phil Heath:Have to be able to show accountability also. So when it's your time to shine and actually get to work, you should be in gratitude that you have a job. You should be in gratitude that you have abilities. You should be able to realize that even with here, you got people that want to learn, that want to share. But if you're not capable of being open minded and if you're not willing to be accountable and actually show compassion and actually multiply that with a little bit of freaking gratitude and faith, oh, man, if you do all that, you actually will drive home more success than ever before without gratitude, without that, without the compassion for yourself first because it's easy to be compassionate or at least portray yourself as that to other people.
Phil Heath:But what about for yourself? One of the things that my wife who's oh my god. I'm very blessed. 2nd time around. It's okay to laugh, man.
Phil Heath:Like, I'm I'm like, shit. Like, she's an x for a reason, bro. Like, hey. I'm like, I don't care. Is the fact that we would go through these shows and she would say, you know, oh, man.
Phil Heath:Like, toward the end of my career, you know, I had lost in, 2018. I had, 2 hernia surgeries, 1 in 2017, 1 in 2018. It just sucked, man. And, you know, in bodybuilding, you can't necessarily, like, have, like, an aesthetic problem, like a scar or anything like that. So I was like, oh, man.
Phil Heath:This is not gonna work because you gotta look like perfect and it we are being judged that way, unfortunately. It's not one of those sports where you get like a moral victory because, you know, you decided to sign up even though you're injured. And I remember losing in 2018. I remember coming back in 2020 and she said, one of the things that you have to remember, you talk about gratitude film, but when did you thank your body? When did we get to the point where we can't even thank ourselves for showing up?
Phil Heath:We we require so much from ourselves each and every day. We require a lot from others as well, but we should wake up in the morning and actually be able to thank our bodies for getting up one time because there's some people that don't have that opportunity anymore here. And, you know, I I think about that even here because yesterday we were chatting and we were talking about teamwork and we were talking about how we can drive performance and, man, that's a interesting phone. That was you? We're boys, so, like, it's all good.
Phil Heath:But, seriously, you know, we talk about driving home performance, and one of the things of the many things that I just wanna remind us all of is that, you know, you're gonna go through the craziest twists and turns sometimes, but you gotta remember to bet on yourself and you gotta remember that you have people that love and do care about you. But in order to honor them, even the ones that may not physically be here anymore, you have to love yourself. You have to love every bit about yourself. And even for me, having to be one of the best bodybuilders in the world, I had that body dysmorphia and I used it to drive performance of talking trash about myself. That produced and I and this is where we get into the hollow victory portion.
Phil Heath:By me doing things through frustration, anger, and like, you know, bad communication to myself that you're not good enough, that that would drive performance, I was the guy that after the career got over and I would stare at the trophies, I would never stare at them because all I saw was negativity. Imagine that. I would go into the house and I'd see 7 different trophies trophies that required a lot of hard work and dedication. I barely ever wanna look at it. And in fact, for the Mr.
Phil Heath:Olympia, you get like this you get a medal, you get a couple medals, you get a big ass trophy. So I get this trophy that's like this size and it weighs like £30. So I got 3 different types. I got the original one that guys like Arnold had. I won the 50th mister Olympia.
Phil Heath:I won the Olympia at the 50th, which was a a gold plated one that was the same size, and then after that, they made a supersized one that weighs £50. So I have, like, 3 different types, and I wouldn't even stare at it. And I would wonder why, and I'm like, because you didn't really enjoy it enough. You did it through pain only. You just remember the anger that you had that when you lost your dad, the shame that you had when your divorce happened, when your friends doubted you and some even robbed your blind starting a new business and you turned that into going to the gym and it was going to help alleviate all my pain and frustration.
Phil Heath:I'm sure you don't have to raise your hand. Maybe you blink. Have you ever gone to the gym with some anger, with some frustration, thinking that that's gonna solve all your freaking problems? Well, let me tell you, it doesn't because you didn't really deal with the pain. You masked it.
Phil Heath:You put a band aid on it. And if anything, you pushed it down. And if anything, you numbed the pain. Don't numb your pain. People numb their pain through alcohol, drugs, you know, sex, whatever, and working out.
Phil Heath:Gambling as a distraction. If you numb the bad, you're also gonna numb the good. If you numb the bad, you're gonna numb the good. Because when I would see those titles, I didn't see good. I saw when people told me I wasn't shit.
Phil Heath:I saw when fans would talk trash. I saw when, hell, I even had an ex girlfriend from college that said, what are you gonna do with your life? And I said, be a fitness model. And she goes, oh, you don't have to look for that. And I told the story yesterday.
Phil Heath:I ended up getting the cover of Flex Magazine. I sent the box to her mom's house. How about them apples? Right? But imagine that.
Phil Heath:That's a perfect example. I'm thinking I'm gonna be petty about it. He's over your life. I was being petty. Right?
Phil Heath:But I should be happy that I got a cover of Flex Magazine. I went from not playing at all as a division one athlete, pretty much suicidal, I'll just be honest, like, in college. Like, if you watch my documentary, Breaking the Olympia, I go deeper into that because I was just like, there was a sense of entitlement because I showed up every day. I just thought that I should be playing and stuff and I was just being told a lot of lies and I'm sure a lot of collegiate athletes have been told these things. They were recruited for a certain purpose.
Phil Heath:It didn't work out and they have no answers. They have no they have no way of expressing themselves. So they get depressed and that leads to other things. But instead of like being excited and I'm over here like, see, I showed you. Yeah.
Phil Heath:I'm gonna show you when I should just be like, man, that was dope. Look at that. That's what hard work gets you. I should be happy about this. So I'll close with this.
Phil Heath:Give a damn about your success more than anybody else in the room.
Sam D'Arc:A special thanks to Phil Heath for joining this next podcast. Until next week, how are you driving vision
Phil Heath:yourself today. But also help other people. If you're so great and you wanna just pound your chest all the time, think about the people that you don't lift up that need that energy too. If you could actually do that and be a leader, whether it be in your household or in your business, I really think we'd all be much better off. And last but not least, check your attitude because life is worth living, and you got a lot of work to do.
Phil Heath:Thank you, guys. Appreciate
Sam D'Arc:it. A special thanks to Phil Heath for joining this week's podcast. Until next week, how are you driving vision today?