The Phil Bohol Show

3 Signs You're Failing Your Kids While Chasing Success | EP 036

Episode Summary

Men, It’s Time to Wake Up. You’re grinding. You’re hustling. You’re building your empire. But what if I told you that while you're out chasing success, you’re failing the very people you say you're doing it for—your kids? In this video, I break down 3 MAJOR warning signs that you're unknowingly pushing your kids away while building your business. And if you don’t catch them now, you might wake up one day to realize you’ve lost your family—and success won’t mean a damn thing. This isn’t just another “work-life balance” talk. This is the raw, unfiltered truth about how high-achieving men destroy their families in the name of success—and how to fix it before it’s too late.

Episode Notes

Key Takeaways:

[00:19] The emotional withdrawal signs your kids are showing RIGHT NOW (and why you’re missing them)
[04:50]How your inner resistance to success is actually self-sabotage (and the brutal reason why)
[08:40] The #1 mistake dads make that destroys their connection with their children—without even realizing it

 

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Episode Transcription

 If you've ever tried to convince yourself that your kids understand why you're working so hard, I'm gonna tell you right now. You better cut that shit out. Otherwise, you may lose your family in the future and There's three big reasons that that's happening and I want you to really be aware of these things so let's talk about the emotional withdrawal signs and This can happen when your kids start to pull away from you, right?

So maybe before Before work, they'd be happy. Once they wake up, they'd come hug you, they'd come see you. They want to have breakfast with you, they want nothing but dad's time, they want to hang out all the time. And at the end of the days, they want to snuggle up. They stay up all night until you're home, or until you're done with work, and they always ask you, Daddy, can I play?

You may notice this, you may not, because you're caught up in your shit with the business. But what I want you to do is I want you to be aware, has that changed? Have your kids actually started to change how they behave around you? Have they started to pull away? Have they started to withdraw? Have they stopped being excited to see you in the mornings?

Is it just like everybody being a robot around you? Have they stopped trying to stay up because they know you're just going to let them down anyway? Man, you're not going to show up, you're not going to leave work early, you're always going to prioritize those things versus them. Start to be aware of that because these are signs that are going to indicate Especially if you're like me coming from a divorced family that you're on the same path that your parents went with you or you're on the same path as that dad that wasn't really present and you got to kind of ask yourself, like, is that the kind of dad that you want to be?

Because what happens is kids and people always say that this is not the way that it works, but I believe that kids make decisions right now from 1234567 years old. On if they want you in their life in the future or not. A lot of people think that, well, up until 5, 6 years old, they're not even going to remember this.

I'll tell you right now, I remember how I felt as a kid, and I've never forgotten it. I don't know about you, but the way that I was treated as a kid, that's the thing that made me decide like, Who I want in my life nowadays and who I don't and unfortunately I don't got a lot of family around and I definitely don't have a connection with my parents that most people do have You know, they're blessed if they got it But you're probably watching this because you're like me and it's kind of like in a strange type of relationship I don't remember a time where after 10, I really got excited to see my dad again.

I never I can't actually think about a time when I'm excited to see my mom. Even nowadays, I told my wife, I was like, Man, I saw a picture of my mom the other day, and I really did not feel like I was looking at my mom. Such a weird feeling, because it's your mom. A lot of people have something to say about that, but at the end of the day, it's my relationship that wasn't created, and it's never the responsibility of the child to establish a relationship with their parent.

It's the other way around. So if you start to notice that, and then on top of that, you start to notice that your kids are starting to talk to you a little bit different. That they're not actually having nice, bright, meaningful conversations. I talk with my kids a lot, so we always talk about something.

How they're feeling, how their day was, what's going on in their mind, what do they want to do. I'm always involved in that. And so they're constantly communicating with me. So if your kids stop really doing that with you, or maybe they never have, it's an indicator man. It's an indicator that you gotta change.

Because everything that you do now, the feeling that you leave with them, the emptiness, that's the thing they're gonna take with them through their adolescence, through their teenage years, which you already know, it's gonna be a shit show, and into their adulthood. So you gotta kind of ask yourself, are you getting caught in that because what that leads to is then a trap?

You start to compensate with buying them toys. You start to compensate with vacations where you're not really present either. You start to compensate for all of these things. And you gotta understand that if your children start to withdraw from you physically, right, they stop wanting to hang out with you physically, they start to behave different around you, start changing the loving, the openness that they used to have with you.

So, you really gotta ask yourself, is it worth it for you to go after this success if it's gonna cost you your family? And I don't think a lot of men are aware of this because, again, it's, well, my kids are gonna understand I'm hustling, I'm grinding for the family. And yeah, you might be, like, lying to yourself and telling yourself that's the case, but the reality is, you're letting them down.

Because once they grow up, they're not going to be like, Yeah, my dad was never really around, but he's super successful. I don't really have a relationship with him, but he makes a lot of money. You know, I don't really know my dad too much. I really just know his first name. But he built a big business and he impacts a lot of people's lives.

I guess I just never had him in my life. You see what I'm saying? Kind of sounds fucked up. So you got to start to ask yourself, is that happening? And what happens is when you continue to move in that direction, you lose sight of the very thing that you said you started all of this for. You started the business to provide for the family, yet your family's lacking.

So what's the point? What's the purpose of that if you lose the things that are the most important in this life?

And that leads into the second thing. You start to resist success over time. You might get to a certain level, and then for some reason you don't, you can't put your finger on it, you can't figure out why it is that you start to resist the work. You stop losing, you start to lose that hustle, that drive you used to have.

You used to be so driven to wake up early, you used to be so driven to make the business successful, you used to feel so driven to do everything, and to be everything. But if you start to notice a lack, if you start to notice a lack in your purpose, in your vigor, in your mission, in wanting to do all of these big things, here's why.

Whether you're consciously aware of it or not, you're dropping the ball as a dad, you're dropping the ball as a husband, you're dropping the ball as a man. Straight up. And subconsciously, you're going to start to resist success because now you know that the more I succeed, the more I lose on this. And whether you want to say it out loud, because you don't want to feel like a failure, but the truth is the truth at the end of the day.

You're going to start doing things that are going to go against more success. And you're going to have what's called success aversion. What is that? Well, you're not going to want to succeed more because you're afraid that the more that I succeed, it's like this line, it's like a, it's like a floss. It's thin.

It can break at any moment. And now when you try to focus on family, what happens? Then you feel guilty that you're dropping the ball with the business. And what happens with that is now you start to resent your life. You start to resent your family because they're taking you away from your mission.

You're starting to resent your mission because it's taking you away from your family. You're starting to resent everything because you're not focused on the things that actually make you happy. Why? Because you're constantly getting caught in the trap of what success looks like to the outside world.

The outside world says, you gotta have a big business, you gotta make a lot of money, you gotta have the cars, you gotta have the house, you gotta have the things. You gotta walk around like you own the shit. And while that is true, you should absolutely have all those things. If your foundation is not square, if your foundation is not set, if your foundation is unstable, all of that's gonna crumble anyway.

So what's the point? And this is where you got to start being brutally honest with yourself. Because when you start to resent your wife, your kids, and your business, because you're unhappy, that's when you start going through this slump. This is where men that have achieved a level of success, never break through to the next level.

And they feel all of this pressure to succeed, but what is the definition of success? Have you ever defined that? Have you ever asked yourself, well, what does success actually mean to me, not what it means to that person or to that person or to social media? What does success mean to me and to my family?

And if you don't define that, you're going to start to feel some pressure and it's pressure that you're really just creating on yourself and you got to understand that until you start to make a change and really take some time to stop the hustle, stop the grind for a minute and look inward and ask yourself, Well, what is successful to me?

If I was to fast forward to the end of my life and I'm on my deathbed and I'm looking back on my life, what are the things I'm going to be the most proud of? What are the most things I'm going to be proud of of myself? What are the things I'm going to remember and what are the things I'm going to regret?

Here's what I can promise you. I'm not on my deathbed and I hope I'm not near it. But I can guarantee you the only things that I would regret Is if I left this world, with my kids, thinking that I was any other man, but really their dad. Really the father. That my wife didn't have the husband she thought she married.

I promise you that that would be my only regret. All the shit could go away. All the external success could go away. I wouldn't care about what, man, I wish I'd done that extra dial. I wish I'd done that extra deal. I wish I built that extra million dollar business. I wish that I made that extra money. I wish that I got that extra car.

I wouldn't be thinking about that. Because what happens is a lot of people don't go through hardship in their life except like every so often like real hardship. I'm talking about like losing your shit. And what it takes for them to finally figure it out is at the end of the road where they got no more time to fix the problems.

Is that really the life that you want to live? And so you gotta understand, you're gonna start to resist success because inside you know as a man, you're dropping the ball. And until you realize that, until you recognize that, you're gonna continue to feel meaningless, like you have this void.

And the third sign I want you to be aware of is really the lack of connection, the lack of presence. And a lot of guys do this well. You know, like, oh yeah, I'm spending time with my kids right now, blah blah blah blah blah. But you're on your phone. You're checking slack. You're looking for the emails.

You're constantly refreshing the text or the social media or your emails or slack to see if there's a notification for the deal that you've been trying to get done. For the thing. For the money. For the, for the external validation. And again, your kids are right in front of you watching you scroll through that damn phone.

You're not connected. You're not present. You gotta start speaking the truth because the more you're in denial, you start to live in this false sense of illusion or delusion. You gotta understand that quality time doesn't mean that your physical body is there, but your mind, your emotions, and your spirit is not.

That's not what presence is. That's not how you establish a connection with those kids. You got to understand too, when you operate from that place, you do realize that your children are deciding who they have to be in this life too. You're training them, whether it's said or it's unspoken. You're training them on how to act in this world.

You're training them how to act with their own families in the future. You're teaching them all of these things that as good as some things can be, you're also teaching them a lot of the bad. Are you really wanting to teach those kids of yours that presence is just mom or dad on their phone, physically there, but not really around?

Is that really it? It's the shittiest feeling, but the thing is the kids aren't going to know any better. And you're probably not going to know any better until you open your heart and open your mind. That's what's happening. That's what happens when you start to look at your kids. And be like, damn, I didn't realize, you know, it's only been six months, but you look so much older now.

Oh, damn, I didn't know you could speak as articulate as you do now. When did you learn how to talk like that? Well, brother, they've been doing that shit this entire time, right under your nose, literally right under your nose, right in front of you. You've just been so lost in the chaos of the mind that you've missed it all.

When, when they say, daddy, can you play? And you don't make the time to play. And sometimes playing doesn't mean that you're running around all the time chasing them with the lack of energy that you got. Sometimes it's literally sitting there letting them jump on you. Or sitting there with them while they play with their toys, and you just pick up a toy and you just use a voice and you play with them.

That's called emotional unavailability. You're not there. You don't realize that it's the simple things in life that these kids want from us. It's, it's, it really is the little things and it might be cliche to say that, but it is really the little things. That's what they're going to remember. They're not going to remember all these big audacious things that you're doing or that you want to do.

They're going to remember. How did my dad make me feel? And so, if you got the presence problem, you're not present with those kids, you're gonna start to lose that connection and that bond. And if you lose that connection and that bond to those children, I'm gonna tell you right now, that's the reason why you're gonna start losing in the game of business, in the game of money, in the game of life.

Because you know damn well that none of that shit matters because you're sacrificing. Who you say you're doing it for and unconsciously you're going to know that there's going to be a disconnect Don't do that Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to your wife and especially don't do that to your kids Because we can create good things for our bloodline.

Absolutely But we can also be the reasons why we have what's called generational curses That in our bloodline, our parents don't spend time with us. In our bloodline, it's normal for our parents not to hang out, to play, or to even have memories with. It's normal by 18 years old, all children never want to see their parents again.

Why would you do that? Why are you so focused on these external validations that you forget the things that mean the most? That in 10 years, in 20 years, all these people that you're trying to fucking impress, all the stuff that you're trying to buy, it's all gonna be meaningless. You remember coming up, you probably bought some shit, and you thought, it was like, oh man, it's the best thing in the world.

And what happened? A week later, you really didn't care anymore. The same thing applies to the house, to the cars, to the watches, to the things, to the attention that you get from clients, from business, from people, entrepreneurs, and other business owners. Oh, you're fucking crushing it, bro. In ten years, they're gonna be living their own life, just like they're living their own life right now.

You're just the only one worried about impressing them versus impressing upon those kids. This is what daddy really is. He's a hustler, but he knows how to slow down and be present with you. Do not fail those kids, I'm telling you right now. If you start to notice these warning signs that I'm speaking into you right now, that I not only have experienced, but I've also helped men with, and realize, hey man, kind of fucking up here.

You're kind of losing the thing that you said you wanted, which is a beautiful life. What's a beautiful life if you just lose the family? That makes it so fucking beautiful. If you notice the signs, here's my invitation to you. I have a free 30 part series. It's called How to Grow Your Business. By working less hit the link in the description.

It's free. All you have to do is implement it. I got exercises for 30 days straight and men are already going through it. I've got men sending me voice messages on Instagram and on Facebook starting to tear up. I can hear them choking up and thanking me. for helping them unlock some of these things that they've been so scared to look inward for.

It'll show you exactly how to repair a lot of these warning signs, mitigate them, before it's too late. And when I say it's too late, it's because those kids are going to keep growing up with or without you. Life is going to go on with or without you. So you gotta make sure that you click the link below, opt in, do the work, it's free.

All you gotta do is commit your time, and I promise you, it's five fucking minutes. If you can't invest five minutes each day for 30 days straight for that family, you got your priorities fucked up. I'll tell you that right now. And if you're ready to be a dad, that really shows up for their kids, and does that work, and you want to be able to look in the mirror and say, Man, I am proud of the man that I have become, by doing the work that most men will not do because they have too much ego and pride to set that shit aside and say, I got work to do in me.

Make sure you stay plugged into this channel. Make sure you give it a thumbs up, you show it some love. Add notification bell, subscribe to it. Make sure that each week you are plugged in with me. Let me pour into you from the lessons that I've learned throughout my life, through business, through fatherhood, through marriage, and through all of this life experience so you don't have to go through the pain that's in route if you don't start changing your ways.

I'll see you on the next one.