Phil Bohol is a founder, coach, and entrepreneur known for his blunt honesty around discipline, leadership, and execution. In this episode of his mindset podcast, Phil speaks directly to entrepreneurs and business owners who feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and secretly questioning whether the work is worth it.
This episode is for anyone trying to change their life through business and realizing that hard work is unavoidable. If you are building a company, carrying responsibility for others, or pushing toward a bigger future while fighting self-doubt, this business and entrepreneur podcast episode offers a grounded reality check.
Phil starts with a simple truth. Hard work sucks. Anyone pretending otherwise is lying. Whether the work is physical or mental, it demands energy, focus, and sacrifice. Building a business is not easier just because it happens indoors or on a screen. It requires mental endurance, emotional control, and the ability to keep showing up when motivation is gone.
Throughout the episode, Phil breaks down how fear, exhaustion, and internal resistance are part of the process. The difference between people who succeed and those who don’t is not talent or background. It is the willingness to keep taking steps forward when the payoff is still invisible. Left foot, right foot, repeat.
Phil shares personal stories from growing up in the Philippines, experiencing family instability, addiction, and repeated failure. Instead of using those experiences as excuses, he explains how he reframed them into part of his identity and strength. The story you tell yourself about your past determines whether it becomes an anchor or fuel.
A major theme of the episode is language. The words you use internally shape your behavior, your confidence, and your standards. Many people unconsciously repeat stories that keep them small, unsupported, or stuck. Phil challenges listeners to question those narratives and decide who they are willing to become instead.
He also addresses the reality of isolation and resistance. Growth often requires distance from people who project fear, limitation, or comfort. Skill-building, discipline, and resilience stack slowly over time, often while life continues to throw unexpected challenges in the way.
This episode is not about hype or motivation. It is about accepting that hard work is the cost of becoming your potential and choosing to pay it anyway.
This conversation reflects Phil Bohol’s broader body of work around mindset, leadership, and execution. It is part of an ongoing message about taking ownership, standing on your word, and building something meaningful despite resistance.
Listen with the intention to reflect on the stories you tell yourself, the standards you live by, and whether you are truly willing to do the work required to become who you say you want to be.
Hard work sucks, man. I don't know who's lying to you and trying to pretend to be all motivated, but hard work is hard work. That's why it's called hard work now when you're building a business versus being out in the sun doing hard work, a little bit different. You know, being in the infantry is different than being in a AC controlled room, building something, taking sales calls.
It's not the same. Um, but it's still hard. Why? Because even if it's not physical labor requires more of this. The thing that you gotta understand is if you're trying to completely change your life, your family's life, you're gonna have to do the work that you don't want to do. And everything about you, your mind, body, spirit, emotions are going to try to distract you.
They're gonna try to tell you you're tired. They're gonna try to tell you that you don't have the mental capacity for it today. You're gonna tell yourself that you don't feel good. So you can't handle business today, but that's the shit that you gotta break through if you want to achieve a breakthrough.
And that's how it works. That's why success is very simple, but it's not easy because the path forward is really take your left foot, move it forward. Put all of your weight on it, then grab your right foot, move it forward, put all your weight on it, and literally rinse and repeat that process, but showing up.
Taking those steps forward. When you're afraid of things, you have a fear of failure, a fear of judgment, fear of success, fear of whatever the hell you wanna say. That's when it becomes difficult when you're tired. You've been running and gunning for a long freaking time, and you're like, man, how many more steps until I get to kind of see the fruits of my labor?
You know, it's very difficult. It's hard to keep persevering through that, but that's the difference between somebody successful and somebody that never achieved success. It's knowing that you gotta pay the price. Hard work sucks. Hard work is hard work, and that's the price every person on this planet has to pay if they want to get to wherever they're from, to wherever they're trying to get to.
Business life success, and I don't care where you're from. I don't care what your story is, it's an even playing ground. Why do I say that? Because imagine this, I'm from the Philippines. I was born in the Philippines, so you know, I, I wasn't from the first world country. I don't come from money. My father never said, Hey, here's a stack of cash.
Go do something with your life. That wasn't my life. I've lost everything multiple times over in my life, multiple times from a young age, even up until adulthood. So when I say this, I mean it. If I told myself, bro, you're from the Philippines. How are you ever gonna stack up against Americans and people from, from here?
Imagine that If that was my belief system, where would I be today? Nowhere. You wouldn't be listening to me right now. Imagine if I said, Hey bro, you know, you are from a family of divorce. Your parents got divorced at 10, so the rest of your life is basically gonna be shitty. Uh, you're gonna have emotional trauma to deal with.
You're gonna have mindset blocks. You're gonna be lesser than, you're never gonna find a a family. You're never gonna settle down and get married because. I mean, your parents got married and then they got divorced and it was toxic as fuck. So that's probably gonna be your life. Imagine where I'd be right now.
You definitely wouldn't be listening to me. Hey, bro, you know, I know you wanna take your own life at 16 years old, um, and you're shitbag and you're not worth a damn to, to live or to breathe or anything. Nobody's ever gonna follow you. Nobody's ever gonna listen to you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Imagine if I told myself after breaking through that, oh man, I, I don't have anything of value because I almost took my own life multiple times in my life. So why would anybody listen to me? Imagine if I told myself that story? There's so many stories that we tell ourselves and we wonder why we're not where we want to be.
The biggest thing that I'll tell you, just like I tell my brotherhood, is think about the stories. The words, words are important. What are the words that you're telling yourself on a daily basis? What are these stories of the past that you're telling yourself on a daily basis? Who are you telling yourself you are?
Who are you pretending to be? Who are you still being that you have to let go of to create space for the new self to emerge? Food for thought. Now, society in the normal world does not think this way. The normal world says you are who you are, and that's it. You are who we tell you you are. That's it. You got friends, you got family.
You got loved ones who project their weaknesses onto you. And if I don't believe that you can be successful, then you can't because I said it. And if you choose to believe those stories and those words from people that don't even support you at any possible level, or they support you just long enough until you outperform them, then they become your haters.
Then your life will become that. Whatever you choose to believe becomes your reality, and that's why hard work sucks. Because what? What do you gotta do? You gotta let go of all those people. You gotta love 'em from a distance, family, friends, shit. Your spouse, you are gonna have to love them from a distance.
You are gonna have to stay so focused on you and your vision of this future that you're trying to create. And that by itself, not even trying to create, even just leaving that environment is hard work. Then on top of that, then you gotta do the hard work to increase your skill sets. Right. Your, your sales, your marketing, your operations, your leadership ability, uh, mental fortitude and resilience.
Then you gotta stack up all these skill sets on top of changing your environment and getting away from your normal man. That's hard work. And then on top of that, then you actually start to achieve some business success or some life success. Then you introduce new people into the mix. Now you have to, you have these variables in your life that you have to learn how to maneuver around on top of learning and continuing to cultivate new skill sets and experiences while still maintaining those boundaries in your, in your personal life.
Imagine that. Then you're doing all this stuff, right? Juggling all this, and then something personal happens. You get sick, somebody you know or love gets sick or gets hit by a truck or some other shit happens with family. You know what I mean? Then what? Then you gotta juggle that shit. Success is hard.
Hard work sucks, but persevering through that again, left foot, right foot. Is the difference between me and you. It's the difference between somebody successful and unsuccessful. It's just who's willing to keep going no matter the odds. See, for me, when I looked at my story and I started saying, Hey, I don't really like who I am in this story anymore.
I kind of don't like seeing myself as this broken boy. I'm kind of getting tiring, kind of tired of all my trauma and shit. You know what? Instead of it being a deterrent to this future that I'm trying to create, how about I make it as part of like my hero's journey? Like Yeah, motherfucker. I was from the Philippines.
Yeah. I was born in a third world country and I still outperformed be motherfuckers. Oh yeah. I still came from a broken childhood and I'm still outperforming motherfuckers out here. Oh yeah. I used to drink and do drugs from a young age, and I still made something to myself. Oh man, I barely graduated high school.
I was truant. And I'm still outperforming everybody. Oh yeah. I didn't even go to college and I know more shit about life and success more than college kids. Right. All respect to my wife, you know, she graduated college and um, oh, business people. Ah, ah, I don't have a degree in business, but I still make more money in business than most people that have a business certification because that's the story I tell myself.
I don't really care. Everybody can gimme whatever excuse that they got, and I'm gonna prove in my life through my actions, but most importantly, my results. What happens if you just don't let any of that shit define you and you choose to define you? And even that, that's hard work. And even that, that sucks because then you gotta stand on who you say you are.
Am are you really gonna be about that life? You know, are you just saying it like everybody else? So you have to accept that hard work sucks, but hard work is the most meaningful work you'll ever do, you'll ever commit to. And the most beautiful part about it is when you become your life's work, right? To cultivate all of your potential, and every day you forward yourself and not the purpose of life.
Kind of figure out why you're here. Kind figure out why God, God chose you out of all the people in the world to be born, because there's something you're supposed to do in this life, something bigger, but do you believe that or do you believe that you're just a fucking piece of sperm that got fucking lucky out of the tens of thousands or millions of sperms that were out there?
I don't know. Again, whatever you choose to believe will be true. So if you think that you got financial problems and because of those financial problems, you're never gonna get to a certain level because it takes money to make money, then you're always gonna be there. People always tell me, well, Phil, now you got money so you can do all this shit.
Well, did I always fucking have money? Motherfucker? Like, you're gonna use that against somebody like me who's proven that that doesn't fucking even exist. The most broke person ever. Both physically, monetarily, and mentally and emotionally. You're gonna tell somebody like me. That, oh, I have all these benefits in my life because I got money now.
Well, how did I get here? Motherfucker, right? People always try to discredit the work of somebody else because they're afraid to just acknowledge. I outhustle you. You don't hustle as hard as you tell yourself you do. And that right there, that mindset shift, that's hard work. That work sucks to acknowledge that you are lesser than what you tell yourself you are.
Imagine that. Hard work if you tell yourself, oh, I don't got a supportive family. You know, nobody supports my dreams. My wife doesn't even support my dreams. And every time I talk about it, like nobody wants to support me, and I just, it just sucks. Welcome to the fucking club. Same. But you know what? Why is it that you're trying to validate through other people?
You gotta validate yourself, right? You gotta be the person that tells yourself you're gonna do the work, no matter the odds, and then actually do it and stand on your words. But you know what's easier for people? It's easier for people to say, well, my family doesn't support me. My wife doesn't support me.
So it's hard for me. Good. If that's the story you tell yourself, stay there. You don't deserve success. You see what I mean? There's a pattern here. So I want you to understand whatever story you tell yourself that will be your reality. But if you choose instead, just like I did, to use those stories as pillars to say and be proud of, to stand on and say, even if I came from that stuff, look at where I am today, even though I come from that place.
Look at what I'm doing with my life today. If you build yourself to a level where literally you don't live by any excuse. And you can stand on your word. Look at how the world now has to speak to you. See, for me, the world speaks to me because of how I carry myself to my standard. So if you tell me all this negative shit, I'm not about that life.
Get the fuck away from me. Go on, go do your thing. But the cool part is because I meet the right people who are like, oh shit, this dude moves different and he's cut from the same cloth as me. What the fuck's different about him? That inspires the right people. To level the fuck up. And then they do, and they're like, I'm gonna tell myself a different story.
You know what? I'm like that dude. You know, I, I didn't come from anything, you know, I was doing drugs, I was smoking weed, I was doing all this stuff. I was broke. I came from this family, I came from the Philippines. I came from a third world country. I came from all of the places this dude came from. And if he could do that, so can I.
I just gotta start telling myself a different story. And then they do, and then they start making progress. You see what I mean? And that's the coolest part about really living and standing on your word. You actually inspire people, whether intentional or not. I get messages all the time that people are inspired by the shit that I say, even though the shit that I say is just my reality.
And sometimes I'm not even impressed by the shit that I say, but I'm apparently it's inspiring to some people, which is why I still show up. I should probably tell my myself the story of, man, my message is so fucking awesome that I need to tell more people. I should probably tell myself that story, but maybe I'm just not there yet.
You see how it's still not a negative. I'm just not there yet. It's not a, it's not a man. I don't, I don't, I don't value my story. That's not what I'm telling myself. I'm just like, I probably should. This is probably a good message. I probably have to spend some time sitting there and really extracting, like, why is my message so inspirational to people?
I probably should and I will when it's time. See you reach a level, uh, within yourself that you just start to trust what calls to you and what doesn't, because sometimes what you think you should do is not what you're called to do. What I do is I focus on what I'm called to do, not what I think I should do, and that always serves me.
'cause my human brain is far less superior than my God conscience. My connection with a higher power, calling me to do God's work, whatever that may be. Who knows? I don't know. I guess I'm not supposed to know, which is why I just follow the path. Hard work sucks, but it's the best work I'm ever gonna do in my life.
Start to say that and as always like. Share, subscribe, follow me on social platforms, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. Share this message and every other message that I have that resonates with you, that you know will help somebody else. And let's pass this torch of knowledge to everybody that could possibly hear it.
Apply it. Don't just listen to this. Treat it like another video podcast thing, to listen to motivational talk, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then do nothing with it. Take the action. Do the hard work. Embrace the suck. See you on the next one.