You Can't Optimize Your Way Out of Grief with Phil Cohen

Phil Cohen, The Grief Guy, is a TEDx speaker and grief coach helping high performers rebuild identity, leadership, and purpose after devastating loss without pretending they're fine. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Success is a functioning tool, not a healing tool. The skills that build a successful career cannot heal profound grief. 2. Grief shrinks your capacity, but it never diminishes your worth. Feeling less productive after loss is not a character flaw; it's an injury. 3. Healing isn't about letting go of the person you lost. It's about relocating your love and learning to carry it as you rebuild your life. Check out Phil's website to learn more and connect - Grief Guy https://griefguy.com/ Sponsor HighLevel https://highlevelfire.com - The ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies. Learn more at HighLevelFire.com https://highlevelfire.com.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Light that spark, Fire Nation. JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. And today, we'll be breaking down how we can't optimize your way out of grief. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought Phil Cohen into the Fire Nation studios. Phil is the Grief Guy, a TEDx speaker and grief coach, helping high performers rebuild identity, leadership, and purpose after a devastating loss without pretending they're fine. So, we talk about the success myth, grief in high performers, when loss changes everything, the cost of pushing through, rebuilding without letting go, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Phil and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships, all in

• 0:46Speaker 00

  one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial, plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Phil, say what's up to Fire Nation, and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Fire Nation, it is such an honor to be here. I've been a longtime listener of the show. And John, I have, I've heard you ask this question, probably, I don't even know, countless times. And I've always wondered what I'd say, you know, sitting in this seat. And I never expected my answer to be the one I'm about to give you. I believe success is a functioning tool, not a healing tool. And most of the successful entrepreneurs that I work with have these two very confused. I was a VP of Sales. I led high-performing sales teams. I was the guy who made it rain. And I believed, without ever saying it out loud, that the same skills that built my career could handle anything that life threw at me.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Then, in July of 2015, my 14-year-old son Perry and his close friend were last seen leaving the Jupiter Inlet on a 19-foot fishing boat. It was this crazy story. It was all over the news. Neither of the boys were ever found. And to this day, I'm not exactly sure what happened. And I, I found out very quickly that everything that I had learned, everything that I was great at, everything that I focused, discipline, execution, pushing through, none of that transferred. You can't optimize your way out of grief. Success helps you function, but it doesn't help you heal.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  I mean, Fire Nation, this is going to be a powerful episode in more ways than one. And I'm just going to repeat something Phil just said. You can't optimize your way out of grief. That is our focus. That is our theme today. Because as entrepreneurs, sometimes we do that. And sometimes, by the way, we leave the important stuff until it's too late. So, let's talk about the success myth, Phil, because a lot of people, they believe success protects them from life's hardest moments. So, why is that a myth? And what exactly does happen when grief enters the life of a high achiever?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  I went back to work two months later, because that's what high performers do, right? You show up. And I just want to describe a moment that happened, because I think some listeners out there might need to hear it. I was, I was sitting at my, sitting at my desk. But thankfully, I had a door, glass walls, total fishbowl. And one day, I, on the day that I returned, I needed to use the restroom. And to use the restroom, you had to go out of my office, and down the hall, and outside the regular office. But I couldn't do it. I

• 4:00Speaker 01

  was so frozen, so broken, that I sat there and just peed my pants at my desk, because

• 4:09Speaker 01

  walking past my colleagues felt impossible. And that's the VP of Sales, the guy who made it rain. People could see me crying through the glass, and they didn't know what to do with my pain. So, mostly, they did nothing. And I was surrounded by people and still completely alone. And here's the thing, I was at work, right? My badge worked. My calendar was full. From the outside, I was, you know, quote unquote, back. So, I don't want people, especially high performers, to ever confuse showing up with healing. And a lot of, a lot of the people that I work with have this tendency to just push through. But every optimization tool assumes

• 4:54Speaker 01

  that the operator is intact. And grief takes the operator offline. I mean, think about what your productivity actually runs on, right? Sleep, focus, appetite, decision-making, motivation. And grief took every one of those things from me. I lost 60 pounds. I had nightmares. For three weeks, I was involuntary, making this like guttural sound, man. I was like, before, while I was trying to fall asleep, I was like, hmm, hmm. I wasn't trying to do it, but I couldn't stop. And later, I found out that my body was processing something that my mind couldn't. And you, you can't, you can't time block your way through that,

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  right? You can't miracle morning your way through that. Grief shrinks your capacity. And the mistake that high performers make is treating shrunk capacity as a character flaw, instead of an injury.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Fire Nation, as I mentioned, this is going to be a powerful episode. I mean, when you were just sharing that just now, about how you were making those noises and guttural sounds, kind of involuntarily, it actually reminded me for, like, the 16 months after I returned from Iraq. I was 23 years old. I was in Iraq for 13 months. I was a platoon leader of four tanks and 16 men. And it was war, so I saw it a lot. I would never, I would never have dreams during those 16 months, but I would wake up every night, in the middle of the night, nonstop. I mean, never failed. Absolutely sitting in a puddle, sleeping in a puddle of my own sweat. I'm talking like, you had to strip the bed seven

• 6:35Speaker 00

  days a week. Like, it was soppy. I had to go take a shower. I had to like, lay towels down to like, not be laying on like, a wet damp mattress. Like, it was bad. And it was like, 16 months. And so, it happened for such a long timeframe, that like, I thought it was going to last forever. And then, just one day, it, you know, gradually stopped. Like, it went from like, seven days a week, to like, five, to like, three, to like, one, and then eventually to zero. And I haven't had a recurrence of that, you know, since it has dissipated. But like, your body will deal with grief, with trauma, with stress, in different ways, Fire Nation. And it's important to be in tune with that, because I wasn't in tune with it. So, I didn't know what was wrong with me. But it would have been amazing to have someone like Phil to talk to, I will tell you that. So, let's talk about grief in high performers, because entrepreneurs, we're wired, Phil, to push

• 7:20Speaker 00

  through problems, solve challenges, to keep moving. So, why does that mindset often make grief even harder to process?

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  I think the real cost of, you know, pushing through is that you end up performing recovery, instead of doing it. And performance is expensive, right? I was spending every unit of energy that I had, making other people feel comfortable with my grief, looking functional in meetings, holding it together in the hallway. Meanwhile, the actual work of grieving wasn't happening. It was just accruing interest. And, and there was a deeper cost. I started questioning whether I was still a father. I struggled with my faith. And those are not questions you can just push through. Those are questions you actually have to sit inside.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  And most high performers have spent their whole life building, building the skill of not sitting inside anything. So, the biggest thing that I see is what happens when people start to push through, is that they don't actually do the work. And the fact is, man, you can't, you can't outwork this thing. You can't outsmoke it. You can't outsex it. You can't outdrink it. It will wait for you. And grief is very, very patient. And I often say, there is no real healing from grief. It's doing the grief work that is the healing. And that's often some of the hardest part for, for people to do, is to actually do

• 8:50Speaker 01

  the work. Because so many people feel broken. And that's one of my biggest messages. Man, I thought I was so, I thought I was going crazy. I thought I was broken. I had no idea what was, what was wrong with me. But when I realized, and nobody teaches you these things, I was handed the five stages. This is why I did a TED Talk, like, basically saying, the five stages really were never meant for grievers. They were meant for terminally ill cancer patients to process their own demise, not the people who love them. Yet, decades later, we're still applying it in that way. And so, many people wind up feeling like they have no idea what they're supposed to do.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  And they feel broken or they're going crazy. So if anybody is out there who lost anything, grief isn't always just a loss of a person, right? It could be the loss of a job, a dream, a future. Those are all grief. If anybody's experiencing those things and you feel like you're going crazy and you're broken, you are not, your nervous system goes into survival mode and all of that capacity gets put into survival mode. It's like opening up a laptop, right? And opening up Photoshop and all these heavy programs, at some point, it's going to glitch out. And when all of your resources are in survival, it gives you so much less capacity for everything else. So the brain fog, the

• 10:15Speaker 01

  forgetting, the not wanting to go anywhere, wanting to isolate, these are all your body trying to protect you. And I never, no one ever taught me that.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  Fire Nation, we're going to talk about when loss changes everything, the cost of pushing through, rebuilding without letting go and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. Website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24/7 support, so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack, a 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private

• 11:09Speaker 00

  15-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap and more. Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Phil, we're back. And as I kind of mentioned before the break, I want to talk about when loss changes everything. I mean, how can a devastating loss reshape our identity, our leadership, our energy, our decision-making, even our ability to imagine the future?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  It changed so, grief changed so many things. So I remember about 18 months after Perry died, I took a, I was traveling and someone took a photo of me and I was smiling, a real smile. And I looked at the photo and my first feeling wasn't joy, it was guilt. Because it felt like smiling was betraying Perry. And here's what I eventually understood and it changed everything. The goal of grief is not to release your love, it's to relocate it, to integrate it. I didn't stop being Perry's father. I'm this father right now

• 12:28Speaker 01

  on this podcast. And growth doesn't betray the person that you love. That belief that it does is what keeps so many grieving people frozen for so long. And it's been one of, you know, after I did that TEDx talk, John, so many people, it was crazy, man. So many people from all over the world just like started reaching out to me and said, hey, I want to, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you. And at first I was like, why? Right? Like I was like, I didn't understand why so many people were just reaching out. And after like, man, after countless conversations, I realized that the people that were doing

• 13:11Speaker 01

  quote unquote, okay, that were pushing forward, there were, there were four things that continually showed up every single time from people that were actually moving forward. And so I became obsessed. I began to obsess with the question, how is it possible that some people can go through unspeakable, unimaginable tragedy? And, and not only make it through, but thrive while other people just seem to get stuck for years or decades? Like, what's the difference? And, and there were literally four things that kept on showing up. And I'm not saying that I have the answer, but I can tell you after countless conversations and even through

• 13:56Speaker 01

  all the work I do now, my workshops, four things always seem to be present in people that are rebuilding. And I know this would take way too long to go into them, but they were one, that they actually felt it. They didn't avoid it. They actually took the time to sit in some of the pain instead of going back to work and just doing everything that they can to avoid it. The second thing is they had at least one person, at least one person that they can talk to, that, that will sit with them, that won't try to judge them or fix them or make them feel better. We all, nobody, nobody can do something

• 14:34Speaker 01

  like this alone. The, the third thing was that they actually made a decision. See, and what I mean by that is that, you know, grief, nobody gets it through this life unscathed. Grief is likely going to visit each and every one of us at some point. And, you know, yes, it's, it's painful is not even the right word, right? Like, there is no word that can fully contain what it feels like to lose the most precious person of your life. And the third thing was they actually made a decision. They decided, right? Because at some point, you know, we have to decide. I decided at some one point that I don't want

• 15:17Speaker 01

  to live here anymore. Right? So the word incision means to cut into, but the word decision means to cut off. And in that moment, I made a decision that, that living my life in a beautiful state doesn't mean that, that I'm betraying my son. That if I'm, if I'm somehow smiling and enjoying my life, doesn't mean that I'm leaving him behind. So every person that experiences unimaginable loss, yes, it's going to be insanely painful, but at some point, at some point, we all have to choose, do I want to stay here? Or do

• 15:57Speaker 01

  I want to do something? And then the last thing that always came up was actions. They all took some sort of action. And that was different for everybody. It just means that you just didn't sit home, lock yourself in isolation, curl up in a ball in a dark room and cry yourself to sleep every day. You know, we have to at some point, take some action towards healing. So it was those four things that constantly and consistently kept on showing up.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  Let's talk about rebuilding without letting go. Cause I think a lot of people need to hear this next part. So how can someone begin rebuilding their life after a significant loss without pretending they're okay or feeling guilty about moving forward? Like it somehow dishonors a person they love. I mean, that was such a great example, I felt when you shared that like you looked at a picture of yourself and you were like, it was a real smile. Like in that moment, you were happy and it felt like it was dishonoring your son somehow. Where of course, you know, a logical person would say, like, your son would want you to be happy. Like the last thing your son would want you to be is like grieving and sad for the rest of your life. I mean, that's just compounding the tragedy. So talk about that.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Several things, two things. And neither of these things were a hack. One of them was changing the question I was asking. Because the question you ask yourself changes the search, right? So for, for months and months and months, all I was asking is why? Why did this happen? Why me? Why Perry? Why this way? And my mind ran that loop endlessly and came back with nothing. Because there is no answer. And when I started asking questions like, okay, well, how? How do I carry this? How can I show up in my life in a way that honors

• 17:51Speaker 01

  my son? My mind actually had somewhere to go. The same brain, different search. So sometimes just even asking a question differently. And I know I don't have to, I know I don't have to share this with you or, or your followers, Sean, but like your, your brain is a servo mechanism, right? Like if you ask a question like, why am I so stupid? It will, it will look for the reasons why you're so stupid, show you those reasons and say, see, this is why you're so stupid. And then you reinforce that loop. So sometimes just as something as simple as changing the question that you're asking yourself. The second thing was, I

• 18:31Speaker 01

  stopped trying to survive it alone. And, and that's, that's the one belief I would fight anybody on. Nobody should have to survive the hardest thing in their life alone. And not because that's a nice statement. It's because isolation is where grief does its worst damage. High performers isolate by default and it nearly took me down. And it's changed me. It's changed me as a person and, and even as a leader. I used to evaluate, you know, people on output, full stop. Now I understand that every person on every team

• 19:14Speaker 01

  is operating at some percentage of their capacity. And life events move that number, sometimes overnight. Like somebody on your team right now is grieving something, a parent, a marriage, a diagnosis, a dream. And, and they're left doing what I did, performing wellness. So you'll keep seeing them as valuable. And here's what I tell every, every leader that's listening. Grief shrinks capacity, but it doesn't erase worth. The leaders who understand the difference are the ones that keep their best people. The leaders who don't, those people leave or worse, they stay and disappear in place. I mean, like I said,

• 19:59Speaker 01

  I was a rainmaker who built high performing teams. And I promise you, this lens, this experience has made me so much better at that job, not softer at it.

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  Let's talk about leadership transformation, because if you look back, Phil, how has walking through grief changed the kind of leader, the kind of entrepreneur, just even overall, the kind of person that you've become?

• 20:26Speaker 01

  One of the biggest things is I just see things completely differently. And even, even with my team, like I said, I, I used to evaluate people on output. Now it's like I have, I have this sixth sense, so to speak, to be able to.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Understand and be able to be compassionate with people's pain. And when I walk around now, man, it's like, you know, there was, there was times when I first went back to work, when I was having a conversation with people, and I remember thinking to myself, this person has no idea what I'm carrying right now. Like, I was able to just perform and, and, and they just had no idea what I had just been through. And it really makes you realize that, man, you have no idea who the person, the person who you're sitting across, what they might be carrying. So it's given me insane amounts of empathy, insane

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  amounts of compassion to think, you know, just let me put things on pause for a second and really hear what's going on in this person's life. And the other thing that I'd say that it did is made me fearless. Man, I think when, when the worst possible thing has already happened, like, you fear nothing. Like, the worst possible thing has already happened to me. I feel like there's nothing, the nothing that can come at me than losing my, my only child in this crazy way without answers. Like, if I can make it through that, man, you can make it through anything. It gives you this sense of fearlessness and even just

• 22:10Speaker 01

  no longer fear of death, man. Like, you know, I can't wait to see my son again. So I think it's changed me in so many profound ways, that even just the ability to cut through the BS, like, it made me a lot more authentic. Like, I used to say things that, or not say things, because I might be afraid of what someone might think or feel. Now, I'm not saying I purposely would ever insult somebody, never would do that. But it just made me a lot more authentic. And I started to realize that I had, maybe I wasn't being real with who I was for a really long time. And when I was forced and I was stripped down to, to nothing, it revealed parts of me that were really there and that maybe I had been, not

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  been true to. So it showed me those things, too.

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  Phil, if Fire Nation is listening right now and, and they're dealing with grief, or they know somebody who's dealing with grief, and they know that they would benefit from your words, your experience, your knowledge, what would be your call to action? How can Fire Nation connect with you? How can they learn more?

• 23:16Speaker 01

  First thing I would say with somebody who's dealing with grief is here's what I'd want you to know. You are not broken. You're injured. And there's a difference. Broken means defective. Injured means healing has a path. Second, your capacity is smaller right now, and that is not a verdict on your worth, that you can be at 30% and still feel fully worthy. Those numbers were never meant to be connected, even though your whole career trained you to believe they were. And last, I'd say that, I'd say this as a guy who sat in his office, unable to walk down the hallway to go to the bathroom. Do

• 23:57Speaker 01

  not do this alone. Not because you're weak. Because grief is the one thing humans have never been built to carry solo. So whoever you reach for, friend, a group, someone like me, anyone, I'd say, reach. And maybe just one more thing, John. So many people call grief a journey, you know? And it is. I mean, it is somewhat of a journey. But I don't like the word journey, because journey, it, it makes you think that there's an ending. And really, there isn't an ending. I'd like anybody listening to maybe think of grief more like learning a new language. Because when you learn a new language, the goal is

• 24:38Speaker 01

  never to finish it. The goal is to become fluent. And you're learning a new language right now. So give yourself grief. Give yourself compassion. And as far as a way to get in touch, everything is at griefguy.com. If you even just Google grief guy, that's what I'm known as online. There are three ways that I work with people. If you want to go deep, one-on-one, I do private grief coaching. I also lead a structured workshop called Inner Garden for people ready to do the real, deep grief work. And because I know not everyone is ready or resourced for those, I'm currently now opening a monthly

• 25:23Speaker 01

  community. It's going to be around $47 a month, cancel anytime, hosted in circle, with live sessions with me every week. Because the whole point is, the thing that I needed and didn't have, nobody should survive the hardest thing in their life alone. So griefguy.com is where they can find all the information.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  Griefguy.com. And Fire Nation, I wish Phil was rocking and rolling back in 2006 and '07, when I was going through my trauma, because you don't need to go at this alone. So you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, which is why you want to surround yourself with people like Phil, with people like he's created in his community. And you've been hanging out with PC and JLD today, so keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit EOFire.com, type Phil, P-H-I-L, in the search bar, the show notes page will pop right up. But of course, griefguy.com is your direct spot to go. Phil, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we will catch you on the flip side.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Thanks, John.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Hey, Fire Nation. A huge thank you to our sponsors and Phil for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire with a high-ticket offer, but not enough quality leads? If yes, Nexus Install is your answer. So to learn more, email me, [email protected]. I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships, all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial, plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com.