Turning Fear into Success with Dr. Jay Phipps

0:00Mick:If the climate headlines ever feel overwhelming, I want to share something different. It's called Planet Visionaries, hosted by Alex Honnell. You probably know him from Free Solo, where he climbed El Capitan without ropes. Now, he's focused on the biggest challenge of all, protecting the only planet we've got. What makes this show stand out is its perspective. It's not about fear, it's about solutions. Every episode is rooted in hope, progress, and real people doing meaningful work around the world. Alex talks with scientists, explorers, activists, and storytellers like Mark Ruffalo, wildlife photographer Bertie Gregory, and conservation leaders who prove optimism isn't naive, it's a strategy.

0:44Mick:Upcoming episodes span the globe from protecting our oceans to reimagining food systems and climate justice, all told through deeply human stories that inspire action. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you're listening to this podcast. I don't care how tough you are, we all have fear. And in this episode today, we're gonna talk to Dr. Jay Phipps about the science behind fear. And at the end, we're gonna give you some tips to overcome fear. This episode right here is critical for everybody.

1:25Mick:I don't care if you're an entrepreneur. I don't care if you're a politician. I don't care if you're a teacher. I don't care what your profession is. We all have fear. We're going to talk about how to overcome it. We're going to talk about the science behind it. And we're going to talk about some things that you can do right now for positivity to start overcoming the fear that you have. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the good doctor. Dr. Jay Phipps. Jay, how are you doing today, brother?

1:51Dr. Jay Phipps:I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Great introduction. Super excited about being on the podcast today.

1:57Mick:Man, I'm the honored one. You know, been a huge fan of what you do. We connected on LinkedIn, and I've been following you literally ever since, man. And Jay, you know how I love to start my podcast with, you know, what's your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, that's your true purpose and all the cool things that you're doing, especially with the freedom from fear tour, man, what's your because why do you continue to do what you do?

2:23Dr. Jay Phipps:Yeah. So fear can either be a barrier or a bridge between your dreams and your destiny. So my because is trying to get people to use that as a, as a bridge so they can conquer their fears and reach their destiny.

2:36Mick:I love that, dude. I love that. And you're like, you're the fear, the fear doctor, right? Like you're the, I don't want to say expert because I don't like using that term expert, but you're the guy that literally can talk through fear, how to overcome it, where does it stem from, where are the obstacles you have with it? So when did you know that that was something that you needed to spread across the country and really ignite with people and in particular business owners?

3:04Dr. Jay Phipps:Great question. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've owned businesses since I graduated pharmacy school, actually, in my 25th year. And I've seen how fear impacts people and organizations. And a few years ago, I actually woke up at two in the morning and said, we live in a fear pandemic. It just hit me because the statistics say that 90 percent of people are afraid of failure and won't chase opportunities. Fear affects you in everything you do. You know, I think in our society now that we're afraid of people that look like us and don't look like us. We're afraid of, and social media is that echo chamber that drives that.

3:44Dr. Jay Phipps:People are afraid of making suggestions at work. About 87 % of people, 76 % or 75%, depending on if it's professional or personally, are afraid that they're stuck in their job or life. So I think we really live in a fear pandemic. And it hit me in the middle of the night. And I started researching and spending time trying to get all that right. make sure I got the facts and then started. I've worked with individuals for years on how do you become the best leader that you can be? And the next step was just my freedom for fear tour. How do you conquer fear? How do you overcome fear? And, and that's really expanded that.

4:27Dr. Jay Phipps:Really, I was working in the yard a couple, maybe a year ago, year and a half ago. And it hit me like The reason that I am, I don't really like the term fearless because it's impossible to be fearless. But but what you can be is someone that that faces fear and has the courage to overcome it. I had a family history where my mom was afraid of almost everything. And so that, I think, prepared me to not be fearful and to take on fears. Either you can be paralyzed by fear or you can move forward and conquer it. And so that really, that revelation of, I bet there are other people like me that grew up where we were afraid of lots of things.

5:12Dr. Jay Phipps:And so then I started doing the Freedom from Fear Tour where I'm conquering 100 fears in a year and proving that you can conquer fear, capital F fears and lowercase f fears. And we can talk more about that as we unpack the Freedom from Fear Tour.

5:28Mick:Yeah, and that's literally where I want to go. I want to unpack the tour. Like, why did you decide to start it? I got a little bit of it there, but let's go a little bit deeper into the mission behind it, why you decided to start it, and then let's talk about some of the fears that you're overcoming with the tour.

5:46Dr. Jay Phipps:Yeah, it really was to prove the science that I've read, that you can face your fears, that fears aren't as overwhelming as what most people think. 85 % of people do better with fears than what they think they're going to do. Most people do better with fears. Most people say that fears aren't as bad as what they think. And so I wanted to go out and prove that science behind that. And so I've got a structure. I call it the flip your fear narrative where you face the challenge. You empower yourself. You act boldly to revolutionize your life. and and with that you have to you have to face a challenge you have to be um you know you can either be like a cow or a buffalo uh you probably know but um the difference in in those two things is you know when a storm a cow runs from it walks away from it a buffalo faces it and that's exactly what you have to do you have to face your fear you have to empower yourself um visualization is great and um i just proved that to myself i've been preaching it but um i went skydiving a few weeks ago.

6:54Dr. Jay Phipps:And one of my big fears is jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. And since I was about a teenager, I've wanted to do it, but never did it. And so I jumped out of that plane about 100 times before I got there. I visualized myself jumping out of the plane and being successful at it. And then you act boldly. I think too many people plan and never act. So action is really the key. I call it the action is antidote for fear. And then it revolutionizes your life. You actually restructure your amygdala, your fear center, every time you conquer a fear. So I put that structure together and the Freedom for Fear tour was really just testing that.

7:36Dr. Jay Phipps:Does it work? And what I'm saying is consistently it does. So I've done things from, I'll tell you one of the bigger fears was I announced that I was going to do a hundred fears in a year. That's a fairly big commitment. Considering that I'm a CEO of three companies, I've got a lot of balls in the air at any given time. Speaking and leadership development is my passion. And that's where I spend a significant amount of my time and to say, hey, I'm going to do 100 fears in a year. But announcing it, I've had colonoscopy, which cancer screenings, because I see patients every day that are afraid to actually find out if they have potentially have a cancer or health condition.

8:17Dr. Jay Phipps:I got a power of attorney on my parents, which I had put off for two years because of fear. And then I've done those. I've hired people. I've fired people. I've talked about perfectionism and how perfectionism is a sign of fear. As I said, I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, which was an amazing experience. My 21-year-old went with me then. He jumped out first and said, Dad, you have to jump if I'm out of the plane. And I actually I never never hesitated, went right out. If you see facial expressions of me as they're coming out of the plane, I may not look like I was having fun, but I really was having a really good time.

8:57Dr. Jay Phipps:And I went cat surfing on a nuclear day in Hood River, Oregon, with 40 mile an hour winds. I climbed Mount Hood, which is the third most deadly mountain in North America. So doing capital affairs like those and also things like telling people, thank you. and I'm sorry and the fears that keep us caged many times. Yeah, that's awesome.

9:22Mick:I want to go into something you said early on, which is the power of visualization. To me, as a serial entrepreneur just like you, I understand the power of visualization. I'm a writer, so I like to write things down and I can't do a plan unless it's visually in front of me. But then also the practice of seeing the result happen so that I can practice and anticipate because visually I've already been there. Talk through the power of visualization for the listeners and viewers. Yeah.

9:54Dr. Jay Phipps:One very powerful thing that I think people don't realize is your brain can't tell the difference between you experienced it and visualizing it. Your brain is a store that is a memory either way. so it's just like um when you when you visualize yourself jumping out of a plane um your brain thinks you've done that so when you get to the edge of the cliff and you're 14 000 feet in the air your brain thinks hey i've already done this a bunch of times um where does that end up um you know from practical because i've got lots of friends that are like i'll never jump out of a plane that's nuts you know that doesn't relate to me it's the same thing about opening a business We're having a difficult conversation.

10:31Dr. Jay Phipps:How many times do people avoid conflict, which is fear? And if you can visualize not the negative, but the great outcome that you're going to have, you and I have a tiff. We want to talk about it. What happens? Most of the time we awfulize it. We think about, oh, I'm going to talk to Mick about it and he's going to be mad and we'll never be friends again. But when you visualize it, it's going to go well. It's going to have a good outcome, we're going to be close for friends because of it, then that prepares your brain for those conversations so that you're already ready for them. And that really, you build that fear muscle, I call it.

11:10Dr. Jay Phipps:Every time you conquer a fear, you build that fear muscle, makes every other fear easier to conquer. So visualization is key. It increases your likelihood of conquering a fear by about 40%. So huge, huge difference. I talk to people all the time about how they're like, I don't visualize all the great athletes do. All the great performers visualize. Why don't business owners? Why don't healthcare practitioners? You know, why are we not using that resource, which is really our mind? If we can use our mind, we prepare ourselves for the future so that we can really reach who we should be.

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12:35Mick:Whether it's enriching leads, coaching your sales team, resolving tickets, or streamlining marketing, Zapier makes it simple. Join the 3.4 million companies already automating with Zapier and transform how you work with Zapier and AI. Get started for free by visiting zapier.com slash mick. That's Z-A-P-I-E-R.com slash mick. No, totally. And I have two examples of that. You know, I work with speakers on coaching them through their keynotes, building their keynotes. And a lot of times it's that fear, right, of public speaking. and I tell them literally what you just said. I go through a visualization training.

13:22Mick:We're going to envision you walking on stage. We're going to envision you turning and facing the crowd. And we're going to practice and rehearse the first three minutes of your speech. And I do that with every speaker. And then I also tell them when you get to the stage or when you get to the venue, most of the time it's going to be open for you to see. So go a little early and then go out there. And before you step, visualize yourself walking on stage, whether it's a stage, whether it's a floor, whatever it is. And then visualize yourself turning and facing the audience and then visualize those three minutes and then go practice it.

13:59Mick:And people look at me there every time. It never fails. Mick, what do you mean? There's going to be no one in the room. But to your point, Dr. J, it's literally that your brain needs to see and feel yourself. You need that muscle memory in the brain. You need to physically be able to orate what you're trying to say, because if you can win the first three minutes as a speaker, you are going to win the speech. Absolutely. Where people go wrong is the first 60 seconds they're stumbling and the audience can see the fear. And again, no one's against you in the speech. Right. But but that energy becomes awkward.

14:35Mick:And so I tell speakers that all the time. And then the second one, Dr. J, is I tell salespeople. Envision yourself. Closing a cell. Absolutely. If you haven't practiced, if you can't see it, if you can't visualize yourself closing a cell, you're not going to know what it feels like in the moment. You always want to know what it feels like in the moment, because that's your confidence. That's your clarity of going through everything. So I'd love your feedback on those two scenarios.

15:06Dr. Jay Phipps:I agree with you 100%. When I talk to groups, I'm a very interactive keynote speaker. I walk the room, which makes video and audio people a little nervous sometimes. But it doesn't matter how big the room is. I'm going to be in the back of it. I'm going to be looking at people. I'm going to be talking to them. And you walk by and you talk to them about visualization. And what do they do? They look at you like you have, you know, you've got three heads and, you know, something's wrong with you. And I agree 100 percent. That's really where it's at, because you can get your reps in. And it's all about reps.

15:40Dr. Jay Phipps:I've got a 21 year old that he was a very good competitive pistol and rifle shooter. I'm trained at the Olympic Training Center, won national championship. Very good. And oftentimes he would just shoot a few times a year physically, but mentally he would practice, you know, getting visual reps over and over and over. And it just made him such a better performer. And why don't we do that as, as, um, you know, with our job, as you talk about with, with sales execs, you know, if you're sitting down, if you can't see that, um, it's so much harder to actually do it. So yeah, you know, just getting those reps in your head, making your brain, um, be able to see it.

16:20Dr. Jay Phipps:And then I really do think that gets you closer and closer to where you can be makes it so much easier to do. I do the same thing. Probably two, three years ago, I started using visualization. And one of the things I tell myself every morning is I'm going to be the number one motivational speaker in the world. That's it. I tell myself and I see myself walking out on those big stages over and over and over again, talking about how people can overcome fear. And it just makes it easier when it is time to walk out. Fear, if you're not prepared for fear, it will, it will take over, you know, your amygdala isn't back there to protect, protect you from saber tooth tigers.

16:58Dr. Jay Phipps:And so when you get there, you know, we don't have saber tooth tigers, but when you walk out, you know, your mouth dries a little bit because you're protecting yourself. So you don't have so much saliva that you, if you're running from that tiger that you, you know, that you, you choke on it. And so what happens, you get in front of people, your brain doesn't know the difference. And so it starts to shut down and, and getting those reps in absolutely is essential. You know, that's the empowerment side is when you can see yourself, the action becomes so much easier. You know, you face it, you empower yourself, and then you're 100 % ready for action.

17:36Mick:I love it, brother. One of the things you also talk about from a mindset standpoint is shifting from a reactive mindset to a proactive mindset. talk to the listeners and viewers about why that's important yeah because so many of us just sit

17:52Dr. Jay Phipps:around and just wait for life to happen to us you know um and uh about 10 years ago now i had a physical condition that um i really thought i would be paralyzed a physician told me that um that um he expected if i didn't have surgery in the next month or so that i would be paralyzed from the neck down so that's enough to change your life right um and it happened because i was on an elliptical one day and, um, you know, basic real, you know, light activity exercise. And I raised my neck back. And when I did, I lost control of all four limbs, just hit the ground, just, just fell, fell back on my head.

18:27Dr. Jay Phipps:And, um, I was going to see a physician for something, um, anyway, an appointment in two or three days. And I went there and I point was done. And I said, Hey doc, by the way, I got this weird thing. If I move my neck back, it feels like I grabbed the electric fence and he said well let's he said you know let's do an mri let's see what's going on and long story short um that there was a bone growth in my spinal column that um was cutting off the spinal cord and if you um you look at the the mri part of the spinal cord itself is um started to started to die um and then i ultimately lost the my fifth cervical nerve i don't have an anterior of deltoids, so I can't raise my arm like most people can do.

19:11All that really made me decide,

19:15Dr. Jay Phipps:am I taking on life or is life taking me on? And I decided at that moment, I was no longer going to let life control me. I was going to control my destiny. And that really changed everything. And it's all about perspective. We can find problems if we want to find problems. If we want to find solutions, we can find solutions. And I think it's all about that mindset of being proactive instead of letting life happen to you.

19:41Mick:Totally agree, brother. Totally agree. Talk a little bit about the power of positive thinking and positive energy. I'm a huge proponent of you can find positivity in almost everything. And if your outlook is positive, then the solution usually is positive as well, too. But I'd love to get your insights on that.

20:00Dr. Jay Phipps:Absolutely. I agree 100 percent it's all about outlook you know because you know our brains are wired i'm gonna go back to the amygdala again that fear center it's it's made to protect us right it's made to find the negativity it's a may it's made to to look for that predator um and for the most part we don't live in that anymore you know we don't yes there's situations where it can be dangerous but but for the most part we don't have the same dangers that um our ancestors had um and so um So our brain wants to take us back and find those fears and find those challenges. And I agree 100 percent.

20:37Dr. Jay Phipps:It's all about looking for that positivity. You want to be the thermostat, not the thermometer in the room, as they say. You want to control it. And and you can you can, you know, find problems everywhere you look. But you can also find solutions in just as many as many things. I got a little interesting story. We're moving my original pharmacy location today. I opened 25 years ago in June. And while my team is doing a great job today, I am here recording with you, which I'm super excited about. But we did the move. And so I'm hands on my hands on leader. I'm there with them all weekend, getting everything set up.

21:22Dr. Jay Phipps:We're done at the end of the day on Saturday and we decide we're going to go get something to eat. and my facility management guy yells, oh no. We're like, what's going on? We had a brand new building, remodeled building, had a water leak. We had about an inch of water in the back of the building on the side we're still working on. At no point did anyone on my team talk about how bad it was or how it was going to keep us from getting open today. We all just went to work. We looked for the solution and um i think that that positive positive mindset really is contagious and and you can build that culture um of positivity you know i'm known as the pharmacy gladiator um which um which i which um i wear as a badge of honor uh but i and i think that um you know being a gladiator is really about you know not being um enslaved by fear you know it's really because um you know in the Roman empire gladiators were slaves and what did they do?

22:27They had to fight to earn their freedom.