Do you ever feel like you’re wearing “false armor,” pretending to be strong while quietly battling internal struggles? In this transformative episode, Phil Bohol unpacks the truth about vulnerability and its role in true strength. Using personal stories and raw honesty, he explores the dangers of denying unhappiness, bottling up emotions, and clinging to survival-mode habits that no longer serve us. Phil shares actionable steps for reflecting on the past year, releasing old baggage, and stepping into the courage required to lead your family, business, and life with authenticity.

Welcome to The Phil Bohol Show, hosted by USMC veteran, mindset coach, sales expert, self-made entrepreneur, husband, and father, Phil Bohol. On this podcast, we don't just offer strategies — we offer a war cry, a call to arms, a challenge to rise, to break free from the shackles of mediocrity. You’ll learn the raw truth on how to break your limitations, scale your business to 7-figures, and level up every area of your life. Together, we won't just face challenges. We will crush them. Relentlessly.

(00:00 ) Introduction and Purpose of the Show

(00:59 ) The Importance of Reflection

(01:36 ) The Burden of Pretending

(02:19 ) The Power of Vulnerability

(04:07 ) Facing Internal Struggles

(06:05 ) The Courage to Change

(07:59 ) Letting Go of the Past

(09:46 ) The Path to Self-Discovery

(16:25 ) Breaking Free from the Matrix

(20:36 ) Reflecting on the Year

(23:11 ) Final Thoughts and Challenges

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[00:00:00 ]

You know, I got a wife, I got kids, I got people looking up to me. I'm the provider, I create security, so how does somebody like me Stop pretending.

What's going on you guys, it's Phil Bohol and welcome to the Phil Bohol Show, where we have real talk about family, fitness, finance, and everything that would hold you 

[00:00:30 ]

back from leveling up in every area of your life. 

And more importantly, how I personally got through them. Everybody else in this world wants to bullshit you.

I'm here to give you the truth.

What's going on you guys. It has been a minute since we've done a little bit of a podcast episode. 

So we're just going to catch up on some things, especially as we wrap up this year. 

I really want you to 

[00:01:00 ]

 spend some time reflecting. 

I don't think a lot of people reflect enough. 

You get so caught up in your day to day, you get so caught up in the busyness of life.

If you don't reflect, you don't actually learn, you don't extract the teachings or the wisdoms that you need. 

So that way you can elevate in every area of life. 

The whole mentality of go, go, go only serves you to a certain extent. 

And if you don't take time to reflect, then you're not going to know where the gaps are in your operating system, in your 

[00:01:30 ]

mentality, in your spirituality, in your emotional control and emotional mastery.

And so when we think about why a lot of people operate in this life wearing what I call false armor, they pretend to be a very specific way. 

Let's say that you have a family that you lead. It's very easy to get caught in this mentality of, well, I have to look strong. 

You know, I got a wife, I got kids, I got people looking up to me.

[00:02:00 ]

Um, the provider, I create security. So how does somebody like me stop pretending? 

I have to be strong for the family. 

I have to be this. 

I have to be that,

All you have to do is really be yourself. 

That's the good, the bad, the ugly. 

And men, if you're married, the best thing that you can do for your marriage, the best thing that you can do for your family is to stop trying to pretend to be Superman.

See, because when you 

[00:02:30 ]

pretend to be Superman, that everything is good. 

Whether business is actually doing good, but you're not good, or you're pretending you're happy right now, but you're not actually happy, whatever it is for you, you're hurting the people that could potentially step up to help you carry some of that weight.

So I was talking to somebody and they weren't telling their wife all of the hardship they're experiencing. And this happened for like two years 

[00:03:00 ]

straight. 

And the guy just felt like he was crumbling and crumbling and crumbling like everything was just going to shit. 

I said,” have you told your wife any of this?”

He said, “no, you know, she's busy with the kids. She's trying to do her thing at work. And it's just it's not the right time to do it.” 

I said, “man, it's been two years though. 

You've been struggling with this internal battle by yourself for two years and you haven't even told your partner, your spouse, the person you're going 

[00:03:30 ]

 to do life with.”

How does that make any sense? 

And he says, well, I'm trying to protect her. 

I said, how is it protecting her though? 

Because for you to carry this false armor, this burden, you don't think that energetically, your family doesn't feel that every day. 

They don't see the look in your eyes when you're lost in your own thoughts, in your mind, even though you're supposed to be at the dinner table, or you're supposed to be hanging out with the kids, or you're supposed to be on a date 

[00:04:00 ]

night with your wife.

You don't think that they, they don't feel any of that. 

And they probably didn't. 

They probably do. 

I said, “look, man, the hardest thing that you can ever do is to be completely open, honest, and transparent with your wife about how crappy you actually feel.” 

And I invite you to do that. 

And he's like, “Oh man, I'm just, I'm breaking down.”

I'm crying. He's like crying. And, um, he's like, “I don't know. I 

[00:04:30 ]

don't know what's going to happen. 

I don't, I don't want her to feel like I couldn't do it.

That I, that I, that I'm breaking down right now.” 

I said, “just see what happens, man.”

And so he goes and he has this conversation with his wife and he hits me back, you know, a couple of days later and he says, “bro, I don't know why it took so long for me to finally talk about what was going on with me.

But my wife said she's got my back. She's going to support me no matter what and that I got 

[00:05:00 ]

this and the whole purpose of me telling you this story is to help you understand that a lot of the time.

Especially when you're the provider of a household when you lead a household or you know, you're the person that people go to. 

It's sometimes difficult to feel like you can take off the armor for a little bit and be human. 

That's the most powerful thing, the most courageous thing anybody can do. 

So it takes a lot of courage to be weak.

[00:05:30 ]

The only time it's actually a weakness is when you start to judge yourself or become afraid of people's judgment of you. 

But I want you to really ask yourself, is that the quality of life that you want to create and establish for yourself? 

And is that the example you want to set for your kids that when you got all this shit going on internally, that bottling it up is the solution?

The powering through it, even though it feels like a void. 

That's the solution. 

Is that what you want to show your kids? 

Cause whether you say it or not, they're going to follow in 

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the actions. 

 

They're going to follow in how you carry yourself throughout life. 

And so what I invite you to do is ask yourself where this past year, have you been pretending?

Where have you been pretending to be good? 

When have you been pretending to be happy when you're not? 

When have you been pretending that there's nothing going on? 

See, I was really struggling with this for, for a large portion of my life. 

You know, after my parents got 

[00:06:30 ]

divorced at an early age, I was like, in denial for a majority of my life, all the way up until adulthood.

Literally until I met my wife.

And I kept lying to myself that this is what life is supposed to be like. 

You go through hardship in your life and you just power through. 

And you just do your best, but what you think is your best when you're at your weakest is not even close to your best. 

And for a long time in my life, I held myself back from self actualization, from healing, from really being 

[00:07:00 ]

able to absorb life for what it's supposed to be.

It wasn't until I was brutally honest with myself that number one, I was actually extremely unhappy, which is probably why at 16 years old, I was miserable and that I was actually making this void much bigger and bigger and bigger. 

I was unhappy with myself. 

I didn't love myself. 

I didn't even know that was a thing.

And I made decisions that would make me more miserable 

[00:07:30 ]

because I thought those temporary things, you know, getting drunk,