18 | PHIL STUTZ - Hollywood Psychiatrist and Best Selling Author

First Text with Cory Levy

This week, Cory speaks to the Hollywood psychiatrist and author Phil Stutz, who is well known for his client list boasting top writers, actors, producers, and CEOs. Together with Barry Michels, Phil is coauthor of Coming Alive: 4 Tools to Defeat Your Inner Enemy, Ignite Creative Expression, and Unleash Your Soul’s Potential and The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower—and Inspire You to Live Life in forwarding Motion, a New York Times bestseller. In this weeks episode, he talks about the common problems faced among the rich and famous, advice for those facing their fears and how to overcome failures, a few tools such as the reversal of desires, the dynamic evaluation, merit & power system and even gives wisdom on how to build long-lasting relationships.

“WINNING IS THE ABILITY TO FAIL AND MAKE A QUICK RECOVERY.”

Phil Stutz is a world-renowned best-selling author and Hollywood psychiatrist. Before moving his practice to Los Angeles in 1982, Stutz worked as a prison psychiatrist on Rikers Island. He’s been called the “Shrink to the Sars” because of his high-profile clients, and his ability to give them tools to overcome fear and roadblocks in their lives.

A key to overcoming fear and achieving success, according to Stutz, is to place something in your life higher than the specific result of an action. For example, if you’re studying for a test, you should have a goal tied with your studying that isn’t related to whether you get an A or an F. “Whether you want to get good grades, whether you want to have a successful business, a good marriage, it doesn’t matter. There’s got to be something higher than the results. If there’s nothing higher than the results your fear is going to eat you,” says Stutz.

One tool Stutz mentions in his OFF RCRD interview with entrepreneur and investor Cory Levy, is called the reversal of desire. “The normal desire that everybody has is to avoid pain, or if you want to say, it’s to avoid being afraid, avoid situations that scare you, even thinking about them. The tool is called the reversal of desire. Instead of the normal desire to avoid, the reversal of desire says, ‘I’m going right into the fear.’” Stutz continues, “If you approach fear aggressively and go right into it and that includes the circumstance that frightens you, fear actually shrinks. If you avoid fear, if you back away from it, if you run away from it, you avoid the situation, your fear gets bigger.”

“Worrying is a complete waste of time.”

While all of us worry to some degree, we also know it doesn’t get us anywhere. But what does? According to Stutz, moving past our worries and doing something about them not only helps us rise above worrying, it leads to knowledge. “Action breeds wisdom. You think wisdom comes from studying and all that. It’s okay. You get something from it, but it’s action itself. The action puts you in the middle of the world.” So if you’re worried about approaching a pretty woman to ask her out on a date, you will gain information and wisdom by taking action and approaching her. If you just walk away because of fear, that fear grows larger.

Not every action leads to success, and that’s okay. In fact, failure may actually lead us closer to success based on how we deal with a failure after it happens. “Highest achievement isn’t succeeding; it’s not avoiding failure. The highest achievement is to fail and recover quickly which requires a lot of things but mostly determination and the idea that I actually can recover from this.”