Adam Torres and Philip Ayles discuss mindful leadership.
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Show Notes:
What does it take to become a mindful leader? In this episode, Adam Torres interviewed Philip Ayles, Founder & President of Ayles Solutions. Explore mindful leadership and the new book Philip released, Mission Matters: World’s Leading Entrepreneurs Reveal Their Top Tips To Success (Business Leaders Edition Vol. 10).
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About Philip Ayles
Philip is a retired US Army combat service-connected disabled veteran whose passion is to Solve Problems and Fostering Relationships. Philip has always been drawn to law enforcement since he was 5 years old and involved in a bad car accident. He was impressed by the local deputies who responded to the call.
Public service has always been Philip’s calling. He genuinely enjoys interacting with diverse groups of people. Diversity is the spice of life.
Emotional Intelligence has been a great focus of Philip over the past years of my life. EQ has further developed his ability to understand others around him. Philip’s field experience was developed in Iraq as both military and contractor positions.
Philip uses his education and experience to develop a roadmap to achieving your best life. The pursuit of Happiness plays a part in utterly understanding what you really want out of life. His intent is to show that anything is possible with the right mindset, focus and time.
The military, veterans, first responders who lose sight of their purpose in life. Philip’s overall intent of everything he is involved with in eliminating Suicide from those who devote their lives to public service.
Philip has a philosophy of 20/80 with regards to life in general. The media and government focus on the top 10% and the bottom 10%. The other 80% of the world doesn’t live like that. Philip has always lived his life in that 20% and now he chose to live in the 80%.
About Ayles Solutions
Ayles Solutions Coaches Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness content to address the holistic approach. Self awareness and the ability to control emotions in any situation. Understanding yourself and why you react in this manner. Emotional Intelligence is used to better the life choices that align with your goals. Working together, anything is possible.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. Alright, so today’s a very special episode. We are welcoming back Philip Ailes, who is the founder and president of Ailes Solutions.
And I’m proud to say and to announce is the latest author in our, in our recently released book, and it’s a best selling series. Then first off, I just want to say, Hey, Philip, welcome back to the show. Hey, thank you very much. I greatly appreciate all that you’ve done and that you do, and I’m happy to be a part of it.
Yeah. So I’m excited to dig into your content today. So your, your, your, your content or the title of your, your chapter in the book, my road to humanity, and you talked about becoming a mindful leader. Renewed energy, renewed purpose. We’re going to get into ale solutions as well. But before we do all of that, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with our mission matters minute.
So Phillip, we at mission matters, we amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s our mission. What mission matters to you? Well, right now, my mission matters is being. Finding your humanity, getting back to who you are and how you understand the world around you with no excuses. No, the world doesn’t care about you unless you make them care and show them what you bring to the world.
And a lot of it has to do with just finding yourself. And then from there, it’s. Limitless. Well, great having you back on the show. And I don’t wanna, I don’t want to assume that all our new listeners and viewers maybe caught some of our previous work. So maybe let’s just start with your background. And you know how you got on this path to helping people with becoming a mindful leader.
Like where did it all start for you? Well, it started with me after my daughter graduated I’d lost my house, lost everything. And I ended up buying a class ARV because I always thought about it and always talked about it and I had no other reason not to because who, because I knew more about other countries and I did my own and with that, I realized that, Hey. It’ll give me an opportunity to be alone and figure out what I really want out of life.
I sat in my RV in a Indian casino parking lot in Oregon because I had no clue how to drive it, turn anything on or anything. I had to spend two days to figure it out. And I told myself, you know what, at least it doesn’t get any worse than this. And honestly, for a single guy, it wasn’t bad because I only, I had to learn to rely on myself for everything.
And with that, I drove cross country and ended up coming to Jacksonville, Florida. And I met my wife and I’d been talking to my daughter about. My new perspectives and trying to change who I was because I realized through multiple deployments and everything I lost my humanity for Americans. We had, I had it for other countries and, and I always held Americans to a higher standard.
And maybe just, just for a second or two to kind of set the table here tell us a little bit more about before the RV, just so people understand your, your military history, things like that. So they know what they mean. You mean when they say, you know, for Americans. Okay. Well I was military police. I was able to have some phenomenal deployments.
I was spent a year in Korea, spent time in Germany, the Pentagon ground zero. I sat in Saddam’s chair in Iraq and I looked at it and I’ve done it both military. In Iraq, I did a year training the Iraqi police in Baghdad. And then I went back as a contractor, set up regional training centers for the Iraqi military.
And I had to interact with our military, their military, the locals everybody in their government and how they were going to set this up and distribute equipment and every in training and everything that we established for them. Yeah. And that’s helpful because I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood what you were talking about when you said for Americans.
So you, I mean, you dedicated a big portion of your life to, you know, to the service. So, okay, circling back to your story about, you know, where we’re at in the, in the the RV, let’s say journey and portion of your life. Okay, go ahead. Well, I realized that I had to take responsibility for myself, period. I had to, and with the help of my daughters.
Because they, they only knew me on the civilian side. They never interacted with me in the military and coming home. And I didn’t realize that I gave up my youth for my country. And now it’s about finding my balance because once you get out of the military, They, there’s nothing to re indoctrinate you back into being a regular civilian.
And one of the pains that we’ve seen is boredom because we’re so used to chaos and being able to thrive in the most inhospitable places. And then, but yet that’s what excites us professionally. But when we look back and come back to the regular world, we don’t understand. They don’t understand us and it comes to a point where somebody’s got to go.
And you know what? I’ll take responsibility. It’s me and who I am and what I bring to the table, because it doesn’t matter anything you did yesterday because it doesn’t exist. And all we have is right now and we’re doing this and thankfully we can record things like this that others can see later on.
Yeah. But. What I found out by interacting with a lot of warriors and military from all over the country because I stayed at Military bases because they were cheaper And so I interacted with veterans all the time service members their active duty. It doesn’t matter a lot of the complainants I don’t understand the civilian world.
Hmm because you may feel like they can’t get anything done. Well, it’s Because when you go back into civilian, where you don’t have that structure used to, and a lot of the civilians will tell you, man, it’s a cutthroat world out there. And now you’re competing with the 99 percent of the population that never served and they understand themselves or their world a lot better than yours.
And they believe stereotypes. Yeah. And so when, in this part of your journey, when did this, when were you introduced? If you remember, I don’t know if it was like just this moment or it was a book or something else. Like when did this concept of mindfulness kind of enter your vocabulary? And did you fit and you figured out like, Oh, like this is where I, the direction I should be heading.
Well, that all started with an ex girlfriend. I found out she would push my triggers. Intentionally to gain a certain response. And when she let me know about that, because before no one ever say anything and I got manipulated by whomever, now I understood that, Oh, they do it on purpose. So I can take control of that.
And instead of taking everything personally, I look at it, go, well, it’s just your opinion. Yeah. And that’s significant, by the way, for people listening, because there’s many relationships that can be like that, you know, just in general, it could be coworkers, it could be in the workplace, a lot of different things.
So letting people, you know, taking back control. That’s interesting. Go ahead. Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. It’s For me, the mindfulness and self awareness and the emotional intelligence, all working together to give you the better understanding of the world around you, because a lot of times our ego and our pride put on these filters that skew what’s really going on.
Cause honestly, a situation’s a situation. There’s no right or wrong. It just happened. And what are you going to do when everybody thinks they’re right. And part of that is knowing that I learned as a facilitator in Iraq, that I didn’t care about the outcome because it was about getting something done.
And I was. Sitting with all, all the decision makers that were wanting something to happen. So we’d make sure that it, that concept actually took form in reality. And I spent more time with the Iraqis than I did the U S military. And so I got to hear their stories and then there’s no difference between us and them other than geographic location or our cultures and stuff like that.
But we’re human. We all are in this planet together and that’s when I realized, wait a minute. Ah, it’s my thoughts, my beliefs, my everything that’s driving me and who am I to judge anybody else and vice versa. There’s no one who has the right to judge me, but God and what you bring into this world is the positive side because I’ve seen the horrors of humanity and how we can, how we treat each other and everything like that.
I realized here in Jacksonville, because I wasn’t getting any of the contacts or anything that I felt I wanted. You know what? Screw it. I’ll just be the good I want to see in the world. Wow. And I’ve kept that philosophy for the last six years. I had to actually remember exactly. Yeah, it’s been six years and I think, Oh, it’s my mind.
Yeah. Time flies sometimes with this stuff. I mean, just being an entrepreneur, being out there and we’ll definitely get into ale solutions and how you’re helping your clients. But before we do I do want to, I do want to pull one, one kind of component out of the book. So again, and for everybody watching you.
Pick up a copy, like great book, just so you know, we’re going to pick out some of this, but we’re not going to give you everything because we do sell books. So we want you to go grab a copy. Of course the link will be in the show notes. But that being said, so one of, one of the things you wrote about renewed energy, renewed purpose what was the, what was the inspiration for that?
Actually, that came out of COVID because one of the hardest thing to do. I was, the concept came up right as COVID was happening. And I, most of the people expected six months, well, two and a half years later. You like with me, the psychological end of it to where I was such a performer or in. I just got things done and not having that ability because nobody’s interacting was detrimental and kind of put me into depression.
And because, I mean, literally I couldn’t do anything for the first time in my life that I was forced to be separated. And that was very disheartening when you’re just pushing out and everything. They go, okay, quit. Well, you know, I, I looked at it, that was a way for me to even delve further into self awareness and understand that, Hey, this is way beyond our control and have a little grace for myself and understand that it was the circumstances at that time and it’s changing now and we’re trying to get back, but it’s not at the same level or same level.
Urgency it had been before, because now, I mean, I’m retired from the military. I have a disability. I can live on what I make, but there’s no fulfillment. And part of that was, you know, I could use this in help others. Yeah. Figure it out because a lot of people make excuses. And to me, it’s okay. Yeah. Well, how’s that still fix the problem?
And I, I chose to put together something a little bit more less in depth as. I mean, redoing all the research and all the books, and there’s so much material out there. Oh, for sure. And being able to break it down to where it’s easily, easily managed and you realize that the seed all comes from you. We are the seed of our own lives and the nutrients and thoughts and behaviors and everything that go into making you who you are.
And how you, how your actions, and I never realized I was mindlessly going through life. I was survived. I’d never looked back because I passed it matter. It’s what I was doing now and where I was going. Well, you don’t realize that you create this wake behind you. As you’re pushing through to hit your stride.
And so what I did is I looked at it, took accountability for it and said, this is the way we move forward every day now is a testament of. Let’s see what we can do in these 24 hours. I love it. And, and I look at and I think that’s a great transition actually. So you’ve, you know, you’ve been on your own journey and now that you’ve kind of, you found some things that, you know, have worked for you, you’ve chosen to, I like to say, you’ve been blessed.
Now you want to be a blessing, right? That’s a simple way to put it. So now you’re helping others. You’re helping, you know, business leaders, you’re helping, you know, individuals transitioning out of the military. I mean, you’re helping a lot of. people. So tell us about L solution and how you’re coaching veterans and another executive.
Okay, well, basically a solutions came out of the pandemic. I sat in two th I waited as long as I could. January 2022, I went and actually made it official and got my business license and started working on what I needed to do for the next step and to let everybody else know. That or what I have to offer and what we can bring them inner peace and joy and love by exuding love myself, because too many times I spent in survival mode, just doing what everything I could to get through the day and with the military, it was structured.
So I didn’t have to think it just, I had to take action and part of that was asking for help. I got help from a Wounded Warrior Project and another organization called Operation Uniformer. They’re both based out of here in Jacksonville that basically the Operation Uniform. Let me understand what my value is in the civilian side.
Because a lot of the times we could, I couldn’t translate. They had people ask me what I did. And I looked at him and I was like, I can pretty much do anything. That’s not a good answer. That’s not, you gotta, I like the, you gotta, gotta pick that niche. Yeah. And that’s that, for me, that was the hardest part is because how do I narrow this down to just one thing?
When the military taught you to improvise, adapt, and overcome every situation. And if you don’t know, learning. And that’s kind of my approach. I took with the emotional intelligence when I first read Daniel Goldman’s book emotional intelligence to point out. And in his book, he was just talking.
Nothing he said was brand new. Suddenly was enlightening. What he did was take the Buddhism religion and their philosophies and brought it to the emotional side of it. Because the thing about it is not until 1996, that emotional intelligence wasn’t even thought of. Everybody just, and everybody went to just the intelligence side of it.
Yeah, it was all EQ or IQ versus EQ. Yes, we didn’t. We didn’t have the language back then. No. And, but all this information has been out there for thousands of years and it’s about you. You know, stop griping about other people. Don’t worry about other people. They’re not in your control. If you don’t love yourself more than everybody else, you lose.
Because. You’re not living up to your full potential of your capabilities and what really desires that you have for living your happiest life. And I think that’s a goal that everybody should look towards, is knowing how they really fit in and having grace for themselves. Because I think we’re our own worst enemies, our critics.
Not enemies, critics. And, but with that is getting, and I could see this being applicable to even teenagers. In high school and when you get them at junior high to where they realize, you know, what the next four years are just four years in your life, what are you going to do once you’re done? Because that from 18 and on, if you can go into it and you control your emotions and the way you feel about things.
And having that, I consider it like a, that James Bond reaction, cool collective in any situation. And then you can release that energy in a more productive way at another time. And not everything is life or death in a, that mentality that I had for most of my life was life and death survival and I refused to run.
So let’s just say I kicked a lot of people off, but you know what? My heart was always pure and I told the truth and the people that had the worst, the hardest time with it were the ones that were crooked and heck. That we’re going against every principle that the United States military had. And I, I would dine them out at my own detriment.
And I realized when you fight every single battle, people stop listening. Yeah. And I needed to control myself and what I was doing because. The Eureka moment was, huh, and people did try to tell me, but I wasn’t, I, I thought I knew better. And that’s when I looked at it and I was like, oh man, if I can get anybody else in from the military or it, the civilian law enforcement and first responders, even public service in itself, when we transitioned over to a.
Civilian business or become an entrepreneur. You have to know why you’re there and your purpose direction and your motivation to go through something. And that’s what I thrive for in with each of my clients. It’s not about me. I know me. It’s about now. Let’s get you to know you and what you really love in this world and what inspires you to do your best.
And you know what? You only have one life. Let’s see what we can make out of it. Yeah. I have no regrets. I’ve been to con. I saw what it was like. And then you come back here and you realize our, our, even our cities are not even getting it right. And so I met the mayor of Jacksonville, the new one, Donna, she’s the first female mayor.
And I looked at him and told him that they have. All the capabilities in the world. I said, there’s so much potential here and it’s getting everybody to come together and realize I don’t have to like you, but you know, it’s love being in Jacksonville, make it the best live on the planet, not the United States, because I don’t know how you got this overwhelming feeling to bring everybody together and facilitate a better life for.
Ourselves and our Children and there’s no reason why all the all the youth want to leave because there’s nothing here for I completely agree with that. I get what you mean to like there’s there’s a lot of there’s a lot of room. There’s a lot of opportunity for growth. Not in our cities. I mean, in our and just even as leaders.
So thinking about how we’re, you know, mindfulness and what that entails and what that looks like in our lives. That being said, I know we just kind of scratched the surface on your material and your coaching and what you do, and we’re going to be doing a whole lot more. We’re just, we’re just starting all this book promo, as I mentioned before.
But that being said if somebody wants to continue the conversation with you and if they want to, again, we just scratched the surface today and they want to connect with you and also talk about what you’re doing over at Ale’s Solution. Like what’s the best way for people to reach out? Well, you can get ahold of me on my website at alessolutions.
com and or you can contact me at 904 469 6883. Or you can you’ll get my, you can get my email address off of LinkedIn or Facebook. I’m on all those platforms. That’s awesome. So I, so we’ll put all of that into the show notes, of course so that our audience can, can, you know, just head into the show notes and click on the links and go to your website.
But that being said, I mean, what’s next? What’s next for you? What’s next for AL Solutions? Well, you know, a lot of it has to do with me taking advantage of opportunities like this. It’s getting the word out and cause. No one’s going to use my services if they don’t know who I am and what I, why I’m doing.
That’s the way it works for all of us, for the entrepreneurs out there. There’s, there’s so much in what Phillip just said. Like, Hey, if they don’t know you, how can they, how can they connect? So love that. Philip and we’re happy to get your word out to our audience and to further spread your message and your work, not just through our books, but also through through the content like this and putting out these interviews.
So, I mean, honestly, awesome having you back on the show. And speaking of the audience, by the way, so for anybody that’s listening or watching if you, if this is your first time with. mission matters or engage in the platform. We’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs and executives and having them share their mission.
The reason behind their mission, like what gets them fired up to go out into the marketplace and into the world and make a difference each and every day. If that’s type of content that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss Thing, Philip, man, really appreciate you coming back on the show.
It’s always a pleasure working with you. It’s always thank you. Hey, thank you very much. And I see the value in this and I plan on utilizing it the best of my ability.