Alan Philips Quotes

“In today’s market, anything that isn’t differentiated through creativity or a 10x technology will be immediately commodified by the industrial system. The only way to sustainably incite your audience to take action is to inspire them with meaningful purpose.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Experienced creatives develop the ability to manifest their breed of creativity consistently over a period of time. Simply put, it’s the difference between a one-hit wonder and Michael Jackson.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“AMAZING ACHIEVEMENT AND LASTING FULFILLMENT COMES FROM UNDERSTANDING AND HARNESSING THE EMOTIONAL ELEMENTS.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Up until that day, I had never really thought about why I defined success that way—instead, I’d been obsessed with how I would attain those things. That focus on the how instead of the why had really tripped me up. It had led me to make some very bad decisions and to experience some very unhappy times. When you follow the influence of mainstream culture—television, movies, magazines, and more—to elevate the goals of wealth, power, and recognition above all else, it becomes logical to take selfish or negative actions in order to attain them. After all, that kind of approach—playing the game, playing for keeps, as they say—is put forth as the way to achieve success and happiness. Machiavelli’s writings are often referenced to support this point of view—statements like “the ends justify the means”—but it should be noted that Machiavelli died alone and in exile.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“It was my own frustration in constantly explaining the value of intangibles that led me to write down these thoughts, intending to increase understanding by creating a coherent explanation of this transformative perspective.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“The Creator’s Formula is made up of four key elements: defined purpose, experienced creativity, flawless execution, and emotional
generosity.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Once you discover your purpose, the goal becomes to live it in all aspects of what you do. This is the integrated life, a life in which there’s no difference between work and play; there’s only your purpose and what you’re doing at that very moment to live that truth, wholly and completely. The closer you get to that point, the closer your entire life comes to being an actualized existence, and the more likely you will enjoy many more of Maslow’s peak experiences.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“While Sweetgreen specializes in serving healthy salads and grain bowls, there are doz- ens of salad and health food restaurant groups that do the same. It is Sweetgreen’s commitment to their higher purpose that sets them apart.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Through this purpose Sweetgreen has become more than a restaurant—it’s become a movement and a community, one that people are so proud to be a part of that they share Sweetgreen content on their social feeds and wear T-shirts emblazoned with the restaurant’s logo. The founders remain committed to their differentiating core values, such as “creating solutions where the company wins, the customer wins, and the community wins,” and have used those values, rooted in their purpose, to drive the company forward.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“The crowds aren’t coming to Sweetgreen stores and the festival simply for great salads or cool music acts. They’re coming because they buy into what Sweetgreen stands for, and because, on a deeper level, they feel a reflection of themselves in Sweet- green’s purpose—which is itself an honest manifestation of what the people behind the business believe and what they stand for.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“BUILD A LIFE THAT CREATES THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO GREAT WORK.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“ideas come in the doing: learn it, to know it.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Like shooting a basketball or playing a guitar, being creative— the miracle of forming something new and valuable through action or thought—must be practiced, no matter what the medium of expression.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Being an independent thinker is the opposite of what we’re taught by most organized groups, from preschool classes to our teams at work. We feel comfortable in communities, so we encour- age the group dynamic and fitting-in above individuality. But cre- ativity and innovation require that you trust yourself and go against the group—that you think for yourself. Nothing truly innovative, visionary, or creative has ever come out of a group of people sitting in a boardroom giving their opinions on an idea, especially when the market is demanding authenticity.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Trusting yourself enough to go against the grain, to do some- thing that’s truly a reflection of your purpose, isn’t what we’re taught. It only comes when we’ve gained enough experience to choose our own path, trust our instincts, and create from within. That’s what it means to be an experienced creative.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“The fact is, your creative potential is unrealized without execution. You love Apple products not only because they’re beautiful, you love them because they work really well. You love your favorite restaurant not only because the food is great, but because it’s consistently great.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Emotional generosity is when an individual or organization combines empathy—the willingness to feel, understand, and share another person’s experiences and emotions—and sacrifice, surren- dering something you need or desire so that someone else can have it. The result of combining these two attributes is trust: the belief that someone or something is good, honest, and reliable. And when someone trusts you, they’re willing to emotionally connect with you. That connection, that bond, is invaluable, both in personal relationships and organizational loyalty and growth. When people feel trust and connection, they allow themselves to be taken on a journey, and that’s what makes it possible to create something truly special.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Shortcuts don’t work because by nature they show you don’t really care about the customer’s needs more than your own. Manipulating a customer into action is no different from manipulating a friend to get your way. True emotional generosity combines action and intention to create lasting connection.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“It was at that point I fully appreciated Michael’s generous spirit, his lack of selfish motives. By giving himself to people like me, he gives himself the greatest gift imaginable: Michael fills his world with an energy and fulfillment that will sustain him well beyond his ability to contribute.”
― Alan Philips

“In our new paradigm, your business must make people feel. The people who need to feel good about your brand are your customers, and your job is to make them happy. Customers are happy when they feel you understand their needs and are willing to sacrifice to make sure they’re met. This sacrifice can manifest itself in many forms—from working extra-hard to provide the goods or services you promised, or going above and beyond to fix something that went wrong. Whatever you do, when you meet the needs of your customers consistently and exceed their expectations with more care for their happiness than your bottom line, you become worthy of loyalty and trust. That loyalty and trust strengthens the connection that’s the bedrock of a great brand and a key component of unlocking your creative potential. That’s what it means for an organization to be emotionally generous.”
― Alan Philips

“So, what is it that Rubin does? How has he helped artists make their best music for nearly forty years across such disparate genres and styles? The secret seems to be rooted in self-discovery. As Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks put it, the legendary pro- ducer “has the ability and the patience to let music be discovered, not manufactured.” In other words, to use our terminology, Rubin understands that magic needs to come from within.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“This combination of the internal, intangible emotional jour- ney and the practical skill of making music—the “heartwork and headwork,” as Rubin calls it—is how he’s sustained his craft across genres for so many decades. He taps into something far beyond the type of music or production style, and instead connects to the artist through a first-principle truth: that their greatest work can only come from manifesting and sharing a reflection of their true purpose.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Discovery occurs when the creator(s) looks within, and creative outputs improve as self-awareness increases. The more you understand about yourself and what is important to you, the more meaningfully you can share that with the world.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Who we are to the outside world and whether we are able to manifest our purpose is the result of work done when no one is looking. Every decision we make has positive and negative implications for our future and therefore must involve a strong framework, one that guides our choices and focuses our energy.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Your purpose is the emotional and spiritual energy that surrounds the commercial aspects of what you do; it can’t be to make a lot of money or sell a lot of widgets. While generating a significant financial return may be a result of pursuing your purpose, it can’t be why you do what you do. Money isn’t what the journey’s about. We aren’t here to survive; we’re here to self-actualize and thrive.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“WE ALL HAVE PRIMARY MOTIVATIONS THAT EXIST BENEATH
THE SUPERFICIAL ELEMENTS OF LIFE, MAKING US WHO WE ARE. THE KEY NOW WILL BE TO MANIFEST YOUR PURPOSE IN PURSUITS THAT ARE
A REFLECTION OF THAT PURPOSE.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Before humans started messing around with the system, nature existed in harmony for millions of years—a beautiful symphony of seasonal change, birth and death, creation and destruction. This same harmony that drives the natural world applies to the intangible, emotional world of humans. We, too, must achieve harmony between all the elements of our lives, between the internal self and the external world.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“A harmonious state of being is defined as a state in which your internal needs are aligned with the actions you take and the surrounding energy of the world. The only way to create this harmony is by aligning your priorities with what you do every day.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“Sometimes, when we least expect it, energy moves like a tornado, in directions we don’t expect and that can feel negative. Our plan and harmony are disrupted, and then the question becomes, what do we do?

The natural reaction when something happens that’s unplanned is to panic or “fight the energy.” But that’s exactly the type of action you don’t want to take, because it’s in exact opposition to the harmony we’re aiming to achieve. So what can we do instead? There’s only one answer: accept it. Pause, take a deep breath, and trust that everything that happens is in your best interests.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential

“The swoosh is worth more than the sneaker.”
― Alan Philips, The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential