Phil Frischke

13 surgeries by age 20. Living with butterfly disease.
I teach giving speeches and write about self-improvement.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

I've had a rare skin disease since birth and was given
3 months to live.

My skin tears easily, causing daily pain.

Yet, I’m now in my 20s.

Here’s how I’ve learned to overcome these challenges and work towards my goals:

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@yesadok True

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

Speaking goals worth chasing:

Open without notes
Make one stranger feel seen
Hold a pause without panicking
End on a line people quote back to you

Hit these and you're in the top 1% of speakers.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@riinshaan Yeah true

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

Challenges you'll hit when you start speaking in public:

Someone will look bored.
Your voice will shake.
Your mind will blank.

But push through these and you win something most people never get: the ability to hold a room.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@blakeaburge The gym taught me the same in a smaller way.

I prep the bag the night before, leave it by the door, and just show up at 5am whether I feel like it or not.

No system, no hack, just removing every reason not to. Boring reliability quietly wins.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@mindandglory I tested the opposite first. My agency was basically begging, 2,600 cold emails asking for a yes, and it closed nobody.

Building something visible is slower, but the first client who came to me arrived because of work I had shown, not a pitch I sent.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@SahilBloom My version of a stack is built around a hard limit most people dont have.

A skin condition means wound care can take 2 to 3 hours a day, so the system protects energy first, then sleep 8pm to 5am, then gym.

Anything that cannot survive a bad pain day got cut.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@KevinSzabo14 For a while I confused consuming with learning and watched endless videos thinking it counted. It did not.

Real learning left a mark because I did something with it. Input without output just feels productive.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@Lilly7862 Quiet execution and quiet stalling look identical from the outside. Not posting is not proof of building, it is just not posting.

The loud-versus-silent framing misses that some silent people are deep in the work and others are deep in nothing.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@sheddy_memes I am not big on claiming things before they happen.

When I landed my first coaching client I did not announce it, I just opened a doc and started prepping.

The quiet kind of confidence has held up better for me than the loud kind. Different wiring, I guess.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@danmartell Money goals work best when theres a clear thing underneath them.

Pure number chasing tends to move the goalpost forever, so the uncomfortable amount arrives and somehow still feels like not enough.

The point was never the figure.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@Dwriteway Effort matters, but I would not write off luck completely.

With a skin condition that caps how many hours my body gives me, I cannot always out-effort someone.

So I lean on the part I control, where the energy goes, and accept the part I do not.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@MindMatterMoney I learned this one in a hospital lobby. I once collapsed there leaving too early after surgery, too proud to admit I was not okay.

Silence is useful, but I have also used it to dodge things I needed to say. The skill is knowing which one you are doing.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@DearS_o_n As a teenager I was hard on myself for not handling my skin condition with the calm I have now.

But that calmness was not available back then, it came from years of going through it.

You cannot skip the part that teaches you.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@KellyNgee Thank you. It means a lot to me!

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

I've had a rare skin disease since birth and was given
3 months to live.

My skin tears easily, causing daily pain.

Yet, I’m now in my 20s.

Here’s how I’ve learned to overcome these challenges and work towards my goals:

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@KevinSzabo14 Value first is right, but it skips a quiet trap.

You can hide inside creating value forever because it feels noble and never asks you to name a price.

At some point someone still has to be willing to pay, and that part is its own separate skill.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@stijnnoorman The not stopping part is where I lost my agency. I started it fine, sent around 2,600 cold emails, then drifted because nothing pulled me forward.

Starting ran on motivation. Continuing needed a reason that survived the boring middle, and I lacked one.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@mindandglory Lasting comes down to a pace you can repeat on a bad day, not a sprint you brag about once.

The move is a daily minimum low enough that you never fully stop, then letting the streak carry you. More here: https://t.co/qZgLfFZWYV

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@MasculineTheory The isolation stage is the one I would not romanticize.

I had a long period of it as a teenager, partly forced by a skin condition and partly by people who kept their distance.

It built something, but it also left habits I am still unlearning now.

[Phil Frischke @PhilsUpgrades]

@DearS_o_n I get the sentiment, but I would push back. Living with constant pain from a skin condition never once made me want to conquer anything.

Hard times taught me things, but the drive came from goals I actually wanted, not the pain itself. Pain mostly just hurt.