The "I" Word and The Compass

“There’s a compass I’ve carried since I was a boy —

It's not a physical one, but one that always points to honesty.

It’s guided every decision that mattered.”

- Phil Kaplan

In this blog piece, I know where I’m going, and by intention, I’m taking the long way there.

If we’re going to connect as partners in your healing, there are some things I want you to know about me.

Are you willing to read on?

For those who simply don’t have time for “a long read,” if something else is calling you to scroll or scan or you’re adequately distract, I understand.  I’m still here when you’re ready.

For those who feel there may be something here worth pursuing, there’s a bit of urgency, but I’ll still taking my time.  I want you to know this…

I never set out to become a Healer, a Guru, or even an Advocate.

How I Got Here

When I first planted my white Nikes on the proverbial “Road Less Traveled,” I was a bodybuilder, a rock musician, and a college student deciding between pre-med and exercise physiology. 

I loved fitness, I wanted to help people, and my thoughts of being “a doctor” were based more on a glorified vision than on actual passion.

Fitness?  That was a passion.  My Uncle Marty was a bodybuilder, a NYC firefighter and my weightlifting inspiration.  When I was 16, I met Lou and Matty Ferrigno (before Lou was famous).  My skinny body started to take shape, girls started to notice, and I was smitten.

Despite a clear recognition of how my love for fitness changed my life, I never planned to build a groundbreaking program that would help people reclaim their health.  That was God’s hand.

I never imagined I’d be put in a position to confront the flaws in the medical field. In fact, back then, I didn’t even know those flaws existed — for the most part they didn’t, and chronic disease was barely part of the conversation.

Without any sense of what was ahead, my early 20’s brought opportunity and I thought I had found my “life’s purpose” as a personal trainer.  Each day I’d commit to helping men and women, some athletes, some celebrities, build muscle and burn fat. Through a series of introductions, bold actions, poorly thought-out risks, and unpredictable twists and turns, by the age of 29, I wound up labeled a “fitness industry leader.”

Little did I know back then, that sense of “landing in the right place” wasn’t an arrival.  The seemingly smooth road to success was a prelim.  It was an initiation.  Things had only gotten started.

CHAPTER TWO – CAREER EVOLUTION

Everything I now offer, everything I’m prepared to offer you — the insight, the strategy, the ability to help people truly heal — to eradicate their chronic concerns, diagnoses, and pharmaceutical life-sentences, came through my mostly unintentional journey along a wild, twisting, rocky, and often unyielding path of challenges, lessons, obstacles, and miracles.

A path that demanded not just knowledge… but something far less common: integrity.

And that’s why I’m writing to you now.  Because I have the power of Truth and I’m willing to share it, as long as you are willing to recognize how rampant the deception runs, to immunize yourself (through thought, not vaccination) from Shiny Object Syndrome.

If we’re going to walk this path together — I want you to know, The Healing Code is the truth of the ages coming to land in 2025 with me as the messenger and you as the beneficiary.

My power to help others has been proven thousands of times, but I realize it doesn’t come from a lifelong hunt for a code.  It comes from my thirst for human connection, for helping others, and . . .  integrity.

Integrity is more than a word to me.

In a separate article I’ll tell you how my 8^th Grad Assistant Principal, James Contrada, shaped the course of my life by offering me a choice between two roads . .  one of “fraction” and one of “wholeness,” otherwise known as Integrity.

I heard him.  Loud and clear, but it wasn’t until 20 years after Mr. Contrada’s in-my-face “tough love,” that my integrity was put to the test.

A Defining Decision

In 1994 I was recruited by a top infomercial producer.  I had licensed my 12-week body transformation program, The Body You Love, and after a restrictive contact (I was naïve) and a year of national success through TV and radio appearances, the big offer came.

“Phil, it’s time to go big. We’re going to produce the greatest infomercial ever!”

Days later the President of Talk America embraced me warmly, oozed excitement, and handed me “the script.”

I was shocked. It was hokey.  It was bordering on fictional.  And the things I was scripted to say were things I’d never ever said.  Nor would I.

Throughout the script, the line that kept repeating — the line the entire “show” was built around — was:

“It’s quick. It’s easy. It works like magic.”

It didn’t take more than 4 ½ minutes for me to hand back the script.
I refused to become an infomercial character associated with misleading utterances and glaring lies.

The program worked. It changed lives. And people loved it.  Over 50,000 were sold.  But it took 12 weeks and required effort and commitment.  “Quick and Easy” were the words I warned people about!

“I would never say this.”

It was as if an explosion took plance.

Emotions splattered all of the room, leading to weeks of back-and-forths wrought with four letter words and expletives. 

After involving lawyers, negotiators, and mediators — we agreed. I would appear in the infomercial unscripted. I’d say what I always say.

“Synergy is vitally important, the right nutrition, moderate aerobic exercise, and a concern for muscle.”

“Diets make people fatter.”

“You aren’t a victim of your metabolism, you’re the creator.”

I flew to Portland, Maine, for the shoot.

Something about it felt off. But I did it. And the next day, I flew home.  With an uneasy  feeling.

The following day, key players and the camera crew returned to the set, and the cameras rolled.  Unbeknownst to me. 

The show was scheduled to air August 29^th. 

It was August 25^th and I hadn’t seen the edit so my lawyer send them a demand letter.  On August 28^th, the day before it was scheduled to air in 15 major markets, I sat in my office with my staff and put the tape in the VCR (that’s how long ago it was).

They took the footage I’d willingly filmed… and edited it. 

No, not just edited it, twisted it. 

Corrupted it.  Changed it.

In the final edit, if you believe your eyes and ears, the interviewer asked me:

“So Phil, you’re saying it’s quick, it’s easy, and it works like magic?”

The camera then cut to a close-up of my face replying:
“Ken, that’s absolutely true.”

That conversation never took place!  It was a lie. A manufactured deception.
And I wasn’t going to let it air.

I served them with a cease and desist.

That led to an all-out battle and an ultimatum:

“Phil, let it run and you’ll be financially set for life… or fight it and you’ll lose everything.
We own your voice, your image, your likeness, and your program.”

I walked away. And it got ugly.

The legal battle that followed was brutal.  And for the months that followed it drained me, but I found a way back, I held tight to my path, and two years later that company went bankrupt after facing actions from The Attorney General counsels in 47 states.

Did I make the right choice?  Many told me I didn’t.  My soul knows I did.  I kept the thing that I came to realize mattered most: my integrity.

That decision shaped everything that came after.

It gave me the foundation to help others — with truth.  It gave me new vision to identify scams, fraud and deception, and with time it gave me the clarity to see through the chaos in medicine, marketing, and misinformation.

And now we come full circle, back to your opportunity to raise your hand and say, “I’m ready for truth and power.”

This May Be A Moment of Decision for You

If you were with me during a Power of 11 session…
Or you stepped into the HEAL Challenge and knew it wasn’t an accident…
Take the next step forward.

Four times each year, I accept 12 new clients.

They work with my trusted coaching team and I oversee each program.
With integrity.

On July 21, the next wave begins.  As of today . . .

👉 8 spots are taken.
👉 4 remain.

If you want to explore whether this path is meant for you…
If you want to stop guessing, stop hoping, and finally move toward the life, the body, and the freedom you know is waiting…

Book a Compass Call with me.  We’ll see where the path heads from here.

👉 [Book Your Compass Call Now]

With purpose and integrity,
Phil Kaplan
Guide. Strategist. Human.
Founder of RECLAIM + The Power of 11