Rising Stars: Meet Philip Terry of Ohio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Philip Terry.

Hi Philip, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I started writing at 13, and that’s really where everything traces back to. I fell in love with music first, but what I actually fell in love with was storytelling, the idea that if you understand story, you understand people and you understand culture. Around that same time I was drawn to the logic side of things too, so by the time I got to college I was studying psychology and political science with law school as the plan. I wanted to understand why people do what they do and how systems of power actually work.

After I finished those two degrees I didn’t go straight to law school. I went into entrepreneurship instead and started D.Y.D. LLC and acting, betting on the storytelling side of myself before I bet on the legal side. I still ended up working at a law firm for a while, and it was during that stretch that I decided to go back and get my MBA. That’s where marketing really got its hooks in me, and it’s also where I started paying attention to blockchain, this was 2020, and I remember thinking this technology is going to change how the world actually functions, not just how it invests.

From there the pattern kept repeating itself. Marketing became the lens, and blockchain became the first thing I ran that lens over. Then AI showed up as the next thing I could see was going to change everything, so I pivoted again, except this time I didn’t want to just build with it quietly. I wanted to educate people on it while I kept doing the marketing, the music and the blockchain work alongside it.

The moment that actually locked all of this into place was in 2022. I realized my kids were going to grow up in a world that I myself did not understand yet. That was the wake up call. I decided I needed to figure this thing out before they were old enough to start asking me the questions I couldn’t answer. That’s really the engine behind the consulting work and all the content I put out now, it started as a promise to my own kids before it became a business.

So today that shows up as AI consulting and education, entertainment through D.Y.D. Publishing, and music as Phantom. It looks like a lot of different lanes, but it’s really one thread. Humanity is valuable, storytelling is never going away no matter how the tools change, and the further AI capability goes, the more important it becomes to stay clear on what we’re actually building all of this for.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been smooth at all. Starting D.Y.D. in a different state stripped away my support system right when I needed it most, on top of the usual funding and early-entrepreneur grind. The actors life certinaly always comes with it’s challenges but the current struggle has actually been being early. Calling blockchain and then AI as inflection points before they were obvious ones meant a lot of skepticism, for a while I was banking my reputation on industries a lot of people around me viewed as speculative or even harmful (some still do). I understand where that skepticism comes from too. The environmental and economic concerns people raise about this stuff are real, and I don’t dismiss them, I actually think that tension is part of what needs solving, not just talked around.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
What sets me apart, hmmm good question! I think it’s an obsession with experience itself. I’m addicted to learning new things and trying new things, and I think that’s why I can move credibly between a boardroom explaining AI workflows, to a meeting about SEO or Crypto then to a stage performance. I feel like most people specialize in staying in one lane, which is totally acceptable, I just specialize in staying curious enough to never stay in one.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters most to me is connection. Connection with my faith, my family, my friends, my culture, my local community, my country, and as we explore more of this amazing universe, connection to the Earth itself. All of it is really the same thread running at different scales, the small connections and the massive ones are asking the same question, are we actually tethered to something bigger than ourselves. I think that’s why storytelling has never left me and why I care so much about how humanity handles something like AI. Life seems to ultimately be about staying connected to what matters as everything around us keeps changing as we turn energy into information.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dyddoyourdance/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thephilipterry/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doyourdanceDYD/shorts
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@dyddoyourdance