Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / Coming Out of Hiding | Illness, Identity, Magic & the Courage to Be Seen with John Kippen | Ep 45

Transcript

Coming Out of Hiding | Illness, Identity, Magic & the Courage to Be Seen with John Kippen | Ep 45 · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
• 0:01
  Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
• 0:06
  The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our
• 0:13
  audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do here, please give it a thumbs up,
• 0:19
  like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really, really helps us to make the pro.
• 0:24
  To find out about our certification courses, online video libraries,
• 0:29
  books, and other courses, please go to rupertisaacson.com.
• 0:34
  So now let's jump in.
• 0:36
  Welcome back to the show.
• 0:38
  Today I've got John Kippen.
• 0:40
  Here's a question for you.
• 0:41
  For listeners and viewers.
• 0:43
  Have you ever been forced to go into hiding?
• 0:48
  Have you ever felt that you've been forced to go into hiding?
• 0:53
  Well, what would you do if that happened to you and how would you come out of it?
• 1:03
  Would you come out of it?
• 1:06
  If you came out of it?
• 1:09
  What would you do with the rest of your life?
• 1:16
  It's worth considering.
• 1:17
  John Kippen, who is here, has had that experience and I'm, without giving
• 1:22
  too much away, I think his story.
• 1:29
  Puts a lot of our own stories into perspective and now of course he's a
• 1:35
  resilience coach but it was not always.
• 1:38
  So John, thank you for coming on the show.
• 1:41
  Can you tell us who you are, what you did?
• 1:44
  What's your story?
• 1:45
  How did you get here?
• 1:47
  John Kippen: Thank you for having me here.
• 1:49
  My name is John Gibbon.
• 1:51
  I live in Los Angeles.
• 1:52
  Born and raised here.
• 1:54
  Born to two great parents, both attorneys and I got interested in theater at a
• 2:00
  young age and that really taught me how to be present, think creatively.
• 2:08
  My uncle pulled a quarter out of my ear at the age of five and I
• 2:13
  got introduced to Magic and 'cause I was a creative problem solver.
• 2:18
  Looked at it as a challenge, looked at it as something that I could be good at, and
• 2:23
  magic kind of appears throughout my life.
• 2:28
  In and out.
• 2:30
  I went to a woodsy high school.
• 2:32
  Parents had some money.
• 2:34
  Was classmates with a lot of celebrities.
• 2:37
  Kids didn't phase me, you know, it was just my up upbringing and
• 2:44
  an upper middle class family.
• 2:47
  Went to college, studied theater again got interested in computers,
• 2:52
  started a computer consulting company and everything was going really well.
• 2:57
  Was in a relationship and I was, I was happy, you know, I didn't want
• 3:02
  for anything, you know, it was I was always the guy that was impossible to
• 3:06
  buy a gift for because when I would see something, I would just buy it.
• 3:10
  So, but back in 2002, the summer of 2002, I started having dizziness
• 3:17
  symptoms, searing issues, and they started to get very severe.
• 3:22
  So I went and took me about a couple weeks to get an appointment and so
• 3:27
  forth, but I get an MRI and the doctor saw a four and a half centimeter
• 3:32
  acoustic neuroma brain tumor.
• 3:35
  Good news is, it's benign.
• 3:38
  Bad news is it was killing me by displacing my brainstem.
• 3:42
  And I remember going to the specialist downtown LA sat on the, the examining
• 3:49
  table and I was squirming so I could hear the tissue paper under my bum,
• 3:53
  as you would say, kind of tearing and revving as he looked at the MRI.
• 3:59
  And then he called in a neurosurgeon who came in and they looked at it together
• 4:03
  for a moment and the neurosurgeon left and the, the otologist turned around and
• 4:08
  said, John, you have a four and a half centimeter brain tumor and killing you.
• 4:12
  I pushed another patient and we're operating this coming Friday.
• 4:18
  You're gonna go death in your left ear.
• 4:20
  There's a chance for some residual facial weakness.
• 4:24
  We're gonna do everything we can to prevent that.
• 4:28
  And then he left the room
• 4:30
  and
• 4:32
  I sat there alone, not having taken notes.
• 4:38
  And it was like a whirlwind.
• 4:40
  What, what did he just say?
• 4:41
  He has to do brain surgery.
• 4:43
  There's not a pill or a shot or a whatever.
• 4:51
  But I've always been my own medical advocate, so I exited the room and.
• 4:56
  Heard his voice and I brought him back to the room and said,
• 4:59
  I'm sorry, doc, we weren't done.
• 5:01
  And I proceeded to rattle off the questions that came to my mind, but
• 5:06
  I knew I didn't ask any of the right questions because I didn't know
• 5:12
  the mystery I was about to go into.
• 5:17
  Fast forward four or five days through me after I had gotten my affairs in order and
• 5:23
  found one of my consultants who work for me to take over the company at lease for a
• 5:28
  month or two I found myself on a gurney at 6:00 AM one morning rolling into surgery
• 5:36
  and the nurse stopped the gurney and said, John, would you like us to shave your
• 5:41
  head now or after you're under anesthesia?
• 5:44
  And I said, please, under.
• 5:48
  So, the next thing I know, they're asking me to count backwards from five.
• 5:52
  Four, three, and I'm out.
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  And the next thing you know, I'm trying to wake up and it's like I'm 20 meters under
• 6:03
  the ocean trying to swim to the surface.
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  And I can hear these faint calls of my name John.
• 6:12
  John wake up.
• 6:15
  And as it came to, I realized it was my dad's voice.
• 6:19
  My dad was sitting on the side of the bed holding my hand
• 6:22
  smiling, but I didn't see my mom.
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  And we had a really close relationship.
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  So I asked my dad for my glasses.
• 6:31
  And as I tried to put them on, I realized my head was bandage.
• 6:34
  So that was difficult, but I managed to get them kind of on my head.
• 6:39
  And I looked at my mom's face and the look on her face was one of our, what did
• 6:46
  these butchers do to my four son's face?
• 6:50
  And after much.
• 6:52
  Thinking about it and reflection, I realized that that reaction my
• 6:58
  mom had to my face was what sent me into that negative self-talk, that
• 7:06
  negative space, that I wasn't good looking, I wasn't pretty enough,
• 7:12
  I wasn't worthy of being loved.
• 7:14
  And that's what sent, set me into hiding.
• 7:18
  And fortunately, I worked outta my home.
• 7:21
  So I let it be kind of my crutch and I didn't need to go out and I
• 7:28
  miss so many celebrations, birthday parties, funerals, reunions.
• 7:36
  'cause I didn't want people to see the new John and have questions, have just
• 7:43
  who knows what they were thinking.
• 7:46
  And it was easier just to stay at home.
• 7:50
  That's kind of the answer of how I got into that hiding state.
• 7:56
  Rupert Isaacson: That went on a long time though.
• 7:57
  I mean, 12 years.
• 7:58
  12 years before, you know, a certain, even like two to four year period,
• 8:04
  but 12 years, it's a long time.
• 8:07
  John Kippen: It was, you know, I, I just focused on my business.
• 8:10
  Yeah.
• 8:10
  I could speak to people on the phone and you know, my business suffered
• 8:15
  because I was the name of the business and clients wanted me, wanted to see me.
• 8:20
  And there were a few clients that I had a special relationship
• 8:23
  that I would go and see.
• 8:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:26
  One of 'em was actually Jamie Lee Curtis.
• 8:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 8:30
  John Kippen: And I had been introduced her by her assistant and she knew me before
• 8:35
  my brain tumor and after my brain tumor.
• 8:38
  Rupert Isaacson: What were you doing for her?
• 8:40
  John Kippen: It
• 8:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 8:41
  So
• 8:41
  John Kippen: helping her with her computer.
• 8:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 8:44
  On, on a personal level or on a business
• 8:46
  John Kippen: level,
• 8:47
  Rupert Isaacson: sort
• 8:47
  John Kippen: of?
• 8:47
  Well, it started out as a business level.
• 8:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 8:50
  John Kippen: And as I started sharing, there were a lot of times
• 8:55
  where she would sit by me as I was working on her computer and there
• 8:59
  would be downtime while a software updated or why something installed.
• 9:04
  So we had a chance to talk and it's like she saw through me and kind of adopted me.
• 9:13
  You know, she's the mother of two adopted children.
• 9:16
  Okay.
• 9:17
  And it felt like she wanted to comfort me.
• 9:20
  She wanted to support me.
• 9:24
  And she has in the last we met in 2000, so the last 25 years
• 9:31
  and she is a cheerleader of mine.
• 9:33
  She's we get together periodically.
• 9:36
  We talk on the phone a lot, even though she's the busiest
• 9:39
  human being in the world.
• 9:42
  And I have so many stories I could share about Jamie, but she was one of
• 9:46
  the people who helped me realize that
• 9:51
  my facial difference didn't need to define me if I didn't let it.
• 9:55
  Yeah.
• 9:57
  And also I,
• 10:01
  I we found, found again, my love performing magic.
• 10:07
  And in Los Angeles is a private club called the Magic Castle,
• 10:11
  where magicians perform for guests.
• 10:15
  Is, is that in
• 10:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Disneyland?
• 10:17
  No, it's in Hollywood.
• 10:19
  There's another magic.
• 10:20
  Am I mixing it up then?
• 10:22
  John Kippen: No.
• 10:22
  There's a magic castle in Disneyland as well.
• 10:25
  I, it's not, I thought the Magicians
• 10:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Union also had a, something going on in that castle
• 10:32
  in Disneyland, or am I wrong?
• 10:35
  No, that's not, it's okay.
• 10:37
  John Kippen: The Magic
• 10:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Castle is just
• 10:38
  John Kippen: mixing it up entrance to a certain area of Disneyland.
• 10:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 10:43
  The reason I know this, by the way, is someone else who's been a guest on the
• 10:46
  show, Leanna Tank, who's a colleague of mine, her grandfather was I think the
• 10:53
  head of the American Magicians, is it?
• 10:58
  Union?
• 10:58
  Society.
• 10:59
  Society.
• 11:00
  And because of that, she's actually been invited.
• 11:03
  To go to the Magic Castle this year, ah, special thing,
• 11:07
  and was telling me about it.
• 11:08
  I think I mixed it up with, I think she has to take her kid to Disneyland as well,
• 11:12
  and I, I thought that there was a Disney connection, but clearly there isn't.
• 11:16
  But, okay, so you've sent me straight, but I do know that this is a big deal.
• 11:20
  I do know that the Magic Castle is,
• 11:23
  John Kippen: I'm
• 11:23
  Rupert Isaacson: quite it's
• 11:24
  John Kippen: a mecca of magic.
• 11:25
  You know, it's where magicians go to learn to support each other and to perform,
• 11:31
  you know, for the, while I was a member, I'm not currently a member, but while I
• 11:35
  was a member I would go, I, I would start one night a week and before I had the
• 11:44
  confidence of having put together 20 or 30 minutes of material, I would kind of lurk
• 11:50
  around and, and watch other magicians and saw the joy that audiences were feeling
• 11:55
  when they were experiencing the magic.
• 11:59
  I so wanted to do that.
• 12:01
  I so wanted to bring people joy.
• 12:03
  So I finally got the nerve to sit at one of the impromptu tables with my deck of
• 12:09
  cards in hand, and people would approach the table and I would start performing.
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  And, and it was an amazing experience, but I started to realize that people
• 12:19
  were distracted by my facial paralysis.
• 12:22
  Mm.
• 12:23
  Not in a negative way, they just were curious.
• 12:26
  Mm.
• 12:27
  Oh, I wonder, did he have a stroke?
• 12:28
  He's a big guy.
• 12:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:30
  Did he have Bell's Palsy?
• 12:32
  Mm, why?
• 12:32
  And and I found that those distractions kept them from being
• 12:36
  in the moment and enjoying the magic and enjoying my stories.
• 12:42
  So I changed my opening, my act, and I said, guys, welcome.
• 12:46
  My name is John, and I'm gonna do magic all my life.
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  But in 2002, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
• 12:52
  And when they removed it, they traumatized my facial neuro.
• 12:57
  But as I recovered, I realized I had acquired some new skills.
• 13:04
  And then I would wait.
• 13:06
  I would wait for the audiences, get on the edge of their chairs,
• 13:09
  wondering what possible skills I could acquire from having brain surgery.
• 13:15
  And then I would look to my right and my left, and I would whisper in a loud voice.
• 13:21
  Guys, I am able to visualize people's thoughts.
• 13:27
  Well done.
• 13:29
  You know?
• 13:31
  And that's where the idea of
• 13:35
  performing magic and making a connection with people became my superpower.
• 13:40
  Hmm.
• 13:42
  And what would happen is the audience would look beyond my face and into my
• 13:47
  heart and intently listen to my stories.
• 13:52
  Because all my magic I made about you as the spectator, it wasn't about me.
• 14:00
  And audiences started to feel comfortable around me, especially women.
• 14:06
  You know, they was, it was, you know, I was always shy, I was
• 14:09
  always, you know, self-confident, not confident around women,
• 14:17
  but me being my authentic self allowed women to open their hearts to me,
• 14:26
  and that was one of the greatest gifts I received from performing magic.
• 14:31
  I started to have people come to me and tell me their stories of what
• 14:37
  they were dealing with in their lives.
• 14:40
  What, I don't know how many people were saying they were fighting cancer.
• 14:45
  Or they had just had a terrible breakup or whatever they were, they, they
• 14:52
  found that they could share those deep dark secrets with me because
• 15:00
  they knew I had been in similar shoes.
• 15:03
  They knew that I had come out the other side and I was now wearing my
• 15:08
  adversity on my sleeve and wearing my true adversity on my face.
• 15:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:14
  And they were just drawn to me.
• 15:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:17
  And as I supported them through the magic I could see them to start to smile and I
• 15:26
  realized at a minimum I was distracting them from whatever they're dealing with.
• 15:32
  There was one night I was upstairs at the Magic Castle and I was just looking
• 15:38
  for a great group to do the show and me.
• 15:42
  And this woman all dressed in baggy black clothes with a hat
• 15:47
  that reminded me of Witch's Hat was walking down the hallway as she
• 15:52
  approached and said, hi, how are you?
• 15:55
  She stopped, but the look on her face was just saying, just leave me alone.
• 16:01
  And then she kept walking downstairs to catch up with a group.
• 16:06
  Well, I followed her and I caught up with the group and I said,
• 16:09
  guys, are you having a good time?
• 16:13
  And guys, are you having a good time?
• 16:15
  And they said, yeah.
• 16:17
  I said, yeah, but have you seen any good closeup magic?
• 16:20
  They said,
• 16:21
  Rupert Isaacson: No,
• 16:21
  John Kippen: not really.
• 16:22
  I said, come on, let's go.
• 16:24
  And I went over to a little green table in the corner that had green
• 16:27
  melt on it and we all sat down and I put the woman dressed in black.
• 16:32
  Her name was Darren.
• 16:33
  I put her to my right.
• 16:35
  And I knew that something was bothering her.
• 16:38
  I didn't know what it was, but my goal for that interaction
• 16:41
  was just to make her smile.
• 16:44
  And I made the magic all about her.
• 16:46
  Every magical moment happened because she did something.
• 16:49
  She said something, she thought of something she predicted.
• 16:54
  And all of a sudden within minutes, Darren started to smile and she sat up straight
• 17:02
  and she removed that funny looking hat and her eyes started to sparkle.
• 17:08
  And I knew whatever baggage she brought with her that night was gone.
• 17:12
  So I finished the show 25, 30 minutes and normally audiences applaud and
• 17:18
  then they move on to something else.
• 17:21
  But this group wanted more.
• 17:25
  So I shared the story about how I had hit from cameras and
• 17:28
  mirrors for almost 12 years.
• 17:31
  'cause I didn't like the way I looked.
• 17:34
  I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin, and it was easier to hide than it was
• 17:41
  to explain why my face was paralyzed.
• 17:45
  And that all changed August 3rd, 2017, when I went to my first magic invention
• 17:50
  in Las Vegas called Magic Live, when I was amongst the greatest minds in magic.
• 17:57
  And I finally got fed up and I said, John, you need to take pictures
• 18:01
  with these amazing magicians.
• 18:05
  And I started walking around and every magician I recognized I went up to and
• 18:09
  I handed my phone to another person.
• 18:11
  I said, do you need a favor?
• 18:12
  Take our photo.
• 18:15
  And after the week of magic, I had dozens and dozens of photos of me
• 18:20
  with great minds in magic, and I got home and I was uploading the photos
• 18:24
  to my computer to organize 'em.
• 18:26
  And it dawned on me if these great minds in magic had no
• 18:30
  trouble taking a picture with me.
• 18:33
  What was my problem?
• 18:36
  And that was when I realized that I was really approachable, likable,
• 18:41
  despite my facial paralysis.
• 18:48
  I'm bothering you.
• 18:48
  I don't think you have, I was wondering a good, a question or not,
• 18:52
  Rupert Isaacson: but well, you reminded me of a friend of mine.
• 18:54
  You reminded me, a friend of mine called Jay, who runs a an equine
• 19:00
  therapy and outdoor therapy unit up in the highlands of Scotland.
• 19:04
  He's an ex-Marine, British Marine, got his face blown off in
• 19:11
  Afghanistan, and, and he describes a, a process of losing your identity.
• 19:22
  Because your face is your identity uhhuh to a large degree.
• 19:27
  That's just how the human
• 19:30
  anatomy is.
• 19:32
  Cognitive anatomy is set up.
• 19:34
  Our eyes are in front.
• 19:36
  We communicate most of
• 19:41
  what we want to convey emotionally through facial expression.
• 19:47
  He, he describes going from a sort of quite cocky, good looking action,
• 19:56
  man, to the man with no face to the man with a face that was being
• 20:03
  rebuilt over years and years.
• 20:04
  They had to take, you know, skin from here, fat from there,
• 20:08
  blah, blah, blah, blah, bum.
• 20:09
  And you know, he's got that black humor, British humor.
• 20:13
  So, you know, he'd say, you know, he would go for a drink with his.
• 20:16
  Friends.
• 20:16
  And if he sneezed, you know, his eye would go one way and his his teeth
• 20:21
  would go another way and his nose would land in your point, you know?
• 20:23
  And he would take his nose off sometimes to, to scare people, you know.
• 20:27
  But and then after years, years, they gave him a face and it's, he's, he's actually
• 20:33
  a handsome guy, but it's clear that, you know, you think, oh, he got burned or
• 20:37
  he got, you know, and I what, what you described earlier in the story, where
• 20:47
  before you could be upfront with the story, the paralysis,
• 20:54
  your facial paralysis distracted people from the magic.
• 20:57
  But as soon as you gave them the story, then that was the gateway to the magic.
• 21:04
  Yeah, because we are curious, we cannot not ask those questions.
• 21:08
  And we're also compassionate.
• 21:10
  One of the things which I think is often underestimated about humans, you know,
• 21:14
  it's very easy to talk about the worse aspects of human nature, but we're,
• 21:20
  we're a very loving species actually.
• 21:23
  And usually our curiosity is coming from that rather than from some negative thing.
• 21:31
  I mean, obviously there, there are people out there who do, yes, of course.
• 21:35
  But I would, I would still posit that the vast majority of people come at each
• 21:39
  other from the point of view of conflict resolution and compassion and love.
• 21:45
  And as I'm also the father of an autistic son who was very, very severe.
• 21:51
  And I found that when people didn't understand his behaviors, you
• 21:55
  know, they would be confused, they would be defensive, they would be.
• 21:59
  On the back foot and things could go negative.
• 22:01
  But if I just led with, okay, my son's autistic, he's doing the best he can,
• 22:07
  then everyone would be rooting for him.
• 22:09
  It would just be a matter of effectively giving them the story.
• 22:12
  And I, I, you know, I, those people who know me know that I frequently
• 22:18
  talk about this thing of our species being called homo sapien
• 22:23
  sapiens, meaning the thinking ape.
• 22:25
  But that being a bad description for us, because anything with a brain
• 22:30
  thinks is, you know, thousands of species on the planet with brains.
• 22:33
  Some of them have many brains like octopuses, you know?
• 22:37
  So thinking is not special to us, but we have this larynx talking storytelling
• 22:45
  that's us, that's, we should really be called the storytelling it.
• 22:47
  So of course, as soon as you give people the story, then they're in and what is
• 22:52
  story, but the original healing process.
• 22:54
  So then suddenly your facial paralysis with the story behind it, with the magic
• 23:00
  becomes a shamanic process of healing.
• 23:03
  And that's exactly what you just described with this lady
• 23:06
  who was sitting next to you?
• 23:07
  I think
• 23:09
  John Kippen: so.
• 23:09
  After the show, you know, I, I shared, I shared that story on
• 23:13
  how I came to love myself again.
• 23:17
  And she stood up and she motioned for me to stand, and I did.
• 23:21
  And, but she gave me one of these bear hugs that you don't soon forget.
• 23:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:25
  Like, yeah.
• 23:26
  Had you seen a sibling in 20 years?
• 23:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:29
  And she was holding on for dear life and after what seemed like minutes,
• 23:33
  it was probably 30 seconds, she stood back and she was crying and
• 23:38
  she looked up and said, John, I, I need to share something with you.
• 23:43
  Four years ago, I had a double mastectomy because I have the BROCO
• 23:46
  one gene, my mom, my aunt, my sister.
• 23:50
  All had their breasts proactively removed.
• 23:53
  And I was the last in the family to do that.
• 23:59
  And when I saw your magic, you know, my friends had drug me here
• 24:05
  'cause I didn't want to be here.
• 24:08
  And they just wouldn't take no for an answer.
• 24:12
  And I was not about to have a good time period just to prove that I was
• 24:19
  right and that I met you and I sat down and you put me on this pedestal.
• 24:27
  You, you made the magic about me.
• 24:32
  And all of a sudden I realized I was smiling and I was
• 24:35
  having a really good time.
• 24:37
  And, and then I heard your story.
• 24:41
  We made me realize in the moment that I've been hiding too by the, the baggy clothes
• 24:46
  and the funny hats and not making eye contact and my sarcastic sense of humor.
• 24:53
  And I think you just saved eight years off my journey of hiding.
• 24:57
  Hmm.
• 24:59
  And she made a promise to herself and her friends and I, as witnesses said that
• 25:06
  would be the last night she would hide.
• 25:10
  And I literally fell back on my chair.
• 25:13
  You know, my expectations with that 30 minutes was just to make her smile.
• 25:17
  I had no idea I would touch her so deeply.
• 25:22
  And she excused herself and went to the bathroom to wash her face.
• 25:25
  And one of her friends was sitting there and when she kicked her
• 25:28
  jaw off the ground, she said, John, you don't, you don't really
• 25:32
  understand what just happened.
• 25:35
  We've known Darren since college.
• 25:37
  We've been supporting her for the last four years.
• 25:39
  She tries to stop hiding.
• 25:43
  But you did in 30 minutes what we've been trying to do for four years.
• 25:48
  And at that moment I understood that my life's calling was to help
• 25:54
  others get out of their own way.
• 25:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:57
  It's our own self reflection.
• 26:01
  It's our own view of ourselves that keep us from moving forward and alive.
• 26:09
  And we are the most critical about ourselves, much more than anyone else.
• 26:14
  I don't care.
• 26:16
  But that's one of the lessons that I try to help my coaching clients understand is
• 26:24
  that you're enough just the way you are.
• 26:28
  Yeah.
• 26:29
  You know, and there's, there's always room for improvement.
• 26:32
  There's always room to get better.
• 26:37
  And the best way to learn how to love yourself is first loving others and being
• 26:45
  generous to others and helping people and be that, that voice or reason and be
• 26:50
  that ear that they can share a story and lean their head on your shoulder and just
• 27:00
  listen and be present.
• 27:03
  And that is one of the greatest gifts you can give another human
• 27:06
  being is just to be present in their lives and not judge and just support
• 27:11
  them, become their cheerleader.
• 27:14
  And if more people did that, this world would be a much happier place.
• 27:24
  Rupert Isaacson: So
• 27:27
  now you use magic and your story to reach people and.
• 27:32
  Help people.
• 27:33
  You are, you're quite well known now.
• 27:36
  Thank you.
• 27:42
  Where do you want to go with this?
• 27:44
  It's a real gift
• 27:48
  to be able to give people that sort of instant perspective.
• 27:56
  And I think that
• 28:00
  that's partly because, again, I think this goes, I understand
• 28:03
  this with my friend Jay.
• 28:04
  When it's your face, you can't hide.
• 28:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:11
  If it's your breast, you, you can hide.
• 28:12
  If it's some other body part, you can more or less hide.
• 28:16
  If you're missing a limb, you can wear a prosthetic.
• 28:19
  So there's something really powerful I think, in.
• 28:27
  Being the one who carries that vulnerability because you let
• 28:33
  pe other people off the hook for their vulnerabilities.
• 28:35
  Do you know what I mean?
• 28:36
  It it, it allows them
• 28:40
  to A, have some perspective, but b
• 28:45
  say, well, it, if John can get through it, I could probably get through it.
• 28:50
  Yeah,
• 28:50
  John Kippen: yeah,
• 28:51
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 28:52
  John Kippen: You know, I, I wrote a book called Playing the Hand, you Were Dealt.
• 28:58
  And at the end of this episode, I will give your listeners a link to
• 29:02
  download a PDF version of the book.
• 29:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 29:05
  John Kippen: Would you read that sign from it?
• 29:07
  It, it tells my story, but it also, you know, I've always lived
• 29:11
  my life feeling it's better to ask for forgiveness and permission.
• 29:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 29:16
  John Kippen: And that has bit me in the ass a couple times.
• 29:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I, I, I admit about that myself.
• 29:22
  Yeah.
• 29:23
  John Kippen: Yeah.
• 29:23
  But it's also given me opportunities that I would not have had if
• 29:27
  I didn't just go out and do whatever it was I put my mind to.
• 29:32
  You know, you talk about your face being, your, your signature, you're
• 29:37
  the thing that people foresee.
• 29:40
  You know, I spent 12 plus years learning how not to hide my face.
• 29:44
  And then what happened in March of 2020 COVID hit.
• 29:50
  Hmm.
• 29:51
  And now hiding your face with a face mask became not only politically
• 29:55
  correct, but government mandated.
• 29:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:00
  And I sat here thinking about, I'm not gonna undo my healing.
• 30:07
  Because of a global pandemic.
• 30:08
  So I went online and I found a company that would take a
• 30:11
  picture and print it on the mask.
• 30:14
  Okay.
• 30:14
  And I sent them a picture of the lower half of my face and they
• 30:18
  printed it on a half a dozen masks.
• 30:21
  And those are the masks that I would wear when I would be out with
• 30:24
  in public and strangers would look at it and not really understand.
• 30:29
  Sure.
• 30:30
  Friends and family and people who knew me would do a double tank.
• 30:36
  And without saying a word, they truly understood that
• 30:39
  John refuses to hide his face.
• 30:42
  Yeah.
• 30:42
  He went through a global pandemic.
• 30:44
  Yeah.
• 30:45
  And I did that as just a lesson to people look at people's eyes
• 30:51
  first, you know, because you know, and, and there are people like
• 30:56
  your friend Jay, who, who I'm sure.
• 30:59
  Had scars and so forth.
• 31:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:02
  But you know, as long as you can open your eyes, people can see into your
• 31:06
  soul through your eyes and your eyes show the expression that your mouth
• 31:12
  or you may not be able to express.
• 31:16
  So, anyway, it's just a, a story that, a thought about that that spoke to
• 31:24
  what you were talking about.
• 31:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 31:26
  And it's funny what you say about eyes too.
• 31:27
  'cause then I immediately think about people that lose their eyes.
• 31:30
  And I remember when I was at school, there was a boy Alistair, who'd
• 31:34
  lost his eyes and he had glass eyes.
• 31:39
  He'd occasionally take 'em out to freak us out.
• 31:41
  John Kippen: Oh
• 31:41
  Rupert Isaacson: man.
• 31:42
  And he was a lovely bloke.
• 31:47
  You couldn't see his eyes, but you could see his heart.
• 31:52
  John Kippen: Mm-hmm.
• 31:54
  Rupert Isaacson: So it's always, always interesting, isn't it, that
• 31:57
  people if something gets stripped away, it seems to reveal another layer.
• 32:05
  Have another friend, Ginny amazing woman, does incredible things in the world.
• 32:10
  If you're familiar with films like Chasing Ice, chasing Coral, the Social
• 32:15
  Dilemma, she's behind those movies really interesting human and has lost little
• 32:25
  by little all these parts of her body.
• 32:27
  She lost her breasts, she lost her ovaries.
• 32:30
  She lost various parts of various organs battling with this cancer.
• 32:35
  That cancer ended up with.
• 32:36
  Meniere's Disease, you know, where you, your inner ear gets messed
• 32:39
  up and this causes incredible nausea and so on and so on.
• 32:45
  And
• 32:48
  it's like.
• 32:50
  But when you meet her, she comes across as like the most vibrant,
• 32:58
  competent human.
• 33:01
  And yet she's like always on the point of death.
• 33:04
  And then she does more than most other people I know.
• 33:09
  I have another friend, David Doyle in Ireland who's like that always on the
• 33:14
  brink, gets incredible, huge projects done for special needs people all over
• 33:22
  the country there, works at the government level, but was just a, a dad, an autism
• 33:27
  dad who refused to be bad, but has, every time I call him, you know, it's
• 33:34
  like, okay, this thing is happening.
• 33:36
  And I have, there's, there's an interesting concept called the shamanic
• 33:40
  illness where, sometimes it seems that there are certain people who are
• 33:47
  healers and they're sort of required to always be at this point of insane
• 33:53
  vulnerability, which puts them in a place of insane authenticity, which allows
• 34:02
  them to be effective on a level that
• 34:07
  many of us only marvel at.
• 34:12
  If you hadn't had the brain tumor,
• 34:20
  where would your life have gone?
• 34:21
  Or let's say you had had the brain tumor but they'd done the surgery.
• 34:25
  No problem on the face, bounce back.
• 34:28
  Off you go.
• 34:32
  Project your imagination A little bit into that, John, what would that John be?
• 34:40
  John Kippen: Ah, boy, I try not to think about that.
• 34:45
  Many people ask me, John, have you had to do it over again?
• 34:48
  And you could somehow prevent the brain tumor before it affected
• 34:53
  you and needed we removed?
• 34:55
  Would you and I say no?
• 34:58
  Yeah.
• 34:59
  'cause the journey of overcoming my adversity has helped so many people.
• 35:05
  Yeah.
• 35:06
  And given me such strength and compassion.
• 35:12
  Hmm.
• 35:13
  And it's given me the ability to
• 35:18
  see when others are hurting.
• 35:21
  And you know, I, I will, I use Facebook every day and I'm
• 35:27
  addicted to it, I must admit, but.
• 35:31
  I'll have a friend post something on their wall that's out of character, and most
• 35:37
  people who see that will just say, oh, Rupert's having a bad day and move on.
• 35:44
  I stop and I call that person.
• 35:46
  I don't text 'em, I don't email them.
• 35:48
  I call them and I get them on the phone and I say, Hey, Rupert, it, I
• 35:53
  saw that post and it, it just didn't seem like you, what's going on?
• 35:58
  You want to talk?
• 36:00
  How can I help?
• 36:03
  And when people do that, it's, they're crying up for help, but
• 36:08
  they don't wanna say, call me.
• 36:11
  I need help.
• 36:11
  They just wanna put it out there and, you know, so I think I've,
• 36:16
  I've honed my skills of empathy.
• 36:20
  I've learned how to recognize when people are hurting, no matter
• 36:25
  how much they try to hide it.
• 36:29
  And I take the time to be present at risk of losing their friendship.
• 36:38
  You know, sometimes you just gotta follow your heart and interject in someone's
• 36:45
  life and just say, Hey, what's going on?
• 36:48
  It sounds like you're really miserable.
• 36:50
  You're, you're hurting, you're, you're lashing out.
• 36:53
  You're, you're not the person I know.
• 36:57
  And some people are defensive and not, they're not ready to share that and they
• 37:01
  Yeah.
• 37:01
  Block you because they don't want to be constantly reminded and it's okay with me.
• 37:07
  Yeah.
• 37:07
  You know, because of the number of people that I have had honest
• 37:11
  conversations with and come out better for having that conversation.
• 37:20
  And that's why coaching appeals to me so much is that I, I reversed
• 37:25
  engineered how I overcame my adversity, and I've broken it down in
• 37:31
  Rupert Isaacson: basically 12 steps.
• 37:33
  Tell us those 12 steps.
• 37:35
  Sorry.
• 37:36
  Tell us those 12 steps.
• 37:39
  Boy,
• 37:42
  As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm an autism dad and we have
• 37:47
  a whole career before this podcast in helping people with neurodivergence,
• 37:55
  either who are professionals in the field.
• 37:57
  Are you a therapist?
• 37:58
  Are you a caregiver?
• 38:00
  Are you a parent?
• 38:01
  Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
• 38:05
  When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
• 38:10
  I really didn't know what to do.
• 38:12
  So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
• 38:17
  autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
• 38:20
  Temple Grandin.
• 38:21
  And she told me what to do.
• 38:23
  And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years.
• 38:27
  That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped
• 38:32
  countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal.
• 38:36
  Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings.
• 38:41
  If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed
• 38:46
  approach, it's called Movement Method.
• 38:48
  You can learn it online, you can learn it very, very simply.
• 38:52
  It's almost laughably simple.
• 38:55
  The important thing is to begin.
• 38:59
  Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.
• 39:02
  Grandin and see what results can follow.
• 39:06
  Go to this website, newtrailslearning.
• 39:11
  com Sign up as a gold member.
• 39:14
  Take the online movement method course.
• 39:18
  It's in 40 countries.
• 39:19
  Let us know how it goes for you.
• 39:22
  We really want to know.
• 39:23
  We really want to help people like me, people like you, out there
• 39:27
  live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens.
• 39:32
  John Kippen: Emotional regulation.
• 39:34
  Okay.
• 39:34
  Okay.
• 39:35
  Talking it out.
• 39:36
  Two heads are always better than one.
• 39:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 39:39
  John Kippen: Focus on what you can control and ignore the things
• 39:44
  that are out of your control.
• 39:47
  Have self-compassion, but also compassion for others.
• 39:52
  Physical self-care.
• 39:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:55
  Practice, practice mindfulness.
• 39:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:58
  Developing a growth mindset.
• 40:02
  Practice my tripod method.
• 40:04
  I can tell you what that is.
• 40:06
  Yeah, I'd
• 40:06
  Rupert Isaacson: like to know what that is.
• 40:07
  Yeah.
• 40:08
  John Kippen: Be your authentic self.
• 40:11
  Communicate things you're passionate about, live your life, taking risks
• 40:17
  and stepping into the exciting world of the unknown instead
• 40:21
  of saying in your comfort zone.
• 40:24
  You know, I, a lot of people say, you know, just step out your comfort zone.
• 40:30
  I say tto outta your comfort zone.
• 40:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 40:34
  John Kippen: You only need to move an inch outta your comfort zone to have
• 40:39
  an aha moment, a revelation.
• 40:42
  When I was in college, going back to the tripod that when I was in
• 40:45
  college, I was in charge of props for a show or children's theater touring
• 40:50
  show, and it was a period show, and I had to create a tripod that would
• 40:55
  hold a potter suit over a fire.
• 41:00
  And I had all the raw materials and I was sitting in the scene shop with
• 41:04
  all the raw materials laying out on the work table, and I was just stuck.
• 41:10
  I didn't really know how to move forward.
• 41:13
  And my instructor, his name was Jerry Abbott, and he was from Paducah, Kentucky.
• 41:18
  And he was a sill Billy with suspenders and a cigar hanging out of his mouth.
• 41:24
  And he looked at me and he said, John, I didn't take you a raise.
• 41:28
  What the hell are you doing?
• 41:31
  I said, Jerry, you know, I'm having trouble getting started.
• 41:36
  And he kind of pushed me aside and he said, pick up these four sticks.
• 41:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay,
• 41:43
  John Kippen: take this rope, tie it around the top.
• 41:47
  Okay.
• 41:48
  Tie another piece of rope and splay the the legs out and tie it around
• 41:52
  the bottom of the, the sticks.
• 41:55
  Okay?
• 41:56
  Hang the hook from the top.
• 41:59
  You built a tripod, get out of your freaking head.
• 42:05
  And in that moment, I felt a sense of accomplishment because what I
• 42:11
  was really fearing was failing.
• 42:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 42:17
  But with his help, I built this tripod and I had to, you know, make
• 42:22
  sure it was stable and so forth.
• 42:24
  But
• 42:27
  every time I run across a challenges and I feel myself going to that place
• 42:33
  of fear and, and apprehension of taking action because it's too big of a task
• 42:39
  or whatever, I say the word tripod to myself many times, and what that does
• 42:47
  is it deals, it releases all of those feelings of accomplishment I felt.
• 42:54
  When I had actually built that damn tripod and saw it on stage,
• 43:00
  and it's like magic.
• 43:02
  You know, all of a sudden you get outta your head and you just start
• 43:08
  experimenting and if something doesn't work, you try something else.
• 43:11
  And if that doesn't work, you try something else.
• 43:12
  And, and Aven, excuse me.
• 43:16
  Eventually you figure it out.
• 43:19
  Yeah.
• 43:20
  But if you don't take that first step,
• 43:24
  you can't get to the end.
• 43:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Talk to me about magic.
• 43:32
  What's your signature
• 43:37
  trick if you have one?
• 43:39
  And why is it that one?
• 43:42
  I have a couple.
• 43:44
  John Kippen: I would take a regular deck of 52 cards and I would get a
• 43:50
  line of people in a hallway and I would hand the worst verse in the
• 43:54
  deck and ask them to remove a card and then pass the deck down the line.
• 44:01
  So each 10, 15 people, whatever, had picked up a random card and I would be not
• 44:08
  even be in vicinity, so I couldn't see it.
• 44:10
  And I would then ask them to take the card and put it between their hands like this,
• 44:14
  like they were praying so that I couldn't see the back or the front of the card
• 44:19
  in case they thought they were marked.
• 44:22
  And then I would walk down the line and immediately be able to name their card.
• 44:29
  And I would do that 10, 11, 12 times in a row.
• 44:33
  And, I would've other musicians look at me and go, what the hell?
• 44:41
  How are you doing that?
• 44:44
  And that kind of became one of my signature tricks.
• 44:48
  And over time people started to figure it out.
• 44:52
  But for many years people would request that trick because they were
• 44:57
  so befuddled by how I could possibly tell them the card they picked
• 45:03
  without even being in the same room.
• 45:08
  Rupert Isaacson: I presume you can't tell us how you did that.
• 45:10
  I, I, I can't.
• 45:12
  I'm swore into secrecy.
• 45:13
  Indeed.
• 45:14
  Were you taught that trick or did you come up with that by yourself?
• 45:20
  John Kippen: It was something that I discovered
• 45:24
  and then I came out with my own presentation, you know?
• 45:27
  Okay.
• 45:28
  It's all about, it's magic is all about the presentation.
• 45:33
  And so, going along with my story of having superpowers
• 45:42
  and awarenesses
• 45:47
  played into the believability of that trick, and, and you know,
• 45:52
  there are a lot of magicians.
• 45:53
  They say, you know, you shouldn't be doing mentalism and, and telling
• 45:57
  people you can read their minds because reading minds is not possible.
• 46:05
  But you can certainly read their body language.
• 46:09
  And you get people wanting to believe that you can read their mind, and that's really
• 46:16
  what's important in the presentation.
• 46:20
  The other thing is, you know, I was, I was sitting at the magic asshole
• 46:25
  and at one of the bars I was having dinner and this couple came in and they
• 46:30
  went to the host and the, the, I was 10 feet, 15 feet from the front door.
• 46:36
  And they asked the host if they, well, we're looking for this guy we saw last
• 46:41
  time, and God, we can't remember his name.
• 46:45
  Oh man, yeah, you, you, you gotta know him.
• 46:48
  He's the big guy with a paralyzed face.
• 46:53
  And I heard that and I didn't want to be described as the big
• 46:57
  guy with the paralyzed face.
• 47:00
  So I went online on my phone.
• 47:02
  I found a company that made these pocket squares.
• 47:06
  And the magic castle, you had to wear a coat and tie.
• 47:08
  So I found these pocket squares that would light up, and I loved the color
• 47:13
  blue, so I bought a blue one, and I started wearing that around the castle.
• 47:19
  And so when people were looking for me, they go, oh, we're
• 47:23
  looking for the guy with the blue pocket square that lights up.
• 47:28
  And it was just a way of changing the, the narrative from a negative to a positive.
• 47:35
  And managers would get on their walkie talkies and say,
• 47:38
  oh, has anyone seen John Kipp?
• 47:39
  There's someone looking for him down here?
• 47:43
  And then I got the idea of I reached out to the company who made these,
• 47:47
  and I said, can you, can you make one for me that can change colors?
• 47:53
  And he said, yeah, I think so.
• 47:57
  So.
• 47:58
  Three prototypes and $800 later I had a pocket square that
• 48:04
  I could change the colors.
• 48:08
  But I gave him a name.
• 48:09
  His name was Henry.
• 48:12
  Well, Hank was short.
• 48:14
  Hank a Kerchief was his full name, but he goes by Henry and he became my assistant.
• 48:22
  And there's illusion where I would have a little plastic box
• 48:26
  with a cube in each cube side of the cube, had a different color.
• 48:30
  And I would hand this the box in the, excuse me.
• 48:36
  Bless.
• 48:36
  See, I would hand the box in the cube to someone and I would ask them to
• 48:40
  choose a color and put a place up and then put the cover on the box.
• 48:45
  And I would ask him to visualize the, the color, and then I would reveal it.
• 48:51
  And then all of a sudden, Henry would start flashing and I'd look at him.
• 48:56
  And I apologized to the room.
• 48:58
  I said, guys, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce you to my assistant.
• 49:03
  And they'd look around like, who, who?
• 49:04
  Who's John's assistant?
• 49:06
  He said, oh, no, Henry.
• 49:08
  Well, Hank a ship is his full name, but I call him Henry.
• 49:12
  And he's been practicing that trick.
• 49:14
  And he, he'd like to do it for you if you don't mind.
• 49:18
  So I'd have someone grab the box and cover it and, and I said, okay,
• 49:22
  Henry, it's your time to shine.
• 49:25
  And he'd start glowing the color they were thinking.
• 49:32
  And it was just amazing.
• 49:34
  You know, people who knew me would walk through the castle
• 49:36
  and they wouldn't say hi to me.
• 49:39
  But they certainly give a high five or a greeting to Henry.
• 49:46
  Rupert Isaacson: How would you know the color?
• 49:51
  I'm sorry, say it again.
• 49:52
  How would you know the color?
• 49:53
  I have to ask, even if you can't tell me the answer, how would you
• 49:56
  know the color to make Henry go?
• 49:59
  I
• 49:59
  can't tell you that.
• 50:00
  Yeah.
• 50:02
  But it was always accurate.
• 50:05
  Yeah.
• 50:09
  I don't know how people do this.
• 50:11
  I can't imagine having the type of mind that can work these things out and then
• 50:19
  reproduce them, but I'm, there's a secret
• 50:22
  John Kippen: to it.
• 50:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 50:23
  And the
• 50:24
  John Kippen: secret is not hard, but the skill of a magician is to
• 50:27
  make the skill look impossible.
• 50:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 50:32
  John Kippen: You know, I, I talk about my coaching method and my coaching method.
• 50:37
  I put a name to it and it's called the I'm Possible Method.
• 50:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 50:44
  John Kippen: Because if you take the word impossible and you break
• 50:47
  it down, it's really impossible.
• 50:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 50:51
  It's great.
• 50:52
  And so
• 50:52
  John Kippen: that's my methodology, my coaching methodology.
• 50:55
  And we, we talk about illusion, we talk about dreaming a lot.
• 51:01
  Hmm.
• 51:01
  You know, as a, as a young boy, my parents would have an adult friend come
• 51:05
  over and the first thing they would say to me is, nice to meet you, John.
• 51:11
  Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up?
• 51:14
  I would say, I wanna be a fireman.
• 51:19
  No, I want to be a veterinarian.
• 51:22
  No, wait, wait, wait.
• 51:23
  I wanna be a rock star.
• 51:26
  And then I would go into my room and grab two rulers and start banging
• 51:30
  on stuff like I'm playing the drums and get out my gar air guitar and
• 51:34
  start singing really bad acapella.
• 51:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 51:38
  And I'm in this land of make-believe where everything is possible.
• 51:42
  Mm.
• 51:42
  And I would stay in that land of makelele me for hours, or at least
• 51:46
  until mom called me for dinner.
• 51:48
  Yeah.
• 51:50
  You know?
• 51:50
  And then I grew up and
• 51:56
  I stopped dreaming.
• 51:58
  Mm.
• 51:59
  You know, when I, I help my clients to figure out what they want to do with
• 52:04
  their lives, no matter how old they are.
• 52:08
  And I discover a lot of times that the dreams that they're fulfilling
• 52:13
  weren't theirs to begin with.
• 52:16
  It was their parents' dream, their aunt's dream, their wife's
• 52:20
  dream, but not their dream.
• 52:23
  And they wonder why they get to be 60 years old and getting ready for retirement
• 52:28
  to live back of their life and say, God, I accomplished everything I I set out to do.
• 52:34
  Why am I feeling so unfulfilled?
• 52:38
  And the answer is simple.
• 52:40
  'cause they were living someone else's dream.
• 52:43
  Rupert Isaacson: How do you find them?
• 52:44
  Find their own dream.
• 52:48
  John Kippen: We do a lot of visualization.
• 52:51
  I give them permission to do the impossible, remove all
• 52:58
  restrictions, financial, religious,
• 53:06
  whatever, whatever their restrictions, and just prescribe to me what they
• 53:12
  truly want to accomplish in their life.
• 53:16
  And a lot of people are saying, well, I don't really, you know,
• 53:22
  you, you get to the core of that.
• 53:25
  Some people take go right there because they know what they are.
• 53:27
  Sometimes people take a long time to get there.
• 53:33
  But then, you know, we'll just have a conversation about, okay, what,
• 53:37
  what steps do you need to take to achieve that dream that is yours?
• 53:43
  And we brainstorm together.
• 53:46
  And I offer suggestions because I am, again, a, a creative problem solver.
• 53:53
  Hmm.
• 53:54
  And you know, once you find that passion, that dream of yours, it's never too late.
• 54:04
  It's never impossible.
• 54:08
  And things are impossible until you realize they are truly possible.
• 54:14
  And that is a mindset that you need to have.
• 54:19
  You know, when, when Alex Beck came out with his cancer diagnosis.
• 54:27
  Hopefully your, your listeners know who he is, but he was a Canadian born game
• 54:32
  show host for Jeopardy, which was a very popular game show in the United States,
• 54:39
  and he was the host of that show for 30 or 40 years.
• 54:44
  And he came, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and instead of
• 54:50
  hiding it and disappearing, he went on national television and shared
• 54:55
  with his fans that what he was going through and asked for the love and
• 54:59
  support and positive thi thoughts where him while he went through that.
• 55:06
  And I sat there listening to that one night and I got goosebumps, and I was
• 55:11
  so touched by his courage to share that with millions of people and his
• 55:19
  honesty and his ability to ask for help.
• 55:25
  I reached out and I found his daughter, her name's Nikki, and I got
• 55:31
  her phone number and I said, Nikki, I need to perform with your dad.
• 55:35
  She said, I don't understand.
• 55:37
  I said, you know, I've, I've helped people going through physical crisis, going
• 55:42
  through cancer, going through whatever, and I've helped take their mind off of
• 55:47
  what they're doing, going through at least just for a half hour to an hour.
• 55:53
  And I heard your dad's ask, and I wonder, I wanna do it for him, so
• 56:01
  please, can we make this happen?
• 56:06
  And I invited them to meet my guest at the castle, and they don't,
• 56:10
  excuse me, they didn't wanna do that, but they said they were having
• 56:14
  a 70 foot birthday party for him
• 56:18
  and asked if I would be the entertainment.
• 56:22
  He said, absolutely.
• 56:24
  And I designed a brand new show all around Alex and his
• 56:29
  life, work and Jeopardy themes.
• 56:31
  And, and if you go to john kipp.com,
• 56:34
  there are magic videos of me performing for Alex Beck.
• 56:40
  And he was such a smart guy.
• 56:43
  But after the show, he and I went into another room and I said, Alex, I just
• 56:48
  wanted you to know that I sought you out.
• 56:50
  I heard you when you came out with your diagnosis, and I
• 56:54
  wanted to bring you some comfort.
• 56:55
  I wanted to bring you some joy.
• 56:57
  I wanted you to bring you a little bit of escape,
• 57:02
  and I wanted to thank you for your life's work.
• 57:06
  And he broke down.
• 57:07
  He said, John, no one ever thanks me for my life's work.
• 57:11
  They take it for granted.
• 57:14
  And I said, I presumes that would probably be the case, but.
• 57:18
  Let me be the first person to say that you are cherished by your fans.
• 57:25
  You know?
• 57:26
  And just being that generous person and just going out of your way
• 57:32
  to help someone who is in need.
• 57:36
  You feel amazing afterwards.
• 57:41
  Yeah, you do.
• 57:42
  And it becomes a habit.
• 57:49
  You touch people's
• 57:50
  Rupert Isaacson: lives
• 57:54
  When you are coaching people now, do you always bring magic into it somehow?
• 58:01
  John Kippen: Not
• 58:01
  always, but I introduce myself and they know I'm a magician.
• 58:08
  So, I talk about the principle of possibility and impossibility,
• 58:13
  and I use magic as the metaphor.
• 58:16
  Everything is impossible until you do it,
• 58:20
  Rupert Isaacson: and then you realize it's
• 58:21
  John Kippen: possible.
• 58:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 58:22
  I could, I could imagine, say for example, if I came to you as a client
• 58:27
  mm-hmm.
• 58:27
  And you
• 58:31
  started each session with, or you included somehow in each session a magic trick
• 58:41
  as a metaphor really of what's possible.
• 58:45
  What you do is, well, there's that, but then you'd also draw
• 58:49
  my attention of course, to
• 58:52
  that veil between the possible and the impossible, and how do
• 58:56
  you make the impossible possible?
• 58:59
  And then you'd also, as you say, distract me.
• 59:02
  And one of the things about the distracted mind, this is an
• 59:04
  interesting thing in neuroscience when you daydream or when you.
• 59:10
  Take a break in whatever form.
• 59:11
  And that's why entertainment is so powerful.
• 59:14
  Storytelling is so powerful.
• 59:16
  Your brain myelinates, myelination being my myelin being the fatty tissue
• 59:22
  that grows around new neuron pathways.
• 59:26
  When neuron new neurons fire and wire together, those connections are quite
• 59:33
  fragile and it needs an insulating material like the, you know, black plastic
• 59:39
  around our phone cable kind of thing.
• 59:41
  And the brain produces this myelin.
• 59:44
  So the process called myelination when we take a break.
• 59:49
  So it happens when we daydream, it happens when we nap, it happens when we let a
• 59:56
  story take us and we rest our brain.
• 1:00:00
  So I can actually see the magic being a really powerful.
• 1:00:06
  Almost again, shamanic tool in healing to allow someone to get
• 1:00:11
  to that point of my myelination.
• 1:00:14
  And then after that comes the aha moment.
• 1:00:17
  So I think if I was your client, I'd be requesting in each session
• 1:00:21
  some, you know, something like that to serve all those purposes for my
• 1:00:28
  conscious and subconscious mind.
• 1:00:30
  Do you have a particular clientele that seeks you out for coaching?
• 1:00:34
  Is there a pattern?
• 1:00:37
  John Kippen: People who have lived similar lives with regards to some
• 1:00:41
  kind of illness that they're not feeling, not knowing who they are
• 1:00:46
  any longer, who lost their identity.
• 1:00:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:50
  People who were inspired by my zeal for stepping out of comfort zone and just
• 1:00:59
  doing stuff and not thinking about it.
• 1:01:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:02
  You know, I'm a huge Mel Robbins fan and I practice practice for a five second rule.
• 1:01:08
  What's the Mel Robbins five second rule.
• 1:01:11
  You get outta bed and you count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and you get outta bed and you cross
• 1:01:21
  something off your list of to-dos, because if you stay in bed for longer than that
• 1:01:26
  five seconds, you're attempted to hit the snooze bar or you're attempted to go back
• 1:01:33
  No, just five more minutes and you don't start your day with clumping positive.
• 1:01:43
  And it's amazing how that works.
• 1:01:45
  Because once you're out of bed, you wash your face, you brush your
• 1:01:49
  teeth, and you just start your day.
• 1:01:53
  There's no excus.
• 1:01:54
  You, you know, you don't go back to bed, you don't go, you
• 1:01:56
  know, you just get crap done.
• 1:02:00
  Yeah.
• 1:02:01
  And, it's so true.
• 1:02:04
  You know, I, I, I was thinking about as we were talking, you know, I talk a lot about
• 1:02:10
  limiting beliefs and our limiting beliefs
• 1:02:16
  affect what's truly possible in our lives.
• 1:02:19
  And if you define your limiting beliefs, and I can suggest how
• 1:02:29
  they're not serving you, how they're acting as a crutch, as an excuse to
• 1:02:37
  continue a certain behavior that's not moving you forward in your lives.
• 1:02:44
  That's when I have those breakthroughs with my clients, and sometimes
• 1:02:49
  those limiting beliefs are so deep that it takes a couple sessions
• 1:02:55
  of me asking the questions.
• 1:02:59
  That gets you to understand what those limiting beliefs are.
• 1:03:02
  Normally I can see them right away, but it does you no good for me to say.
• 1:03:08
  And your limiting belief is this.
• 1:03:12
  They have to come to that understanding in that aha moment themselves.
• 1:03:18
  I'll give you an example.
• 1:03:19
  One of my coaching clients was someone I went to coaching certification school.
• 1:03:23
  I was certified by Jay Shetty, who's an amazing coach, and we had to do 40
• 1:03:31
  hours of coaching of other students.
• 1:03:33
  And this other woman and I connected and we started coaching each other
• 1:03:38
  and, and I started building my coaching practice and built my website and
• 1:03:43
  started doing advertising and so forth.
• 1:03:46
  And I would have a call with her every week and I would say, so, how are you
• 1:03:51
  coming along with building your business?
• 1:03:54
  She said, well, you know, I'm, I bought some more books and I'm reading more and,
• 1:03:59
  and I'm about to take this other course and, and I'm trying not to use her name,
• 1:04:06
  so I'm just gonna say her name is Ashley.
• 1:04:08
  And I said, Ashley, you have whatever it takes within you because
• 1:04:13
  you have the desire to be a coach and that's truly all you need.
• 1:04:19
  No, you know, I just don't know what to call it and this and that.
• 1:04:22
  And so we brainstormed together and we came up with a name for a coaching
• 1:04:26
  practice and that got her excited.
• 1:04:30
  But then the next time we got together, so, you haven't
• 1:04:33
  bought your domain name yet?
• 1:04:35
  What's going on?
• 1:04:37
  Yeah, well, the company I hired said they were gonna build my website and
• 1:04:40
  they were gonna take care of that.
• 1:04:41
  And I said, it's been three weeks now and nothing happened.
• 1:04:47
  Then I started to ask her about her childhood and her upbringing, and I said,
• 1:04:51
  I said, tell me about your childhood.
• 1:04:53
  She said, well, my mom died when I was young.
• 1:04:56
  And, and so I was with my dad and, and
• 1:04:59
  we had, we had a fine relationship, but at the age of 18, he came in
• 1:05:04
  and said, okay, actually you're 18.
• 1:05:06
  It's time for you to go.
• 1:05:09
  And I wasn't ready to go, but he, you know, he pushed me
• 1:05:13
  out and I had to go get a job.
• 1:05:17
  And I did.
• 1:05:19
  I said, what, what job did you get?
• 1:05:23
  Well, I don't, I don't really like to talk about it.
• 1:05:26
  I said, what was it?
• 1:05:31
  Well, I had bought, I had moved into this place and it was kind of expensive.
• 1:05:36
  And so, and then she's making excuses.
• 1:05:39
  I said, don't make excuses, just tell me what the job was.
• 1:05:43
  She said, well, I became a topless dancer at this club because
• 1:05:52
  it paid a lot of money
• 1:05:55
  and it was just a means to an end.
• 1:06:00
  And I said, so what happened when you went and told your dad?
• 1:06:04
  Sure.
• 1:06:04
  He asked you, what were you doing to support yourself?
• 1:06:09
  She said, yeah, I told my dad.
• 1:06:11
  And he said, yeah, that's what I thought you'd probably do.
• 1:06:16
  And I had the same reaction.
• 1:06:17
  I said, what?
• 1:06:19
  Say that again?
• 1:06:21
  And she said, look like it was no big deal.
• 1:06:24
  Yeah.
• 1:06:26
  He said, yeah, I thought that's probably what you would do.
• 1:06:31
  And he said, Ashley, listen to yourself.
• 1:06:36
  You wonder why you have no self-confidence?
• 1:06:39
  Because your one person in your life who was supposed to love you unconditionally
• 1:06:45
  expected you to go out and sell your, she wasn't prostituting herself,
• 1:06:50
  but make money off of being naked.
• 1:06:56
  You need to take stock in that and call your dad and tell him that was not okay.
• 1:07:05
  That that has affected every decision I've made or not made because
• 1:07:13
  I don't have self-confidence.
• 1:07:16
  And the next week she called me and she said, last night I called dad
• 1:07:21
  and I told him about that memory and he didn't even remember it.
• 1:07:28
  It's like it never happened, but in her mind.
• 1:07:34
  It eroded her self confidence.
• 1:07:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:38
  And from that point on, she had self confidence and she built her
• 1:07:44
  website and now she's coaching people and she's found her niche.
• 1:07:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:51
  And she didn't realize that that was the, the living belief
• 1:07:57
  that was keeping her from moving forward with her chosen career.
• 1:08:03
  Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting, isn't it?
• 1:08:04
  'cause if a father had said something like, well that's okay, I can see that's
• 1:08:08
  a means to an end, you know, do what you need to do, but I'm right behind you.
• 1:08:11
  But I know you can do anything in life.
• 1:08:13
  You know, build your business, use that money to get yourself
• 1:08:17
  some financial independence.
• 1:08:19
  You know, there, there would've been a very different way to come at that.
• 1:08:22
  Right.
• 1:08:22
  'cause you also wouldn't wanna shame somebody for doing that.
• 1:08:24
  That's right.
• 1:08:26
  When I was a.
• 1:08:27
  Young man getting started in journalism.
• 1:08:31
  I worked every construction site.
• 1:08:33
  I worked at farms, so I used my body, I did manual labor.
• 1:08:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:37
  And to my mind, to do what she did was exactly the same as what I did.
• 1:08:41
  Just with using your body to, you know, whether it's on a farm, whether
• 1:08:47
  it's upper ladder, whether it's in that top, you know, it's, it's
• 1:08:51
  you, it is manual labor let's say.
• 1:08:54
  And it's honorable actually.
• 1:08:56
  And brave.
• 1:08:58
  But if someone was to said to me, well, Rupert, you're a total failure.
• 1:09:03
  You'll never make it as a writer because you're working construction sites.
• 1:09:08
  I did have one or two people.
• 1:09:12
  And it was quite, quite interesting coming outta university and all my
• 1:09:15
  friends getting high paying jobs and I was there, you know, struggling
• 1:09:19
  on building sites and watching them, you know, buy their apartments in
• 1:09:25
  London and nice cars and things.
• 1:09:28
  And I won't say that I didn't, you know, go through some difficulties
• 1:09:33
  with that, but I always knew that that was what I needed to do.
• 1:09:41
  But luckily for me, my parents were
• 1:09:46
  super supportive because I come from a family of journalists and
• 1:09:49
  writers, so they never questioned that that process is worthwhile.
• 1:09:55
  And as long as you're out there trying to make it work well,
• 1:09:57
  good on you kind of thing.
• 1:09:59
  If I hadn't had that, yeah, yeah, it might have affected me.
• 1:10:04
  Much, much more.
• 1:10:05
  So.
• 1:10:06
  It's so interesting, isn't it just a casual word like that.
• 1:10:09
  And it's very interesting also that her report back after the chat with
• 1:10:13
  her dad saying, well, he didn't really actually remember shows that the power
• 1:10:17
  of words that one can say things.
• 1:10:20
  I'm sure I have said things, you know, to people that resonated and
• 1:10:24
  that I didn't think that much about.
• 1:10:28
  And people have said the same to me.
• 1:10:30
  Power of story, power of word.
• 1:10:32
  Absolutely.
• 1:10:34
  When you are, when you are trying to help people, when you're trying to
• 1:10:38
  help, when you are helping people to find their dreams, what's your process?
• 1:10:44
  'cause something that I encounter sometimes I, I do something not
• 1:10:48
  dissimilar is people have often forgotten their dreams because they push them
• 1:10:53
  away because there's a, a process that happens as you know, where, you
• 1:10:58
  could be shamed out of your dreams.
• 1:11:00
  You can just have your heart broken because you try to realize your dreams and
• 1:11:05
  life keeps, you know, doing other things.
• 1:11:08
  One, one of the analogies I use is I'll take like a paper cup and I say, see this?
• 1:11:12
  This is a dream.
• 1:11:14
  And I put it on the floor, and then I'll turn around and I'll present my
• 1:11:18
  arss and I'll say, you see this ass?
• 1:11:20
  This is life and this is what life does.
• 1:11:23
  And then I take an imaginary shit on the cup, and then I get up
• 1:11:27
  and I stomp it and I'll bury it.
• 1:11:31
  I'll often do that outside.
• 1:11:32
  I stomp it into the ground and they'll say That's what life seems to do.
• 1:11:36
  However, and of course this breaks our hearts, but how the
• 1:11:39
  dream hasn't gone anywhere.
• 1:11:41
  It's actually just been planted and fertilized, and now all it requires
• 1:11:46
  is moisture, blood, sweat, tears and it will come up like a planted seed.
• 1:11:51
  I might steal that.
• 1:11:52
  You, you, you gotta credit me 'cause that's my dream.
• 1:11:55
  Whisper of speech.
• 1:11:56
  Okay.
• 1:11:58
  Exactly.
• 1:11:59
  The autism guy.
• 1:12:01
  But the, but it's true.
• 1:12:03
  And so then what I say to people is, you know, because you might have forgotten
• 1:12:06
  what your dream is because of that process, 'cause of that pushing away.
• 1:12:12
  Don't worry, just ask the question to yourself.
• 1:12:16
  What's my dream?
• 1:12:18
  And you'll be sitting on the toilet having a poo.
• 1:12:23
  Or you'll be sitting in traffic.
• 1:12:24
  You'll be in one of those kind of unguarded moments and
• 1:12:27
  it'll go bubble bubble ping.
• 1:12:28
  'cause your, your subconscious will activate your conscious
• 1:12:32
  mind at that point.
• 1:12:33
  You go, oh yeah, that was it.
• 1:12:35
  And then almost immediately you'll push it away again.
• 1:12:38
  I can't have it, but this is what, where the rules change.
• 1:12:43
  And we talked about this before we hit record.
• 1:12:46
  I am a great believer that service is what activates dreams.
• 1:12:53
  If you put that dream into the service of the dreams of people
• 1:12:58
  more vulnerable than yourself.
• 1:13:01
  So of course I work a lot with people that work with autism more other, you
• 1:13:05
  know, vulnerable conditions like this.
• 1:13:08
  If you put those dreams into the service of their dreams, they're like shamans,
• 1:13:16
  your, your dreams will come true.
• 1:13:20
  You make this contract with the universe where the universe goes,
• 1:13:23
  oh, well this person is in service.
• 1:13:25
  We better make sure those dreams come true so that they can
• 1:13:28
  keep going and not burn out.
• 1:13:31
  So now the rules change and I've seen this happen time and time again for people.
• 1:13:37
  So.
• 1:13:38
  But that's not really a process of helping them fi find their dreams.
• 1:13:42
  That's more a process of suggestion.
• 1:13:45
  When you are coaching people and maybe they're having trouble accessing
• 1:13:51
  their dream, give me an example of how you coach them through that.
• 1:14:00
  If you made it this far into the podcast, then I'm guessing you're somebody
• 1:14:05
  that, like me, loves to read books about not just how people have achieved
• 1:14:09
  self actualization, but particularly about the relationship with nature.
• 1:14:16
  Spirituality, life, the universe, and everything.
• 1:14:20
  And I'd like to draw your attention to my books.
• 1:14:23
  If you would like to read the story of how we even arrived here, perhaps
• 1:14:28
  you'd like to check out the two New York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy
• 1:14:33
  and The Long Ride Home, and come on an adventure with us and see what engendered,
• 1:14:38
  what started Live Free Ride Free.
• 1:14:40
  And before we go back to the podcast, also check out The Healing
• 1:14:44
  Land, which tells the story of.
• 1:14:47
  My years spent in the Kalahari with the Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people
• 1:14:52
  there, and all that they taught me, and mentored me in, and all that I learned.
• 1:14:57
  Come on that adventure with me.
• 1:14:58
  John Kippen: Well, they tell them the story about the five-year-old
• 1:15:00
  kid meeting the friend of their dad's and ask them to go back where
• 1:15:08
  there are no limitations and mm-hmm.
• 1:15:10
  And ask them what they want to do when they grow up.
• 1:15:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:15
  You know, bring them back to that time of innocence, that childhood.
• 1:15:19
  And there are no limitations.
• 1:15:21
  You know, whatever your dream can sound outlandish, it can sound stupid, it can
• 1:15:28
  sound honorable, it can sound whatever.
• 1:15:32
  But deep down, we all know what we want to do, what we're attracted to, what
• 1:15:40
  we're inspired by, who we're inspired by.
• 1:15:44
  And we watch them succeed at something that we are interested in.
• 1:15:51
  And that is what helps us say, if John can do it, I can do it.
• 1:16:00
  You know, some dreams are easier than others to attain, but life is about
• 1:16:07
  the journey, not the destination.
• 1:16:10
  And people often forget that,
• 1:16:13
  Rupert Isaacson: always, because it's not how we're conditioned.
• 1:16:17
  We're not conditioned to unconditional love, and we're
• 1:16:19
  not conditioned to the journey.
• 1:16:21
  We are absolutely conditioned to the destination.
• 1:16:26
  And the destination is six feet under.
• 1:16:28
  John Kippen: Yeah.
• 1:16:32
  So when people ask me the loaded question, what's the meaning of life from John Kipp?
• 1:16:39
  Is to fill as many moments of my life with joy.
• 1:16:43
  Yeah.
• 1:16:46
  As possible.
• 1:16:47
  Yeah.
• 1:16:49
  And joy shows up many different ways.
• 1:16:54
  Most of 'em have to do with interactions with other human
• 1:16:57
  beings or interactions with animals.
• 1:17:01
  Yeah.
• 1:17:01
  Nature.
• 1:17:02
  Yeah.
• 1:17:02
  Yeah.
• 1:17:04
  You know, being able to, and there's magic all around us, you know?
• 1:17:08
  You know, I love going cruising.
• 1:17:11
  'cause I'll be on a cruise ship and go and sit down outside and just watch
• 1:17:17
  the ocean for an hour and watch the waves and maybe there'll be a whale or
• 1:17:24
  a seal or a dolphin or whatever, just.
• 1:17:28
  Living its life,
• 1:17:32
  and I'll put myself just into this zen state and breathe the fresh air and
• 1:17:41
  let all my worries, all my troubles, all my angst, just float away.
• 1:17:49
  And that's when you clear your mind of all that baggage, all that crap.
• 1:17:55
  That's when you come to
• 1:17:59
  who you are and what you want to achieve.
• 1:18:03
  You need to make room in your brain for those ideas and those
• 1:18:09
  dreams to come to the surface.
• 1:18:15
  And so we do a lot of exercises about just blur your mind and
• 1:18:21
  being present, being in the moment.
• 1:18:23
  Feel what it's like to sit in the chair.
• 1:18:27
  Feel the wind or the air from the fan above you.
• 1:18:31
  Feel the warmth from the light, whatever it is.
• 1:18:36
  And just be in that moment and just be present.
• 1:18:40
  And then I'll lower my voice and speak very soothingly and calmly and say, okay,
• 1:18:51
  what thoughts are coming to your mind now?
• 1:18:54
  And let's explore those thoughts.
• 1:18:58
  And people start to understand
• 1:19:04
  what they want to do, what they want to be.
• 1:19:07
  It can be anyone who we want to be.
• 1:19:11
  It just takes making a choice.
• 1:19:14
  Happiness is a choice.
• 1:19:17
  Being filled with joy is a choice,
• 1:19:22
  period.
• 1:19:25
  Those who are feeling fulfilled are the ones who are able to make those choices.
• 1:19:34
  So I think I get a lot of feedback from my clients that when they are done with their
• 1:19:39
  45 minutes to an hour session with me,
• 1:19:44
  they can breathe again.
• 1:19:47
  They have a list of actionable steps that they want to take, not
• 1:19:52
  need to take, they want to take.
• 1:19:57
  'cause when you need to do something, you find every excuse
• 1:20:00
  in the world not to do it.
• 1:20:04
  When you want to take a step becomes easier.
• 1:20:10
  It becomes a,
• 1:20:14
  a mission.
• 1:20:16
  You know, I, I try to funny, I misspoke.
• 1:20:23
  Once we let a word that I remove from a vocabulary, except
• 1:20:27
  until just now is the word try,
• 1:20:31
  because there is no trying, there's doing it or not doing it.
• 1:20:39
  And we all fall into that trap.
• 1:20:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, right.
• 1:20:42
  I just did.
• 1:20:43
  John Kippen: I
• 1:20:43
  Rupert Isaacson: think the word try comes from doing it
• 1:20:49
  and failing and then doing it again.
• 1:20:55
  And we have a verb for that, which is try.
• 1:20:58
  But what is definitely true is if you break down, try provided, you keep doing
• 1:21:06
  it it, what it really is, is a series of doings where it can be ambivalent is.
• 1:21:17
  If your are inner resolve, if your inner faith is shaken, then it can be
• 1:21:22
  hard to do it with the conviction that
• 1:21:28
  will allow for success.
• 1:21:34
  However, that sometimes that is a necessary step to go through, but that
• 1:21:38
  necessary step can take a decade or two.
• 1:21:41
  Try
• 1:21:41
  John Kippen: is
• 1:21:41
  Rupert Isaacson: always, almost
• 1:21:42
  John Kippen: always an excuse.
• 1:21:46
  Yes.
• 1:21:47
  Oh, I tried it and
• 1:21:47
  Rupert Isaacson: it didn't work out, so I'm giving up.
• 1:21:49
  Well, provided yes, you see there's two tries.
• 1:21:53
  There's aren't there?
• 1:21:54
  There's try and I gave up and maybe that's a forever giving up.
• 1:21:59
  Maybe that's a temporary giving up and there's trying and trying again and trying
• 1:22:06
  again and trying again and trying again.
• 1:22:09
  And it's interesting that we have this word, this verb,
• 1:22:12
  trying has two meanings, right?
• 1:22:14
  That something you, you can try, can be an attempt, but trying can also be
• 1:22:22
  to suffer, to put up with, to endure.
• 1:22:27
  This is trying, this is a trying situation.
• 1:22:29
  This is trying me, you know, that's the older use of that verb, but you need
• 1:22:35
  a certain amount of that tempering in the fire, being on the anvil with the
• 1:22:40
  hammer going bang, bang, bang on you.
• 1:22:42
  Of course to find that strength to one has to be tried, one has to be yeah, tested.
• 1:22:50
  So yes, I guess it's that thing, isn't it of do I try and give
• 1:22:55
  up or do I try and keep trying?
• 1:22:59
  What was it Winston Churchill said When you're going through hell.
• 1:23:02
  Keep going.
• 1:23:04
  John Kippen: Yeah.
• 1:23:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:23:05
  I thought that was a good one.
• 1:23:06
  But I, I do hear what you say that it, it's about trying with that
• 1:23:13
  bloody minded determination that, fuck it.
• 1:23:15
  I'm just gonna get there.
• 1:23:17
  Yeah.
• 1:23:17
  But it might take me a while.
• 1:23:19
  I mean, for example, I have a dream.
• 1:23:20
  I have a dream, which is to write fantasy novels, historical fantasy novels.
• 1:23:24
  I've been working on the same novel for 15 years.
• 1:23:28
  Wow.
• 1:23:29
  And I've done all sorts of things.
• 1:23:31
  And it must be a thousand pages long.
• 1:23:32
  No, no, no.
• 1:23:33
  It's, it's only one third written.
• 1:23:36
  It's just, it's a big deal.
• 1:23:38
  It's actually about, actually about half written, actually, that's half written.
• 1:23:42
  But it's, it's a, the story is big.
• 1:23:45
  It takes in real events that have to be then put through a
• 1:23:50
  fictional lens, which are complex.
• 1:23:52
  And I got involved with other things too, like autism and,
• 1:23:58
  or the, or the work that I do and then other young kids and so on and so on.
• 1:24:02
  But I never stopped doing it.
• 1:24:04
  And it's really interesting.
• 1:24:05
  I know people who roll their eyes when I talk about the novel, 'cause they,
• 1:24:09
  they've known me for a long time.
• 1:24:10
  Oh, you're still on that, are you?
• 1:24:12
  And, but I also know what it is to write a book in 18 months, but not this one.
• 1:24:17
  And I have definitely gone through all kinds of angst about it because when you
• 1:24:23
  write novels too, there's no guarantee.
• 1:24:26
  So when you write nonfiction as you may know, you can put out a proposal
• 1:24:30
  to a publisher and have that proposal accepted and actually be given.
• 1:24:36
  If it go all goes, what in advance of money?
• 1:24:40
  Against your royalties to write the thing.
• 1:24:42
  And the publisher takes the risk that maybe people will
• 1:24:45
  buy it, maybe they won't.
• 1:24:47
  But with novels it doesn't work that way.
• 1:24:48
  You have to write it and then there's every chance it might be rejected.
• 1:24:52
  And you, you can spend, you know, two decades on it.
• 1:24:55
  You know, JK Rowling got rejected by everybody for quite a long time.
• 1:24:59
  So you have to accept this and you must accept this before you begin.
• 1:25:05
  And at the same time, you have to ask yourself the question.
• 1:25:07
  Yeah, but do I want to do it anyway?
• 1:25:10
  And if the answer is yes, and for, for me the answer is, is yes.
• 1:25:14
  So it's definitely about the journey.
• 1:25:16
  And it's interesting too 'cause I'm a published author, but I have no
• 1:25:19
  idea if anyone will take this book.
• 1:25:22
  But it doesn't mean I shouldn't write it.
• 1:25:25
  And it would've taken a couple of decades of my life.
• 1:25:30
  But so what?
• 1:25:32
  It's fun.
• 1:25:33
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:35
  You could also,
• 1:25:36
  John Kippen: Stop at a certain point in your writing
• 1:25:43
  and lead to the second novel
• 1:25:47
  and just get the first one out
• 1:25:52
  so that you don't feel this pressure that you've wasted the last 10
• 1:26:00
  plus years writing this novel.
• 1:26:04
  It's, you can always have a sequel.
• 1:26:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, yes.
• 1:26:07
  No, the novel is definitely a series.
• 1:26:10
  I hope that the, I have a funny gut feeling that the other ones will not
• 1:26:13
  take anything like as long because I don't have to set up the world.
• 1:26:18
  John Kippen: But you always wanna leave your audience wanting more.
• 1:26:21
  Yeah, that's true.
• 1:26:22
  Yeah.
• 1:26:23
  You do.
• 1:26:25
  Yeah, you do.
• 1:26:26
  So, maybe you should consider
• 1:26:31
  finding a way to end the sure's chapter, publish that on your
• 1:26:39
  own through TDP or whatever.
• 1:26:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:26:44
  And if people are attracted to it, then go to a publisher and say,
• 1:26:49
  okay, I want you to help me publish part two, part three, part four.
• 1:26:59
  Just a thought.
• 1:27:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:27:02
  Some thoughts, and I know a lot of people listening and watching here will
• 1:27:06
  be writing and or having other projects which they could use some help with.
• 1:27:14
  So
• 1:27:16
  John Kippen: I wrote this in, I thought about it for five years.
• 1:27:21
  Yeah.
• 1:27:22
  And wrote about it in two
• 1:27:23
  Rupert Isaacson: and a half months.
• 1:27:24
  Wrote it in two.
• 1:27:24
  Yeah.
• 1:27:25
  You see, I would posit that, that that book was probably
• 1:27:28
  seven years in the making.
• 1:27:30
  I've, I've had those too.
• 1:27:31
  My, my last book I, I did in about 18 months, but I lived the
• 1:27:35
  story for a good Oh, of course.
• 1:27:38
  Yeah.
• 1:27:39
  John Kippen: Oh yeah.
• 1:27:39
  Yeah.
• 1:27:39
  It's a memoir.
• 1:27:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:27:41
  John Kippen: You know, it was just trying to figure out editing.
• 1:27:45
  It was more difficult than writing
• 1:27:47
  Rupert Isaacson: it.
• 1:27:47
  Absolutely.
• 1:27:49
  That's what everybody doesn't realize.
• 1:27:51
  And if you want to write a good book, it's a, if you haven't got a good
• 1:27:54
  editor, if you wanna make a film, if you haven't got a good editor, w
• 1:27:59
  no matter how you might be able to edit your own book, but it would take
• 1:28:03
  about 40 years to really edit it well.
• 1:28:07
  Whereas a really good editor can just come in and go, b, b, b if
• 1:28:11
  you have, if they get your story.
• 1:28:13
  It is the most important thing.
• 1:28:14
  I think the editor, I included, go ahead.
• 1:28:18
  I included, I included
• 1:28:19
  John Kippen: QR codes in my book.
• 1:28:21
  Okay.
• 1:28:22
  Why so, and you, as you're reading it, you scan the QR code and it takes
• 1:28:26
  you to a secret area On my website.
• 1:28:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:28:29
  John Kippen: Where it has videos of me, ex, you know, my TED Talk
• 1:28:35
  that now has a million plus views.
• 1:28:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 1:28:38
  John Kippen: To the documentary I did with Jimmy, the Curtis.
• 1:28:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:28:42
  John Kippen: To me, performing for Alex tbe to all the highlights Mm.
• 1:28:47
  Good and bad of my life.
• 1:28:51
  And I wrote it because I'm a theater guy.
• 1:28:54
  I wrote it not with chapters, but with acts and scenes.
• 1:29:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:29:02
  And I think you read us something from it.
• 1:29:04
  Read us something from your book.
• 1:29:08
  Oh
• 1:29:08
  John Kippen: boy.
• 1:29:13
  Act 14, Ted Talk and documentary.
• 1:29:16
  At this moment, I felt the confidence and drive to share my journey, realizing that
• 1:29:22
  magic needed to be an integral part of it.
• 1:29:26
  I reached out to my good friend David, an incredible magician who would, has
• 1:29:30
  appeared on shows like and the Marriage of God talent, and I asked for his assistance
• 1:29:36
  in creating a new magic act that would blend with motivational speaking.
• 1:29:41
  He emphasized that if I wanted to be a motivational speaker, I
• 1:29:45
  needed credibility and suggested I considered doing a TED Talk.
• 1:29:50
  I hadn't thought about that, but I was open to the idea.
• 1:29:56
  David kindly submitted two applications on my behalf to events at UCLA
• 1:30:01
  and San Diego State University.
• 1:30:04
  Both were seeking speakers for 10 available slots.
• 1:30:08
  Two weeks later, I received an email from the organizer of the San Diego
• 1:30:12
  event requesting more information.
• 1:30:15
  After several conversations, they informed me there, there were three openings, and
• 1:30:19
  they asked me if I would fill one of them.
• 1:30:23
  So, you know, it's, it's, it's but then I have sections in the
• 1:30:27
  book called Pearls of Wisdom.
• 1:30:31
  And they're just thought provoking.
• 1:30:36
  You know,
• 1:30:39
  how to develop a magic mindset.
• 1:30:41
  Go on, let's have it.
• 1:30:43
  What is a magical mindset?
• 1:30:46
  Why is a magical mindset important?
• 1:30:49
  That's two pages of the book.
• 1:30:53
  Just
• 1:30:54
  Rupert Isaacson: talking about, read those pages, read us those pages.
• 1:31:00
  What is a magical mindset, and why is a magical mindset important?
• 1:31:04
  I think this in
• 1:31:05
  John Kippen: our everyday line.
• 1:31:06
  Well, I, I always I have many, many quotes, but each pearl
• 1:31:10
  of wisdom starts with a quote.
• 1:31:11
  I think anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will and
• 1:31:16
  desire to do it, and put the time in.
• 1:31:19
  Roger Clemens.
• 1:31:21
  In our everyday lives, we often focus on what's real and practical, but that's
• 1:31:27
  if we could see the world differently.
• 1:31:30
  What sorry, but what if we could see the world differently?
• 1:31:33
  A magic mindset helps us do just that.
• 1:31:36
  The way of thinking allows us to see possibilities, be creative,
• 1:31:41
  and find joy in the little things.
• 1:31:44
  In this section, we'll explore what a magic mindset is, why it's important,
• 1:31:49
  and how to develop it in our lives.
• 1:31:52
  A magic mindset is about believing in the.
• 1:31:55
  Wonderful possibilities around us.
• 1:31:57
  It means that life.
• 1:31:58
  Looking at life with a sense of wonder and imagination, instead of
• 1:32:04
  seeing problems as big barriers, we can use them as exciting challenges.
• 1:32:09
  To overcome this mindset helps us be creative.
• 1:32:14
  When we think magically, we allow ourselves to dream big
• 1:32:17
  and come up with new ideas.
• 1:32:19
  Stay curious.
• 1:32:21
  A magic mindset encourages us to ask questions and explore the world around us.
• 1:32:28
  Be strong instead of giving up when things are tough, we learn
• 1:32:33
  to bounce back and keep going.
• 1:32:36
  Appreciate life.
• 1:32:38
  We learn to be thankful for even the small, beautiful moments in our day.
• 1:32:43
  Trust our feelings.
• 1:32:45
  We listen to our inner voice and all, and follow what feels right to us.
• 1:32:53
  Why is magic mind important?
• 1:32:55
  Excuse me.
• 1:32:56
  Why is the magic mindset important?
• 1:32:59
  Having a magical mindset can change how we experience life.
• 1:33:04
  Here are some benefits.
• 1:33:06
  Boost creativity.
• 1:33:08
  Thinking magically helps us come up with new and exciting ideas.
• 1:33:12
  This is useful in school, work, and personal projects.
• 1:33:17
  It makes problem solving easier.
• 1:33:20
  When we face challenges with curiosity, we can usually find better
• 1:33:24
  solutions, improve relationships.
• 1:33:28
  A magical mindset helps us connect with others and build stronger
• 1:33:32
  friendships, increase happiness.
• 1:33:36
  By noticing the magic in our lives.
• 1:33:39
  We feel more joy and satisfaction build resilience.
• 1:33:44
  We learn to keep trying even when things don't go our way.
• 1:33:49
  I'm not gonna read his whole book.
• 1:33:51
  You can read it when you download it, but fantastic.
• 1:33:54
  You know, so there are, there's even, there's even an intermission in the book.
• 1:34:00
  Mm.
• 1:34:01
  And during the intermission there's a video and it
• 1:34:04
  teaches you how to do a trick.
• 1:34:06
  That's fantastic.
• 1:34:08
  The trick is very simple.
• 1:34:11
  Used to be more applicable when you had business cards.
• 1:34:16
  But you can use it when you have a credit card and you pass it out to a server.
• 1:34:20
  What I do is I take the credit card
• 1:34:25
  and I make it float,
• 1:34:30
  and then you hand that, whatever it is, the business card, a ticket to
• 1:34:35
  something whatever it is to them.
• 1:34:38
  And now they kind of examine it and they're like, but did it float?
• 1:34:45
  And I just say, yeah, it floated.
• 1:34:48
  You know, I, I start, I came up with that idea when people use business
• 1:34:52
  cards, because so many people will take a business card, they'll stick it
• 1:34:55
  in their pocket and they get back to work and they clean up their pockets.
• 1:34:58
  They throw it in a dust drawer.
• 1:35:00
  They throw it in the trash.
• 1:35:01
  But I wanted people to keep my business card.
• 1:35:06
  So if you present your business card in a magical way,
• 1:35:11
  they'll feel, people feel less inclined to throw it away.
• 1:35:18
  Hmm, that's true.
• 1:35:20
  Put it in their wallet.
• 1:35:23
  They'll keep it in a, keep it on their desk instead of it
• 1:35:28
  hidden in the back of a drawer.
• 1:35:30
  'cause they saw it do something magical.
• 1:35:33
  And it helps you separate yourself from all your competitors in business.
• 1:35:43
  It's a simple trick to do and I teach people in a video of how to do it,
• 1:35:48
  but you gotta download the book and get to the intermission to be able
• 1:35:52
  to find that link to the video of teaching me how to make your business
• 1:35:56
  card or credit card, whatever float.
• 1:36:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.
• 1:36:03
  John Kippen: I love
• 1:36:04
  Rupert Isaacson: watching your reactions.
• 1:36:06
  Yes.
• 1:36:07
  Yes.
• 1:36:08
  'cause what you do is you bring, it becomes a taliman and your car
• 1:36:11
  becomes a talisman and by extension.
• 1:36:15
  So do you.
• 1:36:19
  Brilliant, John.
• 1:36:20
  Well, look, we're approaching the, the two hour mark.
• 1:36:24
  Any final, any last words?
• 1:36:27
  It's been, it's been a great conversation and obviously we,
• 1:36:31
  you should give us your website.
• 1:36:32
  You should give us what links people, how people can get to
• 1:36:36
  you for coaching, et cetera.
• 1:36:39
  But before we go there, any final words?
• 1:36:45
  John Kippen: Well, I want to say that this is an amazing conversation for me as well.
• 1:36:50
  I wanted to remind people that wherever they are in their lives, they're
• 1:36:55
  worthy of being loved, they're worthy of being respected, no matter what
• 1:37:00
  mistakes they've made in their lives.
• 1:37:04
  Those mistakes do not define them as human beings.
• 1:37:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:37:09
  That being different is truly their superpower.
• 1:37:14
  And is those differences that make us, us stand out in a crowd as opposed to
• 1:37:22
  hide and feed your heart with your art.
• 1:37:28
  Oh, I love that.
• 1:37:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Feed your heart with your art.
• 1:37:32
  That's a, that's a great ending note.
• 1:37:36
  All right.
• 1:37:36
  The plugs, how do people find you?
• 1:37:39
  John Kippen: My main website is john kippen.com.
• 1:37:42
  KIT as in Paul, T as in Paul, EN as in nancy.com.
• 1:37:47
  It's John with an h john kipp.com.
• 1:37:50
  And then you can go to kipp coaching.com
• 1:37:53
  to, to learn how to reach out to me and set up a no obligation zoom meeting.
• 1:38:00
  Mm.
• 1:38:00
  To talk about what you wanna accomplish and where you feel stuck
• 1:38:04
  and see if my, I'm possible method is somewhere where something that
• 1:38:10
  can help you get out of your own way.
• 1:38:14
  Because all that's what stops us is we get in our own way.
• 1:38:18
  Absolutely.
• 1:38:19
  We
• 1:38:19
  Rupert Isaacson: do.
• 1:38:20
  I would, I would say we're even taught to, we're taught that we have to.
• 1:38:27
  The, the, the Abrahamic way of up bringing up children almost ensures it.
• 1:38:34
  Yeah, but it doesn't.
• 1:38:36
  Yeah.
• 1:38:36
  But the story doesn't have to end there.
• 1:38:38
  Absolutely.
• 1:38:39
  John Kippen: Right.
• 1:38:41
  So to download a pdf DF version, cool collar PDF version with clickable links
• 1:38:47
  of playing the hand you were dealt, you simply go to john kipp.com/free
• 1:38:53
  gift free
• 1:38:54
  Rupert Isaacson: gift, okay?
• 1:38:54
  John Kippen: You'll be presented with a form to get, capture your name and your
• 1:38:58
  email address and your phone number, and then you'll be provided a link where you
• 1:39:03
  can actually download with a password and the password's in the, on the screen.
• 1:39:10
  But it's just my name, all one word, John, given no, no capital, no spaces.
• 1:39:15
  And then you can download the book and read it at your leisure.
• 1:39:18
  And it will give you insights and kind of how my brain works how I've
• 1:39:24
  accomplished what I've done in my life.
• 1:39:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:39:29
  And how to come out of hiding.
• 1:39:30
  How to come out of hiding.
• 1:39:31
  Other people are in hiding.
• 1:39:33
  You know, one can be hiding in that sight, as you know.
• 1:39:38
  And today's
• 1:39:38
  John Kippen: world of divisiveness and separation and
• 1:39:46
  kings
• 1:39:49
  speaking of a, from American point of view
• 1:39:53
  mm-hmm.
• 1:39:54
  There's a lack of hope right now in today's society.
• 1:39:59
  You know, we're all scared of what AI is gonna do, how AI is gonna replace us.
• 1:40:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:05
  How are we gonna reinvent us ourselves in a world of ai?
• 1:40:11
  And that's something that's bringing fear to a lot of people.
• 1:40:18
  So, I don't have all the answers, but I certainly have a lot
• 1:40:22
  of those questions to pond.
• 1:40:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, a bit of magic always helps, isn't it?
• 1:40:27
  It does.
• 1:40:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:29
  John Kippen: Absolutely.
• 1:40:31
  Because a little magic, a little awe and wonder will bring you back
• 1:40:34
  to those times of your childhood
• 1:40:38
  mm-hmm.
• 1:40:38
  Where everything was possible if you had the dream and the vision.
• 1:40:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:40:49
  And it still is,
• 1:40:51
  John Kippen: and it still is and can be.
• 1:40:55
  So if you want some coaching just send me an email, go to kipping coaching.com.
• 1:41:01
  Sign up for a free call and we can chat about what you're hiding from
• 1:41:05
  and, and see if my impossible method might be able to help you move forward.
• 1:41:16
  Rupert Isaacson: It's generous.
• 1:41:17
  Thank you, John.
• 1:41:19
  Thank you, Rupert.
• 1:41:20
  I'm sure this won't be the last one.
• 1:41:24
  Awesome.
• 1:41:25
  Yeah.
• 1:41:26
  All right.
• 1:41:27
  Might ask you to come on again in a few months and have Yeah, I love to do that.
• 1:41:34
  All right.
• 1:41:36
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• 1:41:40
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• 1:41:44
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• 1:41:48
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• 1:41:54
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• 1:41:54
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• 1:41:58
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• 1:42:02
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• 1:42:05
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• 1:42:41
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• 1:42:45
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• 1:42:50
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