In this episode of 'Don't Cut Your Own Bangs,' host Danielle Ireland introduces John Kippen, a resilience and empowerment coach, magician, and motivational speaker. John shares his incredible journey of overcoming a life-threatening brain tumor and how it transformed his life and career.
Throughout the episode, John discusses his healing journey, the power of vulnerability, and the importance of facing one's limiting beliefs. He also reveals the origins of his unique phrase 'impossible really means I am possible' and offers a special gift to listeners. Tune in to uncover valuable wisdom nuggets and be inspired by John's story of triumph over adversity.
00:00 Introduction to the Episode
00:40 Meet John Kippen: A Multihyphenate Talent
01:23 John's Life-Altering Diagnosis
05:46 The Surgery and Its Aftermath
08:04 The Road to Recovery
13:30 Embracing the New Normal
17:29 The Power of Truth and Magic
29:14 The Power of Magic and Connection
29:31 Introducing Treasured: A Journal for Self-Discovery
30:44 The Magic of Personal Connection
32:59 Overcoming Personal Struggles Through Magic
34:38 The Journey to Self-Acceptance
35:42 The Importance of Asking and Vulnerability
50:24 The TED Talk Experience
54:34 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
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DANIELLE IRELAND, LCSW
I greatly appreciate your support and engagement as part of the Don't Cut Your Own Bangs community. Feel free to reach out with questions, comments, or anything you'd like to share. You can connect with me at any of the links below.
JOHN KIPPEN:
https://www.ted.com/talks/john_kippen_being_different_is_my_super_power_magic_saved_my_life
https://www.johnkippen.com
DANIELLE IRELAND, LCSW
Website: https://danielleireland.com/
The Treasured Journal: https://danielleireland.com/journal
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielleireland_lcsw
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Transcript:
John Kippen Edited Interview
[00:00:00]
[00:00:07] Hello. Hello, this is Danielle Ireland and you are catching an episode of Don't Cut Your Own Bangs. And today I have the great pleasure of introducing you to someone I can now call a new friend John Kippen. John is a multihyphenate. He has had quite a life and he's an excellent storyteller. So this episode you're gonna wanna buckle up.
[00:00:31] It is so good. Get those AirPods in, go on your walk, get safely in your car, get ready to listen because this is just an absolutely beautiful episode. But let me tell you a little bit about John. John is a resilience and empowerment coach. He was and is the CEO of a very successful IT company.
[00:00:49] He was a main stage performer at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, so if that just gives you a little insight, is the level of his magic. He is a motivational speaker. He's a life coach, and. He has a TED talk that has received over a million views. And the heartbeat of this TED talk is how he triumphs over tragedy with a diagnosis of a tumor the size of a golf ball that is separating his brainstem and the procedure he needed to save his life, changed his life forever.
[00:01:23] Doing the work of healing does not come easily to anyone, but as John so beautifully puts in this episode, if John can do it, you can do it. He's using his stories, his vulnerable and raw experiences, and talking about not only what happened to him, but how he moved through the impossible.
[00:01:45] He actually coins a phrase that I love and I'm going to keep. Which is that impossible really means I am possible. So the ultimate magic trick, the ultimate illusion is what your limiting beliefs are about yourself, and how do you use facing those fears and those limiting beliefs to transform your life.
[00:02:08] And in John's case, he takes that healing and offers it as a gift to us. As listeners to his clients and his coaching practice to the readers of his book, he has authored a book The Forward by None other than the Jamie Lee Curtis from all of the places. You know her most recently. The Bear where she won an Emmy, but everything everywhere, all at once.
[00:02:32] She and John are buds, and she believes in him and believes in his work, and as a champion of that work, it just adds a little extra sparkle and fairy dust to the beautiful work that he's already doing to say that he's been vetted by someone who is so sparkly and magnetic and also deeply entrenched in holding space for the truth and honoring the truth.
[00:02:52] This is a heartfelt episode, so what I would recommend. If you're in a place to do so is you might wanna jot some notes down because John drops some beautiful wisdom nuggets in this episode. And the book that he authored is playing The Hand You're Dealt. And what I wanna share too, we talk about it in the episode, but I wanna highlight this 'cause it's really important.
[00:03:12] John is giving everyone who listens to the episode a free gift, but it is not linked in the show notes. It is only available to those of you who listen. It's a special little surprise embedded in the episode that you have to listen to find, but it is a free gift from him to you. So without further ado, get ready to sit back, relax, and enjoy the beautiful wisdom of John Kippen.
[00:03:35]
[00:03:36] Kippen, multihyphenate resilience and empowerment, coach magician, keynote speaker, author, and all around. Nice guy. Thank you for joining me today on the Don't Cut Your Own Bangs podcast.
[00:03:47] Danielle: Hollywood legend wrote the forward of his beautiful book, playing the Hand You're Dealt Forward by the one and Only Take It Away, John, Jamie
[00:03:58] John: Lee Curtis.
[00:03:59] Danielle: Jamie Lee Curtis. Yes. So you have to stay and listen to the entire episode because he's going to tease out a special little giveaway that will only be revealed in the audio.
[00:04:10] So you gotta listen. It's not gonna be linked in the show notes, folks. So buckle up, sit down. This is gonna be a great episode with a fun gift for you, a special little dose of magic hidden inside. So, John, you, I mean, all the different fun things that we listed about what you do. You're a magician, you're a motivational speaker, you're a coach.
[00:04:30] What I know doing the work I do as a therapist is the skills and trade that you're building your life on. Those were skills that they were. Hard one, like nobody chooses, in my opinion and in my experience, no one chooses to go into a helping profession that hasn't needed help in their life. It's like the, our healing becomes our medicine.
[00:04:54] And I really wanna learn about not just what you offer, but your healing journey that put you in the unique position you're in to do the work you do. So, welcome and I'd love to hear from you.
[00:05:05] John: So just quickly, the Reader's Digest version of my backstory. Grew up Los Angeles, middle class family, two great parents loving, no sisters or brothers, had everything I needed.
[00:05:18] They sent me to a nice school and, I got into theater, started doing theater, in college. I studied theater and became the big man on campus because pretty much I grabbed every opportunity that presented itself. Started a computer company out of college. 'cause I'm a creative problem solver.
[00:05:38] That's the thread that goes through everything I do in my life.
[00:05:42] Mm-hmm.
[00:05:42] John: I look at a problem, I say, how am I gonna solve that?
[00:05:45] Mm-hmm.
[00:05:46] John: And then in June of July of 2002, I was diagnosed with a four half centimeter brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma.
[00:05:55] Danielle: Yes. And this was, so it was slowly severing your brainstem? Correct.
[00:05:59] John: It was displacing the brainstem. Causing not only hearing issues, but dizziness upon standing or walking.
[00:06:07] Mm-hmm.
[00:06:08] John: I had to have something done with it. I would not have survived.
[00:06:12] Mm-hmm.
[00:06:14] John: And. It was a whirlwind , I went and saw the doctor who finally diagnosed it after seeing him the MRI films, and he, he had no bedside manner.
[00:06:25] I remember sitting on the examining room table, right. And the, the tissue paper is crinkling under my butt. Mm-hmm. I could feel the, I could sense the temperature. I'm heightened sensitivity.
[00:06:37] And he looks up at the MRI after talking to a neurosurgeon, and he turns around and says, John, you have a four and a half centimeter brain tumor.
[00:06:46] It's killing you. We're operating you on Friday. You're gonna go deaf in your left ear, and there's a possibility for some facial weakness. We're gonna do everything we can to prevent that. And he left
[00:07:01] Danielle: the room. So he knew, and in his own. Brash in abrupt way, essentially prepared you for the outcome and challenges that would come assuming the surgery was a success?
[00:07:17] John: Yeah. He is a world renowned acoustic neuroma surgeon. He's one of the guys you go to, when you have this kind of tumor and that's all he does. Wow. But he literally left the room and I'm sitting there and I didn't bring anybody in and
[00:07:31] yeah.
[00:07:32] John: A tip to anyone who's potentially going in for a serious diagnosis.
[00:07:36] Yeah.
[00:07:37] John: Bring a friend or a family member.
[00:07:39] Because it goes in one ear and out the other, you're in shock. Right. Right. When you get home and you say, wait a minute, he said that surgery gonna be four hours or 14 hours or 20. How, how long ago and you have all these questions. Yeah. And you know, getting ahold of the doctor to ask them again is just not the way our medical system works.
[00:08:01] He's back to back, to back to back patients.
[00:08:04] So, I checked in the night before, they did blood tests and I tried to get an hour or two sleep, 6:00 AM my clockwork the orderly came in and said, okay, get naked, get on this cold gurney. What a sheet over you and we're going take you to the operating room.
[00:08:21] Danielle: I wanna pause your story for a moment. 'cause there's a couple things that I, I wanna tease out a little. So one is you, the way that you tell your story, so well probably because you've told it on stages, you've shared it with others, you've written about it. There is something about a trauma.
[00:08:37] That really marks the sort of BCAD of life. And the way you shared, I felt like I was in the room with you when you were getting this bomb of news dropped on you so you were theater trained, theater kid, a creative person, a creative problem solver, and a business owner.
[00:08:57] Like I, I think about that often when people are experiencing trauma. What, what was life sort of the, the illusion of normalcy. The, the, you know, the predictability of this is my life and this is my to-do list and this is my calendar. So before that moment, you were just a guy on the west coast running a business.
[00:09:17] Is that right?
[00:09:18] John: Very successful business.
[00:09:19] Danielle: And I, I just wanna share briefly too, I haven't met too many other only children. Theater background 'cause that's me too.
[00:09:30] John: Oh, really?
[00:09:31] Danielle: I'm an only child and I was a theater major and started acting when I was 13, so before. But, the creative problem solver, God, my theater background has paid dividends in ways I didn't know at the time.
[00:09:42] I didn't know that when I was preparing for this interview, but now that you've said that, it's like that thing that I couldn't put my finger on has clicked into place.
[00:09:49] John: I love doing improv.
[00:09:51] Improv is the, you know, everybody talks about being in the moment.
[00:09:57] Yeah.
[00:09:57] John: What does that really mean, being in the moment?
[00:10:00] When you do improv, you have to be in the moment. Otherwise you fall flat. And everybody, you're doing improv looks at you going. Well, it's your turn.
[00:10:10] Danielle: You've tapped in. Now you've gotta say something. How are you gonna move the story forward?
[00:10:14] Exactly. I feel most alive when I'm engaged in moments like that. And I, it's, I'm not a, a adrenaline junkie, but I would say that's my high, it's the, rush of connecting with somebody like that. So you were running a very successful business. This bomb has dropped.
[00:10:32] You can barely remember what you were told and what your life is likely going to be. Assuming everything goes well, what is going to happen when you wake up off your op? And how long was your operation?
[00:10:46] John: 15 hours.
[00:10:48] Danielle: And the surgery was a success. They were able to remove the golf ice tumor.
[00:10:52] Yeah. So they removed the fall sized tumor.
[00:10:54] John: I didn't have time to think, you know, I got one of my guys who worked for me told him that he was gonna be running the company for a month or two. He agreed.
[00:11:05] Mm-hmm.
[00:11:05] John: Had to shovel up some more money to get him to do it, but, you know, it is what it is. You do what you have to do.
[00:11:11] Yeah. And then,, I just tried to think positively, hope for the best. Plan for the worst. You know, I had someone gonna stay with me the first week, make food because I just wanted to recover and I didn't know what it was gonna be like.
[00:11:27] Danielle: Yeah. You're like, I just need a week to recover, and then I'm just gonna hop back into life, hopefully.
[00:11:31] John: Rolling the gurney into the surgical, prep area.
[00:11:35] The nurse saying, Hey John, you know, we know we have to shape after your head. You want me to do it now or after you're under.
[00:11:42] Danielle: So you didn't even know that they were gonna shave your head. Well, I didn't think about it.
[00:11:48] John: I mean, if I had thought about it, I got a shaved part of my head.
[00:11:51] Danielle: Right.
[00:11:52] John: I said to her, please.
[00:11:56] Danielle: Yeah.
[00:11:58] John: And so, they roll me into the operating room. You got these really bright lights, , blinding you, and you're laying there and they're like, okay, you're gonna count back toward five.
[00:12:09] The next thing I know, I hear faint voices and it was like I was 30 meters deep in a pool. Struggling to get to the surface. And I remember this like it was yesterday, literally trying to swim to the service to regain consciousness.
[00:12:26] And finally when I got enough, I realized that my dad was sitting on the edge of my bed holding my hand,
[00:12:34] and
[00:12:34] John: he was smiling at me, but I didn't see my mom.
[00:12:40] So I asked my dad for my glasses and he handed me the glasses. And I remember trying to put the, and then I realized my head's bandage.
[00:12:48] Danielle: Oh, right.
[00:12:50] John: So I had to figure out how to get the glasses in Cockeye to get 'em on my face, right?
[00:12:55] And the look on her face was one of horror. What did these butchers do to my son's face? And at that point, I didn't know my face was paralyzed. Because I have full feeling, I just can't move it.
[00:13:10] Danielle: So you currently, you still have full feeling in your face. You just lost mobility,
[00:13:14] John: so I didn't really understand what that look was.
[00:13:18] Danielle: Right. How could you?
[00:13:19] John: And then my mom handed me her compact makeup.
[00:13:22] And I opened it up and I'm like, holy crap. And then, I'm still getting
[00:13:30] accustomed to, the one thing I noticed is leading into surgery, I was constantly dizzy and that dizziness was gone.
[00:13:38] Danielle: Wow.
[00:13:39] John: And that was like, oh my God, what a relief.
[00:13:42] Mm-hmm.
[00:13:43] John: So the doctor finally made his way in and I was like, so when's my face gonna move? And he said, John, we were, successful.
[00:13:50] The tumors removed. Right when we were close the incision, your face stopped moving. But we think it's just to do the swelling, and once the swelling goes down, your face should start moving again. So I'm like, okay. I can handle that. That's a, it's not a permanent thing. I can deal with it.
[00:14:05] So I'm in the hospital a week and, they're like, when you can do three laps around the hospital floor, without a walker, we'll send you home.
[00:14:16] So that became my goal. I remember getting outta bed and then they said, no, no, no. Wait for the, I said, no. The doctor said that I need to rock three laps around.
[00:14:26] I want to get the hell out of here
[00:14:28] Five days I got home. My dad drove me home and I sat on my couch and now I'm like, okay, I can start healing and check email here and there. And I was taking lots of naps. And then I coughed and I touched the back of my neck and it was wet.
[00:14:45] Mm.
[00:14:47] John: Oh, it was a spinal fluid leak on the base of the incision.
[00:14:51] Whew.
[00:14:53] John: So immediately I called the doctor's office and the said, oh, get your ass back here. And I went back to the hospital three times with them to redo the bandaging to try to prevent the leak.
[00:15:05] Danielle: Wait, you call the hospital. Hey, their spinal fluid leaking out of my surgical incision. And they're like, yeah, you should get in a car and drive yourself to the hospital.
[00:15:16] John: They didn't say how I should get to the hospital.
[00:15:19] Danielle: Okay. Fair, fair. But that,
[00:15:22] okay. Wow. '
[00:15:24] John: cause that's not good.
[00:15:25] And there was potential for getting, spinal meningitis in that. From what I understand is one of the most extreme pains out there.
[00:15:35] Okay.
[00:15:35] John: I went back and forth three different times over that week.
[00:15:39] They tried to, it was just as right behind my ear, right at the base of the incision. So, there was no way that they were going to be able to, put a pressure manage to keep that and so it could start healing.
[00:15:51] Danielle: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:52] John: So they finally said, all right, tomorrow you're gonna come in and we're gonna, redo the incision and pull more belly fat outta your belly to fill the hole.
[00:16:01] And Yeah. This time they used staples, man, thick Frankenstein.
[00:16:07] All the way up.
[00:16:08] But then I'm like, I was only in the hospital for a day. And then, and I'm like, okay, I can relax. I remember getting up and brushing my teeth, you know, and I'm looking at the mirror and God, , I don't recognize that guy.
[00:16:24] Yeah. And I got rid of all the mirrors in my house.
[00:16:30] I didn't want a constant reminder.
[00:16:33] My face was screwed up.
[00:16:34] Danielle: I, there's so much specificity to what is uniquely your story.
[00:16:46] Mm-hmm.
[00:16:47] Danielle: But what I have found is when people. Are able to share elements of their experience. It's when you go into the specificity of what you experienced. I can see myself in so many elements of your story in my own, like when we get in deeper, it becomes somehow more accessible and universal.
[00:17:16] And in that way, you're not alone, even though it happened to you and that detail about your removing the mirrors from your home. It, it brings me to something I really wanted to ask you about. You share by saying, and then also , by, actually demonstrating in your TED talk that, once you began the healing process of really addressing your depression after your operation, that, the story, it led you to magic, literally. And I also think in a more magical way, beyond performing an illusion. And I know not to call it a trick, I learned that from arrested development.
[00:18:03] But, there's something you said that I wanted to quote that it's amazing how accepting kids are of the truth. You open up your TED talk, which I will link in the show notes so people can see. But that you mentioned that this in a way that your permission and your humor and your honesty, it created levity and lightness.
[00:18:27] For something that would be considered maybe so precious and heavy. And what I wanna speak to, and open up a question if that's okay, is, I'm curious what your relationship with the truth is because I think humor in its highest expression is allowing us to laugh at something that we see the truth in.
[00:18:49] And yet it's this razor's edge between laughing at someone or laughing at something versus inviting us to laugh at the, the human experience that we maybe don't know how to name or express in another way. But I wanna know personally for you, what your relationship is with the truth and the value of embracing it.
[00:19:13] And then in your line of work as a coach, where do you see people struggle with it?
[00:19:19] John: Truth is an illusion.
[00:19:21] Danielle: Ooh, tell me more. That just, that was a zingy response that you popped right out. Please tell me more.
[00:19:28] John: Yeah. Truth. Everybody has their own truth.
[00:19:31] Danielle: Oh, well there you go.
[00:19:32] John: Their own perspective,
[00:19:34] Danielle: uhhuh,
[00:19:35] John: And the truth is formed out of your limiting beliefs.
[00:19:41] Danielle: So the truth is formed out of your limited beliefs,
[00:19:44] John: your limiting beliefs.
[00:19:45] Danielle: Limiting beliefs. Okay.
[00:19:47] John: Yeah.
[00:19:48] I just wanted to take a slight step back.
[00:19:50] Danielle: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:51] John: I told you this was gonna be the Reader's Digest version.
[00:19:54] Danielle: Yes.
[00:19:54] John: But it took me 12 years
[00:19:57] To come out of that hiding. Wow. 12 years.
[00:20:02] Danielle: How old were you when you had your operation?
[00:20:05] John: 33.
[00:20:06] Danielle: 33. Okay.
[00:20:08] John: And fortunately for me, I could work from home. But I miss so many celebrations with friends and family. 'cause I just didn't want to have to explain it. I didn't want to have to deal with the looks, , and I tell this story on my TED Talk and in my book. You know, at a restaurant I wanted to get a burger at Tony Aroma's. And I'm sitting there by myself and in a booth, and there's a booth right in front of me and there's a family with a kid, two parents and a kid. And the kid's squirming and gets up and turns around and is now on his knees on the bench and looking at me.
[00:20:44] And he gets up and he comes over and he says, Mr, what's wrong with your face? And in that moment, I didn't want to have a five or 6-year-old come over and Right. And I'm like, okay, I had the strength to come out and go to a restaurant. I have to deal with this. So I started talking to this little boy
[00:21:06] Danielle: Mm.
[00:21:07] John: And saying, I had a medical procedure that caused me not to with my face before I could continue his mom grabbing him
[00:21:16] mm-hmm.
[00:21:17] John: The arm and drug him back and said, don't bother him. The nice man, he has enough troubles already. And I couldn't leave it there.
[00:21:25] Mm-hmm.
[00:21:27] John: So I had to go to the little boy and I knelt down and I got eye level and I said, I love my new face because it's different.
[00:21:34] It's different just like yours. And I remember it like it was yesterday, he took his fingers and he tried to distort his face to be crooked like mine. And he turned to his mom and said, look, mom, I could do that too. And then he went back to eating his meal. His question was answered.
[00:21:56] He had no judgment. And his parents were like, holy crap, did we just learn a lesson? How to raise our child?
[00:22:03] They whispered, thank you on their way out.
[00:22:07] Danielle: But there is something I, there, there's something to that woman's response to you that really resonated with me.
[00:22:14] And it also, highlights the point you made so well about the, essentially the truth being relative. Because she projected onto you what her perception of your life was. Don't bother the nice man one, she didn't know you were nice, though. You are. But she didn't know that. Right. And she also didn't know what your troubles were or weren't, and she assumed that.
[00:22:39] John: But I always wonder what her motives were.
[00:22:41] Danielle: Right.
[00:22:42] John: was it to make me comfortable or was it to make her and her son comfortable
[00:22:48] Danielle: it for her? I think so.
[00:22:50] John: And that's how I took it.
[00:22:51] Danielle: I remember. So I have two children and I was pregnant once before and lost that pregnancy.
[00:22:57] 12 weeks in. And I haven't thought about this in a very long time, but I remember going into, a annual doctor's appointment and she saw on the chart that I was listed as pregnant and clearly now was not. And it was in her own discomfort of not, she was asking me about the baby thinking, 'cause she was not my ob, GYN it was a different type of doctor.
[00:23:20] And, she caught. Oh, and then I had sort of explained to her what that meant, and then she said, well, I'm sure, you blame yourself and I want you to know it's not your fault. Like she took her discomfort and tried to turn it into, she positioned herself above as someone who knew what he was experiencing and wanted to offer me this sympathy that was, one, she was wrong.
[00:23:45] I totally misplaced. Yeah. I didn't blame myself. And it, that, that moment was such an extension of her own inability to hold the moment and the discomfort of the moment, and, tried to offer it up as a gift for me, which that's, yeah.
[00:24:03] John: It's your perception of how you deal with that.
[00:24:06] Danielle: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:07] John: Losing a child can be. Empowering because you know that you can try again and get a child that is not gonna have any kind of defects and is gonna have a good life. And you know whether or not you believe in God or not.
[00:24:24] Danielle: Yeah.
[00:24:25] John: Things happen for a reason and we don't always understand the reason for them.
[00:24:30] Danielle: I don't know if it, what the reason was, but I can say a gift from that was that somebody who lived with a very active monkey mind and a lot of head trash and some anxiety in the experience of the early grief, not for very long, but there was a moment in time where my mind was quiet, not numb, but quiet.
[00:24:55] And it helped me realize, oh, there's the observer within me. Then there are the different conversations that are happening in my head that aren't me, which are maybe the perceptions that I call truth sometimes I wanna bring that same question of truth, which you had an answer I was not expecting, which I love when I never see it coming, so thank you.
[00:25:18] Where do you see your clients? Because you're a coach, right? You are taking your healing and offering it as medicine to people that are trying to make a connection in their own life. So where do you see people that you work with? Struggle with the truth?
[00:25:36] John: Everybody's hiding from someone something in their life.
[00:25:40] They have buried something so deep and it keeps them from moving forward in their lives. 'cause it erodes their self-confidence.
[00:25:50] That's what I learned through my love for performing magic.
[00:25:58] Going to the magic castle, sitting at a table with a paralyzed face.
[00:26:03] Yeah. I'm this overweight guy with balding, balding with a paralyzed face. And I could sit at a table and have people come to me. I tell this story sometimes, that the Magic Castle is a place where you have to get dressed up to the nines, you know? And women love to get dressed up
[00:26:22] Danielle: That's true.
[00:26:23] John: They're wearing their best outfits, right? And all of a sudden I'd have five or six women sitting at the table, and their reactions are very guarded.
[00:26:34] Hmm.
[00:26:36] John: You know, they're sitting there with their legs and arms crossed.
[00:26:39] Hmm
[00:26:40] John: they're leaning back. They have a smile that's just more of a grin.
[00:26:45] Mm-hmm. '
[00:26:47] John: cause I don't know what I'm about. Sure. They don't know if I'm gonna be inappropriate, if I'm gonna come onto them, if I'm what it is. So they have no expectations other than they're gonna see some magic.
[00:26:58] Mm-hmm.
[00:26:59] John: So I start my act saying, hi guys. My name is John and I'm doing magic all my life.
[00:27:05] But in 2 0 2 I had a brain tumor. And when they cut over my head, they traumatized medication, nerve offense, a paralyzed face. But something happened to me on that talk table that day, Danielle.
[00:27:16] Mm-hmm.
[00:27:17] John: I'm not sure what it was because I was unconscious. All I know is I recovered. I realized I had acquired some new skills and I pause.
[00:27:29] Yeah. And I wait for everybody to get on the edge of their seat. Like, what happened, John, what? Skills. Skills I could acquire. I'm having brain surgery.
[00:27:40] Mm-hmm. I
[00:27:41] John: looked to my right and I looked to my left like it's the biggest secret.
[00:27:45] Lean in and I whisper in a loud voice as I am able to visualize people's thoughts. And then I do some mental magic mentalism. Love it. And what I just did was I turned my biggest challenge into a superpower.
[00:28:07] Danielle: Yes, you did. And I wanna pause you because when you said that in your talk, have, have you read Elizabeth Gilbert's book, big Magic?
[00:28:15] Yes.
[00:28:15] Danielle: When she talks about trickster energy, I was like, John Kippen is a freaking trickster.
[00:28:22] That is trickster energy that you can shift. Before someone's very eyes. It's like you are performing magic and you are performing magic. You shifted before them and you invited them, your audience to see beyond their own limiting beliefs, their own projected truth.
[00:28:47] John: They were distracted. They wanted to know why it was paralyzed, but they couldn't ask, did he have a stroke? Did he have be palsy? What was the reason? So I found them being distracted when I was performing. So I got that outta way in the first two minutes.
[00:29:00] Mm-hmm.
[00:29:01] John: I explained why my face is paralyzed.
[00:29:03] And now I treat it as the experience is now I'm able to do superhuman things.
[00:29:10] And now they're like, okay, cool. So as I perform
[00:29:16] I focus on the spectator. Magic happens in your mind as a spectator.
[00:29:22] Danielle: Oh, I love that magic happens in your mind
[00:29:26]
[00:29:31] If you've ever wanted to start a journaling practice but didn't know where to start, or if you've been journaling off and on your whole life, but you're like, I wanna take this work deeper, I've got you covered. I've written a journal called Treasured, a Journal for unearthing you. It's broken down into seven key areas of your life, filled with stories, sentence stems, prompts, questions, and exercises.
[00:29:51] All rooted in the work that I do with actual clients in my therapy sessions. I have given these examples to clients in sessions as homework, and they come back with insights that allow us to do such incredible work. This is something you can do in the privacy of your own home, whether you're in therapy or not.
[00:30:10] It has context, it has guides. And hopefully some safety bumpers to help digging a little deeper feel possible, accessible and safe. You don't have to do this alone. And there's also a guided treasured meditation series that accompanies each section in the journal to help ease you into the processing state.
[00:30:29] So my hope is to help guide you into feeling more secure with the most important relationship in your life, the one between you and you. Hop on over to the show notes and grab your copy today. And now back to the episode.
[00:30:44] John: Magic is what you see in your mind or someone else sees in their mind.
[00:30:49] Magic is that thing that immediately makes you present.
[00:30:56] Danielle: Yeah.
[00:30:57] John: And your, all of your sensors are now in a heightened state , whether it's a sunset or a beautiful beach or a beautiful woman or a magic trick or whatever it is, there's that sense of awe and wonder.
[00:31:15] So as I would start to take each spectator, I would learn their names.
[00:31:19] And I would use their names throughout the show.
[00:31:22] Danielle: People love that.
[00:31:23] John: People, I ask them, the one word in everybody's language that they love to hear the most is their own name . and so I use that as a way of engaging the audience.
[00:31:33] They start leaning in and now they've got real smiles on their face
[00:31:37] and I can literally see this wall that women in today's society are forced to put up as a self-protection mechanism.
[00:31:45] Yeah.
[00:31:46] John: I see this wall start to grow as they start to identify with me and they're like, I'm okay being myself.
[00:31:54] And then the end of this
[00:31:56] they're asking permission to hug me.
[00:31:58] And , having a creative mind, I wanted to understand. What that is. What that, what was going on.
[00:32:06] Danielle: You also, not only through performing magic, inviting the curiosity you could see in other people's faces into your opening act essentially, or your sleight of hand.
[00:32:17] I'm gonna show you this over here so that you can not see what's coming here. Vulnerability in its purest form is magic because it's the one thing sharing the story you feel like you couldn't share. Letting somebody see the one part of you that you would never let anybody see 'cause you were so utterly convinced you would be outed or you would be cast out by exposing that vulnerability is the birthplace of true connection.
[00:32:47] Yeah. Which is the ultimate magic trick. It's, it's like what they say in nightmares, if you stop and face the thing that's chasing you, it, it can't chase you anymore in the dream. And so you spent a decade, did I remember that correctly, you wanted to be a main stage performer at the Magic Castle?
[00:33:06] It took you about 10 years and you did it.
[00:33:08] John: I did.
[00:33:09] Yeah.
[00:33:09] Danielle: 10 years.
[00:33:11] John: Yeah.
[00:33:12] Danielle: 10 years.
[00:33:13] John: It was my creative coping mechanism. I had hit rock bottom, was I suicidal? No, not really. But I was unhappy.
[00:33:25] Danielle: Yeah.
[00:33:26] John: I was, my girlfriend left me, and, fortunately I had a job that I could focus on. But I needed something more. And through sharing something so personal and tying magic into it and making it a positive instead of a negative
[00:33:45] people are attracted to it.
[00:33:49] Danielle: Yeah. Well, because you're holding fire in your hand. Yeah. You're not just saying it's possible, but you're living. You're turning it into a performance, which I think for an artist is one of the most selfless, beautiful acts.
[00:34:11] John: It's what separates great artists from mediocre artists. What is he giving me to care about?
[00:34:18] Danielle: I never thought about that with magic. What are they giving me to care about?
[00:34:22] John: Yeah. What do I want them to think when they leave the theater?
[00:34:27] Ability to put your own life in perspective. If John can, so can I.
[00:34:33] That's my true message.
[00:34:36] Any different is your superpower.
[00:34:38] Now, my facial paralysis does not have to define me if I don't let it.
[00:34:44] You know, Danielle I live my life that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
[00:34:51] And that's bit me in the butt numerous times.
[00:34:54] Danielle: I can also say the opposite, can bite you in the butt. I think I waited probably too long, many times for permission that wasn't really coming because no one can ultimately grant it. Right? Like, if there's a path you wanna carve, like the job that you built, all of the different things that you've done, there's no resume posted on LinkedIn.
[00:35:15] No one's hot. Like that's an empowerment coach slash magician slash keynote speaker, slash documentarian like that. You have to get curious and still, and listen to that little voice inside and follow that curiosity to a path that may not make sense for anyone for a really long time. And I didn't do that.
[00:35:40] And that can bite you in the butt too. 'cause regret's hard to hold.
[00:35:42] John: Alex SBE came out on national television
[00:35:45] to his fans, to the world and said, I'm scared. I am fighting the battle of my life and I'm gonna ask for everyone's good thoughts and prayers . of what I'm going through. I reached out to Nikki Trebek, Alex's daughter and I said, Nikki, I need to perform for your dad . we're having a 75th birthday party and we don't have any entertainment.
[00:36:13] So if you wanna be the entertainment, and I was like. Damn. Yes.
[00:36:18] Danielle: Well, yeah. I will go to his house and perform magic for him. a
[00:36:22] John: restaurant, but
[00:36:23] Danielle: Oh, a restaurant. Okay.
[00:36:23] John: Wrote a unique magic show
[00:36:25] With Jeopardy themes and the whole nine yards and he was actually at the table as one of my assistants.
[00:36:33] Oh. Along with his daughter. so he was this, he needed to understand how things worked.
[00:36:39] Was a genius. And so he was constantly looking at me like, wait a minute. That's not possible. Just embrace it, Alex. You're not gonna figure it out. Just enjoy it.
[00:36:52] Danielle: That's awesome.
[00:36:54] John: And there's, on my website, john kipp.com. There are some magic videos and there are two videos of me performing for Alex , sat with him, and I said, Alex, I need to share something with you that, when you came out so publicly about your diagnosis
[00:37:10] I asked for everybody's support and love and prayers that resonated with me. I am here to give to you. You've been a part of my life and the lives of millions of people.
[00:37:27] And your life's work is meaningful.
[00:37:30] I just wanted to tell you that, 'cause I had a feeling that no one ever takes the time to say thank you for your life's work.
[00:37:37] And he immediately started welling up.
[00:37:39] Danielle: Well, anybody who makes something look easy that we do take for granted.
[00:37:45] And I think that, like I appreciate so much in the telling of your story, you share not just the struggles, but the time you had a vision of yourself. On the main stage performing at the Magic Castle, like the most elusive place where magic is. And you didn't just wanna get in, you didn't just wanna get an audition, you didn't wanna just like get to per perform an illusion, like main stage.
[00:38:23] You didn't just have a goal. You had the goal and you did it, but you also say that it took you 10 years. And there's usually themes that run with anxiety, about not enoughness and the crunchiness of time. There's never enough time. I'm not enough and there's not enough time. And not being worthy.
[00:38:42] Yes, yes, yes. One of my main motivations when I started this podcast originally several years ago, was I was. Starting to increasingly feel, trapped in this sort of, world of before and after story. And it was no longer feeling inspirational. It was just another measuring stick for how not enough.
[00:39:03] Yeah. 'Cause it, it's great to see where somebody was and where they are, but when I'm knee deep in my own struggle when I'm the caterpillar goo and the chrysalis, and I'm not the shiny butterfly, but I'm also not the caterpillar anymore. What do I do when my life is literally a shitty pile of goo this is something that most clients don't come right out and ask me like in sessions one, two, and three. But it inevitably comes well, I've been doing this for, so many months. How much longer is it gonna take? How long is it gonna take? And I just always, I appreciate when people can acknowledge.
[00:39:41] The time and consistency that goes into healing
[00:39:47] John: joy is in the journey.
[00:39:48] Danielle: Mm.
[00:39:49] John: Not in the destination.
[00:39:51] And that's the thing I really focus with my clients.
[00:39:55] I have clients come to me because they're holding themselves back in their life.
[00:39:59] And it's my job to get that out of them by asking open-ended questions, by building a rapport, I can trust this guy.
[00:40:08] Danielle: Yeah. Would you say that's your superpower as a coach?
[00:40:11] John: Through my journey of reverse engineering who I am and who I wanted to become. Coming out the other side immediately understood that it's not about me.
[00:40:24] Danielle: Yes. It's only true every single time.
[00:40:27] John: The joy comes from helping others get that realization,
[00:40:32] That they understand they are truly powerful and have a chance to shape their destiny.
[00:40:40] That's why I talk about limiting beliefs.
[00:40:43] And we grow up with our parents or whoever raised us, those are our belief systems.
[00:40:49] And so that's what forms who you are. You stop dreaming.
[00:40:54] That's what midlife crisis is all about.
[00:40:58] Danielle: Yeah.
[00:40:59] John: We got educated, we got a job, we built a career. We have a family.
[00:41:06] Danielle: It's, I think the version of that I hear in my sessions is essentially I did everything right. Shouldn't I be feeling better than I am? Yeah. Like, I followed all the rules. I'm winning. Why does it not feel like I'm winning? Yeah. And finding our way back to that.
[00:41:29] The unlearning and the unraveling. That is a, it's a process.
[00:41:34] John: I'll talk to a friend. How you doing? And so many people respond automatically living the dream. But is it your dream? You're living?
[00:41:46] Whose dream are you living? Because you're wasting your life by living someone else's dream. And that's why you get to that point in life where it's not enough.
[00:41:58] Cause it's not your dream. You just finished the last 30 years building.
[00:42:03] Danielle: Yeah. And the joy really is in the process and there's no way to enjoy the process of fulfilling the wishes of somebody else because you, what you're constantly chasing is when I get there, then the relief will come and then you're there and you're like, well, where's my pot of gold?
[00:42:22] John: Yeah. I had, I spent 20 years learning how not to hide my face.
[00:42:28] And what happened in March in 2020? The pandemic hit
[00:42:33] now covering your face with a mask, became not only politically correct.
[00:42:41] But government mandated and I'm like sitting there thinking to myself, what do I do? So I found a company who prints things on masks and I sent them a picture of my face and a picture of the lower part of my job.
[00:43:01] Danielle: Trickster energy, John Kippen trickster. That's the new hyphen to your list of all of your accomplishments.
[00:43:08] John: I would walk around and strangers would look at it and not understand.
[00:43:12] Danielle: Right, right. But people who knew me
[00:43:15] John: would do a double take.
[00:43:17] Danielle: I will not hide.
[00:43:19] John: Refuses to hide.
[00:43:20] Even through a global pandemic.
[00:43:23] Yeah.
[00:43:23] John: I'm gonna live my life
[00:43:25] Danielle: mm-hmm. On
[00:43:26] John: my own terms.
[00:43:28] Danielle: Yeah. I work too hard, too long to get free and I will not hide for you. Wow. Wow. And
[00:43:37] John: when I share that story, people like, wow, John's done some soul searching.
[00:43:44] Danielle: Which is why your clients come to you.
[00:43:46] John: Yeah.
[00:43:46] Danielle: Yeah. I unfortunately have come across many. People in the helping profession that haven't started with their first client, which is themselves. I put myself in that camp. I've talked about it on the podcast before, but I didn't start seeing a therapist until I became one, which is probably not the right order, but I didn't realize until I was sitting there trying to help people.
[00:44:09] And then my own stuff was getting activated in the session. It's called Counter Transference. And, yeah, I was like, oh shit, I gotta look at the mirror. I gotta do a little more digging. But I think a, what leads a lot of people into helping professions is its desire to heal. And it sounds like in your case you did the herculean task of lifting your own self up before you said, now what can I offer you?
[00:44:39] I wanna ask, just a purely curious, selfish question before we get to the very end I wanna ask. In your book playing the Hand you're Dealt how did you connect with Jamie Lee Curtis? The same way you did Alex Trebek? Did you just find someone and you DMed them and
[00:44:55] John: you're like, her assistant worked for a production company
[00:45:00] in a previous job.
[00:45:02] Danielle: Gotcha.
[00:45:02] John: That I knew.
[00:45:03] When Jamie was like, I need it. So help with my computer. Her assistant said, I've got the guy for you. And I remember being at Jamie's house.
[00:45:15] She knew me before my facial surgery, and after.
[00:45:18] Danielle: So you have a history then?
[00:45:19] John: Oh yeah. We met in 2000.
[00:45:21] Danielle: Oh, okay.
[00:45:22] John: So she saw me before.
[00:45:24] She saw the struggle. Sure, she has two. Great kids.
[00:45:29] And she adopted me as her third child. Wow. She saw the ability to help me. And so I had a filmmaker friend of mine reach out and said, John, I'd love your story.
[00:45:45] I want to film a documentary on you. And I'm like, cool. So I realized I'm paying for the damn documentary.
[00:45:51] Danielle: Oh. So I wanna offer you this gift, and by the way, here's the bill.
[00:45:55] John: Yes, exactly. But at that point, I'm all in and I'm like, what do I have to lose? I'm a risk taker. I can afford it.
[00:46:01] I've got money in the bank.
[00:46:03] Let's make sure we stay on budget or close to budget, so there I am working on Jamie's computer and I'm staring at the screen and I'm summoning the courage. Ask Jamie. So I'm telling her the story. My friend Ryan's gonna direct this documentary about my life and my journey, and then I pause and I'm just staring at the screen.
[00:46:23] I feel these eyes burning into the side of my head.
[00:46:26] Mm-hmm.
[00:46:28] John: And Jamie says, and
[00:46:32] Danielle: I love that she didn't do it for you, but she made you do it.
[00:46:36] John: And then at that point, I realized what the question was. I said, Jamie, will you be in my documentary?
[00:46:44] And she goes, fuck yes, I will.
[00:46:48] Danielle: Yeah.
[00:46:49] John: She gets it.
[00:46:50] Yeah.
[00:46:51] John: Going through her sobriety, she wears her sobriety on her. Shoulder as a badge of honor.
[00:47:00] And that is her message.
[00:47:02] Yeah.
[00:47:03] John: If she can get people to stop drinking by showing up for people. That's her ultimate goal in life. And so, she saw in me what I didn't see,
[00:47:18] Danielle: and you asked the question. I think it's a lesson that I feel like I'm eternally playing a game of peekaboo with where I forget, and then I remember and then I forget and then I remember. But like the opportunities that you're asking for, you have to ask.
[00:47:39] Yes. You have to say the thing. Right. Which is so brave and so vulnerable. But then the magic is sometimes when you ask, someone will say Yes. Now, in your case, she was essentially lovingly poking you until you,
[00:47:55] John: asked. There was a point where I was debating plastic surgery.
[00:48:00] Did I want to try to fix my face? Because at the end of the day, I wanted symmetry at rest. I wanted to be able to get rid of the droopiness and just, have a symmetrical base. That's all I really wanted. Sure. And because I would say, I hit my smile. And I've had friends come up and say, John, your first smile, we love your smile.
[00:48:23] But I didn't love my smile. And until I, not up here, not in my head, but in my heart, accepted my smile. I couldn't move forward. I couldn't heal. And once I accepted my new smile, I found joy. I found that I could love myself.
[00:48:46] And what's funny is when you get to that point,
[00:48:49] yeah.
[00:48:50] John: You overcome whatever that thing is that's holding you back.
[00:48:53] Yeah.
[00:48:54] John: And you want to share it with every person you come in contact with.
[00:49:00] Danielle: Yeah. You are the love you're seeking.
[00:49:02] John: Yes. Yes. And you are your acceptance.
[00:49:05] Danielle: It reminds me of, something. He said in an interview, in, A New Earth, but author Eckert Tolle said that right before his essential death of the, he called it the death of his ego, but we could call it enlightenment or rebirth.
[00:49:19] But he remembers the last thing he said before he went to sleep was, I can't live with myself anymore. And it wasn't about in the interpretation , of , taking one's own life . but what he realized is that he couldn't live with the self that was hating him. He couldn't live with that self.
[00:49:40] And that self never woke up. But he did.
[00:49:45] John: Through my journey
[00:49:46] Of coming to accept myself for who I am. I immediately see others.
[00:49:53] Yeah.
[00:49:53] John: How they're hiding.
[00:49:54] Before they recognize it. And so my coaching is all about not saying, this is why you're hiding.
[00:50:03] That's what's holding you back.
[00:50:06] Danielle: What you said about once you, you see somebody's wall so clearly because you understand your own so well. My less eloquent way of saying that to clients, it's once you smell bullshit, you can't unm it. It's the scent in the air and you're like, huh, what am I smelling?
[00:50:23] Oh, it's bullshit. Well, John, I would love to know your, don't cut your own bang moment.
[00:50:30] John: I'm backstage. There are a thousand people in the audience and I had theatrical training I had a talk memorized. It had to be 12 minutes long.
[00:50:39] I'm doing a magic trick with other people that are coming up stage. I needed to control that. I got there early the morning of the TED Talk and helped the guys focus the lights so that it looked better. I'm all in. I want to shine in this TED Talk. , I remember I'm going up on stage and I'm saying, to the cherry picker operator, can I give you a hand? Because I have lighting experience. And I expected the presenter come and say, no, John, you're the actor. Go in your, the green room and there's some donuts and coffee , and we'll call you already, but you didn't. She knew that I was there to make the entire event better. And she let me do it,
[00:51:18] That's awesome.
[00:51:19] John: This is my first real speech. Okay, in front of a thousand people. And I knew that I had a limited time to get the audience on my side.
[00:51:30] Get the audience engaged. How was I gonna be able to break their, going through their phone, talking to a neighbor, drinking, eating, snacking in a full day of speech?
[00:51:41] Yeah.
[00:51:43] John: So I said, I wanna go first. And everybody has said, great, but we don't, you can go first. And right before the mc went on stage to introduce me. I did a magic trick war. I turned Monopoly money into real money and then back again.
[00:52:00] So as a magician, everything was possible. I turned monopoly into real money, but then I realized that's actually called counterfeiting he stays out for like seven seconds. I did that to the mc and now he just saw a miracle happen.
[00:52:16] So he turns around and walks on stage beaming, and he told that story to the audience and said, Hey guys, your next speaker just did a miracle. He turned monopoly money into real money in front of my eyes. Pay attention to this cat.
[00:52:37] Yeah.
[00:52:38] John: So I walked on that stage. I had the love of everybody in the audience that everybody wanted to see what I was gonna do.
[00:52:46] Everybody wanted to hear what I was gonna say, so I didn't have to warm up the audience. I got the mc to do it for me. Genius. And I do that every time I speak because it works but anyway, three quarters of the speech, I'm standing on my red circle and I'm delivering my talk.
[00:53:08] And the front lights go out.
[00:53:10] Danielle: Wait, you were three fours of the way done when they went out.
[00:53:13] John: I'm standing in shadows. And my first reaction was, whoa. That Whoa. Got the lighting guy to realize, holy shit, I hit the wrong button, and he brought the lights slowly back up.
[00:53:27] As the lights went back up, I went magic
[00:53:32] and so I got an amazing laugh from the audience.
[00:53:36] Because I cut the tension, I was doing improv.
[00:53:38] I remember walking off stage and the producer of the event said, John, don't worry about, we'll edit that part out. And I said, don't you dare. That was my finest moment. Don't you dare edit that out.
[00:53:54] I want that in the video.
[00:53:57] She just smiled as I went back to the dressing room and sat down and then the adrenaline was like, whew. Walking out into the audience after the event and having strangers just come up to me and wanna hug me and say, holy cow, I resonate with your message.
[00:54:18] And my message on the TED Talk was, treat people are different with respect to compassion.
[00:54:23] That's what TED talks are all about. You want one key message and that was my message.
[00:54:27] You never know, you might be in their shoes in an instant.
[00:54:34] Danielle: I wanna add to that, another way to speak to the value of doing some self investigation, whether that's through journaling, through therapy, or seeking out a coach from someone like yourself is, because that expression of, treat other people the way you would wanna be treated.
[00:54:53] What I know is that we don't treat ourselves all that well. A lot of us, many of us don't treat ourselves well, which is why accessing the compassion. Of treating others kindly is sometimes harder for us to find, jumping to criticism or judgment, because there's something we are rejecting in us.
[00:55:13] So I think a way to do the thing you're saying , that beautiful treat others with kindness and compassion. The best way to do that is to look within. And I invite anybody listening to go to the show notes, visit John's website, seek out a coaching call, grab a copy of his book. There are resources that can help you be kinder to yourself, to lowering the walls, to lifting the veil, to seeing yourself in a new way, to performing the ultimate illusion, which is
[00:55:52] to love yourself more fully exactly as you are so that we can be kinder to each other. 'cause we need that, we need a lot more kindness.
[00:56:00] Thank you, John. Do we have the information we need for our listeners to get the special code?
[00:56:06] John: John kipping.com.
[00:56:08] Slash free gift.
[00:56:11] Danielle: Ooh, you heard it here. John kipping.com/free gift. And this is only the gift for those of you who have listened this far.
[00:56:20] So if you listen to the beginning and you just try to skip to the show notes, sorry. You ain't getting a gift. Thank you, John.
[00:56:28] Thank you so much for joining me on this incredible episode of Don't Cut Your Own Bangs. I hope that you love listening because I thoroughly enjoyed making it. My favorite episodes are the ones where I get to learn something too. I'm also a listener. And benefiting from the wisdom and insights of all of the experts, creatives, performers, adventurers seekers that I get an opportunity to meet in this podcast format.
[00:56:56] Don't forget to check out the show notes and please before you sign off , always remember rate, review, subscribe to the podcast when you interact with the podcast. It just helps send it out like a rocket ship to other people that are looking for the same value that you are. And it also helps create a conversation where I can continue to develop and cultivate something that benefits you more and is more fun for you to listen to. Feedback is great, and also if you just wanna throw a compliment, that's sweet too. But thank you so much for being here.
[00:57:26] Your intention, your time mean the absolute world to me, and I hope you continue to have an incredible day.
[00:57:32]
