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Tom Bilyeu
You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. Hey everybody. Welcome to Impact Theory. You are here my friends because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless. But you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, today's guest is a best selling author who has built a highly successful international personal development company. His incredibly insightful and action oriented approach to self improvement has allowed him to reach over 2 million people in over 100 countries through his writing, online courses, seminars and retreats. But oh my friends, that is not where he started. At 21, he was a drug fueled record executive living the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle until it not only got him fired, but almost landed him in jail during a near miss where he was pulled over for suspicion of driving while intoxicated. He dodged a bullet when the cop failed to find the eight ball of cocaine sitting under his driver's seat. During the ordeal. He promised him that if he avoided getting caught, he'd get clean and a few days later he did exactly that. Flushing the coke and beginning the long process of finding out who he was without the drugs and what he'd been avoiding by using them. The man who would come out the other side of that journey not only found sobriety, but found himself becoming one of the most sought after transformation artists on the planet. His dedication, fresh, raw style and effectiveness saw him named to Oprah's Super Soul Sunday list. Inc. Magazine called him the next Tony Robbins. And Arianna Huffington said he's a leader for those who long to live lives that are more passionate and soulful. Now, more than a decade into his life's mission, he's created a whole new approach to life intervention that he calls functional life coaching. It is a no bs, almost scientific approach to helping people work through trauma and find their real purpose in life. Please help me in welcoming the man that Oprah called an up and coming thought leader for the next generation of spiritual thinkers. The author of the new book Claim youm, which at the time of this recording is already in positions 1, 2 and 3 in its respective category on Amazon, the hard hitting Mastin Kip.
Mastin Kipp
Awesome.
Grainger Advertiser
Awesome.
Tom Bilyeu
Thank you. Welcome to the show.
Mastin Kipp
Thank you so much. That was very well said. You described me better than I can describe me. That was fantastic.
Tom Bilyeu
I'm not so sure about that. I've seen you do your thing, man, and it is incredible.
Mastin Kipp
Thank you. That means a lot.
Tom Bilyeu
I was really, really sucked into your universe. I won't lie. It was a lot of fun researching. You've got a really hard hitting to me is the right word. And what I mean by that is you take sort of the, the really esoteric notions of spirituality and what's going on in self improvement and you bring it right down to earth. And you mentioned what you call the meat sack. And you said like a lot of these series are great, like on paper in the spiritual realm, but like you live a life where you have an amygdala. And I thought that was pretty fascinating. What do you mean by that?
Mastin Kipp
I think the thing that frustrates me the most is there's two worlds that are missing each other completely. One of all of these incredible spiritual truths that have been well documented for tens of thousands of years in many different traditions. And then there are the people who are very practical and they kind of miss each other. So one of the things I've done because both my parents are scientists, so growing up I was very well learned in the scientific method and model was to understand, like, how can I test this stuff out so that I can actually prove it one way or another and what does it actually mean and how do we take it? Something very vague and make it super specific because that's ultimately the name of the game in any area is you have sort of a general idea for a business and you find out your niche, right? Same thing's true in these larger ideas. Because, you know, when you talk about, you know, for example, love your neighbors, yourself, what does that mean? How could you boil that down? And what I found was most people had no clue. Like, you read all these personal development books and there's all these words, abundance, purpose, love, joy, you know, passion, excitement, greatness. Like everyone aspires to these ideals that have no common definition or understanding. If in the scientific community a centimeter is a centimeter in China, in the United States, in Japan, in the uk, we have certain things where we weigh and measure things. In personal growth, it's kind of soft, if you will, you know. So it's been frustrating to realize that there's like the most important information on the planet, which is what informs our values and our beliefs is the most confusing. It should be the other way around. It should be the simplest to understand. So part of my drive has been to take these things that are very sort of complicated and esoteric and sort of at this point, almost Hallmark cards, and make it extremely actionable as it relates to today. Because even the advice that we got five or 10 years ago or 30 years ago is the same principles are true, but how we apply it today is very different.
Tom Bilyeu
That's. I love what you just said about things becoming like Hallmark cards. One of my biggest frustrations, this used to drive me nuts. So back at Quest, I had a huge team, we had 1400 employees. And so you have to shorten things to, like, codifications, right? Like where you've boiled things down to a nice simple sentence. And the simple sentence is like, really powerful if you meditate on it, right? But if you just hear the words, they become trite. And so then people aren't getting past that into something deeper. What are some, like, really powerful concepts you think right now that people just are missing completely?
Mastin Kipp
Well, I think a business is a great analogy. So because people can understand a business, because most people are either in corporate or they want to start a business that I know. And you think about the team, right? So what runs a team? Values, but then processes. So if all you know is the process and you don't have context for why you're doing it, then it's just checking off stuff. If you have values but no process, you're scaling a mess. Right? And that never works either. So I think that the most important thing is to have a very crystal clear understanding of what's the next step by step for you. But most importantly, the most important thing is, what's the driver? Why are you doing this? And most people have no clue why they want the goal. Why do I want a billion followers on Instagram? Why do I want to become a multi millionaire billionaire? Why do I want to, you know, harvest the moon for, you know, what was it, platinum or titanium or whatever it was with Naveen? Like, what's the driving force behind that? Some people are conscious of that. Most people are unconscious of that. And so if we're unconscious of what's driving us, the first practical step is understand what's driving you. And what drives every human being to produce any goal or go for anything is the desire to hit a certain emotional target. So what's so ironic and to me seems so obvious, but it's something that every time I say it, people go, there's an aha moment. Like, wow, that's so true. Is that we pursue external goals to hit an internal emotional target, which is sort of like eating a carrot and you think it's pizza. Or the other way around. Like, it's like you're never gonna actually make it. This is why, no matter how successful you become, unless you understand the emotions that you want to cultivate, you'll just be an empty shell. You won't actually have that success. And David Geffen has a great quote. He says, people who think money will make you happy don't have any, right? So at some point you hit a threshold where you realize, oh, my God, I'm making all this money, I have all this success, and I'm still frustrated. And then there's this idea that, like, even if I'm successful, that's when I'm supposed to be the most happy. Because there's this idea or mindset that success is what brings happiness. And nothing could be further from the truth. So the most important thing for someone to focus on is what Dr. You? And the answer is emotions. The next question then becomes, well, what emotions are driving me? And the answer to that question takes you down a really deep rabbit hole into all your past hurt, all your unprocessed traumas, all your limiting beliefs. Because your nervous system is going to fight you like crazy not to bring those emotions to life in a positive sense. Because the nervous system associates positive emotion with threat or vulnerability. And it's designed to keep you safe and out of vulnerability. So that's why you feel like you're your own worst enemy. Or you quote self sabotage right before something major happen. It's never self sabotage. That's. I think people who self sabotage panic attacks, these are the worst names you could label these things. Self sabotage is really self protection. You know, your nervous system's trying to protect you from this uncertain threat. You know, typically a panic attack is a response to something like your intuition screaming at you and you haven't been listening for 30 years. Of course you're gonna have a panic attack. The un Typically, especially with functional life coaching, the main assumption is this. Whatever the behavior is, that you want to change your current behavior that's not working is the appropriate response to the underlying condition. It's your best efforts.
Tom Bilyeu
So that's really interesting.
Mastin Kipp
Yeah. So the first thing you have to do is figure out, well, what's going on here? So it's not necessarily a one, two step forward. It's more like, how can I go inside and start to figure out how am I starting to participate in my reality? How am I a part of, you know, the problem that I'm seeing? And that's pretty much all I spend my time helping people do. I don't think people need to become great. I think people are great and they have a lot of impediments to greatness. You know, the SCRUM process for project development, Agile development, the Scrum master's job is to not make the team great. It's to remove impediments. Right. And so as a coach, that's pretty much what I try to do too, is not make somebody great because I think God or the universe did a pretty awesome job with your soul. The meat sack is the neurotransmitters, it's the neuropathways, it's the myelin, it's the repetition, it's the building of the emotional fitness. That's what I help people with. So the core assumption is you're not broken. Let's just remove impediments. And so we gotta go inside and understand why you're stuck first and foremost. And most people are terrified to go there. Yeah, dude.
Tom Bilyeu
So one, I. I'm sure you know how fresh a vision that is, but as I was reading so that's long been my big frustration is people are sort of in one lane or the other. Right. And so they're, they can't talk about the realities of living today in a brain, in a body where. Do you know the story of Phineas Gage?
Mastin Kipp
No.
Tom Bilyeu
All right, so Phineas Gage was a railroad worker. He was one of the people. And this happened probably like either in the early 1900s or late 1800s, working on the railroad. Hits a tamping rod which is like a three foot metal spike. It shoots up through his chin, out through the top of his head. He loses a tea cup. Not teaspoon, tea cup worth of brain matter. Never loses consciousness and it fundamentally changes his personality. And so that was where sort of neuroscience started with, okay, clearly you damage a certain part of the brain and the fundamental behaviors of that person change forever. So when I was reading your stuff and you were like, everything from. You can't put something on a vision board and hope that it's just going to come true without doing the hard work to like understand. Ego serves you. Here's why. Understand that fear can be a compass. Here's why. Understanding myelination. You talked about the gut and the microbiome. I'm like, who is this guy? Like, this is madness. So what has driven that connection? And how have you seen it serve people to really understand the, the physicality of being a human?
Mastin Kipp
I blame my father, who's a scientist. He's a, he's a PhD in biology. He's. And he's also a medic from, in Vietnam.
Tom Bilyeu
Whoa.
Mastin Kipp
And so he's seen some stuff. And I would put him on the scale of optimist to skeptic, like over here towards like skeptic. He's like, I can't come see you in Asheville because Trump's gonna shut down the government and I don't want to be in North Carolina when he does. Like, that's where his mindset is right now. Right. I'm like, dad, we need to talk. Right. So, but what's interesting is he's hardcore science. And like, so I was raised like almost blowing up carabiners as a kid. Like in the lab, you know, like when you like light the, you know, the carabiners underneath. And I was obsessed with like mixing stuff together that probably should have been mixed together. So, like I grew up but like, you know, the idea of a hypothesis and then testing it and if you can, if it continues to work out, that's what a theory is. Like E equals MC squared is a theory until it's proven wrong. And if you could prove something wrong once, it's not a theory. Right. It's a hypothesis. So that's kind of my training. But then the older I've gotten, I've like, the woo woo side of me has emerged and I definitely have a deep woo woo side of me. Whether it's because of the mushrooms and the ayahuasca. I also Had a near death experience when I was about 15, 16 years old, almost died, which completely shifted me. I also saw my best friend's father pass away in the ICU from cancer. I was there when it happened. That fundamentally shifted my life. So I've had a hard time reconciling these two sides. And I'm convinced like in my gut now, that science is studying the after effect of spirit, or science is studying the after effect of the quantum universe or the creator or God or however you want to, whatever you want to, whatever word you want to use, doesn't matter. And essentially at some point we're going to basically have a God algorithm. Like we'll kind of figure it out because all the universe is, is a bunch of patterns that we don't quite recognize yet. Just all pattern recognition. Right.
Tom Bilyeu
Oh God, can we go down that rabbit hole? I know we risk like, sure. So there's a friend of mine, a burgeoning friendship, I will say, with a Caltech quantum physicist who is so much fun to talk to because of the way that he looks at things and so he talks about that, that what you're looking at literally are just patterns that arise out of what he calls that basically we live in a curve of possibilities. And if you think of any bell curve, that what we experience as reality is really just the most things to rise out of the quantum realm. Which is why there's no, like, you can't yet make a theory that connects what we see at the Newtonian level and the Einsteinian level with what we see and can measure at the quantum level. And so his theory. And I'm going to do a horrible job, but it's so fascinating. I pray you will all bear with me while I indulge this fascination.
Mastin Kipp
I love this stuff.
Tom Bilyeu
But what he talked about is that at, at the most base level in the quantum realm, it really is chaos. And what, as you pull back and you're looking at the macro level, then you begin to see these patterns that emerge, but they're emerging on a bell curve of just the most likely.
Mastin Kipp
Right.
Tom Bilyeu
Which is really, really interesting. So tell me more about your concept of patterns. What we can. Like, what does it mean to have a God algorithm? Like, how does that. Because you're so practical, how does that feed back into what we should do on a daily basis?
Mastin Kipp
Sure. So you just asked me to define a God algorithm while being practical. So I'm doing my best. Okay, thank you. No big deal. No, that's not a tall order at all. So I always love it when scientists use the word chaos, such arrogance. Because chaos to one person is order to another perspective. So if I'm an ant on the street of New York City, that looks like chaos, but to the bird, it looks like a completely normal pattern, right? So I really disagree with the assumption that it's chaos. It's probably a pattern we haven't recognized yet, I would assume, because from every perspective, there's a larger pattern that's happening, I believe. So the core assumption, that's chaos, I would disagree with until he can prove it, which he can't. So therefore I could be right. But when you look at, like, for example, like the Ten Commandments, right, Or the Sermon on the Mount or some of these, or like the Lotus Sutra with the Buddha, there are certain things that they say, like, for example, Jesus, you know, above all the other commandments, he says, love God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. He didn't say, be a Christian, be a Jew, be a Muslim, be a Sikh, be. Just said, love God, whatever, that you love your Creator. That's all he said. And it's an emotional state, by the way. He didn't say think about God. He said love, which is an active emotion. And then love your neighbor as yourself. Not your Christian neighbor, your white neighbor, your black neighbor, your gay neighbor, your straight. It's just love your neighbor as yourself. And he didn't mean just your neighbor next to you. What he means is every other human being and planet and animal on the planet. So if that's a law, so there's something to the order of the universe. Where there is law, there are cause and effect, there is karma. If I do this, then this will happen. And eventually, if you look at what's happening right now with artificial intelligence, the big fear is what will happen when it becomes super intelligent, if you will. But the issue is, it's not really artificial intelligence. What we're actually creating is algorithms to be able to weigh and measure beyond our own capacity what's already happening. That's all it is. So it's an extension of our own intelligence. Everything that's happened on this planet came from the Earth. There's nothing artificial about it. It's actually very organic. It's the natural. We've come to a place where we've always outsourced the brain. Right from the second we realized there was money, we would start, like, writing down one on the rock with chalk. Like, that was the first upload to the cloud, right? Just a very primitive version of it so there's nothing artificial about what's happening. But the question is how much data can we take in, how much can we weigh and measure and then how many different correlations can we come to? And my assumption is if we could take in all the data that's happening all at once in the entire universe, then that's pretty much what God does. So it's basically a set of patterns. And you know, you look at like any 12 step process, any healing process, there's a pattern for hitting rock bottom, there's a pattern for, you know, how you are going to get better. Everything is a pattern and a process. And so and then you put in the free will. And that's where things get really interest quantum physics because you know every quantum scientist will tell you, well we can kind of think what's going on, is going on, but the problem is when we observe something, we don't know what someone's going to choose. And so that's kind of like the part of quantum physics where it's like not quite a perfect algorithm. And that's where things get very interesting. And I think that's where probability comes in. Because there's something about our own ability to choose that throws the whole like, it's almost like there's like God's playing with like dice and then, but then there's even more dice because we're being able to choose. What the hell does that have to do with your day to day life? Very simply put, is this. I think that there are common patterns of success and failure. And what most people do is they take a pattern that may have been a failure pattern which by the way failure only leads to more lessons, right? So they take this idea of what failure is and they don't just say that was a result I produced. They take it personally. And they take the pattern personally. It's like taking Winter personally. Could you imagine? Like oh my God, I'm such a cold person right now. Like it makes no sense, it's just a, it's a predictable pattern. So with what's happening with the quantified self world and what's happening with all the things that are happening with AI What I love about AI is it's not just quantitative analysis, it's qualitative analysis is starting to emerge. And that's where I think the real cool stuff is going to start to happen. Because vocal like with Apple, Apple X just got announced like facial recognition. Like I guarantee you one day you'll be able to send ads to people who have sad faces. I guarantee you that will happen.
Tom Bilyeu
Wow.
Mastin Kipp
Right? Like, absolutely. You know what I mean? Like, it's going to be amazing. Absolutely right. But it's just pattern recognitions. Right? And that's exactly what I mean. If you think about, like, synchronicity and all that Law of Attraction stuff, which is true, just not a complete, complete thought, there's a lot more to it than just hoping for stuff. But, you know, it's. It's. The universe responds to you, and that's what we're building out. That model for ourselves, essentially, is what's happening. If we're made in God's image, then we're sort of recreating this in our own image and we're being able to identify all these different patterns. And there's all kinds of patterns. There's health patterns, relationship patterns, purpose patterns. There's.
Tom Bilyeu
What are some of the patterns that people get into that get them in trouble?
Mastin Kipp
Oh, man. I call them survival patterns. That's why I call them. Because most people's nervous system is their enemy, and it should be their ally
Tom Bilyeu
because it's feeding, like, anxiety and fear that they don't know how to respond to or in what way is it their enemy?
Mastin Kipp
Well, if you look at, like, the evolution of the human nervous system, I mean, literally from the beginning of when we started to evolve, it's millions of years old, right? So it needs a software upgrade a little bit. Because the problem is back when it was, you know, just like lion and tiger days, you see something orange that kind of looks like a lion that ate dad 10 years ago, you're going to get out of there, right? You're not going to question whether it's, you know, something different today. We go through some type of traumatic event when we're a child that's either significant or something simple like, my father was five minutes late picking me up from school. Doesn't have to be some huge trauma. We make up a meaning and we make up some interpretation of that event, and then we continue to recreate it, because anything outside of that seems like a threat. And so the nervous system says, you know what? John, when I was 21, cheated on me. So a wise person or a smart person would say, well, John is a cheater. But the nervous system says all men are cheaters. It generalizes to keep you safe. So from a survival perspective, totally fine. Problem is, if you want to crush it, you have to thrive. And you have to start to question, is this a real fear or is this an irrational fear? The psychiatrists and psychologists call irrational fears neuroses. I don't think that's a. See, the problem with that field is that they pathologize everything. It's not. It's not an irrational pattern at all. If you look at the underlying trauma, the procrastination, the, you know, the fear of failure, the perfectionism, the distraction, the confusion, whatever, however it's manifesting is an appropriate response to the underlying trauma that has not been healed.
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Tom Bilyeu
That's something really interesting in the way that you teach, is that all of these things are trying to wake you up. Right. You take people through this whole. Like, it's trying to wake you up out of something. Or you do an awesome analogy, I love this one, about the pattern you were just talking about. It's like stepping on a nail and thinking that you don't need to take the nail out and then, you know, clean it and heal. Right. So walk us through. Like, what. What is the body trying to tell us? What. How do people get out of those patterns?
Mastin Kipp
Sure. So the way that you do it is the same way that you would clean a cut. It's exactly the same. So let's just say that you're, you know, we're using the analogy of the nail. You're walking down the street and you step on a nail, but you don't know it. You just experience pain in the foot. Well, you don't just keep walking and you say, well, you know what? I'm experiencing perfect health right now. Namaste. Like, you don't do that. No one does that. Right. You look down at the nail and you go, holy shit, there's a nail on my foot. And you think to yourself, do I need to go to the hospital, or can I handle this? If it's a significant enough wound, you got to get some support or help or mentorship or, you know, the er, whatever it might be. If it's not, what do you do? Well, first of all, you bring your attention to it. Then you remove the nail, Then you would clean it out, then you would bandage it and Then you wouldn't stress about whether the body's gonna heal or not. You just let the body heal. And when it's healed, you wouldn't harp on what happened 10 years ago. When you step on that nail, you'd forget about it. But what we do is we go through the wounding. Emotionally, it's invisible. You can't see it yet. That'd be cool one day when you can. And what we do is we say, oh, no, no, no, not there. And so instead of, like, looking at it, we don't even look at it. And then we start to feel the pain. Instead of, like, going, why is that? There we go. Oh, no pain. You know, these negative thoughts are like, voldemort's going to show up if I think negative thoughts, so I'm going to think only positive thoughts. But you're keeping down all this negative thoughts, making yourself wrong, pathologizing it. And that's kind of like shooting lidocaine into your foot to make the pain go away temporarily. And then eventually, like, you go to the doctor, the doctor says, your whole leg has gangrene. And you're thinking to yourself, like, how is that possible? What do you mean, how is it possible? Ten years ago, when you got the nail in your foot, you just shot painkiller into it and you didn't look right. So. So it's the exact same thing. Emotionally. There's wounds or traumas that we have, and we stuff them down. We don't look at them, we don't clear them. Right. Most doctors, if you come in for high cholesterol, we'll just give you a statin which lowers the cholesterol. Artificially functional doctors say, why is your cholesterol high? Oh, my God, you eat cinnamon rolls ten times a day. Let's stop that and give you kale and see what happens, right? And to which you say, fuck it. You, I'm not eating kale. But you can change that stuff with lifestyle. And if you're suppressing it with medicine, which is not necessarily bad, but if you're suppressing it with medicine, you'll never discover the root cause. Well, that's true emotionally and mentally. And what I kind of stumbled on was like, hey, there's kind of a root cause and there's kind of a process for that. And when you clear it, like, what's amazing is when you clear the underlying emotional issues, the thinking changes. So this idea that change your thoughts, change your life is complete. It's just not deep enough because it's the emotional states that produce the thoughts. So you could, if you have an, if you have an unclear trauma and you're trying to meditate and a retreat for 10 days, like God bless you, like you're going to be living in hell, you know, it has nothing to do with your inability to calm your mind down. Your body is trying to wake you up and pay attention and you're trying to push it down. It's never a good idea.
Tom Bilyeu
You have a really fun quote about that, which is you can't just chant your pain away, you have to do the hard work. And yeah, like I really, that makes a lot, a lot of sense. And the analogy between medicine and what's going on spiritually, I found really effective to reframe the problem. And that brings me to so the name of functional life coaching. So hearing you talk about functional medicine, hearing you talk about the microbiome, that you actually have a deep understanding of neurology and brain chemistry, I was really, really impressed with that and how you could talk about the, you know, deeply spiritual stuff or brain science as, you know, easily as the other. What is it about functional medicine that got you interested? And do you have that. So you've alluded to that process of getting people out, but how do you help them find the root caus and then what do they do once they find it? I know in your book you cover this, but like what does that look like?
Mastin Kipp
Sure. So I've been doing this work more or less my whole life. I was kind of born this way, unfortunately from my parents. But you know, the last 10 years when I decided to get into like this type of work, I just started working with people. So last two years I've been doing a lot of sort of like, you know, like trying to like really figure out like what do I do? How do I describe it in a concrete way? And I was actually at a meeting with Dr. Jeffrey Bland who created functional
Tom Bilyeu
medicine and really fascist tell people what functional medicine.
Mastin Kipp
Oh, okay. So functional medicine, what they do is instead of just having a symptom based diagnosis, they try to figure out why is it there in the first place. So for example, if you have high cholesterol, which is like very common, or if you have like, you know, pre diabetes, which is super common, you know, most doctors will just give you metformin or insulin for the prediabetes and or you know, sort of a statin for the cholesterol and say you're good functional medicine. Doctors say, why do you have high cholesterol? Why do you have pre Diabetes and they start to look at blood sugar levels, A1C levels, they start to look at fatty liver, they start to look at your microbiome, they start to look at, you know, how much are you producing the neurotransmitters. Do you even have good bacteria in your gut? Do you have heavy metals? Are you eating enough fat to fuel the hormones that are necessary to like live a healthy body? Like there's integrative medicine, functional medicine. These are all sort of the same name for the same idea. And what they do is they find out why is your body having this chronic issue. And then they give you a prescriptive method that will help you identify and heal the root cause rather than just suppress the actual symptoms.
Tom Bilyeu
And one of the things I found so interesting about functional medicine is the way that it looks like to me logically it should be called holistic medicine, which has already been consumed. And so that obviously would be misleading. But they're looking at diet, they're looking at the human as a superorganism, they're looking at environmental toxins, they're looking, looking at everything in conjunction, which is.
Mastin Kipp
That's right.
Tom Bilyeu
One of the things that, and I'm sure this is where you're headed, one of the things that I liked about your approach is it takes a much more all encompassing approach to where you
Mastin Kipp
are and how you get out a hundred percent. Well, the thing about like I'm not against allopathic medicine because functional medicine is a part of allopathic medicine. It's just that sort of innovation on it. And you look at like a lot of allopathic doctors only and they look at like just one area in isolation as if that's the only problem, you know, but like that's just never the case because the body's a system. And so functional medicine just helps people understand why they're sick in the first place and gives prescriptive medications for the root cause, which is different. I know you've had Naveen Jain on the show and by the way, I love him so much. He is like a huge inspiration for me. I love that he like calls like Branson and all those guys like small thinkers because orbit the earth, he's going to the moon, you know, like, I just think it's awesome. Yeah.
Tom Bilyeu
Only Naveen would say that.
Mastin Kipp
I know, it's amazing. I'm quoting him. I didn't say that myself. But you know he talks about with all the viome work, it's a different mindset and we're evolving into this and the reason why it's gonna have to happen is because this is what these are the people getting the results. And like normal doctors will call what functional medicine does almost miraculous. But functional doctors are like, it's obvious, you know, so it's just, it's a big mindset shift. There's more solutions available now than possible. And so as I watch that field emerge and I started to understand the thinking behind it, I said, oh my God, I do that with the invisible emotional stuff. And so the process is actually very simple. But getting there is a journey. So I'd say 99% of personal development is just behavior change and changing your mindset. This is kind of what we hear. The problem is it doesn't work, or it works long term, or it brings what looks like success. But I can't tell you how many successful people I've met that if you get real with them, are miserable. And that's not success either. So you have to change at an emotional level. And the emotion is what produces the story. It's also very uncomfortable. So the natural thing that we want to do is soothe. So it's temp. It's kind of like addiction, right? Addiction is just a coping mechanism for the underlying trauma. Whatever you're trying, whatever you're addicted to, it's a really bad solution to the problem. So that's. And so people don't have an awareness like, oh my God, it's not that something's wrong with me. I just have an underlying trauma I haven't cleared. Let's go figure that out. And so that emotional layer is also scary because when you descend into the emotional layer, you're not going to meet the good emotions first. You're going to meet all the stuff you push down first. And people want to run from that. But, you know, the latest research shows that when the emotion is triggered in the body, it only takes 90 seconds for the bio, for all of the juice of that emotion to run through the body before it stops. The problem is it keeps getting re triggered over and over and over and over and over again. So you can be 90 seconds away from a breakthrough for 10, 30 years. If you're not living your purpose, if you're not giving what you're meant to give to the world and you're anxious, don't take a pill, you're going to numb yourself. Negative emotion is a call for awareness. Just like pain is. There's something that needs your attention. That's why people say they have a panic attack. It's really A wake up call. That's what a panic attack really is. Something's trying to get your attention. The last thing you want to do chronically is numb it with drugs, alcohol or prescription medication. You want to understand why it's there. And when you understand why it's there and that, you know what, maybe you didn't make the right interpretation or maybe you didn't see it fully or properly back when you were five. And you realize there's just a scared five year old running your life. Even if you're 45, 55, 65, that's what claiming your power is, is you can say, I can make a different choice. And when you start to make a
Tom Bilyeu
different choice, so when you say the book claim your power, that's what you're talking about. That moment right there where you get to. And are we going to tie that to. You've talked very eloquently about Viktor Frankl. Is that that connection?
Mastin Kipp
Yeah. So basically, if I had to oversimplify, Logos Therapy, Viktor Frankl, he wrote Man's Search for Meaning. He was in Auschwitz, he lost most of his family. But what he studied in Auschwitz, which is an interesting place to study for sure, was that the people who lived beyond the ones who were taken to the gas chambers had an interpretation or a meaning, which is his word. But I think people are confused by that word sometimes. So I use the word interpretation. People had an interpretation or belief that the future will be better even in the middle of hell. They believe that something better is going to come from this. Those are the ones who thrived in the worst conditions on earth. And so Frankl recognized this. And so his big sort of contribution is stimulus, response. In between those two moments is a choice. And so that's where your power lies. And that is what most people outsource to other people.
Tom Bilyeu
And what is that choice?
Mastin Kipp
So the ultimate choice is what does this mean? Or what is my interpretation of this event? How am I going to see this? Are you going to see this as a breakthrough? Are you going to see this as the end? Are you going to see this as an opportunity to grow? Or are you going to see this as the reason why you're not enough? And anyone who started successful business and done entrepreneurial work, I mean, that is a meaning you get a PhD in meaning when you start doing work like that, because you know, when you start a business or you get into a relationship, God forbid you if you do both at the same time, right? You're going to just be in a battlefield of stuff Going out of your. Just going crazy, thinking you don't see coming. You know, like in school, you study and then take the test, but in life, you take the test and then you study, right? It's the other way around. So if your meaning is, I'm not enough, I'll never be successful. This isn't working. And then you'll stop right before a breakthrough. And how many times in a business does the breakthrough happen right after some type of failure? Every single time. So you better look at that failure and go, this isn't a reason to stop. I'm one step closer to figuring out the answer. Edison said I didn't fail 10,000 times, right? That wasn't what it was about. It was 10,000 different experiments. The meaning is what helped Edison become, you know, make his discoveries. So that's the number one choice that we have. It doesn't mean that you stick your head in the sand and say, my emotions aren't there. What you do is you say, why are they there? And if you say, they're there because I'm depressed, then guess what? That's what you'll find. You're depressed. Maybe there's another reason why you're depressed. If the meaning is they're there because I'm repressed. I'm repressing my soul. I'm repressing my purpose. And I get to go on an expedition hunt to figure out why. And after that, I'm gonna be free. Even when this is gonna feel like a kick in the teeth, by the end of this, I'm gonna come out the other side and I'm gonna just. I'm gonna be crushing it. That's a very different meaning. And you gotta kind of fake it till you make it, but it's not Pollyanna. It's not sticking your head in the sand. It's actually very pragmatic. And every single high achiever, high performer has been able to do that. The real juice of life is emotional fitness. And it's harder to see it because it's invisible. But that starts with meaning. Once you pick a meaning, which is always your choice, then you can start to build a great life. Very practically, Tony Robbins asked Nelson Mandela, what were you doing all those years in jail? And Mandela said, I'm preparing. That's a choice that he made, to see it that way. Most people would say, I'm a victim of the system or whatever. And that one meaning changed the world. And so that's our primary power. And most people don't think they have that they don't know they have that. They think it's some Pollyanna bullshit. When really it's like what creates all the resilience, all the change, all the entrepreneurs, all the world changers. If you had took all of them, they would all agree with me because that's the one choice that we have. But the problem is there's this nervous system and this unhealed trauma that gets in the way. So the goal is to kind of take it all in one sort of package so that we can kind of just handle it basically.
Tom Bilyeu
I'm so curious to know if I would feel this way if I hadn't read your book. But listening to you talk, it feels like the Hero's journey. Of course, your whole book is literally built like the hero's journey. You break into the four parts. There's a ton of Joseph Campbell quotes which was really, really interesting. And I know that you re watch or re listen to the power of myth every year, which is amazing.
Mastin Kipp
I'm totally work man research.
Tom Bilyeu
That's cool for sure. And you were well worth it, I assure you. Nine out of the ten largest banks, they get that. VantageScore, the modern credit score, is the leader in predictive power, improving mortgage default
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Tom Bilyeu
Better predictions, better for your business with VantageScore and Joseph Campbell, specifically with the Hero's Journey. Like, how is that what you think this is? Like if somebody does this work, is that what it's going to feel like on the other side? Is it them as the hero of their own life? Finally? Like what made that analogy so powerful?
Mastin Kipp
Sure, sure. So I've equally loved stories, like well told stories, primarily science fiction and personal growth. And long story short, I figured out they're the same thing because I started studying film and I love Star wars and I started studying George Lucas, I started studying then his whole tribe, Spielberg and Coppola. That all led me to Kurosawa and all Kurosawa's films. And I saw Seven Samurai. I said, holy, that's Star Wars. Like makes total nothing original about Star Wars. Now if you see Seven Samurai, even though it's amazing, but like all these guys, especially George Lucas, like love Joseph Campbell and George Lucas credits the hero with a Thousand faces as like the underpinning of Star A New Hope and helped him frame it cause it's such a big story. So I was like, who's this Joseph Campbell guy? So I started to read Joseph Campbell and I said, oh my God, this is some next level stuff. And the hero's Journey, like you see it everywhere in every film, every story, every movie, every, you know, every great transformation. This is the process. And Campbell created this process because he was a professor at Sarah Lawrence. He studied comparative religions, which very simply is when you compare religions, right? And what he saw was these common trends or common themes. And he synthesized that into the hero's journey. So I obsessively studied this stuff. And then along the way started learning more about personal growth and the work of Carolyn Mace. She talks about archetypes, which are these universal patterns like the Wicked Witch or the Mentor. And then I started studying archetypes, and then I started learning that Carl Jung was kind of the guy who brought that around with the idea of archetypes and the collective unconscious. And I realized Jung and Joseph Campbell were kind of like contemporaries in a certain sense. Even though Jung was, I mean, I shouldn't say contemporaries, but Campbell was highly influenced by Jung's work. And I realized, oh, my God, stories are the sort of out picturing or the way we tell the own journey that we have to go through. And most people live vicariously through a film or through a story. And what I realized was like, oh, my God, let's get people on their own journey. How the hell would I do that? And so 100%, it's like you are the hero of your own life. That's why I think superhero movies are so big right now. So some people are not living a super. A super life. So like, oh my God, I'll be Superman or Batman, or I'll be Wonder Woman or whatever it might be. You know, Wonder Woman was such a hit because it sort of represents, I think, the big expression of we're about to see a huge explosion of feminine empowerment on a whole nother level in the next 10 or 15 years, for sure, which I can talk about. But it represents the unlived life. And so I want to help people step into that life. The problem is it's one thing to, like, watch Luke in the Death Star and he turns off his targeting computer and then blows up the Death Star. It's one thing to watch it and be like, yeah, it's another thing to be in it, freaking out, going like, what the fuck? You know, like, most people, their journey will feel like they're dying, so they'd rather outsource it versus recognizing, you know what? I have to live it. And the most important, I think the most important virtue that we could have is courage. Because without courage, nothing else is possible. And courage feels very practically like this oh, my God, I'm about to die. That's what courage feels like. Doesn't feel like I'm all strong and shit, like. No, you are terrified. And so the more terrified you can be, the better, essentially. So, yeah, that makes sense.
Tom Bilyeu
Dude, I. I love that more than you know. I won't go into my whole obsession with that as well, but I want to talk about CIA.
Mastin Kipp
Sure.
Tom Bilyeu
So courageous and perfect action.
Mastin Kipp
Yes.
Tom Bilyeu
That the way that you just described that is. Is so on the money. And I think people are so expecting that. I think they just write themselves off. Right. Like, I guess I'm just not a courageous person or I'm gonna have to fake the funk or whatever it is. How do you help people step into that to find that? Okay, that's the truth of the matter. So now how do we embody that? How do we take over the role of hero in our own life?
Mastin Kipp
Sure. So every hero has a mentor, right? So Luke at Obi Wan Kenobi. And the cool thing about mentors, the mentor disappears at the end so the hero can figure it out for themselves. So. But you need a mentor. You need a structure and a system, and you need to implement. So anyone who's great has support. So I'm a big believer in having mentorship. And mentorship not. Like, for example, if you want a relationship, don't, like, make your bitter, single friend your relationship mentor. Like, bad idea. Right. You want to get a mentor who's consistently lived and produced those results. And then you need a structure and a system that implements that over time, because there's the breakthrough or the aha moment, but then there's. It takes time to implement that and reassociate your nervous system to whatever it is that you want to create, and then you actually have to implement. So CIA stands for Courageous Imperfect Action. And quite practically, courageous means I'm freaking out.
Tom Bilyeu
This is.
Mastin Kipp
I feel like I'm going to die. Imperfect means I'm doing it totally messy. There's mistakes everywhere. And action means you're actually doing it and you're not not, you know, just reading about it. So if you can just be scared shitless and be super messy and take action every day, you'll be great. Essentially.
Tom Bilyeu
How do you get people to take that first step? Like, in. In my world, that is the one thing that I fight with all the time. People want to know, like, how do I get started? Like, they have this sense that they need to figure something out. They need to research something instead of acting. Like, how do you get people to go analysis paralysis.
Mastin Kipp
Yeah, that happens. Yeah. There's a lot of reason, a lot of things that people say they have to do beforehand. I have to have the perfect trainer, the perfect this. They have to have this. You know, we over. One of the greatest survival patterns I've seen lately with, especially with high achievers, is like, over complicating very simple things and over, like most of the time. Like, if we look at Occam's razor, Occam's razor basically says, given all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be accurate. So how do we get people to do it? You just jump. And I. Basically, what I do is I tease them, I call, I use direct language. And what I'll ultimately do if they really need a push is I'll link them stepping into uncertainty with whatever they value most. So I had a woman once who cared about her family tremendously, and I was helping her process some childhood abuse. And her nervous system said, any level of success beyond this, what the unconscious belief was, I'll re. Experience what happened to me. Essentially, when she realized that holding herself back and not going forward in her business was letting the people who abused her win because she wouldn't be able to provide more for her family because she was keeping herself stuck, she on her own said, fuck that. When I. When I. When. So before her nervous system said, oh, my God, uncertainty equals revisiting this abuse that I went through. Now her conscious mind says, if I don't go into uncertainty, the people who hurt me are effectively hurting my children. That. So you got to find that leverage point. You know, I learned that from Tony Robbins. Tony says, how do you get someone to change, doesn't want to change. And like, every codependent in the room goes, wow, right? Tell me. I've been trying to figure this out my whole life. Right? But the real reason, the real thing is you got to find leverage, right? What motivates somebody. And everybody has something that motivates them. So if you can learn how to link what motivates somebody with forward momentum, then you can get them off their ass. And then if you have that mentor and structure system of support for a period of time, you can kind of sustain them there. But I don't know anyone who does it by themselves. The idea that I can do it by myself, I'm an island. Doesn't never works ever. I love that.
Tom Bilyeu
Leverage is a really, really good point. And reframing in that, like, getting her to see that in a new way. Now you've talked about fear Being a compass. Is that an example of that? Do you have another example?
Mastin Kipp
Sure.
Tom Bilyeu
What do you mean exactly?
Mastin Kipp
Yeah. So like, especially like in the, in the self help community, there's just a couple things. Fear means false evidence appearing real, or fear is the opposite of love. There's this idea or that, you know, there's no such thing as fear. And I'm like, okay, but what about one of my clients who is like on the front lines in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan? You tell him fear is false evidence appearing real. Come on. Right? Or like someone who's been through any levels of abuse or just anyone who watches the news. Right? Like, fear is real in and of this human world or this physical plane that we live in. And so there's practical fear, which is if I'm in a burning building, I must leave. So if you don't stay in the burning building and say, mastin said face my fear. Right? Like, don't do that. It's not smart. It's good advice. Sorry, bad timing on that.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that was good.
Mastin Kipp
So, but most of the time you're going to be afraid right before the biggest breakthrough of your life. So, you know, think about right before your first kiss or before you went to college, or right before you started a company in the garage, right, Right before maybe you left the company to do your passion, or right before any major event, there's tremendous fear. So if that's the case, fear actually has been misinterpreted. And if you think about the Greeks, they had multiple words for love. You know, agape is very different than Eros, right? Very different. But yet we have one word for fear. It makes no sense. So there's different types of fear. And there's the fear of, like, right before I ever go on stage, I'm terrified every time. And that to me means that energy's there and I'm ready. It doesn't mean, like, I should freak out. So we have to understand that, like, before every major event in our lives that's going to move us forward, we will be terrified. And so if we can start to see that fear as a compass, then we know I'm going in that direction. So people tell me all the time, I don't know what to do. It's bullshit. Do the thing you're most afraid of and then do it till you're not afraid of it. Can't be that simple. It's that fucking simple. No, I got to research it first. No, just fucking do the thing you're most afraid of and do it until you're not scared anymore. And that's how we grow. And I think the people who are the most successful either consciously or unconsciously understand that and they just hang with it. I can imagine starting a business and scaling, starting a business is one thing. Scaling it. Fourteen hundred employees, I bow I can barely handle 10. I don't know how you guys do that, but it's very difficult. And one of my friends has a company that he's scaling and he was all micromanaging his team and then he left because of the family emergency. Came back three months later, the team was doing better without.
Tom Bilyeu
That's interesting.
Mastin Kipp
You know, so it's at every level this fear is there, you know, and it's more about just letting it go. And the way you let it go is to experience it consistently until it just your nervous system sort of normalizes with that.
Tom Bilyeu
Do you have a process for helping people understand how to deal with not just the fear? Because I get that do it right immersion therapy. But when they mess up and something goes wrong and they feel like, see my fears were validated. Like do you have a process for getting them into the Thomas Edison frame of mind? Like, what does that look like?
Mastin Kipp
Like it's basically consistent reminders. Like for example, like I, I have a meal plan. I forget what my afternoon snack is every day. I have to look at it every day I forget even though it's the most, like some of the most important stuff is my food. Like, all right, okay, got it. So it's about that. That's why that structure of support is so important, is like consistently reminding people of the basics. I think some people, an amateur mindset says, oh, give me more information. This level two, level three, upsell stuff and personal growth. Like quite frankly, when someone comes and works with me and like in a coaching program, there's no new information. It's all implementation. There's no like secret level two information. It's just like, let's make this shit happen. So the way that you do it is you get around people who have a like minded, you know, mindset so that you see when you start to do new things, if you're around people who aren't, you're not going to be supported. You're not going to be, they're not going to cheer you on, they're going to talk about all the reasons why you can't. So you have to have a really good tribe of people that have those same shared values. Then you have to self disclose in that tribe because all the High achievers don't want to be all vulnerable and say, I'm having a hard time in my business. Right. So you have to self disclose around that tribe and let them support you. And then you just have to hang with that process for a period of time and recognize that you're building the muscle, like myelin, for example, which is like the connective tissue that helps us form habits and make things automatic. You got to build it through repetition. So that's what emotional fitness is really all about. There's three levels to emotional fitness. The first level is emotional awareness. You have to know you have emotions. Most people don't. I do. I feel nothing. It's like, bullshit. You have like 30,000 feelings under there. The next level is emotional intelligence, which is like, what are my feelings? Oh, that's hatred, that's shame, that's joy, that's love. And the third level is emotional fitness. And any fitness, physical or emotional, is trained. And the more that you can live in training, the more that you can live that as a lifestyle. Then when things go wrong, because they will, you don't go, things are going wrong, you go, oh, yeah, I got this. Because anyone who doesn't anticipate a curve ball is just not understanding the rules of the game. So when for me, especially during a product launch, technology always breaks. So instead of getting mad at infusionsoft for breaking, because it always does, right. I go, oh, yeah, I broke again. Let's fix it. And that's for any technology, right? And that's learning the pattern of the process. So to understand that you hit a plateau, understand that you relapsed or that you went back into old thinking, if you know you're going to do that ahead of time, then when you're there, you can get out faster versus this perfectionist thought. People have this insane idea that if I'm going to change my life, I have to be equally as good at something I just learned as something I've been doing for decades, which is an insane thought. You have to kind of take that childlike mindset back on. And when you're in a tribe and you have a mentor, then you can go a lot faster because you will go back off course consistently. It just happens.
Tom Bilyeu
You've said that Master is somebody who was a beginner who kept beginning.
Mastin Kipp
Yes.
Tom Bilyeu
What do you mean by that?
Mastin Kipp
Well, so I think Masters has a mindset and any high achiever has that process. But every person who's that I've met who's been successful and I'm Talking not like, just like, I'm talking like epic levels of success, but who are also happy, which is really rare. The percentage of people who are financially successful is very rare. Of those people who are actually happy, every single one of them is curious. They're open and they're like, anyone. Any idea is like something new. And they have a childlike, not childish, childlike mindset that says, oh, let me consider that. And so they just consistently begin again and again and again. And they're open. They don't think like, oh, because I'm successful, I know everything. I think the more successful people become, probably the. The more humble they would become because they realize how much they don't know. And so this idea that I get to begin again and again and again gets rid of any assumption that now I'm an expert. Like anyone who calls themselves an expert, I'm like, you're an egomaniac. You have a tiny fraction of knowledge and you call yourself an expert. There's no way you're an expert. You might have some education in that area, but there's a lot of stuff that we don't know. So I think that there's this ability to remain childlike and just see yourself as always at the starting point and that's how you remain hungry. And I think the most important thing. I'll go woo woo for a second. The people who become successful who think they're the cause of their success are the most unhappy. People who get successful and realize it's a gift of spirit and that they just worked hard are the ones who remain happy. So the idea that I am my success is a really toxic thought as well. So if I can keep beginning and have that beginner's mindset consistently, I will be happy, I'll be innovative, I'll consistently be learning, and it'll be a pleasure to be around.
Tom Bilyeu
All right, before I ask my last question, where can these guys find you?
Mastin Kipp
Oh, so the book is@claimyourpowerbook.com and with the book, I actually didn't want to write a self help book. I see it as an implementation guide. So part of that, when you go to claimyourpowerbook.com is a free course where you can just have me coach you along with you through the book so you don't have to go through it by yourself. And then from everything else, it's just Massankip.com or Assankip on all the platforms.
Tom Bilyeu
All right. What is the impact that you want to have on the world?
Mastin Kipp
That's a great question. And I've contemplated this question a lot. And it's a moonshot. So my moonshot in my lifetime is to end emotional trauma. That's my goal in my lifetime, and I hope I can do that. Because if we do that, then by default, we'll have heaven on earth. Because I think that that's the root cause of all the problems that we're seeing out there today.
Tom Bilyeu
I love it.
Mastin Kipp
Awesome.
Tom Bilyeu
Thank you so much for coming on. All right, guys, you're gonna have fun with this one. It is the rare individual that you're ever gonna find anywhere, in any space that can blend the two worlds of real science. Talking about functional medicine, talking about the brain, neurochemistry, myelination, and then talking about deep spirituality, God, the quantum realm, whatever you wanna call it, whatever your word is. It is absolutely fascinating to see him go back and forth between the two and to really hold himself to a standard of usability. And his book, book does read exactly like he wants it to, which is an instruction manual. It's an implementation guide. It's. He's there with you. He's walking you through it. It's broken into 40 days. It's four parts. It is literally the hero's journey. It's got all the things you're going to need to break down your own emotion to prioritize, to figure out how you prioritize them, to crawl underneath the hood to figure out what's driving them, to identify the things that are creating your behavior. So not just dealing with the symptom, but really dealing with the root cause. I think that his correlation between functional medicine and functional life coaching is so spot on. I think you guys are really gonna get a lot out of it. Be sure to check it out. And his book is in 1, 2, and 3 on Amazon right now. That's madness. And if you're wondering, like I did, how that's possible, it is the Kindle version, the physical version, and the what, Audible version?
Mastin Kipp
Audiobook.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, yeah, all three right there. One, two, and three. Not bad. So you guys can't go wrong. Dive in. You're gonna have a great time. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.
Mastin Kipp
That was a lot of fun.
Tom Bilyeu
Thank you guys so much for watching. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And for exclusive content, be sure to sign up for our newsletter. All of that stuff helps us get even more amazing guests on the show and helps us continue to build this community, which, at the end of the day, is all we care about. So thank you guys so much for being a part of the impact theory community.
Podcast: Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Mastin Kipp
Date: January 22, 2024
Episode Focus: Exploring the integration of science and spirituality in personal development, unpacking the root causes of emotional struggles, and actionable frameworks for transformation.
In this rich, insightful episode, Tom Bilyeu sits down with Mastin Kipp, bestselling author and founder of a global personal development company, to break down the urgent need to merge scientific and spiritual perspectives in self-improvement. The conversation centers on Mastin’s concept of “functional life coaching,” which borrows from functional medicine’s root-cause approach and applies it to emotional well-being and life transformation. The episode threads through powerful analogies, actionable frameworks, and memorable stories, challenging listeners to redefine success, process trauma, and become the heroes of their own lives.
The Problem of Disconnection: Mastin highlights the chasm between spiritual wisdom and practical action, noting that philosophical truths remain vague without systems for real-world application.
“There are the people who are very practical and they kind of miss each other...the most important information on the planet, which is what informs our values and our beliefs, is the most confusing. It should be the simplest to understand.”
– Mastin Kipp (04:24)
Actionable Spirituality: He emphasizes the need to translate “Hallmark card” ideals like love and abundance into actionable, measurable steps.
Analogy to Functional Medicine: Mastin likens traditional advice to treating symptoms and advocates for drilling down to emotional root causes—akin to how functional medicine treats the source, not just symptoms.
“Functional medicine...try to figure out why is it there in the first place...Functional medicine just helps people understand why they're sick...and gives prescriptive medications for the root cause.”
– Mastin Kipp (27:21)
Practical Application: Instead of simply thinking positive or changing behavior, identify and heal unprocessed emotions and trauma, which naturally shift thoughts and actions.
Patterns as Universal Laws: Both Tom and Mastin explore how patterns (biological, behavioral, or spiritual) govern our lives and choices.
“Everything is a pattern and a process. And then you put in the free will. And that's where things get really interesting in quantum physics...probability comes in...it's almost like God’s playing with dice.”
– Mastin Kipp (15:24)
AI and Spirituality: They discuss AI as an extension of human intelligence—pattern recognition on a vast scale—and its implications for understanding ourselves and our universe.
Desire for Emotional Targets: Mastin asserts all external goals are pursued to meet unconscious emotional needs.
"We pursue external goals to hit an internal emotional target...unless you understand the emotions you want to cultivate, you'll just be an empty shell."
– Mastin Kipp (06:45)
Self-Sabotage = Self-Protection: Much of what’s labeled “self-sabotage” is the nervous system protecting us from perceived threats, often based on childhood patterns.
Nail in the Foot Analogy: If you were physically injured, you’d clean the wound; emotional wounds require the same attention rather than numbing or ignoring them.
“You don't just keep walking and say, 'I'm experiencing perfect health right now. Namaste.'...You bring your attention to it, then you remove the nail, then you would clean it out, then you would bandage it...”
– Mastin Kipp (23:02)
Emotional Fitness: True transformation isn’t just about information; it’s about training emotional fitness through repeated, supported action.
The Importance of Courage: Mastin and Tom discuss how genuine courage feels terrifying but is required for any real change.
“Courage feels very practically like this ‘oh, my God, I’m about to die.’ That’s what courage feels like. Doesn’t feel like I’m all strong and shit. Like—no, you are terrified.”
– Mastin Kipp (39:44)
CIA – Courageous Imperfect Action: A practical philosophy for growth: take action that scares you, do it imperfectly, and keep moving.
“If you can just be scared shitless and be super messy and take action every day, you'll be great, essentially.”
– Mastin Kipp (41:43)
The Hero’s Journey Analogy: Life transformation mirrors the classic Hero’s Journey structure, and we must shift from just watching stories to living our own.
“Stories are the way we tell the own journey that we have to go through...I want to help people step into that life.”
– Mastin Kipp (37:07)
Viktor Frankl and Meaning: Between stimulus and response lies choice; the meaning you assign to events shapes resilience and outcomes.
“What does this mean? Or what is my interpretation of this event?...Once you pick a meaning, which is always your choice, then you can start to build a great life.”
– Mastin Kipp (33:14)
Reframing Setbacks: Failure is not an identity but an event; consistent reframing and seeking growth from setbacks is key to mastery.
“A master is somebody who was a beginner who kept beginning...the more successful people become, the more humble they become because they realize how much they don’t know.”
– Mastin Kipp (50:10)
On Why “Positive Thinking” Alone Isn’t Enough:
“If you have an unclear trauma and you're trying to meditate at a retreat for 10 days—God bless you—you’re going to be living in hell...The body is trying to wake you up.”
– Mastin Kipp (24:07)
On Achieving Real Reprogramming:
“You can be 90 seconds away from a breakthrough for 10, 30 years. If you're not living your purpose...negative emotion is a call for awareness.”
– Mastin Kipp (29:33)
On the Misunderstanding of Fear:
“People tell me all the time, ‘I don't know what to do.’ It's bullshit. Do the thing you’re most afraid of and then do it till you’re not afraid of it. Can’t be that simple. It’s that fucking simple.”
– Mastin Kipp (45:16)
On the Need for Support:
“The idea that I can do it by myself, I'm an island—doesn't ever work, ever.”
– Mastin Kipp (44:14)
Impact Mastin Wants to Have:
“My moonshot in my lifetime is to end emotional trauma...Because if we do that, then by default, we’ll have heaven on earth.”
– Mastin Kipp (52:31)
The conversation is lively, straightforward, and full of practical wisdom wrapped in both scientific and spiritual perspectives. Mastin is candid, often humorous, and passionate, while Tom guides with curiosity and incisive questions. There’s a no-nonsense, “cut the fluff” vibe—listeners are encouraged to engage with their deepest issues rather than avoid or numb them.
Mastin Kipp urges us to blend the best of science and spiritual wisdom, face emotional pain at its core, and use courage—not certainty—as a compass. True transformation isn’t about numbing or bypassing struggle; it’s about compassionately addressing root causes, meaningfully reframing setbacks, and consistently stepping heroically into the unknown, day after day.
For anyone feeling stuck, seeking more than superficial advice, or wanting to understand how science and spirituality coexist in real self-improvement, this episode is packed with powerful reframes, actionable steps, and a rousing call to self-mastery.