186. The Beatles Changed My Life with Flip Brown

FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Have you ever found yourself spending a crazy amount of time and energy trying to figure out why things happen in life? Wondering what you did to attract it? Desperately seeking answers right now, and coming up frustrated when you can't make sense of it.

But what if the whole plan is like a puzzle that doesn't form a picture until you've been given most of the pieces and taken the time to make them fit? You'll look back one day and see how it all comes together.

You could say Flip Brown has gone through life being, in some ways, both a product of his times and a traveler through a different time than everybody else was living in.

Growing up, he had a father who was ahead of his time in terms of fighting racism and homophobia, but a man of his time in emotional intelligence. His mother was a teacher who had to give it up when she became pregnant with Flip. She was doting and kind and taught Flip how to read early so he was ahead of his classmates. And when Flip was eight years old, she joined a cult religion.

Consistent with his times, Flip did hallucinogens, which affected his state of mind for decades to come. In contrast with his times, he changed careers many times in an era where you picked one thing and stuck with it until retirement.

He’s worked as a psychologist, nonprofit executive, international product manager, mobile crisis team clinician, retail salesperson, and wilderness workshop leader. He’s also been a hardwood furniture craftsman, windsurfing instructor, gigging musician, cross-country ski instructor, a cappella singer, and gardener. Wow!

Intuition served him along the way, when he abruptly quit a job with no plan, only to be immediately offered a much better one right out of the blue.

A lot of this might not have been "fine" by society, but Flip thought it was fine, partially because he didn’t realize how experiencing sexual abuse, as well as his father’s workaholism, patterned him. But as we all know, Fine is a 4-Letter Word.

In a moment, when you meet Flip, you'll be mindblown by one of the inflection points that helped Flip see it all come together – therapy using the plant-based medicine psilocybin. You'll be washed away by his experience with alcohol and his unique personal journey away from it, triggered in part by losing his brother-in-law on the Pan Am Lockerbie flight.

He relates how his experience on the mobile crisis team at a community mental health center dealing with acutely psychotic and suicidal people prepared him for his current work in executive coaching, team facilitation, and interactive skillbuilding.

Flip’s hype song is "Come Together" by The Beatles.

Resources:

• Flip Brown’s website: https://businesscultureconsultants.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flipbrown/

Invitation from Lori:

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. Smart business leaders know trust is the foundation of every great workplace. And in today’s hybrid and fast-moving work culture, trust isn’t built in quarterly town halls or the occasional Slack message. It’s built through consistent, clear, and HUMAN communication.

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Now, at the risk of being flip about Flip, you can already guess his story is quite a trip. So let’s meet him! Not only is he a voracious reader, he’s an open book!