Excerpt from "Daily Love"

The following excerpt is taken from the book Daily Love by Mastin Kipp. It is published by Hay House (Available September 9, 2014) and available at all bookstores or online at: www.hayhouse.com

Adventures in Hollywoodland

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

It takes a certain type of person to leave the confines of their comfortable life and venture out into the unknown. It’s not an easy thing to do. It takes courage and determination, because there are bound to be a lot of setbacks along the way. In fact, journeying into the deep unknown is one of the hardest things we can ever choose to do.

I didn’t realize this when I set my sights on leaving Kansas and moving to Hollywood.

At the time all I knew was what my mother had always told me: “You can do anything you put your mind to.” Which is some of the best advice I ever got, because if I didn’t actually believe I could do whatever I wanted, I don’t think I would have been naïve enough—or perhaps crazy enough—to actually move to Hollywood. It would have been so easy to stay at home and take the path that was laid out before me: college, job, family. And if I had done that, you probably wouldn’t be reading my book right now.

Lucky for me, deep down I knew I wasn’t going to be happy taking the traditional route. It seemed too predictable. So moving to LA didn’t require a second thought for me. It was the only option. Tim and I had travelled to LA when I was 16, and there I got my first tattoo and smoked pot for the second time ever. On that trip I saw Danny Glover at a hotel and that was all it took. I wanted to be in the land of celebrity. I wanted to make my mark. I wanted to live where there was the best weather and the most beautiful women in the world. I wanted to be at the top of a town the whole world was watching.

Things didn’t go according to plan, though. My plan was to come to LA as a freshman in college. I was going to attend the University of Southern California in their Music Industry program. I was going to become a child prodigy of the music biz, managing all my favorite bands and getting a front-row seat at every concert I ever wanted to go to, not to mention the Grammys and the MTV Video Music Awards. I had no intention of actually finishing college, mind you—USC would just be my ticket to LA, the way to get my parents’ blessing. I knew that once I got to town, everything would change. I didn’t know how it would change or what it would change into, but I knew that it would change. I felt I had a destiny in Los Angeles. I yearned to be included in something really important, and Hollywood felt like just the place.

But it didn’t turn out that way, because I got rejected from USC. And I went to the University of Kansas instead.

It was a setback, but it didn’t kill my dream. I just had to try again. Unfortunately I couldn’t reapply for a whole year. That was a painful year, because I knew I didn’t belong at KU. All I could think about was getting into USC. I doubled my efforts and applied again for my sophomore year.

The day I got the acceptance letter from USC was one of the most exciting days of my life. I knew from that moment forward life would never be the same again. It was one of the first times I can remember the Uni-verse really saying YES to my dreams.

So there I was. I had my ticket to LA, entry to USC, and one—just one—very important contact in the music business: Paul.

Paul was the music manager I’d met on the Limp Bizkit tour bus years before. From the moment I met him I’d set my sights on working for him—and climbing the Hollywood music business ladder from there. As destiny would have it, I ran into Paul at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip a month after moving to LA in the summer of 2001. I don’t think it would have happened this way had I moved a year earlier. Looking back at this moment it seemed like total Divine guidance—a “Godshot” as I like to say.

When I saw Paul across the room at the Roxy I knew this was my chance. But I was so nervous that I first bribed the bartender to give me a shot of Jägermeister (I was 19). With that, I muscled up the courage to go and talk to Paul.

To my surprise, he remembered me—and he remembered where we met. It was awesome. I told him I was ready to be his intern, to work for free, and to kick some ass. The timing was perfect: it was a Saturday in August, and his summer intern had just left to go back to NYC the day before. I started on Monday.

Total Godshot. Total Divine synchronicity. Right?

For the second time that year, I felt like the Uni-verse was giving me a big YES on what I wanted to do with my life. I’d had two back-to-back confirmations that things were going according to plan. I couldn’t believe it. For years I had dreamed of coming to LA and playing with the big shots. And here I was, about to start my journey with the very “big shot” who happened to manage one of my favorite bands.

Could this really be possible?

YES. Life was showing me—it is possible for dreams to come true.

I was talking it over with a friend later in the week, and he said it was just like Woody Allen said: “Showing up is 80 percent of life.” I hadn’t heard that quote before but I’ve never forgotten it. Because the magic I was experiencing really was from just that—showing up. I decided that, from that moment forward, I would start really showing up for life. Because if this had just happened, what else was possible?

Mastin Kipp is the founder of TheDailyLove.com—a website, daily e-mail, and twitter account that serves soulful inspiration to a new generation. Started as a feed of quotes sent to Mastin’s friends, The Daily Love shot to fame after a tweet from Kim Kardashian. And a love monster was born.

Hosting Mastin on her weekly show Super Soul Sunday, Oprah dubbed him an “up and coming thought leader of the next generation of spiritual thinkers.” Both an honor and a mouthful.

Mastin’s mission is to reconnect people with what makes them happy. Happy people make better choices, and better choices make for a better planet. Mastin completed the 200 hour Yogaworks teacher training in 2013 and is a certified yoga teacher.

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