Revolutionizing Epilepsy Research – An Interview with Team ATTAC Founder Phil Bailey

Phil Bailey is the Founder of Team ATTAC, a novel philanthropic business model designed to leverage capitalism and e-commerce to generate funding for epilepsy research, a neurological disorder that has no cure. Phil is also the chief strategist at Masterpoint Strategies, a business consulting firm. Masterpoint Strategies specializes in leadership development, based on expeditionary theory; and risk management, focusing on the human side of the risk equation.

Phil Bailey, Business Consultant & Founder of Team ATTAC

Who is Phil Bailey, and what is Team ATTAC all about?

I am the founder of Team ATTAC, a unique, cycling-themed philanthropic business model designed to leverage capitalism and e-commerce to generate funding for epilepsy research, rather than create another non-profit. Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that impacts over 50 million people worldwide and currently has no cure.

I have been the principal strategist at Masterpoint Strategies, a business consulting firm, for 13 years. Prior to that, I spent over 1,200 wilderness leadership field days as a backcountry expedition leader and field staff trainer. Masterpoint Strategies specializes in leadership development, based on expeditionary theory, and risk management, focusing on the human side of the risk equation.

I have suffered from a rare form of epilepsy since birth, which cannot be controlled by medication. The career path I chose in expeditionary leadership, after an unfulfilling career in money management, seemed to help mitigate the worst symptoms and impacts of the disorder. After a long and fulfilling career in the field, I became a consultant and author, designing leadership and human performance strategies based on expeditionary theory and behavior.

Unfortunately, my retirement from my field career also marked an escalation in the epileptic symptoms, which drove me to seek other means of managing the disorder. I have been a lifelong cyclist and bike racer, so I turned to this pursuit as a necessary outlet. Eventually, I competed in the Haute Route Racing Series in Europe, billed as the “highest, hardest, most prestigious amateur bike race in the world.” These experiences led to the genesis of Team ATTAC.

As a pragmatist and problem-solver, I developed the concept and framework of Team ATTAC based on cold, hard capitalism: transactional revenue generation. ATTAC stands for Advancements, Treatments, Therapies, And Cures for epilepsy. The mission of Team ATTAC is to generate funding for epilepsy research. Many great non-profit organizations are already working to find a cure for epilepsy. So, rather than competing with them for limited grants and funding as a non-profit, I wondered if a revenue-sharing approach, leveraging e-commerce, could be a viable business model for fundraising.

The current structure of Team ATTAC includes selling cycling-themed coffee, which encourages repeat purchases, and apparel, which may only be a one-time purchase but will generate higher revenues. The profits from sales are split evenly between Team ATTAC and CURE Epilepsy, our epilepsy research partner. Perhaps one day, we will be able to donate more, if not all, of the profits to epilepsy research.

Our future plans include sponsoring cycling races and events, and eventually creating our own race/event series, which will generate funding from registration fees and sponsorships.

I am the author of two books on leadership and professional human performance:

• Living the Dream, Thoughts on Wilderness Leadership (2013)

• Expedition Boardroom, Building High-Performance Teams (CreateSpace, 2018)

I am also the author of bike. (2025), a book about my life with epilepsy and how cycling and a high-adventure career helped me manage it. Revenue from the sales of bike. will go toward finding a cure for epilepsy.

What inspired you to create Team ATTAC and the work you do today?

In September of 2024, I experienced a particularly intense and prolonged bout of epilepsy. The neurologist discovered a complicated structural issue with my brain’s architecture, caused by a gene mutation, which cannot be managed with medications. This led me to research the disorder and its impact. I learned that there are up to 40 different types of seizures, many causes – most of which are unknown – and a litany of potential triggers. Each person’s epilepsy is almost like a fingerprint, with no two cases being exactly the same. More than 50 million people are impacted by the disorder; half of the cases have no known cause, and about a third cannot be controlled by medication. In fact, for many sufferers, like myself, the drugs are worse than the epilepsy itself, and there is no cure.

Rather than feeling defeated, I decided to take action. CURE Epilepsy cites an $87 million funding deficit for epilepsy research. I don’t expect to make a significant dent in that number directly, but aside from the sales Team ATTAC will generate, there is also the element of awareness, which can lead to more donations for epilepsy research in general – whether through Team ATTAC or directly to research. Therefore, a cornerstone of our strategy is to collaborate with established, respected influencers and outlets with a large reach, such as Brainz Magazine, to help spread the word.

Who do you help best, and who benefits most from working with you?

People suffering from epilepsy can benefit if we move the needle toward finding a cure through funding and awareness. More directly, a second tenet of our strategy is to empower people living with epilepsy to take control of their lives now, even before a cure is found. A tagline of our outreach, targeting sufferers, is: “You have epilepsy. What else do you have?” This alludes to the skills and ambitions they may not be fully maximizing due to their condition. We want to encourage them to get out and ride a bike, walk, golf, or even jump out of an airplane (with a parachute, of course). Our goal is to shift the focus from being a person with epilepsy to simply being a person. If they have professional skills or want to develop them, we invite them to do so at Team ATTAC. As much as possible, we aim to remove the barriers and labels associated with epilepsy sufferers now, while we wait for a future cure.

Part of our strategy includes pursuing affiliations and sponsorships from brands in the cycling and mental health landscapes – or from any other relevant sectors, frankly. Our current and future partners will undoubtedly benefit from the organic or direct growth that Team ATTAC will generate as our brand and credibility grow.

In your consulting business, what problem do your ideal clients come to you with most often?

Masterpoint Strategies' clients often come to us to address the symptoms of more foundational issues they are unaware of. For instance, we may be asked to resolve a staff turnover problem or help a client company respond to a negatively impactful event with an after-action report and a strategy to mitigate the likelihood of similar issues in the future. However, the root cause of most of these problems is a structural issue with leadership or program/project design that fails to properly account for the human factor. Often, the problem and solution are sitting in the same chair. Therefore, helping decision-makers or committees understand and take ownership of their part in the problem and solution, using objective, agnostic, real-world data and analytics, is what most of my consulting work ultimately boils down to.

What makes your approach different from others in your field?

I bring a very different experience and skillset to the table than virtually any other strategist. Not to say it's better, just a different perspective. My background is in leading long-term, high-consequence expeditions in remote wilderness with very austere resources, no margin for error, and no direct support. Poor planning or leadership in this scenario can literally lead to death. I have experienced the death of a co-leader firsthand and several other deaths from an after-action perspective. These tragedies resulted from communication issues, failure to read the group, who were often incarcerated or at-risk young men who didn’t even want to be there and generally mishandling expectations. You quickly learn the difference between the intent and potential impact of decisions. You also learn, very quickly and profoundly, the importance of preventing negatively impactful events, because you cannot postpone your response, throw more money at it, assign a committee to study it, or walk away from it. Issues need to be dealt with immediately and professionally while still respecting the perspectives and concerns of the people involved.

You also learn very quickly how to manufacture intrinsic motivation and active buy-in, and how to develop rapport with your crew. You cannot allow for dissent or “quiet quitting” out there. Everyone must be respected, but the objectives must be met. Otherwise, you don’t get to your resupply in time, you don’t avoid the bad weather, or any number of negative outcomes from failing to stay on task and on schedule, which can lead to tragic consequences.

All of these highly applicable business strategies must be developed to a high level in order to get a crew of untrained people who have no experience and don’t even want to be there to achieve difficult, high-level objectives that they never believed they were capable of.

How do you typically help clients move from where they are now to where they want to be?

Break down your tasks into achievable steps and set clear, realistic goals for yourself. Setting attainable goals helps prevent feelings of overwhelm and empowers you to make steady progress toward your dreams. Rather than focusing solely on the end result, break down your goals into smaller, manageable tasks that you can tackle one step at a time. Celebrate each milestone along the way, no matter how small, and use those achievements as motivation to keep moving forward.

What results or transformations do your clients commonly experience?

Good analytics and a solid yet agile strategy give clients a better understanding and sense of control over their company and even their market sector. It helps them develop realistic expectations and budgets, and they gain a clearer sense of how to navigate toward these objectives with the resources they currently have both human and financial. It also guides them on when to strategically adjust those resources, whether by cutting or adding – and when to exercise sound judgment instead of blindly following procedure.

I am not a traditional businessperson with an MBA and significant work experience in the C-suite, so I may not be able to delve too deeply into the operational details of companies outside the outdoor recreation sector. However, the human factor is the largest risk factor in virtually any business model, and the leadership and human performance strategies I bring to clients can be transformative, regardless of the market sector.

What is the biggest mistake people make before getting professional support in this area?

Most of my clients are non-profits. Unlike for-profit companies, which often use consultants as a normal part of their business strategy and budget, non-profits typically wait until they are forced to bring in outside help. It's like a person suffering from cancer who waits too long to get diagnosed, only to find it's too late. It’s always more expensive to respond to problems – especially system-wide issues than it is to prevent them.

For-profit businesses often approach strategies mechanically and reactively, i.e., when “X” event occurs, initiate “Y” solution. This can provide a false sense of security, as these default solutions are often based on outdated heuristics. Helping leaders of larger, impersonal companies understand the human capital aspect of the risk equation can be challenging. They may fail to recognize staff members who are in positions of authority due to nepotism, seniority, or simply being the best available when a position opened, but who lack the skillset or maturity to manage the accountability their position requires. And sometimes, that unprepared high-level talent is them.

How does your experience with Masterpoint Strategies benefit Team ATTAC?

I think pragmatic analytics and the objective decision-making that theoretically results from it are the most valuable skills I bring to Team ATTAC.  Every business model requires some degree of agility and resilience. Team ATTAC employs a model with which I am not very familiar. So, I rely on analytics and real-world data to give the model room to breathe as it gains traction and to predict potential hurdles and pitfalls long before they become negatively impactful.

A fundamental tenet of expedition theory is to ensure that the collective competency of leadership, both direct and indirect, can manage the inherent risks of the expedition plan, which implies a full understanding of what those inherent risks are. It is already obvious that my lack of experience and skill in the digital space is a potential high-consequence risk that I need to transfer to marketing agencies, influencers in appropriate sectors, and exposure in respected outlets, such as Brainz Magazine, to compensate while I improve those skills.

As Team ATTAC grows and additional human capital is acquired, my experience in developing high-performance, intrinsically motivated teams will become vital to the continued success of this venture.

If someone feels called to work with you, what is the best next step to get started?

The Team ATTAC website is teamattac.com. Anyone interested in learning more, or in sponsoring or partnering with us, can find out more about the project here. To contact, please email me at phil@teamattac.com. We’re also available on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Team ATTAC hats, mugs, and apparel can be purchased directly from the website. The link to the Team ATTAC Coffee Co. Shopify store is also on the homepage of the website, or shop directly here. Thank you very much for supporting us.

Prospective Masterpoint Strategies clients can learn more at mp-strategies.com/. Email is phil@mp-strategies.com.

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