I've spent three decades reverse engineering the human mind to show you how you can use it to know what somebody's thinking when they meet you, or if somebody was telling you the truth or lying.
So let's do something fun.
Imagine that in front of you was an invisible deck of cards.
Spread them out in front of you and I want you to reach down and imagine you just grab a card at random.
Now look at it.
Look at me.
Okay, close your eyes.
Hold your hand out, please.
Now, before you open your eyes, tell us, what was that card?
Three of diamonds?
Open your eyes.
Take a look.
And it's not magic.
I can teach you this.
And these secrets, these habits, they're applicable all throughout life.
So trust me, you don't want to miss the rest of this.
Oz Perlman walked away from Wall Street to become the world's leading mentalist, unlocking the skills we need to read people, win trust, spot a liar and influence anyone.
My whole job is to make you believe that I can read minds, but here is the honest truth.
That's impossible, but I read people through small minute details.
For example, we're hardwired from thousands of years that if I approach you directly with two eyes, it can create fear, versus if I turn ever so slightly and approach you with one eye, that one eye is less danger.
So it's all about the smallest little nuances.
Like think of someone, think of their first name.
I got it.
Five letters, isn't it?
Tell us all what is their first name?
Jules.
So this is a huge tactical advantage when you ask your boss for a raise or when you ask someone out on a date, and I'll explain what to do, as well as how you form habits, eliminating that fear of rejection.
We'll see you next time.
Just give me 30 seconds of your time.
Two things I wanted to say.
The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week.
It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place.
But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started.
And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24 of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app.
Here's a promise I'm going to make to you.
I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future.
We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to.
And we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show.
Thank you.
You're a guy who can apparently read people's minds.
In fact, the book you've just written is called Read Your Mind Proven Habits for Success from the World's Greatest Mentalist.
So, for anyone that isn't familiar with your work and what you do, Why did you name your book?
Read Your Mind.
And can you read my mind?
So therein lies the dilemma.
My whole job is to make you...
Believe that I can read minds, but here is the honest truth.
I can't read minds.
I wish I could read minds.
That's impossible.
I read people.
Very different skill.
This is built on the world of magic, what I do.
Misdirection, influence suggestion.
Knowing how people think indicates to me what they think right.
I've spent three decades reverse engineering the human mind.
I'm teaching you habits for success because the skills that I have at reading people effectively walking into a room, taking charge, influencing them, all of the things surrounding the entertainment portion are things that apply to everyone.
If you can use these secrets, these habits.
They're going to lead you to success in your personal life, in your professional life, in your relationships.
And that's what I've done.
I think that if I had done this same playbook and not been a mentalist, I'd be successful at any field.
They're applicable all throughout life.
You know, I'm pausing for one second.
Because someone listening to this right now, I'm always thinking about the person there watching us.
And why should they be watching me right now?
That's my question.
Who cares about me?
I don't know me.
They don't know me.
Why should they watch this?
I've studied you.
That's what I do for a living.
And I have something for you.
And on Dragon's Den, I love when you make an offer.
I love the visual of the moment where you can change someone's life, right?
A founder, you evaluate their company, you make them an offer.
So this is an offer, but...
It's not for now.
You have to stick around till the end.
If you open it now, it'll be meaningless.
At the end of this podcast, you're going to open this piece of paper and I think it's going to be something you will talk about for years to come.
You know what?
Put it somewhere, maybe right under your mug where it never leaves our sight.
And we're going to come back to this later.
Do you know what this is?
It's your future.
This is my future.
100%.
Don't open it yet.
You don't want to know your future yet.
And why should they stick around and listen?
Oh, because trust me, you don't want to miss the rest of this.
Otherwise, you'll have to see the highlights.
Put it somewhere we see it the whole time.
Okay, so I'll put it here.
Or under your mug or anywhere we never lose sight of it.
Wonderful. my mug on top of it.
For anyone that can't see, because there will be some people listening on audio he's just passed me a white piece of folded up card and I've put it underneath my mug.
It's an offer you can't refuse.
Listen guys, we're not colluding.
So because I remember watching, I remember watching the Joe Rogan episode and wondering whether you and Joe Rogan had colluded.
Yep.
To like do the, because it blew my mind.
So.
My objective today is to be completely honest with my audience.
Please.
And also, if I see you do something, do you want me to say it?
For sure.
Do you actually want me to say it?
I mean, I guess so while I'm here.
Okay, fine.
Okay.
I mean, they trust you.
Why do people listen to you?
Great interview questions, but they trust you.
That's how you build an audience.
Yeah, I'd feel bad if I duped them.
And what is it that you think?
You know that the average person doesn't know about the human condition?
I know how people think.
So I think what I learned at a certain point were skills that are for success in life.
Let me explain to you.
The fear of rejection is something that I think is the number one factor between success.
Failure and success is the fear.
Most people don't try to achieve their goals because they're fearful of what will happen if they fail, or they set themselves up for failure instead of for success.
What do I mean by that?
When I was 14, I'd walk up to you at a restaurant.
I talked my way into getting a restaurant gig because I'd been doing magic tricks since I was 13.
And I started learning by iterating what makes people, when I walk up to them, comfortable with me?
What makes them uncomfortable?
I started learning how people think.
And it's down to the smallest little nuances.
I learned that if I approach you directly, the same way that animals fear you when they see two eyes, versus if I turn ever so slightly and approach your table at an angle, you only see one eye.
We're hardwired from thousands and thousands of years of avoiding predators that one eye is less danger.
Animals aren't as fearful of you.
So I walk up to you, I create time limits.
I learned quickly that if I walk up, the first thing someone thinks is, oh my God.
Is he going to be here long?
The next thing is, do they even know this kid's working here?
Is he any good at this?
Oh God, I need money.
Do I have to tip him?
I didn't bring cash.
All of these thoughts that go through your mind, they're known as heuristics.
It's how we deal with our life every day.
And if you can know what somebody's thinking not to perform a mentalist trick, but know what they're thinking when they meet you or when you ask your boss for a raise, or when you ask a girl or a guy out on a date.
You knowing that is a huge tactical advantage.
And specifically, how would you do that?
What would you say?
What I would say is in my mind as a mentalist, what I do most is prepare.
I prepare in advance for what will work. what won't work and all the troubleshoots in between.
Plan A B C D, all the way to Z.
So in that situation, every time I learned something new.
I learned quickly that people didn't know if I was working at the restaurant.
Am I just some kid who walked up to you?
Well, who is this?
So I walk at an angle. so they know I might be leaving soon.
I'm one foot in, I'm one foot out.
I would then say to you, did you hear what's going on tonight?
It's your lucky day.
Right away, that's a different thing.
That's a dopamine hit.
That's the same way when your phone buzzes.
That's why we're hooked.
Who texted me?
What does this say?
Is this a like?
Is this a comment?
That's that lottery.
By me saying to you a question that denotes positive energy without a yes or no.
You don't have a way to stop me.
If I said, hey, do you want to see me do magic?
No, get out of here.
Boom, we're done.
Asking people questions that are open-ended, that are inherently positive, almost always generates a great response.
Did you hear why?
It's your lucky night.
Oh, why is it my lucky night?
And I say, the owner brought me in as a special treat to do something amazing for you.
So now listen to this.
The owner, they know I'm working there.
The owner brought me in.
I know the owner, social value, social currency as a special treat.
That means you don't need to pay me money.
They've paid the bill.
Amazing.
And then to show you something amazing.
So I've given you no point at which to say no.
I've given you very few angles to think anything but positive.
And I've done this all in hopefully less than 10 seconds.
That's the intro.
Now you better have your A game.
I better have a trick that's going to blow them away and capture their attention.
What I heard there was you created this positive curiosity gap.
Yes.
And that's also what MrBeast does at the start of his videos.
The hook, instantly.
Yeah, it's like a positive curiosity gap where you need that gap closed.
And you said in that case...
They brought me in.
Have you heard what's happening tonight?
Yep.
It's amazing.
You brought me in as a treat to do something amazing.
Immediately, I need to know what this is.
What is this?
I don't want you to leave.
And then you'd blow them away somehow.
I'd blow them away, but the lessons to be learned from there are things that I've used for the rest of my life.
And they apply so much to today's day and age where what is the currency of our time?
Attention this very moment that someone's listening and watching can allow you to blow up a business.
We have never been in an era where your phone, having a phone, can allow you to become a global superstar, to launch a business.
It's like...
A hundred years ago, this didn't exist, this option.
So knowing how to connect with people on an emotional level, and then knowing what does your audience want.
That's what I learned early on.
I'm just knowing how people think and using that to entertain them.
And how much of it is based on my body language?
How much of it is based on how I behave?
And I say that because the audience, you know, they're all professionals working in their careers and they're very keen to better understand people through observation.
Sure.
Whether it's their team members or whether it's clients or whoever it might be.
So I'm wondering if there's anything I can learn to be a better observer of the people in my life.
Absolutely.
So for my performances, let's break this down.
I'm an entertainer.
That's what I do for a living.
And now after many years, people ask me, how do you do it?
How do you do it?
I've realized you don't want to know how I do it.
You don't really, if I were to guess, let's do something fun.
You have a deck of cards.
Yeah.
Let's just sweeten the deal.
These are your cards, correct?
This is not, I've not touched.
These are no magic trick involved.
These are all cards.
Yes.
Here's what I'd like to try for you.
Put them down in front of you, please.
You've mixed them up.
Do you want to mix them some more?
Yes, I do.
Please, mix them as much as you'd like.
I'll just say that because I just saw it.
No, don't say a word.
Okay, there you go.
The moment I touch those cards, my brain flips a switch and goes, this is a magic trick.
That's what I know.
I know that archetype.
I'm not touching those cards.
I couldn't care less about those cards.
Imagine that in front of you instead was an invisible pack of cards, Steven.
This is where I changed gears, where years ago I spent hours and hours learning sleight of hand.
Pick up the invisible deck, please.
Just pretend.
Just like that.
And I want you to spread them out in front of you.
Face down, you can't see them.
And Steven, you close your eyes, you reach down, and here's the part where we can't collude, because they're invisible and you don't know what you're about to do, much less me.
And now, when you reach down and imagine you just grab a card at random face down, do it for me now, please.
And stop right there.
Freeze.
Have I told you what to do at this moment?
Have I said anything?
Is there any way that you could know what card you just picked in your hand?
Or I could know, or any of this.
No.
No.
This is spontaneous, impulsive, and in the moment.
It's the gold standard for what I do.
Don't say a word.
Look at it.
Look at me.
Just think.
The cards are red, they're black.
There's the hearts, the diamonds, the clubs, and the spades.
There's the number cards.
There's the big cards.
Ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, jack, queen, king.
Close your eyes.
That's it.
I'm going to take these cards that are next to you.
Oops, sorry.
And I'd like you to keep your eyes closed if you don't mind.
And this is not a card trick, but I want a visual for your audience.
Hold your hand out, please.
And hold it as if you were holding one card in your hand.
Keep your eyes closed.
Do not open them.
I'm going to place one card in your hand.
Close your fingers and freeze right there.
Before you open your eyes, tell us, what was that card?
The three of diamonds?
Open your eyes.
Take a look.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
It is very, very difficult for me to understand how you do that.
Now, here's the question.
So I tell you this, if I were to teach you that, You could do it.
It will take you quite some time and you'll learn.
And it was a narrowing down of a lot of options into one, which is a lot of what I do.
I limit your options and I read what you are giving off because there's no magic.
There's no sleight of hand involved in this.
Are we in agreement?
This is an invisible deck.
You took out a card.
Let's put these away.
But here's where I would say what's applicable is knowing how to read people more effectively in your life, not for the sake of a trick, but knowing what they're actually thinking.
Now, if you're watching this and you said you're a business person, you want a tangible takeaway for body language, you ask yourself was there a body language thing?
Was there something that you did specifically?
Was there a flex of an arm?
Was there a twinge of an eyebrow?
Was there something that you can see?
There are definitely markers.
But what I would describe to people is for a lot of people, they want to know a core thing.
Is someone interested?
Yes or no.
And is someone lying?
Yes or no.
If you could know those two things, I think that opens up a world of possibilities.
How many major moments of your life had to do with if somebody liked or was interested in what you were doing, be it in sales or business or personal, or if somebody was telling you the truth or lying.
The best way to learn if somebody's lying to you is learning their benchmarks.
Let me explain to you what that means.
Meeting somebody one time, it's very hard to know things about them.
One-time transactions, you can't really gauge who they are as a person.
But how many people in your life do you meet once?
Few.
Most of the people you meet, you meet often.
So a lie detector machine, have you ever been lie detector machined?
Never.
So the way they work is they have to ask you questions beforehand to set... your benchmarks.
They have to check and they see, tell me an honest answer.
Is your name Stephen Bartlett?
Yes.
They look at your indicators to see what honesty looks like.
And then they look to see, tell me a lie.
And now they try to compare the two to each other.
So what I do when I watch people and observe is I try to see what do they look like when they're telling me the truth.
And these are fun things you could try at home.
See when somebody tells you a story, how many details do they insert?
What's their cadence?
Right?
How do they speak?
You can tell when people are lying more often than not if you observe them often.
You can see it.
Do they add more details?
So you can try to find fun ways that seem to be white lies, to see What do they do when they lie versus what do they do when they tell the truth.
And then start to trust your instincts more.
I think a lot of things that I do, I've unlearned bad habits.
I think that when we were growing up, most of us had much better BS detection systems.
When you're two, three, four, You know if your sibling's lying to you.
You know if people are lying to you very well.
You're kind of very young and there's an instinct involved that I think is akin to when I play ping pong.
I can't think about my shot.
I just do the shot.
I don't know how I did it.
My body just goes into motion.
So when I'm performing, I am...
The way people always ask me, are you doing this in every moment of your life?
No, it's tiring.
I'm focused, hyper-focused on what you're doing and the things that I'm watching.
That will give away certain elements.
And I'm influencing you.
There's misdirection.
And I'm guiding you in a certain position in a certain way to what I want you to select.
Say I was trying to sell you something.
Sure.
We're doing a presentation.
I'm a marketing agency owner and I would like you to buy this marketing campaign from me instead of this one or no campaign.
Sure.
So...
What are some things you could tell me that I should be thinking about or doing?
Number one rule.
I call this channeling your inner mentalist.
It's not about you.
It's always about them.
That's been the number one secret to my success.
I shouldn't have been.
I've been on all different networks doing what I do.
On CNBC, I've been on there dozens of times.
That's the financial network.
How many other magicians or mentalists have ever been on that network?
Zero.
It doesn't make sense.
That's a serious network.
They do finance.
Why are they bringing me on?
Because I tailor my presentations to the viewer.
I don't think about myself.
A card trick is about me.
Me doing something related to stocks and bonds and dividends and interest rates that is fascinating to the person watching.
The same way if I go into a room with football players, I make everything structured on football.
So I challenge you that when you make a presentation like that, Are you just thinking about you or where can you highlight the attributes of what is this person missing?
What's wrong with what their status quo is?
What are you missing?
Listen to your audience.
Listen to your consumer.
Listen to your client.
Listen to your audience.
They will tell you.
They will give you the answers to what you need to give back to them.
So many people, when they approach someone else, they approach with the following.
Wow.
How great am I?
How great is my product?
Bum, bum, bum.
It's all about me, me, me.
This needs to be benefits-oriented language.
All of it should be you.
I want to make your life easier.
I want to make this migration to our platform seamless.
What's currently bothering you?
I want to know all the things that you, that are your... moments of resistance.
What's resisting you from saying yes?
And every time you tell me one, I want to be prepared to check that off.
It's so funny you mentioned that.
It's, I know you want no downtime.
Here's how we can ensure no downtime, right?
You want to anticipate what they're going to say the same way a mentalist does.
But in this case, you're not guessing cards or numbers or names.
You're guessing the thoughts of what's keeping them from buying your product.
And is that a practice per se?
Like if this was...
You know if I was pitching to you and you're the CEO of Uber and I want you to work with my agency before I go into that meeting.
You know you talked about preparation earlier on.
Do you write down or just think about the rebuttals or the person that you're contending with and then try and tailor the presentation to a set of sort of ideological ego factors that you believe that person's coming into the room with?
Right.
So I write down everything.
Literally one chapter in that book is all about how taking notes has changed my life.
So at every show and through every interaction that I ever have with somebody, I write down.
I had a show last night, a show the night before.
I will write down.
I have a shorthand to make it quicker, but I will write down everything that I did, everybody that I met, things that I remember about them, and I will do this immediately when I finish the show.
If I might have a meet and greet in photos the moment it's done.
You'll sometimes see me in an Uber, in my hotel and I'm writing furiously everything while it's still in my mind and fresh, because information is power.
And the number one thing that people care about is themselves, their family, their friends, their career right.
All of us are the star of our own movie.
You're the star of your movie.
I'm the star of my movie.
Right here, the person, man, the camera star, everybody else is supporting cast.
So think of it this way.
If you can remember things about that person, not creepy.
What if they told you something?
Last night I met somebody, she has two children.
They're three and five.
Her oldest son absolutely loves this one YouTube star.
They live, I know where they live.
Like she just shared a lot of details with me that in her mind, are kind of like Snapchats.
They vanished.
They didn't vanish to me.
So now that I've written those down, I might see her in a month, in a year, in a decade.
Do you know how great that feeling is to somebody?
When you remember things they told you, it's like winning the lottery.
It's literally like you get to do a magic trick like I do, but people give you credit.
I will remember at shows, who hired me for the show?
Oh, they know this person.
Now we have a chain.
We have a referral link.
I might see them again.
I guessed their ATM pin code three years ago.
It was 6124.
I now know that.
I bump into them there.
And I don't have a supernatural memory.
Another part of the book is how to improve your memory, which I think is also a huge secret to success in life that people don't realize.
We have phones now.
We think our phone does it for us.
That's not true.
And I say to him, I go, John, I sure hope you change that pin code from 6124.
He is blown away.
Stephen, do you understand?
That's not a trick.
I wrote it down.
There's no, I'll tell you exactly how I did it.
All I did was take the time to review it before I got there and made him feel special.
And do you know what he's going to do?
He's going to talk about that moment. for years to come.
I've created a memory.
If you can create memorable moments for others, they will remember you and they will spread the word to others.
And that's how you, whatever you do in life, What you do for others, is what's going to eventually propel you to success.
I would say give gratuitously, but the more gratuitous you give.
There's this funny way in the world where the universe bounces back.
And the more I do for others, they want to do the same for me.
If you were to make that really practical for me.
So you have a shorthand book which you write in every time you meet someone, to keep details.
You could do it in your phone.
I do it in my phone.
So I have calendar entries.
Let's be very clear.
Let's give you brass tacks.
I will write in, if you look at my phone right now, the event last night, set list.
I wrote down the name of the host, his wife.
They have three children.
They have twins.
Like, everything about this is very fresh in my mind and I'll remember it for a day, but then it will, kind of, it will dissipate.
Which tricks did I do?
What happened in the tricks?
What were funny moments that were off the cuff?
Who did I meet earlier that day?
I met somebody.
And again, I'm writing all this stuff down because that information is power.
That information, the longer you hold it, it's a coupon with no expiration date.
And when you serve it up to that person, in fact, it's the reverse.
The longer you hold onto it, the more impressive it is.
If I met you yesterday and you told me your favorite color is magenta and I say it to you tomorrow, not that exciting.
But in two years if, when I meet you and we see a car, I go.
Stephen, that's your favorite color magenta, isn't it?
Not as a trick, just there in your mind, dopamine.
How did you remember that?
You're touched that I remember that about you, right?
That's what people care about.
People, think about again, their family, their friends, their faith, their business, all of that.
The more that you can make someone else shine. the better it happens to you.
Everything is about when I, my whole act is geared towards making other people look good.
I was thinking about this quite a lot and I actually posted on my LinkedIn this morning about the paradox of small things and what I said in the post.
It's reflecting on Jimmy Fallon.
I was on his show this week and he mentioned that we have this tradition at the end of the podcast with the guests.
It's a small thing that we do at the end of the show.
And the fact that he remembered it and told his audience about it and said it brought him to tears, made me realise that actually, the small things in life that we often overlook, like remembering someone's name or, as you said, their family or some sort of intricate personal detail, They're so powerful because most people don't think they matter.
That's it.
So when one person in your life remembers a tiny detail about you, that kind of matters to you.
Even your name is something that matters to you.
It's so shockingly rare and it's so shockingly powerful because most people think it's so unbelievably petty.
And this is, I think, the paradox of small things, that they're actually, in fact, really big things.
Well, think about how many small things if you were to look at your life and just have these little roads, these like fork in the road where one path led to this.
And I have those moments where in my life where somebody said one thing to me, sometimes offhanded, they don't even remember it and it changed the course of my life.
And there's like little moments I had one.
So I worked on wall street.
I didn't think that you could be a magician or mentalist.
It's crazy that it never even occurred to me as an option.
But yeah, At one point.
There's two moments, but one of the big ones is I'm doing something for the CFO of my company, Merrill Lynch.
He does not know that I work for the company.
And I used to do this magic trick with sleight of hand where I take five $1 bills, I hold them.
I snapped.
They turned to hundreds.
Amazing.
It's a great trick.
And at that moment, he's an Australian guy.
And he goes, he goes, he goes, we need you working here, mate.
And everyone laughs.
And, you know, it's a joke I've heard a hundred times, a thousand times.
And I go, it's funny, sir.
I do work here.
And he thought it was a joke.
I broke character a little.
I go, no, no, seriously, I work at 95 Green.
It's your global technology services department.
And he looked at me and goes, what are you doing working here?
And that moment to him, I assume was nothing.
It was forgotten moments later.
But that moment changed the course of my life because there was like a switch in my mind that goes what am I doing, working here?
You know, where you kind of like can visualize your future.
Is this my path?
Is this what I'm going to do forever?
Or am I going to decide that you live one life and I'm going to go for it?
And I think for a lot of people who are listening to this.
I'm not saying to quit your job, but you ask yourself look in the mirror.
Is this what I want to be doing?
And I think for a lot of people they might want more, whether that's their own business, whether it's to climb the rung of a ladder.
And it's that moment that somebody can change your life and take action and decide I'm going to do it but also formulate a plan.
Be effective and smart in your execution.
And in your case, you know, leaving Merrill Lynch to go and become a mentalist is quite a leap.
Huge leap.
Everyone thought it was crazy.
Same with Dan Brown.
No one said to me oh, this is a great idea, even though I've got to tell you the truth, most people were very happy for me.
But behind closed doors, I think they thought this kid, you know, he's nuts.
You kind of were nuts because statistically probabilistically, the chance of you becoming a quote-unquote successful mentalist is extremely low.
Extremely low.
I mean, there's probably a handful of mentalists that earn a lot of money.
I would say it's a very low number, but here's the question you should ask yourself.
Why not you?
The framing of that is always, of course, there's statistics, but why not me?
And so I think, the way you think in your mind, the voice in your head that tells you that loop, determines things.
So it's all about setting yourself up for success rather than failure.
How much of being a mentalist is understanding human behavior versus-.
I don't even know how to answer that.
It's literally, that's, I'm a student of the human- like how people behave.
But the practice of it, because Darren Brown is, I consider him a friend.
Much of his work is making you think the trick is happening here.
100%.
But actually the trick is happening over here and he's misdirecting you to focus on my left hand and the trick is taking place in my right hand.
That couldn't be more true.
That's exactly it.
But that is knowing human behavior.
Explain to me why.
I don't want to say controlling, because it sounds very devious, but I'm controlling your attention and your thoughts.
I'm guiding you in a certain way to either select what I'd like or to give away something that you feel you have not given away.
Should we do a fun example?
Sure.
Did you know off the top of your head how many episodes you've had of this show?
I think it's roughly 500.
I believe so.
Close your eyes.
I want to make this a visual game.
You're in this room, of all different people that you've looked at, you've seen that you respect okay.
Some of them could have been guests on the show, and then you get a tap on the shoulder.
You turn around, you look at this person and it's somebody you've met before 100 and they say something to you they've said it to you before and you get deja vu and it's something impactful.
It left an impression on you.
Is that a fair assessment?
And that inherently right there, boom, that makes you think of another person.
I don't know whether I don't think they mentioned this other person, but something about that takeaway or that thought or that moment of clarity or wisdom made you think of someone else in your life.
It was connected to them.
This next person, person number two I'm calling, they jumped over, opened your eyes.
When was the last time you had spoken to that person?
The person number two?
Yeah.
Um...
Today.
Today.
Okay, let's lean into this.
Think of their first name.
Count the letters to yourself.
Don't say it.
Yeah.
And somebody you know well, you've spoken to them today.
I watched your eyes.
You went up, up, up, up, up.
Five letters, isn't it?
Yeah.
You asked me how I do it.
You said, do I study people?
You just gave it away yourself.
There's five letters to choose from.
There's 26 in the alphabet.
Pick any letter in this person's first name, mix them up a little.
And then you grab one out and you just decide, this is the letter I want to focus on.
Now, knowing you, knowing you as an entrepreneur, knowing you the way you give interviews, I think I know what you would want to do.
Knowing that you know Darren Brown, you know how some of this works.
So your instinct was to go against your instinct, because you go, I know this would be obvious.
You didn't think of the first letter, did you?
No.
You didn't want to.
You thought that would give it away.
Yeah.
Because once I know that, it's easier to figure out the rest.
And then I know there's vowels in the name And so inherently you said, that limits my subset.
You didn't do a vowel, did you?
No.
L. Are you thinking of an L?
No.
I got it.
It's funny because by you saying no, it means you gave away both.
I've written this down.
Can you close your eyes?
For the viewers who are watching this as a video, I'm going to show them.
And for everybody else to know who's just listening in their headphones while running or doing something.
This can't change what I wrote down.
Open it up.
Open it up.
You thought of an S, but switch from the L. Is that correct?
Tell us all what is their first name?
Jules.
Jules?
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You know, you walk into rooms and people hear that you're a mentalist.
So they're already like somewhat on edge.
Yeah.
And you can see that they're on edge, right?
Yeah, you got to sweeten it because... What do you do about that?
Because everywhere you go, people are going to be like fuck, this guy might be able to guess my.
You know, that's what they're thinking.
They're thinking he can guess my bank pin.
So I'm going to give nothing away.
So you must be meeting... people that are like closed off your entire life.
How would you get them to go from closed to open up?
I think it's being likable.
So this, think about it.
If you met somebody who could really read your mind and I can't read minds.
Just I want to be clear throughout the process because people say oh, what's he trying to teach?
I can't read minds.
I'm not psychic.
I am not supernatural.
I don't claim to be.
You could do this.
Maybe not as well because I think there's an inherent talent.
Just same as musical talent.
I can't play a guitar.
I can't sing to save my life.
No matter how much training you give me, I will never have the voice of Harry Styles or Ed Sheeran.
It's not in the cards for me.
But you're tricking me to think that my eye movements played a role.
So I will tell you this.
I am tricking you to believe that certain things are more important than others.
Your eye, movements and body language play a role.
But whether it played a 10 role, a 50 role, a 100 role, that's 100 true.
My job is to misdirect you and to use multiple methods so that as soon as you go down a path and you think you've got me, I jump to the next line.
I do it a different way.
There's also a possibility that 0% of that trick you just did was about my eyes.
I didn't say it was about your eyes though, did I?
You said you looked up the one, two, three, four, five.
That is absolutely true.
Try it for yourself though.
Honestly, try it for yourself.
How many letters somebody counts If they have a long name, it takes longer to process.
You aren't going to be able to use a name and counting the number of letters in your day-to-day life.
So if I were to show you how to do it, you were to attempt it and you were to get it right 75 of the time, which you'd be shocked that you would you'd then go now what?
Who cares?
Most of you are not going to take and spend the next decades learning mentalism.
Rather, I'm gonna try and take the most important parts of mentalism and show you how you can use them.
Another huge one is just confidence.
How do people build confidence?
When I was 14 and I started doing this, was I this hyper-confident teenager?
No.
My folks just got divorced.
My life was pretty tumultuous.
I think I did this.
As a way to not have to deal with all of the trauma and kind of sadness.
And confidence gets built over time.
So what's a better way to fast track that?
For a lot of people, you walk into a room, you have to give a presentation.
Are you nervous as hell?
I think most people would say yes.
Would you agree to that?
Mm-hmm.
What can you do tomorrow to get in there and feel like you own the room?
The same way I go on TV for a million people or right now for millions.
I think there's so much of it has to do with.
There's a panic that we have in us, where we take, and we fear, a certain feeling, which is I have certain things that I dread doing.
Like let's say I have to call someone and give a call of things I don't want to say.
I have to turn someone down for something.
I hate that.
I'm avoiding it at all lengths.
The same way you procrastinate things you don't want to do.
I have this little trick in my mind, where what I do is I ask myself what will I feel like tomorrow about this?
What will I feel like tomorrow?
What if I could fast forward my feelings to tomorrow?
And instead of just you know, up in the air, try it.
Right now, what's something that you, the listener, don't want to do?
You don't want to call someone.
You don't want to deliver bad news.
You know this person's about to ream you out.
You're avoiding it at all costs.
You're moving in your calendar to tomorrow, the next day, you keep doing that.
Do it now.
And I want you to set an alarm 24 hours from now.
Put it in your, in your, I'm not, I'm for real.
Put an alarm that says tomorrow, write down how you feel about this scale of one to 10.
Right when you finish the call, you're going to feel in the dread before it.
You're going to feel an 8 9, 10 of dread.
The next day when the alarm goes off, ask yourself, how do I feel?
Most of the time you feel nothing.
Two or three, it's out of sight, out of mind.
So what if you could trick your brain the same way I tricked you to think your eye movements have anything to do with it?
Trick your own brain to see how you feel a day from now.
You feel nothing.
So what if you can just start doing that to yourself?
Rewire your brain, say I'm going to feel nothing in a day.
Screw it.
I'm going to do it now.
And just that trick of getting over procrastination is, builds a tremendous amount of confidence.
Another one is I would walk up to tables and people would kick me out.
They'd be like, get out of here.
They wouldn't pay attention to me.
Things that would hurt my feelings.
So what I did is I created in my mind some way where I have two separate personalities.
This guy was Oz the entertainer, Oz the magician, now Oz the mentalist.
This guy was Oz Perlman.
They don't know the real me.
That's a different guy.
So when I walked up to a table and got turned down or rudely rejected, instead of me feeling that pain in myself, I pushed it somewhere else.
And I go, you know what?
They didn't like, oh, it's the entertainer.
That's a different guy.
That's not me.
And so the same way that if you took right now a bowl of water right here and we poured salt in the water, it's salt water.
But what if we could take an invisible small piece of plastic and put it right down the center?
And now you pour all the salt in one side.
This side is immune.
This is fresh water.
If you can do that in your own mind, the same way that I use my tricks to trick your mind, trick your own mind.
That will take away the sting because so many of us we don't go after our goals because we're scared of what happens if they don't work out.
It's all about accountability.
You fear the rejection.
And if you can get over that, it is a superpower in life.
The same way you asked me, how did you know it was going to work?
Because I stopped thinking about it not working.
And people that have that singular focus on making something work, those are the entrepreneurs.
Those are the people that you see achieve.
Those are the athletes.
Those are the people who have a hyper fixation and focus on a goal that they will make it happen.
They manifest it.
And what about communication, your communication style and how important that is?
Like what are you thinking about when you're communicating as an entertainer?
To make sure people are paying attention and they're engaged, be watching the audience all the time.
The audience never lies.
So you have to really assess what the audience is throwing at you.
And I'm seeing people and I'm seeing, are they interested?
Are they on the edge of their seat?
Are they leaning forward?
Indicators of interest.
Are they sitting back and checking their watch?
Are they yawning?
Obviously, you can't do this with everybody.
When I'm in a room with a thousand people, maybe one guy's hungover.
Maybe their baby didn't sleep last night and they had a red-eye flight.
I can't know everyone. but I can watch individuals and see how they're reacting to me.
And I can quickly change and pivot and see how I can continue keeping their attention.
And if I was listening to this right now, am I turning it off?
Am I fast forwarding?
Am I getting tangible takeaways?
If I get three things from this that I can put into action tomorrow, this is smash success.
Because if I get one thing that somebody says to me, like one tidbit that they say, I feel like that can change your life.
Then take action.
I'm all about action because I think in so many instances, there's no accountability.
Inspiration, motivation is garbage.
I could care less if I've inspired you.
I want action.
What is your goal?
Do you want to lose weight?
Do you want to make a certain amount of money?
Are you making a million dollars next year?
Is that really going to make you happy?
So a lot of the time we make goals that we think of, but then we get them.
You know I have made more money in the last 10 years than if you'd asked me 10 years ago.
I dreamt possible.
Does that make you happy?
It makes life easier, but I don't think it's just pure fulfillment.
I know a lot of people that are very, very wealthy and they aren't happy.
I'm around a lot of wealthy people.
It's just a nature of my thing.
And I ask myself, they're billionaires.
And if this isn't making you happy, what is?
I don't think that money is always the goal that you should attain.
I understand why I didn't have a lot of money as a kid.
So that was like a barometer of success for me.
But as I have kids and as I see that life is short and feel my mortality, I realize some things are much more important than money.
But if you have a goal, let this be the cue not to inspire you, but to literally take action.
Right now, what is it that you want to do?
Somebody talked to me the other day, said, man, I love watching you run.
I would love to run.
Stop, start running.
Tomorrow, put a reminder in your calendar.
Literally tomorrow, my first run.
Then put one 30 days from now to make sure you're accountable and then decide what makes you accountable.
For me, I don't like to be embarrassed.
It's going to come up in a future conversation and they're going to say hey Steve, whatever happened with the 10K.
Now I have to eat humble pie with 10 different people and say to them, you know what?
I didn't do it.
Oh, oh, okay, you didn't do it.
I want that to be my motivator.
Maybe your motivator is internal, maybe it's external, but find what motivates you and use those levers to generate action.
You know, in your profession a lot of the like with Darren Brown.
A lot of it is.
He'll make you think that, like we said earlier, like it's my right hand but actually it's my left.
Yep.
Like, how do you contend with...
Being someone whose job it is to sort of misdirect me, to make me think it's my right hand or my left or whatever.
But then also trying to give people information that will make them successful in their lives.
Right.
Well, the ethics of it.
I'm not trying to sell you anything about being a mind reader or a mentalist.
This is a separate pursuit.
The skills surrounding everything I do.
Those skills it's like how to win friends and influence people.
It's a book I've read over and over and over.
I don't want to say it's dated, but it's of a different era.
The skills that allowed me to reach near the top of my profession aren't the tricks.
There's other people that can do that.
There's other people that can do this.
There's other people that can guess your card.
So what led me to here?
Do I do it better than them?
I'll let you decide that.
My secrets to success are the exact same ones you can apply to your life.
That's the key.
The fact that I've made it about them, not me.
How have I been on all these TV shows?
How have I had such a wide diversity?
Has nothing to do with performing.
It has to do with me turning the mirror around.
The moment you realize that you will be successful in your life.
When you start making other people the star, thinking about them, thinking about what's going on in their head.
That's true mentalism.
What are they thinking?
And how do I deliver on that?
How do I make them look good?
How do I make them like me more?
How do I win them over so that, when the moment comes for them to recommend somebody, or to give them a raise or do something, they know that you're the person that they think of first?
And I think those skills again I wouldn't.
It's not really mentalism, but it's the exact same tools that I use.
It's not guessing numbers or names.
It's knowing how to influence others.
And if I wasn't able to influence people, none of the things I just did would work.
You would just say, no, I'm not going to do that.
On the skill of listening, which I think is also so important to what you're saying there about being likable and winning people over.
Do you have a system or a framework for being a great listener?
You talk about it a little bit in the book near the end.
I think you have five ways to become a better active listener.
Yes.
Can you run me through those?
Sure.
Should I give you a funny story?
Sure.
I kind of led this off.
So I did a party for Steven Spielberg.
Yeah.
It was his father's 99th birthday.
It was a pretty intimate affair.
I was noticeably nervous in my mind, not for the performance, but to meet Steven Spielberg.
So he defined an era of my childhood and I feel like likely for a billion or several billion other people.
So at the end of the show, he comes up to thank me, and I'm ready.
I was able to ask Steven Spielberg...
Zero questions.
Do you know why?
He talked to me the whole time.
He kept asking me questions, rapid fire, this and about my life and about what drove me and this.
And I just wanted to keep being like, pause, I got questions for you.
You're Steven Spielberg.
He made it all about me. all about me.
And I learned at that day that it's a greater power to listen and that the most interesting person in a room tends to be the most interested person in the room.
And that some of the people I've seen that are the most successful, the most authentic and genuine.
They will look you in the eye, They will lock in.
They will not be looking around at other people and they will give you their 100 undivided attention.
And they will ask you questions that other people haven't asked you before.
And I challenge you.
Don't just do the normal question when you meet somebody.
Oh, what do you do for a living?
Oh, we, as soon as we do that, we go into autopilot.
I go into autopilot and I'm not judging you.
Most people do that, right?
50% of people have to be below average, right?
And 49.9% are above average.
That's inherently the Challenge yourself to be the outlier and think of a question.
You can ask someone if you have time to think of it in advance or in the moment that throws them out of autopilot.
That makes them think wow.
I haven't really thought of that before.
Asking questions that are not yes or no questions are also great.
Ask questions that let them explore who they are.
I think that's a big part of active listening.
And I let the audience guide me to what's of interest to them.
When we walked in here today, I said to think of a favorite of a category.
If I knew the category, would I be able to guess what the answer was?
No.
What is the question?
You know what?
Tell it to me.
I don't want to write anything down.
I want you to just say it out loud.
Give me the question.
What is the question that you have defined the answer to?
Give me that question.
Ask it to me.
What is my favorite?
Car.
What is my favorite car?
Yeah.
And you think there's no way I could know that?
No prior research could have alerted me to it.
No prior research, no.
You decide the same way that you do with Jules.
I want you to think of the name of the car, whether it's the brand, whether it's the make.
And I want you to pick one letter out from anywhere.
I'm assuming it's more than one word, unless you just said Ford.
Again, I don't want to lead you, but if it is more than one word And if it's two three, four words, decide on one of the words.
Have you decided on one of the words?
Yeah.
One of the words.
Don't say another word.
Now, you're just saying that was interesting.
Decide on one of the words.
Yeah.
And pick one of the letters.
Something interesting to you.
Grab the one letter and just focus on that one letter.
Yeah.
You have it?
Yeah.
Now you ask me, you said, it's all misdirection, right?
The eye movements, this is all just window dressing, but you just gave something away.
You said one of the words with a question because you were confused.
You didn't know what to do.
If it was only one word, I would never have said that.
If it was three words, why would it be one of the words?
Of course it's one of the words.
So you did one.
And then I think this one went through your head.
You read, you went to the last.
Did you think of the last letter of it?
No.
Okay.
So that would have been my first guess.
But now that you didn't, I'm going to go back.
Are you thinking of the letter Y?
No.
Maserati, Ferrari, Lamborghini.
It's not like you.
Close your eyes.
Open your eyes.
I've written it down.
I can't change my mind.
What car is it?
It's my Cybertruck.
It is your Cybertruck.
That's what I thought it would be.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was thinking of the letter T. T. I did originally think of Y. You did?
Yeah, and then I moved to T, yeah.
If I got it right every time, it would be a magic show.
So sometimes when you perform, things must go wrong sometimes.
It depends like what level they go wrong at what scale.
Yeah.
If it goes destructively, like catastrophically wrong, it's not always good.
Tell me a time when it went catastrophically wrong.
Oh, so you can dig up old TV appearances from 15 years ago where just you know purely.
I started learning that if you do something linear, which is, if I show you my hand and tell you where this is going, then you have the power.
What do I mean by that?
If I said, I'm going to guess this. and then I get it wrong, then you know I got it wrong.
What if you don't know the ending of the movie?
Then if I show you an alternate ending, you don't know that the movie wasn't supposed to end that way.
So I learned early on that I'm not gonna let you hold the cards, I hold the cards.
So when you, even the notion of get it wrong means you knew what getting it right was.
Does that make sense?
But what if you don't know what getting it right was?
Because I'm doing so many different things at once that I will eventually find a way to get it right.
You see what I mean?
Yeah.
And have you learned any ways to break the ice in social situations?
I think you do.
You talk about this a little bit in the book.
But one of the ways that you talked about is sort of handling the objection that you're assuming one has approaching from a different angle.
But just generally in life, when you meet these people and you're trying to disarm people...
Yes.
Is there anything else that is worth knowing now that people can use in their everyday lives?
I like having an inner monologue out loud.
So I like to take things that I know everyone is thinking and... open up, show some vulnerability.
So a great way, you're in an uncomfortable social setting.
What do you want to do?
You want to shut down?
You want to be here?
I think walking up to somebody who has a real power and say, I'm so nervous.
I don't know anyone here.
Do you know anyone here?
Like that moment of opening yourself up.
And I don't want to call it oversharing, because some people take that to too much of a degree and start, you know, telling you too much but showing that you are a real person and vulnerable.
I think just it's a magical quality.
And I've had people that do it to me that you gain an intimacy and a familiarity with them very quickly that you wouldn't have if we were just small talking each other.
Have you ever met those people that have that instant charisma that when they walk in the room, everyone gravitates towards them?
And you don't know what that is.
What is that quality they have?
Did they train it?
Is it innate?
Are they born with it?
For me, I didn't have that.
So I cheated and started doing magic tricks.
I remember Jimmy Carr saying to me that-
People think comedians are depressed or whatever.
But he said, a better question to ask is always who are you trying to cheer up?
Right.
And I wonder if that's relevant at all to your situation.
I think I was trying to connect with people.
Yeah.
I think that I was nervous, a little bit awkward.
I wasn't introverted.
I had no problem walking up to strangers, but I think that it became this, just this addiction to watching people being amazed and overjoyed and the reactions.
I live for the reactions.
Some people... that do magic, they do it for themselves.
In a guilty way, I kind of do as well, because there is a selfish angle to seeing reactions.
But to me, it's more the joy.
And to this day, what I like to say that I do for a living is not deceive.
My job is not to fool you.
My job is to create memorable moments, not amazing moments.
Amazing is a subset, memorable.
Because if I amaze you and you forget it, I have failed.
I failed.
It's the same as if I walk into a movie that's an action movie.
I eat a lot of popcorn.
I walk out 10 minutes later.
You say to me, what was the movie about?
I don't know.
Right.
That I don't know.
And a month later, you ask me, have you seen that movie?
And I go, did I see that movie?
That right there, that response is the death for what I do.
Apathy.
And in the book, in page 166, you talk about improving one's memory.
Yes.
What do I need to know?
Why does it matter to improve my memory?
In what way does improving my memory help me to connect with other people?
So we've gotten to the point where we don't need our memory, right?
A lot of people don't know how to drive to a place, a city next door.
They literally, if GPS went out, good luck, right?
You don't know anyone's phone numbers.
How many of you's phone numbers do you have memorized?
Few and far between.
One.
Exactly.
Tomorrow, your iPhone goes away.
No, no, no Apple, no cloud.
You're screwed.
You're screwed.
Am I right?
If you can't get that back, your life is... So what... do we need our memory for?
I think memory is a superpower because no one expects you to have it anymore.
Years ago, you need, now you don't.
So I'm going to give a great example, one that I have in my book, which is something applicable where you can't cheat.
Cheat is.
I have my phone and I feel a lot of us, whether we're parents or kids or teenagers or any stage of life you are.
You're going to meet new people at some point soon.
You meet them, you shake their hand, you say hello.
You just forgot their name.
Literally, they just said it to you and you forgot it.
How many times has this occurred to you?
I'm guessing numerous.
And now you can't enjoy that conversation because all you do is feel dread.
Now you're looking for someone around that you know to introduce them and pray to God.
You go, this is Steven.
Say hello.
Like, tell him your name.
You know, you want that moment.
So I have a trick, a tip for that specific situation, as well as others from memory, but I've repurposed the instructions on a shampoo bottle so it sticks in your head.
Shampoo bottles have three words on the back, lather, rinse, repeat, right?
Lather makes your hair smell good.
Rinse, cleans your hair, repeat.
We got to sell more Pantene Pro-V.
So we all know that.
Everyone knows lather, rinse, repeat.
I will describe it as this.
Listen, repeat, reply.
Listen, repeat, reply.
So easy.
The first step sounds silly.
It's comical.
Why am I even saying this?
The first step is what 95% of us do wrong.
We don't actually listen.
When you hear that person's name, it's not a memory issue.
You never even knew the name to begin with because right when you walked up to them, just like a computer read write, very hard to read and write at the same time for our brains.
You were thinking of something else.
You were thinking of what you were going to say back to them in most instances.
So at that moment, the number one thing to do is actually listen, quiet your mind.
So simple, so easy, but that's we screw up.
Right when I woke up to you.
I make sure that I've heard your name, because I instantly repeat it twice.
Steven, is it Steve or Steven?
I wanna make sure.
I've just said your name three times already.
Your chance of forgetting it have gone down dramatically.
The last one is reply, which is use one of the three following tactics.
One, you could learn how to spell it.
You have a name that can be spelled.
So I guess it's Steven with a V or a P-H.
And you with a V, I go, I like Steven with a V better.
That's the right way.
Am I right?
So now I've associated it Steven with a V, If it's not a name like that.
If it's, you know Jacob, you're not going to spell that.
I'm going to say to you, I might comment.
I go, Jacob, I love that shirt.
Where'd you get that from?
The V-necks?
Jacob, really sharp.
So now I've created a visual Hook, you're Jacob with the V-neck shirt.
Now I remember you.
Third one is if you want, you can do something that's a connector to someone else you know.
So if I know a Steve and it's so funny, you know, my sister's dating guy named Steven, small world.
So you've really quickly connected it.
That happens in five seconds, what I just said.
Everyone likes a compliment.
Everyone likes a hook.
You will not forget that person's name for the rest of the party.
I promise you.
And this works on people of all ages.
It's not a memory issue.
If you can remember your best friend's name, You can remember the name of somebody you met at a party after five seconds if you practice and do exactly what I just said.
And I think a huge part of it, as someone that does meet a lot of people, is you go into the meetings with people.
And because you don't really think the small stuff matters.
You don't think most people don't think someone's name matters that much.
They think they're walking into the presentation.
They're pitching for a million dollars.
They're thinking about the campaign.
They're thinking about you know how they're going to structure the offer.
They're not thinking about the name being pertinent.
So you walk in, you shake hands hi Debra, nice to meet you, Debra.
You walk to your chair.
You're still thinking about the campaign, the campaign, the campaign, and within three minutes, you've lost their name, And I do think it really has a huge impact.
When I was reading your book, I was thinking like, do you know what?
I don't do a good job of that.
I meet loads of people all the time.
I walk up, I say my name, they say theirs.
For me, that's not important information.
Right.
And I thought, you know... Until you get it wrong.
And then... then that's the memory they carry of you.
I would say to people if you don't know someone's name, we think that it's a dreadful thing to ask them again.
It's an avoidable thing with this, but I would still say that you're still showing interest and there's a few tactics around it.
But say, forgive me, but I really would like to know.
I don't know why it slipped my mind.
Tell me your name again, please.
I think even that is a much better way to play it because again, you're human.
They're human.
Everyone's vulnerable.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
So.
I'm okay with letting people know that there's a human side and humanize it.
And sometimes if I can figure it out, I will, but I'll say, give me a clue.
And I go, help me out.
Tell me where it's like, oh my God.
And sometimes I have a memory hook and I'll remember who introduced us.
I'll go, oh, I met you through Steven.
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And what else should my audience know about?
You're someone that focuses on the audience.
What else should they know about that you think can directly improve their life?
I mean I've given you a lot of like the core tenants that I think have made me successful, which is eliminating that fear of rejection, utilizing notes, making it about other people.
I think wrapping things up in a story is a huge one that we touched upon lightly, but that-
Why a story?
Because stories are remembered.
Stories are interwoven into our DNA.
Each of us have a story to tell.
I think such a big one is deciding what makes you memorable.
The more that you can become memorable to others, the more people talk about you.
It benefits you no matter what you do in life.
When you meet somebody, know that you're going to weave the narrative of what they leave, what they think of you, right?
You have to kind of, their memory is malleable.
There's a trick I used to do when I was a teenager where I would have somebody pick a card.
It was a card trick.
They would put the card back in.
They would sign it.
I would throw it on the ceiling, the deck would fall down, but their signed card stayed stuck on the ceiling.
But when they described the procedure back to someone else, they would leave out the part with me throwing the deck.
Why did they forget such an important detail?
And I couldn't understand why.
It's not that their memory was faulty.
Something happened.
I realized what it was.
What I put my attention on, they put their attention on.
Like everything in life.
If you're focused on the negative, you start to feel negative.
I...
When I threw the deck up, sometimes wouldn't look up with it.
I would throw the deck up, I wouldn't look, and then I'd catch it.
Such a small, minute detail.
But me doing that meant I caught the deck.
No one knew what happened, and I let them look up and discover the card themselves, rather than me do it.
Somehow in their brain, they deleted that one detail of me throwing the deck.
And now I had a miracle.
And that changed my way of thinking from there on out, which I said to myself it doesn't matter what I do.
It matters what people remember.
And what's the story they tell others?
The thing I really learned from that is that your focus is driving someone else's focus.
So when I'm going through my life, I need to make sure my focus is in the right place, the place that I want it to be.
And I notice that sometimes as a podcaster, because obviously so I'm trying to manage this conversation and I've got these notes written in front of me.
I've got pens, books, props.
I've got a little net under front of me that has photos in it and other bits and pieces and all this stuff.
And I do notice that during the podcast conversation, if I don't look up at the guest and I start looking down a little bit, or even if I'm just looking down to see my next bullet point or to think about something, I distract the guest.
But also in everyday life.
The other thing that I think we're all guilty of and you talk about this in your book is we sometimes reach for our phone a little bit.
Right.
Your card story, that's what it said to me.
It said that, oh my God, people's focus really is where your focus is.
So if I'm having a great conversation with you and you're a client or something and I just glance at my watch, you just did it then with me again.
You just glanced down at my hand.
Right.
And I never realized, until you said that card thing, how important it was to make sure my focus is in the right place.
Your focus is in the right place, but also know the fact that your memory is malleable.
So in my profession, I employ all different tactics.
I can tell you one is confusion.
Your brain is, it's very difficult for your brain to read and write at the same time.
So if I want to distract you from a method and I confuse you, then it's exactly like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Maybe you've drawn a picture and the moment you get confused and you, you forget what you just did, exactly.
And the Etch-A-Sketch has just been shaken.
And now you can't recount the series of events properly.
And at that moment, you've now created this beautiful watercolor painting that hasn't dried.
I can move some of the pieces around and I can redraw your picture a little bit and I can change your memory of what it is.
I, during certain points when I'm performing and this has to do when you talked about public speaking and storytelling I tell you the story that you're going to tell others and I take out the pieces I want out.
I want this gone.
I want this gone.
I want this gone.
I'm going to edit your memories.
Give me a specific example.
Well, that's the nature of what I do.
So in a certain routine, again what I would ask someone, if I ask somebody to think of someone important to them and then later on I guess the name of their first kiss.
They will forget how the question was orchestrated, how I set up the initial ask and what happened during the initial ask.
And then the story they will tell to someone else is I don't know how, but he guessed my first kiss.
Now, when they tell that story, he goes, he told me to think of anyone.
And I thought of my first kiss and he guessed it.
What if I didn't?
What if I narrowed it down and I actually told you to think of your first kiss?
But the initial question was think of anyone and see all those people swirling around your mind.
And then one person comes up to you, I haven't seen since elementary school.
The first girl you ever kissed, you're blown away.
Now the people that watched it have also seen a different effect.
It's known as a dual reality.
The reality one person experiences is different than the other, right?
If you walk in to a conversation in the middle, you don't know the context, but you know the ending.
So I'm using that because again, when you tell me the methods of mentalism, mentalism is all about group dynamics, the way people think.
If I was performing for you in a group, it would be utterly different and completely easier.
This one-on-one interaction is fantastic.
Far more difficult because I have no lanes to weave around.
It's like if I was passing you in a car on a four-lane highway, I've got space.
Right now, you and me are locked in.
It's very difficult for me to use others, because the way you feel next to someone else, you'll behave differently than by yourself.
And you're someone that you know started doing this at a very young age and has developed and evolved their skillset over time.
And so you've got five kids and I'm wondering how important you think obsession is is to get to the very top.
It's a blessing.
It's a blessing.
If somebody can find an obsession, You've got to the top of an industry where very few people get to the top of.
And even if they do, they don't end up on the biggest platforms in the world.
So thinking about the characteristics of your success for this kid it was obviously obsession was a huge part of that right.
Yes.
How old were you in this photo?
Uh, probably 14, probably right when I started restaurant.
That looks 14 to me.
Okay.
14 then and you're 43 now.
That's right.
So you've been doing this decades and decades and decades.
The majority of my life.
How important do you think that is to reach the top of any industry?
I don't know if I would say the time matters as much, because I've seen people that are phenoms in much more compressed times.
I don't want to say that you need your 30 years.
The people that excite me the most to be around in my life, the people that I look up to and I'm on the edge of my seat always have a passion.
I don't care what that's for.
I don't care if you are, you know, a trash man and your obsession is trash like something that I would never think about.
I've met so many people where they have a topic that meant nothing to me at the moment, but once I start speaking to them, their level of excitement, their feeling like the fact that they're so invested makes me feel invested.
But to hone your skills to the point that you can reach the peak of a mountain.
I was speaking to someone called DJ EZ and he was saying to me he spends seven hours a day.
He's a great DJ.
And when I watch him, it's like watching a magician play the decks.
And he said to me he spends seven hours a day, sometimes listening to 700 different new tracks a day, just listening to 20 seconds of each.
And I don't think people often get to see that level of obsession.
They see people sat here, but they don't get to see all the messy journey to here.
And I think it's important to show them what that messy journey to here looks like, because then they can decide for themselves in their own life if whatever thing they're pursuing is worth the trade.
Like, is it worth it to sit here and to be who you are now for like that?
You say worth it as if it's a negative thing.
I think it gave a definition to my life.
I think that to have a passion is something so few of us... I've hit the lottery in life.
I get to meet interesting people.
I get to bring joy.
I... get to live my dream.
Everything I do is of my own volition.
Like I couldn't, I don't even know how I'd complain for an iota of a second.
I've won the lottery times the lottery times the lottery.
I don't know.
It's not even my profession.
I have a mindset where I could die tomorrow, right?
Everybody who doesn't think that way, that you don't have gratitude for today is like.
I don't know.
I'm a natural optimist.
I just think that- But I mean, what does that actually look like?
Because no one was there to see those, what, 30, 20, 30 years?
Yep.
How much work was there?
And is it like you were doing it part-time?
Is it free time?
Is it the shower?
Are you thinking about it in the shower?
So I think I've been thinking about it for decades.
And now, even now, it consumes my thoughts at certain points in time, even though I try to...
Try to also be present in the moment.
It's not like an absolute obsession.
Seven hours a day is pretty rough. the muse of creativity comes to me and it's so fulfilling.
It's the same way, like this book.
Putting this book on paper you're an author as well was such an exceptional challenge, because my thoughts and then crafting them onto the page, into words and also, at the end of the day, who cares about me?
I always have this mindset of, I need to prove to you.
I don't come from the assumption of you should watch me because I'm great.
I have an inverse.
I said I need to define to you why you should be watching, why you should be listening, why this should excite you, why this should amaze you.
Hopefully it inspired you to take action and you got something tangible that will provide a value in your life.
And I wouldn't have written the book Trust me, the book, I didn't need to write this book.
I wrote the book because so many people had said to me we want to know what helped you achieve success.
And they're fascinated by this pursuit.
And I think that was it.
I just was driven by the people around me that they said, you should write this.
And I felt I finally had a story to tell.
And what's the one thing about your success and your new life that if this guy knew, he may have hesitated a little bit to pursue the life that you now have?
I think being very busy and success has its pitfalls.
If you assign your self-esteem to something others can give you be it fame, be it money, be it things that are intangible and that can be taken away, and you don't define your self-worth by something internal like your own drive, competing against yourself, creating your own goals, then it's fleeting.
Fame, for example, there's going to be ups and downs.
Every career has a life cycle.
Right now, things are going very well.
There's no question that at a certain point, the peak hits.
And now you go down and it's inevitable.
And I don't think about that.
I'd like to continue the peak or continue climbing and climbing, climbing.
But when that happens, I'm aware of it.
And I will not, it's not a... something that will define who I am.
This is part of it.
I think, having outside interests and challenging yourself outside of your comfort zone.
For me, ultra marathons marathons, athletic pursuits that cannot be bought.
They must be earned.
And I think that's something we value more and more in our day-to-day life.
Because again, there's influencers, there's people, there's followers, there's all this stuff that I don't want to call fickle, but it can be bought.
What can be earned?
Earned are things that you, this has been earned by you.
This has been you putting in sweat equity for decades, believing in yourself.
Each time you get a big guess, you harness your momentum and get a bigger guess.
You've earned this.
You create a team around you.
I think that's something notable and that people should decide what's your goal.
And as you strive towards it, that's where you feel the fulfillment.
For me, it's been being on the road.
Like the biggest negative is being away from my children and wife and that's success.
And I can't not do that.
If I want to be successful, I have to be gone a lot.
And so I have to find that balance between the two of having my kids miss me but also creating a life for them in the future, and also juggling the fact that I have major career ambitions.
And is there anything else that my audience might be able to take away?
An action in their own lives that is in line with maybe, this David Goggins quote on the front of your book learn to master the most powerful weapon your mind.
Is there anything else that my audience should be aware of so that they can show up better in their lives in the pursuit of their goals?
I think defining your goals is huge.
Looking yourself in the mirror and being honest and seeing what that voice really says to you.
Because...
I, just like everybody else, have had feelings of inadequacy, feelings of I'm not going to be able to pull this off.
And it's not that it's not as if I'm there's a superhuman thing of I'm.
You know, I'm putting my head down.
I'm going to get through it.
Like Goggins doesn't stop.
If you ever met him, he is a machine.
He's amazing.
But he goes out and he'll tell you he's the first one who doesn't want to go out and run when it's raining and cold and freezing.
But you know why he does it?
Because he didn't want to do it.
That's where the real work is.
When I'm doing a workout that's exceptionally hard, when it gets to the hardest part, that's when I tell myself all of this was easy.
This is where I'm actually growing.
So I challenge you right now to assign yourself a goal.
Right now, if you get one thing out of this podcast, decide one thing that you want to strive for.
Define it, define it.
Don't do these pie in the sky things.
Goals that are achievable have to be quantifiable, be it a number, be it something achievable.
Decide what it is and make tomorrow the first day.
You go after it and create all of the things that will help you succeed, not fail.
Most of us, when we start a goal, the joke is you start January 1st, everyone's starting their fitness journey.
By February, no one's in the gym anymore.
Why is that?
Why does everyone give up?
Because the hard work is at the beginning.
Those first few weeks of setting a habit in place.
I have a lot of things in here that are all about how you form habits.
I literally put in the book, Proven Habits for Success.
It's not tricks.
For example, Atomic Habits had a huge impact on me.
Some of these books that show you where's that inflection point, from you trying to do something to you, ingraining it in your muscle memory, And now it becomes self-fulfilling.
You keep doing it because you like doing it.
I didn't love running when I started.
Now running is my vacation.
I enjoy running.
It gives me a flow state.
I make up new ideas.
I get to kind of check in with myself.
I think physical activity is super important.
So important.
So many of the chronic diseases and things we have are lifestyle choices and inactivity.
We could solve so many huge problems we have simply by eat healthier and start working out a little more.
And nobody wants to hear that, but you do a little bit of hard work.
You continue and you maintain.
So yeah, I'm hoping that's useful, but that's what I want people to do.
If you take action tomorrow and start making your goals happen.
Get inside your own head.
That's what I want you to do right now.
But do you remember when I had you close your eyes And I had you see hundreds of different people.
I had you envision people that you've met, famous people, people that you like, people.
You care about all those different people.
And one person tapped you on the shoulder, gave you a piece of advice.
Do you remember that?
Yeah.
And that piece of advice set in motion you thinking of jewels.
Yep.
Who was the person who tapped you on the shoulder?
You turned around, you looked them in the eye and they said something to you that changed your life, created a memorable moment and put in place that domino effect.
Tell me, who did you think of?
Michelle Obama.
Open up that piece of paper.
Funny.
It's a photo of Michelle Obama.
She looks gorgeous though.
Okay.
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest without knowing who they're leaving it for.
And the question that's been left for you is... Oh, fantastic.
If you could live forever, would you?
And why or why not?
I think I would.
I think I would.
An obsession of mine growing up has been science fiction.
My favorite books to read, the ones that just capture my imagination.
And there are so many books I've read about immortality.
And there's a book that this brings to mind by Octavia E. Butler, which is underrated.
It's called Wild Seed.
And not a lot of people have read it.
It's a sci-fi book.
And it's...
It delves into this exact subject.
And just what would it be like to see all the people around you pass away and the sadness.
And then what would you do?
Because at some point you'd feel empty.
People just die, right?
It's kind of like, think of it as the life of an insect.
Just they disappear.
They come, they go, they come, they go.
And I think that eventually you would revert back to being completely numb and cold.
But, at the same time, death is just that abyss that everyone, no matter how much we avoid thinking about it.
Talking about it, you're going to die.
I'm going to die in one day.
You'll have that final breath.
Will you know it's going to happen?
Will you not?
What will you think about in those moments?
What will you go into it with?
Will you still have that fear of death?
I think our whole lives are an extension of trying to avoid thinking about our eventual death.
I think I would love to live forever, but I bet you, once I live forever, it would start to be a curse.
I can't wait to think of the question I'm going to ask the next person.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for writing a book that inspires people to live their better life.
And I think all the principles in here are all human principles that focus on how we can relate better to other people.
And so many people are struggling to connect with other people for so many reasons.
And that's causing so much downstream pressure, mental health issues and physiological issues and disconnection in the world.
And we're seeing that increasingly.
If you go on the internet you see a lot of disconnection because we're struggling to relate to people.
And I think it's you know the most.
I think for me, the most important byproduct of the work that you do is you make people curious and open-minded.
And there's so much that comes from that.
People just being a bit more curious.
And that's, you know, that all people get the magic of it.
I think it makes people's minds expansive.
And if people have expansive minds, then that might just be the catalyst to all types of progress.
I love it.
Do you know what I'm saying?
I think, being open-minded and having a different feeling than the usual, which is in our day-to-day, we get into this autopilot.
Yes, we feel pings of joy, pings of anxiety, pings of depression, pings of happiness.
I told you, the thing I got addicted to was giving people this different feeling, which is a feeling you lose out.
Children, you see it in their eyes.
Again, it's a little hokey to say, but when I see my three-year-old or my two-year-old discover something new and you see it through their eyes It's a gift.
It's something you get back, because once you're an adult, you can't have that same thing, because you've become jaded to the world.
And suddenly for them to see a butterfly fly and it's like this joyful experience and seeing it through a kid's eyes.
It's honestly, it's been the greatest joy of my life is seeing joy of my kids.
It's seeing that because it's in our DNA.
That's my version of immortality.
And humans lose that.
We get more close-minded.
You lose that more and more.
And it's sad to me because I have lost it knowing how I do the things I do.
So to ask me the good question is if I get fooled by another magician or mentalist, how does it make me feel amazing?
It's the best feeling.
And I try immediately to hold back the part of me that wants to know how it was done.
Because right away there's a professional curiosity, the same way that a movie star or a director can't watch a movie and just think of it.
They're watching a Here's how I did the camera.
Here's this panning shot.
Here's the ISO, right?
They can't disconnect from the, how the sausage is made.
I, because those moments are so few and far between, I instantly in my mind, Stop, I stop myself from thinking how, and I enjoy that wonder because it's so few for me that I can't, because I know how everything's done.
So when I get it, I love it.
It's like the day you figured out Santa Claus wasn't real.
It's like bursting an illusion.
And when I figured out Santa Claus wasn't real, my world got smaller, like the possibilities of the world got smaller, because when magic existed, anything was possible.
Right.
And that's a great place to live.
But when I found out Santa Claus wasn't real, it was like, oh...
You know?
Yes.
It's like, oh, there's no magic in this world.
Right.
And that's not a nice way to believe.
And the work that you're doing and the performances that you do and the entertainment you bring keeps people's minds open and lets them imagine, be creative and believe that there's still magic in this world.
And that's a wonderful thing.
I highly recommend people go get your book.
I'm going to link it below. and put it on screen for anyone that wants to grab it.
It's called Read Your Mind, Proven Habits for Success from the World's Greatest Mentalist.
And the people on the back are some of which are my friends.
I've got an investor of mine on here.
Many of my former podcast guests on here as well, like Jay Shetty and Mark Cuban and Adam Grant.
And on the front, David Goggins.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for putting this out in the world.
And I enjoy this.
Even though your recent one on AI scared the crap out of me.
But I'm honored to have been a guest and I can't wait to write a question for the next person and live on.
Welcome to my inner circle. brand new private community that I'm launching to the world.
We have so many incredible things that happen that you are never shown.
We have the briefs that are on my iPad when I'm recording the conversation.
We have clips we've never released.
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In the circle, you'll have direct access to me.
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I will speak to you there.
