Oz Pearlman: How to Be More Confident, Memorable, and Impossible to Ignore

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Open up your contacts. Yeah, scroll through and you go
to a totally random person whose phone number you have
no idea who they are, And I want to do
that right now, and then I want you to stop
open up their contact. I think it's a female. Is
it a female? It is? Think of the first letter,
look this way at me? B Is it a bee?
What is her first name?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Brianna?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Brianna New York Times best selling author and Emmy Award
winning mentalist.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Ospowman doesn't read minds, He rides people.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
In this episode, he turns mentalism into real tools.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Approach others with confidence, improve your memory, and become more likable.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
What is a mentalist?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Mentalists are like magicians, but think of it as magic
of the mind, not psychic, not supernatural. Everything I'm doing
is repeatable and learnable. I don't really have a great memory.
I cheat. I write everything down.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Let's talk about making yourself more likable.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Being likable is genuinely being curious. When you meet someone,
notice the pattern, Avoid questions how can I make this
about them? Like for learning names, I have a trick,
So how do you do it? It has nothing to
do with your memory when they said it to you,
your brain was not in listen mode. And as soon
as they.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Say their names, what do you do in those moments
where you get something wrong?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
You have to learn from them. So whatever the first
three things you think of, don't do those three.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
How did you get every single person on Jimmy Fallon
to write, Will Smith?

Speaker 1 (01:22):
There's a lot of layers into how you influence people.
There's something that you can explain called which is that
you're experiencing might not be there.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Hi, guys, it's Kate. Thank you for being here. Please
give our show a follow so we can keep bringing
you inspiring conversations and stay tuned for our conversation with
os Pearlman coming up after this short break. Os Pearlman,

(01:57):
you are one of the top mentalists and entertainers in
the world known for reading minds. So for anybody listening,
what is a mentalist?

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Mentalists are like magicians, but think of it as magic
of the mind. So when you normally think of a magician,
the first archetype that comes in your mind as a
bird appears right, or you pick a card, find it
sleight of hand. Somehow I'm moving in a way that
your I can't figure out what I'm doing it deceives
your brain. I cut out the middleman. There is no
sleight of hand involved in what I do. You can

(02:28):
watch me one hundred times over because what I'm doing
is giving the illusion of either reading your mind or
influencing your choices. So it seems like I am psychic
or supernatural, but I am not. I tell that in
every interview, every single time. Not psychic, not supernatural. Everything
I'm doing is repeatable and learnable. Right, a psychic you

(02:48):
claim you have powers. I have learned how to do
this over the last three decades, and I could teach
it to you or to anyone else. So it's a
form of entertainment, right. I'm not doing this to win
the lottery yet, But I don't know the future. I
just know how people think, and that's what I've been
studying for upwards of three decades.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
You've been teasing this lottery thing a.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Little bit, right, No, I know. I've wait this year,
all right.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
I'm excited to see what you're up to with the
with the lottery. But o's I've known you now for
three years. The last time we were together, I joined
you for a seven mile run. And since that run,
and since following you for the past three years, two
major things have stood out to me. The first is
how impressive you are. Thank you, And the second is
how good your memory is. So for our conversation today,

(03:33):
I'd like us to focus on two things. The first
is I want our audience to get to know you.
I want us to learn your past, your present, your future.
And then I'd like us to do a deep dive
into your work as a mentalist. And I want you
to teach us some of the learnings that can be
applied to our everyday lives that you've mastered as a mentalist.
You know the o's proman of today. You're on late

(03:55):
night shows, you're doing Super Bowl pre show performances, You're
hanging out with Brady, working with CEOs, You're appearing on
some of the top podcasts in the world's including Post
for and HI. Maybe after this episode, let's go, But ohs,
I want you to first take us back to the
environment that shaped you.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
So I tell me where to begin. Where do we start?

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Let's start with where you grew up.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
So I was born in Israel. I moved to the
US when I was three years old. We were on
a contract because my dad was in the Navy, So
it was kind of like a two year contract with
another company where it's kind of like an exchange of knowledge,
and then we love living here, so we stayed and
then we moved. It's almost like a military type situation
where moved every five or six years for a new contract.
So my formative years were spent in the Midwest. I

(04:38):
lived in Wisconsin and Michigan, and Michigan was middle school
in high school. If you were to look like at
the path of my life, that's where I got into
doing magic. When I was thirteen years old, I saw
a magician. I was blown away and I was hooked,
and that's kind of where it all began. That's where
I started doing it and found the passion that became
my profession.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
So was that passion when you were interested in magic
as a young kid.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Was that your extracurricular thing that you did?

Speaker 1 (05:05):
So I also swam. I was a swimmer, which I
think built a lot of work ethic when I look back,
because swimming was like we'd swim five days a week
after school. We had Sunday practice. My senior year, we
got really good. We wanted conferences for us, which hadn't
happened in like twenty years. So we did three morning
practices a week that will build toughness. At five forty
five am, to jump into a freezing cold pool, your

(05:27):
coach literally shoves you in because nobody wants to get in.
That is I've done a lot of hard running workouts,
but I will tell you the swimming workouts in high
school where we couldn't get up at the end of it.
I would sit in the shower in a high school,
which is the most disgusting, bacteria infested place ever, and
you couldn't get up because you were so broken, you
were so tired. I've done a lot of running things,
and I've been that tired with running, but swimming toughens

(05:49):
you up. Some of my best friends to this day
are kids I swam with in high school.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
I do also have to say, as a runner and
somebody in the running community that knows a lot of
people that also under kind of has learned their backgrounds.
I have met so many incredible runners, Like some of
the best runners I know were swimmers growing up.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
I think so. I think there's some sort of correlation
because I didn't like running in high school. I was
not a runner. I did one season of track, one
season across country, quit both wasn't good at all. It
was not my calling. I hated running. So it's very
funny that post college running plays such a part in
my life. And now it's actually funny. This year marks
half of my life as a runner. So I ran

(06:29):
my first marathon in two thousand and four. I've run
minimum one marathon every year since and I intend to
hopefully keep doing that until I die. That would be great.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
I mean, if I can keep my knees healthy until
I die, I'm going to be a very happy older woman.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
We just said every year there's got to be a marathon,
and this year. Last year, in December, I snuck in
two and it didn't sit well with me because it
was my slowest marathon in twenty one years. And like,
so I did another one a week later and thankfully
ran ten minutes faster.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
What's a slow marathon for you.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
I have not run other than once ever at three
hour or like over three hours hours in a marathon.
I ran a three zho three. I couldn't deal with it.
So I signed up for the next week and I
ran a two fifty three.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, so not only by the way, guys is Oh's
a incredibly impressive mentalist, world renowned, but you're also a
maniac runner, and you're the fastest runner I've had on
my show. Really, you seven miles was like one of
the longest distance I've ran with somebody on the show.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
I think you were supposed to go longer with me too.
K was like, I gotta go. I'm like, no, no, no,
If I'm meeting your mind, we're running at least ten miles.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Did we do ten or seven?

Speaker 1 (07:28):
I can't remember, but I don't dabble in less than
double digits.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
No, Yeah, I definitely met you for like part of
your run, Like I think I met you in Domino
Park where you had already ran five miles.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
One hundred percent. Yeah, I remember that. That's like one
of my routes. I tell you a funny.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Story, but I kept up with you. Tell everybody that.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
You did amazing and did the interview during you were
zoned to the whole time. I could hear the heart
rate monitor. But you know, when you get set up
as a runner with another runner, do you know this? Like,
so shout out to my buddy Dustin and Ronnie we're
back in the day. His cousin and my wife were
like Matt and were friends like, oh my husband runs,
Oh my cousin runs, and you know he get set
up on a blind date. It's almost like you want
to know what the other person looks like, but if

(08:03):
it's a runner, you need to know how quick they
are before you agree to run, because what if this
person's like an eleven minute miler and you're a seven
minute so you want a tiptoe. So when we first met,
this is one of my best buddies to this day,
we did our first run. I found out he's legit,
like a one forty six eight hundred meter guy. He's
a sprinter. And the first time we went running, I'm like,
do you want to go do thirty and he goes, ah,

(08:24):
I think so, and so we get together and we
start running, and it turns out he thought we meant
thirty minutes. I'm an ultra marathoner. I thought we were
running thirty miles, And to this day, it's like the
craziest thing ever. He's like, how did you think we
were running thirty miles? I'm like, that's what me and
my friends do. I never run thirty minutes. So it's
like when I met you, I don't usually run less
than ten or twelve miles at a time, so it's
just anyway, it's just a weird story. Dustin will like

(08:47):
that story.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Well, yeah, and you're also you know, you remind me
of Casey and Ie that in a way. I don't
know if he's doing as crazy amount of mileage as you, but.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
I remember this.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
It was a similar situation where Oz was like, Kate,
if you want to do this run with me, you're
joining me for my morning run. This is one I'm going.
This is where you meet me, you know, And same
thing with Casey and I said. Casey was like, I
do my runs at six in the morning. I'll meet
you at six forty five. To be generous for the light,
by the way, it was still dark out when we started,
and it was kind of like you just either like
work it into my calendar or like maybe we can't

(09:16):
do it type of thing. And I was like, oh,
I will meet you wherever whenever we're saying. With Casey,
I was like, I'll meet you in the middle of
the freaking Brooklyn Bridge.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
I will be there.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
I used to see him near daily in Tribeca on
the West Side high We had the same running route
and I'd always see him in those like classic glasses.
We've never run together. One day I got a run with him.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Who got to run with him? I know he could
keep up.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
He for sure could. He broke three hours last year.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, he'd be a good running buddy for you.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
You know, I've had a lot of crossover with some
of your running budies, Like I interviewed Nicholas Thompson a
couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, we've yet to run together. We were set up
by Tony over at a CBS morning where he's like,
we all three got to run. It's like three Brooklyn guys.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
You guys haven't ran together.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
We haven't yet. We are supposed to. We've been set up.
We've been set up on a running date, so I
would love to.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
You've got mutuals.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
He's fast man. He's like he also runs to and
from work, which I love that like utilizing your time effectively.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
I do too.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
I know you're big into that because you'll basically get
off a plane when you have a show right and
run like a marathon right before.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
If I can, I like lay out my suit. I
iron everything is ready like a psycho, so that when
I get back, I shower and if I can, I
transition like the way you would an iron man, I'll
run a marathon and be ready for the show twelve
minutes later. Yeah, I don't know if that's normal.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
I mean, I believe in the post run high. That's
the purpose of the show, right.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
So I do all of my shows right after going
for a run with people smart.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
So I think it does help.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
You getting your mind right before a show. Would you
say that running helps you with your performances one hundred percent?

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Like, there's two things that are critical to my life
when it comes to creative energy and that flow state.
Long showers annoys my wife, but I've told her. I'm like,
She's like, what are you in there? Like I'm making up.
I'm literally I'm buttering our bread. In the shower, I
get great ideas, and when I'm running, I get great ideas.
If I take those two away, I really am just lost.
I have to come up with a lot of content
to create that's new and innovative, and those are my

(11:07):
two greatest spots of like ideas flow.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, running is such a good time to think really good.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I also my whole book. I wrote the whole book
while running. I transcribed the whole book while running. The
first pass was every single portion. I couldn't sit in
front of a computer. My brain just doesn't work that way.
It was stories laid out, transcribe while running.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
So your new book is called how to Read Your Mind.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Unfortunately it's not how to Read your Mind. That would
have sold even more copies.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Oh you think so? Oh yeah, be disappointed.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
I know, no. Number three New York Times bestseller. I'm shocked, truly,
like I don't even want to lie, like I hope
the book would do well. It exceeded my wildest expectations.
Like my fan base, thank you, thank you, thank you,
And just every day, literally every day since the book's
come out, somebody's come up to me, numerous people and like,
I love your book. I'm like, it blows my mind.

(11:57):
It's one thing if you like my clips, because that's
different and that's kind of like a dopamine hit. But
it's really touching when people say that the book has
helped them in their life and that I'm honestly, it's
been quite an experience that the book has connected with
so many people?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
What inspired you to finally write a book?

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Say two things. One, I didn't really believe in myself
that I had a book in me. I just kept
I just think I always come at things with the
viewpoint of the counter like most people walk in and
there's a confidence of you should pay attention to me.
I think the opposite. Why should anyone pay attention to me?
I need to earn the reason that you pay attention.
When I'm on TV? I always think when I'm on TV,

(12:36):
why aren't they changing the channel? If the TV's on mute?
What do you see that makes you turn it off mute?
That's a really smart thing that most people never perceive
of if they're ever in some element of TV. What
am I seeing that makes me captured visually? Alone? And
so with the book, the whole book is framed as
what can I teach you that you will learn in
ten minutes and still be applying to your life ten

(12:57):
years from now. If that's not the case, you don't
need to my life story. Sure it's interesting, but I
don't care. I want to teach you things that you
can use from my life that you will use in
your life related to memory, relate to being memorable, relating
to building confidence quickly, how to overcome your fear of rejection.
Things that sound simple, but they are tactics in life
that people that are successful have either learned or innately do.

(13:20):
It's right now. If I quit my job as a mentalist,
right now, I start a new business, how do I
guarantee success in the next one, two, three years. These
same skills that allowed me to kind of reach the
top of my field would allow me to reach the
top of my field in any pursuit. That's what I
truly believe.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
And that's what we're going to get to in this
episode in a little bit, so you guys are going
to have to stick around to hear some of those
actionable tips and how we can really apply what you've
learned through becoming one of the world's best mentalists into
our everyday lives.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Absolutely so.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
The cover of your book, new book, Read Your Mind,
Proven Habits for Success from the world's greatest mentalist. On
the cover, you have David Goggins quote that reads, learn
to master the most powerful weapon your mind.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Damn love that quote. Thank you, David.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
What's your connection with David?

Speaker 1 (14:07):
So me and David go back almost like fifteen years
so he used to live in New York City where
we know each other through a mutual friend, Michael Halivach
Kate Pallardy shout out to them, amazing couple about to
have their fourth child. She ran with me six weeks
after she gave birth when I was doing a loop
around Central Park. I was doing a record and she
ran like twenty six miles around the park after just

(14:28):
giving birth. She's a phenom two thirty nine marathon her.
So they introduced me to David. We did bad Water
one year together. I think we did another race together,
and we used to just train. You know, there's not
that many ultrarunners, and if you go back fifteen years ago,
it wasn't as popular as it is now. It was
kind of the Dean Carnassis era, which is another book
that just changed my life. Ultra Marathon Man, Can't Hurt Me,

(14:51):
which you have up there. Unbelievable book as well, but
books that just like I read it in a day,
like Ultra Marathon Man. I think I literally didn't stop
up from the moment I started it till I finished it,
and I was like, I have to go run Western States.
Holy crap, what is this badwater race? So I got
hooked on the ultra on the ultra thing from the
books and then read videos and then getting the magazines,

(15:13):
and David was kind of I think I would say
he was known, but not David Goggins of Now, this
is before he wrote his book, this is before you
saw him on TV all the time, this is before
he started doing social media. So I'm kind of grandfathered
in because I knew him a while ago, and he
just knows me. He knows you know. I'd say people
that are the real deal. There's a lot of people
that kind of talk the talk, but it's different to

(15:33):
walk the walk and do it and hopefully execute at
high levels at different facets of your life.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
And I think that's exactly what I've found through big
time runners and ultra marathoners. Is one of the most
fascinating things for me to find out about somebody, especially
somebody like you, is most of the world knows you
as a mentalist, right, but you're an elite athlete.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
I'm maybe subbly at best, but I'll take it.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
You've won marathons. I have, I've Most people can't say that.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
That's the biggest rush. There's no bigger rush than like
getting to a marathon start line, truly running fast and
at the start looking around at everybody and I'm just
a competitives so would be and looking and saying I'm
gonna beat every single one of you today. Like that
is Oh the rush of that feeling. I want to
bottle it up and just keep it. And even if
you don't win, if you're executing as well as you
want again, if you're not competitive, compete with yourself, but

(16:25):
that joy of achieving a goal or exceeding your goal, Yeah,
I'll never forget. I won the New Jersey Marathon four times,
and so you get the number one if you win
a race. That's the best feeling. The police escort. There's
an out and back section where you see everyone who's
behind you and they're cheering you, and they know me
because I've done the race and the ah and every

(16:45):
single time I won that race it was decided in
the last four four miles, so it was exciting. It
was a race. It was a back and forth cat
and mouse. I mean, you can hear me talking about
it and want to go back in time to my younger.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Years, but you still are crushing.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Marathon relatively fast. But life has caught up with me.
A lot of kids' work has kicked my butt and
as well as being a pairent of five, where again,
excuse excuses, but it's like a trade off of sleep, family,
and just so much work these days. The work has
become just a very different part of my life than
it was even a year or two ago. I've just
hit a point where just rocket just my career kind

(17:22):
of hit an inflection point where it's really busy. It's
a blessing, but really busy.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
And I have seen that with you, I feel three
years ago. You know, I have definitely seen the inflection
point been hit with you, and it's been like.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
A rocket ship. I mean you're everywhere.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
I like that, I mean your algorithm.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, you're in my algorithm. I think you were just
on an episode of the Kardashians.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Is that true?

Speaker 3 (17:42):
It was?

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, me and Kim did a collaboration and that is
my most view video ever on Instagram. Yeah that's great.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Okay, so I haven't seen the video, but I saw
something like again, it hit my algorithm and I didn't
watch it yet, but I've been thinking like, I need.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
To watch Austin Kims.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Watch it. It's quick, It's like a minute and a half.
So I've got very tight segments that you just watch
and they're meant to be very quick, and trust me,
once you start it, you won't end it.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Well. What I loved about seeing David Goggins on the
cover of your book was seeing you bridge you're running
with your work. What inspired putting the David Goggins quote
on the cover of your book?

Speaker 2 (18:17):
What's the story behind him?

Speaker 1 (18:18):
I mean, he's inspired me in so many millions of
other people. So the fact that he was generous enough
to read the book and provide that quote is just,
you know, it's so telling that I think you know
who David Goggins is. I think everybody knows and they
connect with his authenticity and the fact that I can
tell you personally from knowing him since before he was famous,
he is who he is. He is that person. It's
not like a masquerade. He is tough as coffin nails,

(18:41):
and I don't think he's going to say anything about
anybody that's not one hundred percent true, and that he
would put his name on so to me that that
was it, like, I'm how could I not put that
on the cover, because that's the real deal. Like literally,
that is the point of my book is that your
mind is your most powerful weapon in every in every way,
shape or form. People that achieve success, Like if you're

(19:05):
a runner, you think that it's your body, and yes,
truly it is your body. But I've done races. I
did a race called Spartathlon in Greece. It's the hardest
thing I think I've ever done. It's one hundred and
fifty three miles. That wasn't a typo. What you just heard.
One hundred and fifty three miles in a row. Even
though now people are crazy they do like two hundred
and fifties, three hundreds. It's like the Gateway drug. But
this race is harder than almost all of those. I'm

(19:26):
gonna tell you why, because the cutoff is thirty six hours.
No offense to all these two hundreds, but you can
walk almost all of them. Again, shout out, and that's
gonna be fighting words. But I see people that I
know doing two hundreds slow as hell, like four days,
five days, no, no, no, no, no. Spartathlon is thirty
six hour cutoff. It is brutal. If you are not
running the whole way, you're out. Sixty to seventy percent

(19:47):
of the field is cut before the seventy five mile
mark four halfway, most of the field has already dropped
because they can't maintain the pace. So it is so
tough that race. Where am I going with this? I
don't know. I forgot completely bad memory after I'm doing
this thing, But that race, the first time I did it,
I dnf't. I dnf'd in the middle of the night
and the next morning, after sleeping a full night, I

(20:10):
watched people that were hours behind me, that were ten
twenty twenty five years older than me finished. I was crying,
and right there in my mind I realized something. I
am younger than them, I am faster than them. I'm
a two to twenty three marathon guy. I could literally
finish a marathon before they even got to the half.
Why did they beat me? Do you know why? This?

(20:32):
Their mind was tougher. They didn't get caught ahead in
Oh my god, I have fifty Molescole, I have one
hundred months ago. They stayed focused in the moment, on
the next footstep, on the next mile, on the next
aid station on the next gel. And that is what
you should learn in life, because life is an ultra
where things get hard, things suck at certain points, you
have lows, but if you stay focused on your end

(20:54):
goal and you get through the hard parts, it will
get better. And that's an ultra. You attack problem as
they come up. You never think of the end. You
think of right here and right now. And I think
that's how success is achieved, and it's been for me.
It's when I get caught up in right now, feeling
bad for myself, Oh this sucks, compare and despair to
other people. Focus on yourself, focus on what you are

(21:16):
in control of. And that's ultra. Running is like it's
helped every other part of my life.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
And just by going through that process and learning it
in a very tangible and physical way.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Right in ways that you can't fake. So you can
kind of fake a lot of things in life, but
you can't fake how awful you feel when you're running
long distances. You see what I mean, Like, I can
think about what it would feel like, but right now,
while we're here, you just can't be that miserable. You
can't be puking for eight hours. You don't necessarily want
to be. It's not healthy for everyone. But when you

(21:47):
get to lows that are that low and you battle
through them, it toughens you up for the rest of
your life. And so that has allowed me to get
through other things, and I think that's been the joy.
The suffering and getting through it allows you to achieve
more in life. It has been for me.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
You're somebody that has lived an interesting life in the sense,
I know we didn't talk about this yet, but you
know in college you paid for your tuition by doing
magic shows, right.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, and a couple other businesses.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah, and a couple other businesses. So you're somebody where
success is not guaranteed. It's been earned your entire life, right,
and it wasn't optional, right, And.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I wasn't happy about that. So, like a lot of
people that there's silver linings in hindsight, but at the time,
I was super pissed. Like when my friends are getting
cars bought for them they get to go on vacations.
In the moment, I'm very aware, like I wasn't happy that,
oh this is going to make me tough, and I
know that mentality. I've seen it so much that that
vision of you can always assign blame where you see

(22:55):
someone who's achieved success and you go. Easy for you
to say you're rich, easy for you to say you're famous.
All of those things. Are you projecting your insecurities onto
someone else rather than taking responsibility. And I've been there.
I've literally been there at a point where I have
to pay four thousand dollars for books, nine thousand dollars
for tuition, and I have to pay rent. That sucks.

(23:15):
I'm seventeen and a half years old, like whoa, who WHOA,
poor me, But that's what life was at the moment,
so I had to figure it out. In hindsight, that's
allowed me to get to where I am today because
there was no other option. Success wasn't like, there was
no way I didn't have like my parents weren't there.
But my kids will never have that, at least I
don't think so. They've really like they've hit the lottery.

(23:37):
They will never have to worry about those types of
things now. So do I feel bad that they don't
have that toughness kind of, But at the same time,
I'm happy. So it's funny things where I've seen it,
and I've been on both sides of the equation. And
I think that you don't realize that you need to
decide how you're going to take responsibility for your future.
And in so many instances it's easy to make excuses.

(24:00):
The people that achieve are the ones who forget about
the excuses. They say, I'm going to start taking step one,
step two, step three for my goals.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
I think that's a situation.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
The situation that you found yourself in college is one
that maybe people don't always talk about because it is
something they're insecure of, but it is something that so
many people deal with in you know, in different ways.
Like I remember, I had to pay for my last
year of college. Not all my years of college, but
I had to pay for my last year. I was
going to school in New York City. It was over
one hundred thousand dollars and I graduated, and I was

(24:31):
making basically thirty five thousand dollars a year, maybe forty thousand.
So there was in no way, shape or form a
bonus coming my way or a paycheck that could at
all go towards paying you know, one thousand dollars a
month in my loan, right, And I had to learn
how to get scrappy and work hard and take on
additional work opportunities outside of my nine to five and

(24:53):
that's why I do.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
What I do now.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
And I've always been entrepreneurial and made things happen for myself.
So I relate to that mentality in a little bit
different way because obviously I didn't pay for all my
years of college, and I did have parents.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
I was in state. It was way cheaper, way cheaper.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Okay, I should honestly, in hindsight, I should have gone
to an in state school. But whatever, I wanted to
go to a school in the city. I wanted to
be in New York, and I'm happy with my decision.
But I would like for you to give advice to
somebody in that situation right now that could be listening.
What's something you want to tell them, and then what's
something you could tell your younger self.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
So I like to empathize and always think, because as
a mentalist, right I'm always trying to figure out what
you're thinking. So in life that's a great superpower to
have to be able to empathize with others. Rather than
tell your story, think about somebody else who's listening to
this who might be in a job they don't like,
or is struggling. So many people are struggling, or you're
you know, crippled by debt, student loans. It's crazy and

(25:47):
so right now you can only see in front of you.
It's kind of like that ultra parallel. I feel like, crap,
right now, how am I going to get out of this?
I still have one hundred miles to go. I have
one hundred thousand dollars in debt. I think it's taking
and creating those small, tangible goals one step at a time,
instead of looking ten steps ahead and knowing that. For example,
when I quit my job, it always seems like, oh, well,
you were able to quit your job and go be

(26:09):
a mentalist. I wasn't. It was a crazy thing to do.
When I left. I had a Wall Street job that
was paying very well that people around me thought, you're
gonna leave this job to go be what? You know?
It seemed like a real leap of faith. But what
I did is I stacked the deck in my favor
in advance. I was saving money for years when other
people were going on vacations. I wasn't, you know, when

(26:31):
every people going out to eat I was eating ramen
and bowls of rice with like hot sauce on it.
So if you take and timing is everything in life
as well, which I like to think about, I this
is dating myself. But I quit my job in two
thousand and five. If the exact same scenario had played
out and I was four years younger in two thousand
and nine, when the world was imploding with the Great Recession,

(26:53):
would I have quit my job if Wall Street was imploding.
I don't think I would have. I think literally four
years later, I wouldn't have left the security and safety
of my job to pursue a dream because I would
have said, if this doesn't work, I'm not going to
get a job again. So I did it during the
boom times, where again I was able to think to myself,
if this doesn't work, in a year, I saved up
enough money, I have some runway, I'll get another job.

(27:16):
So I never discount the fact that right now, if
you're saddled by debt, if you have kids, if you
have bills to pay, start slow, start building up on
the side, don't do something rash. I was hustling restaurants,
I was finding event planners. You've got to sometimes work smarter,
not just harder. And that's what I've learned over time,
is how to monetize what I do for a living

(27:37):
very effectively and optimize for it. That's not what everybody
wants to do. But if your goal and decide your
goals is like I want to make a certain amount
of money, we'll start to think how can I do that.
If your goal is I want to earn more hours
back and enjoy my life and go fishing or go
running and extra five hours a week, think about how
you can do that too. You've got to really be
laser focused on what it is you want and take

(27:58):
those small incremental steps to get there and not break
down midway. So many people give up too early.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
So many people give up too early and get down
on themselves. And I also think it's important to surround
yourself with the right people because you it's it's like
a ripple effect. You know, you meet one person, it
leads to another person. And that's the beauty of living
in a big city. And you know I and imagine
that has happened with your career too. You make one
person feel good, all of a sudden, they spread that
word to somebody else, then you're you know, who knows.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
That's one hundred percent it. You just nailed it. Always
exceed expectations. I'd say, be kind to everyone you meet
and be over the top polite. There's just I like,
that's one of the things right now. If I were
to die today, hope it doesn't happen. And you asked
my kids ten years from now, where they remember please
and thank you? So like things that I want them
drilled into them is that I want you to be

(28:47):
polite and kind to others and think about others because
that will guide you throughout the course of your life.
That's like kind of the way the ship is steered,
so simple, remembering people's names, right, remembering things about them
and not even memory. It's one of the big things
in my book. You said I have a good memory.
My wife would disagree vehemently. But you know what I do.
I cheat. I cheat. My whole job is to deceive you.

(29:08):
I can't really read minds. I'm honest about it. It
seems like I read minds. I don't really have a
great memory. I cheat. I write everything down. I write
things down every single day, long amounts of things. When
I meet people. When I hear about people you, Jeremy,
things that we talked about when we got here, I
will know a year or two from now, will I
remember them.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
No.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
I took down the answers on the test. I looked
at them, and I remembered them. That is a gift.
People give you information. Everyone else forgets the information nine
to nine percent of people. If you are the one
percent who takes the time to write it down, review
it before you meet someone again, you seem I'm not
even saying seam because that sounds like it's sociopathic. You
have taken the time to care because you reviewed it.

(29:48):
You know what matters to them, right, what matters to you,
your family, your friends, your interests. If that matters to me,
then you're gonna care about me more. That shows you
went the extra mile. Most people won't do that.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
So I have a question.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
So, the last time we were together was three years
ago on our run, What notes did you take about me?

Speaker 1 (30:06):
So, I mean we were running, so I can't really
take notes, so it's slightly cheating, but I definitely took
some notes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
You know, when you're running, you actually remember things a
little bit better. In my opinion, as a runner, I think,
so I think so.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, I zone out more when I run, So I
actually when i'm that's I'm the opposite. When I'm running,
that's that flow state where I try not to think
about things.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
I guess it's different when I'm running with somebody and
interviewing them. I like, I remember our entire conversation.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, I've watched it, so I know it, but I've
seen seen too many other ones since, right.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
And then I remember the eight hours of editing I
did to turn.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
I saw it over and over. Yep. I see like
John Summitt, I see you with Tim Wallas, I see
like everybody running together.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, so you just told us that, you know, being
a mentalist doesn't mean you can read people's minds, but
it does mean that you learn tangible tips that you

(31:03):
can apply to remember certain things, recognize patterns in people.
So can you kind of break those down for us, Like,
what are the baseline things that you.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Have to be able to remember as a mentalist.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Well, there's a lot of things. I mean, to be
a mentalist is learning to be a mentalist is It's
a lot of the knowledge is hyper specific. As an
entertainer that does not necessarily apply to your life. So
if I taught you how to do a mentalist trick,
you can't really generalize that skill to life. So what
I've tried to do over the past few years, especially
when writing the book, was say, what if I create

(31:38):
a ven diagram, what are the skills that I have
that overlap with the general population and that little sliver
that you can use? And so I think a lot
of the core tactics are not how to guess things.
It's not useful. Truly. If I said to you, think
of somebody, think of their name, guess how many letters.
You can't use that in your life. You don't realize
you think you can, you really can't. But what is

(31:59):
youse is how do I walk in the room? How
do I approach people? What are the first things I
say to them?

Speaker 3 (32:05):
Right?

Speaker 1 (32:06):
What kind of eye contact do I maintain? How do
you speak to them? What's your volume? What's your energy?
What's your cadence? Like things that a public speaker does
that creates comfort and rapport, which again sounds so simple,
but I've I've always asked myself this question. When I
leave an event and I meet lots of people, be
it a party or social or work event. When you leave,
there's always one or two people that stand out to

(32:28):
you that you remember the most. That you go to
your significant other or wherever they're going, did you meet them?
Oh my god, they were so great? Why were they
so great? Why did you remember them more than everyone else?
And so I've tried to analyze that so that I
can glean from that knowledge and use it for myself,
And I find time and time again that those people

(32:48):
do a few simple things. One is that they engage
you in a certain way where they are not constantly
talking about themselves. They're asking interesting questions about you. They
get you to open up. Right in a podcast environment
like this, it's very one sided, where it's a lot
more about me. But in your day to day life,
people don't like to be interviewed. They like to have

(33:08):
interesting things thrown at them, little softballs where they can
open up to you and then you can say something
interesting back, and then you get things out of them.
The people that say to you, wow, I never even
thought of that, Oh my god, that's so interesting. That's
the best feeling. It's like you opened up to them.
So don't ask somebody the same question they've been asked
one hundred times before. Oh my god, where do you work?
Where are you from? You can do that, But people

(33:30):
when you ask them certain questions going to autopilot, they
don't think about what their answer is. They regurgitate memorized
information because they've done this so many times. Heuristics. Our
brain is designed to kind of have the path of
least resistance. If you ask someone something they haven't been
asked before, Boom out of autopilot. Right, I got to
take the stick again. I got to steer the plane.

(33:50):
I never thought of that. That's interesting. Well, that's what
I challenge you to do, and as a mentalist, that's
what I think I've done better than my competition. When
I go to football teams, I don't do my normal tricks.
I do tricks that are all about football that are
going to excite and interest football viewers who aren't interested
in me. They tried to watch football, they now got

(34:13):
fed me. I want them to stay attached, stay interested, engage,
so I make it about football. I think the same
thing can happen in life. When you meet people, try
to make it about them and not about you.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
I noticed through listening to you that you are very
good at knowing the audience that you're speaking to, even
from you know, speaking football to being on thekn Nelk
Boys talking about.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Body counts and you know, speaking to their audience.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
I was like, as soon as I heard you say that,
I turned to Jeremy and I go, oh's knows what
he's doing.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
And I on CNBC for the record.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
By the way, shout out to Kyle who just ran
one hundred miles from the Nelk Boys.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
He did.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
He ran one hundred miles a lot of way on
the show. You should him on the show's break Eye Kyle.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Yeah, come on the running interview show.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
I'll drop my Lineeah, he ran one hundred miles. He
was wrecked. But they I think they raised like three
hundred fifty k for charity for cancer.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Do you know how long it took him.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
I want to say like twenty Oh, I don't want
to get in trouble. It was definitely over twenty four
it was like twenty five hours.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
That's impressive that he did that. I can't. Oh god,
I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
I couldn't ran Vegas. Yeah, it was pretty impressed' My.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
One goal is to run the New York City marathon
after giving birth, and then I'll be good for a marathon.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
We'll get you hooked into one hundred mile or you're
gonna do it one.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
No, no, oh, you won't.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
I like a challenge.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Nope, you will not. You guys will never see. See
I'm like in moderation.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
I used to have a goal when I turned twenty
of doing a marathon every single year until I turned thirty,
which I was on track to do, and then COVID
hit and there weren't really marathon so I did one
unsanctioned one during COVID, and then my knee blew up
and I.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Don't have any cl It's a whole story.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Anyways, those traditions are great. I like having those traditions
because they force your hand. I run my age in
miles every year for my birthday, so I've been doing
that very consistently. Only one year did I have to
bow out. I thought I had stress fracture. It was
like I couldn't even walk, and then it went away
after three or four days. And I swear to you,
I don't quit for anything. This was the weirdest, like
pseudo injury. But other than that, I think I've done

(36:06):
it the last seven or eight years, and people love it.
I've inspired other people. People write to me and they go,
I do your birthday run now, and I'm like, dude,
go for it. I love that.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
It's really cool.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah. The thing with running is you have to be
careful with over usage. So just like knowing your body
and not pushing toward I just have a question quickly,
and then I do want to I want to go
back to what you were saying before. So you, to
me have always striked me as somebody that just can
get out there and go for a run without really
like crazy nutritional hacks or supplements.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Is that true?

Speaker 1 (36:35):
I would say so, I'm the least tech savvy runner
you've ever met.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
It's yeah, and I knew that for something.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
I don't have Strava. My friends are like, get on Strava.
I have two Strava entries ever, and they were when
I ran from Montak to Manhattan one hundred twenty one
miles and when I ran around Central Park one hundred
and sixteen miles. I probably have the highest average run
of anyone on Strava because I've never done another one.
Because I don't really want other people.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
To know where you're running.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Not no like how I'm running. I feel like it's
I feel like I'll feel too much pressure and embarrassment
if I'm not running fast enough for a lot. It's
I also don't run for anyone else. I run strictly
for personal fulfillment. It's never been something I do externally.
If no one ever knew I ran, I would be
fine with that. The running is for me, and it
brings me kind of joy and mental fortitude and just

(37:20):
I don't relax as me. So I don't run for others.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
I feel the exact same way I have.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
If they're not broke, don't fix it. Like my shoes,
I've had the same shoes for ten years, Brooks Adrenaline.
Brooks do into a sponsorship, Let's do it now. I
have the Nike shoes for races. I don't even wear
a watch anymore. I stopped wearing a watch about three
years ago. I just bring my phone and I have
like some random app.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Do you use run Keeper?

Speaker 1 (37:43):
I do use run Keeper, tell you run keepers?

Speaker 3 (37:45):
But the real runners use yes and it's so fun. Okay,
so I can't.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
I just one I could get because my watch sometimes
wouldn't it wouldn't connect to the GPS, and I started
becoming beholden to the fact that I'd sit there for
five minutes. I'm like, I just want to start my
so I would start my phone. And what happened is
I started using not wired but bluetooth like air pods,
And now I don't even listen to stuff. I do
phone calls when I run mostly now or I just

(38:10):
zone out, but I do all my phone calls while
I'm running.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Who's your go to phone call?

Speaker 1 (38:14):
A couple people that are kind of like my little
brain trust of fellow mentalists. I'll call my family. This
is just when I do my kind of like no
kids are around, no wife, I can just kind of
shoot the breeze and have no pressure of babies crying,
diaper change, Like I can just kind of talk freely.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Yeah, I'm the same way with the thing with run keepers.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
So Strava.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
I love Strava because I do like the social aspect
it and should I like seeing what other people are doing.
But I feel the same way. Running for me has
always been my personal time, and obviously I've turned it
into a career with the running interview show, which has
been so fulfilling and so fun for me. But when
I'm on my solo runs, it is like fully Kate time.
It's therapy for me. I need my time to think,
and I feel the same way. It's like an invasion

(38:55):
of privacy sometimes, Like sometimes I don't want to push
myself in a run to go super fast or be
running a seven thirty pace.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Sometimes I'm sitting there at a ten minute pace.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Especially with this pregnancy, and Strava can feel a bit
like an invasion of that privacy because it is personal
time and running doesn't have to be for anybody but yourself,
and I don't think working out should be for anybody
by yourself. But that's my hot take on it. I
do love run Keeper. I got a new phone. Jeremy said,
you're not allowed to download run Keeper. You need to
be sharing your runs just because of the industry that

(39:22):
I'm in, So.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, I don't. I don't even know how I get.
I get new followers on Strava every day.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
I mean I do post for every to keep everybody
updated with what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
But man, it's hard for me sometimes.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
I film myself running six days a week, like let
me have my moment. You know I can't do everything
for performance. It's true, you know you really can't. Okay,
So before you talked about some of the things that
you can do to kind of make yourself more likable, right,
so let's talk about making yourself more likable if you were,

(39:59):
for example, meeting me for the first time, knowing my
interests and the things that I'm up to. What is
a unique question, just so that our listener is going
to have an example that you would ask me rather
than who are you?

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Where are you from?

Speaker 1 (40:12):
So I think we have to break that into two pieces,
which is, in many instances, when you meet somebody, you
don't know anything about them, so it's hard to kind
of say, I'm going to research them and see what
I can use. If you have that tactical advantage, which is,
let's say you're going a new job interview right a
place where what you ask is very important because it
might actually determine you know, your bread and butter, like
you getting you getting a job is to maybe go

(40:35):
and dig below the surface. So see everybody else maybe
looked at the quick website and what does the company
do and what's that? But what drives their mission. What's
fascinating to them. I like to always think to people
what excites you? Not just there's questions I like to
ask people that are that really dig deep to when
they were kids, like what did you envision yourself doing now?

(40:55):
And is this fulfilling you in that way? And things
that make you analyze wow, wow, that's really curious. Like
I've had people ask me stuff. I usually get very
distinct questions about mentalism because people don't know what it is,
but and have you ever gotten it wrong? And people
have the same kind of questions, and they're great questions
because everyone asked them. But when you get questions that
no one's thought of before, I would challenge yourself to

(41:16):
whatever the first three things you think of, don't do
those three right, because that's what everyone would have thought of.
Do the thing that came to you fourth or fifth,
and go with that one instead. Does that make sense?
It's kind of like in family feud. The first answers
are the obvious ones, go to the ones that are
less obvious. So if somebody like I recently met a
founder of a big company and I was just curious

(41:39):
because he started this company at twenty, it's been wildly successful,
and I was much more curious of kind of you've
gone through this path probably people always asking about this product.
And I said to him, if you weren't running this company,
what would you be doing now instead? And he was
fascinated because everyone always asked him about this company. Right,
you're a billionaire, you're this He kind of was like,
taken aback, and it's so funny, what would I be

(42:00):
doing instead if I wasn't doing this. I don't think
he'd been asked that question recently, and so I just
thought it was fascinating to me because what would I
do if I wasn't doing this. It's again, it makes
the person think outside of the box because somebody hasn't
asked them that question recently. You don't have to do that,
but that will shift someone's gears. I have a great

(42:21):
example where when I thought about what I would ask
them one to capture their attention. It's a story in
my book. I met Barack Obama. I didn't know I
was going to meet him, and when I did, I
didn't how much time I would have. It's like, so
if you're going to have time with somebody, make it count,
whether it's a former president or anyone. And I knew
that i'd be meeting him quick environment, and so I
thought about this for a long time. How do I

(42:41):
get his attention? As luck would have it, he was
speaking before I was in the lineup at this panel,
and so when I met him, I said to him,
thank you so much for the gift, sir, and my
wife thought, this is so silly. He's not going to
like that, like what does that mean? I go watch,
because if you ask nine out of ten people, if
you say to them, thank you so much for the gift,
they're going to be like, what gift? Because he doesn't

(43:03):
know me. Everyone else is great to meet you. What
an honor? I did this. He knows what he's gonna say,
But for me, you look confused. He goes, what gift?
And that's when I had the line. I go, well,
I'm going to be performing in fifteen minutes, so I
forever get to tell everyone that present Barack Obama opened
for me, which got a great chuckle out of him.
So he's hooked. And now I was hoping he would
say to me, what are you performing? That was the hope.

(43:25):
This is where I wanted to lead the conversation, mentalism,
one oh one. What he said exceeded all my expectations.
He looked at me and goes, oh, I know you.
I saw you on hard Knocks. So I'm like, oh shit,
Obama knows me. So now right at that moment, there's
other people on the line, and I go, most amazing
thing you've seen, not today but this month. Do you
have thirty seconds? So again I created a constraint, a

(43:48):
time constraint, thirty seconds. As soon as he said back
to me thirty seconds, I knew I had him because
thirty seconds I can deal with. I have an exit point.
People don't like when they approach them when you have
a conversation, if they don't know what it's gonna end.
How long is this going to go? You know those
people who tell stories that are way too long and
then you don't know what to do and you kind
of are like stuck. So if you can give that

(44:10):
false time constraint, it might be longer than thirty seconds.
But if you give that constraint right away, if you
engage someone. This is so silly, but I learned doing
restaurants as a kid that if I walked up to
you head on right into you, eye to eye. It's intimidating.
I learned that very young. If I walk up to
a group, I to ie. People are intimidated if someone

(44:31):
talks to you too close. If I walked up to you,
this goes you're in my space. All of those things
are hardwired into our DNA and brain from when we
had predator and praise situations. If I walk up to
you very casually at an angle, so you actually only
see one of my eyes. As silly as it sounds,
there's some part of your brain that feels more at ease,
more calm. Approach at an angle, Approach confidently and instantly.

(44:52):
Don't walk in the room and have that vibe of
looking around waiting, waiting, waiting. It's so hard to do,
but try this. When you see someone you want to
talk to, do not hesitate. Walk to them immediately without
any hesitation. And I know that's what am I gonna say?
What are they going to think? All of these doubts
creep into your mind, But go the confidence of walking
up at an angle with a smile and feeling confident.

(45:14):
It's going to be self fulfilling. It's wild, but confidence
indicates more confidence it's people can sense it, even if
you don't really feel it and you're nervous. I've walked
up walked into Leonardo DiCaprio at the Golden Globes recently,
and my nervous, hell, you have nervous, didn't skip a beat,
just like went right up and went for it. Because
and it's not because I'm fearless. It's because I've overcome

(45:34):
my fear for years. Because you realize when you try it,
it's not going to be as bad as you think.
What's the worst case scenario. You're not going to die,
right So even if you approach somebody at an angle
like that right away, put a time constraint in. I
only have thirty seconds. But I had to ask you
this one thing, Oh what is it? It's going to work.

(45:55):
You'll see that the more times you try, you will
fail less and less.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
What was your pay up line for Leo?

Speaker 1 (46:01):
So again this is way too much name dropping, but
he was with Steven Spielberg, who I know, and Steven
Spielberg's memory, so it was incredible because I go, oh,
great to see leon and Steven he's, oh my god,
you were so great on my part, So like it
was great because I had a warm call, so it
was it was terrific.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, howd the conversation go?

Speaker 1 (46:17):
It flowed, but it was pretty quick. It was it
was a kind of a fast moving thing on the
red carpet, but it was great.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
How did your conversation with President Obama go?

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Oh? Amazing? I performed for him. I have like I
don't have a video of it because we'ren't allowed of video,
but I have about eighty still shots so it looks
like a flip book of him looking turning over the
carging like this, coming in, hugging me like like whispering
in my ear, and and then just like freaking out.
It's it's amazing. It's on my website, it's on Instagram,
and it was just it was great. It exceeded all expectations.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
I could see Oz eventually getting invited to Leo's like
private parties. You're gonna be on yachts partying. Bring the
five kids, bring your I.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Don't think he'll want five kids there. It was like
hard pass on the five kids.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Come with a squad.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, that's rolling very deep, rolling very deep. Oh.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
I would love to see you roll up with your
whole family to something.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Oh, it's like intimidating. You're like, how many kids are there?
I only recently realized a year ago that in home alone,
I'm watching that movie over Christmas one time, like damn,
how many kids do they have? And then I was like,
they have five kids. I have five kids. Like there
was a realization. And then we still do the same
thing where we go out and we have all the
kids in different colored clothing because like one likes blue,
one likes red, thankfully, one likes purple, one like pink,

(47:28):
So like we look for colors. One Halloween, everybody was
wears Waldo, which was amazing because we lost like two kids.
At a certain point, I'm like, have you seen a walder?
There's one wallder there one wall that wears Waldo. It
was very fun to be a like spot our kids
wearing Waldo shirts.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
How big is your house in New York?

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, it's going to be bigger so we're moving. But yeah,
it's currently four bedrooms so it's tight.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Oh my gosh, So how what's the dynamic of like
the kids.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
In three kids in one room. So we have bunk beds,
two boys, one girl, and then two babies are in
one room, two cribs. They love each other. They're like,
you know, they always act. I was like, oh my god,
you know, she's like looking first sister in the morning.
Put one in. The babies are hugging. They adore each
Other's so cute. There's no greater joy in life I've
found than just seeing your kids happy.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
When did you guys start having kids?

Speaker 1 (48:12):
Our oldest is nine? Okay, so like how old was
I I was? How old? Our first kid was born
when I was thirty four?

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Oh wow?

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Okay, so wow. So you guys have had a lot
of kids since thirty four?

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Yeah, which I feel like a lot of kids start
earlier to have five kids. You know, I'm twenty eight
having my first and I can't even imagine.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Yeah, that's young. My wife at thirty had our first.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Okay, so you're a little bit older than you.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
I got time knock them out. Five. There we go,
she knocked out.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
You know what the most impressive thing to me have, like,
as a pregnant woman going through my first pregnancy, all
I can think about is my grandma having five kids,
my mom having three, you know, like all the women
in my life, my aunt's having four right, like I
am blown away. I'm like, Wow, these people were pregnant
for so long, and it teaches you so much about

(48:57):
a patients. But be being selfless. You learn being selfless
really early when you're pregnant as a mom. And I
just have so much respect for people that have so
many kids. Wow, it's difficult on your body as a woman.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, it's unbelievably difficult. You literally like real magic we
tell our kids is that your mom made you from scratch,
Like if dads, if men had to birth kids, the
human race has gone.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
So we talked a lot about body language and being
confident enough to go up to somebody. But I'm curious
on the opposite side of body language, what do you
notice about somebody in the first ten seconds of meeting them.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
That's a great question. So is that in terms of well,
I try to notice a lot of things in my
professional life because what I do it's kind of an
instant gut check when I'm performing as to how will
this person react. Are they going to be a big reactor,
are they going to be quiet? How easy are they
to guide and to acquiesce to my demands? How much
can I influence them? And that's because when I'm performing,

(49:52):
what am I really doing? Think about somebody who invests
in companies. You want the biggest ROI. You want to
invest this amount of money, and when you sell, make
more money on your money. Right, So I'm investing time
into this person to hopefully, on the other end, get
a big reaction. That's what I do for a living,
create memorable moments that people talk about. Right, I don't
care if I fool you. I don't really care if

(50:12):
I amaze you. Those are actually side effects. People don't
realize that because being amazed disappears, it dissipates. So a
lot of other performers in my space, you'll amaze somebody,
and a magician is always amazing. Pizza always tastes good,
even if it's not that delicious, like pizza's delicious. What
makes you stand out from the rest? What makes you

(50:33):
jump from the mass to the top one percent? I
think when I've distilled it, it's memorable. People that are
memorable go further in life. What does that mean? It
means that people talk about you to other people for
extended periods of time. They remember what you did and
how you made them feel. For hopefully, weeks, months, and years,

(50:53):
and that keeps spreading, it amplifies, It takes time, but
it's just like rolling a snowball down a mountain. So
when I'm perform, and why some of the clips have
gone so viral is because I'm in a room with
football players and you see a football player you trust
go nuts, or somebody that's not even as famous just
lose their mind. And then the secret ingredient was winning

(51:14):
them over and noticing that this person I think is
going to go extra crazy and go nuts. And most
of my performance environments are with hundreds, if not thousands
of people, So I don't have I don't have the
ability to, I don't have I'm not constrained bying a
football team just having a few people. I have lots
of people to choose from, and some of them are

(51:34):
randomly picked. So what I notice with people is kind
of like you said, their body language. I notice do
they look like they're facing me in an open way?
Do they feel like they're nervous, are they hesitant? Are
they intrigued? You can tell all of those things based
on you know it. Most people know it. If you
walk up to somebody, are they on guard? Yep, right

(51:54):
sales one oh one. If you walk up to somebody
at a store and you're trying to sell them something,
if you're in retail, are they smiling? How do we
break through that exterior? Pay a compliment? Oh my god,
I love those earrings. Where did you get those? Right away?
Everyone likes to be said something nice to and you
ask their name, and you ask about their name, and
how do you spell it? Oh my god's so great

(52:14):
to meet. You look them right in the eyes, you
shake their hand. Just there's such little things that go
such a long way because not everyone does them, and
they're so simple on the surface that when you tell them.
It's like that book How to Win Friends and Influence People.
I read that in my very younger years, and it
had such a mark on me because none of the
advice was rocket science. And most books that I read

(52:36):
that have like journal this, do that, affirmation this do
it in three months. I'm not doing that. I've forgotten
two weeks later. I like the skills that I'll learn
quickly and I will continue to use, like for learning names.
I have a trick I put it in my Ted
Talk that Ted Talk is the number one most few
ted talk in the world in the last year. And

(52:57):
I don't think it's because I'm magical. I think it's
because the skills that you learned in it were once
you could apply to your life, which is how to
never forget someone's name after you just met them.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
So how do you do it?

Speaker 1 (53:06):
So what happens, It's happened to you, right, it's happened
to me. I'm not immune. People be like, he forgot
my name once. He's such a liar. I'm not perfect,
but I've learned how to do it so that it
almost never happens to me anymore. And when it does happen,
I realize and diagnose why. So I call this Listen,
repeat reply. I've based it on the instructions on a
shampoo bottle. Right, lather, rinse, repeat. All of us know

(53:28):
that shampoo, lather, rinse, repeat. Here's what you do. Listen,
repeat reply when you meet someone. Notice the pattern. Most
of the time. If you meet someone for the first
time and you forgot their name within one, two three seconds,
you didn't actually forget their name. It has nothing to
do with your memory. You didn't know it in the
first place when they said it to you. Your brain

(53:51):
was not in listen mode. It was in thinking mode
because you were thinking of what you were going to
say next. You were literally thinking. So it's ReadWrite, just
like on a computer. Read right, You were writing, not reading.
So at that moment, the most important part is don't
think about I'm a eut for dinner. Oh my god,
what's my next question? Oh my god, it's cold in here.
Look at them. I like to stare people directly in

(54:12):
the eyes. For some people, it's better to look at
their eyebrowser there for it. Like, find a place that's
a focal point, and as soon as they say their name,
really listen and repeat it twice. Kate, is that Kate? Katie?
It's Kate, Okay. I want to make sure I've said
your name multiple times right away. Your chances of forgetting
the name in the next five to ten minutes. It's
not long term memory, it's short term memory. Have gone

(54:34):
down dramatically if you've said their name. The best parallel
or visual metaphor is if I gave you a small twig,
I said, go to the beach right by the shore
and write my name. If you wrote my name once
quickly with a twig, first, wave washes it away. But
if I give you a nice thick stick and you
repeat the letters multiple times, it will take far more

(54:55):
waves to wash it away. Listen, repeat, reply, So reply.
There's three tactics I use regularly. One of them is,
I ask how to spell your name, so I'll just
right away say Jeremy is at j E R E
M y. I go, that's the right way to spell it, right, Jeremy.
So I've said it, I've repeated it, and now we've
got it. Pay a nice compliment, Jeremy. I love those shoes, man.

(55:16):
I like to wear Nike's too, Jeremy. So I've said it,
and now visually when I see I connect shoes with Jeremy.
So I've done that. The third one is if you
can connect the person with someone else, you know, if
there's another Kate were like, oh my god, my good
friend's name is Kate Palladi. So nice to meet you, Kate.
So I will say your name and connect it to
somebody else. All of those tactics which I'm telling you, listen,

(55:38):
repeat reply, Try it the next three times you meet
someone and just put it in muscle memory. You'll notice
that will save you the dread the embarrassment of forgetting
someone's name, and quite frankly, it will impact your life
negatively because there's so many instances where you meet someone
and you can't focus or enjoy the conversation because you

(55:58):
know what's going on the whole time. You're just like,
oh my god, I don't know their name? What's their name?
And you're just like, you can't fully interact and be
present because you're so panicked about the fact that it
might come up that you don't know their name right
now and if all else fails. Truly, I think there's
something to be said for saying them I'm so sorry,
but I just didn't hear your name correctly when you

(56:19):
said it. Can you repeat it for me? And that
shows a level of confidence as well as if you're
willing to commit to it rather than pretend you didn't.
We're all human and be vulnerable. I think that's another
great thing in life, is showing that you're human and
being vulnerable. That is very useful.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Yeah, and it's also a proactive question where you're gonna
be listening when you ask it because you're asking.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
It for a reason. I'm a big believer in that question.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
I feel like I ask it all the time, but
I do love that listen, repeat, reply, and make it
muscle memory. My favorite term that you used is muscle memory,
because I think everything is a skill and is learnable,
you know, and people always say like, oh, so and
so is so likable. It's well, you could be likable too,
you just have to practice it. So I'm curious how
do you make yourself more likable?

Speaker 1 (57:04):
I don't know how that is, because people when they
hear that, they seem to think like you're faking likability
versus some people are innately likable or natural. But I
think you develop it over time. I think some of
us are naturally introverts. Like if I go to an
event alone, I'm naturally introverted. It sounds crazy. You just
wouldn't believe it because I seem so extroverted. But I

(57:24):
developed this skill because you know what happened when I
went to a room and had to be myself. I
didn't get the same results. But if I had magic
up my sleeves, Oh, I saw people smile, people liked me.
I got this positive dopamine rush of Wow, this is
winning people over. They like me? Right Nerdy fourteen year
old talking to girls, super scary doing a card trick,
and then they go, oh my god, oh my god,

(57:45):
I'm gonna do more of these tricks. Right, People like,
did you learn it for that? Yes, that was definitely
a part of it. I was making money, I was
meeting people, I was making friends. It was super useful.
But it is a crutch. It's something that's padding between
me O's pearlman the person and me os pearlman the performer.
And so I think being likable, especially if you don't
have magic tricks, is find ways to determine what people like.

(58:10):
What makes people likable, And again, I think it's very
clear cut. I think the most interested person in many
rooms is the most interesting person, the person who keeps
talking about themselves over and over look at dates, first dates.
Watch you ever have been at like a restaurant. You
see you can tell the people on a first date
if you're like a couple, Y're so entertained to listen
to their date. And if one person it can either

(58:32):
be the guy or the girl, or in any scenario,
keeps talking, they just talk the whole time, literally objectively.
On a stopwatch, this person's talking ninety percent of the
time the other person's bored, the other person's over it.
There should be an exchange, a back and forth. So
I think being likable is genuinely being curious, genuine curiosity

(58:53):
where questions lead to more questions. Avoid yes or no
questions so easy, don't ask a question. At the end
of the answer, a door is closed in your face.
If I used to walk up to feel and say, hey,
I want to see a card trick, No, what did
you go from there? Right? Done? But if I say
to you, I want to show you the most amazing
thing you've seen in the last week. Are you ready?

(59:15):
It's very hard to say no to that, right? Or
did you hear what's going on tonight? When I'd be
at a restaurant, I go, did you hear what's going on?
It's your lucky night. That's a question that's rhetorical. There's
no real easy way to say, I didn't hear, but
I don't want to hear. You feel like you just
won the lottery? What's going on? I want to know
the intrigue? So think to yourself and judge for yourself
in a conversation. What can I ask that's not a

(59:36):
yes or no question? How can I make this about them?
So if they're asking you about your profession, which I
get a lot of because I have a weird job,
people meet me and I have the good fortune of
traveling the world meeting a lot of famous and successful people.
I understand that my job is typically more interesting than theirs.
I'm not saying that to be mean or rude. It's
objectively true. I'm very lucky. I've lucked out in life

(59:59):
where I don't have the normal path, so I like
to at certain points just just stop and try to
focus on them and go. You're an insurance company. That's incredible.
Let me ask you a question. Where was the best
place you've been to in the last year? If you
travel for work? What was so special about it? Do
you see I did that. I turned the mirror around.
I try to not make it about me. I try
to keep finding ways to make it about them and

(01:00:20):
make them feel like the star.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
One of my.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Favorite things that you said there, Owes was that you
have to be genuine, right Like. I loved the word genuine,
and I think it's so applicable because it's like you
can learn all of these actionable things we can read
about them in books, you know, we can write them down.
We can try to memorize, like how to be more likable,
how to remember things better, whatever it may be, like
how to go up to somebody and seem confident while

(01:00:44):
doing it and not kind of scare them away. But
I love the word genuine because it has to come
from a place of just being genuine. Right, It's like,
that's what makes you the most likable, is like give
a compliment, but don't give a compliment because you know
that might make you more likable on paper, Like give
a compliment because you mean it. And my dad taught
me that, like literally since I was little. He'd be like,

(01:01:05):
give a compliment to somebody every single day and then
he would say, but actually mean it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
I love that. That's exactly right. You have like you
have political capital to expend, which is you dish these
out and it's free to everybody. It's like coupon's And
I think another one that's big and it was a
buzzword for years. But the being vulnerable, which I know
it kind of feels like cliche, but there's something to
be said. I was recently like a birthday party, I
didn't know anyone and I wasn't performing. So when I'm
not performing and I'm in civilian mode, it just feels like,

(01:01:32):
you know, the parallel is the Clark Kent. I'm just
kind of a nerd. I'm like, what am I gonna
go talk to somebody about running? And I get in my head,
who am I going to go talk to? And do
I know this person? And I literally just walked up
to somebody and just said, I don't know anybody here?
Do you guys know anybody? And it was just an
honest thing and it broke the ice in such a
way that everyone started going, oh my, how do you
know rich? And I'm like, I have no rich through

(01:01:53):
this and I'm like, what are you guys doing? And
just it was just an instant, easy way where I
didn't overthink it cacause if I would sat there and
just kept thinking about it, I go, what am I
gonna say to them? I don't know them, what are
they gonna want talk to? Me? Like you see, you
get inside your own head and you don't realize that
in so many instances people are other people. I have
like an example that I've thought about and I don't

(01:02:14):
know how it applies, but it has this weird thing
where situations create intimacy. If you're in an elevator in
New York City with people, you don't talk to them,
You look at your phone, you look up, you stare away. Right,
you're strangers. But the moment that the elevator, if this
ever happens, you get stuck on a floor and you're like,
oh my god, what's going on? And you're in the
elevator for fifteen seconds or more, right, and you're like

(01:02:36):
trying to figure it out. Suddenly everyone's best friends. You're like,
can you believe this? Oh my god, you think we're
gonna get out of here. Why did it change? Nothing changed.
You're all the same strangers, but the environment changed your
disposition and you all opened up to each other. There's
something about that, the same way that on the show
The Bachelor they make you like jump out of helicopters
and swim with sharks. They create quick intimacy with environments

(01:02:57):
and situations that are unexpected. They shake you out of
your normal default setting. And I think people should think
about that for a moment, because you can create those
scenarios artificially with people by opening up to them. So
when you ask me, what do I do? I am
not naturally or extroverted and have these special skills, and
I'm not like a sociopath who studied how to be

(01:03:18):
more likable. I've just iterated and seen what works well,
and then I've leaned into those things and over and
over and over. The things that matter to other people
are the same themselves, their families, their friends, their interests,
and so the more you can let them amplify and shine,

(01:03:39):
the more they feel like, Wow, that person was so great.
They were great because they allowed you to share your
interests in who you are and be a better version
of yourself. And so it's a secret weapon that I've
been more likable because I always focus on other people
in my performances more than myself. It's not about how
great I am. I try to make the people in
the shows the star of the show.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
You left Mery Lynch in two thousand and five, you said, yep,
to become a magician.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
What gave you the confidence to take that leap?

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
There's a lot of steps along the way. I wish
it was like this. I walked into the office, flip
the birds and said I'm out of here. It really
wasn't that. I was a very methodical person who was
kind of steps.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Did you want to flip the birds?

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
No? No, I actually my boss, Ken Hines wrote to
me recently such a big fan of mine. He's such
a sweetheart of a guy, and he was so supportive.
Everybody there thought, this is your calling. It wasn't like
a surprise where they didn't know I sing like Susan Boyle.
I performed at work all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
I'm pasturing you, like in the kitchen at work, being
like in the kitchen and being like hey.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
Pick a card, oh everywhere. That wasn't in the kitchen.
That was like, you know. I had a job where
I was essentially red tape. I was a project manager
that I was telling people twice my age and one
hundred times smarter than me that they couldn't spend as
much money. It was internal cost cutting within the firm
where my clients were other people in the firm. So
I was a punching bag, if that makes sense. I'm

(01:05:05):
within the corporate structure. I'm not liked, yes, because I'm
cutting costs. So the people that I would work with
didn't always know who I was. They just knew me
as a voice on a phone call. Right, we'd do meetings.
So when we go to happy hours, they'd be like, Oh,
this is the dude from the project management. We hate
this guy. But then I would do card tricks and like,
he's actually a pretty cool dude. So I would win

(01:05:25):
them over. And So, to answer your question more succinctly,
I as I got here to New York, I got
here after I graduated college. I naturally, in my DNA,
was a networking and hustling type of guy because I
had to pay for college this way. So I was
always getting gigs, and I would get gigs at restaurants,
and the restaurants would lead to giving up business cards,

(01:05:47):
and business cards lead to me getting private bookings. And
I knew I had this weird mindset, which I can't
explain to you, where most people when they get no's,
get downtrodden. If somebody says no, no, no, you just
get depressed. Note. I realized that in a night i'd
be working for three hours, I'd give about sixty to
sixty five business cards out. I knew that in the
next year one or two of those would convert into

(01:06:09):
a birthday party. So I started to flip my mindset right,
the glass half full, I looked at it very differently.
Fifty eight no's led to one yes. So I saw
the nose as a stepping stone to me getting to
a yes, which I think a lot of people don't
do well. They just think. I got to know. In
another note, I'm done with this crap. You have to
think the other way. You're going to get to the yes's,

(01:06:31):
but you have to battle through the nose to get there,
and they're earning you the yes. So I knew that
it was a numbers game early on, and I was
okay with that. I learned that over time, just I
think because I started doing this so young, and so
I was constantly working restaurants, and I realized, what's the
best use of my time? Who has parties? Well? People
with money? So where are the people with disposable incomes?

(01:06:53):
And which parties could I be at they would pay
me money to perform? And I learned, well, if I
find one person at a restaurant, they might have one
party in the next few years. But if I at
that party could meet the event planner who organizes three
parties every weekend and prove to them my worth and
show them that I'm easy to work with, that I'm
on time, that I'm going to do an incredible job,

(01:07:14):
and make them look good. Listen to what I said,
because the last statement is the most important. Make them
look good. It's not about me, it's what can I
do for you? Benefits oriented language. I'm this screw that
I don't say I'm this. My performance shines, it speaks
for itself. How is this going to make your life better?
How am I going to make this easier for you?

(01:07:35):
How do I make you more money? And I always
thought that way because I knew that if that person
felt good about it, then they're going to hire me
more often. And so those event planners would then get
me two parties this year, five parties next year, fifteen
parties the next force amplifiers working smarter, not just harder.
So I was doing this the whole time at Merrill Lynch.

(01:07:56):
I know this was a long winded answer, but I
was doing this in a methodical way, and it wasn't
with some end goal of quitting my job. Honestly, I
didn't think that I could quit my job. I thought
like I wasn't raised that way. I was raised first
generation immigrant. You get a job, you work hard, you
stay there, and you work the corporate ladder. This was
what I was told. I didn't know you could quit

(01:08:16):
your job and become a magician. So it took years
for me to realize that and meet a few people
who were doing it, and then get the confidence and
have enough money saved up that I said I'm going
to go for it. And there were a few steps
along the way. But like when I did it, I
know a lot of people around me thought I was crazy.
They were supportive, But I bet you if you said
to them twenty years from now, this guy would be
on TV fifty times in a year and was on

(01:08:38):
sixty Minutes and at a number three year times bestseller,
I do not think any of them would have seen
that future for me. And that just has to do
with you got to believe in yourself and you've got
to set yourself up for success.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Going from being a magician to being a mentalist is
very different. So while you were practicing being a magician,
were you studying mentalism?

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Yes, the change happened for practical and branding purposes. So
I was on a show called America's Got Talent in
twenty fifteen. I was doing some mentalism, but I wasn't
doing it full time. I wasn't like, wow, I don't
want to say full time. My act probably consisted of
half magic half mentalism. Magic is a bit more of
a crutch because magic works almost every time. You can

(01:09:21):
practice magic in front of a mirror, you can perfect
the slights and it will almost always work because you're
kind of in charge of it. Mentalism is closer in
many ways to stand up comedy than it is to magic,
because you don't know if you're funny, if you're a comedian,
until you tell the joke in the audience tells you.

(01:09:41):
You can do the trick in front of a mirror,
and you know if it looks good and if it worked.
I put the card in. It jumps to the top.
It worked. But mentalism, if you're trying to read someone's mind,
write air quotes, you have to have an audience member
to see if it work. You can't do the mentalism
in front of a mirror. You won't know what's going
to happen. Right, guess the number, Think of the number.
I can't do it without the person in front of me.
So the year before me a magician Matt franco One.

(01:10:04):
I thought we were too similar and that I can't
win the next year or set myself up for the
highest chance of success if people just say, oh, is
that the guy from last year. Oh, he just liked
the guy from last year. I don't want to be compared.
I want to be one of one. So I at
that year. Literally I picked my handle on all my
social media at oh's the mentalist, and I decided at
OZ looks like, ah, it's tough name. And I decided,

(01:10:27):
I'm going to do all mentalism from now on, and
I'm going to brand myself this way, and I'm going
to differentiate myself this way. And so was it like
some grandiose plan. Not really. I just knew that this
would set myself apart. I liked mentalism, but I needed
to not dip my toe in the water. I need
to jump in the deep end. And this forced me
to go in that direction.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
It does force you, I mean when you're doing it,
especially on national television. And the hardest thing about mentalism,
and You've said this before, is you do make mistakes,
especially when you're just starting out. So what do you
do in those moments? Where you get something wrong, you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
Have to learn from them. So I learned from them
all the time. It allows me to get better for
the next time. You're good at recovering, though, right sure,
Recovery typically takes time. So if you have time on
the clock, it's like going into overtime in a football game,
you have another chance to score. In all my stage shows,
you can a lot of the time get out of
what went wrong because it's kind of like a CounterPunch. Also,

(01:11:24):
and this has taken years and decades to learn, you
are saying a word that you think you understand, which
is wrong. You only know what something's wrong if you
know what something right is. Do you understand now you
don't know what I mean. But I'm gonna explain to you.
You don't know what's right in my show most of
the time because I don't tell you at the start
the rules.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Well, I knew something that you got wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
You were on espn YE, but you were picking somebody's
favorite player, Anthony Edwards.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
But he says ant man, and I think you might
not have known that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
You can correct me if I oh, yeah, yeah, I
wasn't sure. The nickname, yes, but it was the right
person it was the right person. Yeah, oh that one's
that wrong. That was fine by me. I've had like
way worse things happen. I one time on Live TV
cut out a picture like of somebody either thing of
a celebrity, and I cut out John Tramolta. I turned around,
he's like I was thinking of Bruce Wilson'm like, oh, wait,
so you can't really get out of that. And then
it's like cut well, lot of TV.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Oh so yeah, how did you get every single person
on Jimmy Fallon to write Will Smith?

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
That's that's thank good. That was wild one right, not
as good for my job. Scared if I tell you,
but everybody in the audience. I like when people in
the I like the people and the comments, like they're
all in and I'm like, I don't think you know
how TV works. If you told everybody to do that,
you're gonna get at least thirty different people drawing penises.
Like people don't do what you tell them to do.
That's not how life works. Uh, there's no, there's no

(01:12:39):
like you made everybody sign NDA's like, good luck with
that man. People talk so no, it's it's it's a
skill and it's there's a lot of layers into how
you influence people, how you perform. It's there's something that
you can explain called dual reality, which is the reality
you're experiencing might not be their reality. And that's the

(01:13:00):
tapestry of mentalism, is creating these memorable moments because I
for years learned how people think, and so that's really
what it is. I'm being absolutely honest like other mental
soil watches to me like he's telling the truth, is
that I'm not reading minds. I'm influencing you in a
certain way, and that sometimes that person is amazed for
a different reason than you are, but both of you

(01:13:20):
are amazed. Nobody's in on it. If I could cheat
and have people be in on it, I would one
hundred percent do it. Do you understand me. It's not
a moral compass. If I could tell Joe Rogan fake
this right now and pretense your pin code, I would
do it. Do you know why? Because I wouldn't have
had to train for thirty years. I spend hours a
day thinking of how to do this. That would have

(01:13:40):
been a great shortcut. There's no rule book that says
you can't. It's not an effective way to run my business.
It wouldn't work long term. I can't do shows for
hundreds of thousands of people and fake it with everybody.
You'd know, do you understand, Like people would talk, they
should talk, they'd be like, it's all fake. He told
me beforehand to do this. It wouldn't work.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
So there are tricks that are easier, I'm sure sure,
And then there's tricks that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
You cannot fake, authentic genuine reactions. People don't understand it.
Faking surprise is the hardest thing. Ask an Academy Award
winning actor actress to fake being surprised and genuinely amazed.
You will see through it. Oh my god, it doesn't
look real. It doesn't look real, especially as adults, especially
athletes who no offense to them, are not very good

(01:14:25):
actors and actresses typically it's just not their subset. It
just there's certain things like acting drunk is very hard
to do. There's certain things that are hard to see.
You can see it that it's not real, and everyone
has different ways they act amazed. So it's like one
of the things where I'm not making you laugh. That's
also hard to fake, but making someone genuinely amazed or
scared or angry. It's you tell if it's if it's false,

(01:14:49):
I have to really pull it off for people to
believe it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
No, I believe that you pulled it off.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
So when I think when I was watching that, I
would imagine that it's when you're doing that type of
mentalism where every sing person in that room of like
hundreds of people is writing Will Smith on.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
The White Boy very challenging.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
You're very hard, griming them throughout the entire show with
certain audible cues, right Like, there's things that you're saying, things,
multiple things that's making them think Will Smith.

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):
Yes, they all chose Will Smith, and they will tell
you of what seems utterly their own volition and random.
But I am telling you for a fact that it
was not random, or else it would not have worked.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
Could you have done it with another major celebrity like
a Beyonce.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
If Beyonce was in the room, or do you mean
for Beyonce?

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
Could you have gotten everybody to write Beyonce with So? Yes,
you've talked about how you prep everything from A to
Z when you're preparing for a show, So break that
down for us. What does your preparation look like? Are
you making up your own acts on stage?

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, but we're so. Mentalism is funny because
we stand on the shoulders of giants. There's like people
that have done this before me that are unbelievable. There's
people that are doing it now that I admire and
respect tremendously, and and it's to a large degree of
collaborative approach, where within our world people kind of release items,
teach items, and I bounce a lot of ideas off

(01:16:09):
people that I'm close with. But what I've done differently
is I've mostly come up with I have one set
of tricks in essence that I change for every different
group that I perform for, because I only have really
two skills revealing secret information in entertaining a unique way,

(01:16:29):
or guiding someone's choice, So trying to influence you to
pick what I want you to pick, that's really it.
They look like all different things while you did this
football thing to CNBC thing, but if you boil it down,
that's what you're seeing. But I package it differently every time,
and so it feels new and fresh. And then also
the other part that's engaging is that as you watch,
I'm putting little bread crumbs as to how I'm doing it,

(01:16:52):
and the bread crumbs give you this path that's exciting
and interesting because you're like, I'm catching a little bit
of how you think I'm doing it. You might be wrong,
you might be right, but that is engaging when you
see magic tricks. A lot of the reason that sometimes
when you see like that, people will say to me
this statement. They'll go, I don't really like magic, but
I love what you do. And I've analyzed it for

(01:17:12):
a long time because I love magic. Why did they
not like magic but they like what I do? They
feel it's different. Both of them are tricking them right.
Both are deceiveful acts, deceptive of I'm not going to
tell you how I did it at the core, which
is a little bit childish of like, I know, but
you can't be no. So if you do that, it's
a little bit frustrating for some people.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Why if they like it, because it's harder to figure out.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
I think that I think that if you do it incorrectly,
figuring it out is at the core. But I'm taking
you on a journey where at the end, a lot
of people don't want to figure it out. They feel
like they figured out some of it and that's enough.
I've given you a taste, but not a full meal,
and they feel as if they know a little bit
of it. With magic, you might not have anything's done.
I don't know how David Cowfield made that woman disappear

(01:17:57):
and appear in that box, but I believe that if
I had those two boxes, could I do the trick too?

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
You have a perception of that's some sort of gimmick
or that's some sort of trick that if I had it,
could I also do it? With mentalism? The interesting part
is there's no thing to focus on. There's not like
like right now, if you had a sharpie and this,
could you guess your ATM pin code?

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
Right, there's no trick to these. These are like I
don't need anything. The trick is me. It's a skill.
It's not a gimmick. Even if there are gimmicks involved
or whatever you want to call it. People perceive that
the mentalism is de facto real. There's a skill that
I've learned and studied, and that's why it's impressive, and
that's why you're engaged, all right. Kate has said post
run High, can you freak me out? I said to

(01:18:46):
grab your phone. You just went and grabbed your phone,
and I want you you have a lot of contexts,
as my guess, open up your context.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
You have a lot of context yep.

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
And what I like to tell people is that I'm like,
if you start scrolling, you start noticing there are a
ton of people in your phone. Yeah, you get a
new phone, you port your contact over and if I
say scroll through and you go to a totally random
person whose phone number you have no idea who they are,
and I want to do that right now, and then
I want you to stop open up their contact. Okay, Okay,

(01:19:16):
you're looking, you're like that person, Oh my god, this person,
Like I don't even know this person that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
Well, okay, I have it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
It's a female. I think it's a female. Is it
a female? It is? Okay, think of the first name.
Hold it close to your body. There's no way I
could see this, could I know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
I'm like, please do not let me call this person.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
I don't know that. Would you agree? You pick this
one hundred percent random? Absolutely, there's no like, there's no
I told you to pick this person. You didn't even
know you're gonna pick this was like out of control.
It could have been anyone in your whole phone. Yes,
scroll up, scroll down, think of the first letter, look
this way at me, B. Is it a B? If

(01:19:52):
you were to jump into the name, yeah, and grab
out one more letter like a scrabble tile, reach into
the middle, starts the bee and grab one of the
let out.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Do I give it to you?

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
No? Just think about it. It's not the last letter,
is it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
It's so weird because I thought for a minute that
this was a guy. What is her first name?

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Should I tell you? Yea Brianna?

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
Brianna?

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
I literally don't know. You got it?

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
What if we said go over there? We talked about
David Goggins earlier, so that would have influenced you. Grab
his book, great book, slip through the pages and stop anywhere,
and imagine I hand you a highlighter and this obviously
would black out a letter, but I wouldn't want that.
And you close your eyes and you don't even look,

(01:20:47):
and you just actually take and you reach down, close
your eyes, close your eyes and you don't even know,
and it's like you just highlight one word, but you
don't actually, So this is kind of something you chose
in your mind. And now you look down right there
and you it's it's as if you see that word
highlighted close the book. Count the letters in the word. Okay,
it's short. It was four or five four letters, isn't it?
It's four letters? This could have been any word in

(01:21:09):
this whole book. You even just said third. She's like,
I didn't do the first word I saw, I didn't
do the second. I changed my mind three times. If
somebody cuts you off on the highway, I'm not saying
you'd road rage, but under your breath you go, you
did you see? I just did that. I didn't even swear.
But that same letter F. It starts with an F,
doesn't it. What word did you highlight out of David

(01:21:33):
Goggin's whole book? Can't hurt me? What was the word?

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
Fine?

Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
Fine?

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
That's crazy. I have no idea how he's doing this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
All right, gang, that's it for me. I got a
post run high, and I gotta get home.

Speaker 3 (01:21:48):
I hope you guys enjoyed our conversation with O's Perlman.
My biggest takeaway is that O's is someone who is
exceptional in multiple fields of life, and there's a reason
for it. He breaks everything down into their simple steps,
and executes a strategy to break through one at a time.
This is something we can all do every day of
our lives, whether it's remembering people's names and key details

(01:22:09):
so they are more inclined to want to work with us,
or marathon prep by thinking about today and this moment
versus the fear of finishing twenty six point two miles.
Our mindset and attitude is really our biggest strength if
we know how to channel it. Thank you guys for listening.
If you don't already, please follow the show. We've got
more episodes coming your way that I think can help

(01:22:29):
us all learn a thing or two and apply in
our own lives. Your support really helps us grow the show,
and if you could share this episode, it would mean
the world to me.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
Until next time,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Oz Pearlman: How to Be More Confident, Memorable, and Impossible to Ignore