03-04-25 Best-selling author Brad Meltzer talks about his new book Make Magic

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm so pleased to be joined by my friend Brad Meltzer.
Brad is a best selling author in both fiction and nonfiction,
and I've had him on the show for more than
one of each of his fiction and nonfiction.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
And I've got his new book in my hand right now,
and it's.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Something completely different, and it's entitled it's entitled Make Magic,
The Book of Inspiration you didn't know you needed.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
And it's a short book.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
It's a little bit less than one hundred pages with
a lot of big print, and you can read it quickly,
but you shouldn't because it's uplifting.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
And it's inspiring.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
And Brad, I'm going to start with a quote from
page ninety one. This book was put in your hands
because someone loves and believes in.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
You, and they know one thing for sure.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
And then you say, abracadabra, you are the magician now,
So this book was put in my hands by you.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
So good morning, abercadabra.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
For sure?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Uh, why are we making magic?

Speaker 3 (01:09):
You know? This was based on my commencement address last
year at the University of Michigan, and the thrill for
me was that I had went to Michigan, but my
son was graduating last year, so seventy thousand people were
in Michigan Stadium, and I was focused on one, my boy,
And when I told him that I was going to
be his graduation speaker, he immediately said to me, why

(01:31):
they picked you? Why didn't they pick Tom Brady? He said,
he said, it's like a thirteen see winning March Madness.
But then thirty seconds later he said, this is going
to be awesome. And I love that I got to
give my son that memory. It was. It was a
thrill of a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
How'd you get to be such a big macher that
you got to be invited to be the keynote speaker
at a school that large.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, no, you have to be. You don't even get
to ask they got to. Someone asked to not, how
many of you? There's this whole process I didn't even
know about. And I think truthfully was because not I know,
people really like my thrillers and we sell probably more
of them than anything else. But it was I think
the kids books, they really you know, in the in
the year of a presidential election at Michigan, it's usually

(02:15):
the President of the United States who gives the speech,
or someone running that's I mean, if you look, it's
you know, it's Clinton, it's Obama, it's Bush, it's it
goes back to uh LBJ announced a great society at
the Michigan graduation Rosa Parks third good Marshal and then me.
My wife was like, man, that's a step down.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
But wait for them, for you outside.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
It was it was an honor obviously to do it.
And and I think the kids books, they really wanted
someone who can put some kindness and some empathy out
there again rather than politics.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Right now, So the very opening page of this book,
actually before the title page, says, the book of inspiration.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
You didn't know you needed. So, uh, why do I
need inspiration?

Speaker 3 (02:58):
I mean, look around, look at look aw where our
culture is right now, right whatever side anyone's on, you
think the other side are complete utter morons. We are
living in two different realities. We're fighting every day. This
is not what I want from my kids. This is
and I know most people don't want this, right they

(03:18):
most people are just we have We're all the same.
We have hopes and we have dreams, and we care
about our family and we want, you know, to put
good into the world. But we don't know how, and
I realized, you know, it almost sounds like something that
doesn't exist, almost sounds like magic. And that's where I started.
I went and spoke to magicians, and they explained to
me that there are only four types of magic tricks.

(03:39):
There's one you make something appear, Two you make something disappear,
Three you make two things switch places. And four you
take one thing and you turn it into something else,
which is the hardest trick of all transformation. And that's
what I set out to do with my speech, is
to show people all four types of mass.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
By the way I read the whole book. Yeah, I
think you probably know I read. I read your books
before I have you on the show to talk about them,
which is not like every talk show host probably. And
it's very interesting, this magic metaphor. You know, I'm president
of the Bad Analogy Club, and I don't think you're
going to get into the Bad Analogy Club with this
because it's a little bit too interesting. But elaborate a

(04:25):
little bit more on how you think this magic metaphor
applies to what you're trying to achieve with the book.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, I think for me, there are some things that
science and math can explain right, learn the uber driver's name.
When someone offers you a breath, man, take it. If
you're nice to me and a jerk to the wayter,
you're a jerk. But there are things that are unexplainable.
Those are the things that are magic. And as a writer,
that's actually what my job is. I have to make

(04:54):
things appear out of thin air. And that's why I
wanted to show people how you actually make magic. I
didn't make this up. This is truly what magicians will
tell you. If you put aside illusions and escapes, there
are only four types of tricks. Everything fits into it.
And I finally realized that's where my analogy would work,
is showing people because you know, graduation, the speeches, and

(05:17):
I'll ruin the ending here. But when I graduated Michigan,
I didn't remember anything from what my speaker said. I
called to all my friends, I said, what do you
remember your graduation? No one remembered a single word. So
the only thing I remembered is that my graduation speaker
at Michigan was the year that Desmond Howard won the
Heisman Trophy Great Football Star, and the commencement speaker said, hey,

(05:40):
Desmond Howard, are you in the stands you're graduating today?
And he stood up in cap'ain gown and did the
heisman post. He was ten rows in front of me.
I remember, the crowd went while I remember, and that's
all I remember. And so when I got to the
end of the speech, and the reason it makes such
a good analogy is I realized magic is not something
you do for yourself. It's a gift you give other people.
And I said, ladies and gentlemen, the best magicians always

(06:02):
have another trick up their sleeve. So I want you
to welcome my friend Desmond Howard. And thirty years later,
Desmond Howard came out from backstage and seventy thousand people
in that stadium went bananas. And what I gave them
is they thought they were getting a commencement address. What
they were really getting was a live magic trick. And

(06:23):
when it was over, obviously the Desmond Park made people cheer,
But it was the messages about kindness and humility and
fear and transformation that people started trying to track me
down like I'd never seen. They were writing through my website,
social media, tracking out my sister in New York, saying, Hey,
I saw your brother in a stadium today. Can I
get the text of that speech? I want the text

(06:43):
of that. I want to give it to my kids,
my grandkids. Everyone wanted to text. And I've been writing
for almost thirty years. No one's ever asked me for
the text of anything I ever said, but this they wanted.
And then publishers started calling. And when it went viral
and a million people started seeing it online, we were like,
maybe we should turn this into a book.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
We're talking with Brad Meltzer, multiple time number one New
York Times bestselling author, and his new book is called
Make Magic, The Book of Inspiration you Didn't know you needed.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
And I actually think the visual of this.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Book is important for folks who The book is probably
five by seven or something and it's one hundred pages,
and it's got a blue cover with a little bit
of white writing, but most of it is gold, and
it just, I don't know if it feels like it
feels like a party decoration in a way. It's got

(07:37):
that kind of vibe about it.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Brad.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
When you were talking a moment ago, you mentioned as
you were just picking a couple of lines from the
speech and from the book, you mentioned one that happened
to jump out at me and that I marked it.
Not literally, I don't write in books. But if you're
nice to me and a jerk to the waiter, you're
a jerk. I love that line.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
That is truth, man, That is so. That is the
world we live in right now, right, I mean everyone will.
I see it all the time, and I'm sure you
get it as a big shop radio host.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Right.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Everyone wants to come and say, oh, come to this,
come do this, come do that. But if you're nice
to me and you are a jerk to the waiter,
I tell my kids all the time, a derk. We
have a rule in my house that when you get
into college, if not before, you need to go get
a job. And why because I want you to serve people.
I spent you know, one of the second magic trick
in the book is about what you have to make disappear.

(08:32):
And I know that once you serve somebody, you won't
be a jerk hopefully again. And when I was, and
the thing you have to make disappear for the magic
trick is your fear. And when I was in high school,
I spent four years working at the Hogendaws and the
Avenger am All, and I remember this. This woman came
up to me and she starts snapping her fingers at me,

(08:53):
and she says, you got to serve me. And I said, ma'am,
you know I'll be right with you in a moment.
She said no, no, no, you need to serve me now.
And I said, ma'am, you know you're being rude. I'm
not going to serve you. And she starts screaming at me.
Ross She starts going, You're going to be working at
this miserable ice cream store for the rest of your
miserable life. And I said, ma'am, if I am working
here for the rest of my miserable life, you're still

(09:15):
never getting any ice cream. And I used to laugh
telling that story, saying, oh, you know, what she said
didn't bother me, but it completely bothered me. It absolutely
you know, my dad we had no money growing up.
My dad really struggled financially. It made me feel like
my life was going to be his life. Made me
feel small, made me feel like I wasn't going to
be successful. But that woman, she drove me. It was

(09:39):
like rocket fuel for me. And that's what you have
to do with your fear and not make it disappear.
But you have to use your fear. You have to
harness it, don't vanquish your critics, prove them wrong.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
That's fabulous.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Brad Meltzer's new book is called Make Magic, The Book
of Inspiration You didn't know you needed. It's an awesome
little book, and sure is a good time for a
message like that. Actually, you know, since I do what
I do for a living and there's a lot of
stuff going on in the world that's pretty intense and
it's my job to talk about it, and it does

(10:15):
it wears on you a bit. Brad, I have to
say I love my job. I absolutely love my job.
Talking about difficult, intense stuff for hours a day every
day is.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Difficult.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
And I think a lot of people I'm just getting
personal here for a second. I think a lot of
people probably look at radio talk show hosts as more
or less like robots. Right, Okay, it's your job to
just talk about something, to just go talk, But many
of us are actually people, and when we need to
talk about war, or the stock market being down so much,

(10:53):
or whatever cultural issue is going on, or a mass shooting,
and we've had more than our share of them in Colorado.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
It's it's it's difficult, it's draining, and so the world
has been a bit like that lately, and so your
book got into my hands at a moment where it
really helped.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
So I wanted to thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Now, listen, I owe you a thank you. I mean,
the fact that you can say that on air to
your listeners is what makes you who you are. That's
why they listen. Anyone can go and report bad news,
but people, you know, it's a scary time in the
world right now, and you know, let's just say it.
The third magistrick in the book is what you just
spoke about. It's it's taking one thing and turn it

(11:41):
into something else. And that's where I said, let's talk
about empathy, because that's what empathy is, right, what you
just spoke about it, it's it's putting yourself in someone
else's shoes and trying to look through and see what
their life is like. And when I was in when
I was thirteen years old, my dad lost his job
and we had nothing left.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Nothing.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
We had lived with my grandmother because we don't even
have money for a security deposit to get in at
an apartment and it was six of us. My mom,
my dad, my sister, myself, and two grandparents live in
a one bedroom apartment in Florida. We moved down to
Florida and all the people in the condominium were trying
to get us evicted. They were like, there's too many
people in a one bedroom. You can't do that. And

(12:20):
this one neighbor across the hallway from my grandmother came
to her and said, I want you to use my
apartment for your family.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Take it.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
She moved out and literally gave her apartment to my
grandparents so my family could have some space so we
won't be evicted. It was the nicest thing anyone ever
did for me in my whole life. And her name
was Mercy, but as a kid, I always heard her
name as Mercy, and make no mistake, mercy and empathy
is what she showed me. And what you were just
talking about, you know, cruelty and venom, harshly judging those

(12:51):
we disagree with. Let's become sport in our culture. But
cruelty and venom are on signs of strength. There are
signs of weakness and petty and security. What takes strength
is empathy. What takes strength is what you just did,
showing and saying it's okay to mint it's hard. That's
when we're not alone. And if we can all do that.
You know, we spend all of our time, like you,
I write, I deal with big issues every day and

(13:12):
my thrillers like you know, my kid's books. I'm done
with issues of racism and hatred and the Holocaust.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
We did.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
I am Frank. I mean these horrible issues and it
wears on me too. But we when we acknowledge that
we're all in this together. You know, we spend so
much time. You can't change other people. That is just
the rule. You cannot change anyone else. The only thing
you can change is yourself. And you know, here's the
thing about empathy. Scientifically, it's proven that if you want

(13:42):
more empathy, all you got to do is want to
have more empathy. That's how it works. It's why freshman
year at college you make more friends. Why because you're
open to making more friends. So the more you and
I open up, the more people listening open up and say,
you know what, I'd rather see the best than see
the worst in people. That's how the world gets to
be a better place. It's not by shouting at each other.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Folks, I encourage you to go buy and read Brad
Meltzer's new book, Make Magic. And and actually I don't
say this very often about books, but this book in
particular would be just a wonderful gift. Not just for yourself.
Get it for yourself as a gift, but get it
for somebody else as a gift. I think you'll really
love it. The link is on my blog to you know,

(14:25):
get over to Amazon and buy it. But Brad Meltzer's
new book is called Make Magic. Brad, thanks thanks for
a really interesting book that, like I said, got to
me when when I really needed it.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
So I appreciate it, and I appreciate your friendship.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Always my brother, always, Ross, I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
All right, thank you. That's that's a great Brad Meltzer.