📄 Extracted Text (26,674 words)
[00:00:02] [music]
[00:00:05] O Pearlman,
[00:00:07] Sean Ryan.
[00:00:07] >> I'm scared to death right now.
[00:00:09] [laughter]
[00:00:12] >> So,
[00:00:12] >> wait, I got to tell them one thing. Can
[00:00:13] I tell them what happened? So, I got in
[00:00:15] here, which is, by the way, this room is
[00:00:17] incredible. This is unbelievable. They
[00:00:18] showed me some history. I walked in. You
[00:00:20] got in here, I don't know, several
[00:00:22] minutes ago, I would say. And I made a
[00:00:23] point of this. I put this down. You guys
[00:00:25] were gracious enough to put my book
[00:00:27] here. I took this out of my pocket. Can
[00:00:29] we time stamp this? This is exactly what
[00:00:30] I said to you. And I said, I'm putting
[00:00:32] this down right here. You've not opened
[00:00:34] this. You've not seen what's in here.
[00:00:35] It's going to stay there the whole time.
[00:00:37] And I said, before I take this out of my
[00:00:39] pocket, you do not make a decision. You
[00:00:42] do not have a thought. Nothing occurs
[00:00:45] before that moment. Do you agree? Like
[00:00:47] Hannah in the Bible, I didn't set
[00:00:48] anything up. I didn't tell you what to
[00:00:49] do. This has been sitting there since I
[00:00:50] walked in this room. True story.
[00:00:52] >> True story.
[00:00:53] >> Okay. You know what? I don't want to
[00:00:54] touch it again. Can I put it on your
[00:00:55] side so I can't do any fishy stuff? No,
[00:00:57] you grab it.
[00:00:58] >> You want me to grab it?
[00:00:59] >> I don't want to touch it again cuz I
[00:01:01] need them to know that nothing has
[00:01:02] happened before and this is in your
[00:01:04] possession.
[00:01:05] >> Nothing has happened before.
[00:01:07] >> Somebody has been in this room from my
[00:01:09] team the entire time.
[00:01:13] Plus whoever's been watching it on the
[00:01:15] cameras.
[00:01:16] >> There's cameras everywhere. So, I'm I'm
[00:01:18] in trouble.
[00:01:18] >> They may have even been recording this
[00:01:20] entire time. So,
[00:01:20] >> good.
[00:01:22] >> All right,
[00:01:23] >> that's it. Keep that for later.
[00:01:24] >> Just keep it here. This represents past,
[00:01:26] present, and future. Have it just where
[00:01:28] we can see it in the shot the whole
[00:01:29] time.
[00:01:29] >> All right. All right. Right here. Right
[00:01:33] up front.
[00:01:35] You got that? Okay.
[00:01:38] >> All right. Is that it? We moving on.
[00:01:40] >> To have a little razledazzle. Something
[00:01:42] Something's going to mean something to
[00:01:43] you in the future. I have a real feeling
[00:01:44] it will.
[00:01:45] >> Okay. Yeah.
[00:01:46] >> Perfect. Perfect.
[00:01:49] All right.
[00:01:50] So, we're we're good.
[00:01:52] >> We're good.
[00:01:52] >> Okay. Good. [laughter]
[00:01:55] That was the hook, folks. You better not
[00:01:57] You better wait till the end of the
[00:01:58] podcast. Anybody who turns this off in
[00:02:00] the middle and doesn't watch the whole
[00:02:01] YouTube video is going to miss out on
[00:02:02] everything.
[00:02:03] >> Right on. All right, everybody starts
[00:02:05] with an introduction here. O Pearlman,
[00:02:08] the world's top mentalist who's blown
[00:02:10] minds on the biggest stages around the
[00:02:11] world. Went from Wall Street to
[00:02:13] full-time mentalist. had an Emmy-winning
[00:02:15] TV special, viral clips viewed billions
[00:02:18] of times, and freaked out a client list
[00:02:20] of politicians, athletes, and Fortune
[00:02:23] 500 CEOs. An endurance athlete who won
[00:02:26] the New Jersey Marathon four times, ran
[00:02:30] ultramarathons, a Spartan, and a
[00:02:33] marathon PR of 2 hours 23 minutes, and
[00:02:36] 52 seconds. New York Times best-selling
[00:02:39] author of the book Read Your Mind:
[00:02:42] Proven Habits for Success from the
[00:02:44] World's Greatest Mentalist. Husband to
[00:02:47] Alisa, father of five children. Dude, it
[00:02:51] just keeps going. And I can't wait to
[00:02:53] hear what you PR rep. That sounds better
[00:02:55] than anything I could put together.
[00:02:57] [laughter]
[00:02:58] >> I can't wait to hear what you got to say
[00:02:59] on Monday Night Football tonight.
[00:03:01] >> Tonight.
[00:03:01] >> It's the Dolphins, right?
[00:03:02] >> Dolphins. Yes, indeed.
[00:03:04] >> Nice. And uh so my really good friend
[00:03:08] Mr. Ballin,
[00:03:09] >> I texted him before I got here.
[00:03:10] >> Did you really?
[00:03:11] >> What a sweetheart, man. What a great
[00:03:13] dude. I really just me and John
[00:03:15] connected. I love that guy.
[00:03:16] >> So he connected us.
[00:03:18] >> Yep.
[00:03:18] >> Said you would blow my mind.
[00:03:21] >> So I'm I'm I get nervous for all these.
[00:03:24] Now I'm really [ __ ] nervous. So
[00:03:27] >> mine is more high stakes than usual,
[00:03:28] right? Normally we just interview, but
[00:03:30] I've got uh things that we'll see if if
[00:03:32] I can guide your mind in a certain
[00:03:33] direction.
[00:03:34] >> Right on. Right on. Well, a couple
[00:03:36] things uh before we before we get
[00:03:38] rolling here. So, everybody gets a gift.
[00:03:41] >> Nice.
[00:03:43] Thank you.
[00:03:43] >> Vigilance Elite Gummy Bears.
[00:03:45] >> I just saw this on your story. Terrific.
[00:03:48] >> Legal in all 50 states.
[00:03:50] >> Legal?
[00:03:51] >> Yep.
[00:03:51] >> Love it.
[00:03:52] >> Yep.
[00:03:52] >> Why would it not be legal?
[00:03:55] >> Some states haven't legalized marijuana
[00:03:57] yet, you know.
[00:03:57] >> Oh, got it. [laughter] But uh but
[00:04:00] [clears throat] uh anyways, so and then
[00:04:02] we have a Thank you. You're welcome. We
[00:04:05] have a Patreon account, subscription
[00:04:07] account. Uh we've turned it into one
[00:04:09] hell of a community and they're the
[00:04:10] reason that I get to sit down with you
[00:04:12] today. So we offer each and every we
[00:04:16] offer them the opportunity to ask each
[00:04:17] and every guest a question. This is from
[00:04:20] Tyler Wilson.
[00:04:22] If everything you do is about showing
[00:04:24] people how predictable they are, what
[00:04:26] illusion do you still believe about
[00:04:28] yourself?
[00:04:31] H
[00:04:33] I believe that at some point I will
[00:04:35] hopefully be uh I will have fulfilled my
[00:04:37] ambition and drive. But I don't think
[00:04:39] that's I think that's an illusion
[00:04:40] because I just keep every time I hit a
[00:04:43] level that I thought I could never hit,
[00:04:45] it just makes me want more, which is I
[00:04:47] think the eternal the eternal drive, the
[00:04:49] sisophia and the rock going up the
[00:04:51] mountain because
[00:04:53] >> I think that you'll never end that that
[00:04:56] desire. I I hope you won't because then
[00:04:58] what's next? You know, you want to enjoy
[00:04:59] the present, but
[00:05:01] >> I just keep uh kind of biting off goals
[00:05:03] and trying for new ones.
[00:05:04] >> Nice. Nice. I love that. All right. So,
[00:05:08] I want to do a life story on you.
[00:05:10] >> Okay.
[00:05:11] >> Where'd you grow up?
[00:05:12] >> I grew up in Well, I grew up in a bunch
[00:05:14] of places. So, I was born in Israel. I
[00:05:16] moved to the US when I was three. My dad
[00:05:18] was actually in the Navy.
[00:05:20] >> Did you ever see the movie Munich? Do
[00:05:23] you know the one with Eric Bana?
[00:05:24] >> Yeah.
[00:05:25] >> It's funny.
[00:05:25] >> Long time ago.
[00:05:26] >> Yeah. Yeah. So, the story with that the
[00:05:28] Olympics, right, in Munich where the PLO
[00:05:30] they they killed a bunch of Israeli
[00:05:32] athletes. So they made this movie where
[00:05:33] they they went and we're going to
[00:05:35] assassinate all of those people. Have
[00:05:37] you ever seen it's a great movie if you
[00:05:38] haven't seen it in a while? It holds.
[00:05:40] >> Mhm. So my dad was in the Navy and
[00:05:42] there's a character in that there's a
[00:05:43] scene in that movie where my dad he's
[00:05:45] not a speaking role but you see my dad
[00:05:47] like my dad said to me I'm that guy in
[00:05:50] the movie right now before we dropped
[00:05:52] like the rubber dingy kind of I don't
[00:05:53] know what the the term is that dropped
[00:05:55] them off and it's the it's the parallel
[00:05:57] to what you guys like the SEAL team six
[00:05:59] in Israel the se
[00:06:01] >> so Barak famously dressed as a woman and
[00:06:03] went in and they they took out one of
[00:06:05] the guys so my dad was the second in
[00:06:07] command of that of that like small boat
[00:06:09] that dropped them off.
[00:06:10] >> Holy [ __ ]
[00:06:11] >> So, my dad came here in like a military
[00:06:13] exchange program and was designing kind
[00:06:16] of amphibious bridges that that are that
[00:06:18] what you do to cross a river if you're
[00:06:20] anyway.
[00:06:21] >> So, we ended up staying in the States.
[00:06:22] It was supposed to be a two-year
[00:06:23] contract, but we stayed. We loved it
[00:06:26] here. I moved to Pennsylvania, then
[00:06:28] Wisconsin, then Michigan. So, my
[00:06:30] formative years were in the Midwest.
[00:06:32] >> Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan.
[00:06:33] >> Uh, Pennsylvania until I was in second
[00:06:36] grade. Then I went to Wisconsin for
[00:06:38] about 5 years, which I loved. Man, I had
[00:06:39] a great time in Wisconsin. That was like
[00:06:41] a great, you know, when you look at your
[00:06:43] kids now and they're on screens and
[00:06:44] there, we used to just get on bikes. I
[00:06:46] knew all the kids from my three streets.
[00:06:48] >> We would just go do crazy stuff. How we
[00:06:51] survived my childhood versus the
[00:06:53] helicopter parenting of now. We just did
[00:06:55] crazy things. I remember blowing up
[00:06:58] >> a watermelon with M80s when my parent my
[00:07:00] friend's parents weren't like my kids
[00:07:02] never are going to [laughter] know any
[00:07:03] of this. And then I lived in Michigan
[00:07:06] from high school and for college. I went
[00:07:07] to University of Michigan. Okay. So, you
[00:07:09] were when when were you in Wisconsin?
[00:07:11] Was that the
[00:07:12] >> I was in Wisconsin like my years from
[00:07:13] when I was about 8 to 13.
[00:07:16] >> Okay. Okay.
[00:07:16] >> Yeah. No, seven to 12. Right around
[00:07:18] then. Third to eighth grade.
[00:07:20] >> Right on.
[00:07:21] >> Yeah.
[00:07:21] >> And you had a twin?
[00:07:22] >> I had a twin brother, which my mom
[00:07:24] didn't tell me about until I was 12
[00:07:25] years old who died at birth. So, we were
[00:07:28] born right during a war. Like, we were
[00:07:30] really literally I was 7 km from where
[00:07:32] they were bombing like right near the
[00:07:34] hospital was bombed right when I was
[00:07:35] born. And I'm told in hindsight, because
[00:07:37] I wasn't told this when I was born, that
[00:07:38] there was I don't know if it would have
[00:07:39] been a medical malpractice, but my mom
[00:07:41] can only have twins. So, I have twin
[00:07:43] sisters. I was a twin. And there were no
[00:07:46] doctors. The doctors were all on the
[00:07:47] front lines.
[00:07:48] >> Wait, did you say your mom can only have
[00:07:50] twins?
[00:07:50] >> That's the condition. I'm told fraternal
[00:07:52] twins. She drops two eggs at a time.
[00:07:54] >> That's a thing?
[00:07:54] >> I never
[00:07:55] >> I'm not a doctor, so please somebody
[00:07:57] fact check this, but that's what she
[00:07:58] told me.
[00:07:59] >> Holy [ __ ]
[00:08:00] >> Yeah. So, so she I I don't know if
[00:08:02] that's that's like a weird thing to have
[00:08:04] where if you're like, I'm I'm getting
[00:08:05] pregnant. I'm getting two for the price
[00:08:06] of one every time.
[00:08:08] >> That would I don't know what your
[00:08:09] pullout game would be because I'd be
[00:08:10] like, there's going to be a lot of kids.
[00:08:12] >> Oh my [laughter] gosh.
[00:08:14] >> Damn.
[00:08:15] >> But uh I was a twin and I have a weird
[00:08:18] thing where again I'm not psychic. I am
[00:08:20] not supernatural. I tell people that at
[00:08:21] every interview. Mentalism is not me
[00:08:24] communicating with spirits. It is based
[00:08:26] in science. It is a learnable,
[00:08:28] repeatable skill that you could be
[00:08:29] taught. You understand? It's based on
[00:08:31] magic. So when people try to debunk me,
[00:08:34] it's the funniest thing I've ever heard
[00:08:35] because I said, "I'm debunking myself.
[00:08:37] This is not supernatural. You could
[00:08:39] learn to do this. It's based in magic.
[00:08:42] It is magic of the mind." But for some
[00:08:45] odd reason, and this I can't explain to
[00:08:46] you. I had very good intuition. And I
[00:08:48] always thought I had a twin. Now, did I
[00:08:50] overhear a conversation when I was a kid
[00:08:52] and I forgot? I don't know what I can't
[00:08:54] explain to you, but I really always
[00:08:55] thought I had a twin. My parents never
[00:08:57] told me until I became almost a teenager
[00:08:59] and my mom told me all casually and it
[00:09:01] blew my mind because I'm like, "Why
[00:09:03] didn't you tell me this earlier?" Um,
[00:09:05] >> what do you mean you always thought you
[00:09:06] had a twin?
[00:09:07] >> I Well, my sisters were twins and I
[00:09:08] always used to like an imaginary friend.
[00:09:11] Like I would always I would always play
[00:09:13] act that I had a twin. I I wrote stories
[00:09:15] about it. I was a kid. It was It's
[00:09:16] creepy. It's creepy in hindsight, but my
[00:09:19] twin died at birth. Um, it was still
[00:09:21] born, but he was alive a week before
[00:09:23] during the ultrasound. So today, this
[00:09:26] would be like a major lawsuit. This
[00:09:27] would be, you know, malpractice. I don't
[00:09:29] know the details of what happened, but I
[00:09:32] was not supposed to be named. Uh, my
[00:09:34] name is Oz. It looks like Oz, but in
[00:09:36] Hebrew, it means brave and strong. It's
[00:09:38] it's like a biblical name. And they
[00:09:40] weren't going to name me that, but I was
[00:09:41] I was named that because I survived and
[00:09:43] the other twin didn't. So, they changed
[00:09:44] it to me being like brave and strong.
[00:09:46] And that's the meaning even though my
[00:09:48] physique does not really elicit brave
[00:09:50] and strong. Got to hit the weight room.
[00:09:52] But that is been a defining part of my
[00:09:54] life is kind of that I I survived.
[00:09:57] >> Wow.
[00:09:58] >> Damn. That's So did you ever vocalize
[00:10:01] that you thought you had another twin
[00:10:03] >> all the time? Yeah. I mean I kind of
[00:10:05] play
[00:10:05] >> twin. What's that?
[00:10:06] >> Or a twin. Not another twin. A
[00:10:08] >> just just me and it was two boys. It was
[00:10:10] fraternal twins. Not identical.
[00:10:12] >> So why did they tell you at age 12? Did
[00:10:15] you Did
[00:10:15] >> you have to have a mom in here? I can't
[00:10:17] understand that because I think it was
[00:10:19] too painful of a memory for them. for
[00:10:21] them it was very painful to have lost
[00:10:22] like a baby and to have lost a baby at
[00:10:25] that stage and I mean I can I mean a lot
[00:10:27] of people I think have had miscarriages
[00:10:29] it's very common but even you know
[00:10:30] losing a baby in the process is pretty
[00:10:33] difficult to have lost a baby when you
[00:10:35] know you got the room ready two beds you
[00:10:36] know everything I think it was very um
[00:10:39] >> I don't know I maybe my mom told me she
[00:10:41] didn't know how to tell me
[00:10:42] >> yeah I was just curious if you were a
[00:10:44] press of them I mean you're writing
[00:10:46] stories about the twin I would imagine
[00:10:48] every single time you write a story,
[00:10:50] talk about it. There's a conversation
[00:10:52] between your mom and dad going, "We
[00:10:54] should probably tell them."
[00:10:55] >> I, you know, it's weird that now as a
[00:10:57] parent, I haven't really addressed it
[00:10:58] with them and the mindset. It was kind
[00:11:01] of, you know, in certain families how
[00:11:03] certain things I don't want to say are
[00:11:04] taboo, but once you hear you kind of, we
[00:11:06] don't talk about this with grandma, you
[00:11:07] know, like there's certain things, for
[00:11:08] some families, it's money. For some
[00:11:10] families maybe someone in the family is
[00:11:12] gay. Like there's different things that
[00:11:13] become taboo and they shouldn't be. You
[00:11:15] should shine a light on them. But for
[00:11:17] us, after we told after I was told, I
[00:11:20] just
[00:11:21] I was kind of I was so shocked that I
[00:11:23] hadn't been told before that we really
[00:11:25] didn't address it for a while cuz I
[00:11:26] think there was residual anger.
[00:11:28] >> Gotcha. Gotcha. So, how you got into
[00:11:31] this stuff? What do you What do you
[00:11:33] Magic?
[00:11:34] >> Magic. Yeah.
[00:11:34] >> At a very young age. Correct.
[00:11:36] >> Not as young as a lot of people. I was a
[00:11:37] teenager. I was 13.
[00:11:39] >> Well, what were you into before magic?
[00:11:41] >> Annoying my sisters, I would say, is my
[00:11:43] older sisters. Uh, I was a swimmer since
[00:11:46] I was really young.
[00:11:48] I played Nintendo a lot. I was really
[00:11:50] good at math. So, I have a very weird
[00:11:53] thing where I was kind of uh I don't
[00:11:55] want to say false hum I was a
[00:11:56] mathematical genius as a child.
[00:11:58] >> No kidding.
[00:11:58] >> And it was almost like savant level
[00:12:00] genius. So, I I skipped fourth grade
[00:12:03] which I always like to tell my kids my
[00:12:05] claim to fame is I won the fourth grade
[00:12:07] spelling be when I was in third grade.
[00:12:09] So, [laughter] I was like, "What nerd
[00:12:11] level are you?" 12 out of 10.
[00:12:14] and and I was really good at math, but I
[00:12:17] wasn't in a nerdy way. It just was like
[00:12:19] my mind worked [clears throat] in a
[00:12:21] certain way where math was easy and I
[00:12:23] did it naturally. If I anytime I walked
[00:12:26] upstairs in a building, I'd count the
[00:12:27] stairs kind of like it's [clears throat]
[00:12:30] really savant style. It's not really I
[00:12:32] don't think I was on the spectrum. But
[00:12:34] even when I was young, when I was seven,
[00:12:35] I started to understand how arithmetic
[00:12:37] worked and math and how it was the
[00:12:38] language of the world. And I noticed
[00:12:40] that I'd always asked my mom, "Why when
[00:12:43] you order the groceries, isn't it the
[00:12:45] same number as all this stuff?" And she
[00:12:47] goes, "Oh, there's tax and what are
[00:12:49] percentages?" And so I started to learn
[00:12:51] that the percentage is you multiply it
[00:12:53] by this. And this is in like second
[00:12:54] grade. And I would challenge myself when
[00:12:57] we're at the grocery store to add all
[00:12:58] the items, add the tax, and figure out
[00:13:01] what the price would be before they did
[00:13:02] on the machine. And then I'd say, "Oh,
[00:13:04] my mom's going to give them 100 bucks.
[00:13:06] It's 87.26." Boom. In my mind, I
[00:13:08] instantly know that's going to be 1374
[00:13:10] back. How many dollars? How many cents?
[00:13:12] Like it was it was a game I played with
[00:13:14] myself. Not to impress anyone else. It
[00:13:16] was just how my mind worked
[00:13:18] >> really.
[00:13:18] >> And that has been very very effective at
[00:13:21] what I do for a living because my mind
[00:13:23] can hyperfocus on what are the outcomes
[00:13:26] that could happen when I do something
[00:13:28] and I try to plan for all the
[00:13:29] eventualities.
[00:13:30] >> That's interesting. And you that
[00:13:34] happened that was happening in second
[00:13:35] grade.
[00:13:36] >> Nobody forced me. This isn't like the
[00:13:37] stage mom that's like get out there kid
[00:13:39] be an actor. I just that's what I did.
[00:13:43] You know, everyone's kind of different.
[00:13:44] I always see the movie when I see the
[00:13:45] born identity and Matt Damon, do you
[00:13:47] know the scene where he lost his memory?
[00:13:49] He's in like a diner and he doesn't know
[00:13:52] what he does and he goes, "Why is it
[00:13:53] that I can tell you right now?" His
[00:13:55] situational awareness is insane. That
[00:13:58] guy's 300 lb. This person I could run
[00:13:59] the like he knows everything that's
[00:14:01] going on in a room in a hyper
[00:14:03] concentrated way instantly. the way I'm
[00:14:05] assuming a military operator would be
[00:14:06] paid to do. But that for me when I'm
[00:14:09] performing I'm doing the same thing
[00:14:11] assessing my crowd. And I think from a
[00:14:13] young age I would do that mathematically
[00:14:15] in a certain way.
[00:14:17] >> Wow. That's that's [laughter]
[00:14:19] interesting. Yeah. Most most trade
[00:14:22] military people can't uh pull off what
[00:14:24] happened in that scene,
[00:14:25] >> right?
[00:14:25] >> To include myself. So
[00:14:27] >> Well, that's why it's entertainment.
[00:14:28] >> Yeah. But uh man, holy [ __ ] So what
[00:14:32] what got what what other what did you
[00:14:34] what got you into it?
[00:14:36] >> So I saw a magician. We went on a
[00:14:38] cruise. Um which was instead of me
[00:14:40] having in lie of like a big party for my
[00:14:41] 13th a bar mitzvah and we didn't really
[00:14:43] have a lot of money. So this was the
[00:14:45] first time we'd ever gone on a cruise.
[00:14:46] We saved up a bunch of money. My folks
[00:14:48] were not doing well. They actually got
[00:14:50] divorced. This was like a tough time. So
[00:14:52] we went on the cruise and and they've
[00:14:54] gotten back [clears throat] together.
[00:14:55] This is a weird thing for my bar mitzvah
[00:14:57] to try to like re to make things go
[00:14:58] better before they blew up again. Long
[00:15:01] story short, we go on the cruise,
[00:15:02] there's a magician on board. I have
[00:15:04] never seen a magician in person that I
[00:15:06] can recall in my life. I think I saw
[00:15:08] David Copfield once on TV, but like it
[00:15:10] didn't connect the same way. And this
[00:15:12] guy brought me up on stage. He did a
[00:15:15] classic trick in magic called the sponge
[00:15:17] balls. It's a well-known slight of hand
[00:15:19] magic trick. You could It's a It's a
[00:15:21] beginner trick. You put a ball in my
[00:15:23] hand, you put a ball in his hand. We
[00:15:24] close hands, he does alakazam, hocus
[00:15:26] pocus. Bam. I have two balls in my hand.
[00:15:28] His disappeared.
[00:15:31] I and he does this to me a few times. I
[00:15:34] go back to my seat and it is akin to
[00:15:37] what I think people that are born again
[00:15:38] like you've seen Jesus like I don't know
[00:15:41] what just happened but I have to figure
[00:15:43] out how that happened and I have to
[00:15:45] learn how I can do that too. So when we
[00:15:48] got and I also stalk this guy. It's in
[00:15:50] my book and it's a funny line where I
[00:15:52] say there is there is shockingly very
[00:15:55] few places a grown man can hide on a
[00:15:57] cruise ship when a teenager is
[00:15:59] determined to find them. [laughter]
[00:16:00] >> So I was stalking this guy. His name is
[00:16:03] Doug Anderson. We didn't really keep in
[00:16:04] touch. Shout out to him because, you
[00:16:06] know, for him, one quick trick on a boat
[00:16:09] changed the course of my life, which I
[00:16:11] always remember that when I meet
[00:16:13] somebody who's young and does what I do,
[00:16:15] look them in the eyes, remember their
[00:16:16] name, give them that attention and
[00:16:18] respect that I would another adult
[00:16:19] because you might be changing this
[00:16:21] person's life. you know, his passing two
[00:16:24] minutes on cruise ship has set in motion
[00:16:26] the fact that I'm able to live my dream,
[00:16:28] support my family, and it's wild how
[00:16:30] that does, you know, that little thing
[00:16:32] can make such a big difference in
[00:16:33] someone else's life.
[00:16:34] >> But I got back home, I went to the
[00:16:36] library, I checked out every book like
[00:16:38] magic. I checked out as many as I could.
[00:16:39] I went home cover to cover, read them,
[00:16:42] you know, little post-it notes. Like, I
[00:16:44] was obsessed. I bought the books at
[00:16:46] Borders at that was the store by me.
[00:16:48] It's out of business since, but I was
[00:16:49] just for the next year. That's all I did
[00:16:51] was magic all the time, card tricks. Uh,
[00:16:54] I started doing rope tricks a little
[00:16:56] bit, like stuff that was cheap, coin
[00:16:57] tricks, and just learning how to do
[00:16:59] slight of hand.
[00:17:00] >> Wow.
[00:17:00] >> Yeah. My mom, God bless her. My dad to
[00:17:03] some degree has picked a card, any card,
[00:17:06] about 8 million times. [laughter]
[00:17:09] Like, I just just you do the trick. No,
[00:17:10] no, you pick it, mom. Like, oh, and my
[00:17:12] grandma came to visit us when my folks
[00:17:13] got divorced, and she was just my best
[00:17:15] audience ever, too.
[00:17:17] >> I'll bet you got good really fast.
[00:17:19] >> I don't think so. I think I sucked.
[00:17:21] Really?
[00:17:21] >> Oh yeah. You know, even now I look at
[00:17:23] videos of me two, three, four years ago
[00:17:25] and I'm a perfectionist. I go, "Oh god,
[00:17:27] I could have done that better, that
[00:17:28] better." I was on Jimmy Fallon a few
[00:17:30] weeks ago and uh I it still pains me
[00:17:33] because the day after I was on, I go, "I
[00:17:35] could have done this so much better."
[00:17:36] Oh. And my wife's like, "You killed it.
[00:17:38] You don't." And I'm like, "I'm going to
[00:17:39] beat myself up because I just know this
[00:17:41] one thing I could have done different
[00:17:42] that I should have thought that day."
[00:17:43] But you know, I'm constantly It's the
[00:17:46] what you asked me earlier. I always am
[00:17:47] trying to improve. Right on, man. Right
[00:17:50] on.
[00:17:50] >> I think it's been a secret to success.
[00:17:54] >> High expectations, right?
[00:17:55] >> Right. I mean, you've got some, too.
[00:17:57] >> Look at this. This podcast. Look, we're
[00:17:59] not talking linear growth. We're talking
[00:18:01] hockey stick, baby.
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[00:21:13] >> How do how do you put it all together? I
[00:21:15] mean, when does it start? Does it start
[00:21:16] on the approach?
[00:21:17] >> So, I the magic thing. Uh, you mean like
[00:21:20] where where did I get to where I am
[00:21:22] today? Like where?
[00:21:23] >> So my first kind of hustle was I needed
[00:21:26] to make money and I was 14. My folks had
[00:21:29] split up and magic tricks are very
[00:21:31] expensive. That's the barrier to entry.
[00:21:34] Otherwise you So you trick and you're
[00:21:35] like I want to learn how to do that. So
[00:21:37] most of the time they make it expensive.
[00:21:38] So if you go to a magic store they weed
[00:21:40] out the people that just want to know
[00:21:42] how it's done
[00:21:43] >> from the magicians.
[00:21:45] >> So you have to pay to learn it. And so
[00:21:47] it was very expensive for a 14-year-old
[00:21:49] to get a lot of the tricks I wanted. I'd
[00:21:50] go to the store. There was a store in
[00:21:52] Royal Oak, Michigan called the
[00:21:53] Wonderground. And I just couldn't, you
[00:21:56] know, my mom's not dishing out cash. I
[00:21:57] don't have cash. So I started working. I
[00:21:59] was I started working very young. I
[00:22:01] worked at a place called Bean and Bagel.
[00:22:03] Uh making bagel sandwiches and uh
[00:22:06] cleaning the toilets, which was kind of
[00:22:07] what they did to the first person to the
[00:22:09] newest employee. And I volunteered. I
[00:22:10] actually had to clean toilets at my
[00:22:11] house. I'm like, not a big deal. I I do
[00:22:13] this at home. And that I started working
[00:22:15] at a restaurant that was near my house
[00:22:17] that was about a half mile away. It was
[00:22:19] an Italian-owned restaurant and it
[00:22:21] wasn't a chain. I somehow learned early
[00:22:23] on, I don't know how I realized this,
[00:22:25] that I got to sweet talk them into
[00:22:26] hiring me. And who's going to want to
[00:22:28] hire a 14-year-old who's never done this
[00:22:30] before to go tableto, there was another
[00:22:33] place called Max and that is a chain and
[00:22:36] they had a magician. So that's what got
[00:22:37] the idea in my head. I could go there. I
[00:22:39] could get tips and I could hand out
[00:22:40] business cards and start doing parties
[00:22:42] cuz people would see me and be like,
[00:22:43] "Oh, can you do a kid's birthday party?"
[00:22:44] I go, "Sure, I can." Like, "How much do
[00:22:46] you charge?" And I tried to get some
[00:22:48] competitive intel and charge cheaper
[00:22:49] than my competition. So, I charge about
[00:22:52] 125 bucks, which was so much money in
[00:22:55] 1996 for a kid to make. You know, I'm
[00:22:57] making minimum wage at the bagel store.
[00:22:59] That's me working. And you have you can
[00:23:00] only work so many hours. So, I go into
[00:23:03] this restaurant. I walk there. I don't
[00:23:06] have a car. I'm 14. And I somehow know
[00:23:09] how to just approach. I kind of think I
[00:23:12] start thinking like they are. Don't go
[00:23:13] during dinner when it's busy. The
[00:23:14] manager is not going to give me the time
[00:23:15] a day. Don't go during the lunch shift
[00:23:18] when they're busy too with all the
[00:23:19] people from corporate. So I went in
[00:23:20] right after school with my mom at about
[00:23:22] 400 p.m. Even then I knew we sat down go
[00:23:25] in with somebody else so that you're not
[00:23:27] selling. You're a customer. They have to
[00:23:28] treat you with respect. And then I
[00:23:30] started doing tricks at the bar because
[00:23:32] it was a little quieter for the
[00:23:33] bartender who's usually very kind of
[00:23:35] social and front. and I did a couple my
[00:23:37] good tricks. They go, "Oh my god, you
[00:23:38] come over. You come over." Everyone's in
[00:23:39] between shifts. So, everyone comes over
[00:23:42] and at that moment after I've done about
[00:23:43] three good tricks, they bring the
[00:23:45] manager over and that's when I'm ready
[00:23:47] to go. I do my best trick and I say,
[00:23:50] "What's your slowest night?" And they
[00:23:51] go, "I like usually Tuesday nights, you
[00:23:54] know, you know, Monday Night Football."
[00:23:55] There's And I go, "Have you had
[00:23:57] entertainment here before?" And they're
[00:23:58] like, "No." I go, "Well, I do do this
[00:24:00] everywhere. I've never done it anywhere.
[00:24:01] I'm just completely lying. Fake it till
[00:24:03] you make it." But I go, "Here's what's
[00:24:05] going to happen. I'm going to come in
[00:24:06] and I just do it for free. Why don't we
[00:24:08] do next Tuesday? Do it for free. No
[00:24:10] money. And if everyone that walks out
[00:24:12] doesn't tell you that this was amazing
[00:24:14] and that they're going to come back with
[00:24:15] their friends next time, we shake hands.
[00:24:16] We say goodbye and and no harm, no foul.
[00:24:20] What What do you have to lose?" And they
[00:24:22] go, "All right, kid. We'll let you try
[00:24:24] it." And I go in there and that was my
[00:24:26] goal that night. I don't want any tips.
[00:24:28] Everybody I would tell them when they
[00:24:29] walk out, tell them how great I was.
[00:24:30] Tell them. And if everybody walks out
[00:24:32] saying how great you are or somebody
[00:24:33] sends back a steak that's overcooked,
[00:24:35] I'm the secret weapon. You know, bring
[00:24:37] the kid over, get O's over there, do
[00:24:39] some tricks while they're waiting and
[00:24:40] now they're not as pissed at the server.
[00:24:41] I do a couple of tricks, the steak comes
[00:24:43] out, we sweeten the deal. And so I just
[00:24:45] learned early on how to sell. I I I just
[00:24:48] had this innate gift of figuring out in
[00:24:50] a restaurant how to approach people who
[00:24:52] don't want me there and how to win them
[00:24:54] over. And that's where I started. That's
[00:24:56] kind of that's literally that's a couple
[00:24:57] chapters in the book is telling you how
[00:24:59] those lessons I learned at age 14, 15,
[00:25:01] and 16 at a restaurant have allowed me
[00:25:04] to achieve success throughout the rest
[00:25:05] of my career.
[00:25:07] >> No kidding.
[00:25:07] >> I think so.
[00:25:08] >> You know what's interesting is usually
[00:25:10] people with the kind of skills that you
[00:25:12] have being really good at math, savant,
[00:25:14] all that. I mean, usually those are
[00:25:16] introverts. I think I was naturally
[00:25:19] introverted,
[00:25:20] >> but magic allowed me to open up because
[00:25:23] it gave me So, I was pretty insecure as
[00:25:26] a teenager. I was clearly a bit nerdy.
[00:25:28] And I think that when you approach
[00:25:30] somebody, there's a fear of rejection
[00:25:32] that we all have.
[00:25:33] >> Oh, yeah.
[00:25:33] >> That we all have, which is in every part
[00:25:35] of life, which is meeting somebody new,
[00:25:37] trying to ask a girl out on a date, and
[00:25:39] she's like, "No." It's like, "Oh, I
[00:25:41] mean, that hurts." Like, I'll I have to
[00:25:43] this day, I'm not going to say her name,
[00:25:44] but there's a girl I had a crush on. I
[00:25:46] was 15 and I'll never forget in French
[00:25:48] class this other girl found out that I
[00:25:50] liked her. Turned around in the middle
[00:25:51] of class and says to everybody, "You
[00:25:53] like her? She'll never date you." And
[00:25:55] she said it so loud. I was like, "Yo,
[00:25:56] yo, pump the brakes." And it was
[00:25:57] literally like somebody stabbed me. Like
[00:25:59] that hurt for years. And so that type of
[00:26:02] pain you take with you. Meanwhile, I met
[00:26:05] that same girl, not the one who was her
[00:26:07] friend, but the girl in college, and she
[00:26:09] was all over me, and frankly, she didn't
[00:26:11] look as good anymore. The the things had
[00:26:13] switched. It was like full circle. Sean,
[00:26:15] I felt very good about the fact that she
[00:26:16] wanted to date me and I didn't want to
[00:26:17] date her now. So, I was like, really?
[00:26:18] That was that's like when you come back
[00:26:20] to school at the 20 high school year
[00:26:22] reunion and you've become successful and
[00:26:24] you're like a light flex. Felt very
[00:26:26] good. But that pain you carry with you.
[00:26:30] And so when I was 14, I realized when
[00:26:32] I'd go to a restaurant and people would
[00:26:34] be mean to me and they and it's not
[00:26:35] their fault like they don't want to see
[00:26:36] me. I've approached them. They're at
[00:26:38] restaurant like, you know, I don't go
[00:26:40] away. That I couldn't take it personally
[00:26:43] because if I did, I started to get sour
[00:26:46] and angry where if two or three tables
[00:26:48] did that in a row, I would take it out
[00:26:50] on the fourth table. I'd go to them and
[00:26:52] not be nice. I'd be a jerk because I'm
[00:26:54] still residually mad at the other
[00:26:55] people. And then I couldn't make money.
[00:26:58] I couldn't earn tips. I couldn't get
[00:27:00] parties. And I wouldn't be able to buy
[00:27:01] more magic tricks. So, I realized I
[00:27:02] can't let these people dictate my
[00:27:05] success or mood. They're not in charge
[00:27:07] of my future. I am. So, I created this
[00:27:10] kind of the only way I would describe it
[00:27:12] is a split personality where I no longer
[00:27:15] took it took it personally. When you
[00:27:17] rejected me, I didn't think you don't
[00:27:19] know me owes Pearlman. [snorts] You
[00:27:20] meant this guy owes the magician. And
[00:27:22] maybe you didn't like that trick. Maybe
[00:27:24] you had a fight with your wife before I
[00:27:25] walked over to the table. Maybe you
[00:27:27] haven't eaten yet today. You're hangry.
[00:27:28] All of those excuses were a defense
[00:27:30] mechanism so that I no longer
[00:27:33] internalized the pain of you rejecting
[00:27:35] me. That happened to someone else.
[00:27:37] >> So I walk up to the next table, I don't
[00:27:39] care. I'm free and clear. And that is a
[00:27:42] superpower I have had for the rest of my
[00:27:45] career that when people will reject me,
[00:27:47] I don't take it personally. I don't even
[00:27:49] care. I'm going to overcome whatever you
[00:27:52] thought. And instead of you saying to
[00:27:54] me, "Oh, no, no, I don't want you."
[00:27:56] That's a not yet. Like that's how I
[00:27:58] convert it in my mind. I'm very keen on
[00:28:00] when people close doors in my face,
[00:28:02] that's not a no. If I'm gonna tell you
[00:28:04] that one day I'll be on a show or that
[00:28:06] this next year I'm gonna have a
[00:28:07] collaboration with the biggest
[00:28:08] influencer in the world or I'm going to
[00:28:09] make a video or a TV show. No, no, no,
[00:28:11] no, no. Those are just not yet.
[00:28:13] >> Those are just doors that are not
[00:28:15] closed. They're jammed. I just have to
[00:28:17] find the right way to pick that door and
[00:28:19] jiggle the key and crank it this way and
[00:28:20] that way and open it and it will open
[00:28:22] eventually. It's jammed. It's not
[00:28:23] locked.
[00:28:24] >> Gotcha. And I learned that at age 14.
[00:28:27] [clears throat]
[00:28:28] >> Age 14.
[00:28:29] >> I I had to Sean
[00:28:31] >> because I think
[00:28:32] >> What kind of rejection are you getting?
[00:28:33] I mean, you're just a magician at a at a
[00:28:36] maxeras.
[00:28:38] >> I don't Well, you describe Everybody
[00:28:39] describes rejection differently, but I
[00:28:41] would argue that some people things that
[00:28:43] happened to them in their childhood and
[00:28:44] teenage years, minor trauma, I mean, it
[00:28:47] could be serious trauma, I'm not telling
[00:28:48] you, will haunt you for the rest of your
[00:28:50] life. Because a lot of people, it's like
[00:28:52] a, you know, Jurassic Park, a mosquito
[00:28:54] in amber that sucks and they they suck
[00:28:56] the blood, they make dinosaurs. Like
[00:28:58] that same thing, something that happened
[00:29:00] to you years ago can haunt you for the
[00:29:02] rest of your life. I found where you
[00:29:04] will have insecurities. You'll have
[00:29:06] moments where you will doubt yourself
[00:29:08] because of doubt that someone placed in
[00:29:10] you earlier. Maybe it was a teacher that
[00:29:11] called you stupid. Maybe it was one of
[00:29:13] your parents or someone else. And now
[00:29:14] you start believing those false
[00:29:15] narratives that other people put in your
[00:29:17] head. And when you look in the mirror,
[00:29:20] you talk to yourself with the voice of
[00:29:22] someone else who put you down instead of
[00:29:24] with your own voice that lifts you up.
[00:29:26] >> Gotcha. Gotcha. That's
[00:29:30] figuring that out at age 14. That's
[00:29:32] >> I don't know if I did. It's a It's a
[00:29:33] work in motion. But I just realized that
[00:29:35] I am not going to let others be in
[00:29:37] charge of my success.
[00:29:39] >> I would be at a restaurant and I hear
[00:29:41] people say to me and it was they'd say,
[00:29:42] "Oh man, we got to have you at our
[00:29:44] party. Oh, take my business card." And
[00:29:46] mind you, I made these business cards
[00:29:47] myself. This is the era of there's no
[00:29:50] online. I'm I'm I'm a child of the8s. I
[00:29:53] went to a Kingos. I printed them myself.
[00:29:55] I had to cut them myself. I had no money
[00:29:57] shot. I'm like, if I'm giving out a
[00:29:59] business card, I want this to turn into
[00:30:00] a party. So, if somebody took that card
[00:30:02] and never called me, it haunted me. So,
[00:30:05] I realized I'm not letting them call me.
[00:30:07] Screw that. They mention, "Oh man, how
[00:30:09] great would it be at the party?" I go,
[00:30:10] "Let me take down your number. When's
[00:30:12] your party? I want to make sure I get
[00:30:13] this in my calendar right away." I'm
[00:30:14] calling you. I'm not waiting for you to
[00:30:16] call me.
[00:30:19] Smart. Smart. When did I mean so I mean
[00:30:23] how fast did the how fast did your
[00:30:25] career develop at 14? So you start doing
[00:30:28] a couple tricks at age 14.
[00:30:31] >> You start doing some stuff at
[00:30:32] maxermas.as.as.as.as.as.as.as.as.as.as.
[00:30:33] What is that?
[00:30:34] >> I wasn't Maxmas. My competitor's at max.
[00:30:36] My bad.
[00:30:37] >> That was the chain. He's the one who got
[00:30:38] me thinking I could do this, too. Okay.
[00:30:40] >> Right. You always need to see a lot of
[00:30:41] the time you need some sort of I don't
[00:30:42] want to say a mentor but you got to see
[00:30:44] the person who is who you want to be in
[00:30:47] one year, three years, 5 years, 10
[00:30:48] years, right? And try to learn from
[00:30:49] their lessons.
[00:30:50] >> Okay.
[00:30:51] >> Yeah. So I was doing the restaurant. Uh
[00:30:53] I graduated high school at 16. My my mom
[00:30:56] had actually moved back to Israel and
[00:30:58] then my dad was a new woman. I didn't
[00:30:59] get along with them. So I was in essence
[00:31:01] I moved out and I was like I was an
[00:31:04] adult. I was
[00:31:04] >> You're out at 16.
[00:31:06] >> Oh, I graduated high school cuz I I I
[00:31:07] was a July birthday. So, I started
[00:31:09] school a year early and then I I skipped
[00:31:11] a grade. So, I finished high school at
[00:31:12] 16.
[00:31:13] >> [ __ ] So, what are you doing at 16?
[00:31:15] >> I I went to college. I turned 17 that
[00:31:17] summer and I had to pay for everything.
[00:31:19] So, I had actually saved up money
[00:31:20] because I'd been doing magic since I was
[00:31:22] a kid. I had a couple other businesses.
[00:31:24] So, I was like, for lack of a better
[00:31:26] term, at the time I was pretty pissed
[00:31:27] about this. I was see all my friends
[00:31:29] buying cars and their parents buy them a
[00:31:31] car and I didn't have any of that. So, I
[00:31:33] had silver lining. I was a hustler since
[00:31:35] I was young and I had achieved success
[00:31:37] or I couldn't pay for college. So I went
[00:31:40] to school and I immediately started
[00:31:41] working at school. I worked at a place
[00:31:43] called Bees Mongolian Barbecue. Go Blue
[00:31:46] in Ann Arbor right there on Main Street.
[00:31:48] And I was working there and I was also
[00:31:50] doing all these other events. And then a
[00:31:52] buddy and I started a boat dock
[00:31:53] installation removal company. Shout out
[00:31:56] to Mark Waxburg. He's in the book too.
[00:31:58] And and this is another thing where I
[00:32:00] learned how to appeal to people, which
[00:32:03] is a skill that you can use in all of
[00:32:04] life. This book does not teach you how
[00:32:06] to be a mentalist. It doesn't teach you
[00:32:08] any tricks. It teaches you just how to
[00:32:10] know what other people are thinking. Not
[00:32:12] to trick them, but to know how to appeal
[00:32:15] to them, right? How to win them over,
[00:32:17] how to win their trust, which is what
[00:32:18] you have to do in life, right? You here
[00:32:21] have built an amazing team. How have you
[00:32:22] done that? Leadership skills, rapport,
[00:32:26] trust, right? They're hitching their
[00:32:27] wagon to you. And so in life, whether
[00:32:30] you're building a team or having
[00:32:31] clients, you have to find a way to
[00:32:34] connect with these people where they
[00:32:35] trust you. We started our company, we
[00:32:37] called it Wolverine Spartan Boat Dock
[00:32:38] Company. Why did we do that? That was a
[00:32:41] very smart choice for a couple of, you
[00:32:42] know, 18, 19 year olds because we
[00:32:45] realized we went to lakes around like in
[00:32:48] Michigan. 95% of those people had either
[00:32:51] a direct connection to either the
[00:32:53] University of Michigan or Michigan State
[00:32:54] and rooted for one of those two teams.
[00:32:56] So when we walked up to them, we
[00:32:58] immediately won them over with a joke,
[00:33:00] which is they come up to you and they
[00:33:02] go, "Oh, who's the Spartan?" Right?
[00:33:05] Because we hand out like port like uh
[00:33:07] all the like uh flyers in people's
[00:33:09] mailbox. That's all we did every
[00:33:10] Saturday morning was just put flyers in
[00:33:12] mailboxes. And as soon as they were a
[00:33:14] Michigan State grad or they cheered
[00:33:15] them, they go, "I'm working with him but
[00:33:17] not him." like, "Oh, yeah. I don't even
[00:33:18] like this guy." Like, we had a joke,
[00:33:19] right? We walked up, we'd win them over.
[00:33:21] We'd And all of a sudden, we're two
[00:33:23] cleancut college kids. We're saving
[00:33:25] money for college. This is something
[00:33:26] people can get behind,
[00:33:27] >> right? We want to give you the business
[00:33:29] instead of somebody else,
[00:33:31] >> man. It's just surprising to me. I mean,
[00:33:33] you you consider yourself a nerd,
[00:33:35] Savant, not on the spectrum, very good
[00:33:37] at I mean,
[00:33:38] >> I'm very ADHD.
[00:33:39] >> Like, whoa.
[00:33:40] >> But the spectrum, I don't think I am. I
[00:33:42] don't know. baby to be able to I mean
[00:33:44] just to to I mean what am I trying to
[00:33:46] say to to to
[00:33:48] have that much of an understanding on on
[00:33:51] on
[00:33:53] human interaction and how it works at
[00:33:55] that young of an age with the it's just
[00:33:58] um
[00:34:00] it just doesn't happen very often.
[00:34:02] >> You don't think so?
[00:34:03] >> No, not with those skills. Like I said,
[00:34:05] very uh very we just they fit with a
[00:34:09] very introverted um
[00:34:13] I don't know probably t typically uh not
[00:34:17] conf not not very confident individual
[00:34:20] would you
[00:34:20] >> I think I think confidence is something
[00:34:23] that gets developed over time
[00:34:25] >> or once you learn the right skills you
[00:34:27] can kind of fasttrack it because what is
[00:34:28] confidence confidence just building on
[00:34:30] experience something goes right you
[00:34:32] build a little bit more confidence
[00:34:33] something goes you build a little more
[00:34:35] confidence. Something goes wrong, do you
[00:34:37] take a hit to your confidence? I think
[00:34:38] some people do and some people allow
[00:34:40] that to bring them down. Especially if
[00:34:41] you take too many hits at once, you
[00:34:43] decide this isn't working. I've failed.
[00:34:45] I'm going to give up.
[00:34:46] >> Mhm.
[00:34:47] >> I think that in my career, one of the
[00:34:49] luckiest things I have, one of the
[00:34:50] biggest blessings is I get to meet so
[00:34:52] many fascinating, interesting,
[00:34:53] successful people at the top of their
[00:34:56] field and and in like literally in the
[00:34:59] world. That that's what celebrities,
[00:35:01] people who started companies,
[00:35:02] presidents, you know, hosts like TV
[00:35:05] personalities, athletes, the best of the
[00:35:07] best of the best. And across the board,
[00:35:11] if you watch them, what defines most of
[00:35:13] them?
[00:35:13] >> The ability to continue even when they
[00:35:16] fail, right? The overcoming adversity,
[00:35:18] different levels of adversity, but
[00:35:20] there's no one I've ever met who's just
[00:35:21] been spoonfed success and made it.
[00:35:24] >> Those people don't make it. That's why
[00:35:25] second generation wealthy typically are
[00:35:28] the ones who [ __ ] the bed. The company
[00:35:29] goes under, right? The third generation,
[00:35:31] they haven't been like there. You can
[00:35:33] see the parallels in life throughout
[00:35:34] where I'm worried about my kids. I don't
[00:35:37] know how you are with your kids where
[00:35:38] they're not going to have the same
[00:35:39] struggles I had because of the material
[00:35:42] success I've had. So, how do you create
[00:35:44] that adversity for them or something
[00:35:45] else that's without being difficult like
[00:35:47] that toughens them up in a certain way?
[00:35:49] >> You got any pointers?
[00:35:51] >> I'm trying to figure it out. I I I meet
[00:35:52] people all the time. I met somebody
[00:35:54] recently at just a social party where
[00:35:56] they have five he's one of five and him
[00:35:58] and his siblings all live near each
[00:36:00] other geographically within about
[00:36:01] 20-minute drive of each other and they
[00:36:03] all get along and I go yo man I want to
[00:36:05] talk to your parents honestly because
[00:36:07] that's so rare that the siblings don't
[00:36:10] have any strife because what creates
[00:36:12] strife maybe somebody marries someone
[00:36:14] that you don't get along with now we got
[00:36:16] maybe they raised their kids differently
[00:36:17] now we have squables maybe somebody's
[00:36:19] not the same socioeconomics where we
[00:36:21] can't go on vacation together is I want
[00:36:23] to go in an RV and I want to stay at the
[00:36:25] Four Seasons, right? How do you all stay
[00:36:28] close? That's winning in life.
[00:36:30] >> Yeah,
[00:36:30] >> that's I heard I've heard so many
[00:36:32] speeches at milestones. I've done 60th,
[00:36:34] 70th, 80th, I just said 90th birthday 3
[00:36:36] days ago. I've done a couple hundredth
[00:36:37] birthday parties and I sit there like a
[00:36:40] sponge. I want to soak up what those
[00:36:42] people say. And I was with a guy who's
[00:36:44] worth I don't know couple billion who
[00:36:47] had a great speech. And his speech
[00:36:49] wasn't about his flexing on his private
[00:36:50] jets and all this crap that doesn't
[00:36:52] matter. He had something goes the amount
[00:36:54] of money in your bank doesn't matter.
[00:36:55] I'll never forget the speech. He goes,
[00:36:57] "Ask yourself this when you're in your
[00:37:00] later years. Do my adult children
[00:37:02] genuinely want to spend time with me?"
[00:37:05] That's the real measure of success. And
[00:37:06] that like was an arrow in my heart. I'm
[00:37:08] like, "Wow." Ask yourself if you feel
[00:37:10] that way about your parents. And if you
[00:37:12] do, I feel like you've really won in
[00:37:15] life. You've just you've raised kids who
[00:37:17] genuinely want to be with you. And
[00:37:18] hopefully that then trickles down to
[00:37:20] their kids. And again, you don't have to
[00:37:22] have kids. I'm not saying that's the
[00:37:23] factor of what's successful in life. But
[00:37:25] for me, I said that's what I would want
[00:37:27] to do. That's where I want to be in 20,
[00:37:29] 30 years.
[00:37:31] >> That's a damn good statement, isn't it?
[00:37:33] >> Right. It's not I don't want to claim
[00:37:35] originality. I heard that from someone
[00:37:36] else and it just it hit home,
[00:37:38] >> man.
[00:37:40] That's That one's going to stick with
[00:37:41] me.
[00:37:42] >> So, when did you start I mean, when did
[00:37:44] it go from restaurant like crazy? Yeah.
[00:37:47] >> Yeah. When did it go from restaurant? I
[00:37:48] mean, when did you start kind of showing
[00:37:51] up?
[00:37:51] >> So, I did this as a as a side hustle.
[00:37:54] This was not, you know, this I never I I
[00:37:56] swear to God, I never at this point said
[00:37:58] to myself, I'm going to be a
[00:38:00] professional magician or a mentalist one
[00:38:01] day. I didn't think that was a
[00:38:03] possibility
[00:38:04] >> like on a multiple choice scantron.
[00:38:07] That's not in my for ABC D. That's in
[00:38:10] the e other because I wasn't raised to
[00:38:13] think that I could be in showbiz or have
[00:38:15] like some sort of weird career. I was
[00:38:17] very much first generation immigrant of
[00:38:19] this is the path. You get a job. You you
[00:38:23] go to college. You get good grades. You
[00:38:24] get a job. And that's what you do,
[00:38:26] right? Is that that's what people do. I
[00:38:28] don't watch a movie on on like a big
[00:38:31] screen and say, "I'm going to be that
[00:38:32] movie star one day." That's impossible
[00:38:34] for me to imagine. I just never I didn't
[00:38:36] know anyone who had done that and then
[00:38:39] heard the steps. So I always did this as
[00:38:42] a way to win people over to achieve my
[00:38:44] other goals and aims. So for example, I
[00:38:47] when I was doing interviews when I was
[00:38:49] in college, I went to school for
[00:38:50] engineering at Michigan.
[00:38:53] I feel bad for the person who was after
[00:38:55] me in a job interview. They were capital
[00:38:58] S screwed because what does my resume
[00:39:01] say? It says professional magician from,
[00:39:03] you know, 1996 to present.
[00:39:07] Imagine if you're interviewing somebody
[00:39:08] for a job, for an internship. Are you
[00:39:10] not going to be like, "Wait a second,
[00:39:12] what? You're a professional magician?"
[00:39:14] And so, right there, this is where you
[00:39:16] learn how to address people. Right
[00:39:18] there, if they go, "Well, do a trick."
[00:39:21] That's you never do a trick when someone
[00:39:22] asks you right there because you've
[00:39:24] flipped the power dynamic in any good
[00:39:26] relationship, in any good negotiation.
[00:39:29] You need to know where the power dynamic
[00:39:30] is. who's in charge in this moment? And
[00:39:32] if it's not you, how do you become in
[00:39:34] charge?
[00:39:35] >> So, in that moment, I want something
[00:39:37] from that person. I want an internship.
[00:39:40] They don't get to ask me. I would
[00:39:41] sweeten the deal and I'd say, "At the
[00:39:43] end of the interview, if we have time,
[00:39:45] I'll see if I can show you one thing."
[00:39:47] Right away, we've just switched
[00:39:48] everything. Now, they want something
[00:39:49] from me. I've also created a dynamic
[00:39:52] where I don't know that I'm going to
[00:39:53] give it to you. You now have to earn it
[00:39:55] from me. So now the way that we're
[00:39:57] talking to each other has changed a
[00:39:58] little bit where you are now trying to
[00:39:59] win me over rather than me win you over.
[00:40:01] Just the way I even said it the tactic
[00:40:03] of if we have time maybe I'll show you
[00:40:05] something. That's great. Now we've also
[00:40:07] left it to the end because if I do it at
[00:40:09] the beginning they're not going to
[00:40:11] remember anything I say after I perform.
[00:40:13] They're going to be like how did he just
[00:40:14] do that trick? And like they're going to
[00:40:16] forget all the other stuff about me that
[00:40:17] makes me a qualified candidate. But at
[00:40:19] the end, if I now do something amazing,
[00:40:22] the last thing you do for somebody is
[00:40:24] what they're going to remember the
[00:40:25] longest. The end of a movie better not
[00:40:28] suck or else the rest of the movie was
[00:40:29] terrible, right? Great movie, but the
[00:40:31] ending, oh, terrible. So, at the end, I
[00:40:35] would do one trick and I'd be about to
[00:40:36] leave and then they want to see another
[00:40:38] one, another one. So, my 15-minute
[00:40:40] interview just turned into 26 minutes.
[00:40:42] The person after me, I'm getting
[00:40:43] handshakes being like, "We'll talk to
[00:40:44] you later." And this poor guy who walks
[00:40:46] in after me, it's like shell [laughter]
[00:40:48] shocked because they're on a high and
[00:40:49] they're like, "Oh, what do you do?
[00:40:51] Nothing. Screw this kid, right?
[00:40:53] [laughter] We got the magic man coming
[00:40:54] to our company." So, I use that to and I
[00:40:57] landed like internship after internship
[00:41:00] because I [clears throat] knew how to
[00:41:01] win people over.
[00:41:03] >> It didn't hurt that I had good grades,
[00:41:04] but I just knew. So, I went to work on
[00:41:07] Wall Street. I graduated college. I I
[00:41:09] had an internship for Meil Lynch, and I
[00:41:11] worked on Wall Street. And while I was
[00:41:13] there, again, my side hustle was always
[00:41:16] doing this. Like I don't have it's like
[00:41:19] the Energizer Bunny. I don't have a way
[00:41:21] of not doing this. At that time, this
[00:41:23] was my way of networking, of meeting
[00:41:25] people. I within months of getting to
[00:41:28] New York had worked at like I got two
[00:41:30] restaurants and then at the restaurants
[00:41:32] if I saw a party, I knew that my force
[00:41:35] multiplier was meeting event planners.
[00:41:37] The event planner, you get one person at
[00:41:39] a restaurant, they give you one gig. you
[00:41:41] get the right event planner, they give
[00:41:42] you all the gigs because they hire
[00:41:44] people every weekend to do parties. And
[00:41:47] so I was hustling all the time. And I
[00:41:49] kept building and building and building.
[00:41:50] Then about two and a half years after I
[00:41:52] was working there, there's obviously
[00:41:53] steps along the way. I was working four
[00:41:55] nights a week at restaurants. I get done
[00:41:57] with my gig. I'd go and then every
[00:41:59] weekend, usually two gigs on Saturday,
[00:42:01] sometimes three, one or two on Sundays.
[00:42:03] All I did was work. But that's a good
[00:42:05] time to do it in your 20s. And so I
[00:42:07] pretty much at that point got to the
[00:42:09] point where I just said, "I'm working so
[00:42:11] much. I'm going to take a leap of faith
[00:42:13] and go for it and see if I could do this
[00:42:14] as a professional."
[00:42:15] >> Damn. Right on, man. Right on. What was
[00:42:18] your first professional? What was it?
[00:42:20] >> When I quit.
[00:42:21] >> Yeah. Your first professional gig.
[00:42:23] >> I can't So I can't remember because just
[00:42:24] the gigs blur together. There wasn't
[00:42:26] like a moment. I can tell you one very
[00:42:28] poignant moment that I'll never forget,
[00:42:29] which is I was with my girlfriend, my
[00:42:31] college sweetheart. We lived together.
[00:42:33] She had a job at Accenture, so she was
[00:42:34] like, you know, kind of corporate. And I
[00:42:36] had quit my job. I had a two-eek notice.
[00:42:39] And day one of kind of Monday morning,
[00:42:42] she gets up. She goes to to work. I, you
[00:42:45] know, I don't even set the alarm,
[00:42:46] brother. I'm like sleeping in. And I
[00:42:48] sleep in. I wake up. I think I just
[00:42:51] stayed in my pajamas. I get I I'm like,
[00:42:53] this is the life. I go get cereal. It's
[00:42:55] 10:30. I didn't have to wake up. I
[00:42:57] didn't have to take the PATH train out
[00:42:58] to Jersey City, which is where I worked.
[00:43:00] I just daytime TV and I start eating
[00:43:02] cereal and I'm watching it and I have
[00:43:07] this realization like like a like a a
[00:43:09] come to Jesus moment of I could just
[00:43:12] keep doing this right now like I could
[00:43:14] just sit here and I could tomorrow
[00:43:16] morning sleep in and I could just eat
[00:43:18] cereal. I could do whatever I want and
[00:43:20] no one is going to force me to go do
[00:43:22] anything right. I I'm I right now have
[00:43:25] no boss. It was such a liberating
[00:43:27] feeling until I realized I am my own
[00:43:30] boss. If I don't right now turn off the
[00:43:32] TV and make [ __ ] happen, nothing is
[00:43:35] going to happen for me. Right.
[00:43:37] [laughter]
[00:43:38] >> Welcome to the rest of your life.
[00:43:39] >> Exactly. There's no agent that calls me
[00:43:42] like in the movies where you go, "Oh,
[00:43:44] I'm going to make you a star, kid. Come
[00:43:46] on over. Let's take some photos." And it
[00:43:48] doesn't it's not like that. And also,
[00:43:50] there's no playbook for success at what
[00:43:52] I'm doing. There's no book that I can
[00:43:54] read. There's no get good grades, get
[00:43:57] A's, and you're going to get the job
[00:43:58] when you get out. You need to carve your
[00:44:00] own path in a career like mine.
[00:44:02] >> Mhm.
[00:44:02] >> And it took many bumps. I I don't want
[00:44:04] to tell you for a second, this is 2005.
[00:44:06] But again, these are just moments where
[00:44:08] I realized and and I try to put in my
[00:44:12] book and that I try to just give people
[00:44:13] that you have to decide you're in charge
[00:44:15] of your future. And for so many people,
[00:44:16] there's no accountability. They always
[00:44:18] have excuses for why they didn't get
[00:44:20] what they were supposed to get. He has
[00:44:21] more than me. I didn't have this. I
[00:44:23] don't that like whiny voice in the back
[00:44:24] of your head that everyone has excuses.
[00:44:27] >> The people that do well decide that even
[00:44:29] with all my excuses,
[00:44:31] >> I'm going to make this happen.
[00:44:34] >> How old were you in 2005?
[00:44:36] >> Uh uh I'm just curious. 22 22 and then I
[00:44:39] turned 23, but I was 22 when I quit my
[00:44:40] job.
[00:44:41] >> 22. So what about eight years? Eight.
[00:44:43] You started 14 I think you said.
[00:44:45] >> Oh, I had How long I had been doing
[00:44:46] this?
[00:44:47] >> Yeah. So about
[00:44:47] >> I've been semi-professional for about
[00:44:49] eight or nine years. Yeah.
[00:44:50] >> Right on. Right. So what what what mean
[00:44:53] were you how would you how would you
[00:44:55] describe your career at Wall Street? I
[00:44:57] mean
[00:44:58] >> was it big? Was it?
[00:44:59] >> No. No. I mean I was like an associate.
[00:45:01] I was not associate job. I was an
[00:45:02] analyst. Okay.
[00:45:03] >> But I was like uh I mean not to I was
[00:45:07] literally like a glorified. You could
[00:45:08] teach a monkey to have done my job. I
[00:45:10] was a project manager. I was red tape.
[00:45:12] >> I was a punching bag at a company. Like
[00:45:15] literally, I'm just a guy just
[00:45:17] >> I was on phone calls all day long to
[00:45:19] tell people far far smarter than me and
[00:45:21] far more experienced than me why they
[00:45:23] couldn't spend the money they wanted to
[00:45:24] spend.
[00:45:24] >> Okay.
[00:45:25] >> So I How much do you want to know? Like
[00:45:27] 10 seconds.
[00:45:28] >> No, I was just I was curious. The reason
[00:45:29] I'm asking is
[00:45:30] >> I was not overly successful.
[00:45:32] >> When you think of a Wall Street career,
[00:45:33] you think lots of success. And so what I
[00:45:36] was wondering is what what was going on
[00:45:38] in your magic career that that you
[00:45:40] thought, "Oh, this will do better than
[00:45:43] my career." It was a crazy It was a
[00:45:45] crazy The same way you think about it.
[00:45:46] So again, I I can tell you numbers or
[00:45:48] whatever, but I left school in 2000 and
[00:45:52] when did I get my job? So this would
[00:45:53] have been in 200 Let me 2000, right? No,
[00:45:57] what 2003 making $85,000 a year.
[00:46:00] >> Ton of money. Like crazy money to pay a
[00:46:04] 21-year-old at the time.
[00:46:05] >> And for me to quit my job, I was going
[00:46:07] to take a massive like just more than
[00:46:09] slice in half, more than slice me down
[00:46:11] to nothing. a huge risk. So you did this
[00:46:14] because it this is this is sat this is
[00:46:16] personal satisfaction.
[00:46:18] >> So I wouldn't have said that. I actually
[00:46:20] was much more practical and pragmatic.
[00:46:23] But I had a I had a conversation with
[00:46:24] somebody who was a a magician at the
[00:46:26] time who just looked at me and debunked
[00:46:29] all my crap which was all my internal
[00:46:31] baggage which we we were and he didn't
[00:46:33] do this to be nice actually. He knows
[00:46:34] who he is, but he did it just cuz he's
[00:46:36] like he's just very direct and he just
[00:46:38] broke down all my stuff, which is we we
[00:46:40] met after a magic lecture and he says to
[00:46:43] me, "What are you still doing working on
[00:46:44] Wall Street?" I was like, you know,
[00:46:46] everybody else said the opposite. Of
[00:46:47] course, work on Wall Street. That's a
[00:46:48] good job. Why would you go be a
[00:46:50] magician? And he goes, "Well, how much
[00:46:52] you making?" And you know, normally
[00:46:54] people don't ask you that kind of
[00:46:54] question. It's a little rude. He didn't
[00:46:56] care. And I'm like, "I'm making this
[00:46:57] much." And he goes, "All right, how much
[00:46:58] you making doing magic?" And you know,
[00:47:00] these are very blunt questions. I'm
[00:47:01] like, "All right, I'll tell you." And he
[00:47:03] goes, "So what do you have to do? You
[00:47:04] get one more gig a week. That's 52 more
[00:47:06] gigs a year. And what do you charge now?
[00:47:08] That's this much more money. What if you
[00:47:10] raise your rates by 20%." And I was
[00:47:12] like, you know, yeah, that's true. You
[00:47:14] know, all of my internal baggage of why
[00:47:16] I can't do it. I can't do that. I can't
[00:47:18] do that. He just broke down in one in
[00:47:20] one swoop explained to me. And he said,
[00:47:23] "Well, what do you need to make to quit
[00:47:24] your job?" I'm like, "I got to make 100
[00:47:25] grand a year." And then he just
[00:47:26] explained, "If you did this, this, this,
[00:47:28] why couldn't you do it?" And I'm like,
[00:47:29] "Yeah, you're right." But in my mind, I
[00:47:32] had never connected those dots. I just
[00:47:34] never because I was holding myself down.
[00:47:37] There was an anchor holding me down,
[00:47:38] saying, "That's not how you do life. You
[00:47:40] got to have a job." And how many people
[00:47:42] listening to this right now have a side
[00:47:43] hustle or a dream who think, "I can't do
[00:47:46] that." Well, why not? Write down on a
[00:47:48] piece of paper, why not? What do you
[00:47:50] need to do for that to be a reality? And
[00:47:52] most of the time, it's actually a series
[00:47:54] of steps. And most of them start with
[00:47:56] step one and two. And most people never
[00:47:58] even try step one. I didn't. I was just
[00:48:00] doing this on the side. And so slowly
[00:48:03] that was my first thought of I could do
[00:48:06] this. And so to answer your question, I
[00:48:08] was working around the clock. So at a
[00:48:10] certain point, I decided I have one year
[00:48:11] of money saved up easy where if I quit
[00:48:13] my job, I'm going to go for it, man. You
[00:48:16] live once. Screw it. I'm going to go for
[00:48:18] it. Do I love doing magic? Hell yeah, I
[00:48:20] love doing magic. I had one moment where
[00:48:22] somebody just asked me, ask yourself in
[00:48:24] the mirror right now, do you see
[00:48:25] yourself doing this in 20 years from
[00:48:26] now? Yes or no? Answer it immediately.
[00:48:28] My answer is no. And so that's telling.
[00:48:30] That's your who you really are at your
[00:48:32] core. So if that's it, you live once. Go
[00:48:35] for it. But at the same time, that's
[00:48:38] easier to say to a 22-year-old, if
[00:48:40] you're a 42-y old, you got kids and I
[00:48:41] got bills to pay. I don't think I would
[00:48:43] have done it.
[00:48:44] >> So timing is everything in life.
[00:48:46] >> But I was going to give it a shot, but
[00:48:48] be smart about it. Stack the deck in
[00:48:50] your favor. I had saved up money. I'd
[00:48:52] been smart as a kid. I didn't go blow
[00:48:53] all my money. I didn't go on vacations.
[00:48:55] I bought a car for two grand in cash
[00:48:57] that I had saved up. My parents didn't
[00:48:59] buy it. I didn't buy some fancy car. I
[00:49:01] bought this total piece of junk. And so
[00:49:04] I was ready when I did it to like quit
[00:49:06] and say, "I have one year to make this
[00:49:07] happen. If I don't, I'll get another
[00:49:09] job."
[00:49:09] >> What's your girlfriend saying
[00:49:11] >> at the time?
[00:49:12] >> Yeah.
[00:49:12] >> Yeah.
[00:49:13] >> She goes to work, you're like, "I'm
[00:49:14] done. I'm
[00:49:14] >> I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a
[00:49:16] pretty focused guy where once I do
[00:49:19] stuff, I don't halfass things." That's
[00:49:21] my the one thing that I have to my
[00:49:22] credit. I'm a 110% psycho. If I'm going
[00:49:25] to get into something, I don't tiptoe in
[00:49:27] the water. I dive in the deep end. So, I
[00:49:30] think the people around me all believed
[00:49:32] in me, but to what degree, I don't know.
[00:49:35] Most of them would not have told you
[00:49:36] that 20 years later I'd be where I am
[00:49:38] now.
[00:49:38] >> I don't think they would have believed
[00:49:39] me that much.
[00:49:40] >> Is this girl your wife later on?
[00:49:42] >> No. We broke up. She dumped me. Blessing
[00:49:44] in disguise. I do really like her. There
[00:49:46] was no bad blood, but she was not she
[00:49:48] was not my destiny. She married another
[00:49:50] guy. They have two kids. We were very
[00:49:51] friendly. We saw each other at a
[00:49:52] wedding. I have no ill will. It was like
[00:49:54] the best breakup I've ever had in my
[00:49:55] life. She actually just moved away and
[00:49:58] never told me she was dumping me. So I'm
[00:50:00] like, "Are we still together?" And she I
[00:50:01] was like, "I just had a realization. I
[00:50:03] don't think we're together anymore."
[00:50:03] [laughter]
[00:50:05] >> Right on, man.
[00:50:06] >> Yep. Yep. She She folded that hand and I
[00:50:09] was the hand. And then I ended up
[00:50:10] meeting my wife. So I'm It was such a
[00:50:12] blessing. I think things happen for a
[00:50:14] reason.
[00:50:14] >> How'd you meet your wife?
[00:50:15] >> I met her online.
[00:50:16] >> You met her online?
[00:50:17] >> I did.
[00:50:18] >> You didn't bust I thought for sure you
[00:50:20] were going to bust out a magic trick at
[00:50:21] a bar.
[00:50:22] >> That's what I always did. that you think
[00:50:23] I you think I learned these powers just
[00:50:25] to make money. This was [laughter]
[00:50:27] when I was 14 and a dork. I learned very
[00:50:31] quickly that girls like magic. That was
[00:50:34] that was that not right away, but I was
[00:50:35] like pick a card. How did you do that?
[00:50:37] They're giving me attention that they
[00:50:38] like me. [laughter]
[00:50:40] Uh so yeah, magic was amazing just for
[00:50:43] just meeting people and any girls, guys,
[00:50:46] anybody but like making new friends. I
[00:50:48] when I travel the world, magic is a
[00:50:50] language that transcends all boundaries,
[00:50:52] all borders, all religion, all faith,
[00:50:54] all everything. Wonder is universal.
[00:50:56] Nothing else is. Music and comedy are
[00:50:59] subjective. Think about it. You might
[00:51:01] like a comedian that I don't. You might
[00:51:02] like music that I don't. But everybody
[00:51:06] enjoys
[00:51:07] that wonder, awe. It's it's in our DNA.
[00:51:11] >> Mhm. So, I I I I
[00:51:15] normally would use magic to meet girls
[00:51:17] as my opener, but then hopefully they
[00:51:18] have to like me beyond the magic because
[00:51:19] the magic's going to run out. My
[00:51:22] girlfriend, who became my wife, date
[00:51:24] one, was not into it at all.
[00:51:25] >> No [ __ ]
[00:51:26] >> No. So, it like stripped the armor off
[00:51:27] being like, what do I I got to win her
[00:51:29] over with my personality. Holy crap. I
[00:51:31] don't even know what my personality is.
[00:51:35] >> No kidding.
[00:51:36] >> Yep.
[00:51:37] >> Right on. So, I mean, you could you
[00:51:39] could I feel like you could use this.
[00:51:41] I'm sure you do to meet just about
[00:51:43] anybody you want to target in the world.
[00:51:46] >> I think that it is um I've told people
[00:51:48] this over and over when people I used to
[00:51:50] um do a lot of barb mitzvah and like
[00:51:51] kids birthday parties and parents would
[00:51:53] tell me, "Oh, my kid does magic." I go,
[00:51:55] "I don't care if they continue with it,
[00:51:56] but if you learn two or three good
[00:51:58] tricks and the majority of magicians in
[00:52:00] this world aren't professionals. They're
[00:52:01] doctors. They're lawyers. They're
[00:52:03] teachers, the hobbyists. They realize
[00:52:05] that magic is such a great way to
[00:52:07] connect with somebody on an emotional
[00:52:08] level quickly.
[00:52:11] And that if you do something that it it
[00:52:13] it breaks through your outer facade.
[00:52:15] Most people are in a defensive mode,
[00:52:17] right? Somebody meets you, they're not
[00:52:19] meeting you yet. They're kind of meeting
[00:52:21] your representative. They don't know the
[00:52:22] real you and you're on guard. Magic
[00:52:24] allows you to smile, laugh, connect with
[00:52:27] them. And even if you just know one or
[00:52:28] two good tricks, a card trick or like
[00:52:31] something that you can do impromptu,
[00:52:32] it's such a cheat code for the rest of
[00:52:35] your life that um I've given magic
[00:52:37] lessons to kids who then they meet me 10
[00:52:39] years later and like I still know that
[00:52:40] one trick you taught me. I'm like, "How
[00:52:42] much does it help?" You go, "You have no
[00:52:43] idea. You have no idea. I'm backpacking
[00:52:45] in Europe. I just met somebody. I did
[00:52:46] this trick for them." They go, "Oh, that
[00:52:48] was amazing." And you just it opens them
[00:52:49] up.
[00:52:51] How long did it take you to realize
[00:52:54] people talk about this Neil Strauss? He
[00:52:57] wrote that book, The Game.
[00:52:58] >> That book is incredible.
[00:53:00] >> That that that was a big part of his his
[00:53:02] method, right?
[00:53:03] >> That book, that book, there's a lot of
[00:53:06] that book in here, but not for the same
[00:53:08] guys. That book has like an icky feeling
[00:53:09] for a lot of people cuz they think it's
[00:53:10] being used to just pick up women and
[00:53:12] that's duplicitous. You're you're kind
[00:53:14] of hacking their brains out. And there
[00:53:16] are elements in there where I would say
[00:53:17] are so but the core of that book, if you
[00:53:19] look at it,
[00:53:20] >> indicators of interest, iois, is how do
[00:53:23] you walk up to somebody and get them
[00:53:25] interested in you? I'm not saying
[00:53:26] romantically as a person just a human
[00:53:29] interaction. What do you do when you
[00:53:31] approach them in that first moment? Our
[00:53:33] animal instincts to know what when you
[00:53:36] walk up somebody puts them at ease or on
[00:53:38] guard. When you leave an event and you
[00:53:41] meet 10 people, 20 people, 30 people, I
[00:53:43] don't care if you're introverted,
[00:53:44] extroverted, there's always one person
[00:53:45] that stands out to you that you go, you
[00:53:48] know, you if you get in the car, you
[00:53:49] know, the debrief with your wife and you
[00:53:50] go, "Did you meet them? Oh my god, that
[00:53:52] guy was great." Right? That guy was
[00:53:53] great. What made them great? Mhm.
[00:53:56] >> Now, most people don't analyze that.
[00:53:58] I've spent 30 years analyzing that. What
[00:54:00] made that person memorable? People don't
[00:54:04] realize how important that word is.
[00:54:05] People think that I'm there to fool you.
[00:54:08] I'm not. That's not my job. I do fool
[00:54:11] people for a living. That's not my job.
[00:54:13] Amazing you. Amazing you is not actually
[00:54:16] what I do. It's kind of a side effect.
[00:54:18] And I'll tell you why. It took me years
[00:54:19] to learn this. I create memorable
[00:54:22] moments. If I create amazing moments,
[00:54:24] which is what I used to do, and I would
[00:54:26] have plateaued, I would never have
[00:54:28] achieved what I have in life and how
[00:54:30] I've gotten to the top of my field.
[00:54:32] Amazing moments, yes, you like, but you
[00:54:34] don't talk about for years to come.
[00:54:37] Memorable moments you hopefully talk
[00:54:39] about for the rest of your life. They
[00:54:41] hit you in an emotional way that
[00:54:43] connects you that you remember. Amazing
[00:54:45] movies are ones sometimes where you saw
[00:54:47] the movie, you popcorn, you had a great
[00:54:48] time. Oh my god, action movie. A week
[00:54:50] later, I say, "What happened to that
[00:54:51] movie?" You're like, you know, he did
[00:54:53] the thing where the thing you don't
[00:54:54] remember the movie.
[00:54:56] >> But memorable movies stay with you
[00:54:58] because somehow something about it
[00:54:59] connected. And most people's memories
[00:55:01] are connected to what matters to them
[00:55:03] most. Their family, their friends,
[00:55:06] moments in their life. Like I used to
[00:55:07] guess for someone a card. Pick a card.
[00:55:11] I'll tell you what the card is. Then as
[00:55:13] I became a mentalist, you didn't pick
[00:55:14] the card. I'd say think of a card, Sean.
[00:55:17] And you thought of the card. And I'd
[00:55:18] say, "Oh, it was the two of diamonds."
[00:55:19] Well, that was amazing. But I realized
[00:55:21] at a certain point that if I say, "Sean,
[00:55:22] go back in time and think of you with
[00:55:24] somebody in your family that you really
[00:55:26] cared about, somebody you've lost." And
[00:55:27] you go, "All right." And imagine you
[00:55:29] sitting down playing cards with them.
[00:55:30] Did that ever happen? You go, "It did."
[00:55:31] And I go, "Imagine them right now
[00:55:34] putting the cards in front of you." And
[00:55:35] you say to this person, "Pick up one
[00:55:37] card." And you look at it and maybe it
[00:55:39] was their favorite card. He liked it.
[00:55:40] And I say, "You're thinking of your
[00:55:41] grandfather and you were here and in his
[00:55:43] hand was two of diamonds." You will tell
[00:55:45] that story very differently than me just
[00:55:48] picking a card. It became about your
[00:55:50] grandfather, about somebody you've lost,
[00:55:52] about the two of diamonds, about the
[00:55:53] story attached to it. Now suddenly
[00:55:54] that's a story that you keep telling to
[00:55:56] other people for a long time. It has an
[00:55:58] emotional resonance and hook.
[00:56:00] >> Gotcha. Gotcha. So when you started
[00:56:03] studying this, I mean, how much of this
[00:56:05] is It sounds like a lot of it is
[00:56:07] psychology.
[00:56:09] >> I a lot of it is psychology. So a lot of
[00:56:11] it is knowing how people think.
[00:56:13] >> Mh. And that's where uh I kind of
[00:56:15] explained that as a mentalist, knowing
[00:56:17] how people think can allow me allow me
[00:56:20] knowing how people think guides me to
[00:56:22] knowing what you think or how I can get
[00:56:24] you to think what I want you to think.
[00:56:26] Right? I didn't I took some classes in
[00:56:28] psychology in school, but that's not the
[00:56:31] psychology of what I do.
[00:56:33] >> Magic is built on knowing misdirection
[00:56:37] and what people will do in a certain
[00:56:39] situation,
[00:56:41] right? group dynamics versus solo. It is
[00:56:44] infinitely harder to do something with I
[00:56:46] do with one person one-on-one like this
[00:56:48] than if I had you in a group. It's so
[00:56:50] much harder
[00:56:51] >> because the way that you can get people
[00:56:53] to behave together is very different.
[00:56:56] >> There's a level of peer pressure. Think
[00:56:58] about it. Think about just how how
[00:57:00] people will I'm sure you know it from
[00:57:02] your profession is just that one-on-one
[00:57:04] somebody behaves different than if you
[00:57:06] have a group around them because they
[00:57:07] have to they have to adhere to the
[00:57:09] group's standards. Right. People are
[00:57:11] very less likely to be a jerk in a
[00:57:13] corporate setting if their boss and
[00:57:15] their colleagues are with them. Right.
[00:57:17] >> Mhm.
[00:57:18] >> You can get them to do what you want in
[00:57:19] a different way.
[00:57:20] >> Man, it's it's it's uh
[00:57:24] this [ __ ] freaks me out. I'm definitely
[00:57:27] on still on the defensive cuz I I'm
[00:57:29] waiting for something to show up here.
[00:57:30] But
[00:57:30] >> Oh, there's going to be some stuff.
[00:57:31] We'll pepper it in. I might do some fun
[00:57:33] stuff throughout. I can't leave you just
[00:57:35] uh talking. Right on.
[00:57:36] >> That's like we got to do the show and
[00:57:38] tell. So you so you wound up you quit
[00:57:42] you quit your job. You move into
[00:57:44] becoming a magician.
[00:57:45] >> Yep.
[00:57:46] >> It's at some point you wound up on
[00:57:48] America's Got Talent. Correct.
[00:57:49] >> 10 years later. 10 takes 10 years to
[00:57:51] become an overnight success. Yeah.
[00:57:52] >> That was 10 years.
[00:57:53] >> Yep. Got to get those reps. And I tried
[00:57:55] out for those show three times. I tried
[00:57:57] out for that show three times before I
[00:57:58] got on. which is another lesson of life
[00:58:02] that so many people I always it's funny
[00:58:04] because I mentor people that do what I
[00:58:06] do and it's certain people that will win
[00:58:09] me over because a lot of people reach
[00:58:11] out and I noticed the people that have
[00:58:13] excuses it's always like the people that
[00:58:15] say to me I've had a couple guys who say
[00:58:16] to me well you know you got on America's
[00:58:18] Got Talent and so that's how your whole
[00:58:19] career started and I go I go have you
[00:58:22] tried out and they're like no and I go
[00:58:24] guess what I tried out twice before I
[00:58:26] got on and the third time took me three
[00:58:28] tries so many and one guy's like a tried
[00:58:30] out. I didn't get on. I go, "Well, did
[00:58:31] you give up?" I go, "So, you already you
[00:58:32] already gave up too early. Was that your
[00:58:34] goal?" So, I tried out for that show
[00:58:36] three times. The third time, go figure,
[00:58:38] I got third place. And that's the first
[00:58:40] part of my career where you could kind
[00:58:41] of say there was rocket fuel where it
[00:58:43] lit a spark and it started things. The
[00:58:46] momentum began. And that was 10 years
[00:58:48] ago now. So, it's kind of like every 10
[00:58:50] years big things have kind of happened.
[00:58:52] >> Right on. Right on. I mean, and where do
[00:58:55] you where do you go to study this? I
[00:58:56] mean, it sounds you kind of mentioned at
[00:58:58] the beginning, you know, you go to a
[00:58:59] magic shop, it's expensive. Most people
[00:59:01] don't want to pay that. But, I mean, to
[00:59:03] get to where to get to the level you're
[00:59:05] at, I mean, I don't
[00:59:07] >> Is that a mentor or are you able to
[00:59:09] figure all this out on your own?
[00:59:10] >> Where I'm at now is uh is very much uh
[00:59:14] innovating. So, the only thing that can
[00:59:16] separate you from your competition at
[00:59:17] certain fields is either do something
[00:59:19] better than everyone else,
[00:59:21] >> do something different than everyone
[00:59:22] else, or do both. And that's where you
[00:59:24] can really become number one. That's
[00:59:26] where you have to you have to innovate
[00:59:27] and be different and constantly keep
[00:59:29] perfecting your craft and doing new
[00:59:30] bigger things.
[00:59:31] >> Gotcha. So,
[00:59:32] >> but I think that's in any industry.
[00:59:33] >> How do you study? How do you
[00:59:34] >> So, for me, I have like a series of core
[00:59:37] foundational skills that I've learned
[00:59:39] and now I keep innovating. But the start
[00:59:41] of it was I did books and videos. Then I
[00:59:44] had a couple mentors as I went along
[00:59:46] doing magic. For mentalism, it's very
[00:59:49] different because mentalism for me is is
[00:59:53] I start with the end goal and I work
[00:59:56] backwards. I reverse engineer where I
[00:59:59] want to end up.
[01:00:00] >> Did you give me an example?
[01:00:01] >> Perfect example. So, if if I'm doing
[01:00:04] something like some of my most famous
[01:00:05] viral clips are with football teams and
[01:00:08] a great example is something I did with
[01:00:10] Joe Burrow, which is arguably one of my
[01:00:12] most viral clips. So, I said to myself,
[01:00:15] if somebody is a football fan and
[01:00:17] they're watching Monday Night Football
[01:00:19] and suddenly I come on and they're like,
[01:00:21] "Who's this guy? I want to watch
[01:00:23] football." I start with the premise of
[01:00:25] who cares about me. Nobody wants to
[01:00:26] watch me right there. They want to watch
[01:00:28] football. I need to win them over
[01:00:30] instantly. So, it's not going to be a
[01:00:32] card trick cuz who the hell cares about
[01:00:34] cards? I'm watching football. I want to
[01:00:36] know something that if I'm a football
[01:00:38] viewer, what is the holy grail? What is
[01:00:41] the holy grail? Holy Grail is that's Joe
[01:00:44] Burrow. He just signed a contract for
[01:00:45] $275 million. You know what I want to
[01:00:47] know? I want to know where he's going to
[01:00:48] throw the ball to next. Who's he gonna
[01:00:50] throw the ball to? Is he gonna do a
[01:00:51] running play or a passing play? Where's
[01:00:52] the ball going to go? That would be
[01:00:54] incredible, right? So, I decided to
[01:00:57] start with the end of I'm going to show
[01:00:58] you that I know exactly who Joe Burrow
[01:01:00] is about to throw that ball to in this
[01:01:01] room. And I'm going to make every step
[01:01:03] be more amazing than the one before. And
[01:01:05] so, I started with that as my end goal.
[01:01:08] And I worked backwards of how could I
[01:01:10] possibly pull this off? And now, how do
[01:01:12] I pull it off? Well, I'm not going to
[01:01:14] tell you that, but I'm going to tell you
[01:01:15] that the same way a chef has a series of
[01:01:17] ingredients, like I've got steak, I've
[01:01:18] got fish, I got chicken, I got tofu, I'm
[01:01:21] going to create a recipe with all these
[01:01:23] ingredients and all these little skills
[01:01:24] and tactics I have in that room of how
[01:01:27] I'm going to pull this off. And I've got
[01:01:29] to fool Joe because if Joe's not buying
[01:01:31] it, I don't get a genuine authentic
[01:01:33] reaction. He's not going to fake it for
[01:01:35] me. Anyone who says in the comments, the
[01:01:37] funniest comment was some guy goes,
[01:01:39] "Dude, totally totally scripted. He
[01:01:41] bought Joe off." And I go, "Brother, I
[01:01:44] wish I had enough money to bribe Joe
[01:01:46] Burrow to do what I want." And that
[01:01:49] comment had like 30,000 likes because
[01:01:51] it's so funny. It's so silly. Of course,
[01:01:52] this guy didn't fake it for me. He Why
[01:01:55] would he? Of course not. And then when
[01:01:57] you do that for 15 of the NFL teams and
[01:02:01] NBA teams and then I did it for Jeff
[01:02:02] Bezos recently, you know, like no one's
[01:02:05] faking it for me. That's that's why
[01:02:07] people at this point understand that
[01:02:09] this is I don't want to call it real
[01:02:11] because I'm not a real mind reader. I'm
[01:02:12] telling you that from the jump. But the
[01:02:14] skills I'm using, these are real
[01:02:16] authentic reactions. Nothing is
[01:02:17] scripted. Nothing is staged. I can't
[01:02:20] stage it. Would I stage it and script
[01:02:22] it? 100%. You kidding me? There's no
[01:02:24] moral compass that I wouldn't I would do
[01:02:26] it in a second. It would get out. It
[01:02:28] would get out. It would ruin my business
[01:02:29] if it was scripted or staged. It would
[01:02:31] faking it isn't a long-term play for
[01:02:33] success. How do you test your stuff? So,
[01:02:36] that's the best question you could have
[01:02:37] asked. Because of the volume of media
[01:02:40] that I've done, hundreds of TV
[01:02:42] appearances, some of the biggest
[01:02:44] podcasts in the world, and now the Shawn
[01:02:45] Ryan Show. I do things that are
[01:02:48] different every time. And when I make up
[01:02:50] things like I was on Howard Stern
[01:02:52] recently, the day after I was on Jimmy
[01:02:53] Fallon, both things I did were the first
[01:02:55] time I ever did them.
[01:02:56] >> Are you serious?
[01:02:57] >> I am dead serious because I can't I
[01:03:00] create things for the people I perform
[01:03:02] for. So the thing I did for Jimmy
[01:03:05] Fallon, I'd never done before.
[01:03:07] >> So the reason if you want to ask me why
[01:03:09] I'm successful, I'm going to tell you
[01:03:10] clearcut. Most people that do what I do
[01:03:14] not have the risk appetite or risk
[01:03:15] talents that I do. It's Travis Pastana
[01:03:18] jumping out of a plane with no parachute
[01:03:20] and getting it from someone else every
[01:03:22] time. I do different things very
[01:03:24] frequently and other people aren't
[01:03:26] willing to take the level of risk that I
[01:03:28] am. And when it goes right, it goes
[01:03:30] right exponentially better. And that's
[01:03:32] how I separate myself from the path.
[01:03:34] Always something new. Well, always
[01:03:36] something that goes bigger. And when you
[01:03:39] see other people that do what I do and
[01:03:41] you see it, you'll be like, "That's
[01:03:42] formulaic. They're just trying to
[01:03:44] they're trying to copy those." And you
[01:03:46] see it because and occasionally you
[01:03:48] don't and I love that. I'm not like I'm
[01:03:50] competitive but rising tides raise all
[01:03:53] ships. I have no problem. I'm kind of
[01:03:55] I'm leveling up my profession for
[01:03:57] everyone. So I am I know that I'm the
[01:04:00] shiny toy right now and that at a
[01:04:02] certain point I will hit a peak and I
[01:04:03] will go down. But I'll continue trying
[01:04:05] to do that for as long as I can. But I'm
[01:04:07] going to elevate the people around me
[01:04:08] that do what I do because it's good for
[01:04:10] all of our business. I'm trying to
[01:04:11] create a category where mentalism nobody
[01:04:13] knows what that is. Two years ago, very
[01:04:15] few people did. Two years from now, when
[01:04:18] you say to somebody, you know what's
[01:04:19] mentalism or who's your favorite
[01:04:21] mentalist? I want that to be Kleenex
[01:04:24] Google. You mean like the mentalist?
[01:04:26] That's the answer. Household name
[01:04:28] directly connected to what I do and it's
[01:04:30] created a path where everyone knows what
[01:04:32] this is. This niche field.
[01:04:33] >> Gotcha. Gotcha. So, how long does it
[01:04:36] take you to
[01:04:38] what would you what would we call it? A
[01:04:40] trick.
[01:04:41] >> A trick.
[01:04:41] >> Yeah.
[01:04:42] >> How long does it take you to develop a
[01:04:43] trick?
[01:04:44] I mean, when you're when you're when
[01:04:46] you're going on Jimmy Fallon, when
[01:04:47] you're going to perform in front of Jeff
[01:04:49] Bezos or or or any anybody, I mean, how
[01:04:52] long does that take from
[01:04:54] >> I do my best when I'm shoved into a
[01:04:57] corner and necessity is the mother of
[01:04:59] invention. So, it's taken me years and
[01:05:01] years to get better about not being a
[01:05:03] procrastinator. Like, I talk about how
[01:05:05] much I procrastinate and how but
[01:05:07] unfortunately for me, if you told me I
[01:05:08] have something the biggest thing in my
[01:05:09] life in 6 months, it's going to I'm not
[01:05:12] going to be able to pull it off. I'm
[01:05:13] going to start doing it, but my best
[01:05:14] ideas are going to come 6 days before.
[01:05:16] Unfortunately,
[01:05:18] >> 6 days before
[01:05:19] >> that's where I'm going to get that. So,
[01:05:20] today, like even today, what I plan to
[01:05:22] do with you, what I'm actually going to
[01:05:24] end up doing happened in the shower 2
[01:05:27] hours ago before I came here and I
[01:05:30] decided to change one thing entirely.
[01:05:31] And I said,
[01:05:32] >> I don't know if you want to do that to
[01:05:33] me. [laughter]
[01:05:36] >> I know it sounds weird. My best ideas
[01:05:37] are in the shower and my best ideas when
[01:05:39] I'm running, when I'm in motion or when
[01:05:41] I have no electronics near me. Like the
[01:05:43] phone is just I wish I could get rid of
[01:05:46] it. It's the worst addiction that's ever
[01:05:48] happened. I believe that it will 20
[01:05:49] years from now look back at what we've
[01:05:51] done to ourselves and it's been an
[01:05:52] experiment in destroying our attention
[01:05:54] spans. And I'm guilty too. But when I'm
[01:05:56] free and clear of external stimuli, my
[01:05:59] brain goes into this state, this flow
[01:06:00] state where I can think better and
[01:06:02] clearer. And it's when I'm running long
[01:06:03] distance. Um, and it's when I'm in the
[01:06:06] shower. I don't know why, but in the
[01:06:07] shower, there's this weird thing where
[01:06:09] my brain just hyperfocuses. I'm like,
[01:06:11] "This is better. This is going to be
[01:06:13] better." So, for Jimmy Fallon, I came up
[01:06:15] with it in the 5 days before. Howard
[01:06:18] Stern was a little earlier. It was two
[01:06:19] and a half weeks before, but because I
[01:06:21] know Howard and so I know how he thinks
[01:06:23] and I know it would appeal to him and I
[01:06:24] I've got him registered. For you, it's
[01:06:27] been very instrument. this just right
[01:06:29] now, this hour and a half since I've
[01:06:31] walked into here,
[01:06:32] >> it's like picking a lock and you hear it
[01:06:34] click, click, click.
[01:06:36] >> I'm starting to get your number pretty
[01:06:37] dialed in, which feels good.
[01:06:38] >> Right on. Right on.
[01:06:43] >> Most people don't want to learn a
[01:06:44] language to memorize grammar. They want
[01:06:47] to actually speak it in real life.
[01:06:50] That's what Babel is built for. Babel
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[01:08:17] Nice
[01:08:22] >> little left.
[01:08:24] >> That was [ __ ] awesome.
[01:08:25] >> If you've enjoyed watching, there is a
[01:08:27] lot more waiting for you over at
[01:08:29] Vigilance Elite Patreon.
[01:08:33] >> All right, let's talk about mentalism
[01:08:36] versus magic. What is the difference?
[01:08:39] Mentalism is a subset of magic. So, it's
[01:08:42] built off of magic. It's not like a
[01:08:44] separate supernatural or psychic power
[01:08:46] that some people will think, but magic
[01:08:49] mostly involves slight of hand or
[01:08:51] illusions, right? Illusions are when
[01:08:53] you're on stage, David Copperfield, big
[01:08:54] boxes, things happening. Magic tends to
[01:08:58] be more slight of hand and closeup,
[01:09:00] right? Pick a card, find it, put it back
[01:09:02] in. I produce the four aces. You know
[01:09:03] how I'm doing it. It's slight of hand.
[01:09:05] hands have been trained in some way
[01:09:07] similar to kind of a juggler and that
[01:09:09] I'm deceiving your eyes, right?
[01:09:11] >> Mhm.
[01:09:12] >> So mentalism doesn't really have that
[01:09:14] same thing of deceive your eyes. I don't
[01:09:16] do anything quick. There's no real trick
[01:09:18] or prop. So mentalism becomes magic for
[01:09:21] the mind where you seem to read
[01:09:23] someone's mind, right? Know their
[01:09:24] innermost thoughts, secret information
[01:09:26] about them, know what choices they'll
[01:09:28] make in a certain moment that they don't
[01:09:30] even seem to know that doesn't adhere to
[01:09:33] the rules of science. you go, there's no
[01:09:34] way that we could do this minus if
[01:09:36] you're reading my mind. That's if you're
[01:09:37] doing it perfectly what it looks like.
[01:09:39] But it is not supernatural. There is an
[01:09:41] actual set of steps that I'm using to
[01:09:43] get you to where I want you to go.
[01:09:45] >> Interesting.
[01:09:47] So,
[01:09:50] I have some I have some predictions
[01:09:52] maybe on the thing that you gave me. So
[01:09:55] what [clears throat]
[01:09:57] how much how much research do you do on
[01:09:59] your guests before or not on on your
[01:10:01] guests on your subject on your target
[01:10:03] before target's a weird word but it
[01:10:06] depends what you mean by it. So I do
[01:10:08] last year I did about 140 events and
[01:10:11] most of those events are for thousands
[01:10:12] of people
[01:10:13] >> and I go to great lengths during shows
[01:10:15] to pick people at random. In fact if you
[01:10:17] read the comments on most videos you
[01:10:19] just see hundreds of people going he did
[01:10:20] my company's event. He did my company's
[01:10:21] event. He did a party my house. There's
[01:10:23] it's an impossibility for me to know
[01:10:25] anything about the vast majority of
[01:10:27] people I perform for. It's no kid
[01:10:29] physically impossible. Like if you were
[01:10:31] to see me do a show, this is coming out
[01:10:34] after, but December 21st, I have a show
[01:10:35] for about 2,000 people in Boston area.
[01:10:38] Literally, you throw frisbes around the
[01:10:39] room, somebody catch you, stand up. It's
[01:10:42] inherently random
[01:10:44] >> to to make it believable.
[01:10:46] So, there's no research involved. People
[01:10:48] like to say that. For me, if I'm doing
[01:10:50] something like this with one person,
[01:10:52] there's research as to what I think will
[01:10:54] hit the hardest.
[01:10:55] >> Gotcha.
[01:10:56] >> But there's not research as in I'm going
[01:10:58] to dig up something about you that
[01:11:00] nobody knows. You could think that. I
[01:11:02] don't really tell people what not to
[01:11:03] think, but it's it's silly to believe
[01:11:06] because
[01:11:07] you could We'll see in a minute, but how
[01:11:10] how could I know a choice you make in
[01:11:11] the moment, right? There's there's kind
[01:11:12] of a there's no way to know.
[01:11:14] >> Well, you did this you did this thing. I
[01:11:16] can't remember exactly how it went with
[01:11:18] uh with Tom Brady and Granowski. Is that
[01:11:20] who?
[01:11:21] >> Yep.
[01:11:21] >> And um
[01:11:23] >> they wrote down they wrote down an NFL
[01:11:25] players name and then there was a there
[01:11:27] was a common number. Yeah.
[01:11:29] >> That and I can't remember what that
[01:11:30] number represented.
[01:11:31] >> So I told them each I said that when
[01:11:33] you're on a team, right, you need to be
[01:11:35] aligned.
[01:11:36] >> If you're if you're a tight end, when
[01:11:37] you turn around, that ball's got to
[01:11:39] already be in your hand. You can't wait
[01:11:40] for the quarterback to throw it to you,
[01:11:42] right? You two have a certain level of
[01:11:44] awareness on a mental of you've run
[01:11:46] these routes so many times that you know
[01:11:48] exactly where the ball's going to be and
[01:11:49] where your players going to be and right
[01:11:50] you're aligned mentally
[01:11:51] >> synchronicity teams guys how many times
[01:11:53] you tap somebody on the shoulder and
[01:11:54] know exactly where you're going to go
[01:11:55] where it's muscle memory am I right
[01:11:57] >> milliseconds are life and death so when
[01:12:00] I am doing certain things for example I
[01:12:03] had them each think of a player and
[01:12:05] they're going to swear they picked the
[01:12:07] player at random they swore I didn't and
[01:12:09] I said to Tom look at mine he wrote
[01:12:11] Larry Fitzgerald I wrote Larry Fitz. I
[01:12:12] was like, "How the hell did you do?"
[01:12:13] Like I could have just named anyone.
[01:12:14] Even afterwards, he said he picked Fitzy
[01:12:17] who who he's friends with instead of
[01:12:18] another guy because he changed his mind.
[01:12:19] He was going to do a different wide
[01:12:20] receiver. And so we both turned it
[01:12:22] around and then I said, "Gro, let me see
[01:12:24] yours." He turned around was Eric
[01:12:25] Dickerson. So it's really funny cuz he
[01:12:27] totally screwed up the trick. It looked
[01:12:28] like it was a dud. And then I said to
[01:12:31] Tom, "Think of a code nobody would
[01:12:32] know." I said, "Think of your ATM pin
[01:12:34] code." Tom Brady goes, "I don't know my
[01:12:35] ATM pin code." I go, "It's good to be
[01:12:36] that rich." You know what I'm saying?
[01:12:38] [laughter]
[01:12:39] I was like, "Tom, you got people for
[01:12:41] that." I go, "Grunk, we know our ATM pin
[01:12:42] code. We ain't got we ain't got goat
[01:12:43] money." And so Tom goes, "All right, I
[01:12:45] got another code." So he said, "I got
[01:12:46] another code." And that's when I said to
[01:12:48] him, "You ready?" And I guessed the
[01:12:49] code. And I went, "1129." He freaked
[01:12:52] out. And then the crazy kicker was I go,
[01:12:55] "What's Larry Fitzgerald's jersey
[01:12:57] number?" And he goes, "11." And I go,
[01:12:59] "What's Eric Dickerson's jersey number?"
[01:13:01] "29." And those were 1129. And that was
[01:13:03] the code to unlock his phone. Dude,
[01:13:05] what? So how like how do you put that
[01:13:08] together?
[01:13:10] puzzle pieces, man. Usual suspects
[01:13:12] Kaiser So, did you ever see that movie?
[01:13:13] >> I mean, how do you even know the the
[01:13:15] jersey numbers?
[01:13:16] >> Well, that that's research. That's 100%
[01:13:18] research. Yeah, that's
[01:13:20] >> But how would you go in there if you
[01:13:22] didn't know who they were going to write
[01:13:23] down?
[01:13:24] >> So, again, that's where people AAM's
[01:13:27] razor, if you want to try to figure out
[01:13:28] these tricks, a lot of the time you kind
[01:13:29] of tie your brain to a pretzel because
[01:13:32] you go, "Well, how'd you know who
[01:13:33] they're going to pick?" So, even if you
[01:13:34] knew how they were going to pick, how
[01:13:35] did you get them to pick those two
[01:13:36] players? But even then, how could you
[01:13:37] have known Tom Brady's phone code, which
[01:13:40] he will swear to you till his dying
[01:13:41] breath, there's no way he ever did in
[01:13:43] front of me. He never wrote it down. He
[01:13:45] never said he never anything. He didn't
[01:13:46] know what we were going to do when we
[01:13:46] walked in the room. So, you know, it's
[01:13:49] like Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan went on a tear
[01:13:51] on like he's like, "There's no way he
[01:13:52] could have known my pin code to my ATM."
[01:13:53] He goes, "Nobody knows that. I didn't
[01:13:55] write. I didn't say it. I didn't
[01:13:56] anything." He's like, "I don't know how
[01:13:58] you could have gotten that." So, that's
[01:14:00] where that's what creates memorable
[01:14:02] moments. It's what you asked me before.
[01:14:05] So, I start with the ending. I started
[01:14:07] with the ending of I want to do
[01:14:08] something crazy.
[01:14:09] >> So, was the number the ending or were
[01:14:11] the players the ending? The
[01:14:13] >> uh they were both the number was the
[01:14:14] ending. The final thing was him
[01:14:16] unlocking his phone and showing every
[01:14:17] that was the freaking that's my code.
[01:14:18] How did you know that?
[01:14:22] >> I like surprises. So, Sean, for me,
[01:14:24] >> I like surprises.
[01:14:25] >> I really like No, but I do because if
[01:14:27] you know what's about to happen, it
[01:14:28] could be amazing, but it's never the
[01:14:31] same feeling as a shock.
[01:14:34] Like at the end of that trick when all
[01:14:36] of a sudden you go, "What's his jersey
[01:14:37] number?" And you see his face go 11. And
[01:14:41] then I go, "What's Eric Dixon?" He goes,
[01:14:42] "29." Like you just It was sitting there
[01:14:45] in plain sight.
[01:14:46] >> Mhm.
[01:14:47] >> It was sitting there in plain sight.
[01:14:48] Like that message in a bottle that I
[01:14:50] took out of my pocket before we spoke a
[01:14:52] word to each other today and you just
[01:14:54] don't know what it's going to be.
[01:14:56] So you ask yourself, did I really pick
[01:14:58] what I wanted or did he plant a thought
[01:15:00] in my mind?
[01:15:02] >> That's kind of what I'm getting at.
[01:15:03] Yeah.
[01:15:06] >> So, when you gave me the song,
[01:15:09] what what was it? Sweet Home Alabama.
[01:15:11] >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, I walked in here and
[01:15:13] I told you a song from my youth that I
[01:15:14] really liked was Sweet Home Alabama. Is
[01:15:16] that correct? That's what I want to make
[01:15:17] sure I told you that.
[01:15:18] >> How well do you know the lyrics to the
[01:15:19] song Sweet Home Alabama?
[01:15:21] >> Probably not very good. But what I
[01:15:23] thought was interesting is when I
[01:15:25] scrolled down, I think it was the length
[01:15:27] of the song is 444, which is my favorite
[01:15:29] number.
[01:15:31] >> Interesting. which is right behind me.
[01:15:33] >> Okay.
[01:15:33] >> But
[01:15:34] >> so you think that me saying sweet home
[01:15:35] Alabama to you?
[01:15:36] >> I don't know. I don't know if the number
[01:15:38] 444 is going to come up at the end.
[01:15:40] >> Maybe.
[01:15:41] >> Is it?
[01:15:41] >> It's going to rip over my shirt and just
[01:15:43] have nipples.
[01:15:44] >> Uh, no.
[01:15:45] >> Well, you know what? Let's let's lean
[01:15:46] into this. I mentioned a song, right?
[01:15:48] And I asked you when I walked in
[01:15:51] and I said to you, "Has music played a
[01:15:53] big part in your life?" And you you you
[01:15:55] said to me, "Not really." Is that right?
[01:15:58] Or or would you say some people are very
[01:15:59] drawn? This is music city. So when I
[01:16:01] said Nashville, I said to myself, maybe
[01:16:03] I'll connect a little bit with
[01:16:04] Tennessee, Nashville. Would you say that
[01:16:05] music is a big part of your life or so?
[01:16:07] So So
[01:16:07] >> I mean, I think music's a big part of
[01:16:09] everybody's life, but not not like music
[01:16:11] is not a part of my life. People that
[01:16:13] live here.
[01:16:14] >> Yeah.
[01:16:14] >> So an interesting question is right if I
[01:16:19] say go back in time, rewind. I said this
[01:16:21] would be part of your past, your
[01:16:23] present, and your future. So let's do
[01:16:24] your present right now. We go in your
[01:16:26] past and I have you hear a song like
[01:16:30] let's let's imagine you've heard this,
[01:16:31] right? Certain things bring you back.
[01:16:33] Sometimes a smell makes you think of
[01:16:36] your grandma's cookies, right? I smell
[01:16:38] grass. I think I'm mowing my lawn when I
[01:16:39] was a kid. Like suffering. So if you
[01:16:41] heard you hear a song, right? Come up
[01:16:44] right now and you hear this song and you
[01:16:46] go, "Oh man, this brings me back maybe
[01:16:49] to an age, maybe to a place, maybe to a
[01:16:51] setting. I don't know what. But I want
[01:16:52] you to close your eyes. Close your eyes
[01:16:54] and I want you not visually but
[01:16:57] auditorially to hear this song playing
[01:17:00] in your head that you go back in time
[01:17:01] and you can kind of define either an era
[01:17:04] or a specific part of your life based on
[01:17:06] this song. Can you almost as if it was
[01:17:08] playing right now on the radio? Could
[01:17:10] you hear the song starting?
[01:17:12] >> Mhm.
[01:17:12] >> Okay. Open your eyes.
[01:17:14] Did is there any way in the world that I
[01:17:17] could have before I got here today
[01:17:19] before I got here looked up listened to
[01:17:21] a podcast and heard you say there's this
[01:17:23] one song. Is there any way I could have
[01:17:25] found this out in advance?
[01:17:27] Get get really nitty-gritty. No chance.
[01:17:30] >> No.
[01:17:30] >> Okay. Imagine the song is playing
[01:17:33] and it's maybe we get to the bridge.
[01:17:35] Maybe we get to the chorus and you know,
[01:17:36] Sweet Home Alabama. I mentioned that
[01:17:38] song to you when I got here. And I know
[01:17:39] how you think that puts something in
[01:17:40] your head, but you you had nothing to do
[01:17:42] with your song.
[01:17:44] Imagine right at a certain point it
[01:17:46] stops and you sing along. Okay? As if we
[01:17:48] take the lyrics and we highlight a
[01:17:50] couple of the words and you sing along
[01:17:52] to that one moment. Boom. Right there in
[01:17:55] your head. Sing those words. Can you
[01:17:56] sing them in your head?
[01:17:58] >> Mhm.
[01:17:58] >> Okay. You decide. I said a couple which
[01:18:01] is leading the way. Couples too.
[01:18:02] Sometimes people do more. You were
[01:18:04] thinking of two words. Is that right?
[01:18:05] >> Mhm. Which one in your mind did you get
[01:18:09] more forceful on? I don't want to know
[01:18:10] the word, but was it the first word or
[01:18:11] the second word? Which one just it just
[01:18:13] came out stronger in your mind? First
[01:18:15] one or the second?
[01:18:16] >> These are the two words.
[01:18:16] >> Yeah. Yeah. Tell us what what two words
[01:18:18] like Oh,
[01:18:19] >> the first one.
[01:18:19] >> The first one is like these two. Okay.
[01:18:22] They're not the name of the song, are
[01:18:23] they?
[01:18:23] >> No.
[01:18:24] >> Okay.
[01:18:28] Now, this is just critically important.
[01:18:30] I walked in here. I gave you this before
[01:18:32] I said a word to you. I put this on the
[01:18:34] table. You have not
[01:18:37] like shared this online somewhere.
[01:18:39] You've not told anybody. It's not
[01:18:40] something I could have gleaned from your
[01:18:41] crew. We don't know each other. You're
[01:18:43] thinking of two words from literally any
[01:18:45] song that connected to your past. Is
[01:18:47] that true?
[01:18:48] >> Mhm.
[01:18:49] >> Think of the first word. Count how many
[01:18:51] letters are in that word to yourself.
[01:18:53] Just count it to yourself.
[01:18:54] >> Okay.
[01:18:55] >> That was quick, but it wasn't instant.
[01:18:57] Five letters, wasn't it? It was. Right.
[01:19:00] I think it was five letters. See if it
[01:19:03] was longer.
[01:19:05] see all five letters. And I always like
[01:19:07] to say to this, I go, "Stop." It's kind
[01:19:09] of like singing songying. Stop on any
[01:19:11] one of the letters in the five. Just
[01:19:13] grab a letter and like you're doing
[01:19:14] hangman and you have dashes. Imagine
[01:19:17] that one of your kids guesses a letter
[01:19:18] and so you fill in that letter. Can you
[01:19:20] see yourself writing one of the letters
[01:19:21] down? Write the second like in midair.
[01:19:23] Yeah. You didn't do the first letter,
[01:19:24] did you?
[01:19:25] >> No.
[01:19:25] >> And then and then then and then
[01:19:26] bookends. Bookends are always quirky
[01:19:28] because bookends give it away. You
[01:19:29] didn't do the last letter either, did
[01:19:30] you?
[01:19:30] >> Mhm.
[01:19:31] >> Cuz hangman you always do the ones in
[01:19:32] the middle. N. Were you thinking the
[01:19:33] letter N?
[01:19:34] >> No.
[01:19:37] >> You did the N before you jumped and you
[01:19:38] did the vowel. I know it now. I wrote
[01:19:41] it. I'm done.
[01:19:43] Tell us all what is the word that popped
[01:19:46] up in your head as you were singing a
[01:19:47] song. What word are you thinking right
[01:19:48] now?
[01:19:49] >> Going.
[01:19:50] >> Going.
[01:19:50] >> What the [ __ ] dude?
[01:19:56] >> One is luck. Two is skill. Think of the
[01:19:58] next word. Pick any letter in that word.
[01:20:02] something interesting you got to learn
[01:20:03] in your head this time.
[01:20:05] >> Yes.
[01:20:05] >> Now, last time when I said N, I know you
[01:20:08] thought of it, but then you switched
[01:20:09] over to the vowel, to the O. This time
[01:20:12] you said to yourself, should I do the
[01:20:13] vowel?
[01:20:16] And I think what's funny is the first
[01:20:18] time you thought of the letter O, and
[01:20:20] this time you muscle memory, you thought
[01:20:22] of the O again. [gasps] So, there's an O
[01:20:24] in this word, but then you switched and
[01:20:26] you did a different letter. You're
[01:20:27] thinking of a W, aren't you? Tell me.
[01:20:29] Sing it for me. Not the whole song. What
[01:20:31] are the two words you're singing in your
[01:20:32] head? Say them.
[01:20:33] >> Going down.
[01:20:33] >> Going down.
[01:20:35] >> What the [ __ ] dude?
[01:20:38] Oh my god. [gasps]
[01:20:41] What the [ __ ]
[01:20:45] Wow.
[01:20:49] How many different songs do you think
[01:20:50] have the words going down in them?
[01:20:51] >> Probably a ton.
[01:20:52] >> A million is my guess. A million. Right.
[01:20:55] Going down is not nearly enough to
[01:20:57] figure out what the song is.
[01:20:58] >> Mhm.
[01:20:59] >> So, let's You know what? Let's put a pin
[01:21:00] in the song. You just keep it in the
[01:21:02] back of your head for now.
[01:21:04] Anyone who says that now that I got
[01:21:05] this, I could figure out what the song
[01:21:07] is. Go to Google or Spotify. There's so
[01:21:09] many. You did a hard one for me. All
[01:21:11] right, we'll keep this on tap. We'll
[01:21:14] come back. More performance to come.
[01:21:16] I'll keep I'll keep a dangling carrot
[01:21:18] for you.
[01:21:18] >> What the [ __ ]
[01:21:21] >> Oh man. What do you think of psychics?
[01:21:25] What do you think of all this stuff?
[01:21:26] I've had a I've had a handful of them on
[01:21:28] here. Have any of them convinced you?
[01:21:38] >> They can be pretty convincing.
[01:21:40] >> But have they convinced you?
[01:21:47] >> They've convinced me enough to look into
[01:21:50] it.
[01:21:51] >> I think that's fair. So I What do I
[01:21:53] think of them? I have never had an
[01:21:55] experience personally that's convinced
[01:21:56] me yet. So I can't I'm not I'm agnostic.
[01:22:00] There's it'd be ridiculously
[01:22:03] egoomaniacal for me to say it doesn't
[01:22:04] exist. It's so when people say that I
[01:22:06] just don't understand how they can know
[01:22:07] that you don't know you can't know
[01:22:08] everything. It's you don't know the
[01:22:09] infinite universe. I have seen firsthand
[01:22:14] a lot of the time what happens with
[01:22:15] psychic is what I do. Really good
[01:22:16] psychics are like me. They know how to
[01:22:18] hit emotional centers. They know how to
[01:22:20] create memorable moments that people
[01:22:21] talk about. They also know how to do
[01:22:23] this thing where they highlight the wins
[01:22:26] and erase the misses. So when I get
[01:22:28] something wrong, like again here some
[01:22:30] people say, "Oh, you nailed that." Well,
[01:22:32] you got one letter wrong, but did I or
[01:22:33] didn't I? So what you really need to do
[01:22:36] when you're a psychic is you get certain
[01:22:38] things right, but you probably get a lot
[01:22:39] of stuff wrong. Right? You're in the
[01:22:41] room with somebody who wants you to talk
[01:22:42] to a dead relative. They want you to
[01:22:44] tell them something about them. But a
[01:22:46] really good cold reader can get so much
[01:22:48] information from you just based on your
[01:22:51] watch, your clothes, what you're
[01:22:53] wearing, your mannerisms, how you talk
[01:22:54] to the people you're here with. There's
[01:22:56] so much stuff they could get before you
[01:22:57] even walk in the room that they've got a
[01:22:59] whole script ready to use to their
[01:23:02] advantage to move you in the direction
[01:23:04] they want to get the right thing out of
[01:23:05] you and to have you remember when how
[01:23:07] could he have known that my uncle who
[01:23:09] passed away from lung cancer gave me
[01:23:11] this thing when I was 12. You're like,
[01:23:13] "Holy sh how could you?" Right? So, I
[01:23:17] could do that same trick better than
[01:23:18] most of them I've ever met. Everyone
[01:23:19] I've ever met. Everyone. But that's not
[01:23:22] to say that I'm I'm not a psychic. So,
[01:23:23] I'm not saying but I'm not saying that
[01:23:24] that person didn't do the same thing by
[01:23:26] being a psychic. I just know that I know
[01:23:27] the tricks to do that same thing they
[01:23:28] did in a different way or aams razor the
[01:23:32] same way. And I'm not portraying myself
[01:23:34] as a psychic. So, my answer is very
[01:23:36] simple. I am not debunking psychics.
[01:23:39] They might exist, but every psychic I've
[01:23:41] ever met, I've done better than they do.
[01:23:44] Gotcha.
[01:23:45] >> But I don't pretend to talk to dead
[01:23:46] people. I'm not trying to get money from
[01:23:48] you in exchange for doing something
[01:23:50] supernatural. I'm so honest about what I
[01:23:52] do.
[01:23:54] >> How I do it, I'm a little dishonest
[01:23:56] about. I like to muddy the waters. It's
[01:23:58] counter intelligence. If I told you how
[01:24:00] I did it, what's the fun in that? Right?
[01:24:02] So, I give you lots of different ways
[01:24:04] you think I did it. Is it just body
[01:24:06] language? No. Is it just the fact that I
[01:24:09] looked this way or looked that way or
[01:24:10] that I pretended to write this or did
[01:24:11] that? All of those things are going to
[01:24:13] make it so in your mind you don't really
[01:24:14] know how it was done. It's a it's it's a
[01:24:19] developed tact.
[01:24:21] >> How long did it take you to I mean we
[01:24:23] kind of covered this a little bit ago
[01:24:24] but I mean when I was asking you know
[01:24:26] how long do you prepare for you know for
[01:24:29] a trick [clears throat] and
[01:24:30] >> some have been years in the making some
[01:24:32] I come up with on the spot.
[01:24:34] >> Yeah. And you said that you don't
[01:24:36] practice them.
[01:24:36] >> I practice them in my mind.
[01:24:38] >> You practice them in your mind.
[01:24:39] >> In my mind. So it's it's it's that's
[01:24:42] unfortunately that's the tough part is
[01:24:44] that's why when I told you when I did
[01:24:45] Jimmy Fallon I like I mean it still
[01:24:48] annoys me. I didn't realize that
[01:24:51] something I did would have been so much
[01:24:52] better if I did it just slightly
[01:24:53] different. Just the littlest thing just
[01:24:56] iteration you know change one
[01:24:57] ingredient. How's the recipe? Add a
[01:24:59] little more salt. Add more garlic. Do
[01:25:00] one thing at a time. You realize what's
[01:25:01] different. So for me I try to play out
[01:25:04] all of the different scenarios that can
[01:25:05] go wrong. But sometimes something I
[01:25:07] didn't think about happens. and so how
[01:25:09] am I prepared in that moment? But it's
[01:25:11] exactly like a stand-up comedian. You
[01:25:14] can't know if a joke is funny until the
[01:25:17] audience reacts
[01:25:19] by by definition. You can't know because
[01:25:22] what's funny is only in the eye of the
[01:25:24] beholder. So for me, if I'm trying to
[01:25:26] read your mind, I can't do it without an
[01:25:28] audience.
[01:25:29] >> I can practice magic without an
[01:25:32] audience. So, in essence, that's why
[01:25:34] there's so many more magicians than
[01:25:36] mentalists because magic can be
[01:25:39] practiced at home in front of a mirror
[01:25:40] for years. There's some magicians that
[01:25:42] almost never perform for anyone and
[01:25:44] they're the best in the world.
[01:25:45] Literally, I've met people who you never
[01:25:47] see perform. You've never heard their
[01:25:49] name before. This guy is the best at
[01:25:50] this card trick in the entire world and
[01:25:52] no one has seen it except for his family
[01:25:54] and friends. He does not a performer,
[01:25:56] but he's so good at this move that it's
[01:25:58] invisible. He can literally, you shuffle
[01:26:00] the deck, you take it back, he deals you
[01:26:01] four aces. like where did those aces
[01:26:02] come from man? He's fooling me and I've
[01:26:04] been doing this for years because he can
[01:26:06] practice that. Add nauseium.
[01:26:09] A mentalist can't do that. You can't
[01:26:12] actually do that. You need to go out in
[01:26:13] front of audience, try fail, figure it
[01:26:15] out, go back to the drawing board and
[01:26:17] get better and better and better. That's
[01:26:19] what it makes a steep learning curve.
[01:26:21] And that's why when you ask yourself how
[01:26:22] many other mentals can you name, you'll
[01:26:23] be like there's not that many. Mhm. Mhm.
[01:26:26] So, I mean, how do I mean, how do you I
[01:26:29] mean, I would think that a failure in
[01:26:31] front of a a a large audience would be
[01:26:34] detrimental for your career.
[01:26:35] >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah.
[01:26:37] >> Right.
[01:26:37] >> Well, it's it's it's funny because it's
[01:26:39] both. It depends how bad the failure is.
[01:26:42] So, uh catastrophic failure, yes, that's
[01:26:45] not good. Minor failure humanizes you.
[01:26:48] So, some of my most viral clips have had
[01:26:50] some component of failure where people
[01:26:52] think they know how you did it. And
[01:26:54] that's actually helpful for a couple
[01:26:56] reasons. One, it makes the rest of the
[01:26:59] stuff real,
[01:27:00] right? I like to always liken it the
[01:27:02] metaphor is when you see somebody do a
[01:27:04] tightroppe. You ever see a tightroppe
[01:27:05] walker?
[01:27:06] >> They have that stick. If they just walk
[01:27:08] across like nothing, you watch, you're
[01:27:10] like, I could probably do that. That
[01:27:11] didn't look that hard. I just walked
[01:27:12] across it, right? How tough is that? But
[01:27:14] if they're walking and all of a sudden
[01:27:16] wind hits and you see them go like this
[01:27:17] and one foot's up, your palms get
[01:27:19] sweaty, right? A part of you, your fight
[01:27:21] or flight actually goes off in your
[01:27:23] animal brain and you go, did you feel
[01:27:25] you feel it in your stomach just like
[01:27:26] looking over? You feel
[01:27:28] >> death's door right there. That could
[01:27:29] person just fall. So the best tightroppe
[01:27:32] walkers, even if it's easy, they try to
[01:27:33] make it look hard or they really make it
[01:27:35] hard and it's even more believable. So,
[01:27:38] for me, getting a couple things wrong in
[01:27:40] my show, my my live show is actually me
[01:27:43] reaching. I try to reach for new stuff.
[01:27:44] That's how you get better. It's how you
[01:27:45] push, you know, rip the muscle to bring
[01:27:47] it back stronger and you work out. On
[01:27:49] TV, I hope to not fail completely
[01:27:52] because that is pretty embarrassing.
[01:27:54] But, I've had some pretty near misses.
[01:27:56] I've also moved the goalposts. I've
[01:27:58] learned how to move the goalpost very
[01:28:00] effectively because you keep assuming
[01:28:02] that you know when I get things wrong.
[01:28:04] And the only way you know if I get
[01:28:06] things wrong is if you know what's
[01:28:08] right.
[01:28:10] Deacto in that trick with Tom Brady.
[01:28:13] What if my whole goal was to guess his
[01:28:15] pin code? Right. What if when we did the
[01:28:18] thing with the I guessed all three of
[01:28:20] the players and it was amazing and we
[01:28:22] were done. What if you never knew that
[01:28:24] their jersey numbers were going to make
[01:28:26] his pin code? You never saw that clip.
[01:28:28] Never happened. So it looks like I
[01:28:29] nailed it. How did he know the football
[01:28:31] players he would think of? You didn't
[01:28:32] know that there was an act two, a
[01:28:33] director's cut, where there was going to
[01:28:34] be one more layer peeled out of like
[01:28:37] this even crazier finale. And I never
[01:28:39] did that one because it actually went
[01:28:40] really wrong for me, but you didn't know
[01:28:41] it went wrong.
[01:28:43] >> Wow,
[01:28:45] man. You really [laughter]
[01:28:48] Holy [ __ ] So maybe it's either that
[01:28:51] makes me smarter or more psychotic. But
[01:28:52] I I hope for a lot of people they
[01:28:54] realize the art involved in this craft
[01:28:56] and that it's something that I hope
[01:28:57] keeps getting higher levels because it
[01:29:00] should be appreciated because it's even
[01:29:02] though people will say, "Well, it's just
[01:29:03] a trick." I go, "I like that it's a
[01:29:05] trick." But there's a craft. There's
[01:29:07] certain like really great actresses or
[01:29:09] actors, the ones that are at the top of
[01:29:11] their game, you really believe that
[01:29:13] they're that person. So in the same way
[01:29:15] that they meticulously craft a
[01:29:16] character, I try to meticulously craft
[01:29:18] an experience that's inexplicable.
[01:29:23] My days don't slow down. Between work,
[01:29:26] the gym, and time with the kids, I need
[01:29:29] eyewear that can keep up with everything
[01:29:31] I've got going on. And that's why I
[01:29:33] trust Roka. I've tried plenty of shades
[01:29:36] before, but these stand out. They're
[01:29:39] built for performance without
[01:29:40] sacrificing style. I've put them through
[01:29:43] it all on the range, out on the water,
[01:29:46] and off-road. They don't quit. They're
[01:29:49] lightweight, stay locked in place, and
[01:29:51] are tough enough to handle whatever I
[01:29:53] throw at them. And the best part, they
[01:29:55] don't just perform, they look
[01:29:57] incredible. Sleek, modern, and designed
[01:30:00] for people who expect more from their
[01:30:02] eyewear. No fluff, no gimmicks, just
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[01:31:36] I mean, I just Where do you get this
[01:31:37] stuff? I mean, where do you start? I
[01:31:39] mean, I know it.
[01:31:40] >> Yeah. I mean, I I'm just curious. I
[01:31:42] mean, how long was it before you quit
[01:31:44] learning from
[01:31:46] >> Still mentors?
[01:31:47] >> Uh, mentors. I So, I consider a lot of
[01:31:50] people mentors, that term to me is
[01:31:51] always like somebody older than you or
[01:31:53] more experienced.
[01:31:54] >> When I mean, when you started looking
[01:31:55] for when you started going to the magic
[01:31:57] store and you're like, I'm going to pay
[01:31:58] for this stuff. I mean, how long was
[01:32:00] that going on?
[01:32:01] >> Do you still have a mentor? any mentors
[01:32:03] today or you have crafting
[01:32:05] >> I have people that are more like not
[01:32:06] really again a mentor seems to be like
[01:32:08] somebody who's I don't want to call it
[01:32:09] above you but I I can be mentored by
[01:32:11] anyone I'm I can learn from anyone I can
[01:32:13] learn from somebody who's 16 years old
[01:32:15] who just started doing this cuz they
[01:32:16] have a fresh take the same way that if
[01:32:18] you're a music producer or a music
[01:32:20] executive if you think I know everything
[01:32:23] you're going to fall like the people
[01:32:24] that make it longevity they're talking
[01:32:26] to 15-year-old kids and that's their ANR
[01:32:28] that's the person who tells you what
[01:32:29] kids like cuz I didn't know what Tik Tok
[01:32:31] dances were. I don't know all this crap.
[01:32:33] I'm like an old man compared to this
[01:32:35] stuff. So, I need to know what's going
[01:32:36] on now. That's the zeitgeist. And so, to
[01:32:39] answer your question, I'm constantly
[01:32:41] learning. I'm also not naturally a
[01:32:43] sports afficionado, which people will be
[01:32:45] like, you're so into sports. I'm not
[01:32:47] that into sports, but I've had to learn
[01:32:48] sports because I've hitched my wagon to
[01:32:51] sports in a big way. I also do a lot of
[01:32:53] stuff within the financial markets. I
[01:32:55] used to work on Wall Street, but I do
[01:32:57] CNBC and Fox Business very, very
[01:32:59] regularly. I'm on those networks and
[01:33:00] that's because that leads to a
[01:33:01] tremendous amount of business for me
[01:33:03] where most of the CEOs of the Fortune
[01:33:05] 500 companies if you did a survey right
[01:33:07] now the majority if you said my name
[01:33:09] know who I am that did not happen by
[01:33:11] accident that was premeditated over the
[01:33:14] last decade of constantly being exposed
[01:33:16] at very large conferences being on CNBC
[01:33:19] meticulously crafting what they see and
[01:33:22] how I'm branded and I know their markets
[01:33:24] I know the terminology I know that if
[01:33:27] they bring me in I speak to their firm
[01:33:30] and their company and their clients in
[01:33:32] such a way that
[01:33:33] >> they they they they understand that I
[01:33:36] understand their business
[01:33:38] >> which makes it very very you know it's
[01:33:39] very comfortable to bring in a speaker
[01:33:41] performer who's not only going to kill
[01:33:42] it but gives that added touch of knowing
[01:33:44] what they do for a living. It
[01:33:46] personalizes the experience.
[01:33:47] >> Gotcha. I mean how does this affect your
[01:33:49] relationships with your friends, your
[01:33:51] wife, your kids, your family?
[01:33:53] >> Mentalism.
[01:33:54] >> Yeah, man. I mean, I'm sitting here
[01:33:56] wondering, "What am I giving you?"
[01:33:58] Having this conversation, how far inside
[01:34:00] of my head are
[01:34:01] >> No, they know me too well. So, I don't
[01:34:04] think [clears throat] it my friends will
[01:34:05] tell you, they'll be like, "Dude, this
[01:34:06] guy not even a great poker player,
[01:34:08] world's best mentalist. I've beat him at
[01:34:10] poker before." And it'll bring up the
[01:34:12] immediate question of how can that be?
[01:34:13] How you you should be able to do
[01:34:15] everything, right? It's like it's like a
[01:34:16] superhero power. But the the thing is is
[01:34:20] it is an illusion to a degree. Some of
[01:34:22] it is real, some of it is not. But it
[01:34:25] doesn't generalize. So, let me explain
[01:34:28] to you exactly what that means. Truly,
[01:34:30] if I can do what I'm doing for you right
[01:34:32] now, why can't I just go to Las Vegas,
[01:34:35] sit down at a poker table, clean up, win
[01:34:37] a few million bucks, do it again, do it
[01:34:38] again until they kick me out, let's get
[01:34:40] a hundred million bucks, Sean, sail off
[01:34:42] into the, you know, my private island,
[01:34:43] and be done. Why wouldn't I just do
[01:34:44] that?
[01:34:45] >> Why worry about doing that when you
[01:34:47] could just get everybody's ATM pinco?
[01:34:49] >> That's a little more illegal, though.
[01:34:51] But let's stick within the confines of
[01:34:52] what's legal within our world. So I
[01:34:56] would tell you that the reason I can't
[01:34:57] do that is cuz when you see me and I can
[01:34:59] 100% if you go get a deck of cards and
[01:35:01] you deal a card right now and you look
[01:35:03] at a card and and your deck cards you
[01:35:04] anything I can guess that card 100%
[01:35:06] certainty. So why can't you just win at
[01:35:08] poker? Because there's a procedure that
[01:35:10] I have to do to get your card because
[01:35:13] I'm telling you the truth. I'm not
[01:35:14] psychic. It's not supernatural. If I was
[01:35:16] then this whole thing would be BS. You'd
[01:35:18] be like, "Well, just do it." I don't. I
[01:35:20] have a certain way that I'm doing it.
[01:35:21] There's a series of steps. You don't
[01:35:22] know all the steps. You usually know one
[01:35:24] of them. Most people when they figure
[01:35:25] them out, they figure out one out of
[01:35:27] seven or eight steps. And then the other
[01:35:28] two, they think I got them. It was where
[01:35:30] I looked with my eyes this and I did
[01:35:31] that and it's not. But I made you think
[01:35:33] that. So I make you go through a
[01:35:36] procedure that people in real life don't
[01:35:38] do. Because when I'm entertaining you,
[01:35:41] I'm kind of in charge. If I just bumped
[01:35:43] into you at the airport right now,
[01:35:44] handed you that little slip, said, "Look
[01:35:46] at me. Think of a song." You'd be like,
[01:35:47] "Dude, who are you? Get out of my face."
[01:35:49] Right? We couldn't have done all the
[01:35:50] preliminary. I couldn't have worked
[01:35:52] through sat with you, talked to you a
[01:35:54] little bit in a certain way. It wouldn't
[01:35:55] have worked. I'm being honest. So, at a
[01:35:58] poker table, people won't do the stuff I
[01:36:01] need them to do for me to guess the card
[01:36:02] correctly.
[01:36:03] >> I don't have time on my side. Sometimes
[01:36:05] I can. I've actually played poker and if
[01:36:07] I've started doing mentalism, but then
[01:36:09] people are on to it and I go, "Look at
[01:36:10] me. Think right. I'm not going to do
[01:36:11] that." And then I can't do my thing.
[01:36:13] >> Gotcha. I mean, but even without that,
[01:36:16] like you know that, but I don't [ __ ]
[01:36:18] know that.
[01:36:19] >> Well, that's right.
[01:36:19] >> So, let's say let's say we go to dinner
[01:36:23] after the interview. I'm constantly
[01:36:25] going to be like,
[01:36:26] >> "What the [ __ ] does this guy know about
[01:36:28] world?" [laughter]
[01:36:29] >> There's some dark [ __ ] going on. I think
[01:36:32] >> I want everybody to know like three more
[01:36:34] dinners and then you'd be like, "All
[01:36:36] right, he's he's a good dude. He's a
[01:36:37] good dude." All right. He's a little
[01:36:38] crazy with the mentalism, but I think I
[01:36:40] can I can overlook the fact that he's
[01:36:42] not just studying me at every moment. So
[01:36:43] I think that's just a a comfort where
[01:36:45] people get to know you beyond the
[01:36:47] exterior. Uh but yeah, that's true. Now
[01:36:50] that I'm become more known for what I
[01:36:52] do, it is a little bit of a hurdle at
[01:36:54] first to overcome because like you said,
[01:36:55] people like what do I do with my hands
[01:36:57] right now? I touched my face. What did
[01:36:59] that mean? I mean, it's got to be a
[01:37:00] hurdle. I just went in I mean I just
[01:37:02] went in the editing room the other a
[01:37:04] little bit ago and I'm like I don't know
[01:37:06] about I mean I feel like I'm way off my
[01:37:08] game. I'm just waiting for this guy to
[01:37:09] [ __ ]
[01:37:11] pull a bunch of stunts over here. But I
[01:37:13] mean, so what about with your kids? I
[01:37:15] mean, do you are you teaching them this
[01:37:17] stuff or you
[01:37:17] >> I haven't taught anybody yet. Even
[01:37:18] though my oldest son, who's nine, has
[01:37:20] wanted to learn magic, but I I'm I'm
[01:37:22] very much like Mr. Miyagi, wax on, wax
[01:37:25] off. I'm like, you got to do the grunt
[01:37:27] work before you get to the good stuff.
[01:37:29] So, I've told him, you've got I've got
[01:37:30] to see that you practice because there's
[01:37:32] a lot of immediate gratification that
[01:37:34] they want where if I I've taught him a
[01:37:36] few magic tricks, and then he just goes
[01:37:37] and does it for his brother. And I go,
[01:37:38] that's not what we're going to do here.
[01:37:40] We're going to practice it until we do
[01:37:42] it really, really well, not until we
[01:37:44] just can do it. Because the instinct is,
[01:37:47] oh, I just learned this trick and I know
[01:37:48] how to do it now. I'm going to go do it
[01:37:49] and I'm not going to do it that good.
[01:37:50] And maybe he might figure it out, but
[01:37:51] it's so exciting. And I get that because
[01:37:53] it's a shiny toy. And when you're a kid,
[01:37:56] you want to just unwrap the gifts from
[01:37:58] Christmas before it's time, right? I'm
[01:37:59] just going to rip them open. So, I want
[01:38:01] him to get better at the trick and show
[01:38:03] me that he has that level of awareness
[01:38:06] of practice, practice, practice, then do
[01:38:08] a really great job and then I'll show
[01:38:10] you the next level and I'll open the
[01:38:12] next door. But I I would be shocked if
[01:38:15] any of my kids became magicians or
[01:38:16] mentalists. But you never know.
[01:38:18] >> Why would you be shocked?
[01:38:19] >> I just it doesn't
[01:38:22] I don't think they have the same mindset
[01:38:24] that I did.
[01:38:25] >> Gotcha. which is they just don't need
[01:38:28] there's a neediness involved to being a
[01:38:30] magician or mentalist that's there's an
[01:38:32] emotional neediness that's the same as
[01:38:34] almost a comedian anyone in showbiz you
[01:38:37] need something from someone else right
[01:38:38] you need the reaction you need the
[01:38:40] laughs you need the the wow and it's
[01:38:43] just the truth that's what you do if
[01:38:44] you're in this business you need an
[01:38:46] audience and I think that I I needed
[01:38:49] that as a kid because I was trying to
[01:38:51] kind of take away some of my mom's
[01:38:52] problems and I was trying to avoid being
[01:38:54] who I was in a certain way. And this was
[01:38:56] a nice little Superman, right? Clark
[01:38:59] Kent is the nerd. He rips off. He's the
[01:39:00] cape. He's Superman. I have this way of
[01:39:03] pretending to be Superman around people
[01:39:05] around me with these tricks that I
[01:39:06] learned. And they don't really get to
[01:39:07] know the real me. They got to know this
[01:39:10] version of me, which is a slightly bit
[01:39:12] exaggerated, more entertaining, more
[01:39:13] fun. Over time, I was able to meld those
[01:39:16] people and become pretty much I am who I
[01:39:19] am when I perform. When I'm not
[01:39:21] performing, I might just be a slightly
[01:39:24] less exaggerated version, right? The
[01:39:26] same way anybody in show is. But this is
[01:39:28] me. You're not seeing like a faximile.
[01:39:31] >> Do you know when you see some performers
[01:39:32] like a musical theater and you see you
[01:39:34] go, "That's not who that person is."
[01:39:36] >> Oh yeah.
[01:39:36] >> How many people have you met in here who
[01:39:38] the lights go on, the cameras go on,
[01:39:40] they go off, it's not the same person.
[01:39:42] >> Do you know what I mean?
[01:39:44] >> I I'm I'm certain you have.
[01:39:46] >> Literally every politician, but
[01:39:48] [laughter]
[01:39:50] Um right. Uh so yeah I I I don't know if
[01:39:54] that's the right answer but I think that
[01:39:56] I mean you you had mentioned basically
[01:39:59] I'll teach them though if they want to
[01:40:00] learn I'm happy to teach them but I want
[01:40:02] to teach them right which is I'm very
[01:40:05] much a purist where if it's done if it's
[01:40:08] done wrong it ruins it for everybody. If
[01:40:10] it's done right it helps everybody. So
[01:40:12] with magic tricks if you see one really
[01:40:14] bad magician they'll never hire another
[01:40:16] magician again in a company. They'll be
[01:40:17] like, "Ah, same as comedians. I've done
[01:40:19] so many events where a comedian the year
[01:40:21] before swore, said something like, you
[01:40:23] know, racist or or bigoted or something
[01:40:25] anti-religious, and they're like, "We
[01:40:26] can't hire you again, man. You offended
[01:40:27] everybody." Now, that ruined it for
[01:40:29] comedians for years until they feel like
[01:40:31] they've kind of we'll give it one more
[01:40:33] shot. They've scorched earth. So, the
[01:40:35] same thing happens for me. I want to do
[01:40:37] right for everyone who's in my world
[01:40:39] because it makes all of us look better.
[01:40:42] >> It actually helps my entire industry for
[01:40:44] me to be doing. Most people in my
[01:40:45] industry aren't jealous of me. There's
[01:40:47] not as many. They're happy for me and
[01:40:48] I'm happy for them because I'm giving
[01:40:50] them more business. They'll call. They
[01:40:53] can't get me. They will call them or
[01:40:55] they'll be aware of something as a
[01:40:56] category they weren't aware of before.
[01:40:58] >> Like this didn't exist years ago. Most
[01:41:00] this was just they knew about it, but
[01:41:02] it's it's become much bigger because of
[01:41:03] the verality of my videos.
[01:41:06] >> You you had mentioned that you kind of
[01:41:08] started just a second ago. You mentioned
[01:41:10] that this that you started this to kind
[01:41:12] of take the focus off who you are. Sure.
[01:41:15] >> Is that so that is why that's why you
[01:41:17] did this. That's why
[01:41:18] >> I think that I can see that in
[01:41:20] hindsight.
[01:41:20] >> What were you hiding?
[01:41:22] >> I think insecurity. I think like low
[01:41:24] self-esteem. I think that as a teenager
[01:41:27] life is kind of tough and if you get
[01:41:28] some sort of leg up that makes you let's
[01:41:30] say you play sports, right? If you're
[01:41:32] really good at sports that creates a lot
[01:41:34] of your self-esteem. So you have created
[01:41:36] damn near an alter ego because at the
[01:41:39] beginning I I had said wow the
[01:41:41] characteristics that you're mentioning
[01:41:43] usually come with
[01:41:46] you know all the things that I described
[01:41:48] low confidence you know stuff
[01:41:51] introverted you know stuff like that so
[01:41:53] you you created an alter ego
[01:41:55] >> I think the alter ego over time became
[01:41:59] one and the same
[01:41:59] >> and then you meshed them together
[01:42:01] >> which is I faked the confidence that I
[01:42:02] didn't have right I walked in restaurant
[01:42:05] like I owned it even though I was super
[01:42:06] nervous. I would go up to those tables
[01:42:08] and find a way even though internally I
[01:42:09] wasn't. And so over time that's how you
[01:42:12] can fast track confidence. You might say
[01:42:14] to yourself that deep down inside you're
[01:42:15] not. I've met so many I've met A-list
[01:42:18] movie stars that you would not believe
[01:42:19] that when you're in behind closed doors
[01:42:20] talking to them they still have imposter
[01:42:21] syndrome. How do you have imposter
[01:42:23] syndrome? If you have imposter syndrome,
[01:42:25] who the hell am I? Cuz you're like one
[01:42:26] of the biggest stars on the planet. And
[01:42:28] so you realize that everyone is still
[01:42:30] figuring out life as they go. I've never
[01:42:31] met one person who has it all figured
[01:42:33] out. But as you go along, that
[01:42:35] confidence is built on the fact that you
[01:42:37] stack little wins and that over time you
[01:42:40] start to believe in yourself and what
[01:42:41] you can do more and more.
[01:42:43] >> Makes sense. Why did you decide to go
[01:42:45] the mentalism route rather than
[01:42:47] mentalist route rather than magic?
[01:42:50] >> A couple reasons that are less sexy than
[01:42:52] you'd want. So one is I was doing
[01:42:54] mentalism on the side, but mentalism is,
[01:42:57] for lack of a better term, boring.
[01:43:00] Mentalism doesn't have the props. Like
[01:43:01] magic is visual. It's fun. Cards, fire,
[01:43:04] birds. It's like, yes. When I was a
[01:43:06] teenager, I got one book on mentalism.
[01:43:09] Like, this sucks. There's nothing to do.
[01:43:11] You just sit there in a room and think.
[01:43:13] It's like the most boring thing I could
[01:43:14] ever imagine. Cuz a lot of it comes down
[01:43:16] to thinking how other people think. You
[01:43:19] You called it like psychology. When I
[01:43:20] was 15 years old, I don't want to read
[01:43:21] psychology books. I want to read how to
[01:43:23] do card tricks and have girls go, "Wow."
[01:43:25] That wasn't that cool to me at the time.
[01:43:27] It wasn't for years. So, as I started
[01:43:30] doing bigger shows for more people,
[01:43:33] magic is visual. So, you need bigger
[01:43:36] props for bigger crowds. So, I had to
[01:43:38] bring more stuff and I didn't want to
[01:43:40] bring more stuff. So, more stuff costs
[01:43:42] more money. It's more annoying. You have
[01:43:43] to have more bags. I just didn't want to
[01:43:45] do it. I didn't go down that route. So,
[01:43:46] I found that mentalism hit a certain
[01:43:48] niche where people were still amazed,
[01:43:50] but I didn't need that many props. And I
[01:43:51] could still do do stuff for 100 people,
[01:43:54] 150 people, 200 people, and I don't need
[01:43:56] big props. So I started doing more and
[01:43:58] more of it from a practical perspective,
[01:44:00] right? Just literally pragmatic.
[01:44:03] Then the year I got on America's Got
[01:44:05] Talent, I was probably doing 50/50 magic
[01:44:07] and mentalism in my shows. But the year
[01:44:10] before me, a guy had won named Matt
[01:44:11] Franco. Good guy. Shout out to Matt. He
[01:44:14] looked kind of like me. We're both like,
[01:44:16] you know, kind of white guys. He's in
[01:44:18] his 20s, late 20s. I'm in my early 30s.
[01:44:20] And just on the surface, we get mistaken
[01:44:22] for each other cuz they'd be like, "Oh,
[01:44:23] I saw you in America's Got Talent." They
[01:44:24] weren't talking about me. They were
[01:44:25] talking about him. But people just don't
[01:44:26] know who you are right away when you're
[01:44:28] coming up. So I wanted to create
[01:44:30] separation between me and the guy who
[01:44:32] won last year cuz otherwise you're just
[01:44:34] going to compare me to him. I don't want
[01:44:36] to be compared. I want to be one of one.
[01:44:38] So when I did that, I decided to brand
[01:44:40] myself as O's the mentalist and become
[01:44:43] more pure. I don't do magic anymore. So
[01:44:45] in my TV appearances, I was always
[01:44:48] wearing a suit and tie because I knew
[01:44:50] that I was doing corporate events and I
[01:44:51] want to do more corporate events and
[01:44:53] less private parties because I was
[01:44:54] married. we were going to start a
[01:44:56] family. Uh my wife and I did not want me
[01:44:58] to be working five day five times a week
[01:45:00] like a weekend like every Friday, every
[01:45:02] Saturday, every Sunday. Everyone I'd
[01:45:04] work. So I need to start getting more
[01:45:05] into these corporates and that was going
[01:45:07] to kind of portray me in a different
[01:45:08] way. And then the mentalism is just more
[01:45:11] of a cerebral pursuit. It kind of
[01:45:13] appeals to people that are a little more
[01:45:15] intelligent. There's just it's more of a
[01:45:17] I don't know. It's like scotch tasting
[01:45:19] of like it's like drinking wine. There's
[01:45:21] some element of it that's a little more
[01:45:22] highbrow because you just think to
[01:45:24] yourself, well, I'm not being fooled by
[01:45:26] a card trick that seems very kind of
[01:45:28] lowlevel like there's like this isn't
[01:45:30] slight of hand. This is something crazy.
[01:45:31] This is something different. It's a
[01:45:33] premium product is how it's perceived.
[01:45:36] It's still magic at the end of the day.
[01:45:38] It's a version of magic, but I've
[01:45:40] created a a way to the same way that
[01:45:43] there's vodka, but somehow you create
[01:45:45] greygus. You create a vodka that costs
[01:45:47] more money, right? You create kasa.
[01:45:49] They're both tequila. Why is this one
[01:45:50] 300 bucks and this one's 30 bucks?
[01:45:52] What's different about them? They both
[01:45:54] get you drunk. There's something more
[01:45:55] premium about the product. That's what
[01:45:58] it is. It's branding. And so I can still
[01:46:01] do magic like a champ. There's no
[01:46:02] nothing about you get card tricks, dude.
[01:46:04] I'll go to town. But I don't really do
[01:46:06] them anymore because lots of people can
[01:46:08] do card tricks in magic.
[01:46:11] Very few people, if any, can do what I
[01:46:13] do. So that's what it's it's supply and
[01:46:14] demand.
[01:46:15] >> How did the mentalist stuff pop up on
[01:46:16] your radar then? So I
[01:46:18] >> there's so many magicians out there. I
[01:46:20] mean who who were you paying attention
[01:46:22] to that kind of got you on the mentalist
[01:46:24] track?
[01:46:24] >> There's a few. So there's I mean like
[01:46:26] Darren Brown is a name who's was he's
[01:46:28] kind of like what I'm doing now but
[01:46:30] years ago in the UK and he exploded. He
[01:46:32] is an A-list celebrity in the UK. He was
[01:46:35] a visionary like his appearances and
[01:46:37] there's a few others all over the world
[01:46:39] where if you're smart you can go to
[01:46:41] different countries and see who was that
[01:46:42] person in their country. And it's you
[01:46:45] can learn things from people that aren't
[01:46:46] known here but are known elsewhere which
[01:46:49] is very useful because then you're kind
[01:46:52] of standing on the shoulders of giants
[01:46:54] and like like how would I describe
[01:46:56] certain things we all are cover bands of
[01:46:59] each other in a certain way like within
[01:47:00] the mentalism community there's only so
[01:47:02] many tricks there's so many different
[01:47:03] ways you can package a trick magic
[01:47:06] there's so many different props what I
[01:47:08] do all I do Sean I reveal secret
[01:47:10] information or appear to guide your
[01:47:13] decisions That's it. My whole career is
[01:47:15] I only do two things, but I'm able to
[01:47:18] dress them up in a certain way. I always
[01:47:20] call it Fiji water. A family made
[01:47:23] billions of dollars off putting water in
[01:47:26] a bottle. The bottle was a different
[01:47:28] shape. It had a different picture on it
[01:47:29] and it made you feel a different thing
[01:47:31] and gave you a story. It's water. That
[01:47:33] is a master class in branding and
[01:47:35] knowing how to position things
[01:47:37] emotionally. So, the same thing I do
[01:47:40] with mentalism, I can do it for football
[01:47:41] teams. I can do it here for you and your
[01:47:43] audiences who are going to differ very
[01:47:44] greatly from The View, which I just did,
[01:47:46] or Jimmy Fallon or CNBC or a cooking
[01:47:49] show. And so I know what will appeal to
[01:47:51] those people. It's kind of like being a
[01:47:53] chameleon.
[01:47:55] >> Wow. You know, you're a marathon runner
[01:47:59] >> and ultramarathons
[01:48:00] >> and ultramarathon runner. Have you have
[01:48:02] you found ways to your through your
[01:48:05] studies of becoming a mentalist uh find
[01:48:08] ways to kind of mask or disguise pain or
[01:48:11] get rid of it? Is that why you're is
[01:48:13] that why you found so much success as an
[01:48:15] ultramarathoner?
[01:48:17] >> I don't know if I can mask pain. I
[01:48:18] actually like the pain [laughter] in a
[01:48:20] weird way. I've had some of the
[01:48:22] ultramarathons that have gone very well.
[01:48:23] I've had only a handful that have gone
[01:48:25] well where they were like easy the whole
[01:48:26] way and I felt like I was cheating. You
[01:48:28] know, I'm going out there to find out
[01:48:31] who I am, right? I I'm going out there
[01:48:34] to suffer and to overcome the suffering
[01:48:36] and still finish. Okay?
[01:48:38] >> And that's when I feel like if I just
[01:48:39] puked 57 times, you know, borderline
[01:48:42] crap my pants, pardon my French, wanting
[01:48:44] to quit, laid on the floor, slept for 5
[01:48:47] minutes in the middle of the night, got
[01:48:48] back, had heat stroke, and made the
[01:48:50] finish. That's a war story I'm going to
[01:48:52] remember forever. If I ran it and just
[01:48:54] had like a great marathon, it was easy.
[01:48:55] It's like, where's the where's the
[01:48:57] appeal in that? I didn't learn anything
[01:48:58] from that. While I'm doing it, I hate
[01:49:00] it. But afterwards,
[01:49:03] what it does to who you are is where the
[01:49:06] real growth is. The the the the part
[01:49:09] where the volume, right, the volume of
[01:49:12] life. If if I've done something that
[01:49:15] hard, anything that to somebody else
[01:49:17] feels like a 10 of stress and volume and
[01:49:19] what are you going to do? What are you
[01:49:20] going to do? To me, it's now a four
[01:49:22] >> because I've been through something like
[01:49:23] that. I've been through something much,
[01:49:25] much harder.
[01:49:26] >> Gotcha. Why does everyone ring that bell
[01:49:28] in buds? Because we want to see the
[01:49:29] people. There's probably people tougher
[01:49:30] than you that didn't make it. Because
[01:49:32] mentally, they weren't tougher.
[01:49:34] Mentally, they didn't want it as much as
[01:49:36] you did. And how do you find out when
[01:49:38] you're going to break? You can't find
[01:49:40] out sitting on a couch pretending. You
[01:49:42] have to actually be there freezing,
[01:49:44] suffering, doing these things to see who
[01:49:46] you really are. Now, I was not in the
[01:49:48] military. I am so in awe of people that
[01:49:52] are. But I think the closest parallel in
[01:49:55] our current lives that are just soft,
[01:49:56] squishy, and so comfortable. I've got
[01:49:58] Uber Eats, man. Give me a break. Is
[01:50:01] challenging oursel in some physical
[01:50:02] pursuit and why these ultramarathons
[01:50:04] have become so big and Gogggins has
[01:50:06] caught on so much because it's real in a
[01:50:10] world where everything is kind of fake.
[01:50:13] >> What are some of the What are some of
[01:50:14] the tricks that you're most proud of?
[01:50:17] >> Performances.
[01:50:18] >> Yeah. Who who who who who did is there
[01:50:20] anybody that you thought would be a
[01:50:22] challenge to fool?
[01:50:23] >> I did something recently, again, I don't
[01:50:25] know if this off the record, but I did
[01:50:26] something with Jeff Bezos that was so
[01:50:28] fulfilling. It was just oh, it was at an
[01:50:30] event and uh he challenged me. He like
[01:50:32] asked me something that he said nobody
[01:50:34] would ever know. And up and down we
[01:50:35] talked. There's just no way anybody
[01:50:36] could know this. And again, I broke it
[01:50:39] down, which is typically what I do.
[01:50:40] People always they misremember the way I
[01:50:42] do things cuz you're like, "How did you
[01:50:44] just guess that?" I go, "I didn't just
[01:50:45] guess it." I figured out how many
[01:50:46] letters were in the word. I figured out
[01:50:48] two of the letters. I kind of It was
[01:50:50] like a game of hangman with your mind.
[01:50:51] And then bam, I figured out the whole
[01:50:52] thing. And so I figured out something
[01:50:54] that he challenged me with that he just
[01:50:56] flipped out. It was such a blast. And
[01:50:58] it's somebody that I have admired and
[01:50:59] looked up to as a business person. And I
[01:51:02] told him a funny story when I did it,
[01:51:03] which is I said, I I'm at this event. It
[01:51:06] is as highprofile of a room as you could
[01:51:08] ever have. Like there's just a just
[01:51:10] literally as high profile as I've been a
[01:51:12] room. I think there's maybe two or three
[01:51:14] rooms in the world each year that is as
[01:51:16] with as many CEOs and major people. And
[01:51:18] I said, I told my kids, I have five
[01:51:21] kids, only one person in this room do
[01:51:22] they care about. And I told them, I
[01:51:24] didn't even say Amazon. I go, if
[01:51:25] somebody could stand in this room, the
[01:51:26] founder of Alexa is in this room. You
[01:51:29] know, the speaker.
[01:51:30] >> Yeah.
[01:51:30] >> Because I told my kids, you've created
[01:51:32] real magic in my house. My kids ask
[01:51:33] Alexa 100 questions of the day. I have
[01:51:35] to unplug the damn thing cuz they drive
[01:51:37] us crazy. And they can ask it anything
[01:51:39] and it answers your question. It's real
[01:51:41] magic. And I go recently they asked it
[01:51:44] who's the world's greatest mentalist. It
[01:51:45] said my name and Jeff you made me a
[01:51:47] superstar in my own house. Before that
[01:51:49] they didn't give a crap about their dad
[01:51:50] but when Alexa said it. So I said to him
[01:51:52] you challenge me right now right now
[01:51:54] make up think of a question. I'll give
[01:51:56] you a couple minutes on it that there is
[01:51:58] no way I could know. It is impossible
[01:52:00] that if I put your whole life everything
[01:52:02] you've ever said through chat GPT every
[01:52:04] article about you everything we conside
[01:52:06] everything there is no way in the world
[01:52:07] anybody would ever know this but you and
[01:52:09] you alone. and he thought about it
[01:52:11] thought and he came up with the question
[01:52:12] and he asked me and I figured it out and
[01:52:15] it was just like the room wow exploded
[01:52:17] because that story I'm confident he will
[01:52:21] talk about for the rest of his life.
[01:52:24] >> Wow.
[01:52:24] >> Yeah, man. That's wild. That is wild.
[01:52:29] [sighs]
[01:52:30] >> All right, let's have a fun one with
[01:52:31] you. You ready? Let's try to craft a
[01:52:32] similar memory. I I said that that right
[01:52:36] there would be your past, present, and
[01:52:39] future. Right?
[01:52:40] >> That that note that's been there for
[01:52:42] those who have been missing us. I put
[01:52:44] that here. I took that out of my pocket.
[01:52:46] I put it down when we walked into this
[01:52:48] room and I took it out. I made you swear
[01:52:50] to God above so they all know that when
[01:52:53] this thing came out, prior to that
[01:52:55] moment, we had not set anything up. I
[01:52:56] had not talked to you. I made a point of
[01:52:58] taking out timestamps. Is that correct?
[01:52:59] When this thing came out of my pocket.
[01:53:00] >> Mhm. And it's been here in full sight
[01:53:03] the whole time on your table, not mine.
[01:53:04] I made a point of that.
[01:53:07] The past was you thought about a song.
[01:53:09] We don't even know the song, but I got
[01:53:10] the words going down.
[01:53:13] Let's go to your future, which nobody
[01:53:15] knows the future. I don't know the
[01:53:17] future. Let's hypothetically, let's go
[01:53:19] through this. Let's deja vu. You're
[01:53:21] having a birthday party. I'm sure you've
[01:53:22] had birthday parties before. Let's
[01:53:25] imagine that this is a milestone
[01:53:27] birthday, okay? and you're going to tell
[01:53:30] me this number on the spot. You're
[01:53:31] making this up right now in real time.
[01:53:33] How many guests would you invite? If
[01:53:35] you're having people that you grew up
[01:53:37] with, maybe some people within the world
[01:53:39] of media now that you've, you know,
[01:53:40] formed this incredible business, people
[01:53:42] that you work with, people that maybe
[01:53:43] you served with, your brothers in arms,
[01:53:45] your sisters in arms, family. How many
[01:53:47] people would be at this party? Give me
[01:53:48] an estimate or be very specific. How
[01:53:49] many people are at the party?
[01:53:51] >> 150.
[01:53:52] >> 150 on the dot. Bam. Now, this is the
[01:53:54] part where I have you visualize this.
[01:53:56] This is the game. You walk in the room,
[01:53:59] it's not a surprise. You know who's in
[01:54:01] there. You're looking around and you
[01:54:04] walk around and say, "Oh my god, how you
[01:54:05] doing, Sean?" And then right at this
[01:54:07] moment, this is the part I wanted you to
[01:54:08] imagine. Somebody walks up to you. You
[01:54:10] hold out your hand and this one person
[01:54:12] shakes your hand. Now, right before we
[01:54:13] do this, you do not know which person's
[01:54:16] name you are about to say. Is that
[01:54:17] correct?
[01:54:19] >> You do not know. I want to make sure
[01:54:20] that you know at this very moment, you
[01:54:21] have not decided who you are going to
[01:54:23] say. Hold on. Hold on. Don't say a word.
[01:54:24] Stop. Yes. Yes. I anything you say is
[01:54:27] going to give something away right now.
[01:54:28] So I I'm saying to you only when you
[01:54:30] shake your hand do you make the decision
[01:54:32] of who it's going to be. Do you
[01:54:34] understand? Look at me. Right at that
[01:54:36] moment you walk in, you shake their hand
[01:54:38] and you know what? You look them in the
[01:54:39] eye. It's a family member. Blood is
[01:54:40] thicker than water. You go with the
[01:54:41] family member. You shake their hand and
[01:54:43] you look at them. Can you see into that
[01:54:44] person's eyes right now?
[01:54:45] >> Mhm.
[01:54:47] >> I think it's a guy. Is it a guy?
[01:54:49] >> How did I know? 5050. But there's
[01:54:52] something to be said for when I do the
[01:54:53] shake and I look down and I look down to
[01:54:55] see if you look down statistically men
[01:54:58] are taller than women. Not always. It's
[01:54:59] not like I don't want to do gender
[01:55:00] stereotype. But if you were to look
[01:55:01] down, you may have thought it was
[01:55:03] sister, daughter, mom, wife. But when
[01:55:06] you look directly at me, you looking eye
[01:55:07] to eye. You thought it was a guy.
[01:55:10] The guy who you picked, family member.
[01:55:14] Mix up the letters in his name. We'll
[01:55:16] try this again.
[01:55:17] >> Oh [ __ ] Here we go. And now that I've
[01:55:18] done this three times, I don't know if
[01:55:19] you noticed, it's way harder for me this
[01:55:21] time.
[01:55:21] >> Okay?
[01:55:22] >> Because now I can't use reverse
[01:55:24] psychology against you.
[01:55:28] >> Pick any letter in his name.
[01:55:30] >> Any letter
[01:55:31] >> in his first name.
[01:55:33] >> Okay.
[01:55:34] >> Change to a different letter.
[01:55:37] >> Okay.
[01:55:38] >> Change one last time.
[01:55:41] >> Okay.
[01:55:42] >> So that was Okay. So now we try to feel
[01:55:45] it out. I know every name has a vowel.
[01:55:47] It just has to. They might have more
[01:55:50] than one vowel. I think at first you you
[01:55:52] avoided the vowel. Your first choice was
[01:55:54] not a vowel, was it?
[01:55:56] >> No.
[01:55:56] >> No. But then later on you eventually had
[01:55:59] to. You did hit a vow at one point,
[01:56:00] didn't you?
[01:56:01] >> No.
[01:56:01] >> Never. It's like a Polish name. Oh my
[01:56:03] god. [laughter] All right. Let me see if
[01:56:06] I can get it.
[01:56:11] If the name was only three letters long,
[01:56:13] four letters long, it would have been
[01:56:14] very hard to change that many times. It
[01:56:15] would have been like, which one do I do?
[01:56:17] would have been. So now I know it's a
[01:56:18] longer name. Five, six, seven.
[01:56:22] If you saw this person, only clue. If
[01:56:24] you saw this person,
[01:56:26] would you refer to them by their first
[01:56:28] name?
[01:56:30] >> Yes.
[01:56:30] >> Okay. There was a hesitation. So I asked
[01:56:33] myself, cuz sometimes somebody picks a
[01:56:35] guy named William, but he calls him Bill
[01:56:37] or Billy. See what I'm saying? There's
[01:56:38] there's a there's a you didn't h
[01:56:46] first letter you thought of then you
[01:56:47] switch to one further in the word. It's
[01:56:50] either the second or the one you're
[01:56:51] think K is the second letter you thought
[01:56:54] of isn't it?
[01:57:00] >> What the [ __ ] dude?
[01:57:02] >> On your life. Sean Ryan, before I walked
[01:57:05] in this room, we didn't know each other.
[01:57:06] I ask you to imagine how many guests
[01:57:08] you're going to have at a birthday
[01:57:09] party. You spontaneously said, "What
[01:57:11] number?" 150 people. Is that right? Any
[01:57:14] one of those 150 people. Could have been
[01:57:16] a family member, a friend, anyone. One
[01:57:18] person walked up to you, shook your
[01:57:20] hand. In that moment, you looked in
[01:57:21] their eyes. Tell us all.
[01:57:24] What is that guy's first name?
[01:57:26] >> Frank.
[01:57:26] >> Frank. Get the [ __ ] out of here. What
[01:57:29] the [ __ ]
[01:57:31] Damn. You're good. [laughter] Holy [ __ ]
[01:57:36] dude.
[01:57:37] Wow.
[01:57:40] >> Are you ready for the craziest part?
[01:57:41] >> No,
[01:57:42] >> you're not.
[01:57:43] >> Yeah.
[01:57:43] >> I don't know if you can handle it. I
[01:57:44] don't know if you can handle it.
[01:57:47] >> Around this room, you have so many
[01:57:50] parts. You are a man who loves to look
[01:57:52] back in time, but also look forward. But
[01:57:54] this is a temple. This is I mean, it's
[01:57:56] amazing room. Look at this. I've never
[01:57:57] seen a room like this. So, when we go
[01:57:59] back in time and we're going down, that
[01:58:02] was the song. That was the song. I think
[01:58:04] you like to rock. I think this is
[01:58:05] classic rock. You did something with
[01:58:07] umpmph. Most people I said sweet home
[01:58:09] Alabama.
[01:58:11] I said Skard. You started thinking
[01:58:13] classic rock. You said who rocks? Who do
[01:58:16] I like? Who do I like? Led Zeppelin is
[01:58:18] the band, isn't it?
[01:58:19] >> I'm a [ __ ]
[01:58:20] >> It is. It is. Are you ready? That is
[01:58:24] right there in your hand. That is right
[01:58:25] there in your hand.
[01:58:26] >> Grab it.
[01:58:27] >> That came out of my pocket.
[01:58:29] >> Get the [ __ ] out.
[01:58:30] >> That came out of my pocket the moment I
[01:58:31] walked in this room. Stop. Is that
[01:58:32] correct? Yeah.
[01:58:33] >> Before we had spoken a word to each
[01:58:35] other, nothing was set up. Nothing was
[01:58:37] written. Nothing was in a phone. Nothing
[01:58:39] was talked to. There's no whispers.
[01:58:40] There's no thought that was in your mind
[01:58:42] when I walked in here and put that down.
[01:58:43] Is that true statement?
[01:58:44] >> That's true statement.
[01:58:45] >> On hand on the Bible.
[01:58:46] >> Hand on the Bible.
[01:58:47] >> Take out the note.
[01:58:51] Freeze right there. Take it out. Take it
[01:58:53] out. So, it's in your hand so I can't do
[01:58:54] it. It's a scroll. Pull out the rubber
[01:58:57] band and stop right there. What song was
[01:59:00] it? What was in the song? When the levy
[01:59:03] breaks. Oh, that's a good one. All
[01:59:05] right. When the levy breaks. Slowly.
[01:59:07] Just one line at a time so you can read
[01:59:09] it. Read it slowly. One line at a time.
[01:59:11] Sean, thank you for your service to our
[01:59:15] country. And to all your listeners and
[01:59:18] viewers. Nothing like a song to take you
[01:59:22] back in time to a memory in a place
[01:59:27] during our interview you'll hear when
[01:59:30] the levy breaks.
[01:59:31] >> Pause right there. Pause right there.
[01:59:32] That was written before we said a word
[01:59:34] to each other. You could have thought of
[01:59:35] anything. You ready? When we went in to
[01:59:37] shake hands. Stop. Look this way at me.
[01:59:38] Don't open it up.
[01:59:39] >> Hold it against your chest. Don't read
[01:59:40] the whole thing. You haven't read it
[01:59:41] yet, have you?
[01:59:42] >> No.
[01:59:44] >> Right when we went in to shake hands
[01:59:46] in that moment, this is the gold
[01:59:49] standard. This is when you asked me,
[01:59:50] "How do you do something that breaks
[01:59:52] someone's mind?"
[01:59:54] You went to shake hands with Frank, but
[01:59:56] right next to him in your mind, you saw
[01:59:58] someone else, a good friend, and it was
[02:00:00] between those two. You were just about
[02:00:01] to shake hands. What was the name of the
[02:00:02] friend you saw in your mind? You were
[02:00:04] going to change your mind. I could tell.
[02:00:05] And right the last moment, you said,
[02:00:06] "Frank, who is the person you were
[02:00:07] thinking of?"
[02:00:08] >> Steve. Read the rest of the note. No
[02:00:10] way, dude.
[02:00:13] You'll hear when the levy breaks over
[02:00:15] and over in your mind. Also, I love when
[02:00:19] people change their mind because the
[02:00:23] other person you were thinking of was
[02:00:25] Steve.
[02:00:29] Dude, what?
[02:00:31] What the [ __ ]
[02:00:35] Holy [ __ ] You have made a deal with the
[02:00:38] devil. Wow. What?
[02:00:41] Dude, what the [ __ ] is [laughter]
[02:00:45] [gasps] How the hell do you do this
[02:00:47] [ __ ]
[02:00:52] Whoa.
[02:00:59] You are a scary [ __ ]
[02:01:01] >> You heard it here, folks. Sean Ryan,
[02:01:03] I'll take that. Rude. [clears throat]
[02:01:06] >> Wow. I'd have to pull the mic off to
[02:01:09] drop it. You know what I'm saying?
[02:01:12] [laughter]
[02:01:14] >> That was awesome, man.
[02:01:15] >> Thanks, brother. Thanks for having me.
[02:01:17] >> [ __ ] that's crazy. Thank you. Thank
[02:01:19] you. Best of luck. Best of luck to you.
[02:01:22] Not that you need it.
[02:01:25] >> You know what? Let me ask you a
[02:01:25] question. You got one of the team here
[02:01:27] that saw me earlier. Do they ever go on
[02:01:29] camera or No,
[02:01:30] >> they can.
[02:01:31] >> Get Get Jeremy in here.
[02:01:33] >> Jeremy
[02:01:37] Jeremy's been watching. Am I right?
[02:01:38] Freaked out. Jeremy said to me, he goes,
[02:01:41] "You got to do something insane for
[02:01:42] Shawn." And he's like, he's telling me,
[02:01:44] "You got to do something crazy that
[02:01:45] he'll never get." And so, Jeremy, I'm
[02:01:47] giving you something crazy. You ready?
[02:01:49] How many interviews have you sat in on?
[02:01:54] And this is in your hand. Put your phone
[02:01:55] away. I don't want anything in your
[02:01:56] hands. I want you to be free and limber.
[02:01:57] How many interviews have you watched
[02:01:59] from the other room while this has been
[02:02:01] done? How many guess?
[02:02:02] >> Uh, about 110.
[02:02:04] >> 110? Wow, this guy's very specific. That
[02:02:05] was very specific. Imagine that you get
[02:02:08] to weigh in on the next interview that
[02:02:11] you get to decide and that somehow only
[02:02:15] one person's done it. We could rise
[02:02:17] someone from the dead. Anybody that's
[02:02:18] ever lived, if I told you dead or alive,
[02:02:21] pastor, it has to be someone famous. I
[02:02:23] ask people, who's the number one person
[02:02:24] you would think of? Nod your head if you
[02:02:26] can see that person in your mind clear
[02:02:27] as day. Number one person you want. That
[02:02:29] to me is a is I told you this. This is a
[02:02:31] common choice. If you tell somebody
[02:02:32] they're number one and you say later he
[02:02:34] did research. I agree the number one
[02:02:37] could have been found. He brought me in
[02:02:40] for the podcast. He's one of your
[02:02:41] producers. I could have found his name.
[02:02:42] I could have looked up online. We could
[02:02:43] have somehow found this out. I believe
[02:02:44] that somehow people would say he
[02:02:46] researched you. But the gold standard,
[02:02:48] the Frank to Steve, when I say change
[02:02:50] your mind, who's number two on your
[02:02:51] list. Now you see more of a struggle.
[02:02:54] Turn, look at him, Sean. Now it's a
[02:02:56] fascinating approach cuz now when he
[02:02:57] says to himself, who would I have done?
[02:02:58] Now, now he goes, who would we get in
[02:03:01] here? I think the person
[02:03:05] I think the person you're think of is
[02:03:06] alive. Am I right?
[02:03:07] >> Yes.
[02:03:07] >> I knew it. Even though I said dead or
[02:03:09] alive, he's like a cheerful guy. People
[02:03:12] that think of somebody dead, they go
[02:03:13] like, "Oh, I'm going to do Winston
[02:03:13] Churchill." It's a different vibe. It's
[02:03:15] very somber.
[02:03:17] I want you to think of the person's
[02:03:18] first name.
[02:03:21] I want you to think of the person's last
[02:03:22] name. Okay?
[02:03:24] Is there any conceivable way that I
[02:03:26] could have found this out? Looked this
[02:03:27] up. Talk to somebody here. Zero. There's
[02:03:28] just We don't particularly know each
[02:03:30] other. I arrived on set. We spoke for a
[02:03:32] moment. That's it.
[02:03:34] Why was he confused?
[02:03:37] Sean, think of the first name. Think of
[02:03:39] the last name. Those are pretty easy
[02:03:41] questions. Why was there a weird tension
[02:03:44] about it?
[02:03:46] Now, I could have told you that if you
[02:03:48] said to somebody, "Think of the first
[02:03:49] and last name." It was Madonna. I don't
[02:03:51] know Madonna's last name. She only got a
[02:03:52] first name.
[02:03:54] >> Crazy.
[02:03:58] >> Are you behind me? Don't break the
[02:04:00] fourth wall. You see it? Sean, come on
[02:04:04] in here. Come on in here,
[02:04:11] Jeremy.
[02:04:13] I vanish right now. Poof. Like a
[02:04:16] magician, somebody else appears in my
[02:04:18] place. In this moment, you see this
[02:04:21] person, somebody famous appears here and
[02:04:23] you go, I can't believe who Sean's
[02:04:25] interviewing right now. Tell us who are
[02:04:27] you. Imagine this very moment appearing
[02:04:28] in this chair instead of me. Say, what's
[02:04:29] their name?
[02:04:29] >> Kim John.
[02:04:31] >> Get the [ __ ] out of [laughter] here,
[02:04:32] dude. What? Holy [ __ ] [laughter]
[02:04:38] What the [ __ ] man? Oh, dude. I'm done.
[02:04:43] [ __ ] [laughter] done.
[02:04:44] Holy [ __ ]
[02:04:48] >> What the [ __ ] is that?
[02:04:49] >> We'll kick him out. I love it. I love
[02:04:50] it. That's how we end it.
[02:04:51] >> 60 seconds. That's it.
[02:04:53] >> Crazy,
[02:04:56] >> dude. Wild.
[02:04:59] >> Holy [ __ ] [music]
[02:05:08] >> [music]
[02:05:12] >> No matter where you're watching Shawn
[02:05:14] Ryan Show from, if you get anything out
[02:05:16] of this, please like, comment,
[02:05:18] subscribe, and most importantly, share
[02:05:21] this everywhere you possibly can. And if
[02:05:24] you're feeling extra generous, please
[02:05:27] leave us a review on Apple and Spotify
[02:05:30] podcasts.
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