How to Steal Thoughts Out of Anyone’s Head - Oz Pearlman

English

CChris Williamson

Mental HealthManagementAdult Education

Transcript

00:00:00You have said that your career is built on a lie.

00:00:02Yeah.

00:00:03What's a lie?

00:00:04The lies that can read people's minds.

00:00:06You can't?

00:00:07I can't. I wish I could.

00:00:08Okay.

00:00:10Why does what you do work then if you can't read people's minds?

00:00:14Well, because I'm giving the illusion of reading people's minds, right?

00:00:17That's the skill.

00:00:18That's really...

00:00:19I'm crafting a narrative,

00:00:21which in your mind plays out in such a way,

00:00:23kind of like the way a magic trick works,

00:00:25but the contract is different with the audience.

00:00:27Because most of us, when we watch a magic trick,

00:00:30since we've been young and we kind of first experience magic,

00:00:33we know that what's happening isn't real.

00:00:36De facto, the bird that appeared didn't really appear out of nowhere.

00:00:39The person doing this isn't God.

00:00:41They didn't cut a woman in half for real

00:00:43because you can't actually put her back together, right?

00:00:46Science has established what can and can't be done within reason.

00:00:50That's what we believe.

00:00:51So you can always look and see and say,

00:00:53"Well, there's a gimmick.

00:00:55There's a trick. There's a way that it's being done."

00:00:57And the funny part about what I do,

00:00:59it's called mentalism, it's a form of magic,

00:01:01is that you can't really find how it's being done

00:01:04because there's never that trick.

00:01:07There's never the gimmick.

00:01:08There's never the thing that you do to do it

00:01:10because it's a pure art.

00:01:11It's very similar to stand-up comedy.

00:01:13I can show up with nothing.

00:01:14I could do a show today for thousands of people with literally nothing.

00:01:17A marker helps, a pad of paper helps,

00:01:20but it's not mandatory.

00:01:22Is that, you know, when you talk about the prestige,

00:01:24when people talk about the reveal at the end,

00:01:26that's kind of the thing that appears to be missing.

00:01:28The abracadabra, the ahh.

00:01:30Well, it's not, so we still get that moment of the wow, the ta-da.

00:01:34But the lead up to it typically doesn't have any form

00:01:39of something that looks like it's doing the trick,

00:01:42if that makes sense.

00:01:43It appears to be just a test of wills

00:01:45where I've trained my mind to see and observe things about you

00:01:49or influence you in such ways

00:01:50that the method seems to really be mind reading.

00:01:54And that's the illusion I'm trying to present.

00:01:55Who is the greatest mentalist from history, in your opinion?

00:01:59That's a tough question.

00:02:00I mean, there's a guy in the UK named Darren Brown

00:02:02who's really been the godfather the last like two or three decades,

00:02:07I would say, who broke ground.

00:02:09You can't really throw, there's a guy named Kreskin,

00:02:11the amazing Kreskin, who in the US was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

00:02:15I don't even know how many times, over 80,

00:02:17and he was a real character and performed.

00:02:19He created that whole motif.

00:02:21But all of this started, don't quote me on this,

00:02:23but about a hundred years ago

00:02:25where people used to just pretend to be psychics

00:02:27or, depending on what you believe, were psychics.

00:02:29And then magicians kind of observe the way psychics do their tricks

00:02:33or whatever you want to call them.

00:02:35Maybe they're doing it real, maybe they're not.

00:02:36But they found methods.

00:02:38And the key thing to understand that's different between a psychic and me

00:02:41is what I'm doing is learnable, repeatable, and based in science.

00:02:45Those very important things.

00:02:47You can't teach someone to be a psychic.

00:02:48I've never met a psychic that could teach me to also be a psychic.

00:02:51I could teach you to be a – no, but it's true.

00:02:53It's really – and then it's not always repeatable.

00:02:56So if you're a psychic, let's do this three times.

00:02:59Talk to my dead grandma three times.

00:03:01I'm going to ask you three questions, answer all three.

00:03:03It's not like that, right?

00:03:04It's what's in the ether.

00:03:05It's a little bit more ethereal, if you will.

00:03:08And then it's rooted in science.

00:03:10I can explain to you the method in everything I do.

00:03:13Most other mentalists can explain to you how I do most of what I do.

00:03:15Not all, and that's what can set you apart.

00:03:18But that's the key.

00:03:19There is a method.

00:03:20There's something I'm doing a set of steps.

00:03:22What are the component parts?

00:03:24What are the core principles of being a good mentalist?

00:03:28I think knowing how to build rapport, how to establish trust.

00:03:33Same things that a hypnotist can do.

00:03:34Same thing that a good salesperson can do.

00:03:36The same thing that a great con man can do are very important.

00:03:39If you can't get people to trust you and work with you, it won't work.

00:03:44I'm not hypnotizing people to cluck like a chicken.

00:03:47We're having a fun experience together.

00:03:48So you're winning them over.

00:03:50I would say charisma is important.

00:03:52I would say resilience is really important.

00:03:55It's a lot of core foundational skills that are useful in all of life.

00:03:59So resilience is really important because it doesn't work at the beginning.

00:04:02So you don't, I've never met somebody who was a mentalist who was good at the start.

00:04:07It's very similar to stand-up comedy.

00:04:09You rarely find someone who's been doing stand-up comedy six months who's incredible and is headlining Madison Square Garden.

00:04:15There were 10 or 20 years of work to become an overnight success for most of those people.

00:04:20The same thing applies.

00:04:21It's the same core skill.

00:04:24You talk about reading micro expressions, body language.

00:04:27That's part of it.

00:04:28How accurate is that in practice?

00:04:31How much can you detect from being able to see what's going on with someone's micro expressions, their face, their body language?

00:04:39I don't have an easy answer to that because it depends on the scenario.

00:04:41Does that make sense?

00:04:43A big part of what I do is create an illusion that you can generalize my skills to everything.

00:04:50Does that make sense or no?

00:04:51Because I can explain it what it means.

00:04:52I create a very specific scenario that looks, it should look impossible.

00:04:57It should be very entertaining and should be a story you tell to lots of people.

00:05:00People, well, if you can do that, then remember that then the then connector is what people fill in the blanks.

00:05:06And it's not always true.

00:05:08And that's the honest truth is that I create an impression of being able to do everything.

00:05:11Should I give you an example, but I don't know if we're too early in the game.

00:05:14No, no, let's do it.

00:05:15But I told your team to get a deck of cards and they bought two decks of cards, overachievers, modern wisdom.

00:05:20Correct.

00:05:20Take, should we put the glass on, grab a deck?

00:05:23Yeah, I'm not going to put the glasses on.

00:05:24It doesn't matter.

00:05:26And open it up, I don't want to touch it.

00:05:27All right.

00:05:28Crack it open.

00:05:29Cracking.

00:05:30There should be, I'm assuming this is where CVS, Walgreens, I don't know where you got it.

00:05:34Are there, there should be Joker and fake cards and whatever.

00:05:37Joker.

00:05:37I don't know what there is.

00:05:38I have not touched these, but take everything out that's not a real card.

00:05:41There's something advertising YouTube.

00:05:43There's some rules.

00:05:44There's two Joker cards.

00:05:45And please shuffle them up to your heart's content.

00:05:49Like mix, they're in order right now if they came out of the box.

00:05:51It's a brand new deck.

00:05:52Yeah, it looks that way.

00:05:53Are you a good shuffler?

00:05:54No, horrendous, but I...

00:05:56At least you're honest.

00:05:57Yeah, dude, I've got, I've got certain skills, but shuffling cards is not one.

00:06:00Shuffling cards is not one of them, huh?

00:06:02I imagine that this is something that you do in your sleep.

00:06:05So I was a magician before I was a mentalist.

00:06:07Okay.

00:06:07It's kind of akin to doing pre-med before you go to school and become a doctor before you become a surgeon or a plastic surgeon.

00:06:14Mm-hmm.

00:06:15I used when I quit my job on Wall Street as many metaphors to becoming a plastic surgeon or doctor to convince my Jewish mother that I wasn't throwing away my life.

00:06:23Um, okay.

00:06:26All right, I think that's moderately well shuffled.

00:06:29Yeah, but anybody watching this and they're going to assume, so magic is sleight of hand.

00:06:33As soon as I touch these cards, everything's out the door because I could touch them and do something.

00:06:37Does that make sense?

00:06:38Yes, and truly that's the honest truth.

00:06:40If you hand me these cards, I could cheat 10, 10 ways from Sunday.

00:06:44So here's what I want you to do.

00:06:45I don't want this to be about the cards.

00:06:46The cards are meaningless.

00:06:47I just want to show you how you could generalize the skill.

00:06:50Do you feel like these are mixed?

00:06:51I think so.

00:06:52Okay.

00:06:53So if you feel good, if not, by all means we can shuffle more, but it's inconsequential because I'm not going to touch them.

00:06:58They're pretty mixed.

00:06:59Okay.

00:07:00Yeah.

00:07:01Yeah.

00:07:02I did a good job.

00:07:03Good.

00:07:03I did good.

00:07:04Mix them again.

00:07:04Do whatever you want.

00:07:05I don't care.

00:07:05Put them down in front of you.

00:07:06Yep. Okay, so you know where I can see them.

00:07:08And what I want you to do is take and how do I describe this effectively?

00:07:13In a casino, they always tell you to lift off a piece.

00:07:15It's kind of like a cut.

00:07:16So I want you to lift off.

00:07:18It could be a little, it could be a lot, but place a piece over to the side.

00:07:21You're going to go for a little.

00:07:22Do you feel good about that?

00:07:23I feel great.

00:07:24Would you like to do it again?

00:07:24It's completely your choice.

00:07:25I feel great about that.

00:07:26Okay, so see where you cut to, grab the card, bring it close to your body.

00:07:29This top one?

00:07:30I honestly couldn't care less.

00:07:31If that doesn't feel right, do it.

00:07:32Cut again.

00:07:33Cut somewhere different.

00:07:34And take this card, here's what I want you to do. Very important.

00:07:36I want you to take and I want you to bring it very close to you against, and bring it close to your body.

00:07:40And make sure I can't see and look at it.

00:07:42Do you see it?

00:07:43See it.

00:07:44And now look at me.

00:07:45Right now, it's one out of 52.

00:07:48Are we in agreement?

00:07:49If not, we start over.

00:07:50Because you want to change.

00:07:51So you ask me what has to do with actual physical parameters like observing you.

00:07:57Google right now, if you want to Google this, Google is muscle reading real?

00:08:01Is muscle reading real?

00:08:04Look at it up, because right now you're saying, well, this can't be real.

00:08:06Literally, if you want to Google it right afterwards, you could Google is muscle reading real?

00:08:10Everybody do that.

00:08:11The ideometer response.

00:08:12Scientifically.

00:08:13It's real.

00:08:15You can see things in people that will give away the answer.

00:08:19Watch. Try not to react.

00:08:20Cover the card.

00:08:21Put it away.

00:08:21I don't care what you do with it.

00:08:22Think red, black, red, black, red, black, hearts, diamonds, club spades, hearts, diamonds, club spades.

00:08:28Ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, Jack, Queen, King.

00:08:32It's a black card.

00:08:34It's a spade.

00:08:35It's the King of spades.

00:08:36Turn it over.

00:08:37How do we do?

00:08:37Fuck you.

00:08:40No.

00:08:46Now, what somebody would think in this scenario, one is the card trick, but it's not because I didn't touch the cards ever.

00:08:52You could do this again with any cards.

00:08:53It doesn't matter at all.

00:08:55In fact, try this, try this, try this.

00:08:59Take the cards, put them all together.

00:09:01Yep.

00:09:02And mix them one more time, please.

00:09:04Okay.

00:09:04You know what's dumb?

00:09:05I actually forgot that that was the name of it.

00:09:08And for the first half of it, while you were looking at me, I thought it was clubs.

00:09:13Only after that, when you said go through it, I was like, oh, that's why I checked again.

00:09:17Interesting.

00:09:18And then you got it right.

00:09:19No, but you got it right.

00:09:20You got it right when you were going through the first time.

00:09:22I was like, and then that's why I checked again.

00:09:23I was like, oh, fuck, no, that's a spade.

00:09:25If you would have thought it differently, the funny part about it, I would have gotten what you thought and not what was wrong.

00:09:30User error.

00:09:30Right.

00:09:31All right.

00:09:31Mix them again.

00:09:32Mix them again, please.

00:09:33Now, here's where you could generalize the skill.

00:09:35So let me ask you a question here.

00:09:37Do you know how to play poker?

00:09:39Badly.

00:09:39But do you know how the rules of games, like how a pair, three of a kind, two pair, flush, you know, all the rules?

00:09:45Yeah.

00:09:46Okay.

00:09:47Broadly.

00:09:50Okay, mixed.

00:09:51If you want to put it on the table, kind of mix, do whatever you want.

00:09:53I just want you to feel like we're good.

00:09:55I've done the mixing, dude.

00:09:57I'm aware that I can do this ad infinitum and you're still going to be able to guess it.

00:10:00People are going to watch this and go, "Why couldn't he mix better?"

00:10:02That's what I know.

00:10:03Take, and I want you to, I'm teasing you.

00:10:05That's my skill.

00:10:05Lift off, like a chunk, it could be a little, it could be a lot, and put one to the right.

00:10:10Perfect.

00:10:12Pick up another and put one to the left.

00:10:13Wonderful.

00:10:14If you saw me, right, guessing one card, why am I here right now?

00:10:20Think about this.

00:10:21You shuffled the cards, you made them three piles, why don't we just go to Vegas and why don't I just play poker?

00:10:25Let's monetize the skill.

00:10:27Please.

00:10:28It's not necessarily generalized to everything.

00:10:31You've shuffled these, you made three piles of your own volition.

00:10:34Is that true?

00:10:35Yes.

00:10:36Pick up any one of the piles, please.

00:10:38Put it in your left hand.

00:10:41Like this, like as if you're going to deal poker.

00:10:44And pick up another one of the piles.

00:10:47That feels right?

00:10:48Put it on top so you're kind of reassembling.

00:10:50Pick up the last one, put it on top as well.

00:10:52You've cut the deck three times.

00:10:54And here's what you do.

00:10:55I want you in front of you over there to deal one, two, three, four, five cards face down in front of you, please.

00:11:02You can put them on top however you want.

00:11:03You're going to take those cards yourself.

00:11:04Okay.

00:11:05No, bring them close to you.

00:11:06Okay.

00:11:07I'm just getting them in.

00:11:07Perfect.

00:11:08Grab them all, put the deck away.

00:11:11And bring it close to you.

00:11:13So there's no way I could see.

00:11:15And see if you, what your poker hand is.

00:11:17Now don't tell me.

00:11:19But this becomes more monetizable than guessing one card.

00:11:25And close the cards and bring them close to your body.

00:11:28Do you know what poker hand you have?

00:11:29Yes.

00:11:30Now again, statistically, you probably have nothing.

00:11:34Because that's what happens in most poker games.

00:11:37Hmm, but you seemed a little happy.

00:11:39How happy did you feel?

00:11:41We don't know.

00:11:41You also said you don't play poker very much.

00:11:43So I'd have to observe you for much longer.

00:11:45But a pair would be the worst hand.

00:11:47The next one would be two pair, three pair.

00:11:51We would have a straight or a flush or straight flush.

00:11:55This isn't a card trick.

00:11:56This is just watching you.

00:11:59And it's seeing where was their response.

00:12:01Statistically, again, I've never touched the cards.

00:12:04This isn't a card trick.

00:12:05This isn't about sleight of hand.

00:12:08I think you have two pair.

00:12:10And hold on, hold on, hold on.

00:12:11Before you do this, don't do anything.

00:12:12Hold on.

00:12:13Don't tell me anything about it.

00:12:15I think the pairs, too, I would describe them

00:12:18as both relatively low.

00:12:19That's my feeling.

00:12:20Do me a favor right now.

00:12:23Nothing jumped.

00:12:24I bet you there's no face cards.

00:12:25I want you to take and lay the cards out in front of you

00:12:28one at a time, face down in front of you in any order you want.

00:12:30Just lay them in a row of five in front of you, please.

00:12:34OK.

00:12:38Eights.

00:12:41Was there a pair of eights?

00:12:42Yes.

00:12:43There was.

00:12:44See, when I said low, you didn't know what to say.

00:12:47You were confused, because is that low?

00:12:50It's right in the middle.

00:12:51I don't know.

00:12:51It's right in the middle.

00:12:52That's the difficulty.

00:12:54I don't care what the poker hand is.

00:12:55Do you want to know why?

00:12:56Why?

00:12:57Because from the day you were born until today,

00:13:02a card trick will not be something you remember.

00:13:04It won't.

00:13:06So I'm going to show you something

00:13:08that you will remember.

00:13:09I'm scared.

00:13:10Are you ready?

00:13:11Because you put these five cards down from the day

00:13:14you were born until today.

00:13:17What month were you born in?

00:13:19Could you tell me, please?

00:13:20February.

00:13:21February.

00:13:22What day?

00:13:2423rd.

00:13:2623rd of what year?

00:13:27'88.

00:13:28'88.

00:13:29Dude, no.

00:13:34No, no, no, no.

00:13:41No.

00:13:42Fuck.

00:13:44I can't tell if it's better or worse,

00:13:46given that you're wearing that mask right now.

00:13:47I can't tell.

00:13:48I didn't even realize.

00:13:55I didn't even realize.

00:13:56You're terrifying.

00:14:03You're a terrifying human.

00:14:04You know, we were talking about cults before we got started.

00:14:11I'm starting one now.

00:14:11Are you joining?

00:14:12Yes.

00:14:13Yes.

00:14:13Yes.

00:14:14Tell me.

00:14:14We all need to-- tell me what--

00:14:16this is broken already, Jared.

00:14:17We got six.

00:14:18It's OK.

00:14:19Good.

00:14:20Dude, that's unbelievable.

00:14:21I think you're broken, too.

00:14:28It's very disconcerting.

00:14:40Where do we even go from here?

00:14:41This is the first one.

00:14:42I don't know, dude.

00:14:45Holy shit.

00:14:47OK.

00:14:47OK.

00:14:48OK.

00:14:48OK.

00:14:49That's it from the day you were born until today.

00:14:51Put these away.

00:14:52That was just a fun warm-up.

00:14:53I didn't want to throw these out there that early.

00:14:55OK, well--

00:14:55That's the worst thing I'm going to do.

00:14:57OK.

00:14:57Holy shit.

00:14:58Thanks, man.

00:15:02Thanks.

00:15:03Now I feel like I'm going to get jump-scared

00:15:05by a ghost or something.

00:15:08So you mentioned that story is a big part of it,

00:15:12that being able to build in more than just being the trick.

00:15:16Well, I think that's the key because the story you tell

00:15:19is the true power of what I do and what provides longevity

00:15:23and has been my secret to success, which is for years,

00:15:26I didn't realize what I was selling,

00:15:28which I think is a core principle that a lot of people

00:15:30don't realize.

00:15:31And when I say selling, people always think that means money.

00:15:34I'm not talking about money.

00:15:35All of us are salespeople in life.

00:15:37We don't realize it.

00:15:38You and me, right now, we're selling attention.

00:15:40You're selling people watching and listening to this program

00:15:43because if they stop, your business is done

00:15:45and it took a long time to grow this, right, your equity.

00:15:47So I asked myself, what was I selling?

00:15:49For the longest time, I thought I'm selling.

00:15:51I'm amazing.

00:15:52Look at me, right?

00:15:52It's a very narcissistic approach.

00:15:54I can do a cool trick.

00:15:55Why does that matter to you?

00:15:57And then I started inverting the question saying,

00:15:59why does it matter to anyone else?

00:16:00It shouldn't matter.

00:16:01Who cares?

00:16:02Sure, it's an escape.

00:16:03Sure, it's fun.

00:16:04I could do the same thing as 98% of my competitors

00:16:07and realize it's cool, that's great.

00:16:09I realized what's going to differentiate me

00:16:11is when I make it about other people.

00:16:14So the way the story gets told, the way a thing is remembered

00:16:16is much more emotionally impactful

00:16:18if it has something to do with the person watching you, right?

00:16:21That moment that connects with them, where--

00:16:24that was a card trick, so to speak.

00:16:26But the card trick, when you recount it to somebody,

00:16:28will be completely different.

00:16:30Because when I just guessed two pair in a poker hand,

00:16:33that wasn't that meaningful.

00:16:35But when you sit back and rethink this through and go,

00:16:37you shuffled these cards.

00:16:38I cut them a bunch of times.

00:16:39And then it was the date of my birth.

00:16:42Like, how could that be, right?

00:16:44That story is going to get told in a very different way

00:16:46and hopefully for months and years to come.

00:16:49And that's a very small parallel.

00:16:50But when I perform, I always make it about the people watching.

00:16:53If it's for an NFL team, it's going

00:16:55to be what matters to the football viewer.

00:16:58Somebody who's not a fan of me, I came along for the ride.

00:17:02I'm trying to catch new people and have them buy into me

00:17:05and what I do.

00:17:06And doing that is making it all about them.

00:17:08Like, when I do my shows, if you come watch my show,

00:17:10the audience is the star of the show.

00:17:12I don't mean that in a cliche New Age.

00:17:13I mean, literally, I don't have a show without the audience.

00:17:17I'm panning for gold.

00:17:19And my version of gold is genuine, authentic reactions.

00:17:21People freaking out.

00:17:23And other people, even if you're not in,

00:17:25observing that and feeling that same feeling.

00:17:28Because wonder is kind of universal.

00:17:31Music isn't.

00:17:32Comedy isn't.

00:17:33There's almost nothing that is universal.

00:17:36There's a few things, right?

00:17:38But wonder is one of them.

00:17:40That's like hardwired into our DNA.

00:17:42We'll get back to talking in just one second.

00:17:44But first, tell me if this sounds familiar.

00:17:46You train regularly.

00:17:47You eat reasonably well.

00:17:48Maybe you even supplement.

00:17:49You feel fine.

00:17:51But you're just kind of going off vibes.

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00:19:07and modernwisdom at checkout.

00:19:10There's a cool story about Jenny Jerome.

00:19:12It's Winston Churchill's mother.

00:19:13And she got to dine with Prime Minister William Gladstone

00:19:17and his rival Benjamin Disraeli on consecutive nights.

00:19:20And when she left the dinner after sitting next to Gladstone,

00:19:23she said, "I left feeling that he was

00:19:25the cleverest man in England."

00:19:27And the following night after sitting next to Disraeli,

00:19:29she said, "I left feeling like I was the cleverest woman."

00:19:32Nice.

00:19:32That's perfect.

00:19:33And it's this wonderful example of what Alain de Botton

00:19:36calls reverse charisma or inverse charisma.

00:19:39Some people are interesting.

00:19:40Some people make you feel interesting.

00:19:42Right.

00:19:42Why is it that around certain friends, we have lots to say?

00:19:46Around other people, we don't have so much.

00:19:49Right.

00:19:49You go, well, no.

00:19:50It's how much they encourage us to dig deeper

00:19:54and to think about ourselves.

00:19:55How much of us they can tolerate or they

00:19:58seem like they're willing to hold on to.

00:20:01How prepared are they to open up about their experience

00:20:05that makes us feel like we have the headroom

00:20:06to be able to do it about ourselves.

00:20:08And I think, yeah, a lot of people want to develop charisma.

00:20:11They want to, me, me, me, look at how impressive I am.

00:20:13They want that aura to be electric

00:20:14and the stories to be energizing

00:20:15and everyone in the room to walk in and just...

00:20:19But when I think about the people

00:20:21that I like spending the most time with,

00:20:23it's not always the ones that are the most interesting.

00:20:26It's the ones that make me feel the most interesting.

00:20:29I think that's 100% true.

00:20:30And the power of silence that people don't really observe

00:20:33or realize.

00:20:34And it took me so many years.

00:20:36A comedian, if they step on their own jokes,

00:20:38if you tell another joke while people are laughing,

00:20:42it's known as stepping on.

00:20:43You're taking away some of their laughter.

00:20:45You're taking away some of the feeling.

00:20:46You cut it short.

00:20:47It took me years and years to realize

00:20:49that when people start reacting in a performance, I stop.

00:20:53Because it will continue.

00:20:54It's like sometimes it's an avalanche that continues.

00:20:57And in fact, we're shooting pretty soon a special.

00:21:00I think I can talk about a Netflix special.

00:21:02And one of the big things we talked about is

00:21:04when you normally watch a show, you watch on stage.

00:21:07We have more cameras pointing into the audience than on stage

00:21:10because when people sit back down

00:21:12after they've experienced it,

00:21:14that's the best moment by far.

00:21:16No, but it's not even that.

00:21:17It's because they don't feel like they're on camera anymore.

00:21:19When you're standing, the spotlight's on.

00:21:20Action.

00:21:21When you sit down, you get to unpack what just occurred.

00:21:24And it feels as if you're no longer on camera.

00:21:27I liken it to, you know when you cook a steak,

00:21:29how all the juices come in?

00:21:30If you just take the steak and put it on a plate,

00:21:32you don't pour the juices.

00:21:33That's the most delicious part of it.

00:21:35That's what gives it all the juiciness.

00:21:38It's like the real flavor.

00:21:40That happens in my show when people sit

00:21:42and they turn to the person next to them.

00:21:44And they're like, "What the fuck?"

00:21:45And he's like, "I don't know, man."

00:21:46He goes, "How do you, I don't know me."

00:21:48Like that right there, the real part, when I leave the room

00:21:52and you guys, that's the best part.

00:21:54That's where you want to leave the tape recorder on.

00:21:55That's where you want to hear what people really say.

00:21:58He goes, "Dude, I don't know how you did that.

00:22:00I changed my mind in the middle.

00:22:01Howdy."

00:22:02That's the best part.

00:22:04That for me is the real joy.

00:22:06Sitting with silence is something that takes a lot of skill.

00:22:09To realize that there's a third participant,

00:22:12if you're ever doing any kind of performance,

00:22:13especially if it's between two people,

00:22:15you and your person that's on stage,

00:22:17there's a third participant or 3,000 participants,

00:22:20not all of the people that are watching.

00:22:22And allowing that to sit,

00:22:24allowing the sort of wonder to hang a little bit.

00:22:26When it comes to storytelling,

00:22:29not everybody is going to be prestiging their way

00:22:31through some date of birth revealing card trick.

00:22:36Telling stories more generally,

00:22:37what are some of the principles that you think about

00:22:39when it comes to telling a good story?

00:22:42I think this applies, there's a parallel,

00:22:44which is you're not going to probably learn

00:22:45to be a magician or a mentalist,

00:22:46but the core skills that I have

00:22:49are ones that are interchangeable in life.

00:22:52Asking yes or no questions

00:22:54gives you yes or no answers.

00:22:55Doors get closed, right?

00:22:57The more you can give a branching tree

00:22:59and ask questions that haven't been asked before.

00:23:01So a lot of what I do is I design my ideas

00:23:04with the end goal in mind.

00:23:06I literally know what I want the ending to be

00:23:08and then I work backwards from there.

00:23:10Does that make sense?

00:23:11I know, I observe that, for example,

00:23:13I just did something on Fox Business last week.

00:23:15I'm going to be on CNBC next week.

00:23:17I'm watching what do people care about right now?

00:23:19Truly, this is a unique time.

00:23:21There's chaos in the Middle East.

00:23:23Gas prices are going up.

00:23:24Most people are in debt.

00:23:26People care about what's the price of gas going to be.

00:23:28And I went on there and I made up the story,

00:23:30but the story, the hook at the beginning is I said,

00:23:33there's four Fs that matter most to all of us,

00:23:35family, friends, faith, finances.

00:23:39So you're going to say fuel?

00:23:40Yeah, damn it, Chris, I need you on payroll.

00:23:44But yeah, it was on Fox News, so faith was important.

00:23:47But I said that, that's a good one though,

00:23:50is that you just needed to, the hook,

00:23:53the interesting part at the beginning is

00:23:56you want to liken something that somebody can say,

00:23:57oh yeah, that makes sense.

00:23:59It makes sense to me.

00:24:00And right away, I brought it back

00:24:02to what are gas prices going to be?

00:24:04How does this affect people around the country?

00:24:05And it tied together.

00:24:07And again, you're not going to do this as a mentalist,

00:24:09but most people, I think they're an autopilot.

00:24:12And when they ask someone else a question

00:24:14or when they meet someone, they slip into,

00:24:16just like in an airplane, autopilot.

00:24:19After you take off and until you land,

00:24:21the plane is mostly flown by a computer

00:24:24that just does if this, then this, if this, then this.

00:24:27We operate 95% of our lives in that exact fashion.

00:24:31You meet someone, is it like fight or flight?

00:24:34What do I ask them?

00:24:34Oh, what do you do?

00:24:35Okay, where are you from?

00:24:36And yes, you can do that.

00:24:37I'm not saying to be like a weirdo,

00:24:39but if you scratch below the surface and think

00:24:42of the first question, second question,

00:24:44third question you want to ask them,

00:24:45and then, oh, what's the fourth?

00:24:47Ask them the fourth first.

00:24:48You're much more likely to hit a question

00:24:52that they haven't been asked recently

00:24:54that jars them out of autopilot themselves.

00:24:56Where they go, oh, that's interesting.

00:24:57I never thought of it that way.

00:24:58That's a great question to ask.

00:25:00Something that brings you back

00:25:02to something more introspective.

00:25:03And then, listen, I know that's the craziest part,

00:25:07but most people just simply wait for their turn

00:25:09to speak next.

00:25:11And as soon as you say something that resonates with them,

00:25:13ding, ding, ding, their brain starts saying,

00:25:15I need to say this next, I need to say this.

00:25:16And you're not listening to what they're saying anymore.

00:25:19Read and write are two different operations

00:25:21that rarely work at the same time in our brains.

00:25:23So you have to, it's like my six-year-old has an idea

00:25:26and he wants it and I'm like, put it in the thought bubble,

00:25:28leave it in the thought bubble.

00:25:29Let's come back to it, right?

00:25:31That's the hardest thing.

00:25:31It's hard for me too.

00:25:33But the raising your hand approach

00:25:34and saving the thought is such a challenge

00:25:36in a conversation.

00:25:38- Everybody criticizes the fact

00:25:39that they don't like small talk.

00:25:40It's an almost universal thing that people dislike.

00:25:44The idea of getting into an elevator

00:25:45with somebody that's gonna stop at every floor,

00:25:47trying to hold together some conversation

00:25:49that means nothing to everybody.

00:25:51And yeah, the idea of ridding yourself of the social foreplay

00:25:54and jumping straight to third base

00:25:55or whatever the equivalent is, I think is a good idea.

00:25:58- Well, even asking something that's just different.

00:26:00Like you and I probably encounter far more new people

00:26:03on average than almost anyone.

00:26:05I will meet sometimes thousands of people in a week.

00:26:08It's just a part of my job.

00:26:10So how do you connect with them on a real level?

00:26:12I will stop and try to get everyone's names.

00:26:14If I don't know your name, I'll make sure it was Jared.

00:26:16I want to make sure I got it right.

00:26:16Like that's a very core skill that's so easy to do

00:26:20that most of us just think nothing of.

00:26:22- How can people become better at that?

00:26:23I've met a million people on the front door of nightclubs.

00:26:26- So it's very tough.

00:26:27So in that situation,

00:26:29if you're meeting a bunch of people all at once,

00:26:30it can be overwhelming, right?

00:26:32It's like trying to drink from a fire hose.

00:26:33There are ways to slow it down.

00:26:35There's ways to remember names for short-term purposes.

00:26:37Long-term is very different

00:26:39'cause of the way memory imprints.

00:26:41I gave a TED Talk last year.

00:26:42Most viewed in the world for that year.

00:26:45Humble brag. - Congratulations.

00:26:46- I'm very proud of that though.

00:26:47'Cause I didn't expect it to do that well.

00:26:49And I barely made it to the TED Talk

00:26:51by the skin of my teeth.

00:26:52That's a different story.

00:26:53But if you ask the TED Talk people,

00:26:55the fact that I even made it for the TED Talk

00:26:56was within minutes.

00:26:58Flight was diverted.

00:26:59It landed in Seattle instead of Vancouver.

00:27:01We were on the tarmac for two and a half hours.

00:27:03We're trying to figure out how to get me there

00:27:04am I gonna get in a car and just drive across the border?

00:27:07Finally, it takes off.

00:27:09Anyway, it was very funny.

00:27:10I sprinted faster than any marathon finish I've ever had

00:27:14out of the Vancouver airport.

00:27:15You know when you're changing in a car?

00:27:17How many times have you changed in a car?

00:27:18We were just like in a movie, legs out the window, changing.

00:27:21They're seeing my tighty whities.

00:27:22These underwear were embarrassing.

00:27:24They were not designed for public consumption.

00:27:26Anyways, it was crazy.

00:27:28I don't know how that thing came together.

00:27:29But in it, I taught you how to never forget someone's name

00:27:33after meeting them within two seconds

00:27:35because it's very embarrassing.

00:27:36And so I have a little thing where I've switched up

00:27:40the instructions on a shampoo bottle,

00:27:42which are normally what?

00:27:44Lather, rinse, repeat.

00:27:46Lather, rinse, repeat.

00:27:47Three words, every shampoo bottle.

00:27:48Here's what I say.

00:27:49Listen, repeat, reply.

00:27:51So when you meet someone, most people when they hear a name,

00:27:55they actually didn't forget the name.

00:27:58They actually never knew it in the first place,

00:28:00which sounds so silly.

00:28:01But when they say the name, you weren't listening

00:28:04because your brain is going through a stressful period

00:28:06at that moment.

00:28:06Do you already know them?

00:28:07What's going on?

00:28:08You think of a million things, especially

00:28:09if you're meeting people.

00:28:10There's all different things going on in your brain.

00:28:12So when they said the name, you didn't actually hear it.

00:28:14You don't know it.

00:28:15If you ask them right then, you don't know the name.

00:28:17So right away, the easiest part, listen.

00:28:20Sounds silly.

00:28:21Repeat.

00:28:22I immediately repeat the name twice if I can.

00:28:24What was that, Jared or Jerry?

00:28:26Jared, got it.

00:28:27Listen, repeat.

00:28:28If you've said it twice, your odds go down by over 90%

00:28:31of forgetting it within the next 10 seconds.

00:28:34And then reply involves some sort of a hook.

00:28:37You want to cement the name in your brain.

00:28:39I've got a few different tactics I use.

00:28:40One of them is how to spell it.

00:28:43So this is Jonathan, right?

00:28:44We had Jonathan here.

00:28:45Is that J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N, the two A's, or an O at the end?

00:28:49And then he goes, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N.

00:28:51Oh, that's the way to spell it.

00:28:52That's the only way, those other guys.

00:28:54So right away, I've said Jonathan three times.

00:28:56I'm going to remember it much more likely.

00:28:58Like it's much more likely it will not disappear.

00:29:01Second, if spelling, if the name is Chris,

00:29:04I'm not going to be like, is that C-H-R-I-S?

00:29:05Yeah, psycho, of course it's Chris, C-H-R-I-S.

00:29:08So you can't spell it.

00:29:10What I might do in that case is pay a compliment,

00:29:12which is, Chris, I love that shirt, man.

00:29:14I haven't seen that logo for Modern Wisdom.

00:29:15Great shirt, Chris.

00:29:16Now I've said it two more times.

00:29:18I've hooked it with a visual, which is Chris wearing the shirt.

00:29:22In your brain, it tends to click more.

00:29:24The third one is I connect it to somebody else I know.

00:29:26So if I met them, I go, Jonathan, I go, that's so funny.

00:29:29I just read a book by that guy, Jonathan Haight.

00:29:31What a great book, Jonathan, good name.

00:29:32Boom, I've just connected it.

00:29:34All of those things can happen in under 10 seconds.

00:29:38It's not that much.

00:29:39People like being complimented.

00:29:40It shows that you care about them

00:29:42and you will now remember their name.

00:29:44It's been a cheat code in life for me

00:29:47because I will meet people and they will feel seen and heard

00:29:50where when I leave, regardless of if I'm really a jerk,

00:29:53they go, oh, he's a nice guy.

00:29:54Right, it connects with you on a level

00:29:57because you're being personable

00:29:59and most people don't take the time to do that.

00:30:01What, how can people become better

00:30:06with memory outside of that?

00:30:08It's not just names.

00:30:09Ebbinghaus, Forgetting Curves, Space Repetitioning stuff.

00:30:12This is a little bit of space repetition

00:30:13with some Mind Palace location-based stuff going in there.

00:30:17It's not full mnemonics

00:30:18because if you're trying to remember people's names for longer,

00:30:20you really have to do a little more

00:30:21kind of like hard wiring and cementing and repetition,

00:30:24but also having something that hooks the person

00:30:27to either a visual, I'm with you.

00:30:30Like Memory Palace is smart.

00:30:31One thing connects to the next, connects to the next

00:30:33and you can build that out.

00:30:34How many people can remember that for a long time

00:30:36is difficult. It's tough.

00:30:37My memory is not that great, which people will not believe.

00:30:40They'll say, you ask my wife, she'll be like,

00:30:41his memory is terrible, but my memory is great

00:30:45for things that are important for me to remember, right?

00:30:48Think about that again, for most people,

00:30:49I think that's the case.

00:30:51You can play to your strengths.

00:30:54If you're good at bison back and those chicken legs,

00:30:56then you're skipping legs day, right?

00:30:58I didn't mean that about you, legs are great.

00:30:59But I like how Chris is like, what did you say to me?

00:31:04- Train today. - Yeah.

00:31:05But I think that I will do very well

00:31:08at the things that I have to remember

00:31:09and things that I don't care about will kind of atrophy.

00:31:12And that's the part that's harder to really condition.

00:31:14Well, this was something that I get asked a lot

00:31:16at the live shows that I've been doing,

00:31:17which is how do I get better at remembering ideas?

00:31:21And when I first started trying to not be so much

00:31:24of an adult infant, I'm listening to Sam Harris

00:31:27and Jordan Peterson and Rogan.

00:31:29And these guys just seem to have like eidetic memory,

00:31:31like fucking Ben Shapiro seemed to have

00:31:32this like photographic memory.

00:31:34I remember reading things and then trying to explain them

00:31:37to a friend later on that day.

00:31:38And I couldn't even remember what book it was

00:31:39I'd been reading and it was so embarrassing.

00:31:41And I thought, God, you know, this sucked.

00:31:43These people out there, they either have a skillset

00:31:46that I don't have, or a capacity that I don't have,

00:31:48or they're using some sort of strategy

00:31:50that I'm not aware of.

00:31:51And maybe they're just better people than me.

00:31:53And then I realized that there was no reason

00:31:55for me to remember it.

00:31:56I was remembering ideas to tell my friend in the gym.

00:32:00And a lot of the time when people are saying,

00:32:02I wish I remembered more of what I read, I'm like, well, why?

00:32:05Why is it that you want to remember this thing

00:32:07that you're reading?

00:32:08Well, it would be cool to explain to other people.

00:32:11A lot of the time it's that I want to be able to say

00:32:14that I've read it.

00:32:15I want to be able to tell other people

00:32:16and show other people that I know this book

00:32:19that I've been going through or this particular documentary

00:32:21or whatever it might be.

00:32:22And as soon as I started doing the show,

00:32:24I had a reason to remember things.

00:32:26It was high valence for me.

00:32:28Like very, very highly important for me to hold on to stuff

00:32:31because I wanted to talk about this thing today

00:32:33with this guest about their book.

00:32:35So there was a purpose for me to do that, or I'm writing,

00:32:37you know, I do this newsletter every week.

00:32:40300,000 words later,

00:32:42well, there was a reason for me to learn stuff that week.

00:32:44So I know that I've got a thousand words

00:32:45to hand in this Monday.

00:32:47So there is a purpose for me learning things

00:32:50and remembering things so that I can then recall them.

00:32:52But without that, it's very difficult to have memory stick.

00:32:56It's very effortful.

00:32:57And the only reason that you do it

00:32:59is if there's an outcome on the other side of it.

00:33:00So if you're struggling to remember things

00:33:02that you're learning, I think look at

00:33:03what's the motivation for doing it.

00:33:05And if you don't really have one,

00:33:06I think giving yourself an output reason

00:33:09to remember this stuff is a great place to start.

00:33:12- I agree.

00:33:12Yeah, I think memory is a difficult one

00:33:16because again, most of us will think,

00:33:18oh, I'm so bad at remembering names, or I'm so bad at,

00:33:21you'll give yourself,

00:33:22you won't give yourself credit for certain things

00:33:24when you probably have very good memory

00:33:25for things that are important for your survival.

00:33:27For your day-to-day, I need to pick up the kids from school.

00:33:29Hopefully you are remembering that.

00:33:31That's very important.

00:33:32But the things that are missing,

00:33:34what is it that's lacking in that department?

00:33:37I find if you can't remember it, cheat.

00:33:39I write things down.

00:33:40Take copious notes.

00:33:43It's been one of my really big hacks in life

00:33:45is I would say about 10 years ago,

00:33:47what started happening is I would have repeat clients

00:33:49who booked me for another show.

00:33:51And I have a certain set list.

00:33:52And with what I do,

00:33:54you don't want to repeat tricks over and over

00:33:56because they lose a lot of their pizzazz and appeal.

00:33:59So I start panicking, what did I do for them?

00:34:02Oh my God.

00:34:03And then I realized that what I had done for them

00:34:05was asymmetrically special to them and not as special to me.

00:34:08So you meet someone

00:34:09and you guess their ATM pin code two years ago.

00:34:12Write it, oh, you remember.

00:34:14I don't remember it 'cause I've done 317 shows since you.

00:34:18But the feeling that I gave you was so strong

00:34:20and so adamant.

00:34:22And I've done things where I guess the name of kids

00:34:24before they're born from parents.

00:34:26And I will give them notes.

00:34:27And these we kept in scrapbooks.

00:34:28I met kids who were 10 years old.

00:34:29No way.

00:34:30Yes, that's a big reputation maker.

00:34:33I meet someone who's pregnant.

00:34:34I go, do you know if it's a boy or a girl?

00:34:36They go, yes.

00:34:37I go, do you care if it's a surprise?

00:34:38I won't say, but I know right now if it's a boy or girl.

00:34:40And do you know your top name?

00:34:42And I'll guess the name.

00:34:43I've actually guessed in a few instances,

00:34:45not the name that you,

00:34:46you didn't think this was gonna be the name

00:34:48and it ended up being the name,

00:34:49the one that your husband wanted, you didn't want.

00:34:51And so, again, why do I say this?

00:34:53I'm not trying to brag.

00:34:54If you meet someone five years later,

00:34:56they remember that moment, crystal clear.

00:34:59If you don't, it's hurtful.

00:35:02Do you see that?

00:35:03It's like they, ooh.

00:35:04It turns something really beautiful

00:35:05into something that's actually a little bit tarnished now.

00:35:07Exactly.

00:35:08And so after that happened on one or two occasions,

00:35:09now I can somewhat to a degree fake it

00:35:11because I can elevate my energy to theirs

00:35:13and they're not really guessing up.

00:35:14But I said, "I don't wanna have that happen again."

00:35:16So that never happens anymore.

00:35:18Do you know why?

00:35:18Because after that happens, if I'm at an event,

00:35:21I write their name, I write everything,

00:35:22I try to cement it in my mind.

00:35:23Just writing things enhances your memory.

00:35:25Right away, just sit down, take the effort.

00:35:28At the end of my show, which you might not have a show,

00:35:31but at the end of your day, debrief.

00:35:33What was really important today?

00:35:35I don't journal, I'm not gonna lie about that,

00:35:37but I will write down everything that occurs

00:35:39from a business perspective

00:35:41that I wanna recall and that I can use in the future.

00:35:44And just by doing that, if I go back to those notes

00:35:48and I can connect these two people,

00:35:50which now through CRMs, through very simplistic methods,

00:35:52I can just see this person met me here,

00:35:55they know this person, they might be at this next event, boom.

00:35:58I have all this information that I can use, not as a trick.

00:36:01I'm not revealing it in a magical way,

00:36:04but it almost feels that way to people.

00:36:05If I remember something I did for you three years ago,

00:36:08it feels like another experience of wonder and awe.

00:36:11Oh my God, how do you know that still?

00:36:14I don't technically, I re-went over my notes,

00:36:18but the fact that I took the time to take the notes

00:36:20and reviewed them is already a leg up

00:36:23and you can always find that.

00:36:25I do a lot of sales meetings and at sales meetings,

00:36:27I'm always intrigued by the fact

00:36:29that one person in the room is the number one performer.

00:36:32We're here, we're in a room with 3000 people

00:36:34that flew to the Bahamas because they all want a trip,

00:36:37one person did the best of everyone.

00:36:40What made that person the best that year?

00:36:43To me, that's a fascinating thing.

00:36:45That's like when I used to run marathons,

00:36:47my faster days and I would win marathons.

00:36:49Being at the start line, there's no bigger rush,

00:36:51there's no better drug, there's no better anything

00:36:53than looking around at everybody else and saying,

00:36:54I'm gonna beat every single one of you today.

00:36:56I can't even imagine being in the Olympics and winning a gold.

00:36:59Like that's, the rush, I can't, it's unfathomable

00:37:03'cause I did that at like a lower level weekend warrior

00:37:06and it was still the best.

00:37:07But in that room, that person must have believed

00:37:10they would be number one.

00:37:11And then that became self-fulfilling

00:37:13and they kept doing everything they could

00:37:15to make that happen.

00:37:16They didn't stumble into it.

00:37:17There's no way the number one person at your company

00:37:20is doing it by chance and never thought it would happen.

00:37:23It's impossible.

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00:38:36What about deception?

00:38:37How can people better spot liars?

00:38:39- So people, I wish I had a clear cut way

00:38:43and I don't want to lie to people

00:38:45and tell them here's how you can know who's lying.

00:38:47I feel that anyone who does that

00:38:48is not telling you the truth.

00:38:50Because people are different, right?

00:38:52We're all different,

00:38:53but all of us have kind of guiding principles

00:38:56that if you observe people,

00:38:57you can tell when something's different.

00:39:00Benchmarks, the same way that you can watch the stock market

00:39:03and you see is it doing better or worse

00:39:04and that's how you could judge your financial advisor.

00:39:06How did you do against the S&P last year?

00:39:08Oh, we had a great year, how did the S&P do?

00:39:10You got 13%, that was 15%, you're not better.

00:39:13So people, to observe them when they're deceptive,

00:39:16most people add more details when they lie.

00:39:19They add more details to a story.

00:39:21Oh, I want to come, but my daughter's this and that.

00:39:24Bullshit, right?

00:39:25Like as soon as you start adding in more,

00:39:27you're feeling the need to prove beyond.

00:39:30When people tend to be cut and dry and say,

00:39:31I'm really sorry, I can't make it.

00:39:33Boom, that tends to be true.

00:39:35Not always, but more often than not.

00:39:38Now, there are cases where certain people

00:39:41are tight on words, they're not very careless.

00:39:44So somebody who might say, I can't make it,

00:39:46might be lying to you.

00:39:46Is that different than how they normally talk?

00:39:49Check their cadence.

00:39:51I believe that AI in the very near future

00:39:53will become incredibly good at detecting deception

00:39:56because if you can watch somebody when they lie,

00:39:59watch somebody when they tell the truth,

00:40:00watch both of those with several examples,

00:40:03I'm surprised they're not doing it already, to be honest,

00:40:05is that you can now view the difference

00:40:07purely by objective measures

00:40:09of how much time between their words,

00:40:13when they then speed up, right?

00:40:14All of those things that are very hard to control,

00:40:16your body does it the same way your heart rate goes up.

00:40:20If you had a bender last night, your body doesn't lie.

00:40:23You can't control the fact that if you go for a workout

00:40:26and you're in zone three the whole time,

00:40:27when normally you'd be zone two heart rate,

00:40:29oh man, my body's working harder than normal.

00:40:31So I think that catching people in lies

00:40:34is much easier than people expect.

00:40:36I do it in a very hyper-focused way for my show,

00:40:39which is, at the end of the day,

00:40:40one out of 52 cards in this case.

00:40:42Or pick a name, think of the first letter,

00:40:45you'll be like, that's impossible.

00:40:46What was 26 letters?

00:40:48Also, nobody's name starts with a Q, X, or Z almost ever,

00:40:51so we can throw out those three, right?

00:40:53I have a skill that looks impossible,

00:40:56but that I've been studying for 30 years,

00:40:58hence, there's kind of tactics I use.

00:41:01- Hmm, yeah, I think it's an interesting one

00:41:04to think about what AI is able to do to detect that,

00:41:06because you've already got it with the baseline metrics

00:41:09of a polygraph.

00:41:11- Right, which is not, those are not 100% at all.

00:41:15- You think that the verbal and visual cues

00:41:19of someone's speech pattern,

00:41:20cadence observing their face would be more accurate

00:41:23than a polygraph if you had a big enough data set?

00:41:25- I think very soon, yes, I think so.

00:41:27I think that in conjunction with a polygraph,

00:41:29but we're not gonna be able to polygraph people very often.

00:41:31- Just on the street? - It's a whole to do.

00:41:33Have you ever been polygraphed?

00:41:33- No, have you? - Yeah.

00:41:35- Were you able to beat it?

00:41:36- So I can't tell you if I was able to beat it,

00:41:37I was actually on a TV game show.

00:41:39(laughs)

00:41:40- Okay, which side, were you one of the contestants?

00:41:43- Contestants. - Okay.

00:41:44- Yeah, and so I don't know if I could tell you,

00:41:46because the only way to know if you beat it

00:41:48is you'd have to have access to the results,

00:41:49and then we'd have to sit there and do it together,

00:41:51which that's actually a pretty good idea for a show,

00:41:54but I'm certain that you can. - Yes, to see who

00:41:55the best deceiver is. - Sure.

00:41:57- That would be sick. - Yeah, politicians.

00:41:59- What about, you mentioned sales, you mentioned sales there.

00:42:03What are some of the ways that you teach people

00:42:06to become better salespeople, more confident

00:42:08as they step into a room where they're nervous,

00:42:10more commanding and likable?

00:42:12- Being vulnerable is a huge one.

00:42:14So if you feel nervous, just saying that,

00:42:17it's just allowing people into your head

00:42:19and saying, hey, I've never done this before.

00:42:22I'm actually quite nervous right now,

00:42:23but you seem like a great person.

00:42:24I just wanna tell you more about what I'm,

00:42:26like just anything that opens you up

00:42:28that allows you to be human, people hate fakeness.

00:42:31I don't, if you have somebody who's a great salesperson,

00:42:34but they feel fake to you, hey, I gotta tell you,

00:42:36you just see, that's not you.

00:42:38I can instantly detect deception

00:42:40that that's not really you right now,

00:42:43and you can detect it in a performer,

00:42:44you can detect it in a politician,

00:42:46you can detect it in people very clearly.

00:42:48There's a spider sense we have that we can't explain,

00:42:51but right now, if somebody was in the room

00:42:52that I didn't know watching me behind my back, right,

00:42:55that wasn't here, I could feel it.

00:42:57Do you know what I mean?

00:42:58I don't know if it's sonar, I don't know where it comes from,

00:43:00but there's some way that you can sense a presence near you,

00:43:04and I'm not talking about ghosts,

00:43:05I'm just being, you can feel someone next to you,

00:43:07situational awareness.

00:43:09I think there's something similar to that

00:43:11where you can detect authenticity.

00:43:13And for me, if you watch my show and you meet me in real life,

00:43:16I'm the same person, I'm just slightly exaggerated.

00:43:19A lot of other people that do what I do

00:43:21aren't the same person when you meet them.

00:43:23Offstage, they're not the same.

00:43:24Comedians, especially, are not the same people.

00:43:26Actors and actresses.

00:43:27Day and night. - By design.

00:43:28- Well, by design, but also it's shocking

00:43:30when you meet some people and you're like,

00:43:31"Oh, you're so different than what I expected."

00:43:33It's kind of a cool thing,

00:43:34you've probably met a lot of famous people,

00:43:35but you're just not at all the person I thought you would be.

00:43:37So right away, I think vulnerability is a huge one,

00:43:41being able to open up to somebody at a moment's notice

00:43:43and being real with them.

00:43:45Another one is know what resistance is going to occur.

00:43:49I call it channel your inner mentalist.

00:43:50Try to think like they think.

00:43:52Stop thinking like you.

00:43:53Most of us don't think in terms of benefits-oriented language.

00:43:57I somehow learned this very young,

00:43:59which is if I go up to a restaurant,

00:44:01'cause my hustle, when I was 14 years old,

00:44:03I started doing magic tricks

00:44:04and I needed to buy more magic tricks,

00:44:06was I went to restaurants and I would get a job

00:44:08being a strolling magician at the restaurant.

00:44:11And I really-- - At 14.

00:44:12- At 14, I started when I was 13.

00:44:14But at 14, I needed to make money.

00:44:15My folks had gotten divorced, kind of really messy,

00:44:18and we had no money.

00:44:19So it's not like I had no disposable income

00:44:21to be like, give me an allowance to buy this.

00:44:23So for me to keep doing more tricks, which I loved,

00:44:26I needed to go work.

00:44:27My mom was like, go work.

00:44:29And so there was another restaurant magician

00:44:31somewhere else in the city.

00:44:32So I knew that was something you could do

00:44:34and get tips and get parties and print business cards.

00:44:37But I realized if I go in the restaurant

00:44:38and just show them tricks, what makes me special,

00:44:40they don't care about that.

00:44:41They really, they might be cool, but so what?

00:44:44What they care about is we have a line of people

00:44:46waiting to get seats.

00:44:47They're a little annoyed, they're on edge.

00:44:49Go entertain them while they're waiting.

00:44:51Someone just had to send back a steak, it was overcooked.

00:44:54You know what, go sweeten the deal.

00:44:56Go make them happy because the next 10, 15 minutes

00:44:58while everyone else is eating,

00:44:59they're kind of low level pissed off.

00:45:01Now we have this little song and dance boy head on over.

00:45:04And so I realized that the language I could use for them

00:45:07wasn't, they're gonna be amazed.

00:45:09They don't care about amazed.

00:45:10Every single person that leaves this restaurant today

00:45:13is going to walk up to you and say,

00:45:14what a great time they had

00:45:15and how they're gonna come back again with friends.

00:45:18Boom, that's what they wanna hear.

00:45:20The manager wants to hear about sales,

00:45:21not about how good my tricks are.

00:45:23So the more you can position yourself

00:45:26as a value add to the people around you

00:45:29and what's important to them, right?

00:45:31That's what's gonna open doors.

00:45:33That's what opened doors for me.

00:45:34- I had Will Guadara on.

00:45:36- Oh yeah, great, I saw his book, so funny.

00:45:38- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's everywhere.

00:45:39- Yeah, yeah, he's crushed it.

00:45:40So 11 Park Ave. - Of course.

00:45:42- Would be the number one restaurant in the world for a while.

00:45:45- 11 Madison. - 11, is it 11 Madison?

00:45:47- Yeah, I think so. - Okay.

00:45:49Anyway, he said, he was telling me this,

00:45:52some of the crazy stuff that he'd done.

00:45:54One of them was a couple had supposedly got married that day

00:45:59and the wedding party was such a catastrophe

00:46:03that they weren't able to have the reception.

00:46:05They'd done the marriage thing,

00:46:07but two families bickering, backbiting,

00:46:10power games, all the rest of it.

00:46:12And they had gone for dinner at this place.

00:46:14They'd booked the dinner for that evening.

00:46:15So one of the staff made it her job to work out,

00:46:19they didn't have a first dance,

00:46:21made it her job to work out

00:46:22what the first dance song would be.

00:46:25And they slowed the service for this couple.

00:46:27Did a little bit, so they were the only,

00:46:29by the end of the evening,

00:46:30they were the only people left in the entire restaurant.

00:46:31And I think there's two flaws to it.

00:46:33And once they'd finished up, they said,

00:46:36oh, you just head upstairs, we've got to thank you for you.

00:46:39They go into the elevator and they go up.

00:46:41And as they walk out, they played the first song

00:46:45that they would have had at their wedding.

00:46:47And all of the staff had left.

00:46:49Slowly, all of the different serving staff had left.

00:46:50They thought, you know, we're kind of left here.

00:46:52We were the last people here.

00:46:53They were going upstairs.

00:46:55So they were welcomed for their first dance with the song.

00:46:58And they've never, what an unbelievable way to reverse,

00:47:02like an even cooler story maybe

00:47:04than having the reception that you would have had.

00:47:07And yeah, that, it is very much, what's the emotionality?

00:47:11How much can you sort of penetrate somebody with that?

00:47:14Like not just, he was able to guess the cards,

00:47:16but the cards were also something special to me.

00:47:20It makes it about this person.

00:47:21- That's the challenge in life, right?

00:47:24Is to connect with other people

00:47:26because I realized other people are going to be the ones

00:47:28who open your door.

00:47:29Your network and who you are is a huge factor

00:47:33of your success and happiness, right?

00:47:35As you get older, you watch so much more,

00:47:37I heard your Tristan Harris, we were talking about earlier,

00:47:39where he talks about how much lonelier people are now

00:47:41because you don't engage people in real life anymore.

00:47:44It's all screens and texts.

00:47:45And it's so true, it's prevalent.

00:47:46For me, it's probably the same as for you.

00:47:48I don't know how it is for you, but I just,

00:47:50between family, between work, there's just not as much time.

00:47:53And especially if you're ambitious and driven,

00:47:55I have definitely traded career over friendships

00:47:58at various stages where I can't be at this big event.

00:48:01I can't be at this boys' trip.

00:48:02It's impossible, I travel too much for work.

00:48:05So when you have that drive

00:48:07and not everyone has that same thing,

00:48:08but at a certain point,

00:48:10I think that connecting with people around you

00:48:12and either forming very strong relationships

00:48:15or bonds that go past,

00:48:17like give and take relationships are a huge one for me

00:48:19where I feel that as I get older,

00:48:22there are people around me that are just taking.

00:48:24I don't like that relationship.

00:48:25I try to find ones where you're able to keep giving,

00:48:27giving, giving until the point where you have to take

00:48:29and somebody wants to give at that.

00:48:30Does that make sense?

00:48:32I'm saying in a poor way,

00:48:34but the people that have stuck around the longest

00:48:35for me are ones where it's a back and forth.

00:48:38It's a constant back and forth.

00:48:39And it's not always just take, take, take, take, take.

00:48:43- Yeah.

00:48:44What about confidence?

00:48:45A lot of the time people step into a room, they're nervous.

00:48:47They are about to do some big presentation or some pitch.

00:48:50I understand that likability can come from vulnerability.

00:48:53I think that's a cool way to connect.

00:48:55And also to kind of stop the additional level of pressure

00:48:58and shame that you feel about having this hidden thing.

00:49:02You have this secret that you're hiding from someone,

00:49:04which is that I do feel nervous or whatever,

00:49:07but how about getting over the nervousness,

00:49:09feeling more confident, feeling more compelling

00:49:12and prepared when you step in.

00:49:14- Confidence is a funny one

00:49:15because once you become confident, you ask yourself,

00:49:17why wasn't I confident five, 10, 20 years ago, right?

00:49:19Experience leads to it.

00:49:21How do you fast track it?

00:49:23So I had a kind of a paradigm shift when I was young,

00:49:26when I was about 14,

00:49:27which is I would go up to restaurants,

00:49:29I would go to the restaurants,

00:49:30I would be going up to somebody

00:49:31at a point where they don't want me at all

00:49:33to walk up to them.

00:49:34It's kind of like a telemarketer call.

00:49:36I'm 14 years old, I walk up to your table.

00:49:38- Fuck off kid.

00:49:39- Exactly, exactly.

00:49:41So right away, I started to understand

00:49:43that when I walk up to you,

00:49:44if they don't like me or they don't like my trick

00:49:47or anything about the approach went wrong,

00:49:49it's just negative.

00:49:50Some people wouldn't be that kind, they'd be apathetic.

00:49:52Even worse than telling you get away

00:49:54is to just sit there and not pay attention

00:49:55and look at you awkwardly,

00:49:56which is just brutal, just brutal.

00:49:59And so here's what happened.

00:50:00That same thing you talk about confidence,

00:50:02I would leave the table furious.

00:50:04I would feel terrible.

00:50:05If that happened at two or three tables in a row,

00:50:07it would compound.

00:50:08And by the time I got to the fourth table,

00:50:10even if they were nice to me,

00:50:11I kind of hated them.

00:50:12- It's like a comedian chasing the audience.

00:50:14- But I had low level rage and I realized,

00:50:17but truly I can't allow you that power over me.

00:50:22I had this real, and here's why it was selfish

00:50:25because I go, if I can't keep doing this,

00:50:27I'm not gonna be able to buy more tricks.

00:50:28It was very A to B, very linear.

00:50:30And I go, if I can't buy more tricks,

00:50:31how am I gonna get better at this thing?

00:50:32So I said, I have to find a way around this.

00:50:35It was a do or die in my mind of,

00:50:37I can't allow the audience or in anybody else's case,

00:50:40the people around me to dictate my self-worth

00:50:43and my confidence.

00:50:44And what I did was almost a weird schizophrenic,

00:50:47multiple personality thing.

00:50:49I decided that I was almost two people.

00:50:52And in my brain, I created this like split where I said,

00:50:54they don't actually know me.

00:50:56The people that were just not nice to me,

00:50:57they don't know me, O's Pearlman.

00:51:00They met O's the magician.

00:51:01And I thought the same way that a movie star has an agent,

00:51:04the agent handles the negotiations for contracts, right?

00:51:07You don't go to Brad Pitt and say,

00:51:09you can't have this trailer.

00:51:10I'm not paying you 18 million, you get 60 million.

00:51:11He has somebody who does that for him,

00:51:13who deals with the dirty work.

00:51:15Now, most of us in life don't have agents.

00:51:18So I decided that I now have an agent in my mind.

00:51:22And when I walk up to you, if you don't like me,

00:51:24and you weren't asking me, I don't care at all.

00:51:26The agent handled that, that wasn't me.

00:51:28I didn't take it personal anymore.

00:51:30And I know that sounds easier to say than to do,

00:51:34but I truly somehow disconnected the pain

00:51:38associated with rejection,

00:51:39which is really what it is for most people,

00:51:41the pain and fear of rejection,

00:51:43and decided to put that on someone else

00:51:45who wasn't my core psyche.

00:51:47The best way I can liken it as a visual metaphor

00:51:49is if you have a bowl of water.

00:51:52And if I take salt and I pour salt in the water,

00:51:54that water, once you stir it, is salt water.

00:51:57There's nothing you can do about it.

00:51:58But if you could somehow find a way

00:51:59to insert a piece of plexiglass in the middle,

00:52:01it's invisible, and I poured salt into only one side,

00:52:04this other side stays fine.

00:52:06So I did this as a survival tactic at a young age,

00:52:10because otherwise I don't think I could have made it through

00:52:12continuing to do this job,

00:52:13because the rejection is so pronounced

00:52:16when somebody just dislikes you.

00:52:18It's the same as romantic rejection.

00:52:20I had trouble with that as a teenager.

00:52:22That, I wish I had that agent in my mind.

00:52:24I'm like, no, it wasn't the trick.

00:52:25She didn't like me.

00:52:26- You weren't able to apply the agent model

00:52:28to the romantic--

00:52:29- No, because I didn't have anything.

00:52:30There was no buffer.

00:52:31I'm like, she just doesn't like me.

00:52:33Damn it, I don't know what to do.

00:52:34I can't get any taller.

00:52:35I have shoes that are thick,

00:52:37but I don't know what else to do.

00:52:38But if you can find a way to do that,

00:52:40so when you go into that presentation, be prepared.

00:52:43There's no such thing as getting in there,

00:52:44being unprepared and saying, oh, that's my agent.

00:52:46That's you who screwed up.

00:52:48So be prepared, do your homework, practice.

00:52:50But when you leave,

00:52:52understand that there are two different parts

00:52:54and that you shouldn't assess your self-worth

00:52:57based on if they rejected this little part of you.

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00:54:06If you know these techniques so well,

00:54:08how good are you at stopping yourself from being manipulated?

00:54:12- Not great.

00:54:14It's funny because I think that's funny

00:54:19because it's almost like the chef who goes home.

00:54:22And it's like, you know, exactly, it's ramen.

00:54:26So figure that one out.

00:54:27Three Michelin stars, best restaurant in the world,

00:54:29hitting up Shake Shack afterwards.

00:54:31But I think that I'm very astute at being manipulated

00:54:35in certain parts of my life

00:54:36versus like my kids can manipulate me like crazy.

00:54:39That Love Jean, mom said you could do that.

00:54:42Like did she though, did she, like full manipulation.

00:54:45- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:54:46- Like my son, this is so funny.

00:54:47He's in like a afterschool math program

00:54:51where I know for a fact,

00:54:52he's not allowed to use a calculator,

00:54:53but he was so damn convincing.

00:54:55He's gonna love when he hears,

00:54:56"My nine year old's gonna love this."

00:54:58And he's like, "No, we're allowed

00:54:59"because we're going into fifth grade."

00:55:01And he goes, "For certain word problems,

00:55:03"she told us that we should use a calculator

00:55:04"because it enhances our skills."

00:55:06And I go, "There's just no way that's true."

00:55:08He's like, "Email her."

00:55:09And so he was trying to call my bluff.

00:55:11- He knew that you weren't gonna email.

00:55:12- I freaking emailed her, okay?

00:55:14And here's what happened.

00:55:15She writes me back the most dismissive email

00:55:18of like all of our questions

00:55:19are designed for no calculator.

00:55:20So no, there's no, as if I'm an idiot.

00:55:23Meanwhile, I now get in trouble for my wife

00:55:25for how did you allow him to influence you?

00:55:26- You've been outwitted by a nine year old.

00:55:27- You even emailed and now he looked at me

00:55:30because he couldn't believe

00:55:31that he had gotten me to email the teacher.

00:55:32So to answer-- - So he wins either way.

00:55:34He gets to use the calculator

00:55:35or manage to get dad in trouble

00:55:37and look like an idiot. - He triple wins

00:55:38because if he hears this podcast,

00:55:39he's gonna be in heaven when he hears this.

00:55:41So yes, it was full manipulation.

00:55:43I can't lie to you and pretend

00:55:44that I am not manipulated either.

00:55:46But again, I have a hyper-specific focus

00:55:49on what I use manipulation for.

00:55:51I am an honest con man, if that makes sense.

00:55:55Our contract is not one of I'm gonna talk to your dead aunt

00:55:58and tell you things and you're gonna pay me money.

00:56:01I'm providing entertainment and memorable moments

00:56:04in the guise of deception.

00:56:05I tell you from the outset that this is not real.

00:56:08- I had a John Lyle on the podcast

00:56:12and he was looking at MK Ultra.

00:56:14He's great, great historian researcher

00:56:18here at University of Texas.

00:56:19And he is doing original research,

00:56:21getting into the archives, seeing all of the notes

00:56:25of the people that were getting the electroshock therapy,

00:56:28trying to do the complete reset on people

00:56:31to make them pliable Manchurian candidate type things.

00:56:35- On LSD too.

00:56:36- Yeah, well, they were applying a lot of LSD

00:56:37in an attempt to see if that made people more pliable,

00:56:39more suggestible, more able to.

00:56:41And Charles Manson wasn't a part of MK Ultra.

00:56:45He wasn't a part of MK Ultra.

00:56:47However, the fascinating thing is,

00:56:49the story is people believe Charles Manson

00:56:52was studied in MK Ultra because there was some additional

00:56:57skill he had that made him good at leading a cult.

00:57:01And maybe he'd learned that from the CIA's investigations

00:57:04or there'd been some sort of sharing of information in that.

00:57:07That wasn't the case.

00:57:08He wasn't a part of it.

00:57:09However, Charles Manson was unbelievably good

00:57:12at manipulating people and getting them to become suggestible.

00:57:14So he didn't learn anything from the CIA,

00:57:17but John's line was the CIA could have learned a lot from him.

00:57:20If they'd gone to cult leaders, Danny Trejo,

00:57:24do you know Danny Trejo, a Hollywood actor?

00:57:25- Yeah, of course, of course, yeah, of course.

00:57:27- He was in prison with Charlie, Little Charlie,

00:57:30he called him, Charles Manson.

00:57:32And Little Charlie was getting beaten up

00:57:33due to one of the smaller dudes around the block,

00:57:36getting beaten up by some of the other prisoners.

00:57:38He had a rope for a belt and maybe he didn't even have a belt

00:57:40and he gave him a rope, Danny gave him a rope.

00:57:42Danny and his friends had heard that Charles Little Charlie

00:57:46was able to get you loaded on heroin just through your mind.

00:57:51And they started letting him sleep in their cell

00:57:55'cause they would protect him in return

00:57:57for him giving them mental heroin.

00:58:01And he did it to three of the guys.

00:58:04Only two of them had ever had heroin before.

00:58:06And apparently if you do heroin, you throw up,

00:58:08you're likely to throw up when you take it.

00:58:10The two guys that had done it threw up,

00:58:13the dude that hadn't didn't because he didn't know

00:58:15what his response to heroin should be.

00:58:19But they were basically painting the picture of Charles Manson

00:58:22this unbelievable reader, manipulator of people

00:58:25that supposedly might've learned these skills from the CIA,

00:58:29which he didn't.

00:58:30But in fact, if the CIA had really wanted to learn

00:58:32how to control and manipulate people,

00:58:34they could have gone to him and said,

00:58:35"Hey, you've got some really strong skills here."

00:58:38All of the cult leader things that we've seen before,

00:58:39the fact that people are able to bow down,

00:58:41give over their life, their wife, their bank account,

00:58:45their entire sort of spiritual essence

00:58:48to whoever this person is,

00:58:50because they've managed to sort of play this conducting game.

00:58:54- They have.

00:58:55There's a real, I'm fascinated by cult leaders

00:58:58and just everything about how they're able to win trust.

00:59:01And it's these incremental changes.

00:59:03I liken it to kind of like a cruise ship or a large tanker

00:59:06that when it just turns one degree, it starts changing.

00:59:09One degree, little changes over time

00:59:12can start pushing you in that direction of,

00:59:14especially when you earn trust.

00:59:16So with my craft, it's kind of, again,

00:59:18I kind of guide you in a certain way, not for cult leader.

00:59:21I'm not trying to take anything from you,

00:59:23but I can't do it.

00:59:24When you asked me earlier,

00:59:25can you do this with somebody who doesn't want to?

00:59:26No, it can't be done against your will.

00:59:29You asked me, what's the core skill?

00:59:31Building trust, building rapport,

00:59:33and connecting with somebody.

00:59:34- Why can't you do it against someone's will?

00:59:36Ethically, or they--

00:59:38- Just think about it.

00:59:39If you decide you don't want to take part,

00:59:41then you'll say, no, I'm not doing that.

00:59:42I'm not doing that.

00:59:42It's like, it's not an against your will type of thing.

00:59:45- Right, you need to have them--

00:59:46- I'm not gonna touch those cards.

00:59:48You're just gonna stop me dead in my tracks.

00:59:49It's not something you can do against your will.

00:59:51- Do you know if the same is true with hypnotism?

00:59:53- Hypnotism is interesting

00:59:54because people have a level of suggestibility

00:59:57and a good hypnotist will check that as they go.

01:00:00So a stage hypnotist does compliance testing

01:00:03out in the audience.

01:00:04They'll do something for everyone,

01:00:05put your hands together, close them together,

01:00:07close your eyes, imagine they're glued together,

01:00:08and they'll see who is the most suggestible.

01:00:11And based on that, they'll bring you up.

01:00:13- Are you, you must be familiar

01:00:15with a bunch of tangential skillsets.

01:00:18- Yeah.

01:00:18- Hypnotism, magicians, who else are behind,

01:00:21who else is sort of, if there was a dressing room

01:00:22of people doing stuff similar to yours,

01:00:24magicians, hypnotists, who else is in there?

01:00:26- I would say stand-up comedians.

01:00:28Because stand-up comedians, in essence,

01:00:30are hypnotizing an audience in a certain way.

01:00:32And the best ones are guiding you kind of up and down,

01:00:34and there's a rhythm to it.

01:00:36And my show has a rhythm.

01:00:38So if you were to watch a full show,

01:00:39I have, I keep playing devil's advocate as I go.

01:00:43If you were watching my full performance,

01:00:44which I'm starting a tour.

01:00:46So should we plug this now?

01:00:47- Absolutely, yeah.

01:00:48- So I'm, I don't know when this comes out,

01:00:49but May 2nd, I'm at the Wynn in Las Vegas.

01:00:52June 5th, I'm at the Borgata in Atlantic City.

01:00:55And coming this summer, I'm shooting a Netflix special,

01:00:58which is gonna be, I don't know the exact date yet,

01:00:59I don't wanna, but it's gonna be in July in New York City.

01:01:01- Where should people go to find out?

01:01:03- Everything is on my social.

01:01:04You can just click the link, but I'm @OzTheMentalist.

01:01:07So it's @Ozy, looks like Oz, the mentalist on everything.

01:01:11Twitter, TikTok, Instagram.

01:01:13Go there, click the link, get tickets.

01:01:15Come see this for yourself.

01:01:16- Unreal.

01:01:17I had a Dr. David Spiegel on the show,

01:01:19and he is Stanford's head of the hypnotism,

01:01:24evidence-based sort of hypnotism lab.

01:01:27And he was saying that you can have a single

01:01:30one-time intervention for lifetime smoking addiction

01:01:34that's got a 25% chance of single intervention,

01:01:37full cessation for the rest of your life.

01:01:39And I think when you do two or three or four sessions,

01:01:41that goes up to 50 to 60%.

01:01:45- But again, I would say that that, and ask him,

01:01:47is that against somebody's will?

01:01:49So if somebody doesn't want to quit smoking,

01:01:51then that won't work, is my opinion.

01:01:52But if somebody comes in and they now connect

01:01:55the core memory of something disgusting,

01:01:57something that repulses you, again,

01:01:59there's different ways that they do it,

01:02:00but I've seen smoking cessation sessions.

01:02:02And now if you connect the two together,

01:02:04inextricably in your mind, where this thought of doing this

01:02:08is no longer my feeling of I want to have coffee

01:02:10and a cigarette in the morning,

01:02:12that feeling of it now feels disgusting.

01:02:14It feels like if you were to take a bunch of cockroaches

01:02:16and crunch them in your mouth,

01:02:18if you could create those two together in your mind

01:02:20on a subconscious level,

01:02:21then you won't be able to do it anymore.

01:02:22It will disgust you.

01:02:23- Isn't it funny that the human brain

01:02:25has got these sort of weird key holes?

01:02:28- Yeah, to trickle.

01:02:28- That you're able to slot into,

01:02:30that hypnotism is able to slot into,

01:02:32that comedy is able to slot into.

01:02:34And with comedy, you can kind of see why,

01:02:36because normal day-to-day human interaction,

01:02:39people say things and you both share

01:02:42in a little bit of surprise and delight.

01:02:44Isn't that cool?

01:02:45When you get toward hypnotism, you go,

01:02:47what is the mechanism that's going on

01:02:49inside of the human brain?

01:02:50Why is it there?

01:02:51Is it purpose-built?

01:02:53- Right.

01:02:53- Or is this a spandrel in the same way

01:02:57that a light bulb gives off light,

01:02:58but it also gives off heat?

01:02:59It's not supposed to give off the heat.

01:03:01The heat is just a byproduct of the light.

01:03:02A human brain's meant to have this.

01:03:04Is it built in for us to be suggestible

01:03:06or is it a byproduct of us having a few other attributes

01:03:09that need to be important?

01:03:10And by playing with it for a few thousand years,

01:03:13humans have found out,

01:03:14ah, actually I can tell something about your cards.

01:03:17I can tell something about your life.

01:03:20I can suggest you to behave in this sort of a way,

01:03:22or I can encourage you to stop or start doing something.

01:03:25- Well, why do we dream?

01:03:27That's a, have you ever lucid dreamed?

01:03:29- A little, a little, not much.

01:03:31- So when I was in high school, and this is no connection,

01:03:33I wasn't doing mentalism, I was doing magic,

01:03:35but I really was very into like Carlos Castaneda.

01:03:38I was introduced to those books

01:03:39and just some with lucid dreaming and remote viewing

01:03:42and all of this kind of paranormal things,

01:03:45which I didn't know if I believed or not,

01:03:47but lucid dreaming is real.

01:03:48And for about six months,

01:03:50I wrote a paper on it my senior year in a psychology class,

01:03:52and I was doing it.

01:03:53So lucid dreaming, do you know the techniques to do it?

01:03:56These might be rudimentary

01:03:57'cause they go back about 25 years.

01:04:00You do reality testing.

01:04:01So what I used to do is I would wear a watch

01:04:03and I became almost OCD level.

01:04:05I would check my watch every five minutes.

01:04:07It's kind of like the Leonardo DiCaprio

01:04:09Inception where he spins it.

01:04:10I would check my watch every five minutes,

01:04:13and you have to start doing this religiously

01:04:15so it becomes a tick.

01:04:16Not a big deal.

01:04:17I check my watch, I'd look at it, I'd look away,

01:04:18I'd look back and make sure it was the same time.

01:04:20I did this at school every day.

01:04:22I did this throughout the day every day.

01:04:24Then as you're going to bed,

01:04:27I didn't invent any of this.

01:04:28This is all from a book.

01:04:29There's, I hope I'm saying this word correctly,

01:04:31but it's the hypnagogic stage.

01:04:33Do you know how to say that word?

01:04:35So as you're falling asleep,

01:04:36the best way to do it is hold your arm at your side up.

01:04:39And you know that moment when you jolt?

01:04:41That's when your brain goes into that kind of,

01:04:44that's the most suggestible part of your whole night.

01:04:46If you can hold your arm up right before you go to sleep,

01:04:47everyone try it, and right when you feel that,

01:04:49that means you went into it.

01:04:50Now, start self-suggesting.

01:04:53In my mind, I would say, I will remember my dream.

01:04:55I will remember my dream.

01:04:56And you will nod off to bed within the next,

01:04:58for most people, 30 to 45 seconds once you feel that jolt.

01:05:02If you say that as the last thing before you go to bed,

01:05:05what started happening is you will start to remember

01:05:08anywhere from three, four, up to eight dreams a night.

01:05:10This was my project.

01:05:12And you'd wake up for a minute in between the dreams.

01:05:14If you want, you can write them down,

01:05:15but you'd start having very vivid dreams.

01:05:18And within about a week of doing this,

01:05:20the checking my watch in my dream,

01:05:22I would now check my watch.

01:05:24It's fully in our decaprio.

01:05:25I'd look away.

01:05:26I'd look back.

01:05:27The watch is always a different time if you're in a dream.

01:05:30It never has consistency.

01:05:32So I'd look at it.

01:05:33Now your brain goes into overdrive trying to explain,

01:05:35well, this is the reason why.

01:05:36The same reason that an alarm in your house

01:05:40turns into a car honking in a dream.

01:05:41Do you know what I mean before you wake up?

01:05:43So now your mind is racing against you

01:05:45to try to pull yourself out.

01:05:46So as you get better at it, you realize,

01:05:48I'm dreaming right now.

01:05:49This isn't real.

01:05:50I will not wake up.

01:05:52And now you can take control of your dream.

01:05:54And it's actually the coolest thing in the world.

01:05:56If you can put in the work to do it.

01:05:58I have had moments where I've been lucid since

01:06:00without doing just spontaneous,

01:06:02but I used to have lucid dreams almost every night.

01:06:05And it was the coolest thing.

01:06:05- It's like playing a video game while you're asleep.

01:06:07- It is truly, it's better-

01:06:08- The original virtual reality.

01:06:10- It's better than virtual reality 'cause it's real.

01:06:12Yeah, it's incredible.

01:06:14It's worth, it's not that hard to do.

01:06:15It's just most people don't put in the work.

01:06:17I haven't put in the work.

01:06:18I don't sleep that much anymore.

01:06:19I've got five kids, but it was super cool at the time.

01:06:22And I think that I realized at that point,

01:06:24there's much more to the mind.

01:06:25And there are these things,

01:06:26which I don't think are explainable.

01:06:28They're not mystical, but why is that?

01:06:31Why is that a skill that I could learn within a week

01:06:33and be able to just take control of my dreams?

01:06:35- It's like a backdoor in a computer program.

01:06:37It wasn't designed to necessarily be there,

01:06:39but for some reason it is.

01:06:40And because we've tested and played around with it so much,

01:06:42people have found these ways to do it.

01:06:44How long did it take you to learn to lucid dream?

01:06:46- I think within less than a week,

01:06:48I was able to start doing it somewhat consistently.

01:06:50And then it was because, again,

01:06:52if you were to just do that little changes,

01:06:55like the atomic habits, you have to do like small,

01:06:57this was one that wasn't that hard.

01:06:58Every five minutes, check my watch.

01:07:00I would always check my watch anyway,

01:07:01but this was just more obsessive,

01:07:03but I would only look at it once.

01:07:04Now it was the double tap.

01:07:05Look at it, take a moment, then look back.

01:07:08If you just did that, it started to become something.

01:07:10And then when you're in the dream,

01:07:13it was so crazy because the dreams are just as real.

01:07:16- When was the last dream you remember?

01:07:18'Cause I don't remember my dreams that frequently anymore.

01:07:22- I had one last night that I kind of remember.

01:07:23- How much do you sleep per night on average?

01:07:26- Seven hours.

01:07:26- Oh, wow, that's yeah, much better than me.

01:07:28- No kids.

01:07:29- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:31I'm trying to bank as much sleep as possible in anticipation.

01:07:34- No, you might with kids too.

01:07:36Everyone's different, but I just--

01:07:37- I don't know any parent that has sleep.

01:07:39I don't know any parent of kids that has that much good sleep.

01:07:41- I mean, no one's awake, but I just go to bed later.

01:07:45I just don't want to go to sleep.

01:07:46- Okay.

01:07:47- 'Cause once they go to bed,

01:07:48that's your only time that you get to like--

01:07:49- Fuck, I'm liberated.

01:07:51Shit, this nine-year-old that's gaslighting me

01:07:53and letting him use his calculator

01:07:55has finally gotten this tiny little tyrant.

01:07:56- Holy, and the judgment from the tutor who writes me back,

01:07:59and you could just tell that the parentheses

01:08:01was like you freaking moron.

01:08:03Like she couldn't say that,

01:08:04but she wanted to put that in the parentheses.

01:08:07Oh, it's so, yeah, that's amazing.

01:08:08Yes, can I be easily manipulated?

01:08:10I wanted to lie, but the truth is yes, I can and my kids can.

01:08:13- A quick aside.

01:08:14There is a stat that genuinely surprised me

01:08:15when I first heard it.

01:08:1695% of people don't get enough fiber.

01:08:20Not because they're being careless,

01:08:21but because hitting your daily fiber target

01:08:23through food alone is actually quite hard.

01:08:25But that's why Momentus built Fiber Plus.

01:08:28See, fiber isn't just a digestion thing.

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01:09:29When tricks go wrong, how, first of all, do I--

01:09:33- They never go wrong on perfect, Chris.

01:09:35No, they definitely go wrong.

01:09:36- Do any times come to mind

01:09:37where there was a really big face plant?

01:09:39And then I'm also interested in how you recover from that

01:09:43in front of a live audience, whether it's big or small.

01:09:45Because I think that someone meant to do something,

01:09:48they messed up this thing that they'd maybe planned

01:09:50or prepared, perhaps it was their fault

01:09:52or it wasn't their fault.

01:09:53Something occurred just at the right moment

01:09:55or the wrong moment.

01:09:56Or on a sales call, they quote the wrong number

01:09:57and they notice themselves starting to lose it.

01:10:00What have you learned about dealing with failure

01:10:03in the moment?

01:10:04Can we talk about the more fluffy side of failure,

01:10:07seeing yourself as a failure, the self-labeling,

01:10:09the overcoming of the self-rejection and the esteem side?

01:10:12I think in the moment, winning back,

01:10:14because you have to do that.

01:10:16If you're at the table and you mess up the first one,

01:10:17you go, "I think I might be able to salvage this."

01:10:20What have you learned about dealing with it emotionally,

01:10:22psychologically, and then also trying

01:10:24to charmingly bring that back around?

01:10:26- So I've gotten better on a couple fronts.

01:10:28One, I've gotten better at realizing

01:10:30that people remember the beginning and the end

01:10:33more than the middle.

01:10:34So how you leave someone is so much more important

01:10:36than what happens before that.

01:10:37If you can win somebody back over,

01:10:39that will be the last feeling they leave with.

01:10:41- Peak end rule.

01:10:41- Yeah, huge.

01:10:43And people forget the misses and remember the hits.

01:10:45So that's the key to psychics.

01:10:47So a lot of psychics, if you were to sit in a room

01:10:49and check off, what did you get right?

01:10:50What did you get right?

01:10:51What did you get right?

01:10:52They mostly get things wrong, right?

01:10:53It's kind of the Roger Federer.

01:10:54He only won 54% of his points.

01:10:56He's arguably one of the greatest of all time.

01:10:58- I love that stat.

01:10:58- It's crazy.

01:10:59- Yeah, won 54% of his points, but 80% of his games.

01:11:01- Exactly.

01:11:02It's wild.

01:11:03So win the right point.

01:11:04So with me, I realized that how I end is the most important

01:11:07in a show and the ones that move you.

01:11:09For me, it's 'cause I'm a performer that what matters,

01:11:12but there are still major face plants.

01:11:13There are things that go wrong.

01:11:15And I actually find I learn way more cliche,

01:11:19but from the mistakes.

01:11:20Because it's a mistake that I completely didn't see coming.

01:11:23It really eats me up of like, what happened?

01:11:26How did I misjudge that so much?

01:11:28And some of those you learn from,

01:11:29some of those you kind of take the hit and you move on.

01:11:32I learned in a big way for me is that

01:11:35defining something as a mistake has been a gray area.

01:11:38For years, the only way that you know if I made a mistake

01:11:42is if you know what wasn't a mistake,

01:11:44which is funny because my career is a pick your own adventure.

01:11:48Hear me out.

01:11:49It's very clear in a football game,

01:11:52if you made a mistake 'cause you lost the game, right?

01:11:55The score at the end of the day, mine isn't like that.

01:11:57That trick, I could have never shown you

01:12:00your date of birth at the end

01:12:02and you would have still been impressed.

01:12:04So it could have gone completely wrong on my end

01:12:06and I would have never gone.

01:12:07Or maybe there was a second ending at the end of that

01:12:10that you didn't know that was like the kicker on the kicker

01:12:13that I didn't do that went wrong

01:12:15that you didn't even know. - The criteria for success

01:12:17hasn't been defined,

01:12:17therefore, the failure card. - I never define

01:12:19what the ending is.

01:12:20- I'm going to guess not only your cards,

01:12:22but I'm also going to make sure

01:12:23that the cards are your birthday.

01:12:25- Exactly.

01:12:25So what if that never happened?

01:12:27So what if that last bit never happened

01:12:29you didn't know went wrong?

01:12:30So I've learned that I don't, in essence,

01:12:33foreshadow the ending in many instances

01:12:35of what I'm going to do beforehand.

01:12:37So that if something will go wrong-

01:12:38- You're going to get a get out of jail free card.

01:12:40- I get to get out of jail all the time

01:12:42'cause you don't even know you're in jail

01:12:43when you're performing.

01:12:44So that happens.

01:12:45But before that, there have been mess ups

01:12:48and there's also things where I take a big leap of faith.

01:12:52Like I'm going for stuff.

01:12:53I don't know exactly when this airs,

01:12:55but I'm hosting the White House Correspondents' Dinner

01:12:56this year.

01:12:57President Trump has never attended

01:12:59while in office before, ever.

01:13:01So this is the first time.

01:13:03I believe that that is not a coincidence

01:13:05that he is coming somewhat because I am there

01:13:07because in the past there have been comedians

01:13:08who kind of roast him

01:13:10and my intention is not to roast.

01:13:12- Wouldn't it be funny if you got in there

01:13:14and you decided to do a roast?

01:13:15It's like we're not actually doing any magic this evening.

01:13:18No mentalism.

01:13:19Donald, Tony Hinchcliffe, come on down.

01:13:22It's just a fucking Avengers Assemble of people

01:13:24come in to do it.

01:13:25- Kill Tony.

01:13:25- Well, I mean, that's the ultimate rug pull.

01:13:27You want to talk about that?

01:13:28It's like you've spent your entire career,

01:13:29three, four decades doing this thing.

01:13:31- Just to fake this.

01:13:32- To rug pull the President of the United States

01:13:34into a night roast.

01:13:35- Oof.

01:13:36- I mean, you might lose.

01:13:37- The long game.

01:13:38- You might be jailed,

01:13:39but I think that's the way that you should,

01:13:42that's the swan song.

01:13:43- 50% of you would hate you.

01:13:4450% of you would love you.

01:13:46- I actually think that probably

01:13:47almost all people would love you.

01:13:48Even Trump's biggest supporters

01:13:51would love to watch him go through a roast.

01:13:54He's kind of like hilarious.

01:13:55- He's been roasted before.

01:13:56- That's true.

01:13:57But I mean, Barack Obama roasting him.

01:13:58- He has thicker skin than most people think.

01:14:00- Yeah, Barack Obama doing that,

01:14:03the difference between us is that one of us

01:14:05is going to be president.

01:14:06That's one of the sort of Genesis points,

01:14:09supposedly, who knows,

01:14:11of him deciding that he was gonna run for office.

01:14:13- So that was the last time, 2013.

01:14:15- That was the same one. - That's when he was at it.

01:14:16- Right, right, right, right.

01:14:17- But he wasn't there as president.

01:14:18- Yes. - Yeah.

01:14:19- Barack sort of points him out in the crowd

01:14:21that the difference is that one of us is president

01:14:22or gonna be president.

01:14:24Hilarious.

01:14:24- I mean, it was, it was.

01:14:25- That's sick.

01:14:26So have you got something special planned for The Donald?

01:14:29- The most special thing I've ever planned in my life, I think.

01:14:31I think, again, you never know what will happen,

01:14:34but my hope is that it's kind of like the Joe Rogan moment.

01:14:38When I guess Joe Rogan's pin code,

01:14:40there was a feeling of there's no way

01:14:43that Joe was in on this.

01:14:44There's no way.

01:14:45Joe didn't even know that was gonna happen

01:14:46'cause you can register surprise very clearly.

01:14:48It's very hard to fake surprise.

01:14:50It's truly like even an actor/actress to say,

01:14:52"Oh, if you know what's happening, you can't."

01:14:54That's why a lot of the scenes they do that are surprises,

01:14:56they actually first take surprise them.

01:14:59Like the diehard, you know the diehard one, the drop.

01:15:02- The what?

01:15:04- Allen, is it Allen?

01:15:05What's his name?

01:15:06Allen Rickman?

01:15:07When he gets dropped, oh, spoiler alert, diehard one.

01:15:10Sorry for anyone who hasn't seen it,

01:15:11but it's been 30 years.

01:15:13The drop, I was told, I think I saw the behind the scenes,

01:15:15the director's cut, is, you know, at the end,

01:15:17when he gets that they didn't rehearse that

01:15:19in the first take, they actually dropped him.

01:15:21Like, do you understand that he was, it was, yes.

01:15:23So the first one was an honest one

01:15:25because otherwise it's just like shooting a gun.

01:15:27If you know you jolt up because you registered

01:15:30before you shoot that you're gonna feel it, your body freezes.

01:15:33So I think that, like seeing Joe react to the pin code,

01:15:38he's almost as high level as you know he's not in on it.

01:15:44But a hundred X more is Donald Trump.

01:15:47Donald Trump will not fake it for anyone.

01:15:48- The least compliant man on the planet.

01:15:50- That will, exactly, there is no world in which

01:15:52I can get him to do what I want for any reason.

01:15:56- Guess the nuclear codes, that's a way to do it.

01:15:58- You'll see what happens.

01:15:58- That's something really fucking gnarly.

01:16:00Something really gnarly.

01:16:01And it's like, and a war has begun with Russia,

01:16:04but at least the trick was great.

01:16:05- Yes.

01:16:06- Interesting on the first take thing,

01:16:07McConaughey in Interstellar.

01:16:09So when they go down to the planet that's full of waves

01:16:13and they lose an additional seven years

01:16:15because they're down there for one more wave

01:16:17before they can get out and go back up to the ship.

01:16:20The ship's been receiving all of these messages.

01:16:22So there's these backlog messages for--

01:16:24- Tasty.

01:16:25- Good, there we go.

01:16:26These backlog messages for like two decades.

01:16:29And it's his kids, you sort of watch his kids unfolding

01:16:32as they're saying, "Dad, we haven't heard from you.

01:16:33We don't know if he's gonna."

01:16:34That's the first take.

01:16:35The one that they used was the first take.

01:16:37And he told me the story where he was saying

01:16:40he was waiting, sort of getting himself in

01:16:43and people try and come and speak to you on set

01:16:46before you're about to go in.

01:16:47And he sort of did this thing and he watched it.

01:16:51And sure enough, the first take that they did,

01:16:53I don't think he'd seen what the video was going to be

01:16:57that he was going to be reacting to.

01:16:59And I mean, Danny Trejo told me this as well.

01:17:01This is years ago when I spoke to him on the show.

01:17:03And you've got some Mexican gangster dudes,

01:17:07like massive Mexican gangster covered in prison tattoos.

01:17:10Again, you now need to learn to act.

01:17:11- Right.

01:17:12- Danny's a fascinating human and an interesting actor,

01:17:15but like not classically trained.

01:17:18- Right.

01:17:19- And his whole thing was if you need to walk into a room,

01:17:22sit down and take a drink of water,

01:17:23you don't act like you walk into a room,

01:17:25sit down and take a drink of water.

01:17:27You just do that thing.

01:17:28- Right.

01:17:29- And unfortunately,

01:17:30when you're talking about emotional reactions,

01:17:31after a while it loses its, I mean, after the first time,

01:17:3550, 60, 70% of that emotional intensity is gone.

01:17:38And of the surprise, almost all of it's gone.

01:17:40Which is the same reason that you don't want to do

01:17:42the same trick twice.

01:17:43Comedians can't do the same joke twice, but musicians can.

01:17:47- Oh, so lucky, they are expected to.

01:17:50- Of course.

01:17:51- Imagine you go see Coldplay and you don't do yellow.

01:17:54- If you see the killers and they don't play Mr. Brightside,

01:17:55you feel short change.

01:17:56- Yes.

01:17:57- If you go back and watch Matt Rife do a set

01:18:00that he did last time,

01:18:00which I think is one of the reasons that crowd work

01:18:03is becoming so important.

01:18:04It's such a, I went to go and see Jimmy Carr in Australia.

01:18:07He actually looked after our clothes

01:18:09as we jumped in the sea at Bondi Beach,

01:18:11which was the oddest scenario that me and my video guys

01:18:15and my friends went and jumped in the sea.

01:18:17And Jimmy was like, I'm going to look after the kit.

01:18:18So we sat on the grass on the edge of Bondi Beach.

01:18:22Like dad was watching the clothes as we jumped in

01:18:24and we came back and he's like, I've got a gig to 7,000

01:18:27people that I need to go and get dressed for.

01:18:29But Jimmy's like, afternoon was spent watching our stuff

01:18:31as we fucked about in the sea.

01:18:33Anyway, I went to go and watch him and he does,

01:18:36he must do, I'm not kidding dude,

01:18:39350 jokes in an hour and 40 minutes.

01:18:41- Oh, he's a machine.

01:18:42- Yeah, you talked about sort of up and down for comedians.

01:18:46Jimmy's more like sort of an M140.

01:18:48- Yeah.

01:18:49- But even he's throwing a lot of crowd work in.

01:18:53And I think that a big part of that is that

01:18:55it doesn't matter.

01:18:55People ask you a question, it's always going to be different.

01:18:58It's always going to be new, you're in a new place.

01:19:00And yeah, the differences in terms of art form

01:19:04from musicians and music, which is another key hole

01:19:07in the back of the human brain.

01:19:08Like why, why these rhythms, why these harmonies?

01:19:12Why these particular sorts of progressions?

01:19:13Why tension and release?

01:19:15And why do we like familiarity in music,

01:19:19but we don't like familiarity, even watching a movie.

01:19:21We like watching a movie, but usually the most amazing time

01:19:25is maybe the first or perhaps the second.

01:19:27But after a while Avengers Endgame just sort of starts

01:19:29to lose some of the, and then you need a break.

01:19:32- Right.

01:19:32- You need to take a break from watching Interstellar

01:19:33for five years and then--

01:19:34- Even though comedy is different, some comedies are better

01:19:38the second, third, fourth, fifth time.

01:19:39- That's true.

01:19:40- Wedding Crashers, I can watch Wedding Crashers anytime.

01:19:43That movie--

01:19:44- So I think it's really interesting when you talk about

01:19:46comedy movies, because what you're looking for

01:19:48are your favorite moments.

01:19:49- Moments.

01:19:50- It's almost like a shared microculture around that thing.

01:19:53And perhaps the same thing's true with types of standup.

01:19:57But for the most part, if you're gonna go and see a show,

01:19:58you want a new joke.

01:19:59- You want a new joke.

01:20:00- I know what the answer to this.

01:20:01The only time that you don't want that

01:20:03is if someone is with you that hasn't been.

01:20:05You're like, dude, you gotta listen.

01:20:07We listen to this one, listen to this one.

01:20:08But that's because you want the special, I know,

01:20:11I'm in the know.

01:20:12- And there's an awkward moment that's involved

01:20:14exactly with that scenario when you're showing

01:20:15to someone else something that you really care about.

01:20:17There's this moment of what if they don't think

01:20:19this is funny. - They think it sucks.

01:20:20- And now they think I'm in a,

01:20:22and then you start justifying, go, no,

01:20:23well, it's really funny to me.

01:20:24- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:25- That's the worst feeling.

01:20:26- He did it better last time, yeah.

01:20:28It's like being past the Orcs cable at the front of the car,

01:20:31playing a song, you're like, you gotta listen to this

01:20:33and look him back and everyone's like.

01:20:35- Yeah, yeah, that is very awkward.

01:20:37- There is no pain like that, like playing a banger

01:20:40that you think is, it was your top played song last year.

01:20:42Everyone's just like, I'm not a massive fan of Sleep Token,

01:20:45dude, they kinda suck.

01:20:46So--

01:20:48- That's heavy pressure.

01:20:49- Starting from fails, you know, how are you gonna feel,

01:20:52do you think, going into this White House, the dinner?

01:20:55Is that gonna be--

01:20:56- So I'm hyper prepared.

01:20:57It's really, I'm thinking of every scenario

01:20:59that can play out to a degree and just thinking how to,

01:21:03how to kind of, if in every road, A, B, C, D,

01:21:08what can I pull off, what can I do?

01:21:10Most of it is centered around I'm going to be trying

01:21:13to do the most amazing thing ever for Trump.

01:21:15That's the moment.

01:21:16Know that the people in the room,

01:21:17it's also gonna be on live TV, that matters.

01:21:20But what matters is the headline.

01:21:22What matters is the clip.

01:21:24That's really, in today's day and age,

01:21:26what people truly remember is typically one or two lines

01:21:30of text, that's what they know.

01:21:31Think about it.

01:21:32Think about people that you know of and you say,

01:21:35well, what do you know them for?

01:21:36Well, this, well, tell me more about that.

01:21:38Well, I don't, you know, you don't really know much more

01:21:40than that anymore about a lot of people.

01:21:43- Yep.

01:21:43Well, the simplest message is the one that goes the furthest.

01:21:46- Right.

01:21:46- It's a problem because for the most part,

01:21:50answers to the big questions that we care about

01:21:52aren't simple, but the ones that are most memeable,

01:21:54most repeatable, most memorable are the ones

01:21:57that go the furthest.

01:21:58So you actually end up with a world in which the answers

01:22:01become less satisfactory and less accurate

01:22:03as the world's demand for answers becomes greater.

01:22:05And the ones that actually are correct are the ones

01:22:08that are overlooked because they're too complex

01:22:10or too nuanced.

01:22:10So it's too much work.

01:22:12It's too much work for me to work out what this actually is.

01:22:14I would much sooner just have this simple forward sentence.

01:22:17That's great.

01:22:18That works for me.

01:22:19So yeah, you're right.

01:22:20Clipping culture has kind of moved into print culture

01:22:23and memory culture as well.

01:22:24It's everything.

01:22:25- Everything.

01:22:26- How short, condensed, and pure, how weapons grade

01:22:30can I make this one thing?

01:22:31- It's a shame.

01:22:33- But it's also what defines people.

01:22:34You know, there's the peak end rule,

01:22:36which is what you use at the most memorable part

01:22:39of any experience tends to be the most emotionally salient bit

01:22:42the most intense and the end.

01:22:43And sometimes they're the same.

01:22:44That's why bands tend to finish on their biggest song.

01:22:47That's why comedians tend to finish

01:22:48on one of their best jokes.

01:22:49I imagine that the same thing's true for you

01:22:51when you design your set as well.

01:22:52Like how it's going to be the big finish, so to speak.

01:22:54I tried to do the same thing with my live show.

01:22:57I had this idea, the peak hate rule,

01:22:59which is that cultural commentators

01:23:03and individuals in popular culture are defined

01:23:07by their biggest drama and their most recent one.

01:23:11So if you're Jordan Peterson,

01:23:13you are someone who pushed back against Bill C-16 in Canada,

01:23:18and also whatever the fuck he's done recently, right?

01:23:21Something to do with Christianity.

01:23:24If you are Hassan Paika,

01:23:26then you said that America deserved 9/11

01:23:29and whatever he did recently around Iran.

01:23:31But everybody online is defined by their biggest blow up

01:23:35and their most recent blow up.

01:23:36And the same thing is true for the answers

01:23:38that we're looking for as well.

01:23:39It's like, what is the simplest way to define

01:23:43who this person is?

01:23:44Well, we know who this person is.

01:23:45And I think that one of the criticisms

01:23:48that gets thrown around or one of the explanations

01:23:50for why people hate criticism is the only criticisms

01:23:54that hurt are the ones that we believe.

01:23:56Right.

01:23:57I don't think that that's true.

01:23:58I think the criticisms that hurt most

01:24:00are the ones that we know aren't true,

01:24:02but that we fear other people might believe.

01:24:05That's, yeah.

01:24:06That's what optics management is

01:24:07because it's not just the pain of being misrepresented.

01:24:11It's the indignation of knowing that it's not true

01:24:14and the fear of thinking that other people might believe it.

01:24:16Yeah.

01:24:17That altogether, I think, is kind of the eye of the storm

01:24:20of feeling really, really hard done by.

01:24:22It's like, I'm being scapegoated for this thing.

01:24:23I don't deserve to be.

01:24:24I know that it's wrong and I'm worried

01:24:26that other people are going to believe it.

01:24:27That is a real trifecta.

01:24:29So yeah, that's why the optics management thing is important.

01:24:31But dude, Trump, I mean, if you want somebody

01:24:33that has just inbuilt, hilarious responses,

01:24:38I would roll dice in front of him.

01:24:39And I think that whatever he would do

01:24:40would probably be pretty hilarious.

01:24:41There's no bad reaction.

01:24:43So if he's angry, if he's happy, if he's not amazed,

01:24:46if he is amazed, it's a litmus test.

01:24:49It's almost like a mood ring.

01:24:50The mood ring is based on the person observing it

01:24:53and not based on his reaction.

01:24:54Does that make sense?

01:24:55So if I guess something--

01:24:56It's a Rorschach test.

01:24:57It fully is.

01:24:58Because if I guess something, if he is uncomfortable by it

01:25:01or he's amazed, depending on what your view is of him,

01:25:04you will emotionally register that.

01:25:06Does that make sense?

01:25:07I might get something, even if he says I got it wrong,

01:25:10I would say, did I?

01:25:11I think that a lot of people,

01:25:12I think that the majority of people would say,

01:25:14I think he got it right and Trump's lying.

01:25:16Do you understand?

01:25:17I actually think it's an asymmetrical upside bet

01:25:19with whatever I'm going to do.

01:25:21Because, and so I've worked out,

01:25:23the only thing that could happen that's terrible is apathy.

01:25:25Apathy is the worst.

01:25:26Like absolutely not caring or not being engaged

01:25:29or not being involved.

01:25:32Which is, that's my real--

01:25:32And that's when you pull out the roast.

01:25:34Yeah.

01:25:35That's when Tony Hinchcliffe jumps out.

01:25:37Shane Gillis gets Shane out here.

01:25:38You've got him in your pocket.

01:25:39Shane can really nail that.

01:25:40Shane is, do you know Shane?

01:25:42Of course.

01:25:42Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:25:44I'm interested in what you think your work teaches us

01:25:46about how unreliable our perception of reality is.

01:25:50Very.

01:25:51Yeah.

01:25:51What have you learned about that?

01:25:52About people's attachment to reality?

01:25:54I can't believe,

01:25:55this is something that I've kind of had to process is,

01:25:57yes, I've spent 30 years doing this

01:25:59and I've really studied this

01:26:00and it's been my mission to exactly create these moments

01:26:03of wonder and amazement that can't be explained

01:26:06by seemingly reverse engineering the human mind.

01:26:07Knowing how people think

01:26:09and using that knowledge against you

01:26:10in a certain way.

01:26:11And doing this,

01:26:12I've done this for some of the most successful

01:26:14and literally of the top 10 wealthiest people in the world,

01:26:17the majority of them.

01:26:18And knowing that they've run companies, built companies,

01:26:20and I'm not saying that your measure of wealth

01:26:22is a measure of your intelligence.

01:26:24I've also done this for people who've won Nobel prizes.

01:26:26None of those things are de facto.

01:26:28Your IQ doesn't have anything to do

01:26:31with the way in which I fool you

01:26:32and use your behavioral,

01:26:35like your knowledge of your behavior against you

01:26:37and knowing how people think to trick them

01:26:40in a certain way because misdirection, magic,

01:26:42a lot of things, the core principles.

01:26:45What do I, I'm blown away by?

01:26:46How easily people can be fooled.

01:26:49It's wild because it's like what you just said.

01:26:51You said there's a key hole in the back.

01:26:53There's a certain set of tricks.

01:26:54It's like a lock that you have to,

01:26:56you know certain locks, the key doesn't really work.

01:26:59I call it the jiggle master 3000.

01:27:01But if you hit the door a certain way,

01:27:02click up, click over, it opens.

01:27:04Like I had one of those apartments in college

01:27:06where if I gave you the key, you'd be like,

01:27:08"Dude, the key's broken."

01:27:09And I'm like, "No, no, no."

01:27:10- It's both the combination lock and the key hole.

01:27:11- It's everything.

01:27:12I have to lift it up while I do it

01:27:13'cause the lock is not straight

01:27:15and then I have to kind of like jiggle this way

01:27:16and then turn.

01:27:17And if I did it, I'm like, "Don't you know?"

01:27:19Dude, it's broken.

01:27:20It's a jiggle master 3000.

01:27:22Your brain is the same way.

01:27:24And all I've done is learned how to use the keys

01:27:27in different way where if it doesn't jiggle this way,

01:27:30if I say to you this, "Do this," and you're like,

01:27:31"No, I can see that you're gonna move a little this way,

01:27:33"a little this way, and now I've got you."

01:27:35And what people want in general

01:27:38is to feel like they're in control.

01:27:40And I know when people heckle me,

01:27:41people always think the hecklers are the tough ones,

01:27:43the skeptics.

01:27:44I think that's easier because if you can figure out

01:27:46what is the core motivating factor for them?

01:27:49What is it?

01:27:50Is it attention?

01:27:51Is it not looking like they're stupid?

01:27:52Is it not being the center of attention?

01:27:55What's driving their behavior at this moment?

01:27:57If you can figure out what that is,

01:27:59give them what they want within a seeming set of parameters

01:28:04that they've chosen but you've chosen.

01:28:06So again, within the guys on my show,

01:28:07that person wants to call me out.

01:28:09Great, I'm prepared for it.

01:28:10Call me out.

01:28:11Oh man, you're a smart guy.

01:28:12You know exactly what's coming up here.

01:28:13Let's get you, and now you've gotten that shine.

01:28:15You've gotten that love.

01:28:16You've felt like you're the smarter person.

01:28:18I've shown you behind the curtain in a certain way

01:28:20for certain people, and then I do something

01:28:23you don't understand that's more impressive.

01:28:24Now you've bought in.

01:28:26So the same way that a very good comedian

01:28:29neutralizes a heckler,

01:28:30not by punching down where the crowd turns against you,

01:28:34but more of we laugh together at this person

01:28:37in a perfect world, they laugh with you.

01:28:39So we've all won together.

01:28:40It's not a zero sum game.

01:28:42The same thing applies with me.

01:28:43I'm constantly trying to see how I can get to the end goal,

01:28:47which is a huge, amazed reaction.

01:28:49Kind of alchemy in that way.

01:28:51It's jazz, I would describe it.

01:28:53I don't have the song set up.

01:28:54I have different ways that I can go.

01:28:56I can go from this bridge, this chorus, different melodies,

01:28:59and I'm kind of playing people as I go.

01:29:02And that's why I've gotten better.

01:29:03I think if you asked me five years ago, how good were you?

01:29:05I'm like, "Much worse than now, much."

01:29:08Because I improve with time.

01:29:11I'm curious to see what I'll be doing in five or 10 years.

01:29:13- Yeah, well, I'm levitating maybe.

01:29:15I am definitely watching Jimmy work the crowd.

01:29:20I mean, it was 7,000 people at the TikTok arena

01:29:24in TikTok theater, I guess.

01:29:27But it's a big boy in Darling Harbor in Sydney.

01:29:31And, you know.

01:29:32- Shout out to Bondi Beach, to Coogee Beach,

01:29:34one of my favorite runs in the whole world.

01:29:36That is such a beautiful run.

01:29:37- I cross the front?

01:29:38- Yeah, you go along.

01:29:40Yeah, it's like, I don't remember how long it was,

01:29:41but I've done that run.

01:29:42I performed in Sydney once and it was awesome.

01:29:43- Are you still doing,

01:29:44I know you said you ran with Casey Neistat yesterday.

01:29:47Are you still pushing on the endurance stuff at the moment?

01:29:49- Yeah, so I, right now what's happened,

01:29:51and I always had excuses.

01:29:53Do you know Ken Rideout?

01:29:54- Yes.

01:29:55- Yes, I just did his podcast recently.

01:29:56And Ken's like, "That guy just, man."

01:29:58I like seeing people, he's got four kids.

01:29:59He's so busy, wrote a book, and just keeps executing.

01:30:02And he kind of reinvigorated me that day

01:30:05where I have all these excuses, screw that.

01:30:08My baby's old enough now, she's almost a year old.

01:30:09She's sleeping.

01:30:10There was some difficulty where if I don't sleep the night,

01:30:13it's very challenging for me to get up at 5 a.m.

01:30:14I can make all the excuses I want.

01:30:16If I've only slept two hours, I can be tough talking.

01:30:19I could call David Goggins, be like, "Stay hard."

01:30:21I want to go back to bed.

01:30:23So now I've dialed in where I'm waking up five or 5.30.

01:30:27I'm getting an hour and a half to two hour run.

01:30:28No excuses, get it done before anyone's awake.

01:30:30And I had that a few years ago, too.

01:30:32And now I'm finding myself again.

01:30:35'Cause for about a year, I just wasn't really with it.

01:30:37And now I've got a marathon in a week and a half,

01:30:40and I'll probably do an ultra.

01:30:40- When's the White House dinner?

01:30:42- I'm doing the marathon six days before.

01:30:44But I would run a marathon that day if I could.

01:30:47I might run a marathon that morning.

01:30:48That's not a big deal.

01:30:49- Dude, holy shit.

01:30:50- Anything less than 50 miles

01:30:52just has no material impact on me.

01:30:54- How old are you?

01:30:55- I'm 43.

01:30:57- Jesus Christ.

01:30:58- But a 100 miler, 100 mile will give me

01:30:59a little run for the money.

01:31:00But I'd like to do a 100 miler this year, at least one.

01:31:02- But you did a 100 miles inside of Central Park.

01:31:04- 116.

01:31:05- Yeah.

01:31:06- Just four years ago today.

01:31:07- Congratulations, man.

01:31:08- Thanks.

01:31:09- I mean, you're kind of an insane person.

01:31:10(laughing)

01:31:12- I mean, we didn't even talk about the running,

01:31:14but the running is a different form of mind control

01:31:16where just I like to find out what I'm really capable of.

01:31:20And I think that so few of us know what we're capable of.

01:31:24Because it's so easy to talk about stuff

01:31:26when you're not in it.

01:31:27But until you push yourself mentally or physically

01:31:29into a certain point of complete discomfort,

01:31:33where you hit a breaking point,

01:31:34I think it's kind of like the way military operators are.

01:31:36You don't know if that person,

01:31:37why do they do these SEAL trainings?

01:31:39Why do they do hell week, right?

01:31:40Because you can talk tough, but before you get there,

01:31:42you're freezing cold, you haven't slept.

01:31:44All of these factors are working against you.

01:31:46Your core motivating factors like,

01:31:48do I really want it that bad?

01:31:49How bad do I want it?

01:31:51I haven't done it, so I couldn't tell you,

01:31:53but I want the guy or girl who's next to me

01:31:55in a life or death scenario to have made it

01:31:58through that training and found their motivating factor,

01:32:01that they want this so bad that they're willing to do this,

01:32:04because that can't be faked.

01:32:06And so you have to push yourself.

01:32:07So the running is one of those things

01:32:09where I like to get to a certain point where I hate it,

01:32:12don't want to do it, feel miserable, body broken,

01:32:14ideally heat exhaustion.

01:32:16I've had heat stroke, which is very dangerous,

01:32:17don't recommend that.

01:32:18Got through it, somehow got second place at that race,

01:32:21don't ask.

01:32:22But everything breaks down and I 100% want to give up

01:32:27and I talk myself out of it.

01:32:29That right there changes who you are afterwards.

01:32:33It's like a flips a switch where now when you go back

01:32:35to regular life where things are comfortable,

01:32:38which everyone's different,

01:32:39I know a lot of people are struggling,

01:32:41but call it comfortable as you're not in danger.

01:32:44Now you can readjust how you handle situations, I feel.

01:32:48So for me, that was the running.

01:32:49The ultra marathon really does that for me.

01:32:51- What have you learned about being able to push

01:32:53through that discomfort?

01:32:55- That I can do it.

01:32:56That I can do it.

01:32:57That it's your mind plays tricks on you.

01:33:00Your body is directly impacted by the way you think.

01:33:05I had a race called the Spartathlon.

01:33:08It's in my book, I love this race.

01:33:10- Such a dumb name.

01:33:10(laughing)

01:33:12- It's a great race.

01:33:13It's 150--

01:33:13- Alpha Spartathlon 3000 killer.

01:33:16- So it's called Spartathlon for a reason

01:33:18'cause you run from Athens to Sparta.

01:33:20- Oh, unreal.

01:33:21It's 153 miles and it's recreating the run

01:33:24that "Fidipides" did for the movie "300."

01:33:26Did you see "300" with Gerard Butler?

01:33:27So I'm not gonna tell you the whole story,

01:33:29but like that moment where the 300 Spartans

01:33:32defended against the Persians,

01:33:33if they had not held Thermopylae,

01:33:35the Greeks couldn't have assembled an army.

01:33:37They wouldn't have come.

01:33:38They wouldn't have beat them

01:33:39and we wouldn't have civilization today.

01:33:40The Greeks paint it in a very,

01:33:41so the country rallies behind this race.

01:33:43And it's this cockamamie.

01:33:45You have 36 hours drawn 153 miles.

01:33:48It is really tough.

01:33:50And I will tell you that all these other races

01:33:51you'll hear about, some of them are very difficult.

01:33:53There's 200s, 300s.

01:33:54The cutoffs, okay, are very easy on those races.

01:33:57No offense.

01:33:58- The pace.

01:33:59- The pace.

01:34:00Yes, it's hard to run 200 miles or 300 miles,

01:34:02but not if you have six days versus a day and a half.

01:34:05Just space out.

01:34:06You have to be running the whole time.

01:34:08If you take a nap for an hour, get up, walk for an hour,

01:34:10you're toast.

01:34:11You get hit by the cutoffs.

01:34:13I did that race the first year.

01:34:14I did not finish.

01:34:16And when you don't finish the 36 hour race,

01:34:18I got swept, which means I gave up

01:34:20in the middle of the night.

01:34:21The cutoff was behind me, but I gave up.

01:34:23I know I can look in the mirror.

01:34:24I gave up.

01:34:25I was puking for eight hours.

01:34:26Bullshit, I gave up.

01:34:28I could have kept going.

01:34:29I went to bed in a hotel, woke up, had lunch,

01:34:33and watched people that were older than me,

01:34:36that were less physically fit than me.

01:34:38I was a 225 marathoner at the time, which is quite fast.

01:34:41- That's fucking insane.

01:34:42- Yeah, my fast was 223.

01:34:43I'm with a guy who's never run more than a four,

01:34:45fashioned a four hour marathon.

01:34:46He finished the race when I didn't.

01:34:50That changed me for life because I was crying.

01:34:53I was like watching him and I felt so great for him.

01:34:55But I realized at that moment,

01:34:57it had nothing to do with my body, nothing.

01:35:00It's like the matrix.

01:35:01When Neo jumps, it's not your body, it's your mind.

01:35:05I gave up.

01:35:06And I realized at that point,

01:35:07you have the ability to flip that switch.

01:35:11And everything is excuses in life, everything.

01:35:13I've seen people who are like paralyzed,

01:35:14who go play basketball and do things.

01:35:16It's people have a decision where they decide,

01:35:19are the factors external to me,

01:35:20the one that decide what I do?

01:35:22Or internally, I can make things happen

01:35:24and be relentless in my drive.

01:35:25I came back the next year.

01:35:26I was gonna die before I didn't finish that race.

01:35:29It was a complete mental shift.

01:35:31It was no question, I am going to finish this race.

01:35:34And I did.

01:35:34And so it was just a complete different shift in mentality.

01:35:38And again, it's stupid.

01:35:40It's ridiculous.

01:35:40It's not necessarily healthy.

01:35:41I'm not telling people to run ultra.

01:35:43But what I got out of doing that,

01:35:46undoubtedly has allowed me to achieve the success I've had

01:35:48in the rest of my life since.

01:35:50Because it recalibrated my mind from like,

01:35:54to I know what a real 10 out of 10 is.

01:35:56Before, I knew what a six out of 10 was.

01:35:59And I could lie to myself

01:36:00about what the other four out of 10 was for effort.

01:36:02Now I know that if I decide without question,

01:36:04I'm gonna do this, I'm going to do it.

01:36:06And I can look in the mirror and tell myself,

01:36:08I know I'm gonna do it.

01:36:09- So fascinating that you've spent a long time

01:36:13trying to understand how other people's minds work

01:36:15and to manipulate and guess those appropriately.

01:36:18But a good part of the lab that you've learned that in

01:36:20has been internal.

01:36:22- Yeah.

01:36:22- In yourself.

01:36:23- Well, everyone, I think you probably,

01:36:24I still have imposter syndrome.

01:36:26I still am in rooms where I go,

01:36:28how am I in this room right now?

01:36:29How am I?

01:36:31Where you go back to some part of yourself

01:36:33that was probably the most insecure.

01:36:35So like maybe 15 year old me is still somewhere in me.

01:36:38And there's like, I don't know if it's trauma or whatnot,

01:36:40but you don't really believe you deserve it,

01:36:42but you have to earn it.

01:36:43So I still have those.

01:36:45I could be as confident as you could think of

01:36:47on live national TV, millions of people watching.

01:36:49Some part of me is in there that's still that person.

01:36:53But I think overcoming that person is kind of the mental talk

01:36:58that you give yourself is it's there,

01:36:59but I've now earned the fact that I think I'm here.

01:37:01I've worked hard, I deserve it.

01:37:03And I'm gonna tell myself that I'm gonna kill it.

01:37:06- What's the biggest lesson that you've learned

01:37:08about overcoming that imposter syndrome?

01:37:13- I don't know if you can ever overcome it,

01:37:15if that makes sense.

01:37:16Because overcoming it means it doesn't stay there.

01:37:18I think that it helps me in a certain way

01:37:20where if I have a show that other people

01:37:22will think was a 10 out of 10,

01:37:24it might've been a seven and a half out of 10 for me.

01:37:26And I'm gonna be the one who says,

01:37:28"How could I have done that better?"

01:37:29And it's a relentless drive to improve

01:37:32and iterate and improve.

01:37:33And I actually see some people who are in my field

01:37:36who I don't wanna say I'm jealous

01:37:38'cause that's the wrong word,

01:37:39but I envy in a certain way where they go,

01:37:40"I just killed it, that show was amazing."

01:37:42And I'm like, "How do you believe that?"

01:37:44Because I have the best show ever,

01:37:46I'm still looking on how to polish it,

01:37:48how to make it better, how to improve.

01:37:49You have found such fulfillment and satisfaction

01:37:53in not necessarily mediocrity,

01:37:55but I'm obsessed with being the best ever at what I do.

01:37:59- It's very difficult though

01:38:00if you don't have that level of intense self-scrutiny

01:38:02to become the best ever at what you do.

01:38:04- And I might never become the best ever,

01:38:06but if I never stop going for that,

01:38:08I think I will continuously improve.

01:38:10- If you had the mentality of someone

01:38:12who was happy with where they were at or more grateful,

01:38:16it's interesting that gratitude and performance

01:38:18a lot of the time are kind of inverse

01:38:20because the gratitude helps you to not push so much

01:38:24and to not self-assess and scrutinize

01:38:27and self-criticize and improve

01:38:28and continue to sort of exist in that lack.

01:38:31And this is a balance I think

01:38:34that a lot of people are looking at at the moment,

01:38:35which is well, how much do I want to have a string

01:38:38of more miserable successes that reach a higher peak

01:38:42and how much do I want to trade some of that

01:38:44in place of being happy.

01:38:46Contentment, unfortunately, by design.

01:38:48You know, it's radical in the modern world

01:38:50that's filled with ambition and a meritocracy and capitalism

01:38:53and people trying to acquire as much status

01:38:55and acclaim as they can.

01:38:56It's radical to say I'm satisfied.

01:38:58Like that's one of the most radical things that you can do.

01:39:00- It feels like you're dying.

01:39:01People are like, what do you do next?

01:39:02What's next?

01:39:04Like as soon as I do this,

01:39:05even if it's the biggest moment of my career,

01:39:06this White House Correspondents' Center,

01:39:07what's next will be the question you get the next day.

01:39:10It's very funny how that exists.

01:39:12- Right, whenever, middle of December last year,

01:39:15I didn't know that it was the day

01:39:18that the Spotify charts were going to drop

01:39:21and Modern Wisdom was eighth in the world on Spotify.

01:39:24It was amazing for a bit.

01:39:25- I saw that, I saw you post that.

01:39:27- And then--

01:39:29- Then you started saying, how do I get to seven?

01:39:31- Yeah, you go, well, if I'm anything less than eight

01:39:35next year, if I'm not in the top 10,

01:39:36I might as well kill myself.

01:39:37- Right.

01:39:38- And if I'm eight, then it's just about acceptable.

01:39:40If I'm seven, it'll be okay again for a while.

01:39:44And you go, you can see laid out in front of you

01:39:48what the hamster wheel looks like.

01:39:49- It's a hamster wheel.

01:39:50- Correct.

01:39:51- And so that's a very funny thing

01:39:53and it's very hard to relate to.

01:39:55So I feel like it's an obnoxious thing for me to say

01:39:57and you can relate to it,

01:39:58but it's that when things are at their best for me,

01:40:01it's almost, it should be the happiest,

01:40:03but it's almost an inverse

01:40:04because now you say I can only go down from here.

01:40:07- Yeah, if you're number one,

01:40:08there's only one place to go.

01:40:09- There's only one place to go.

01:40:10- The higher you climb is the further you fall, dude.

01:40:12And look, this is the gold medalist syndrome.

01:40:14Michael Phelps is kind of the canonical.

01:40:16Look at Tiger Woods.

01:40:18- Right.

01:40:19- Tiger Woods, the goat.

01:40:20And this week he just flipped his car for the second time.

01:40:23I think he's been in a traffic accident

01:40:24that maybe it's because of alcohol or some drugs

01:40:27or maybe, you know,

01:40:28something that's going on inside of his mind.

01:40:30Like, do you want, like that's the price you need to pay

01:40:32to be the best in the world.

01:40:34That's the price that you need to pay in order to do that.

01:40:36And it's a rare time.

01:40:37I was with some guys in Byron Bay on tour

01:40:41and one of them made a really interesting point.

01:40:43He says, I'm not interested in people

01:40:44that are just successful anymore.

01:40:46It's like, I'm interested in people that are successful

01:40:48and happy and balanced.

01:40:49- I like that idea. - 'Cause that's so much rarer.

01:40:50So much rarer.

01:40:52Dude, the success thing is hard.

01:40:54- Right.

01:40:55- But success and happiness is easily three times harder.

01:40:58And the success and happiness and balance

01:41:00is like 10 times harder than that.

01:41:01- Right. - So, yeah.

01:41:03- And I think what I'm seeing as I continue in life

01:41:05and something that if you do have children,

01:41:07I don't like judge it in a certain way,

01:41:08but children instantly give you a sense of your mortality.

01:41:11There's nothing else that did it for me before

01:41:14and that might be age-related, but I don't think it was.

01:41:16I think that as soon as you see the next person,

01:41:18you just realize that you are just--

01:41:20- One day I'll be gone.

01:41:22- 100%, that's so true.

01:41:23You don't really see it or feel it as much

01:41:25until you see someone else who's your continuation.

01:41:28Who's your continuation, also somebody

01:41:29that you instantly want them to outlive you.

01:41:32So it's hardwired in your DNA where when your children,

01:41:35it's this really crazy thing when they're at a certain age,

01:41:37it's usually between four and five,

01:41:39they realize death and what death is.

01:41:40And sometimes you get these really just crushing moments

01:41:43where they would say to you, "I don't wanna die,"

01:41:45or, "I don't want Grandma to die."

01:41:46And you're like, "You don't know what to say

01:41:47"because we're all gonna die."

01:41:49Unless we get uploaded into the cloud,

01:41:50I don't know what's going to happen, but as of now,

01:41:53I don't want you to die either.

01:41:55But you have to explain to that person that they will

01:41:58and they're not gonna understand what that is

01:42:00and most of us don't because we're in a society

01:42:02that really doesn't, we push death away

01:42:04and we don't really get to experience.

01:42:05Like I have a good friend who's a palliative nurse

01:42:09who experiences death all the time.

01:42:11And for them, it's so different

01:42:12because they're really with it.

01:42:14They understand it, they see it.

01:42:15But for us, how often do you see anyone dead?

01:42:18Like on one handful, I can tell you my whole life.

01:42:22I just haven't experienced somebody seeing someone die

01:42:25or seeing somebody immediately after they're dead

01:42:26that's not at a funeral, like literally twice.

01:42:29I saw somebody come out of a lake that had drowned

01:42:32and it was just a shocking thing

01:42:35because in the movies, it's one thing,

01:42:37but it's not something you experience.

01:42:40And knowing that you will die one day,

01:42:43I think is a liberating thought.

01:42:44And it's one of those things where it takes the edge off

01:42:47of when you say failures, I go, "What does it matter?"

01:42:49In 500 years, nobody knows who I am, you are, any of this.

01:42:53And that actually feels freeing to me in a certain way.

01:42:55- All of their opinions don't matter in any case.

01:42:57- But that allows me to realize how much stuff

01:42:59that I think right now is a big deal isn't.

01:43:02And I have this little thing I call

01:43:04fast forward your feelings where I get caught up

01:43:06in anxious moments of things I don't wanna do that I dread.

01:43:09And I didn't know what to do with it

01:43:10because I would just push them off

01:43:12like the classic procrastination of

01:43:14if I don't wanna make this call, I'm not gonna do it.

01:43:16I'm not gonna do it, I'm gonna keep moving my calendar.

01:43:18And finally, I just decided how bad does this feel right now

01:43:22on a scale of one to 10?

01:43:23How awful do I feel if I were to do this?

01:43:26And I'm like, "Oh, like eight or nine,

01:43:27"I just really don't want to."

01:43:29Right at that moment, do you know what I do?

01:43:31I set an alarm for 24 hours from today.

01:43:34I force myself just like ripping a bandaid,

01:43:36jumping in a pool, set an alarm 24 hours from today

01:43:38and write, "How do you feel?"

01:43:39It's my alarm and I would do it right then.

01:43:41I would do the thing I didn't wanna do right then.

01:43:43I would force myself, pick up the phone,

01:43:45hit call, "Shit, don't do this," and I would just do it.

01:43:47And do you know what?

01:43:48When the alarm went off the next day,

01:43:50if I even remembered it, I would say,

01:43:52"How anxious do I feel now?"

01:43:54Two, not even.

01:43:56And so I decided the same way

01:43:57that I trick people's brains for a living,

01:44:00I'm gonna start tricking my own brain.

01:44:01And when I call it, fast forward your feelings,

01:44:03it sounds so stupid.

01:44:04But when I say it right now, I go,

01:44:05"I'm gonna feel like a two tomorrow.

01:44:07"I'm gonna do it right now.

01:44:08"And I'm gonna feel a two right now instead of an eight

01:44:10"because I actually am in control of my mental disposition."

01:44:15It's just a trick.

01:44:16Your mind is just a series of chemicals

01:44:18that's tricking you to do that.

01:44:19That's what the ultra running taught me.

01:44:21When your blood sugar goes low when I'm running,

01:44:23I go through a checklist of what's wrong right now.

01:44:26What's wrong?

01:44:27And the number one culprit almost always

01:44:29is my blood sugar's low.

01:44:30When that happens, I start saying,

01:44:31"I wanna quit, I feel terrible, I don't wanna do this."

01:44:33Boom, right away, take a ton of calories.

01:44:35See how you feel in five minutes.

01:44:37Don't talk to me before that.

01:44:38Five minutes, talk to me.

01:44:39And when I say me, I mean me to myself.

01:44:41But I just realized through these different parts of my life

01:44:44what's really going on.

01:44:46- I mean, that's Ross Edgeley's thing, right?

01:44:47Suffering strategically managed.

01:44:49He looks at the component parts of what it is

01:44:52that's making him not feel so good in the moment.

01:44:54- Smart, he diagnosed it.

01:44:55It's a diagnostics test, like on an engine.

01:44:57And man, I wanna meet him.

01:44:58You gotta introduce us, 'cause I'm a huge fan of that guy.

01:45:01- He's the fucking man, dude.

01:45:01- Just a shout out to Ross.

01:45:02I DMed him once.

01:45:03I'm like, "Ross, you're unbelievable."

01:45:05He's like, "Thanks, bro, you're a beast."

01:45:07- Most of those guys, at least the dudes

01:45:09that are really, really pushing themselves,

01:45:11there's something deep down that's a kind of a darkness.

01:45:14There's an edge to them.

01:45:15There's only two guys that I've ever met

01:45:17that haven't had that and are in that world.

01:45:19And one's Nick Baer from Baer Performance Nutrition.

01:45:22And the other one's Ross Edgeley.

01:45:23And I really, really tried to push him.

01:45:25Like when we sat down together

01:45:26and then we got to hang out afterwards.

01:45:28And I'm trying to negotiate.

01:45:30- What are you running away from?

01:45:31What are you swimming away from, Ross?

01:45:33- Yeah, where's the shadow?

01:45:34And he's just got this big, happy hippo energy

01:45:39that I couldn't find anything.

01:45:43I couldn't see anything.

01:45:44No, he just really wants to maximize his time on this planet.

01:45:47He's really excitable and excited about doing things.

01:45:51And that's kind of even more terrifying.

01:45:54That's kind of even more terrifying

01:45:55that it's simply just a positive disposition

01:45:59putting yourself through suffering.

01:46:00So I think we understand the alchemizing

01:46:02of pain into purpose.

01:46:04But just choosing pain without the alchemy thing in there,

01:46:09I think is, yeah, he's an animal, dude.

01:46:13- Well, there's so many people that have become sober.

01:46:14There's like a weird overlap of people that are sober

01:46:18that are now in ultra running

01:46:19because you convert one addiction for another.

01:46:21And I'm not saying that's good or bad.

01:46:23I think it is probably better

01:46:24than substance abuse typically to go do running,

01:46:26even though it's left to be seen what damage you're doing.

01:46:28But I think it's better to a degree.

01:46:31But it is fascinating how people will want to push things

01:46:35to extremes and that you watch them.

01:46:37And at its greatest, like Alex Honnold,

01:46:40who I just admire so much, is watching people,

01:46:44risk is one thing, like I don't want to do that.

01:46:46But the fact that somebody else does that

01:46:48brings me tremendous, I don't know if I want to call it joy

01:46:51because I'm not joyful when I watch him do it,

01:46:52but just wonder.

01:46:54Like I re-watched "Free Solo" recently with my kids

01:46:58because we watched the skyscraper thing.

01:47:00And every time I watch it, forget about the fact

01:47:04that my hands get sweaty and that I feel a physical,

01:47:07like tremendous feeling when I'm watching it.

01:47:09The fact that every mistake is death

01:47:11and that you're watching it and I know he's not going to die.

01:47:13So why am I so nervous?

01:47:15But just the fact that you're willing to commit

01:47:17to something like that

01:47:18and that there's people in the world inspires me.

01:47:19It's like that, wow, people will take something

01:47:22and just go for it.

01:47:23It's, I think that's what we want is to be inspired.

01:47:27- Unreal.

01:47:28So coming up next, White House, then Netflix special.

01:47:32Two big things?

01:47:33- The two big things and a few shows.

01:47:34I'm starting to tour.

01:47:35So for the last like 10 years,

01:47:36I've been mostly a corporate act.

01:47:37If you saw me, it was at corporate events,

01:47:39but now I'm doing more and more public shows.

01:47:41And I want to try one more thing with you.

01:47:42- Okay.

01:47:43- I'll leave you on a high note.

01:47:44- All right.

01:47:45- I walked in here, right, beautiful studio.

01:47:47- Thanks.

01:47:48- We shook hands.

01:47:49You hit me up with some delicious drinks, by the way.

01:47:51- That's good.

01:47:52- And I said to you that the same way,

01:47:54I asked you how many podcasts, I want to go through this.

01:47:56How many episodes have you had in this podcast?

01:47:58- 1,100.

01:47:59- So 1,100 moments that hopefully have given people

01:48:03modern wisdom.

01:48:04That was the name of it, right?

01:48:05Successful, interesting people.

01:48:07Find out what makes them tick.

01:48:09All of that sum total has gotten you to be here

01:48:12from February 23rd, 1988 to today.

01:48:15So I want you to close your eyes, okay?

01:48:19And I want you to imagine that you could hop

01:48:21into a time machine,

01:48:23but the time machine is to go through your own life

01:48:26as if you could rewind the same way people say

01:48:28in their last moments, they get to see their life.

01:48:30And if I were to say to you to zip back in time

01:48:33and look into the face of someone who for whatever reason,

01:48:38and this is only in the eye of the beholder,

01:48:41impacted you in some way.

01:48:42This could be great.

01:48:43This could be small.

01:48:44This could be recent.

01:48:45This could be years ago.

01:48:46I prefer, I would say not this year because it's too poignant.

01:48:49There's a recency bias.

01:48:51If you just pick a recent guest and you say,

01:48:52"Oh, I spoke to Sam Harris or Tristan Harris."

01:48:55No good, I don't like that.

01:48:56I want you, this is more of a right brain exercise at first

01:49:01to see if you can visualize that person's face.

01:49:03Can you see?

01:49:04- You want someone from the show?

01:49:05- No, no, I'm so sorry.

01:49:06I had nothing to do with the show.

01:49:07That's not the way, no, I want to make sure.

01:49:10It's someone that had an impact on you that I don't know why,

01:49:13what or how, open your eyes.

01:49:15Now, when I did this, right?

01:49:21And I had you think of someone's name

01:49:23and now I had you think of their face.

01:49:25Someone popped in your head initially, I know.

01:49:31And you go, "Mm, I don't know whether you said to yourself

01:49:32"that's too obvious of a choice or I don't know what."

01:49:34But always you think of someone and there's a hesitation

01:49:38and you go, "Should I do that person?"

01:49:39Just said, "Should I?"

01:49:41And then you switched.

01:49:43I believe, this is very funny because I can't explain why,

01:49:46but it's the difference in body language.

01:49:48I think you switched genders.

01:49:49I think you started with a female and went to a guy.

01:49:51Am I correct?

01:49:52- Yes.

01:49:53- I could tell, I could tell because if it was two women

01:49:55or two guys, the reactions are similar.

01:49:57You asked me about lie detection.

01:49:59I can tell when things are different

01:50:01rather than knowing if they're true or false,

01:50:02but true and false are different.

01:50:04All right, let's try this.

01:50:06The female, the female.

01:50:08I'm gonna get something, you know what?

01:50:10Think back in time

01:50:16and I'm gonna put you on the spot here.

01:50:18Rewind, rewind to, I don't know when this was.

01:50:21So if you were to put a timestamp, if we had a pin.

01:50:24Now, if I asked you an anniversary,

01:50:26you'd know the day, month, and year.

01:50:28If it's more wishy-washy, like I played cricket

01:50:31and it was like a few years.

01:50:33Is this a month, day, and year?

01:50:36A year, a month, and year?

01:50:37Give me some sort of categorization.

01:50:40- With the female?

01:50:41- Whatever it was.

01:50:42Yeah, I don't-- - Yeah, with the first person.

01:50:44It would be a year.

01:50:45- A year. - Yeah.

01:50:46- So one's a year.

01:50:47Now, the fact that you even said that means with the female

01:50:50means that it's different with the male.

01:50:52With the male, what would it have been?

01:50:53- Month and year. - Month and year.

01:50:54That's more details.

01:50:55Let's go with that.

01:50:56That sounds fun.

01:50:57Think back in time.

01:50:59So it's 2026.

01:51:01I know you're born in '88.

01:51:02So we'll go back from the time machine forward.

01:51:03You probably don't remember the first 10 years of your life

01:51:05as vividly, maybe you do.

01:51:07So '90s.

01:51:08The aughts or the zeros, we don't know what to call them.

01:51:10The teens, you laughed.

01:51:11It's in the aughts.

01:51:12Come on, that was too easy.

01:51:13Think odd or even.

01:51:16Odd or even, odd or even, odd or even.

01:51:18Now, you get confused if it was 2000 or 2010

01:51:21'cause you don't know if zeros, even or odd.

01:51:23So I'm like torn.

01:51:24I think it was an odd number.

01:51:24Was it an odd number?

01:51:25- Yeah. - Yeah?

01:51:262007, wasn't it?

01:51:28Am I right?

01:51:29I wanna make sure that the person watching this now

01:51:32who's skeptical, who says, "Oh, he must have researched this."

01:51:36Now, here's what I would say to that.

01:51:38If I had asked you to think of your third grade teacher,

01:51:42then maybe I could have found out

01:51:43your third grade teacher in advance, right?

01:51:45Let's be skeptical.

01:51:46But I wanna make sure you understand,

01:51:47there's no way to research real-time thoughts

01:51:50because you could have thought of anything.

01:51:52I didn't tell you.

01:51:53You completely decided where you would go.

01:51:55Are we in agreement?

01:51:56And you even changed your mind.

01:51:58I didn't tell you, you changed your mind.

01:52:00Think beginning, middle, end.

01:52:01I'm gonna go, you can't see the camera behind me, right?

01:52:06(silence)

01:52:09Let me ask you a question.

01:52:10Why do you know the month?

01:52:11Why do you know the month?

01:52:13- Because when I met this person,

01:52:16I remember where I'd moved into.

01:52:18- Yes.

01:52:19That's what I thought.

01:52:20That's why I went with this

01:52:21because I thought it was something to do.

01:52:22Okay, what month was it?

01:52:23- September.

01:52:24- September is what I thought.

01:52:25That's exactly right.

01:52:26It was in the fall.

01:52:27Fuck.

01:52:31The woman strikes me as somebody where,

01:52:34could you have done your mother?

01:52:35Of course, but that's too impactful.

01:52:37Versus, I think it was a teacher.

01:52:41It's a teacher, am I right?

01:52:42And now when I said third grade teacher,

01:52:44you got kind of tense about it.

01:52:45I don't know which year it's for,

01:52:47but was this a favorite teacher or not so favorite?

01:52:52- Favorite.

01:52:54- Favorite.

01:52:55The guy that you're thinking of,

01:52:56think of his first name.

01:52:58Think of any letter in his first name, right?

01:53:02All of the alphabet.

01:53:02Think of that one letter right now.

01:53:04You didn't do the first letter, did you?

01:53:05- No.

01:53:06- You were like, "Mm, I don't want to do that.

01:53:07That's going to be a giveaway."

01:53:09And then most people will avoid vowels in names

01:53:13because they just think every name has a vowel.

01:53:15So I'm kind of limiting myself,

01:53:17but I don't know if you did that.

01:53:19I think you probably, did you think of a vowel?

01:53:20- Yeah.

01:53:21- Yeah, so you kind of knew that and you went against me.

01:53:24You think of the letter A?

01:53:25- Yes.

01:53:26Fuck.

01:53:28I feel like-

01:53:31- Think of his last name.

01:53:33Are you thinking of it?

01:53:34There's some sort of,

01:53:37there's some sort of judgment here.

01:53:41The last name is, is it hyphenated?

01:53:46That's why.

01:53:47You thought of two different people.

01:53:48Oh my goodness.

01:53:49- It's hyphenated.

01:53:50- It's hyphenated.

01:53:51Yeah, you're like, "Yeah, he didn't take the mom's,

01:53:52the dad's name."

01:53:53I'm going to go with this.

01:53:54I can't tell you anything.

01:54:00I might not have spelled this right there.

01:54:02Ask yourself this question.

01:54:03Tell your audience right now.

01:54:04Before I walked in this room, had we ever spoken?

01:54:07Had we ever set up?

01:54:08Is this, have you written this down

01:54:10on a piece of paper somewhere?

01:54:12Is this in your phone?

01:54:13Did you, is there any way in the world

01:54:15I could have gone on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,

01:54:17and found this out?

01:54:181% or 0%?

01:54:19- 0%.

01:54:20- Who'd you think of?

01:54:23What's this guy's name?

01:54:24- Dave Gardner-Chan.

01:54:25- Dave Gardner-Chan.

01:54:26- Fuck you, dude.

01:54:28- No.

01:54:34(laughing)

01:54:36- You need to be locked up.

01:54:37Oh my God.

01:54:40- And then the best part, the best part is the alley-oop.

01:54:44It's right at the end, which is, come on over.

01:54:46I always like to do this.

01:54:47You changed your mind.

01:54:48That is the gold standard for this.

01:54:51The gold standard is you think of something

01:54:52and at the last moment you go,

01:54:54I'm going to change my mind, right?

01:54:55Because that shows it's real.

01:54:56That's the moment.

01:54:57If you change your mind, shake my hand, go back in time.

01:54:59How old were you?

01:55:00This teacher, give me a guess.

01:55:01How old were you roughly?

01:55:02Give me a guess.

01:55:03Mrs. Wilkinson, right?

01:55:04- Fuck you.

01:55:05(laughing)

01:55:10- Jesus Christ.

01:55:26- I feel like, I feel like prey in water.

01:55:32I feel like prey in water and you're a shark.

01:55:34- I don't know if you knew this.

01:55:35I couldn't do any of this before I arrived here.

01:55:36It's just because I've been drinking Nutonic.

01:55:38That's the only way.

01:55:39- Bingo.

01:55:41I knew there was an ad read.

01:55:42That's the triple hitter.

01:55:43Forget guessing the names, dude.

01:55:45It's the fucking ad read at the end.

01:55:46Bro, you're amazing.

01:55:47This is--

01:55:48- Appreciate you.

01:55:49Long time coming, my friend.

01:55:50I'm super psyched.

01:55:51- Good luck.

01:55:52I can't wait to see what the Donald does in response to this.

01:55:54- Me too.

01:55:55- If he punches you in the face,

01:55:55that'll make headlines. - I would love that.

01:55:58- It's great.

01:55:58It's great press.

01:55:59- That would be heaven.

01:56:00Appreciate you, man. - Thank you.

01:56:02Thanks for having me.

01:56:03- All right, goodbye, everybody.

01:56:04Bro, you're the man.

01:56:05- Thank you.

01:56:06- Thank you very much for tuning in.

01:56:09If you enjoyed that episode,

01:56:10YouTube knows who you are deeply.

01:56:14It thinks you're going to like this one even more.

01:56:17Go on.

01:56:18Press it.

Key Takeaway

Success in influence and performance comes from shifting focus entirely to the audience, using repeatable psychological 'keys' to build rapport and create wonder.

Highlights

Mentalism is a learnable, repeatable art form based on science, observation, and logical steps, distinct from psychic claims.
The core principle of success for a performer is making the audience the star of the show by creating emotionally impactful stories.
People possess a 'jiggle master 3000' mechanism in their brains, allowing mentalists to use specific, non-obvious cues to influence thought processes.
The 'Listen, Repeat, Reply' method for remembering names significantly increases retention by ensuring the brain processes the name multiple times in the first 10 seconds.
Setting a 'fast forward your feelings' alarm for 24 hours can help overcome anxiety-inducing tasks by forcing action when fear is high, often revealing the fear was disproportionate.
Performance mistakes provide the greatest opportunities for learning, and defining success too narrowly allows for flexibility in the face of failure.

Timeline

The Art and Science of Mentalism

Mentalism is an illusion of mind reading based on narrative, observation, and influence rather than supernatural abilities.
Unlike psychic claims, mentalism is rooted in repeatable science and learnable steps.
Performers must develop core skills in rapport, trust, charisma, and resilience, similar to stand-up comedy.

Mentalism is presented not as magic, but as a deliberate craft. The performer emphasizes that they cannot actually read minds; they create a compelling narrative where the audience fills in the blanks. Success in this field requires years of effort, akin to a comedian headlining a major venue, and relies on human interaction principles that are universal to sales, hypnosis, and social dynamics.

Techniques for Influence and Memory

Physical observation, such as muscle reading or the ideomotor response, allows performers to detect cues from people without physical contact.
Generalizing skills across scenarios creates the illusion of total mental ability.
The 'Listen, Repeat, Reply' mnemonic ensures names are cemented in memory within ten seconds.

Demonstrations highlight how observers project their own logic into the 'how' of a trick. The 'Listen, Repeat, Reply' method is offered as a practical, everyday tool for anyone to improve social connection. By immediately saying a name, spelling it, or linking it to a visual/personal association, the brain is forced to encode the information reliably.

Storytelling and the Psychology of Connection

Longevity in any profession comes from selling attention and connection rather than just individual talent.
The most charismatic people are not necessarily the most interesting, but those who make others feel interesting.
Asking non-standard, deeper questions helps break people out of their social autopilot.

True success involves shifting focus from self-promotion to the audience's emotional experience. The concept of 'inverse charisma' is explained, where the goal is to make the other person feel validated and deep. By avoiding standard 'what do you do' questions, one can foster genuine connection and leave a lasting impression, which is fundamental to building influence.

Managing Mindsets and Deception

Notes and debriefing are vital for memory, especially when dealing with repeat clients or complex business interactions.
Confidence can be fostered by separating one's core identity from external rejection using an 'agent' mental model.
Deception is often marked by added, unnecessary details in a story, contrasting with the directness of the truth.

Practical tools like taking copious notes are framed as essential for high-level professional success. To handle professional rejection, the performer suggests mentally offloading negative interactions to an internal 'agent', protecting one's self-worth. Detecting lies involves observing deviations from a person's baseline behavior, as liars often feel compelled to over-explain.

Advanced Mind Control and Stoicism

Lucid dreaming is a learnable skill involving consistent reality testing and self-suggestion during the hypnagogic state.
Anxiety can be managed by 'fast-forwarding feelings'—forcing oneself to confront the dreaded task immediately to realize the fear is exaggerated.
The best performance moments focus on the peak and the end of the experience, as these are what people vividly recall.

The discussion shifts to internal mental control. Lucid dreaming is presented as a 'backdoor' to the brain that can be mastered in under a week. Furthermore, the 'fast-forward' technique is offered as a way to trick one's own brain into prioritizing action over paralyzing, future-dated anxiety. The performer reiterates that performance, like life, is about managing the psychological state, not just mastering the mechanics.

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