How to convince people and how to win them over is the most important thing in life.
There's skills that have nothing to do with my tricks that allow me to walk into a room, be remembered, engage with people, and create deeper bonds. Those three things are a cheat code in life. But I would say 90% of people don't have that. So, how do you develop that?
How do you explain what you do?
Everyone knows what a magician is. Think of this as a magician of the mind. There are no props. Rather than tell you, here, pick a card, you put it back and I find it.
So intimidated. You are a horrible herring. Are there any cool crimes that you could commit?
So if I was using this to steal your financial information and then use it to potentially steal from you, could I do that? Absolutely. Could I? Absolutely.
Watch. Let's try something really fun. Time for money. This is the perfect example. Let's say, what is life about, right? Is it having more zeros in your bank account? My first million. I like the two commas. But where do you spend that money? How do you use it effectively? Here's what I want you to do. You're having a birthday party. We're going to hypothetically play this out right now. Milestone birthday. Sam, make this up right now. I like spontaneity. How many guests are in the room at your birthday party? Be very specific. How many guests do you see being there? Yeah, make it up right now.
Oh, so it was 10 people. 10 people. And did everyone that you invited attend?
Oh, okay. Ouch. Okay. So you're in the room and now this is where I want you to envision this. We're going to play this scenario out because you've had birthday parties before and obviously you've seen... You walk in the room. You're saying hi. It's 10 people and this is... Close your eyes.
Is it a surprise? Not a surprise. Is it? But okay, so you've walked around the room, you've said hi to people, and open your eyes. And this is where I tell you, I say one person you walk up to gives you a big old hug and it means a lot that you're here right now, and you look this person in the face. Can you picture that person's face?
Could I have known that you were going to tell me there were 10 people at the birthday party?
But did I tell you to set this up? Is there any way I could have known how many people you'd have at this party or who they would be?
Right. How? And then the person that would hug you, right? How could we know this? If they had a birthday party, a milestone, would you attend their party for a really big one?
That's interesting how you thought, 'for a really big one.' I wonder if they live far. And in your mind, you were thinking, 'Have I been to their party before?' Watch this. Let's switch it. Somebody just came out. They hugged you at your birthday party. Could have been anyone. You looked them in the eye. You were thinking in your head, 'Would I go to their birthday party?' And I saw, I know you know this person's birthday. Instantly, I could tell. I'm trying not to react. January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. Close your eyes. Okay, I'm going to just show the camera.
Open your eyes. There is absolutely no way I can know who you would have thought of. Are we in agreement?
Or anything about them. Personal details. What month is that person born in?
July. July. July has 31 days. I'm born in July. That's my birthday month. Think beginning, middle, end. Beginning, middle, end. Close your eyes one more time so nobody... Okay, I'm going to go with this. I'm going to go with this. I'm going to commit.
I think it's a guy. Open your eyes. In fact, when you looked at them, you looked up directly at them. Similar height. Are they older than you?
I could tell it was a differential thing. What's their birthday?
July 10th. And you give them a hug. You look them right in the eye. You go, 'Really means a lot that you're here, John.' Is it John?
Yes.
That's crazy. I hate that. My brother's name is John. That's absolutely insane. That's crazy. It makes me emotional a little bit. My brother... I was telling... this morning we had a nanny at our house and I was like, I'm talking to this guy. I was like, he's a mentalist. And she's like, huh? Yeah.
What do you explain, or how do you explain what you do? So, everyone knows what a magician is. So, think of this as a magician of the mind. There are no props. Rather than tell you, here, pick a card, you put it back and I find it. I can just have you think of a card and see if I can deduce where your mind went. It's how to influence people. It's how to pick up on what they're thinking and how to make it seem as if I can read people's minds, right? Which we all know is impossible. But I say it all the time. I can't read minds. I don't possess supernatural powers. I am not psychic. I don't talk to the dead. I don't know the future. I've just found ways to influence you and get information out of you that you can't explain through a variety of different methods. It's kind of an elevated form of magic. It truly is.
I find the purest form of entertainment is stand-up comedy. It's you, a microphone, and potentially thousands or tens of thousands or millions of people. Just the spoken word. Magic involves props. And I don't dislike magic. I love magic. I started as a magician, but as I evolved, I got rid of the props, rid of the props, rid of the props. And if you saw me last night, I did a show for 1,200 people. In a few days, a show for 4,000 people. I will show up with virtually nothing. If you lost my luggage, I could do the show with literally a marker and a flip chart because that's not the show. I'm the show. So to describe it, it's a magician of the mind.
Well, what's interesting about what you do, so I've known who you are for a while because I studied like magic when I was a kid. Like a lot of... I mean, I was a very stereotypical kind of nerdy introverted kid wanting to like be loved by people and I studied this stuff.
Yes. Which I want to talk to you all about, that club. So I've known about you for a little bit and then I was reading your book. I thought I was going to learn more about like how to read people's minds or how to like do magic or something like that. You're basically like a modern version of How to Win Friends and Influence People.
That's the hook. If I could distill all of the skills I've learned in the last 30 years doing what I do, which is really interacting with people, that's truly what I do. I've learned that what my product is, and everyone should know what their product is, is people always think you're there to fool them if you're a magician. That's not it at all. I create very memorable moments. And for a lot of the companies I work for, what do I mean by memorable moments? When I leave, something people talk about. And the skills that I use within my profession that are not the magic and not the mentalism, but if I quit this business today, started a new business tomorrow, what could I use from these 30 years that would make me successful at any business? I believe these are the core skills. So, it's a reinvention of that book.
All right. So, a lot of people watch and listen to this show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. Now, a lot of people message Shaan and I and they say, 'All right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?' And again, what they're really just saying is, 'Just give me the ideas.' Well, my friends, you're in luck. So, my old company, The Hustle, they put together a hundred different side hustle ideas, and they have appropriately called it the Side Hustle Idea Database. It's a list of a hundred pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them. They're awesome. And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them, things like that. Gives you a little bit of inspiration. So, check it out. It's called the Side Hustle Idea Database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link. Click it. Check it out. Let me know in the comments what you think.
What are the one or two things that people are most transformed in their lives based off of what they learned from your book or from you?
I think one of the biggest ones is how to make your fear of rejection disappear. So that one to me personally, I could see it from a young age was my biggest hurdle. The book starts out with me in my teenage years. I got into magic when I was 13. I don't know when you were again. Do you remember Scotch and Soda?
That was my... I remember I got that trick and that was my trick and then the quarter trick and yeah, that was my first...
David Blaine. You saw the David Blaine street magic. I'm buying everything. I was really into trick decks.
Yeah. So I started doing the tricks and I got a restaurant gig when I was 14. I walked in. I talk about it in the book. I don't know where I got the cojones to go in there. You know, my mom was with me and just I knew how to do a sales call at a young age of how to go in, how to convince them, how to use benefits-oriented language. And I got this gig and within two weeks of me doing it, I realized that my biggest hurdle was when I went out to perform, they would reject me and it hurt. You know what I mean, Sam? Like you go to three tables in a row where they're like, 'Get out of here, kid.' It's very bruising and it's very difficult to approach the next table and not have a bad attitude. And so again, I saw this vision of I want to buy more tricks. Tricks are expensive. My parents were divorced. I don't have money. So if I keep doing this, I need this path to make money to buy more tricks, right? It was very like linear A to B. And so I realized I have to find a way to overcome this part where people have the ability to hurt my feelings and I have to... So I just at that point, and I describe it really clearly, I almost became my own agent. If you're in showbiz, you have an agent who handles your negotiations, who does all the icky stuff you don't want to do. You don't get a movie star on the phone. I can't call Michael B. Jordan right now and negotiate. You negotiate with this person's agent. I didn't have an agent. I'm a 14-year-old twerp. I'm 4 foot nothing. I'm walking up to your table at an Italian restaurant. So, I created this separation in my mind where I no longer took it personally when I was rejected. I said, 'That's not me. They don't know Oz Pearlman. That's Oz the magician.' It was this cognitive dissociation where I was able to take the negativity and put it on someone else that they don't know. 'Oh, it's the tricks. I got to work on these tricks.' And I didn't take it personal. And it was truly transformative. And I believe that that ability to overcome rejection and like that fear of it, because it's not even rejection, it's the fear of it and failure. So many people when they start a business or go after their goals, they don't go full in because they keep one foot out. You know, it's like you don't jump in the pool, you keep one foot out to protect yourself if it goes wrong. That's what I've learned and what sets me apart from my competitors, I think greatly, is that ability to focus on goals, not care if there's hurdles. I don't care if there's a no or a no or a no. It's a not yet. And I have to this point achieved way more than I thought I would. And I'm not even done. I'm nowhere close.
When I was 14, I remember I read this book called The Game. Have you read The Game by...?
Of course, Neil. Oh my god. It has a little bit of an ick factor, but the way it discusses and quantifies and creates terminology for interactions with people is incredible.
So, The Game is a book basically... I think I was 14. It created this word called pickup artist. I read it because it was like a little bit James Bond-y, where it's like an adventure book about hearing these guys who are nerds going to hook up with these girls. But the reality is, I read it and many other people read it, is because I was 14 and I was desperate to get a girl to like me and I wanted a relationship. I didn't want to hook up with girls. That wasn't even a possibility. It was like, can I please convince a girl to like me?
And so I studied that book and then I was reading your work and watching your podcast and you do these things where you talk about approaching people and you're like, I'll approach someone like... because I think what you say is, you've talked about this a bunch. You're like, I have to walk into a room of 500 people or 10 people and I have to control the energy.
Yep. And so I've learned that if I walk up to them and I'll say, 'Hey, I got to run in a second, but first before I leave, I've been told by the owner of the restaurant to do something special for you.' And that seems like you just made that phrase up, but like every part of that sentence has a very particular purpose. And when you study like how to meet girls, it's like, 'Oh, he just put a time constraint on there. Oh, he's coming up at an angle as if he's going...'
Straight out of The Game. I'm not even trying to window dress it.
That's 100% things that were learned in The Game and that are from the world of pickup artists where it's iterating. It's just like any type of software platform, changing little ingredients in a recipe and seeing how they do. And the other part of the recipe is other people and what makes them feel comfortable. And a big one that I analyze is when you leave an event, who did you remember? I'm just obsessed with that term. Who did you remember? Who stood out to you and why? And normally you don't think about it. It's like in The Game, who are the naturals? The people who have natural game who didn't learn it, but how do they know that they walk up and they have this cool, calm composure? What's it like when you walk into a bar, you smile, and you approach the first person you look at and you say, 'Hey, how's it going?' 'Oh, I had to come say hi to you.' That confidence is contagious, right? That energy of someone who does that naturally. But I would say 90% of people don't have that. So, how do you develop that? And how do you not have the fear of, oh, what am I going to say to them? And if they say this, they're going to think I'm stupid. Right? All of the inner dialogue that kind of talks you out of what you could be and your full potential. So the packaging was magic for me when I was a kid, but underneath the magic and the skill that we bring to the table, and especially as a mentalist having done this for so many years, there's skills that have nothing to do with my tricks, that allow me to walk into a room, be remembered, engage with people and create deeper bonds. Those three things are a cheat code in life. If you're able to do them, you will succeed at anything you do. I don't care what business you're in. I don't care if it's interpersonal. I don't care if you're a teacher who is selling attention to their students or a mom trying to get their kids to listen and eat their vegetables and do their homework. How to convince people and how to win them over is the most important thing in life.
Are there any cool crimes that you could commit that...
I mean, I could commit tremendous financial crimes because my job is a con man. It's exactly the same as a con man, but it's an honest con.
Right. So, a hundred years ago is when... it's a little fuzzy when... I don't want to call them con men, but psychics who would take your money to talk to dead people or to tell you your future. They would take your money and that was the transaction. And whether you were getting the product you paid for, I don't know. That's up to you. I'm not going to say whether psychics are real or not. I'm going to let people believe what they want. But whether or not you can prove it is a matter of kind of faith. I am not selling a product that's false or fake. I'm telling you from the start it's fake. Like I couldn't be more honest. This is built on magic. I have no supernatural psychic powers. It's a learnable, repeatable skill.
Well, then why is this not being taught? Like...
Because I'm crafting a narrative that doesn't generalize. So again, the beauty of it is that you believe these skills could generalize to every part of your life. They're hyper-focused.
Yeah, but I was joking with someone and I was like, 'This guy is so powerful and he's using it to guess a bunch of loser people's ATM PIN number.' Like, what a waste.
Seth Meyers was recently on TV with Kate Hudson and she was talking about me because I did something for Hugh Jackman. It's a great clip and Seth Meyers had the funniest joke. He goes, 'You know, I think he might be an alien.' He goes, 'But why did the aliens send the mentalist here and then go, you know, would be great for this? Bar mitzvahs and parties.' I was like, 'What a waste.'
Such a good joke. Oh, Seth Meyers, man. Very funny. He's a great comedian. And that just had me laughing so hard I posted it. But it was so funny.
But it's because it's funny, but you don't realize how true that is. So if you were to use this in a different sense, so if I was using this to steal your financial information and then use it to potentially steal from you, could I do that? Absolutely. Could I? Absolutely. It's not that different of a subset of what I'm doing. Guiding you to giving me the information. It's really what scammers do.
Have you... so we've been in here, I don't know how long we've been in here, but you came in earlier. We talked for 10 minutes. Did you have me clocked the second that... like, were you making... it was like Robocop making calculations the second...
Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of calculations. I normally come into these things with a little more info.
Yeah. I felt like, you know how like that story of like someone goes to prison and they got to like, in the first day they got to like kick someone's ass.
Yeah. So, you came in and I was like... if you want to read the book, the last chapter is me going to jail.
I know. And I read that and I spent time in jail, too.
Uh, DUIs and fighting. In college. I'm 14 years sober, but I went through... I was basically intoxicated for like two years, 24 hours a day.
And you'd be like a raging drunk, like get into fights.
Yeah. I was just like a risk taker. I was just reckless and I only cared about myself. And so I just did a lot of dumb shit.
Just lucky you made it through it. Huh.
Oh my god. It changed my life. Getting arrested and going to jail. It changed my life because I was there and I was like, what am I doing? This is... then I read that you were in jail for kind of like a... it could have potentially...
Could have ruined my life. I used to shoplift. I would shoplift things I didn't even need or want.
But think about it. I was a sleight-of-hand expert. So I used to be at a 7-Eleven. I could shoplift. It was like Mission: Impossible with Tom Cruise. Remember we had the CD and he just went like this and it was gone. That was me. Okay. That was literally...
What were you selling? Candy?
I used to steal cigars and I didn't smoke cigars. So how stupid is that? Can we discuss that for a moment? I would steal them from my friends and I would take them and there's...
Aren't cigars behind the counter?
So I could do it behind the counter. I could do it anywhere.
Oh man, I'm like expert. Well, you got to understand again. So I could do it there. I'm not going to give away magic secrets, but I could literally take something in my hands and just go like this and it's gone. And you'd be like, 'What the fuck?' Like, so and I would do that, but also I'd misdirect. I'd say, 'I'm putting it back.' And then it was gone then. Like you thought I put it back. It's kind of like the way you could pickpocket somebody. I could take your phone, say, 'Oh, let me put it back.' And you don't know that it's already gone again because a pickpocket touches you here, does this misdirection, right? When you look that, you look there. That's training. That's misdirection 101. Beginner. I didn't tell you to look there, but you instantly look there. That's the same tactic. I used to steal stuff and so I peer-pressured my friends. I won't tell the whole story. I don't want to ruin it if anyone does buy the book, but it was in college. It was drunken stupidity. We stole a bunch of stuff from a Papa John's. And then at night, we went back to a house party. We were wearing Papa John's t-shirts that we had stolen, dirty ones. And a Papa John's phone going around the house party like 25 people. 'You want Papa John's? Who wants pepperoni?' Like just run around.
You stole someone's cell phone at the Papa John's?
This is too early for a cell phone. This is in 2002. This is like a landline broken phone.
You like unplugged it and took the...
It was broken. It was because, you know, it's a college one. They had like 20 phones because all they're doing is answering phones. So, one of them had been cracked. So, down the middle was a crack. So, it was broken. So, it wasn't attached, but it had the logo on it. So, it had everything. So, I just swiped it, put it... I had like a poofy fake North Face. I don't... North Face in my jacket right here. Like, instantly gone. And I just stole that one. And I made my friends go steal something. So, they went in. It was a bathroom/locker room. So, one of the lockers wasn't closed all the way. So, they had it like open by a corner. They just reached in and took a bunch of t-shirts that were dirty. They turned out being like grease stains.
Yes. Great caper. And so, I got woken up at about, I don't even know, 2 or 3 in the morning and I was wearing like tighty-whities and I'm wearing the Papa John's shirt which was way too big for me because I'm small. And I got woken up by a dude being like, 'Yo, the cops are here.' And I thought it was a noise violation because I'm so drunk and passed out. I'm like, 'What? I don't live here, dude. What do you want from me?' And he's like, 'No, the cops are here for you.' I'm like, 'For me?' And then like one minute later, I think this guy, they wake, they come in and the cops are in and they're like, 'You're under arrest.' And I'm like, 'Under arrest for what?' And they're like, 'Felony larceny.' The first words out of their mouth, which I'm like, 'Felony?' I'm like, 'True, you know.' And I go, 'Stealing what?' And they go, 'From a Papa John's.' And I...
And they didn't even let me put pants on. And this was in Big Rapids, Michigan, Mecosta County.
Yeah, it's like minus 10 Fahrenheit. And I'm literally perp-walked out. Thank God they let me get... Did I get my contacts or my glasses? I can't remember. I think they let me get my contacts. I was near legally blind before I got LASIK. And man, in these like tiny tight tighty-whities, they brought my pants with me. It was like so unnecessary, the whole thing. They arrested us, brought us in, and we were in jail for three and a half days.
Yeah. I mean, you stole something that... it worked.
Changed my life. Never stole since. That same instance, different person, wrong thing. Can't get a job in finance. The path just is so different. But I was very, very smart. And I don't say that... I'm not trying to be cocky, but school came very easily to me and math came incredibly easy. And so it allowed me... and I just... it's so lucky that I was able to get great grades while completely messing up in other sectors of my life where normally those things have a linear correlation. Like if you're doing drugs, you're probably failing out of school. I wasn't. Somehow I was still getting straight A's and doing well and covering my tracks. And so there's differences of... and then I stopped drinking a couple years ago. I didn't really have a problem, but I just... it was a change that I decided to make. And I think it was a healthier path.
When I was a kid, I was a competitive runner. I went to college, like I said, on a running scholarship. And I thought that if I achieved my potential, I could at least make the Olympic trials. And I never did because I partied too much in college. But the hard thing about running is dealing with the pressure before you run because you know that even if you win the race and succeed, you're going to be in pain and regardless, you're going to be nervous. It's a very fear-driven sport. And I developed this alter ego called the machine.
Where I was like, I am a racing horse in the aisle getting ready to go. And racing horses, they're not nervous. They don't think about any of this. They're just there. And so I would think, I'm just a machine. And I would look down on myself and be like, well, there's the machine. I am nervous, but it doesn't matter. The machine's not nervous and he's about to race.
I'm so happy the machine exists.
And that was like an alter ego. And it was the exact same thing of like disassociating in order to perform. And it's the same thing actually with starting a business. I've started and sold a company. And by maybe some traditional measures, I've been a success, but I still am like incredibly fearful about starting any new project or before this podcast. And what is interesting about starting new things is you realize that the repetitions... you say, I must accept that this fear is going to happen. But I have practiced so often at getting past the fear and I just accept that this is part of the journey. Not why am I fearful?
So I think most everything someone can improve on, but whether you're going to be in the NBA or not, it's likely due to were you born 7 feet tall or not?
Like you can... a 5'5" guy can maximize potential for basketball, but LeBron James was born and he worked hard.
And he worked hard. Yeah. It's a skill and a talent. Where does this rank on skill versus talent? Like, how much can you teach me in order to be better and do things like you do?
I would like to think that it's mostly skill-based. If you were willing to put in the work, you'd probably get very, very good. There's no question. Where's the ceiling that you hit that I have gone over or that other people that are at the top of the game would have gone over? I think that the core skill for me is one of relentless drive. So I'm willing to overcome failure consistently. Like I'll fail and I don't mind it. A lot of other people would fail enough times and be like, 'Oh.'
But like, is failure for you... you're in a group of seven people trying to do a trick and it just bombs?
Yeah. Exactly. Bombs. Yes.
When was the last time you bombed?
I... again, define what bombing is because as you get better and better, you get to move the goalpost. You get to change the rules. So you're defining something that I define very differently.
It's not binary at all because you only know if something's right if you knew what was wrong. But listen to me because that's really poignant. You only know if it's wrong if I've set the terms as you think this, I guess this, I didn't get it. It's wrong. What if you're watching a movie and there's three director's cuts and you never saw the other director's cuts? A good example is I did something with Josh Allen, the quarterback for the Bills, where Josh Allen was told, 'Hey, if I talk to you, do we know each other?' No. No. I set this up, Josh. No. I give him the ball and I say, 'Look around the room and throw the ball to anybody.' I wrote it down to show everybody. He throws it to the first guy. It's him. I go, 'Throw it to another guy.' I wrote it down. It's him. It's like, 'How are you doing this?' I guessed the two players he'd throw the ball to. I go, 'I know who you're going to throw the ball to right now. I'm going to write it. 100%, I know exactly who you're going to throw the ball to.' I go, 'Put the marker. Put this. Go throw it somewhere.' I go, 'I knew you would do that.' And he's like, 'Yeah, how do I know that?' I go, 'Think of your ATM PIN code.' And I go, 'Does your wife even know?' He goes, 'No.' And everyone started applauding. It was pretty funny. It was like a little bit rude, but... And so I then guessed this guy's ATM PIN code. He freaks out. And then I had the two other guys stand up. I go, 'What's your jersey number?' His jersey number is 88. Next guy, what's yours? 50. Their jersey numbers were the third guy's ATM PIN code to his bank. Amazing trick. No one's ever done that before. What would have happened if I got it miserably wrong, which I have before? I never did the last part. All I did was guess two of these people and then I guessed 18 people. You would have been blown away and you would have never seen that the whole thing to me went wrong. But you didn't know that. Do you understand what I'm saying? So you don't know what's next. So in a lot of the tricks, they're called multiple outs. I have different ways that this can end. It's like when I did a t-shirt reveal on the Today Show and Al Roker goes, 'What underwear are you wearing?' I'm like, 'You don't even know the half of it, brother.' Like, 'Do you have underwear on?'
But that's a funny point because you just don't know where I would have gone with it because I don't tell you. And I have the element of surprise to my advantage. So, as I've gotten better at my craft, I've realized that I get to call the shots and know where it's going to go. So, a lot of times you don't know if I got it wrong, or if I get it wrong, I will then overcome that hurdle and get it right and it's actually stronger because it looks like you got it wrong and then, oh my god, he got it after all. It builds drama.
Are there people above you where you're like, man, I would love to be as good as this person, or are you at what you do?
