So, we were just talking about your name. You go by Oz, and people I think would say 'ahs' all the time. How'd you get that name?
It's an Israeli name, so it means brave and strong in Hebrew. So, in Israel it's not as weird of a name or pronunciation, but here first off, now I'm kind of like, you know, a mentalist and a magician, so you're leaning into the Wizard of Oz thing. So, I have so many things going against me. It makes sense for it to be Oz.
I was born — my mom can only have twins from a very strange condition, so I have twin sisters. I was a twin, but my twin died at birth.
Which I found out later in life. She actually didn't tell me for a while, but what was interesting is because I was going to have a totally different name, but since I survived, they changed my name to be — it means like brave and strong. So, that was the name.
That's unbelievable. Was it a twin boy or girl?
And I always — this is the weirdest thing because I am not a psychic. It's not like supernatural what I do. It's a skill that you can learn, but I always had this intuitive thing forever when I was a kid that I kept saying, 'I have a twin. I have a twin,' and it freaked out my parents.
Because I don't believe in ghosts or anything, but I really felt as if I too had a twin, and only when I was about 11 did my mom tell me, 'Hey, you had a twin.'
I don't remember. It's a great question. I don't think they did. You know, in like Judaism you don't really name the kids before they're born. It's a little superstitious, but I think they had other names for us.
And so, I don't know what the names would have been, but it definitely wouldn't have been my name.
My life would have been a different trajectory.
It's a perfect name obviously for you.
So, tell me the difference between a magician and a mentalist for people that are confused.
We get paid more. No, I'm kidding. No, but truly a mentalist is a specialist. So, within magic, and I always tell people, you know what a magician is visually, right? You could think of somebody on stage who makes something float or cuts a woman in half and card tricks, right? It's visual. I'm going to do something fast with my hands that's going to trick your eyes.
I don't have props. So, I could go do a show for five people or 5,000 people. I am the show. What I do is I've learned how people behave. I know how they think. And it's a lot of things that have to do with misdirection, the same way a magician does, but instead of me telling you 'pick a card,' I say 'think of a card.' And now I can figure out what you'll think of before you even do. Or I can guide you in a certain direction.
It's a mixture of kind of light bits of hypnosis, influence, behavioral analytics, good old-fashioned, you know, trickery. And it gives the illusion that I can read your mind.
Okay. But you're saying illusion. It is an illusion. It's not like you can see into something. Like, can you read people's minds?
So, a great question. Am I doing something that can't be explained within the laws of science? No. So, but does it sure as heck look that way? Yes.
So, a lot of things I'm doing, here's the simple solution. A lot of people think if I told you to pick a number one to 100, there's no way you could do that, right? How could you know that?
But what you're not realizing is what if I've already done this to 10,000 other people? And now I realize certain people go for this number. Certain people go for this number. And what if the same way if you're in a casino, you could tip the odds in your favor? I can do little things that will guide you in the way I want. And instead of it being one in 100, it's one in five, or one in three, or one in two. What if literally I could know exactly what you're going to do before you did it? And it's science. I've learned to do that. So, it's done under the guise of entertainment, but it's not mind reading. It's a science. It's a skill you can learn.
Right. Okay, that's interesting. So, do you believe in what psychics do?
I don't really see psychics and me overlapping, if that makes sense, because I'm not really pretending to be a psychic or doing it. But I can do what a lot of psychics do better than them.
Yeah, 100%. Like if I didn't have the ethical or moral compass where I would feel okay — again, I don't want to say scamming, because I'm not saying psychics are scamming people. I can recreate what they do legitimately. So, I know the elements of cold reading, warm reading. You walk into a room, you can observe people. You can observe so much about them and instantly judge a book by its cover. Also, if someone goes to a psychic, they all usually have one of four topics they're interested in, right? Love, money, my future, some sort of an issue, health problems. And just by feeling those out, you can watch their body language shift and you know you got a hit. Suddenly, it's 'oh my god, we're talking about health.' And you can just feel — is it their mother, is it their daughter, is it somebody on their dad's side. And just little feelers you can get a sense of who it is. And somebody will be like, 'oh my god, I walked into the psychic. He knew my dad was going through chemo. How could he have known that?' Well, because you're in your 40s, they know your parents are older, they see the way you're shifting. There's all these tactics that you could learn, that you could utilize. Does that make sense? And so, that's why I say I could do it better than them because, quite frankly, I'm better trained than most of them. It's kind of like a Navy SEAL is probably better at playing video games like Call of Duty than a 12-year-old.
So, how did you get the training for this? Like, do they have classes?
University of Michigan. Find it in the syllabus. I started as a magician and most mentalists become magicians where you learn magic first. And once you ditch the props, I think of it as a stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedian is the purest art form because you stand up in front of a group and you have nothing. You just tell jokes.
Right? You tell stories, you tell your life and people laugh and that's your fuel. So, my fuel is laughter but also amazement. Just wow, memorable moments. So, I started getting rid of the props when I did magic. I'd go and instead of like a card trick, right? Parallel. Instead of picking a card, before someone even picked the card, I'd be like, 'this guy's going to pick a seven of diamonds.' He'd pick it and I'd be like, 'how is that happening? How am I getting that?' Because I'm learning little things about this person. I'm trusting my intuition and you start to do quick impulsive body language reads. You figure out what people are going to do. And then you learn books to get better at it and better at it, and it took a while to just stop doing magic.
Because it's a crutch. You know, magic tricks work every time. If you practice them enough, they're going to work. Mentalism doesn't work every time. I've screwed up countless times. I screw up less and less now because I do this for a living and I've gotten better, but if it worked every time, it'd be boring. It'd be boring. It's fun to watch because you don't know what's going to happen.
Right. So, tell me about your background for a minute. How did you get started in this? How old were you when you started magic?
I was 13. I had my bar mitzvah. I never really done like — we didn't have a big party. I lived in Michigan at the time. My folks had gotten divorced recently. It was kind of like a really tumultuous bad time in my life. And I think looking back, like a little psychoanalytic, I saw a magician. I went on a cruise ship instead of a party for my bar mitzvah and I saw this magician. I was blown away. And this filled this void. Instead of dealing with all this trauma and stuff going on, I just became obsessed with magic. And so, I started buying books, videos. My parents are Israeli. I was born in Israel, so they're very, you know, 'you want to buy more of these? Go work.' It was very much a pull yourself up by your bootstraps. So, I got a job when I was 14 doing this. I've been doing this for less than a year. I started doing kids' birthday parties, got little business cards printed at Kinko's. And I just started doing this as my hustle. This was my business since I was 14.
Wow. So, I would assume that magic is hard to learn at that age. Like, how are you actually learning tricks that people haven't seen or that adults can't call you out on and be like, 'I know what you're doing'?
So, I think you learn at a certain point — it was great for me as a stepping stone, which is you think, 'how do you learn this stuff?' You know what? You can learn anything. I think it's an excuse when people think they can't learn stuff. And this is going back 30 years ago for me, where there was no internet. You know, there was like dial-up AOL.
I went to the library. I checked out every book. I went to Borders. I bought every book. Right now, you can go on YouTube and learn anything in the world. So, I think you find mentors. I found out there was a magic store a half hour drive for me. So, I would, you know, just drive my mom to the point of insanity. 'Take me to the magic store.' I was 14, I couldn't drive. And when I got there, I met, you know, older people that were mentors that like, 'Hey, can you give me a ride?' And start learning from other people. Find a way to ingratiate yourself to them. If you don't have money, you can't buy them something, pay them compliments. You know, find something you can give them as a gift. Find people that will open doors for you. I learned that at a really young age. And I think I just learned how to network and communicate with others, and that's honestly the biggest skill. And I just kept learning and learning from other people, from books, from videos. I'm all self-taught. I never went to a class or a camp or anything like that.
Uh-huh. Do you have like a hero or somebody you've always followed their path?
I've always admired certain people. Like David Blaine when he came out was kind of a big time for me because I was a teenager. I was about 16 when his first special dropped, and he changed the game. He's just an icon, a legend. I was on the tail end of David Copperfield. He was still very popular, but I loved his stuff, but I never got drawn into those big illusions because I don't know, it wasn't me. I like close-up. I like being close to an audience and feeling that energy versus a lot of his stuff is grandiose. It's a spectacle, which is cool in its own right. And then there's people within my craft who you wouldn't know, they're not famous, but they're kind of visionaries. They're people that, you know, you stand on the shoulder of giants who kind of created mentalism because it's relatively new. This really started 100 years ago. Before that, you know, not like a joke, you'd be burned at the stake. Like anybody who could do what I do 200 years ago would seem like a witch.
Yeah, right, right, right. So, okay, talk to me about then you go to college and you have a corporate job, right?
Full on. I moved — I think some of our paths align. I worked at the 78th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center before 9/11. I had an internship. I went back to school. So, it's insane. It was a company called Martin Progressive, and I worked there, which is just bananas. And so, I worked on Wall Street. I had internships. And then when I graduated college, I came here like, you know, I didn't really know what to do and worked on Wall Street, worked for Merrill Lynch.
Wasn't my calling, but you know, making good money. I have an older sister, two older sisters. She's like, 'Get a job on Wall Street.' And so, I kind of do what I'm told.
And so, did you like that or you still were doing magic and mentalism on the side?
Doing it on the side. And it was never with this purpose of 'I want to do this.' You know, when people like, 'I have a dream. I want to be an astronaut.' I didn't know this was an option.
It was a hobby, but it made money, but I never thought this was something you could actually do.
You know, it seemed silly. It seemed like being — 'I want to be a pop star.' How do you do that? There's no playbook.
So, I was doing this on the side, but I was always doing this as a way to network, but also in life.
This was my method of — I want, you know, I don't want to make it sound lame, but to meet friends, to meet girls, to be — I'd go to a bar with my friends, all of us are getting free drinks that night.
Just you're the life of the party. You have a superpower. How do I get my job? When you go to an interview and your resume says professional magician last seven years,
I guarantee you 1,000% on my life, my kids' life, there is no way the interviewer is not going to ask you, 'What do you mean you're a professional magician?' It's the most interesting thing they've heard all day. Resume, resume, resume. So, now at the end of it, you entice them. You say, 'Oh, at the end of the interview, if we have time, let me show you a thing. Let me show you one trick.' The poor person after me, that trick turns into three tricks, turns into them hooting, hollering. The next person gets 15 minutes of their interview eaten up. And they're like, hit me on the shoulder, shake my hand and be like, 'You'll hear from us.' Because you've just won them over. I've been in countries where I don't speak the language. I've performed in over 40 countries. I don't speak the language. I can walk up to anyone, kids, adults, elderly, and I have this power to just make them smile, to warm them up, to instantly create a bond and rapport.
And so, you're able to open doors that could never open otherwise.
That's amazing. So, at what point were you able to quit your, you know, day job, so to speak, and make this your full-time job? How did that happen?
It happened in steps. Like, if you look back, you know, whenever you hear people, it always sounds easy in hindsight when you're like, 'Oh, you left my side hustle and now I'm making all this money.' And it always looks easy in hindsight, but I was there for two and a half years and I wasn't doing it with a purpose, but I just kept getting so busy. At the time I worked at a bunch of restaurants on the Upper East Side.
T-Bar, which shout out to Tony and Arthur Pacal, if they hear this, great guys. And a place called Nino's, which was on 72nd and 1st, and I got into these places, Primola. All these places where you had corporate expense accounts, you had kind of all the real housewives, all these various people that were in the fabric of the Upper East Side and big corporate decision-makers. I learned these restaurants had people that were influential. They would see me. And I'm not really making money, but it's a long-term play. The money will come. First, establish that you're great at something and have people know you. And I'm giving out 50, 60 business cards a night, and suddenly it's like pushing a snowball down a mountain, right? It gets bigger and bigger and everyone knows you. I became a very well-known local act.
And it got to the point — I have kind of a story that says it all. I was doing something at Merrill Lynch internally. All the event planners knew me within the company because they heard about me. I'd do happy hours. And so, they hired me to do something for the CFO at this meeting with like 20 bigwigs.
And I did more magic then. And I did a trick where I would turn $1 bills to hundreds.
Works great on Wall Street, right? Who doesn't? And I did this in front of them, and a guy named James Gorman, he's the CEO of Morgan Stanley, he's there. He's Australian. And I take ones from everybody, go, 'Watch this.' Snap my fingers, 500s. They're all laughing. They're like, 'We got to get this guy working here.'
And I go, 'Sir, I do work here.' And he thinks I'm telling a joke. And he — 'What do you mean?' And I'm like, 'No, seriously, I work in your GTS division.' He looks at me, and I can see it vividly to this moment. He looks at me and goes, 'What the hell are you doing working here, mate?' He's an Australian guy. And it's almost like a switch flips. And this guy is my boss's boss's boss's boss. You know, like he didn't know who I am. He can't believe it. And it's like, what am I doing working here? Like it was a real existential thing. And I just kind of thought like, this is it, you know, go for it. What's the worst that happens? I'll find another job.
And so that set wheels in motion. About a month later, I quit. But I had no kids. I wasn't married. You know, there's so many things that can hold you down. It's perfect timing.
Yeah, so nothing was holding you back.
You know, everything can hold you back. Everyone can have an excuse.
But it's easy to say go for it when you have like — you can...
But no one was counting on you besides yourself.
Exactly. So I think get your ducks in order if you're going to do something like plan, make your luck. Don't just wait for luck to happen. You got to like get yourself in a position for that type of luck to occur. And then go for it.
Right. So after that, did you really hone in on being a mentalist, or you still were doing a lot of magic?
Funny because like it takes 10 years to be the overnight success. And I was doing this on the side. I was building up, building up, getting really known in and around New York.
I made a kind of a branding decision. I was doing a lot of mentalism, but in 2015, I did America's Got Talent.
And that was kind of like the blow-up moment for me, that show. I got third place. The year before, a magician had won the show.
So I knew that — and also, he kind of like — we all, I don't want to say look-alike, but he's like a white guy. He's in his 20s, I'm in my 30s. We're the same height. You know, it's like on TV on mute, a lot of people be like, 'I saw you.' I'm like, 'You didn't see me, you saw him.' So I need to differentiate. You really know your lane that you got to make yourself set apart.
And you got to stand out. You got to do something better than anyone else or different or unique than anyone else. That's got to be your unique selling proposition. So I said, I'm going to be the mentalist. And that's when I decided to be Oz the mentalist. Kind of like go with it. That's my social media. That's everything. And they at that point cut the magic.
Right. Okay. So, tell me about getting on America's Got Talent. You tried a couple times, right? Yeah, how did that work out?
And the first time I tried, they call it like a producer call-in. It's kind of like the red velvet rope at a club. We open it up, walk right in, sir. So, for that one, producers call you in. I didn't wait in line for like 10 hours with other people like in a pier. They did it at a pier in Central Park on the West Side. There are thousands — it's like being on a football field with thousands of people waiting. And they give you a number. Like you're — it's a mug shot in the best of ways. Some of those people I met that day to this day I keep in touch with.
A guy, if he hears this, amazing, Josh Orlean, he was on the season before me, he was a comedian. Look him up. Funny kid. I met him and his dad there, to this day, great friends.
Many talented people there.
There's so many. Also, there's people that are absolutely not talented but they are so sure of themselves it's amazing.
Confidence can be the best.
The producer call. I went and did it, bombed.
It wasn't really my fault. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but if you're a mind reader, they bring me in a room — like imagine a room like this and there's no one there and there's a camera person. And I go, 'Well, I read minds, I need someone's mind to read.' So, they didn't know that. They thought I was just going to do my thing like a singer. And so, they bring someone in, a PA with like a headset who's super distracted. They're in the middle of my act, they're not paying attention. How am I going to get a good reaction from them? So, it bombed. Two years later I came back. Howard Stern was the judge. I loved Howard. All my friends love Howard. And you know what? Those two years proved pivotal because I probably did 500-plus shows those two years. I was seasoned. I was much more like — it was the right time, right place.
Cattle call. I went in there with thousands of people, waited all day, killed it. And so, that was my time. One year I don't get in. Two years later I get in and make third place.
And how did you decide — what do you call them, tricks? How do you decide what tricks to do that are most impressive that people haven't seen before?
Right. I mean, that's really it. So, I did something which worked for me in hindsight. I never planned more than one round ahead.
I was so in the moment. Like, you know that mindfulness? I would never even think of the next round because what I've seen is that when people start planning ahead like that, you know what happens? They don't even make it through this round. You start thinking about what you're going to do after you catch the ball. Like, 'I'm going to run,' you don't even catch the ball. Football-like parallel. But so I just did — for the first two rounds, I did things that I knew I could do perfectly. In my sleep, I'd done 10,000 times. Literally shake me awake at 3:00 a.m., I could do this routine. It's my signature. Things I created. Then we got to later rounds, nothing like pressure for a creative burst.
Like, there's — if you told me right now I could be on TV in six months, plan for it, I'm going to procrastinate. Talk to me a day before and I'll get my — if you tell me, 'You're going to be on national TV in 24 hours,' I'm going to have the best burst of my life. I'm going to go for a three-hour run. I'm going to be in the shower. I'm going to put my phone down in DND, and that's when I need it to be forced. That's when I get my best ideas.
Okay. And do you come up with them out of nowhere? Are these ideas that you've heard of and people have done before you?
So, everything is kind of like packaging. It's kind of like I've never read a self-help motivational book that isn't something repackaged from a decade or 100 years ago, but it's how do you put your own spin on it? So, to answer, yes, I create most of my stuff.
The way you think of like a Jimmy Fallon, he has a team of writers that write for him, and a lot of the people you've seen on TV, they have a preset set of creators for them. There's a rare group that are creator-performers. Like, I create kind of like a singer-songwriter, like a Taylor Swift. Most of what you see me do, I've created.
It's not like something else. I make up the things I do, but I always create from the ending backwards. So, I just like to think what's the coolest thing I could do. If I went on TV and I'm doing stuff for — I did stuff for a whole bunch of football players this year in NFL.
I go, 'What if I could go up there?' And what's the ultimate thing that a football coach wants me to do? Forget tricks, forget card tricks, forget all that crap. 'What if I could tell you what the other coach just told his player to do in the play?' That's worth a billion dollars, literally. You know what they're going to do before they do. So, I told the coach, 'Go get your playbook from upstairs and flip through any one of your playbooks, pick any play you want right now.' And then I literally told him the play that he thought of. And he's freaking out. So, I like to create things that — and that's never been done before. I mean, I made that up because I just said, 'This will appeal to this audience, to this viewer.' Versus if I go on a show that's about cooking, we're going to do something all about your best recipe that you made for someone in your family that you love that you haven't seen. Like, I like there to be an emotional hook.
Yeah. But how could you really plan on that? And for people that, you know, have seen some of the stuff you do, you're picking out things that they're thinking of way earlier and you have a T-shirt on underneath or whatever it is of what they're going to say. Like, how can you make them say that, you know?
The million-dollar question, right? How? But no, there's a bunch of tactics and skills and it's kind of — think of it, it really is like a chef who knows how to make a recipe 10 different ways. So, I have so many different ways to get to the answer. And from your perspective, it looks impossible and that's what's keeping me in business, right? You're screwed. You know, ChatGPT will take my job. But that's the skill is knowing how to — I don't like the word manipulate, but that's what it is. How do you get someone to do what you want them to do? Even when they're out of their way trying to be unpredictable, how do you still make them predictable?
A lot of those people I would think are skeptics, right? They're like...
Skeptic. I'm the biggest skeptic of all. The biggest skeptics turn into mentalists. Like, I've had these hedge fund guys that hire me who they like, 'Oh, I want to know how.' But I had one guy who literally decided, he's got more money than he needs for 10 lifetimes, that 'I'm going to spend the next year learning how to do this.' And I actually came up and gave him lessons and he was a legitimately interested person. It went past like a passing context of, 'Oh, this is cool.' He really wanted to know. And it's funny because it's only going to fall into two camps. Once you find out how I do it, you're either going to be supremely disappointed. You're like, 'This is...' or you're going to be absolutely like shell-shocked. You're going to be, 'There's no way that you were on live national TV with 15 million people watching live and you did that.' He was like, 'That could have gone wrong 20 ways.' And I go, 'That's it.' He goes, 'That's insane.' And it's funny when you hear it because it only is those two. It's never a middle ground. It's either the simplest, most ridiculous solution or you cannot believe that you would actually have the balls to do that. Pardon my French because it's so risky. It's so risky, but it works and you've got to believe in yourself.
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These skills, like for somebody you're talking about like that, must be really good in business.
Yes and no. So, it would be great in certain context, but it's done in like — think about a director of a movie, right? You think they're displaying things in a certain way. They get to point the camera where they want. Does that make sense? Like if you're guiding an interview, you get to ask the questions you want. So, when I'm doing my show, I get to do things in a certain way. For example, if you thought of a card and I guessed the card, you'd go, 'Why don't you go in the casino?' Because when you're playing poker, I can't say, 'Stop. Look at me. Think if it's red. Think if it's black. Now, hearts, diamonds, repeat after me.' People aren't going to do all that. There is a rhythm. There's a way that I do it. A doctor can't diagnose you over the phone. They got to look at your body. They got to check things. That's how I am. I need a certain procedure to get to the answer.
That's why during the Zoom era, during COVID, all of us who did this, we reinvented. We're out of a job.
We kind of reinvented how to do this over Zoom. It was so much harder because when you're not in the room with somebody, you can't impact them the same way. So, I reinvented my show.
Or you can't read their body language or something.
You can't control things. You can't — forget body language. Like I can't even see anything but your face.
So, it was funny. I reinvented my show over Zoom and it became kind of wildly successful. It wasn't fulfilling.
Like kind of like I was like a webcam girl. I'm like, 'I want contact.'
Big time. Because it wasn't the same. Like there's nothing like being in the room with people and that energy is electric.
And when it's muted, everyone's muting. You can't even hear somebody being amazed. I feel like I'm in a room alone. But anyways, I don't know if I missed your question. I was rambling. But you kind of — you can use it in certain ways.
If it was like helpful for a negotiation.
For me to negotiate certain things, I can tell when people are lying. I can tell when people are uncomfortable. I can tell when people aren't listening.
So, it does give me a technical advantage. But do I think I've gotten like the ultimate lowest offer on a real estate deal that I wanted? Maybe I was within 5%. It definitely gave me some edge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you ever go to magic shows or like watching David Copperfield or something and you're like, 'I know how he did it'?
For David Copperfield it's a little different because I don't really specialize in illusions. Stage illusions are more — there's maybe a set of 20 principles that you can learn them all, you know, and you're always going to hear like smoke and mirrors. But literally some of it will be like how to use a mirror. I don't want to give stuff away, but there's a lot of tactics and things, how they're built, how you do it.
The problem for me with that is when you watch somebody do a trick like the proverbial saw a woman in half,
You know, in my mind I think if I had those props, could I do that trick?
It feels like a puzzle. I know that they're doing this somehow. I know they didn't really saw a woman in half, right? I'm not silly. So I know that somehow you're doing this and you have a secret that I don't know. I still appreciate the craft. But with mentalism what I like and what I think a lot of people like — people after my show say, 'I don't like magic but I love what you just did.' Is it's cerebral and they realize that there's a skill and that it's not supernatural. So they're watching some of it. They'll figure out a little bit. They're like, 'I know that when you guessed the card I did something so you knew it was red and then you saw me do something with my body that was dying, but how you got the six of diamonds I don't know.' But they love being a part of it.
You like being behind the scenes. There's nothing more fun than getting kind of tipped off to a little bit of how something works.
Yeah. Is there someone or a type of person you can't read and you can't work with them?
I mean when people are really drunk it can be difficult. You know, sometimes they're even more fun but certain things are challenging where if you can't maintain people's focus and attention it can be difficult. Some people are very introverted and they don't want anything to do with you and it's your job to build rapport and open them up.
But you know, maybe they had a bad day. Maybe you don't know what just went on at home. You know, I learned early on when I was 14, like a shrimpy little kid, me walks up to you, you got a babysitter, you're out to dinner, you don't want me bothering you.
You know, that's the hardest thing, to approach people at a restaurant where they don't know who I am. Like I'd walk up to your table and be like — you don't want to be entertained. So, I started learning body language then and how to see who's the right person, what's the right time to walk up to them, and how do you diffuse tension?
Right? How do you de-escalate a situation? It's kind of like what a police officer does. You walk in, someone's hot, how do you cool them down? You don't meet their energy at the same thing. That'll just get kind of a pissing competition of who's tougher and who's this. I go into it in a way where I don't want — think of what I'm doing. It's creepy. If you could read my mind right now, that's a super creepy breach of privacy.
So, you either have to go down the path of 'this is fun and at the end of my show you want to share a drink with me, you want to have a beer with me, I'm that kind of person you like, wow, I want to hear more about you,' or you're kind of scared. And there's two paths of mentalists. If you watch other people's shows, you'll see what I mean very quickly. Their character and demeanor is one of Mr. Mysterious or you're a little bit on edge.
I want to be likable. I want to be somebody who you feel comfortable around.
And so, I made a conscious decision with that where I kind of let you in a little bit on how I'm doing it. I show you while I'm doing it how it's done.
I'll show you a little bit and then I'll up the ante and do something just a little more where you're like, 'How did you do that one?' I'm like, 'Well, I got to keep some secrets.'
Is there something you could tell listeners about easy things about how to read body language that might help them in certain situations like relationships or dates or whatever it is? I mean, I know I have my master's in forensic investigation and when we were learning that stuff we had to take a body language course. I mean, it was a small amount of our studies, but you know, it was the way people fidgeted or looked or, you know, if they would look to the left or the right. Or are there things that people can learn from you right now about it?
Totally. So, I mean, there's things that are hard and fast rules, but they don't apply to everyone. So, when you tell somebody, you know, if they're pausing, itching their nose and looking to the left, they're lying. You can't do that for everyone because some people just don't have the same body language reads.
Right. It's kind of like testing somebody for steroids. You have to first see their blood type and see if, you know...
Because some people have naturally high testosterone.
So, the same thing applies where there's not one rule that fits for everyone. Otherwise, I would tell it to you. I have to watch somebody for a little while and then I get their benchmark and then I get a sense because some people do opposites.
It's really funny. I'll get the first thing wrong. Like I have something where I'll tell somebody, 'Get out your phone, look through and pick anybody in your phone.' I'm really known for this. I'll say, 'Look, pick anybody out of your phone.' Our mutual friend Adam Weitsman, he challenged me. I'm like, 'Get your phone out, pick anybody. You know everybody, Adam. Pick anybody out of your phone right now.' And so, I will be able to always tell if it's a male or female based on reaction, but sometimes I'll get that wrong the first time and I'll be like...
Even if people are like trying to make sure they don't react and like...
That's — they're even better. The more they try, the actual...
goes against what you think because the more tense you are, the more you are showing it off. It's like if they're actually super loose and don't care, it's the same way somebody can pass a polygraph. People that are almost like sociopaths can pass polygraphs because they don't even—they believe their own lies. You know, like pathological liars can tell stories so much that they actually believe something that didn't happen.
You know, and they can—they can pass polygraphs. Their body doesn't have tension that everyone else's does when they lie because they fooled themselves.
So, it's—you can look it up. It's true.
By tension? What does it look like? Like if somebody—
Is—it's not. No, no, it's not. It's internal.
So, your body—like your breathing shifts, your perspiration shifts, and your blood pressure shifts internally. You—like stuff you cannot control. That's how they do a polygraph, right? It's—you can't control it. It's—it's—it's autonomic, right? It's like—same way right now somebody burst in here with a gun, your adrenaline system would fire before you even knew what happened. Your fight or flight—like it's thousands, millions of years of DNA and evolution. So, the same thing applies where here's stuff that you can use. Listening. You can tell when people are listening versus waiting for their chance to speak. You can always see it in their eyes, where their eyes open. There's things that people will do where you just said something and now in their brain they're—they're all—they're now thinking of something, which means their brain has turned a switch and they're not really listening to what you're saying anymore. Most people forget your name. I can tell when somebody heard my name, if they remembered it, heard it or didn't, just by looking in their eyes like instantly. Because if they were thinking of what they were about to say, they're not going to hear your name. One of the best tricks I have—it's not even a trick—is I will remember everyone's name I meet at a party each night. End of the night, I met a hundred people, I'll know everybody's name.
How do you do that? I don't remember anyone's name.
Right, which is—you always say, 'Oh my god, I'm thinking about a million things.' That's the exact problem. Your brain is like your phone getting a hundred texts. Oh my god, what's my daughter doing later? What am I getting for dinner? What's—you have all these other thoughts that are competing. If you can find a way to quiet your mind for just that one second when you look at them, you have to make your mind a blank. And it's—there's certain moments that are a blank. Like a lot of time right before you go to sleep, if your mind is quiet, or right when you get in the shower, right when you sit on the bathroom—I know it sounds weird—when you're brushing your teeth, certain people have moments where your brain gets quieted. Take your mind and right when you're about to hear their name, repeat their name.
Don't think of anything else. Be like, 'Oh my god, what's your name? Brandon? How do you spell it? Is it Brandon with an O or an E?' Repeat the name. If it's a name that might be misspelled, always ask how it's spelled. That's going to help you remember. 'Oh, you go Brandon with an O, got it.'
And now if you say that and you look them in the eye and you're not thinking of anything else, it will imprint.
Okay.
A snapshot, and you will remember it—minimum short-term memory for the next 30 seconds to 5 minutes. If you repeat it one more time or you pay them a compliment—like be like, 'Oh my god, Rachel, I love this camouflage jacket.' You just say it again with some sort of reference point, it will stick in your mind. End of the night, you'll be like, 'That woman Elena, I know her, and oh my god, that guy's kid's name is—oh, his dad's name is Tim.' You'll shock yourself. You'll do this the first time and in that night, instead of barely remembering one name, you'll know six or seven. And then practice it the next time.
Okay, I'm going to do that next time.
Try it. Just try to really repeat the name once. If you can pay them a compliment, it's a little awkward if you meet six people at once because it's a lot to take in. You know when you get those lines of 'Oh, I'm John, I'm this'—that's tough because you can't really repeat everybody's name.
John with an H. Bianca, how do you spell it? Looks psycho. But if you can just slow your roll there and go, 'John, great to meet you. Hey Bianca, you guys—oh, John and Bianca, how do you guys know each other?' Like, just anything to slow down the flow.
Associate. It's not a mnemonic because that's a different thing where you try to make somebody outlandish.
You can create lists in your mind. That's a different skill. This is quite literally listening. But also in negotiations, you're with your boss or you're with your spouse and you're trying to find out—you can tell. People have a sixth sense with their spouse like, 'Are they mad at me right now? Did I do something wrong?' You can feel it and it's an instinct and it works in a lot of other parts of life, but we don't trust it.
A lot of people will be like, 'Uh, I sense this and this about that person. What do you think?' I go, 'You're probably right.' Like, you just are talking yourself out of it.
Mhm. That's interesting. So, has anything ever gone wrong when you're in like a public scenario?
Like shows? All—I mean, yeah. I—I try to shoot for things to go wrong very frequently, but not like if things go wrong over and over because I—I try to do things that are pushing the boundaries.
