I'm open and down for everything.
What the [ __ ] as long as it is not involving anything that is satanic. That's a witch. That is Wiccan cultish or ghosts. I respect ghosts.
But I do not with the undead. So,
Okay, got it. You know, I watch the hard-hitting questions you ask, like Alex Honnold, when he takes dumps. And I need that same level of question for me.
Where do I take dumps during mentalism shows? I'm not allowed to tell you.
Mentalist Oz Pearlman has been blowing minds across the country for years. And by the end of this interview, I was convinced I was talking to a wizard. I have no idea, none, how he got in my head and learned what he did. How are you doing this emotional pap smear on me? Now, if you haven't heard of Oz yet, you will soon because he's about to tackle his toughest challenge yet. He is getting inside the clenched fist of fire ants that is the brain of Donald Trump. Oz is hosting this year's White House correspondents' dinner, which Trump is attending for the first time since Seth Meyers publicly humiliated him in 2011 and possibly set off a chain of events that end civilization. So as a former White House correspondents' dinner host, I gave Oz some tips on how to handle the gig. You're dealing with C-SPAN camera operators. So these people are geriatric.
I know. I tried to get him to tell me the secret behind David Copperfield's greatest trick. He's not actually flying. Fine. He's floating. And yes, he read my mind.
But you know what?
I have a little trick of my own.
I can disappear.
Harvey Weinstein is complaining about Rikers. That's right. The supervillain of the Me Too movement is upset because he got punched in the face by a fellow inmate. And Harvey is correct. Hitting is wrong. Even in prison, it is awful to be touched without consent. Anyways, I read about this story on Ground News, which is today's sponsor, and HMDK's favorite independent news platform. Ground News shows a breakdown of publications reporting on a story and which way they lean politically, whether it's right, left, or center. Now, it's not about eliminating bias. We all have biases, but Ground News helps you be a more conscientious consumer of the pageant of pain unfolding around us. Now, you may think, 'Yeah, duh. CNN is slightly left, Fox is right. Why do I need this?' Well, not everything is about America, folks. Ground News sources articles from all over the world. For example, there are currently 97 articles talking about Weinstein and Rikers, and a lot of the publications are international. Now, I know Globo in Brazil leans right and Lemon in France leans left. And I'm keeping that in mind when I read their coverage. So, go to groundnews.com/huston to subscribe and get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan, which breaks down to just five bucks a month with my discount. Stay aware and go to groundnews.com/huston today. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Oz Pearlman.
Big fan. I'm a big fan. I told you that.
We had our meet cute. We met at the SP.
We did backstage. Yeah, years ago.
I stalked you down. I saw you and I'm like, I know. I've watched all his specials.
That was really cool of you, dude.
I am a comedy aficionado. Like truly, I am just somebody who couldn't hack it as a comedian and I found this other lane that's very lucrative.
I never did stand up. But there's a lot of stand-up in my act. You'd be shocked that I'm probably more funny than I am amazing in my show. That's what people say to me and it's the biggest compliment ever.
You have been grinding it out doing this for a very long time. One of my favorite top highlighted comments in your 60 Minutes interview is, 'I went to high school with Oz.'
And he's been doing these types of magic tricks since we were in high school. I'm so glad to see he's doing well.
Yeah, that's true. I wonder who that was. I should know.
You should know. I think I thought you would know.
Okay. You started out teaching magic and releasing DVDs that taught people.
Yo, shout out to Tyler. Shout out to Tyler. We have a fan in the house here who's like, 'I bought your videos.' So I have a very weird form of fame that was called magic fame. I was famous amongst other magicians. It's not a real fame. It's not clout. It's like clout with teenage guys. Not what you're looking for.
But I started. How much of a story do you want? I can give a TL;DR. I went to University of Michigan.
Go Blue. And I was always working magic tricks on the side. I worked at a restaurant on campus. Everybody knew me. I was like the magician in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They opened a magic store, and this is dating myself. In the early 2000s, there was no streaming video yet. Netflix sent you DVDs in red envelopes. I got to set the tone here for the Gen Zs. This is dial-up modems. This is how you and I lived.
So, these two guys, Aaron and Maxwell, buddies of mine. They started this company in an apartment on campus. And I went to their place because somebody told me there's a magic store. I'm like, there's no way there's a magic store in this town that I don't know about. That's impossible. It's like my territory, right?
So, I went there. They're making videos that are really short to watch and show you perform a trick because the way you would buy magic tricks. Magicians don't sell their soul to the undead or devils. They pay money. It's economy, baby. They buy tricks and you go to a store, usually brick and mortar, and you watch the trick performed. You go, 'Oh my god, how much does that cost?' 50 bucks. 50 bucks. Guy takes you in another room, teaches you where no one sees how to do the trick. Then you go home and practice a bunch. That's the way it's been handed down. Books and videos as well. I'm breaking, you know, the fourth wall here.
So, these guys changed the game because the internet was getting fast enough they could put videos up online. So, they saw me do my stuff and like, 'Dude, this guy's good.'
And I started doing their demo videos. Their growth was a hockey stick. Just every month was double, double, double. So, it's like insane growth. They moved to Vegas. I started going out to Vegas for like two-day trips. And all you do is just go on the strip and do magic tricks till 3, 4, 5 in the morning, like all-nighters with drunk people. You can still see these videos.
So what Tyler saw was these videos that I would do, demo videos. Yes. And then I put out a video called Born to Perform Card Magic.
Born to Perform Card Magic is the equivalent of Britney Spears's first album for magicians.
If you meet anyone age, we could time stamp it, but like 30 to 48,
who is a magician who did card tricks, 100% they had this video. So, every magician in the world knew who I was at that time. Okay.
I got paid the princely sum of $1,000 for that video. I'm not hating. It blew me up. It's like the record deals you get early days. The way the Backstreet Boys got screwed by Lou Pearlman, not the same Pearlman. But that happened, but that blew me up. So, I traveled the world teaching magic.
What is it about mentalism, magic, and teenage boys, right, that is such fodder and territory? Why does it mean so much to hormonal teenage men?
So, one, I'm a nerdy loser at age 13.
I was. You got to see pictures. You got to see pictures.
Two, how do I appeal to girls? Wow. Do I go up there with strong game? Not really at that point in my life. Okay.
But do I go up there, have her pick a card, card jumps to the top, card changes color, card appears in my shoe. 'Oh my god, you're amazing.' Ding, ding, ding. Dopamine. There's definitely something there with teenagers and why dudes are not getting into magic in their 20s. I think that's true. The second is, you want to get Freudian with it. For a lot of the magicians I know, the same as comedians, they use it to fill pain. So my folks got divorced right around that age and it was a really bad divorce. It was not amicable at all. Hated each other. Kids were wedged like really bad. So I think this allowed me to get lost. This was my way of one, cheering up my family. 'Oh, look at me.' And like constantly avoiding talking about stuff that was heavy. You know, that avoidance, just what else are you going to do?
And second, I have an obsessive personality, like very obsessive where if I do something, I don't get into it 80 or 90%. It's all I do, all I think about all the time.
Okay. Tyler taught me a trick and I'm going to do it on you. And I want everyone watching this and here in this studio to participate, Oz.
I want you to think of a number between 1 and 10.
Subtract the original number that I asked you to pick at the beginning.
Is your number... heavy. It's a four.
We need to bring you to the next level on that trick.
So, Ty told me how that works. Yes. It is basically a math trick.
A trick like that needs time misdirection. So, what you want to do is you want to distance the method from the reveal. So if you had done that trick and said, 'Remember that number, we're going to come back to it later,' then I would have had less time to remember the methodology. And then later on you said, 'Remember that you had a number,' and you could muddy the waters of how the number was selected. 'Remember earlier you thought of a number, you did all this addition, subtraction, you made up anything you wanted, you chose where you would go. Look at me, think of that number now.' See, memory is malleable.
The same way that a good comedy, when you do a great special, the beginning and the ending are more important than the middle. The structure, it has to be, because that's what people remember. The how you leave. Let's say you kill it, kill it, kill it, and your last joke sucks. Special sucked.
So, the mentalism is the same thing. It's a structured act where people remember what I want them to remember. My job is crafting memories. And I don't... People think I mean that in a very wishy-washy, like new age way. I'm being 100% serious. I have spent years learning how to get inside your mind and know where to make the edit points. I edit the video. That's the story you tell about my show later. That's my skill. That's what differentiates me from the other people that do what I do more effectively. Knowing how to get inside your head in that way and know what you will say to the next person about me. That's not by chance. That's by design.
Why are you doing this? Why are you giving away the magic?
I don't think... because I think that that is something you can do in your whole life. It's a skill. Even if I quit mentalism today, if I quit mentalism, that same skill would apply to everything I do.
Is this the level of confidence that you have where you're basically telling your haters and losers, quite frankly, to be like, 'Hey, you can watch me right now, you won't be able to do what I'm doing.'
Oh, yeah. That's 100% true.
But I'm not... Some people will, and I'm not opposed to it, but as of this point, I think that most people haven't viewed it the same way as I have. Like I... It's the Mr. Miyagi version. Like right now, you're just seeing the wax on, wax off. That's the work that went into thinking bigger, right? I like the comedians that have changed the game, in my opinion, are ones whose specials tackle tough topics and they create something funny around it. Like anyone could just do a hacky TSA joke, right? But how do you do a joke about... I mean, I don't want to... like Andrew Schulz recently, Life. That was an incredible special. And you've experienced that, like IVF, like things that are really awful situations for most people. How do you take something horrible and make it funny? That's your gift, right? We're finding a new way to look at it.
A new way to look at it, but a way to look at it through the lens of funny because funny takes the edge off of things in life. There's nothing that can't be written a joke about. I don't care what it is. That is an oxymoron. People say, 'You can't joke about that.' Yeah, you can. You can joke about anything.
It's just a matter of what's funny.
You're essentially pulling off like a mental bank heist.
Everybody can't get away with the bank heist. The key is how do you get away with it? How do you get in and out of the premise Ocean's 11 style? And there's some people that are tactical assassins that can complete the said mission. And then, yeah, everybody can't do it. Some novices are going to get, you know, smoked out midway through the premise or they're not going to be able to pull off the heist. Yep. But that's the joy of it.
The story they tell matters far more than what I actually do.
So what is the difference between magic and mentalism?
You get paid more. That's a joke, but that's actually true. No, so mentalism is magic of the mind. So it's a form of magic. If you are a plastic surgeon, you had to first be a doctor.
There's very, very few mentalists who didn't start out as magicians. It's pre-med. Before you go to medical school, before you become a plastic surgeon.
Oh, please don't remind me. I did it and I didn't pass. Let's not do this.
This is like how I described me as the plastic surgeon of my profession when I quit my job to my Jewish mother. She's like, 'You're leaving Wall Street to go be what? A magician.'
As many references to doctors as possible.
So, a mentalist is not supernatural or psychic. I do not claim to have supernatural or psychic powers. It's very important. And I say that all the time because people believe that no matter what I say and it's not meant to be unethical or disingenuous. Everything I'm doing is a learnable, repeatable skill rooted in science. There's an explanation. Very important. Psychics can't do repeatable. 'Tell me my...' you can't... they can't just do stuff at a... and they can't teach you how to be a psychic. I could teach you to be a mentalist and do the trick 10 times. It would work every time.
But what I'm telling you and what I'm presenting is an illusion. So, if the way that you interpret the way I did it is based on body language or based on tells or based on the fact that I moved you in a certain direction, I don't necessarily tell you how I'm doing the trick. I lead you in directions that I want to lead you. Yes.
Some of which are true, some of which are false, but they're almost always rooted in honesty. Everything I'm doing is almost always actually the way I'm doing it, but different levels. Like it might be 20% body language here, 30% influence, 40% I influenced your choice through a different way. Some of them will be 80% one and 20% the other. But you in your mind will think a different way because I'm guiding you. I'm trying to...
Like kind of the cheese with the mouse. I'm that cheese at the end of the puzzle and I'm moving you around in that way. So you're always deflecting from the real method.
You've called it, quote, 'reverse engineering of the mind.'
That's 100% the truth. I went to school for engineering and I think my engineering training has been absolutely pivotal in what I do because I attack a problem from the end backwards. So I decide what do I want people to remember and talk about at the end of this trick. What's going to be the thing everyone says at the end? What's the memory? And then I go back to the beginning, create the premise, and then fill in the blanks in between. I have tools that I just have this tool, this tool, this tool to know how to do the trick.
So is it basically mind control?
It's a form of mind control because I am the dominant person in every relationship. As soon as our power dynamic starts that I'm performing, I take charge. If I don't take charge and I'm not in charge, then inherently my job becomes difficult or I become very submissive, allow you to think you're in charge, which is just the same way a heckler gets diffused is you give them their moment. Hecklers just want attention almost always. Give them the attention, guide them in that direction, and then overwhelm. So, at a certain point, I'll feel like you're in on it. Certain people that I've worked with, they're skeptical. They're alpha. They're some of the wealthiest, most successful people in the world. They're not used to being told what to do. They tell others what to do. So, I have to create a premise where they feel like they're in charge, but all of the things they're asking me to do are within the box of what I wanted.
What's the premise that you use with sociopaths like that?
So, I stroke their ego, right? I tell them how they're so great. I let them see behind the curtain. I go, 'I know you're smart. You know how this trick works. Let me show you how this one works.' And then they know, and oh, but I only showed them step A. B, C, and D are still in the back pocket, right? The big guns are waiting, right? So they feel like they've been led in, that we're now buds, right?
And so that's what you do.
So you have a desired outcome, a desired emotion where you're like, 'I need to turn this no into a yes.'
Or I want this to be the final outcome. Got it. Is that true?
You have this incredible talent. You can turn nos into yeses. Let me just... I'll just say it right now. Oz, why are you wasting this incredible talent on noobs like me? Why aren't you sitting down with the most powerful people on planet Earth like the UN Security Council or diplomats or world leaders and going like, 'Let me...'
We're about to, my friend. You and I are joining the same club. You are already an esteemed White House correspondents'... the illustrious list with you, Frank Sinatra, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno,
And so speaking of world leaders, President Donald Trump, I don't know if you've heard of that guy, is going to be there for the first time his presidency.
So, believe you me, I am ready.
Is there an outcome that you want? Is there a message you want to share?
So, I have like escalating levels of goals. One of the goals is for the room to have an incredible experience. That's actually, in my opinion, far and away the easiest. That's what I do. That's my core competency. I do corporate events, rooms that seem cold, I warm them up.
Yeah. Yeah. Hilton ballroom, that's Madison Square Garden for you.
Yes. Fully. Also, it's not fair. Me against you is not a fair match. Like, not a fair fight. Like, if you do a set and I do a set, we're not even on the same level. Like, I'm just...
You're not engaging the audience. It's not... You're fighting. It's cheating. It's like as if I... what you do is cheating is what you...
Blows you out of the water. It's... I'm like, if a comedian, if I open before you, it's rough for you. And I can tell you that from experience because I'm with the audience. I go out in the audience and I use them in the show. It's so much more interactive.
Yes. That it's almost akin to some comedians I've seen like Big Jay Oakerson when I've seen him at the Cellar and just does the crowd and then somebody comes up who does long form.
You're dead in the water compared to some act like that. Like it just...
Right? So, I don't worry about it because you've got to capture people with comedy. Comedy is very subjective. You could be the best comedian in the world. There's at least 25% of the audience that doesn't necessarily like your comedy. Just that's a fact. Like music.
Everyone likes this feeling. Everyone likes that. Everyone... I don't care if you say you hate magic. People will say, 'I hate magic, but I like what you do,' because what I do appeals to smarter people. Because it doesn't feel like magic. There's no trick. Like, where's the box? Where's the fake deck of cards? There isn't one. How are you doing this?
So, even if you hate me, which is a great... I love that emotion. You are very caught up in it. The haters tend to be the best ones. The haters tend to be the ones who become mentalists because you're like, 'I want to learn to do it.'
Yeah. And you also have... you win in both outcomes. If you're someone like me who's just like, 'I love magic.'
Great. You got me. And then if you're someone who despises Oz, like, 'I can't stand this guy.' It's weird how there are some...
You have the ultimate punch line which is like, 'Well, how'd I do that?' Right? I don't really care if I did it.
Which gets you, but it's at least intriguing and stays with...
Intriguing, yeah, because my job is not to fool people. That's a side effect of the...
So you've laid out the baseline. On a base level, I want to rock the room and enter...
I want to rock the room is probably my lowest priority.
Priority number two, more eyeballs, the TV, like who's watching on TV.
Is probably slightly more important, but they go hand in hand. But as you know, production is critical. And in a show that's interactive of the audience, if a camera misses a reaction, everyone in the room feels it. It might be on IMAG, but everyone at home watching on CNN and Fox News go... So, it's very difficult because we have to block things out effectively. And my show is frenetic and random. People throwing around frisbees, people hitting beach balls, because if you don't do that, well, you might have set it up with Wolf Blitzer. The Wolf Man might be on the payroll, baby. I'm not... I'll pay people. I have no moral compass. So, we need to know that anyone out there, and how do we know it's not fake? Because it's done at random and their reactions are genuine. It's so hard to fake a genuine, authentic reaction.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just want to... I don't want to get ahead of you and trust me, and this is coming from someone who's very bold and interrupts his guests and you're coming in with a lot of energy. I just want to stop you real quick.
You're dealing with C-SPAN camera operators. So these people are geriatric. I know they're going to say like, 'Hey, whatever you want to do, I can keep up with you.' They're not going to be able to. I'm just letting you know.
Slow down the flow 100%. We're going to try to block it out. I have some thoughts on this. We're going to do a longer rehearsal than normal, but I assume 90% of it will be messed up.
And I'll just sit there and just try not to stew.
Hey, you setting that as your expectation, brother. You've already won.
And then last but not least, the number one thing by far,
My interaction with President DJT. That's going to be the... that's what everyone's coming for. That's the fight. That's the main... the undercard is everything else. That is the question. The man that I don't think anyone can fully read in the world.
Can I get inside his head?
Do you have this vision where you're like, 'Look, world peace, humility, dignity, honor, chill out, stop tweeting.' If you plant those five, I'm telling you, okay, the world would be a significantly better place.
It would be. I guess maybe I should go deeper. I've got one mission at hand that I'm focused on at the beginning.
It's a rare opportunity. I'm in addition to like... Whoa, Wolf.
World peace is a tough one at the moment, but yeah, that would be good. Even just as a general, everyone chill out.
Yeah, we don't have to tweet.
You don't have to put that on Truth Social. Huge.
I'm just... I'm pitching this to you as a performer, both I'm a comedic performer, but just something to think about.
I don't know if he can be influenced really.
No, but that's your whole...
But my influence is much more subtle.
You're like doing the movie Inception where you put a thought all the way in. You go deeper, deeper, deeper. Like four dreams deep.
For real. Right now, if the water starts coming in, Leonardo DiCaprio pops out and he's back in the real world. You need three or four dreams deep to start getting that level.
Oh, got it. You're talking about what I... my goal is to get at the substrate and core of what it means to be human.
You're trying to change major characteristic traits.
Yes.
I'm trying to instill one thought.
Okay. Your book, Read Your Mind, gives people practical advice to use mind reading.
Not really mind reading. I wouldn't say that because it's the book... The first line of the book is, 'I can't really read minds. I read people.' So mind reading is not real. I'm not really reading people's minds.
You're reading body language.
That's some of it. That's not all of it by any means. There's a lot more involved.
I'll take you through some scenarios. You tell me because I need help with this.
How do I get my kids to do what I want?
It's a very good question and one that I'm struggling with as well as a father of five. I've got five.
And I think at different ages there's different things. I can tell you one thing to do is in a power struggle, you will always lose against a toddler because the moment that they realize they have power over you and that they can say no and that they're in charge of you, that is a better drug than anything, right?
So the same way that a magician misdirects your attention, they make you look at the wrong place at the right time.
So you look at this hand while this hand is doing something sneaky.
So with your children, if your job, your core mission, let's say in this moment, is to get them to eat vegetables, right? They have to eat vegetables. They don't like eating vegetables, right? So what do we do in that case? First, we have to make it more fun. The cheerful, fun, silly is better. Same way that giggly, silly. The next up is creating choices. So now they're in charge, not you are. You go, 'You get to pick which one you eat first.' And you lay out four things. You go, 'I want this one. Don't you dare eat this one.' And reverse psychology works exceedingly well with kids up to a certain age. My two-and-a-half-year-old, if I say to her, 'Don't you eat it. Don't you eat. I'm going to eat it,' she'll eat it right away.
So, that works really well giving people a bunch of choices that they get to choose within. So, they feel like they had agency when they didn't, when at the end you were fine with them eating any of the four things.
What are some tips and tricks for say job interviews?
I cheated in interviews because on my resume, and this is everyone should do this, my resume said professional magician for nine years, right?
Do you have any idea what a cheat code that is? That's up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, and continue.
There's nobody ever that reads that resume and doesn't look up at you like this and go, 'Professional magician.'
'Can you do a trick?' And I would always say, 'You know what? Let's keep talking. And at the end of the interview, if we have time, I'd love to show you one thing.'
Oh, that 'if we have time.'
So, right there, you changed the power dynamic of me being your dancing monkey who dances on command to more of I'm in charge now. 'If we have time, I'll do something.' So now I've kept you on the hook where the whole time we're in foreplay mode. This whole interview is waiting for the good stuff.
And so at the end I'm now not doing one thing. I'm doing one, two, three, just bangers, greatest hits. Boom, boom, boom. I'm Journey, 'Don't Stop Believin'' at the end.
We go at most of my interviews anywhere from five to twelve minutes over the next person's interview.
When we walk out I already have the job after me.
Thank you. Good night.
Fully. I was like just doing like a DAP handshake with Marshawn Lynch as I got the internship as I walked out the door. Like they're like, 'I don't care what this guy could do. He could do magic tricks all day in the office.'
Why would we not hire him?
Spring is here, folks. Well, she's been a little flaky. So instead of oscillating between heat and AC, we've been opening our windows on the warmer days. We love the fresh air. It's great. But unfortunately, it is also starting to bring in some nefarious critters. Not the kids next door. I'm talking about bugs. Those tiny shiny imbeciles are trying to take over my home and ruin my marriage. You put your wife between you and one spider and suddenly you don't care about her safety. Thankfully, we have found today's sponsor, Pesty. Pesty is a do-it-yourself pest control treatment customized to your location, bugs, and climate. They mail you a kit with custom pesticide instructions and everything else you need like gloves and a sprayer. You can complete the instructions in less than 10 minutes, and you can start as low as 35 bucks a treatment. Plus, Pesty is kid and pet friendly. The pesticides they ship have been used in hospitals and schools all over the country. With the DIY kit,
There's no strangers in your house to protect your wife from, because I would. I can be really scary if I want to. Get bugs out of your house with Pesty. Go to pesty.com/husten for an extra 10% off your order. That's pesty.com/husten for an extra 10% off.
I've said before that I am an internet bad boy. And no, it's not because I post videos of me threatening Ronnie Chang or because I pose in tough fits on the cover of Esquire. It's because I refuse to be limited by my IP address. That's right, I use NordVPN, which is today's sponsor. Thanks to our sponsors, you can go to nordvpn.com/hustenmminhush for an exclusive deal today.
To be for real, I'm not really a bad boy, okay? I like to think I possess a lot of virtues, but patience is not one of them, which is why NordVPN is imperative. Now I am able to share large files with no hassle thanks to hundreds of secure P2P servers. NordVPN gives me an ultra-fast connection while protecting my data. I don't have to sacrifice speed for security.
But most importantly, now I don't have to wait for Love Island UK to hit the United States. I can watch in real time and text my British bestie Riz Ahmed all about the drama. Go to nordvpn.com/hustammanage to get a huge discount on a plan of your choice and you will get four extra months for free. Plus, Nord has a 30-day money back guarantee. So, if you don't like it, no harm, no foul.
Now, you can be bad people on the internet, too. That's not what I meant. Tyler, can you just cut around that? Cuz I don't mean be bad on the internet. You can cut out bad people.
Thank you. Let's walk through my typical morning. I wake up in a cold sweat to my son prodding me with a machete. Fake, of course, but still very jarring. School prep is absolute chaos. I just make sure I get the kids food in their belly and then I make sure I get enough coffee. Hello, triple espresso.
Then I drop the kids off at school and I head straight to the office. There, I immediately go into interview prep. We'll test the video cues. We'll do last looks. And then I am in the chair with this week's guest. On occasion, this is when I'll feel my mind start to slip a bit. I'll keep mispronouncing a word or my vibe will just be off. And that's when I realize it's 2:30 p.m. and I've only had coffee. Your boy needs to eat.
We need the fuel. But with a schedule like mine, I don't have the time to prep and fast food would just make me feel a whole lot worse. And that is where Huel, today's sponsor, comes in. That's Huel. H-U-E-L. I've started grabbing a Black Edition ready to drink on my way out the door. It's a complete meal. You got 35 g of protein, 7 g of fiber, 27 essential vitamins and minerals, no artificial sweeteners, and it's under five bucks.
Then on days when I want something different, I use the Black Edition powder. I'll blend it with a little ice and milk for a smoothie vibe, or I'll just shake it up with water. The powder has the same nutrition plus a bigger protein boost, 40 g. Huel's my insurance policy against burnout. Check out Huel today and get an exclusive 15% off online with my code Husten5 at huel.com/husten5. New customers only.
The next step is everybody should learn three magic tricks.
Like your card trick. Yeah. Done.
That one's not the best because it was a little too long. But you can buy gimmicks. penguinmagic.com. You can buy a beginner magic trick that's impromptu that you could have with you at a moment's notice everywhere.
Anywhere you go, you're ready to go with a piece of paper or a box of matches. That is like Superman just being able to — Clark Kent rips off the cape and he's ready to go. Everybody should have two or three magic tricks in life. I've told this to everyone.
Is it sad or awesome that as a 40-year-old man that's a professional comedian that I'm like, 'Yeah, let me do that.'
You should do that. I mean, I wouldn't say have a fake ear like in the 40-Year-Old Virgin where they're like, 'You had to bring a fake ear.' You want to avoid bringing a fake ear, but you want to seem like it's impromptu and you want to seem — because it's an instant way to connect with other people. So that's one thing I would tell you. Now, let's say you don't have any of those ready.
Muhammad Ali could do magic, right? He would do.
He always gave it away on 60 Minutes. He like showed you. I'm not going to say what it is, and you watch over. But he immediately showed you how the trick was done, which magicians were fuming about.
Because we don't really like for you to tell us how the tricks are done.
But wasn't that endearing though, cuz he's the champ and then he...
It's kind of endearing. You can't really do anything about it cuz he'll knock you out.
But in a job interview, what I've seen is that you're drawn to somebody who's very interested in the role. Now, they can BS you a certain level, but your energy and matching energy is such a big thing. Now, I'm not talking like Reiki energy. I mean, the tone of your voice, the way your body language conveys, the fact that you're sitting forward, you're very, very interested in what's going on.
People can detect nervous energy. If you walk into a room, you sit there awkwardly with a drink waiting for your time to go talk to someone, that lack of confidence eats away at you. If you walk in immediately, walk to the person you want to talk to and immediately approach them, that confidence is contagious. It's like, man, do you see that guy? So when you read my energy, do you think I have high self-esteem or low self-esteem?
I mean, I think a lot of performers have a mix where we're insecure, but we have very high self-esteem.
You have very high self-esteem.
You're insecure at a certain point because you have to perform to generate the esteem, but you have very high self-esteem.
I believe that at your core, you know you're damn good at what you do.
To be honest with you, this is the first thing you've gotten wrong today.
You genuinely don't think you're good at what you do. You know, you can be humble, but you know...
No, no. What I suffer with is basically a café con leche.
Which is a 50/50, which is yes, I have high self-esteem and then also...
You're insecure at the same time.
Zero self-worth, right? And those two things are constantly having a tug-of-war.
But people that are great at what they do always have that. So I've seen people that are in my industry who will tell me, 'I killed it. This show is unbelievable. It's 10 out of 10, you know, even higher.' And they'll say that about every show. And to me, I'm jealous of that in a certain way.
No, no. I want to just disagree. Elon Musk has all café. There's no leche. He is fully believing every soul. There's no part of him that says, 'I made a mistake ever.' Behind closed doors, when you're by yourself, there's no impostor syndrome. There's just like, 'I'm the man.' Pardon my French.
Maybe you're right. Maybe after the fact things do hurt his feelings, but I think he operates very much from a like, 'This one's going in.'
Whether it's going to or not. Meaning like, 'I'm going to revolutionize.'