Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 721: Oz Pearlman

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

Oz Pearlman, the most famous mentalist alive, joins the DTFH! Check out Oz's new book, Read Your Mind! Oz is the first recipient of the DTFH's exalted Four Golden Stars of Coolness, and you owe it to yourself to read his book! St. Louis family! Duncan is headed your way next! Come see him at Helium Comedy Club, November 6-8. As always click here to get your tickets right now. We love seeing you out on the road! Thank you!! This episode is brought to you by: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self. Minnesota Nice now has genuine Amanita Muscaria in stock, AKA Blue Lotus! Head to mnniceethno.com/duncan and use code DUNCAN22 for 22% off your order! Get 15% off your next gift! Just go to UncommonGoods.com/DUNCAN. Don't miss out on this limited-time offer. Uncommon Goods. We’re all out of the ordinary. Go to get.stash.com/DUNCAN to see how you can receive TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. That’s get.stash.com/DUNCAN.

Welcome to the DTFH, friends. Today we have a special episode for you. Oz Perlman is here with us. You've probably heard of Os Perlman. He's the most famous mentalist alive. He has blown people's minds everywhere. Somehow he guessed Rogan's PIN number. He just, I don't know.

I don't know why he does it. And when he agreed to be on my podcast, I was a little nervous. Not because I don't believe in telepathy or I was afraid of like some kind of, spiritual potency, but because I was more worried that there's no way he was going to be able to read my mind. And boy, was I wrong. So get ready. You will watch this humble podcaster's brain get splattered all over the studio walls. He really blew my mind. And what's even better is you can

hang out with him in his new book. Read Your Mind by Oz Perlman. Oz Perlman gets the DTFH four golden stars of coolness. He's a really cool, sweet person. I do hope you'll order his book. It's really good. I've been reading it, and I love it. But now, everybody, welcome to the DTFH, Oz Perlman. Oz, thank you so much for coming on this podcast. Duncan Trussell, thank you, part of the family hour. You are a famous mentalist. You have met presidents. You've famously read Joe Rogan's mind. You got his PIN number. Yes.

People are now accusing you of being in the Mossad. That's true. Welcome to the Internet, man. I've officially made it. Until you have haters, Duncan, you don't exist. You don't exist. And you've got this wonderful book coming out. Read your mind, which I'm very excited about.

Thank you. I love what you do. And the energy from the moment I walked in has been through the roof. I've got to say I love it. Good. Well, you know, how often do I get to be around a world-renowned mentalist? It's a rare thing. There's not that many of us.

There is not that many of you. And, you know, what I love about what you do when you're doing a demonstration is you clarify to people, this is not supernatural. Nope. I'm a mentalist. And it occurred to me. If I was telepathic, but I wanted to put on a show. Right. I would say that.

I would do the same thing. So I've thought this exact same thing because I've spent an inordinate amount of my life thinking what it would look like if you could really read minds and I'm trying to emulate it and simulate it for my audiences. So it's funny enough,

one of my favorite things to do in terms of reading is yes, I've had some self-out motivational books in my past and I did a lot of sleuthing and due diligence for my own book, but I love escapism and sci-fi. Ever since I was a kid, sci-fi was my thing.

And the books about, like, people that are telepathic, this is such a throwback, but there's a book called Galactic Millew Trilogy, which is an incredible book. There's one, Jack the Bios, they're all out of print now. Julian May is the author. What a shout out.

I hope Julian's around. Those books, when I was a kid, were just like, because what happened in the books is that people suddenly started becoming psychic. Right. But they were able to measure their psychic powers. It was very regimented, very, like, I don't like fantasy where everything's up in the sky.

I like objective. order, measurable phenomena. And that book just got me going on. I didn't realize that early in my days, I'm like, how cool would it be to read someone's mind? Amazing. And magic was a superpower of being able to fool someone's eyes. Mentalism is similar.

It's built on magic. We still have the same architecture of deception, misdirection. But what mentalists learn how to do is to shed the props. I secretly wish I was a comedian, a stand-up comedian. All of my friends and people I look up to, and I don't even watch mentalists ever. I watch comedy. I consume endless amounts of stand-up.

Timing, pauses, how to tell stories, everything about it. And I come from the world of stand-up where when I lived in the village, we used to go to the cellar. I kid you not once, twice or three times a week before we had kids. This is back in the day when there was no cover charge, two drink minimum, hit a hot chocolate. I used to drink. I quit drinking, but it was just the best, and you'd see everyone. Yeah. yeah you know and that's the purest you have the purest form of entertainment it's you and a mic

and it could be an arena yes mine is very close i might have a notepad in a marker or i can do my show propless but it's the closest thing in terms of purity of effect right where it's just me i am the show you're fully in the moment 100% fully in the moment you don't know what's going to happen each person that you're priming or whatever the term for it is it's it's different psychologies but You have said in interviews, I find this to be so fascinating. If I can understand the way you think, I can figure out what you're going to say. You compared it to LLMs. 100%.

I think it's the same thing. In LLM, if you really get down to the brass tacks of everything in a computer is zero or one, it is able to decipher what the next word is, what the next letter is. And so you're either figuring out a predictive algorithm of what somebody will do next based on what they did before. and what they're doing now is consolidating all of human knowledge. And that's, I mean, where this is going to go. We don't know. It's so freaked out.

Every podcast is, I think everybody has 75% wrong about this. But the problem is that the 25% right are all just apocalyptic. Yeah. And having kids. And I'm like, what are they going to do? I'm out of a job in 10 years. Well, yeah. The machines will read minds.

We're all at a job. What do we do? And, you know, it's, to me, I think one of the things that maybe freaks people out about what you do in the negative. Aside from the superstitious stuff, is that we don't want to imagine that there's an automatic quality to humanists. I don't want to think, my God, am I just a machine? I don't know if you've ever heard of Gurjee, if you ever heard of Gurjeev, the mystic. That was his premise is that you sort of, he put it, you grow a soul. And so he said that human beings mostly are just automatic responses.

and people feel challenged when they hear that, and one of the exercises you could do is the next time you buy something, just watch yourself. Look how automatic it is when you know why you pull your credit card out, the way you do the thing, the way you say, thank you so much.

And then ask yourself, how many other moments am I having in my life that are automatic? And when I've been listening to interviews with you, it makes me think that's what you're plugging into that kind of automatic quality. I think so. Well, you're slipping people into their status quo,

lane. So think of it as like when we sled down a hill over and over, we go down that same path. Very few things in life other than, you know, very mystical experiences, psychedelic experiences, things that are potentially life or death moments. Yeah. Shift you out of that autopilot and give you a different like experience. You're not in default user mode. You're so used to being you. Yes. That until we have a way to simulate somebody else, you're just you. You can't really fully empathize or live someone else's life. How cool would that be, right? Yes. But in my profession, I guide you in a certain way. I'm influencing you. And the part that you said is the negative could be seen as nefarious or invasive if you're getting information somebody doesn't want

to give. So you have to sweeten that very much so by making it entertaining and fun. And as you do it, you drop little breadcrumbs along the way explaining how you're doing this. That way the audience feels that they're coming along and understanding a little bit. But you always leave the next breadcrumb out of their reach. So they don't catch up to you. And occasionally, they think they're leading up to the cheese but you have it hidden somewhere else because I use multiple methods at play that's where the world of magic comes

whenever you see an elephant and the big sheet gets put over the elephant disappears spoiler the elephant is not gone it didn't disappear from the universe it got moved somewhere where you don't see it or you looked at where it was before and not now that is the art of misdirection and illusion

so we do the same thing within mentalism is reverse engineer the mind I know what you think the solution is. In fact, I'm making you go in that direction. And then I'm going in a totally different path. Well, this is, the other reason that this, I think, weirds people out is you're not using it for nefarious purposes as far as I can tell. You're awesome. Corporate events, private parties, and big shows.

But, you know, if you've developed this skill, how many other people are, how many other people? people have developed this skill. Right. And don't talk about it. How many people, I'm not saying Mossad, but if I was running any government, right? I would want a group of people like you out there in various places all over the world guiding people, trying to understand what was going on. I mean, you would be the ultimate spy. You would be the ultimate CIA agent.

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I wonder if that's true. I think people that are very perceptive and intuitive, that's inherently what some of these agents are and that they learn it for a different role than what I'm doing. So it's really hyper-specific. So you can't, people like to generalize my skills. And that's a big part of what I said in the first part of the book. The first page of the book says, I can't read minds.

I'm not supernatural. I'm not a psychic. I really have to establish that because just like you said, I had people at the highest levels, Literally CEOs of major companies that have had their assistance call, get me on the phone and go, I'm doing a deal. I want to hide you in the room. Tell me what he's really thinking. And now, honestly, there's part of me that says, well, how much money are we talking? But you have to live with yourself at the end of that. And that goes down the wormhole of psychics where most psychics I have seen when they're in a room, I recognize their tricks. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm egomaniacal enough to say that all psychics are fake. I've heard of people have amazing experiences. And I haven't yet to experience one personally, that I couldn't find an explanation grounded in the five senses. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

And some of that doesn't mean that they don't get lucky. So it's very important to understand I get lucky in my show, but luck over and over and over isn't luck anymore. It's heightened intuition. Right. So if you were to guess a number one out of 100, and this is something I've done more than any trick I've ever done in my life is to tell somebody, think of a number one to 100, and I guess the number.

I've done that so many thousands and thousands and thousands of times that I've had done it at times where I don't know how I got it right. And so, and I'll guess a number and I'll guess it right. And then I'll say to the next person before they knew it, you're also going to do 22. How'd you know that? And I go, I don't know how I knew that. There's no, I don't have a credible explanation based on mentalism. It's just the exact same way that sometimes you go to a roulette wheel. And again, even a broken clock is right twice a day. You will get lucky, but you will know that that luck's about to happen. Is there a parallel universe where in that universe you got it wrong. It doesn't work every time, but people remember more of the hits.

They forget the misses. Right. And that's what psychics really live on. Yes. Is that they go, I'm sensing a person and it's maybe it's an M or a J. And they go, oh, it's a J. The name starts with the Jays that right. And now they're playing the odds. This person is of a certain age. You know, it's going to be James, John, or Jacob. Right. And now you're guiding the person to the answer they want to give because they're there paying money to speak to someone who's past. Right. You're pulling at the heartstrings. So I had CEOs call me like that. And I didn't, I didn't accept the offer because it's a lie. I can't be in the room and just magically read your mind. I have a series of procedures I use to get to that. But you seem to recognize that some aspect

of what you're doing is beyond your own awareness. Like there is... Few and far between. That's not, I want to make sure and explain that. That is not how I do most of my things. Yeah. I've just had those experiences, which I then try to reverse engineer. How did I know that? And I liken it much more to instinct and intuition, which how do you know, how do you know right now if you're in this room and somebody walks in and you feel the hair on your neck of danger, even if you haven't heard them and nothing's happened. Yeah. How is that?

What is that fight or flight that your body receives? That's not any trained sense. Right. That's something that you develop. That's something soldiers live and die by, that instinct of someone coming in and their body doesn't seem right, and you instantly jump on it because that person could be armed or have an explosive. Sure.

I just recently spoke to a Navy. seal who told me that was their training is how to heighten that intuition which isn't something that's i don't know the scientific explanation for it does that make sense oh sure but you'd be silly to think that we don't have things that we do that aren't just see sight touch feel like you know there's more to it than that to a degree yeah yeah you know i've heard some spiritual friends of mine have used the term super normal okay that in other words this this area that we're talking about, it would seem supernatural, magical, but really it's the most normal of normal things. We live in a world that's being constantly filled with distraction,

right, constantly filled with all kinds of algorithmic, hypnotic devices that are just trying to direct us in the way that you do, not for the sake of entertainment, but to get us to buy a new phone, buy a new car. That's everywhere. That's everywhere. So while all that's going on, you might lose track of that intuitive sense and start and sort of numb down. It sounds like you have sharpened yours, honed yours. And I wonder, when did it start? At what point did you have your first successful mentalist experiment? So I didn't like mentalism as a teenager.

So I started doing magic tricks initially. And most mentalists, I kind of compare it to being a doctor. You got to do all the science, pre-med, and then you become a doctor. and then if you want you specialize in something, you become a cardiothoracic surgeon, a dermatologist, right, a urologist, that's not for me, but anyhow, so you go down that path, mentalist is a specialist within the world of doctors, let's call it that. Doctors, just a GP, your general physician is more of a magician. You learn slight of hand, you learn misdirection, and you typically got really good at one thing.

For some people, that's card tricks, coin tricks, rope tricks, close-up magic is what I loved. I did some stage magic But I didn't have money for all those props My folks didn't have money My folks split up I had defend for myself At a very young age Which I think has had silver linings

For my work ethic in life But at the time it sucked I was all these other people Who their parents are paying For their vacations in their car I'm like I don't have that I wish I had that But blessing in disguise

My kids don't have that So I'm hoping to teach them Resilience in a different way They've kind of lucked out But what I noticed Is I didn't like mentalism Because it's kind of boring Here's what I mean, there's no moves.

When you're a kid or when you're a teenager, you want that shiny toy. You want something to do. I like to practice it. I would always have a deck of cards in my hand. I'd learn to move and I would do it hundreds and thousands of times. And I like the tactile. Mentalism is a game of your mind.

It's almost like playing chess blindfolded. Most of what I'm doing is thinking. It's very cerebral. Okay. So I'm thinking of paths and how things will play. It's kind of the same way you would think of jokes. I constantly am taking notes and voice memo. of ideas and my ideas typically start at the end of what I want you to remember because that's what

I distilled it took me a long time to figure out what is it that I do for a living which I think a lot of people don't ask themselves what do you do and you go I work for no no no what do you do and so that's a question that until I know my you know in French raison d'etre I create memorable moments yeah because for a while I thought I entertain people yeah that's not exactly right and I fool people. My job is to deceive, which is an unfortunate part, but if you know how it all works, it loses some of its fascination and lustre. So it's built on secrecy. I am now exposing some secrets in the book, but not how I do the tricks. Those are useless to people. You think they're fun, but they're not. That's like saying Santa Claus isn't real. Of course Santa Claus isn't real.

Right. I want to teach you how Santa Claus delivers all those gifts. I want to teach you all of the stuff surrounding what I do that you can use in your life to be successful at what you want, It's personal, financial, relationship-driven, like, how can you use these skills of reading people and getting inside your own head more effectively? And so when you combine those two, mentalism for me, what started happening is I couldn't do bigger shows without bigger props. So it became a practical thing where it's like, I want to perform for more people and get more successful.

And I kept doing more mentalism. And I found people were drawn to it in a different way. When you do a magic trick, I love magic because people think I talk down on magic. I love a great magic trick. But there's a different way people approach magic. They see it as much more of a puzzle. For example, if you were to pick a card and you were to sign it, and it's one of my favorite tricks, and you put it back in the deck, and you shuffle as much as you want, Duncan, we put

it down, and then I snap my fingers, and it disappeared from the deck. And you go, how can that be? And then I say, look over there, I have a lemon. Take it out. I cut open the lemon, and your card is inside sign. It's mind blowing. Yeah. But you are aware, in your mind, that there is somehow that I made this card very, very much.

vanish. Yeah. And I somehow got it in that lemon and you didn't see that. Yeah. Right. You know the steps, but you don't know how I got from step A to B to C. Yeah. It's a puzzle. It's very entertaining. It's very magical. But you know that I didn't grow a lemon that had a card in it with your name on it from before we start. No. It's not real. But it's amazing nonetheless. Yeah. Mentalism doesn't have that feeling because there's no step A to B to C. Right. You somehow entered my mind, which we don't think is possible based on all we know. And you told me something that I, I don't know how I gave it to you. There was no reasonable way.

Yes. And so that for people creates an emotional response. And a lot of people say to me, I don't like magic, but I like what you do. And that's kind of a very high compliment. Yeah. And so I kept doing more mentalism, but I was always scared because mentalism goes wrong more often. I bet. And so when mentalism goes wrong, it goes very wrong versus a magic trick.

I know when the card came out of the deck. I know it's gone. I know it's in the lemon. I know those two things happen. Yeah. Some of the time when I'm doing mentalism, I don't know if it worked until it doesn't work. Oh my God. You're thinking of the number six. And Joe's like, no. If I'm guessing Joe's pincode. And if he goes no, and I go this one, no, then you're screwed. Oh, shit. You don't have a real plan B. And especially if it's on a big stage, whether it's for a few people or millions of people. I got to ask what's, because everyone has seen you melt people's brains with this stuff. We all know that you can do it. Right. I want to know.

What's your biggest fuck-up? Yeah, well, there's been a few. So I think that over time, what really cements a professional and somebody who's very experienced and you get those 10,000 hours, those 20,000 hours, those reps, is I've learned how

to have a complete, as you call it, massive fuck-up and you won't know that it happened. And so the way that happens is because you think about it, you just decided that it's a mess up. How do you know it's a mess up? Well, the only way you know if it's a mess-up is if you know what the ending is supposed to be.

If you don't know what the ending is, then how would you know if I messed up? So it's setting the terms. It's like watching a movie where in the movie you always expect the good person to win. The good guy wins and the plot thickens and friends become enemies, enemies become friends. But some of those movies that have screwed you up the most have no ending. Like a David Lynch movie. You're like, what was that? Midnight Gospel.

Like there's shows where you don't necessarily see the ending happening. So part of the secret sauce over time, and this has taken decades, I learn I learn every time, is that I don't necessarily telegraph exactly where I'm going. I have a pick your own adventure where if something's going wrong,

I take the spotlight off of what you think is happening and shift to this other thing that's going to go right. I got you. In my early days, I didn't know to do that. And I gave the audience the advantage. And now I said, well, you think this, I'm going to guess this,

and I'm going to do it in this way, and this is the ending. And now when it doesn't go that way, It's like, oh, but if you get it wrong sometimes, and it's just a build to eventually getting it right, then it's just builds more drama. And you go, oh, he messed up. Oh, he messed up.

Oh, no. Oh, my God. He got it right after all. Yes. And that was just me pulling something out of nowhere. That was a backup to a backup plan. Wow. Okay, that's great.

You have safety parachutes. All the time. You have saved a million safety parachutes. Cut this ripcourt, cut this one. And then I've got like a squirrel suit where I fly into a. Do you? But it still messes up. There's still things that go rolling.

but it's got to take big swings. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, you've taken some huge swings. I mean, where you've gotten to, you didn't get there by not taking risks. You had to take risks with Howard Stern. You had to take an insane risk with rogue and insane risk. Yeah, and that was, that was, again, love Joe, had a great experience. That's the lion's den where Joe, everybody knows it. And what creates the credibility is there's no way.

And you know more than anybody. I've met him for a few hours that Joe is going. to pretend on someone's behalf that Joe is not going to debunk you in that moment on the spot if he senses that something doesn't pass the sniff test like that you how could that be yeah and then when you layer another thing that another thing how could that how like that's where you want to absolutely just melt someone's brain and when they leave they're just like I'm hoping you just had an experience that's on the level of a shamanic Carlos Castanada like what just happened There you go. And see this, to take it to another level, and again, I just want to reiterate, like, I'm fascinated by what you do. But really, you were saying, what's my reason? What do I do? One thing about you that I've noticed in all your interviews, you have this, you seem to have this real love of life. You seem to be an exuberant, happy person. And so sort of what's coming out of the show that you're putting on is something more than that. You seem to be.

to be a really joyful person. I appreciate that. I mean, I try to spread positivity. Like, I think that's people have told me before that what you're doing in this era of divisiveness. And it's just, yeah, I just want to create moments that, like I said, are memorable, fun things that you talk about and things that bring people together. Yeah. That don't take people apart. Yeah. And so. This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by my friends at Minnesota Nice Ethno Botanicals. Friends, listen to me. Amanita Muscaria is amazing.

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code duncan 22 check out the informational content on the site for safe use tips and let the law of revelation guide you mush love I mean what can I say like I've won the lottery if this is you know when people talk about simulations like if this was a simulation I won the whole thing like just being alive is just an obscene what are the odds than being

alive during this era and then just every benefit that I have being able body like I don't know I'm I can't see how I would be anything but beyond joyful because I look at the glass is half full even if the glass was a 10th full that good there's water in the glass yeah right and so my fault setting and I don't know how to extrapolate this to others. I've tried in the book is to look at how lucky you are, to be grateful every day to have that gratitude because you really, people don't realize you could die tomorrow. I could die today. And what would I think with my dying breath? And I think it would just be how lucky I was to have ever been alive. Right. And I think a lot of people come to it with this opposite mentality of what do I not have? And I haven't

always had this. I've cultivated it. And a lot of people could say, well, you've got money. You got fame. You got this success. I didn't have all that. grew over time. Yeah. And I look back at the come-up, which most people will tell you who have achieved a success, those hungry days were some of the most fun days.

I know. Where you're sleeping on a futon and you don't know what's going to happen and you're just like going place to place. And those are, once you have the comfort and once you have a comfort zone that you're very in,

then things can be taken away. When you don't have the things, it's so exciting every time you get them. And material possessions at a certain point really lose a lot of their, cache. I think anyone that's rich, it's not to do with your money. It's can you afford anything you want? And that's more an internal barometer than an external barometer is if you can afford everything you want. For you, maybe that's a roof over your head, food to feed your family, XYZ,

but if you're lusting for private jets and yachts, then you'll never be happy. You'll always be comparing yourself to somebody younger, richer, stronger, better look like, there's always going to be somebody er than you always so you have to find what satisfies and fulfills you and this is this is a deeper existential question i love it but i think that's kind of the nature of what i try to put into my kids is appreciation and happiness with what you have but also still having goals for what you want to achieve you have five kids five kids wow shout out to my wife here duncan don't there's very people always like you and you're saying look my wife birthed them carried them was pregnant for damn near 10 years nursing you know like the sacrifices are few and far between

on my and if men had to repopulate this planet trouble we're done done done all we have to do is come it's not fair compared to like what they go through to make life happen but i'm sorry if you've been asked this before i imagine you have how often do you use mentalism in parenting so i use a form of mentalism, which is very interesting, which is the illusion of choice and the illusion of free will. Oh, yeah. I guess we all do that. And misdirecting.

So the number one thing that you can go wrong with a two or three year old is a power struggle. Because once you give them a yes or no question and say, you need to eat your vegetables, no, no. Now what you've done is create a dynamic where they have so much power. Right. I have power over you. Right. Usually have power over me.

Right. So the misdirection is the same thing I do in my show where I don't let you know all your options. I only give you some of them. And it seems like they're very big, but I limit you in a way you wouldn't understand. Right. So with that, with with a trial like that, I will say them, you're so lucky. You get to pick. Do you get to have two carrots and one cucumber or one tomato and one pepper? You choose and I'll pick the color, guess behind my hand. And so again, I'm out there performing tricks on the kids. That's cool. And over time, they'll see through it because novelty is important. Yes. But that's how you trick their brain because now they go, oh, I get to

choose. I'm so lucky. I'm going to have, I'm going to have the cucumber and one tomato. I go, all right, you get it. No, I'm not giving it to you, especially when you do the play hard to get and say, you can't have this. Or you don't want to give them something to eat. How many of us have said, it's too spicy? All my kids like spicy food now because they don't buy it anymore. They've tasted spicy food, habanero stuff. And now my seven-year-old, become a spicy boy. And then my nine-year-old, too, even my five-year-old daughter. I don't want to throw anyone to the bus. They can all eat spicy food now like a champ. You know, I had them all eating broccoli for a while by saying that I was starting a broccoli museum. And I just wanted

them to see the broccoli that I was putting in a museum, but don't eat it. And like they were just happily devour broccoli. But this because that's a false narrative. What people say when they talk to other kids and they go, oh, that's gross, that's gross. Then they just want to peer pressure fit in with other kids. Inherently, not everything has to be this sweet or salty. Your taste buds are developed based on a lot of what other people tell you. Now, keep in mind, I've had one or two. picky eaters out of the group. Sure. And that's a very difficult thing to overcome. So you've got to be sneaky with it. Sneak the vegetables elsewhere. There's ways to do it. But, and there's nature and nurture. This is a long conversation about how you see your kids and they're each their own person.

There is nothing I did to put inside of you who you are. You are just you. It's incredible. It's so far. It's incredible. And it's, you know, I, this is why I do believe in reincarnation. Because I would be incredible. I would love if reincarnation is true. Well, you know, this is interesting like and that's how I used to feel about it like it's interesting because like the people when they're trying to write off Buddhism and especially the aspects of Buddhism where there's reincarnation they're like that's just your way to escape death you're just afraid to die and so you invented it another way to not die and in Buddhism it's like I don't want to keep coming back here like it's suffering you've been doing this over and over and over sure you're a mentalist

right now world renowned mentalist but you don't know what's good the next go-around's going to be. You could be a squirrel. You could be a mildly telepathic squirrel. No one gives a shit about a telepathic squirrel. You wouldn't know. Right. But really, this is sort of where I want to go with this. And forgive me because I don't mean to seem sinister. But no, no, you know, I'm sure you've heard the idea as above so below. Okay. Okay. So as above, so below, in other words, small things, all things. So when I think about you, the mentalist, and when I think about you parenting and knowing all these things about psychology, knowing all these things about how to get your kids to eat vegetables, it's very hard for me to not believe in the Illuminati. Because I think to myself, if you can individually do these miracles, not literal miracles, but these incredible feats with people.

Then why wouldn't there be groups of people, just like you, who didn't want to make people happy? You didn't want to do stage shows, but wanted to exert some level of control by... So I can tell you exactly who they are. Who? Con men, con women. So I am an honest con person. So think about what I could use getting secret information for in nefarious ways. So much.

It would be for material gains. It would be down the path of psychics, down the path of... I mean, anybody who's kind of selling snake oil, in essence, what you're doing. I mean, I think that there's parallels between what I do and cult leaders, which is you can take people and just take this exact same path and show people things that are unexplainable to them. Yes. And then guide them towards a path of what you want them to do with that information. Right.

I've much more harnessed it for entertainment and now for hopefully positive uplifting changes in people's lives. Right. Which is this, the book, like the book, Read Your Mind, the reason I wrote this is I, there was no, it wasn't a material gain. It was not like I've got to make money. I've got to sell a book. It was more of, I didn't believe in myself for years that I had a book to write in me. I just thought, is this really interesting?

And I think there's an age you hit where I was over 40 where I started to believe a little more confidently that I've lived a life. Like I've had decades of experience where there's enough to go out there and not have bluster of, again, at 25, who the hell am I? What do I know?

Right. You're just a kid. Sure. Now I've lived and done for a few decades. And I've seen the proof is in the pudding where the things I'm doing actually work. And there are real skills that I've developed over years of iteration and learning that are teachable skills to others. Things that are like, for example, I think one of the number one things that holds people back is a fear of rejection and failure.

100%. It is, it holds you back internally from attempting to do the things you want. So if you have a goal in your mind, in many instances, maybe it's a physical goal. And it could be small. I want to lose 10 pounds. Or this year I want to get a raise. I just don't like my job. I'm sick of being an Uber driver.

I have this other dream and I don't have money together and it's easy for you, bud, because you're on TV and all, like, all of those things are typically a problem of I'm not going to go for it because I'm too scared what happens if I fail. Right. And there's ways just like a magician where I stack the deck in my favor.

You take, you get smart, and you break down this problem because most people have a goal that's very vast and far. Sure. And they don't make it smaller because all it is a series of steps to get there. I've done a series of steps to get to where I am. Right. I didn't know what all the steps were as I was going, but I could typically see one or two or three in front of me.

And if you can achieve those small wins along the way, you can rewire your brain to start seeing, oh, I can actually do that. And then build up the confidence that allows you to keep going when so many others quit. And that's really what you see overachievers. Most of the best entrepreneurs in life are not people that succeeded. They just were very, very good at failing and not stop it. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, persistent. Like Andrew Dyson.

The guy literally, I think it's Andrew Dyson, right, created the Dyson vacuum. Yeah. He had over 5,000 prototypes. 5,000 prototypes before he did that, became a billionaire, I think, like, 8 to 10 times over and is knighted by the queen. This is somebody who just thick skin would not say no, believed in himself to a fault, many would think. And I think that's the kind of level of thick skin that you have to develop, or if you

can't naturally you trick yourself into it right i wasn't always super confident well that's it that's like the baby steps it's i also i run marathons and ultra marathons which ultra marathes i think helps me i know it helps me as a mentalist because that same level of achieving goals when they're very hard and when you're down and out and you can always talk tough when you're here and comfortable like sitting on a couch yeah i'll go run a marathon everyone says it but get out there at mile 22 and you're hurting or get out there at my 122 and I've been running for 24 hours. Holy shit. And then you learn who you really are and that kind of thing I like to suffer because

the suffering allows me to get to a point of in my psyche of I don't want to do this. Everything in me wants to quit. But the fact that I'm convincing myself not to quit is what lets me know later how strong I am for other things. Yeah. So, okay. So this place you're taught. There's like a place I've noted.

where you've pushed yourself well past where you thought your limit was. Right. You enter into this new zone. Yep. And then what you used to think was your limit seems easy, ridiculously easy. It's almost like gravity diminishes a little bit. You feel like not that you're not suffering still, not that everything's easy. But do you know what I mean?

It's like you've broken into this completely. spacious new zone. It feels new every time, any time that I've had that experience. I think that's, I mean, that's like any workout. If you do weights, what do you do? You rip muscle. Yeah. And it grows back stronger. Yeah. That's all that's happening during every workout. Right. Taring the fibers, meaning that's why you get sore. That's why if you don't get sore, you almost feel like what gains am I getting? Right. You, pardon me. Do you, have you ever, and I don't mean to keep veering it in this direction. It is just where my mind goes, sure. Surely you've been approached by more than entrepreneurs.

I mean, surely you've been approached by intelligence agencies. You've been like, hey, what are you doing? What's going on there? Surely. I've been approached by several intelligence agencies to speak for them. Yeah. And it's not necessarily under the guys of law enforcement or what I would describe as like national security.

It's more of hyper-specific tasks that could we improve in our training. Cool. And it tends to be people that are fans of my work who then think exactly like you do, which is I'm seeing what you're doing. And I wonder if this could allow us to get any quantifiable advantage when we're doing something similar. Or when it's being done to us. I mean, that's the thing. It's like I would, if I was training anybody, I would want to, at least for them to know the signs.

Here's what it might look like if you're in the presence of someone who is a con artist, who is priming you. This is what you should be aware of. Well, the best, the best con artists, the best ones by far, we can sense when someone is trying to sell us something. What is that? Well, there's a sense of this, smarmy. Like, you go in and somebody's like, get this. Oh, this car's great for you.

I didn't ask for that car. Like, it's pushing. Right. The pushy salesman. Right. Sometimes works. Don't get me wrong. But it's never the top salesperson at an organization.

The top salesperson at an organization is the person who makes you feel at ease, trusting. And, like, you want to give them your money. They're your friend. This is a terrible example. Bernie Madoff was the most successful con man ever because Bernie Madoff would spend years telling you no, no, no, until you were head over foot ready. You'd do anything to give him money

and then he gives you a short window and says, you know what, we just opened up. I'll give you two days, but honestly, I don't think it's right for you. And you go, let me get everything. Let me sell the house. Let me do everything because I've been waiting years for this moment. Patient, the long game.

There are things that I can tell you, like that Howard Stern moment. For those that don't know, Howard Stern, and this is one of those moments that I will take with me to my deathbed of like, man, I can't believe that happened where Howard Stern had Valerie Harper on the show. You can look into this,

who was a big star from the 70s. Like I love Lucy and had the show Rhoda. And she was eternally ill and they did the Houdini test. So Houdini and his wife Bess before, Houdini used to debunk psychics. And they said, here's a test for psychics. I want you to ask somebody that's dead,

something that only we would know that's never been written down, that's never been spoken aloud, that's never been nowadays communicated through electronics, which could be tapped. So in this example, he told his wife, if I ever die, here's our word, like a safe word. Don't tell it to anyone, no matter what they say, do nothing with it ever. Keep it only in your mind. If that person is psychic, we both know it, and if there's an afterlife and they can communicate with me and I'm there talking to you, I will tell them the word, they will tell the word to you. Right.

And that's how we'll test. other stuff just tell me the word yeah control study right we don't really have any way to talk to the dead so people have done that since it's a famous thing and you're welcome to do it with you know your spouse or somebody you want and see what happens right friends friends the holidays sneak up so fast know it, Christmas is nipping at your heels, ripping into your Achilles tendons. Tendin, I don't know how many Achilles tendons there are, but it's not too early to get your shopping done and actually have fun with it. Uncommon goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and joyful with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts you can't find anywhere else. You must go to this website.

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So I took on the challenge and I said, that's how I got on the show. I've been trying for years to get on the show, and this is bigger pictures. When I create a goal, I'm relentless. Yeah. Being on Rogan, that was six, seven years where it was in my mind of being on Robben. Oh, yeah, relentless. Wow. And I'll take a step forward, a step or two back.

step forward but I am very much of the mindset of no equals not yet and that's a big chapter in the book is how you rewire your brain the same way I rewire people's brains so that your default setting is when I hear no let's say you have a goal that you want yeah it's not no it's not yet right and I liken it to a door that's locked if we right now took that door locked it threw away the key we're stuck right but what if instead we slam that door really hard the hinge went out of society and it was jammed. Well, now what we have to do is we have to find the right way

to spin this way, turn this way, hit this open up, and we'll get just a crack open, Duncan. And then you and me will get our fingers in. And then we'll slowly crack it on and then we'll get our arms in. Then we'll get our shoulder

and then we'll rip that door open. Yeah. That's a not yet. That's a not yet. And in so many instances in my life, like when I quit working on Wall Street, everyone around me thought I was crazy. But to me, it's like, this is not a no that I'm giving up my life.

This is a not yet. I just got to build the career up. That's so cool. So with Howard Stern, that was over three years of formulating. I realized the premise. I need to start thinking, how could I possibly pull this off?

And even then, even then, it was not 100% when I walked in the room. And my wife, who's both my biggest cheerleader slash my biggest cynic, is like, what are you going to do if you screw this up?

Like, I don't know. She's like, how sure are you that you're going to get it right? I go 80, 90%, she goes, that's not that. 90%, she's like, that's not high enough. I'm like, well, listen, what are you going to do?

What are you researching him? Like you wouldn't believe. There's so much that went into it. So you are like just studying. Well, that's not a typical example of, you know, tomorrow morning I have a show here in Austin for about 500 people. I don't know anyone in the room. I know a CEO and the president.

I might get one of them involved. But if I use them, the whole show, it seems fake. Right. Right. Here I'm at inherent disadvantage. Yeah. Or call it advantage because I know you, read your Wikipedia. I can know a lot.

Sure. I could have processed everything you've ever put out via chat GPT. Sure. Who knows? Who knows? So the challenge there is if you're in a room with 500 people, you can make it very authentic and genuine by making it random. Right.

Right. You go ahead and look to anyone else. Take this Frisbee, close your eyes, throw it somewhere. Catch. You throw it to someone else, right? The stuff I do when I'm in rooms with football players that goes viral on ESPN, it's because you know inherently that these football players aren't faking it for me. Right.

Because one, they're paid a lot of money. Right. So what am I going to hold over their head for, you know, Aaron Rogers or Joe Burrow to do my bidding? There's almost more benefit in tricking you. There is in many instances a much bigger benefit for them to get me. And in the room, there's a machismo that says, he's not getting me. He's not getting me. And when I stand up, they go, don't let him do it.

Don't let him do it. He's not let him do it. And that's the fun. Man, oh, you're just a tightrope walker, friend. You're comparing it to stand up, but it's far more dangerous. And I do, you know, there is, there are tricks, you know. With hecklers and stuff, there's tricks. But we have the same tricks with hecklers because we know inherently you and I do that

what's a heckler want at their core attention. Yeah. And so if you can figure out what kind of attention they want, what is the attention they're fiending for? And how can you diffuse that? And in the best instances, make the audience love you. It depends what kind of heckler it is. Do you want them to hate the heckler?

You can always tell when somebody just went over, just a little too much. Almost always the case. And when you pushed it and the audience is no longer on your side, they're on the heckler side. You've lost them. You're done, but you have to win them back. And that kind of is punching down

versus punching up. Yeah. And there's like very fine lines. And you go over the line. None of us are perfect. And then you get those moments of audience crowdwork, which are gold.

Yeah. And we have now people that have literally made a career and changed the whole face of it, like the Matt Reich model where he changed the game for many of you. Like the whole thing got flipped over on its head.

And now so many other people are doing it effectively. Obviously, he's not the first to do crowdwork by any stretch. I love what he does. But you just got to see where we don't need to burn material anymore.

We can just do crowd work consistently. We can shape up and change our routine and ad lib and do current events which you burn that material but you're not burning your act. Mentalist, it's interesting because we don't have to burn our act.

We're like vaudeville. I could do the same show for the next three decades minus AI and keeping up with... Because as long as the crowd's different. The crowd's different, but also it's interesting. Not as many people will see you

at once and the punchline doesn't work in the same way as a joke does. People actually want to see some of my tricks over because it's kind of like greatest hits. If I go see Tom Petty, he doesn't do free fall and I'm pissed. Right. You could, RIP, man, but you can't just go to see the stones and have them do all greatest hits or all all new new songs from the new album. You're going to be like, dude, where's jumping jackflash? Where's I can't get? No, like, you need those songs in there or you leave mad. Right. So people want to to see certain things over, but they also want to see new things. That's right.

For me, TV, social media and like podcasts are where I can try to diversify and do fun new things versus my day-to-day act where it's for high-paying crowds. They want the A-plus. They're not looking for me to work out C-minus in front of them. Have you, this is insane to ask, and I'm sorry, it probably is going to seem like I completely misunderstand what you're doing. Have you tried to do any of this with an AI? So we should try that.

I haven't yet. So that's a great idea. What I did do at a certain point was I did a show for IBM, main stage T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and we did a fun bit. It's behind closed doors so I don't have videoed,

where me and Deep Blue, which was the previous supercomputer, which by now is practically like less powerful than your phone. I know. It's so, it's so freaky. Meanwhile, your phone has more computing power

than they had when they sent astronauts to the moon, if that happened. Right. And so when you see like just how Moore's law is advancing, I did a mind reading bit with a card trick to see who could guess a card quicker for more people. And I beat the computer. And so I was like on stage. I was like, yo, if it's sky net tomorrow, I'm working for team human baby. I'm keeping us in life. But to see what would happen now would be very fascinating. Yeah, to see like how much of the tricks

that you do with people. I think there would be a way to do it with AI. AI can't do so. You would have to get it to, you would have to, you'd have to get it to say something without. There's a level of jazz involved to my show that's, it's, it's just, you're, you're so quickly taking data points in such a fast manner. I think I've been seeing you do that to some degree. Yeah. You seem hyper aware of like my hand movements. I see you, like you're really taking it all in. When I'm performing, yes, because if I don't take it in, small gestures, small things can throw me off.

little words, little pauses before you, um, that um means your brain is not fully focused. And again, what's funny is on Rogan, people talked about me talking fast. And when you see my show, you'll see there's different pacing at different points. Right. And that's a tool. My voice is actually a tool where they go, oh, he's nervous. I'm not nervous. There was no nerves involved. I'm controlling the flow of the situation, the conversation. Right. Because right now, if you're talking and I'm talking quick, I can go over something you're about to say. And if I, I'm, I control the flow of the conversation, then at a certain point, in your mind,

it's the same as if you were guiding someone along. And right when they're about to do something, you continue talking, you, well, they just went out of that lane and they continued somewhere else. Oh, that's so spooky. I'm your little puppet right now. Who's doing the podcast here? Let's do something fun.

Let's entice people. You stuck around the listener. So the challenge I give, and when I walked in here. Big assumption they stuck around. I hope they did. So if they did, when I walked in here, I said that you and I have something in common. which is our names are, I don't want to call them unusual, but I mentioned it to you.

I said that your name is one I don't hear often. Right. In fact, how many Duncans have you met in the last few months? Where you walked up in a little, Duncan, I'm Duncan. I have not met any Duncan. It doesn't happen frequently. Right? And mine owes, it's an unusual name.

It's a Hebrew Israeli based. Speaking of Mossad, they're like, not for the Mossad, but I'm getting that a lot after Rogan. But we have unusual names. And when I ask people a challenge, which is to think of so. someone from your past with a difficult name, I like to say it that way, because if I were to just say to you, and I just say right now, don't think of somebody, most people default to someone quick, and someone quick is someone close in their life, and typically they'll go with a more common name, if they're told to ask quickly, because common names are more common.

You know more people with them. So inherently, when you did this, and I see you, and I saw you look over and you're like a hard name and you're like I got it I think you you came up with somebody okay and I can see right now in your mind your thing is this a good person you know this might be too tough you thought of somebody that when was the last time I want to know who popped in your head what when was last time you spoke into this person oh I haven't talked to them I haven't talked to them since the early 90s early 90s yeah and yet I walk in the studio we sit down I mention your name. I mention my name right now.

And I ask you to think of somebody that you haven't talked to. Literally somebody popped in your head that you haven't talked to in 30 plus years. Is that correct? Yeah, I'm anxious about this because I feel like you're like, oh, that's bullshit, that name.

So let's take this. Right now, this is a problem with an insurmountable set of eyes. You have not, I want to be clear. You have not written this name down. You have not whispered it on camera. You're not nothing. You literally thought of a name.

It's in your head. this name. Okay, let's see if we can do this. Let's see if we can pull this off and pull it somehow to your brain. D-U-N-C-A-N is six letters long. It's your name Duncan. Yeah. I used my fingers, so those are on a podcast and couldn't hear but couldn't see. I want you without using your fingers without doing anything of the sort to count the number of letters in this person's name simply to yourself, not out loud, simply to yourself. Okay, hold on. Not out loud. okay you did the first name only not the last name is that correct just the first name okay let's see what i think it felt like you were double checking yeah oh you don't say that

because they're not giving away um nobody takes that long for a very short name that's easy right so if it was inherently like a three or four letter name you could have done it but you would have gotten more indicators of deceit which means you would have done it and then there's usually a thing where when people fake that they're continuing, there's ways you can tell it they're faking the continuation of the count. And I didn't see that for you. I might be wrong, I might be right,

but you never know. And then right now what I'm saying, and I'm seeing that you're telling me, yes, your body's telling me, I'm right, which means the name is a little bit longer. But then, you know the game, hangman? Yeah. I don't know the age of your kids,

but you ever play that game? Yeah, sure. You're at a restaurant. You make the dashes. Notice, when the words are very long, you struggle to make the dashes. You kind of have to whisper in your ear and go, yeah, right?

But when it's a short word, word like the it's like three letters and if I think that the number of letters in this name try not to react I think is even I think that when you counted the first time you mistakenly counted odd you went one too many letters then you went back six letters isn't it that it's awesome right yes six letters and now in your mind imagine a hangman with all the letters of this name sitting in front of you okay and that they are simply like scratch gravel tiles right there in front of you. Okay.

You reach down. You let your fingers go back and forth over the letters. And you don't know. You feel like you want to grab one, but then you decide, no, maybe I don't want that one. And then you jump to another letter. Maybe then you go no. And then you jump to another one that, I don't know, feels right. Maybe it feels strange to you.

Maybe I don't know why, but you decide, I'm going to go with that letter in the end. Do you have a letter? Yeah. So. When you ask someone to go into the word, they tend to do the middle letters. But then when they switch, they might go to the extremes. But then at the end, they don't end up on the extremes. You didn't end up on the first letter, did you?

Nope. I hate to say it because normally people won't do it. But I think you went with a vowel, didn't you? I did not. Okay, so maybe there was a vowel. There has to be vowels in the letters. But again, this isn't an exact science. So I go back and forth.

it's all straight lines two lines a line are you thinking the letter h you are i knew it it's an h is this going to be on video or just audio video video as well is that correct yeah that's crazy there's the h i want you to close your eyes you can't see if you don't mind putting your hands you can't see if you don't mind putting your on top of your eyes so there's no way anybody could see and that people will tell me sometimes

that I have written this down after the fact. This is being written before he says a word and I've shown it to the camera and open your eyes and I'm putting a marker down and it's going to be, you know, I want you to hold it before you turn over so I can't do a thing with this. Okay. The name doesn't start with the letter L, does it? No. It doesn't start with an L?

Nope. What is this person? person's first name. Tushta. Tushta? Look what I wrote down. Ha! That is amazing and impossible!

That is impossible! I love what you do. It's so cool. There's just no way. I felt guilty when you said, think of a name. That is just cool. Who has ever heard that name before?

That name is, that's a Hari-Krishna. I gave you the name of a Hari-Krishna. long time. Who knows? Still doing well. Tusha is still doing very well. Wow. For those only listening,

that is Duncan's reaction to me writing Tushta, which very common name. Very common name. Wow. I just... Wow. You are a very talented human being.

I appreciate that. And where are we at in time? I don't like... Fifty-two. okay we got some more time okay wow you gotta delve we gotta get into some some deep things here sure we can get into deep things but just think of how absolutely insane that is that you did that you know because i i felt guilt like i don't want you to fail right i was not trying to even more viral if i would have gotten it wrong i don't care i i don't want to trick you i wasn't

trying to do some stupid i was but i was thinking like it's and the reason you saw me hesitating is because like I was having to go through my head like how do you spell that luckily I thought you spell you first time you thought it was seven you recounted the second time that's right this podcast this podcast is brought to you in part by stash here's a secret the best time to start building your financial future as always now. With Stash, you can grow with confidence no matter the market. Stash isn't just another investing app. It's a registered investment advisor that combines

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Paid non-client endorsement, not representative of all clients and not a guarantee. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk. Offer is subject to T's and C's. Wow, that is super cool, man. I love it.

You're, that is super cool. And I love that you are saying that was not telepathy. That was, I don't, it's definitely not telepathy. That was, it's not, it's not, so magic is different because I will, I promise you, there's no slight of hand involved in what I did. So it's not slight of hand magic, but it's based on. magic, which again involves if I have you pick a card, I'm using my hands to potentially force the card. Right. Or once the card is in and I don't know the information, finding out what the card

is. Right. So again, this is doing a card trick without the cards, which is a limited subset. So if there were a thousand different cards in a deck, it'd be amazing, right, but they're only 52. But what if I could make you think there were a thousand and then narrow them down to 52 and then to 14 and then to 13 and then to 2 and then my odds get better and once I figured out the H, which again, how do we know you did the H when you initially started the S and you did the T and you didn't do the vowels and like once we got two of the letters, we started putting it all together and this became a game of Wheel of Fortune for me. It really is disorienting.

Like it's joyfully disorienting, but the effect of it is so like you're, even though you're saying like, look, this isn't supernatural. Because I don't know the method, your mind scramble. It creates a sort of, this is where, if you were a cult leader or a grift, this is where you could get in. Well, this is exactly where you get in, right? Because if you've done something that of somebody kind of, I don't want to call insecure, but somebody who's seeking more in a certain way and they're looking for a

guru or someone to explain to them the meaning of life, which all of us are seeking, and good luck finding it out. Maybe we'll find it out the day we die. but now you have the answers and you have answers in an inexplainable way unexplainable so if you have something unexplainable

well maybe what other things are unexplainable you've tapped into right right once you've done this you can do you well what if you do this

with something that's not this I don't want to call it meaningless what if you tap into something much more important to them which is a memory go to a memory that made you who you are today what is a moment that shifted

your entire trajectory who was there what happened smell what was going on do and then you start to describe this memory to a person. Like, you know, I was, what if this whole journey came to this point at this moment? And that happened to you so I could explain to you where we're going next.

Again, I wasn't trying to be a cult leader there, but you could see where this would go real quick. You're my father. This is, can I tell you a funny story? Yes. So when I was doing Joe, we talked about cult leaders. We went down the same path, great minds. And I don't know where it is in the podcast because, you know, Joe does long ones. But one of my good friends, I don't want to say his name, Shodd, I live in Fort La

at one of my good friends, brothers from college, he had his eight-year-old in the car that he picked up from summer camp and he played him, the Joe Rogan. And he'd already been listening to an hour and 20 minutes of it. And he's like, you know, he goes, your Uncle Jeff's son, or your Uncle Jeff's best buddy from college.

He was on Joe Rogan. He goes, it's a big pie. Whoa, can I see it? And he hit play. And he was right at this moment where we had been talking about cult leaders. And right when he hits play for his eight-year-old son, I go, there's always that moment, Joe,

where the cult leader says he wants to screw everyone. else's wives. I was thinking that. And his eight-year-old kid goes, dad, what does he mean by that? He's like, oh, pause, pause, pause. And I was like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I did that to you. I didn't even remember that was in there. I thought it was mostly PG. Yeah, no, you can't play. Rogan. My. It was so funny. Oh, my God, because my kid figured out to pull up podcasts on Alexa. Yeah. And, you know, the other day is like, I was listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. Oh, I know Mr. Ballin. Great guy. But not great for a first grade.

It's true. That's the, he's like, dad, do you know about tuberculosis? I'm like, don't listen to Mr. Ballard. But shout out to Mr. Ballin, man. Great dude. This is so it seems like there is a way to benevolently exploit. I think you're seeing it. Yeah.

So this is, I would say the, I want to say the most moral use of these skills. Yeah. Because I think you could, I mean, I know you could use this to con people out of money. And that's inherently what most cons are at the end of the day. Right. Yeah. It's a play on emotion. it's a play on that feeling of typically, you know, what are the, what are the scams?

The scams are always some sort of a way to get you to extract money from somebody. And in a lot of the instances, it's that belief, that belief of, oh, I've got something. Nobody's got, you know, financial scams, emotional scams. But that's, that's really truly not where I'm going with this. And 100% not what the book is about. No. You're like waiting for like, how can I scam people? This is such a great idea for a book.

who's a fellow Rogan alum is a good friend of mine, David Gagins, who was so kind of to give me that. You gave me the ultimate quote for the book, which is it's on the cover. It's learned to master the most powerful weapon, your mind. How did you get to be friends with Gagans? Me and David go back well over a decade. So we both do ultramarathons.

I am. And our first race we did together, I believe, is Badwater, where I met him there. It's a race in Death Valley. It was in his book and can't hurt me. Oh, yeah. Which is honestly one of the most inspiring books you'll ever read. If you haven't picked that up.

Oh, it's so good. Do you got to pitch your book? No, get this book first. No offense, Goggins. I'll give Goggins every shout out in the world because that book was like, is like adrenaline shot into your heart. And then I saw him recently in Las Vegas.

And he's just, he's at that mythical level where when people meet him, it's almost like a deity. Like you've changed people's lives. You've saved people's lives. People that are like on the precipice where maybe they were of health or of suicide or of what.

And Gagans brought them. back. Yeah. That's just a power of message. I think it's a power of authenticity. Yeah. Especially today and today's day and age where so many people, the lack of a better term,

fake it till you make it, but they just keep faking it. Like social media is the best way to just fake your persona. Yeah. And he's real. I can tell you from knowing David 15 years ago that it's not an act, it's not a put on. He's that guy behind the scenes as he is in front of the cameras,

behind the camera is he's not doing it for others. Right. It's funny. Do you know what Strava is? Yeah, sure. So I don't have Strava on my watch. I've done it twice when I've done records. They're called FKTs or like World Records.

I ran from the tip of Montauk of Long Island, Montauk to Manhattan in 21 hours and changed to try to be the fastest person ever crossed Long Island on foot. Did you do it? Very close, yes. And then it's a difficult record because I went to Times Square

versus somebody else went to Brooklyn versus different parts. So for my exact route, fastest ever. But like they're within five minutes of each other. We went to different locations in Manhattan. And then I at the time. that point ran around Central Park. It was a world record of more loops around Central Park than anyone has ever done. Holy shit. Raised over $100,000

for charity. What? Part in the book. It was like lemons and the lemonade. I wasn't supposed to do this. It worked out perfect. I was on the front page of the New York Times globally for doing it. Wow! So do good and good things happen is another good thing. Yes. And two page spread. It wasn't even done. It all came together in a

week and a half. It was just this cockamamie idea I had and I just like did it. And so again, these are things where like how do I explain it with Goggins it was it's I don't I had Strava just for those two I don't have Strava because I don't run for other people to know I run because I enjoy it I enjoy where my mind goes I enjoy strengthening my body but also just unplugging I need to unplug from electronics from everything I need my brain just go into a zone of boredom yeah where I create and there's few and far between her places that shake you out of your it's the greatest

It's the greatest high. I haven't done it in a long time. When I was running regularly, oh my God, it's the best. I mean, it's pure, it's the purest drug. Your brain is dispensing something infinitely better than any drug available. It's just incredible. And then add drugs to it. Right.

Do you ever go jogging on acid? I've never jogged on acid. But there's, you just, have you done that? How was it? You know, I have jogged. Hikes and long walks are a different story. I would not recommend jogging on. mushrooms.

Right. Jogging on low dose. By the way, you know what, Josh, we're in Texas. Cut this. I don't need...

Can we get in trouble? Yeah, I don't need CPS coming to my house. Like I forget I'm in tech. They're very strict about psychedelics here. Really? But just remember to cut this little...

We can delve into psychedelics deep. It's a little outside my squeaky clean image, but I have tremendous experience and it's something I'm kind of passionate about. How much time do you have? How much time do you have, Josh? How much time do you have, I should say?

To hang? I mean, I'm literally going for a run after we check. I just don't want to like, I don't want to take advantage of your. 543. I mean, I would say I could definitely chat for like another 1520. Okay, great. Yeah, you know, so just cut out the dumb run on psychedelics thing. And honestly, I'm trying to recall, like running on LSD I have done.

I've run on weed. I've run on various psychedelics, but forget all that. Let's, something I am curious about with you. And as I was listening to the interviews, I was wondering, like, what is your, experience with psychedelics. How far down the rabbit hole have you gone in that way? So I had really meaningful experiences as like a late teenager where I first, my first psychedelic experiences where I just saw that honestly, it changes your way of viewing the world. There's no other way to put it. And I didn't know about Steve Jobs doing it. I didn't know

anything else. It wasn't even mind expansion of like party drugs. It was more of I had somebody early in life in that era who kind of introduced me to the show. Domine approach, Carl's Custinada, like all these books that were more of how to see the world in a different way that I found fascinating, which really has a lot of parallels to magic, because magic is getting inside people's heads in such a certain unique way that most of us don't really think about our minds. We just live our life. Right. And we get so used to living our life in a certain way that you get in a, I don't want to call it a rut because that sounds negative. Life is a blessing. But you only see the world in a certain way because you've only lived in a certain way. And until somebody has a psychedelic experience where they suddenly become the observer, like you get to see a different view of like, wow, this is what the world is. It's so much more than what I'm just seeing through these senses. In this moment, every day, most of what our brain does is filters things out. Right.

It doesn't actually consume content. Right. Think about how much of a day you remember of the 16 to 18 hours you're awake. Right. Close your eyes and how much can you actually formulate so little. so little there's just bullet points extremes and then if you really think more things come it's like looking at the sky and letting your eyes acclimate

you see more and more stars the longer you think about it but the first glance you only see three or four stars sure so psychedelics for me were a way to just see that the world is so much more and it opened me up to just being aware of who you really are and I think at a certain point maybe there was an awareness of you're going to die one day and that life is fleeting and most people do all everything they can to be in denial about their impending death whether it's in a day a year a decade or a hundred

years yep and so if you can find whatever way there is to overcome that and they've shown studies over and over and over I met somebody from Johns Hopkins who does things with terminally ill patients and the studies are just so clear cut versus all these drugs that are being pushed like antidepressants anti-anxiety where a meaningful psychedelic guided trip with, you know, intentions and things before and somebody to guide you through it, the percentage decrease in fear, depression, anxiety for these people who absolutely know they have a year, two years, a month, two months to live, just gone because they realize there's more than this. More than this.

There's more than this. Whether that means an afterlife, whether it means anything, it just means that you are more in the universe is there and that feeling of love that you get and that stuff that you get when you're in like a deep psychedelic trip that you can't see in day-to-day life quite as evenly. I think this is a psychedelic. I think what you did is like somehow mildly psychedelic because it, they talk about it in Buddhism.

You know, it's this, my meditation teacher uses the term suddenly free from fixed mind, which is things can happen. Chogim Chobo Rinpochei would say, usually people start meditating when they hear the bell to stop meditating. Right. You know what I mean? That's when you are there. And that totally pulled me into the moment in this, or I should say, threw me out of like my old moment or whatever. You know, it just is so novel. And I could see, my God, what if you did this in conjunction with guiding someone on psychedelics? I have such a funny story. I've never, I, this can throw people off. So I've been a, around people and you've got to get permission to do magic. And not really mentalism.

Mentalism is still fun, but oddly icky, like in that environment because it involves there's deception. And I don't want to call lying, but there's low level lying because I can't tell you how everything I'm doing works versus magic is more of, I don't want to call it juggling because it's not juggling, but we both know there's a way I'm doing this. I'm not going to tell you how, but we enjoy the craft of it. So the same way that somebody juggles five balls in front of me, I would love to do that. I can't quite do it. I can juggle three and four, but I can see the skill involved in that. And I don't

know how you're doing it, but I know there's a way. Right. So it's very similar, but magic is, has surprise versus a lot of juggling. There's no surprise. A good magic trick surprises you at the peak moment. I'll tell you a great story. I was in Amsterdam when I was, I want to say I was out 20 years old. I'm not really into cannabis. It just doesn't do it for me anymore. I kind of not for many, many years, but at the time, I was definitely a bit of a light-level podhead. And then I quit shortly thereafter, but I didn't really like to do things that were illegal. I was very fearful. So I was in Amsterdam on a layover. And at that time, that's like, you got to go to a bulldog cafe. I had two friends like, you got to go in there, you're going to have the time

of your life. And it's also the forbidden fruit. It was not legal in the States yet. So I go in there, I have about seven hours before I'm flying from Amsterdam to my next destination. and I go by myself and my superpower at this time which is something I still use is magic that bridges all gaps. I have tricks I can do that are visual where I don't need to speak your language.

You could be speaking Japanese, Chinese, Greek. I can do something that catches your eye in a moment and that my body expression alone lets you, wah, and we can connect on a human level. So I started doing magic for these people that were sitting at the Bulldog Cafe. And all of us are smoking, very, very stoned at the time.

one guy is on a mega dose of mushrooms and I'm prepared for this where I have a specific trick I do it's a card trick and it's a card trick where you have somebody pick a card and you have them hold the card at the tips of their fingers and it's a card a normal size card

like you know a deck of cards and I take and I spread the cards and I say whatever you do don't let go of the card in your hand hold it tight you feel it you see it and I go watch and don't blink and I take a spread of cards in my hand and I simply slowly

wave them above his hand and back within one second his card shrinks from the size it is in his hand to a quarter of the size it trinks he's holding it it shrunk he looks at the card he blinks over and over

he blinks like he he just he can't understand if what just happened and so it's as if he knows he's tripping but it's as if the trip is like he started flying like something is just torn

into the trip reality so deeply that he looks at the car then he looks at me and he drops the cart and then he runs out of the bulldog cafe now these are all Americans because I was an American I met other Americans and I was like oh he's he come back okay he's coming back and so we got a little worried we didn't know what to do

yeah and this is way before cell phones to show my age maybe somebody had a Motorola flip I don't know what they had it's like this is you know 2000 or three I felt terrible at a certain point but it was so funny and it's a story that I've wondered to this day if this guy ever saw me and connected the dots and goes, that guy, I've seen him on this thing and this thing that's always the mentals. And that was the same guy that literally annihilated my brain in Amsterdam. And I always, I always in my mind, the fantasy is he's safe. He's okay. Nothing bad happened to this person. He's in a mental asylum right now. There's a guy in a mental asylum who's like somehow Saw Rogan's podcast. It's like, that is the witch. I created the schizophrenic break.

Don't say that. I really, that would weigh on my conscience tremendously. No, I'm sure he's fine. But I do know if that happened to me that I would be telling people about the wizard that I met in Amsterdam. I would be like, no, you don't understand. I don't think he ever knew my name. I think, did we introduce ourselves? I don't remember. I would have been a little bit gun-shy just because of it was legal there. But, you know, I can't remember.

I think I did exchange names with that. But, man, I was not prepared for what hit me in Amsterdam. Oh, this book, I cannot wait to read it. And I feel so lucky that you took the time to be on this show. Thank you for doing this for me. It really was like, I don't know. It's hard to explain how euphoric I still feel from having witnessed that firsthand. My worry was that it's going to be my, you got Rogan's pen, you did the thing with Stern.

Somehow my dumb name was going to throw you off. And that didn't make me happy. So I am so happy this worked. Thank you. Thank you for having me. A tradition I have that I have done with my kids, that's something fun if you're on the road a lot is I send postcards everywhere I go. and it's very old school but I love it

because now we have shoe boxes and shoe boxes that are both heartwarming but also a testament to what an absentee father I've been during a certain years it is what it is but I always get them

everywhere I go and make a point of it picture this okay I'm gonna have you imagine and you kind of like play this out that instead of like a little piece of paper I give you a postcard somewhere that you want to go

somewhere that you love to travel to you're like it's very specific and you write down exactly the date, I don't know, maybe it's today's date, and picture yourself in this place that you would love to go see yourself there. And just so I get a level of specificity, because when I told you to think of a person, you did Tustah's first name, just give me a category. Is this place that you're visualizing in your mind? You can see at this very moment. Is it a city is what came to mind, a country or other? Just city, country or other. City, okay, because sometimes

when I say other, people are thinking of a tropical island. But, you know, you're a deep thinker you've referenced so many gurus you've kind of set the tone of the location I think you would have thought of and then inherently you're sending the postcard which lets me feel as if you've been there before am I right you've been there before see I didn't guide you but you could have done a place you'd never been yeah so to end this podcast on the highest note possible there is no conceivable way in your mind that I could know what place you just imagined yourself. You saw yourself writing this place down

on this postcard, mailing it home. There is no way that I could know this. I don't think so. I mean, now, yeah. Maybe now, but there's no no in this universe or realm that I could have seen or known or felt or touched or any of these five senses.

So imagine that when you shake my hand, it's as if a pulse of energy could go through me and we could both go to this place together. Okay. And right there, we shake hands. I'm going to lock hands with you. I think the beads, the gurus, everything about this felt like it was India to me.

And then you don't have to nod your head, but open your eyes and see yourself saying it right out of your mouth. And I'm going to count to three. I'm going to go one, two, three. And right after the word three, I'm going to say it right before you. One, two, three, Varanasi. That is so weird. That is so cool. that is so right as the words came out of my mouth you were pantomiming thinking of yourself saying

them are right you were just i was right ahead here yeah oh my god that's crazy crazy wow man you are so good that is so so mind-blowering thank you thank you so much i cannot wait to read your book. Everybody, please, order to read your mind. You have seen miracles today. Not real miracles, but to me it seemed like a miracle. I brought Duncan back from the dead. He was literally at a pile on the floor and I said, come back to me after Tusha. Come back to me. We're going to Varanasi together. You did it. You're the best. Thank you very much. Awesome. Pleasure, brother. Thanks for having me. Thank you. What the. That is so cool. That was Oz, Pearlman, everybody. Do check out his book, Read Your Mind.

It's great. And thank you all for listening to my podcast. I'll see you next week. Until then, goodbye.