The Tim Ferriss Show - #411: Richard Turner — The Magical Phenom Who Will Blow Your Mind

Starting point is 00:00:00 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would have seemed the perfect time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by Nulo Pet Food, an independently owned company out of Austin, Texas that delivers the very best pet nutrition with high meat, low carb recipes for dogs and

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Starting point is 00:01:58 pets better food this year. They'll love you for it and you'll love what it does for them. So one more time, that's nulo.com slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply

Starting point is 00:02:41 of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim. That's drinkag1, the number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash tim. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by InkTel, and I've used them personally. Ever since I wrote The 4-Hour Workweek, I've been asked over and over again how I choose to delegate tasks, how I do 80-20 analysis, and so on. At the root of many of those decisions is a simple question, actually two questions. Number one, how can I invest money to improve my quality of life? I use that in investing as well. The second, how can I spend a little money or moderate money to save significant time? Inktel is one of those investments. They're a turnkey solution for all of your imaginable customer care needs.

Starting point is 00:03:41 I used Inktel during the launch of the 4-Hour Body, which was very, very involved. And they provided 24-7 customer service for my land rush campaign, because it was critical for me to take care of every person who purchased my books and participated. This allowed me to focus on the things that I am better at, my strengths, like the marketing plan that we'd worked on for six months, implementing that. Inktel trains their experienced customer service reps to know your business and your products inside and out and make your customers raving fans. They answer more than a million customer service requests every year, and they can do so across all platforms, including email, phone,

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Starting point is 00:05:03 the same thing with customer service. So as a listener of this podcast, you can get up to $10,000 off. That's a big discount. $10,000 off your startup fees and costs by visiting Inktel.com forward slash Tim. So check it out. For more info, go to Inktel.com, I-N-K-T-E-L dot com forward slash Tim. Hello, ladies and germs. This is your host, Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm very super excited to introduce this interview. I've been wanting to meet today's guest, Richard Turner, for at least two years now. And I really expect that he will blow your mind for a bunch of reasons. I first came across Richard Turner, richardturner52.com. You can find him, youtube.com forward slash richardturner52 in the documentary Delt, D-E-A-L-T, directed by Luke Corum. I can't remember the last time. Well, I suppose I can in this case, it was this documentary, but I can't remember the last time prior to that I'd finished a documentary only

Starting point is 00:06:09 while the credits are still rolling, wanting to watch it immediately again. I also can't remember a doc that made me quite as emotional as Delt did, pushing me from laughter to tears. It has 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, won the Audience Choice Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival, yada, yada, yada. Everyone should watch it. But let's get to my guest. Who is Richard Turner? Richard is regarded as the best card mechanic, we'll explain what that means, and among the best close-up or up-close magicians in the world. He's entertained millions of people, including notables like Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Secretary of State Colin Powell, actor Brad Pitt, sports legend Muhammad Ali,

Starting point is 00:06:53 and many, many more. Richard has received all sorts of accolades, won all sorts of awards, including the Close-Up Magician of the Year Award, which is the magic industry's equivalent of the Oscar. His skill with a deck of cards is just, one could argue, unparalleled. Really, just incredible. People consider it greatness, grace. It is hard to even comprehend. He's been featured on all sorts of television shows around the world, including a performance on Penn & Teller Fool Us, in which Penn Jillette, also a recent guest on this podcast, admitted, quote, Richard Turner is one of the finest sleight of hand artists who has ever lived. He fooled us with every single move he did, end quote. Richard is also a sixth degree black belt, and we'll get into all of that and more on the podcast in the conversation you're about to hear. One very quick and important note,

Starting point is 00:07:38 towards the end of the interview, you will hear Richard performing card tricks, and he walks through it and talks about things as he does it. So you can get a lot just with the audio. But he did all of this in front of me and absolutely blew my mind. I highly recommend checking out the video that we captured on YouTube, as we made sure to get multiple angles for this episode. You can find that at youtube.com forward slash Tim Ferris, two R's and two S's. And not to sound like a mullet-wearing Long Island boy, which I have been, but this footage is simply fucking amazing. It's incredible.

Starting point is 00:08:12 In part because of something I didn't mention, and that is that Richard is completely blind. So you're in for a ride, my friends. So without further ado, please enjoy my wide-ranging conversation with Richard Turner and the video, which you can find at youtube.com forward slash Tim Ferriss. I'm just going to start at the beginning. Richard, welcome to the show and thanks for coming to Austin. Tim, I'm honored to be here. It is very much my pleasure. And I was mentioning this before we started recording. I have had you at the top of my list for people I want to spend time with

Starting point is 00:08:50 because I find just about everything about you fascinating. And I've wanted to ask so many questions. And I thought we would start maybe in a place that would be unexpected for people listening. I'm not going to start way at the beginning. In childhood, we'll probably get there. But let's start with the Magic Castle. What is the Magic Castle? The Magic Castle is to magic what the Grand Opry is to country western music.

Starting point is 00:09:20 It's the premium place for magicians to perform around the world. And they have what is the equivalent of the Oscar at the Academy of Magical Arts Awards, AMA Awards. But it's a 27,000 square foot Victorian mansion built in 1907. And you go in. It's strictly for adults, 21 or over. Must have ID. Back to the old days, you have to have coat and tie. You cannot overdress.

Starting point is 00:09:50 If you're underdressed, they don't let you in. They don't like what you're dressed, they don't let you in. And it's by invitation only. But it's just a very, very fun venue and place to perform. I just got returned from performing at the castle night before last. I just flew in last night. You have one of the busiest schedules I've ever heard of, and I've met some very, very driven, busy people.

Starting point is 00:10:16 The Magic Castle has been this vision in my head, or it was, I should say, for many years, and I had the opportunity to go there for the first time just last year with a member. And it just blew my mind to see the variety of skill and the level of skill in the various rooms, because there are these different rooms for different performers and different types of performances Could you speak to and I hope I'm getting this name, right? Diver in oh, yes, you got it, right? So who is diver in and how did you first meet?

Starting point is 00:11:00 Well diver in first of all was born in 1894 He lived to be over 98 years old my wife my beautiful wife Kim and i threw him his 98th birthday party two months before he passed away and he was known as the man who fooled houdini that took place a hundred years ago this year wow hundred years ago and houdini had a boat that he could if he saw the same trick three times he could figure it out running did did it for him five times he couldn't figure it out and so he was known as the man who fooled Houdini, and for over a half a century, he was the best in the world with a deck of cards. And there's different types of magic.

Starting point is 00:11:32 There's the big, what we call furniture movers, the big illusionists, and most of those things, that type of show, is really money more than talent. You just have to pay $200,000 to buy this big illusion that turns a cat into a person, you know, inside of a cage or whatever. And then there's the parlor magician where the link rings and make eggs come out of their mouth

Starting point is 00:11:55 or whatever, something along those lines, where a smaller audience, but that's called parlor magic. Then there's the close-up magician who will do stuff right in front of your eyes, like they'll make coins jump from one hand to the other, or they'll do card tricks. Then there's the close-up magician who will do stuff right in front of your eyes. They'll make coins jump from one hand to the other, or they'll do card tricks. But the most difficult of all forms of sleight of hand is the work for the card table, the gambling work. And that work is the most closely guarded information of all sleight of hand.

Starting point is 00:12:26 Nowadays with the Internet, just about everything is exposed. And Vernon, wanting to know more about the moves of the gamblers, first read a book written in 1902 called Expert at the Card Table by S.W. Erdnase. And nobody knows who Erdnase was. And at that time the magicians, the 19, teens and 20s, oh, we don't care about that book, that stuff's too hard to learn. And Vernon had it mastered by the time he was like 12 years old. And so he spent his life hunting down hustlers.

Starting point is 00:12:55 He's the first one that found Alan Kennedy in 1930-31 who supposedly could deal cards from the middle of the deck, which no one thought that was possible. And so that information was the most closely guarded pieces of sleight of hand that you can get a hold of if you get a hold of it. He had passed it on to just special people like Charlie Miller and a few others. And I met him in 1975. I'll tell you a quick back story. Yeah, it doesn't have to be quick.

Starting point is 00:13:28 Okay. Please go ahead. I was working with a guy named Bob Yerkes, Y-E-R-K-E-S. He was just at my show on Sunday. He's going to turn 87 next month. He's been in stunts. He's been in stunt business for 73 years. His first movie was in 1947 with Elizabeth Taylor.

Starting point is 00:13:46 And he's doubled everybody under the sun. Literally thousands of stunts on television, thousands of stunts in film. Like the movie Towering Infernal, or Earthquake. He died seven times in Earthquake. No, no, died multiple times in Towering Infernal, and on and on. He was on the movie recently with Tom Hanks on Angels and Demons. He was the minister that was being burned alive and they forgot to turn the fan on to blow him out. And Tom Hanks says, well, at least you didn't have to act because he wasn't acting. He was screaming, turn the fan, I'm hot. Anyway, but anyway, so I was working with him. We were training, it was a show called Circus of the Stars. We trained celebrities to do circus acts.

Starting point is 00:14:27 And I was, for better or worse, I'll just call him his gopher. But I lived with him, and he's a dear, dear, dear friend for a husband for almost 50 years. And so we were training for the Circus of the Stars and a Lynda Carter show called Wonder Woman. And I diverted and heard I could do some very difficult moves with the cards. I just turned 21 and I thought I was going to meet him at the Magic Castle. I found out the night before I had to have a suit to get into the castle. At that time, I couldn't afford a suit. I didn't have a suit. And so I thought, okay, I had my gambling money. I always had, at that time, stacks of 20s, which was a lot of money for me.

Starting point is 00:15:09 And so I went to the Northridge Shopping Center, set my deck of cards on a coat rack, started thumbing through coats. The sales guy comes up to me and says, I'll cut you high, Clyde, for that coat. And I thought to myself, this is my lucky day. I said, okay, I'll go for that. And he backs out and said, no, no, I'm just kidding.

Starting point is 00:15:27 And I said, tell you what, I took out two twos and a queen. I said, come over to your desk here. I moved them and I said, if you tell me where that queen is, I'll pay double for the coat I picked out. If you get it wrong, you give it to me for free. And he goes, really? I said, really. Well, I threw those cards and darn if you didn't miss it.

Starting point is 00:15:43 I said, tell you what, I'll bet they coat against a pair of pants. Give you a chance to get your coat back. He goes, okay. Lost again. I said, tell you what, coat, pants against a shirt and tie. He said, okay, but this is the last one. And he lost again. So I walked out of there with a brand new suit, didn't pay a dime.

Starting point is 00:15:59 I said, if I would have known he was going to go for it, I wouldn't have picked out the cheapest coat in the place. It was a tan corduroy piece of crap that I still have today because it's how I first met Vernon. And so I still have it as a souvenir. But anyway, so I get to the castle. And Vernon, there was two guys in the room. Di Vernon, and this was in the library, which was separate, closed off to the public. And another guy named Tony Giorgio, who's best known as the actor in the movie Godfather.

Starting point is 00:16:32 He played Bruna Tattaglia, which was Vito Corleone's toughest henchman. There's a scene in the movie where a guy takes a knife and stabs his hand in the bar. Yeah. The guy with that knife, that was Tony Giorgio. That's Tony. And he was a bust-out man back in the 40s and 50s. What does the bar? Yeah. The guy with that knife, that was Tony George. That's Tony. And he was a bust-out man back in the 40s and 50s. What does bust-out man mean? A bust-out man is somebody who a casino will have on hand.

Starting point is 00:16:52 Oh, hey, that's Tim Ferriss. He's got some money. Okay, Tony, take him out fast. So a bust-out man means they're going to take you down, they're going to take you down quick, get that money from you. Or if it turns out that, man, that Tim Ferriss, So bust out man means they're going to take you down, they're going to take you down quick, get that money from you. Or if it turns out that, man, that Tim Ferriss, he was just too lucky. Okay, Joe, you're out of here.

Starting point is 00:17:12 Tony, you're in. Get that money back. And getting back- Means bust you out fast. Using card techniques? Yeah, using sleight of hand, using card techniques, exactly. Gambling moves, whatever his artifice was probably in that case a peak with a second deal and say one more time a peak that was he would peak the top card you know

Starting point is 00:17:32 what's top card is and then he would deal the card under the top card so you can see that card on top what's that card that's five hearts okay and as as he would deal to the other players see that top card is not moving. For those that can't see what we're doing, I'm dealing the cards in slow motion, and the top card is not moving as the second card comes out, but it looks as though it's the top, like here's even with one hand. And of course, when the card's face down, I turn it face down. Now you're watching, and you can't tell that you've been swindled. So he would take them down.

Starting point is 00:18:08 And so then he became an actor in the 60s. And anyway, so at the table was Di Vernon and Tony Giorgio. And Giorgio was about 6'4", mean, nasty, mafia hitman. I always used to say he never had to act, he just played himself. Mean, nasty, mafia hitman. I always used to say, he never had to act, he just played himself. Mean, nasty, mafia hitman. Because we had battles for altogether 38 years, but we battled each other for 20 years.

Starting point is 00:18:35 And at first I was no threat, but anyway, I'm showing Vernon my moves. And Vernon goes, well, now that's all right, but I don't care how fine you breathe, when you're moving your hand like that, it's unnatural. It tips you off. And every time I did anything Giorgio Chippecine from the other table not involved in our little private Get together would yell won't get the money won't get the money and then I show them something

Starting point is 00:18:58 We'll get the money. We'll get the money. What is it? Well, we'll get the money get the money Well not get the money, but it was won't get the money, which is, in other words, it's not good enough for the card table. So that's just, that is sleight of hand smack talk. Yes, smack talk. Won't get the money. That is like your mama type of line at the card table. Exactly. Won't get the money.

Starting point is 00:19:22 You get a double banger. You shot twice. And so, but Vernon, then I showed him the move I just showed you, and that technique, he thought that was kind of clean. It was more natural. And so I remember what he said, and I went home and I practiced what he said. I don't care how much you move your hand, no matter how fine that brief is, it's unnatural action. So naturalness. And that's what I learned from Vernon.

Starting point is 00:19:47 Naturalness. You have to be natural in your execution. And so I practiced it. And the next time he saw me, he goes, now that's better, that's better. And he took a liking to me because he would see that I would put in, I practiced at that time, and this is,

Starting point is 00:20:01 and it's not an exaggeration, even though I almost wish it was because I would practice an average of 14 hours a day that was my average time practicing but sometimes it might be only 10 hours because I spent extra time in the gym because I was training for some kind of a fight or in other days I got up at 6 in the morning went to bed at 3 and I might have practiced 20 hours that day but my average practice time was 14 hours. And that was sustained for 26 years, seven days a week.

Starting point is 00:20:29 And Vernon saw this obsession in me, and so he took me on as a student protege. And to cut to the chase, I became the recipient of a century worth of his most guarded card table artifice, techniques that he traveled the world, finding down these hustlers and learning their moves. And I still have things today that only he and I know,

Starting point is 00:20:56 and I've created things today that only he and I know, and he's not telling anybody. I think it was Benjamin Franklin said, three people can have a secret, but you have to kill two of them. So if we talk about your practice, because your practice and work ethic, it struck me when I first saw DELT. It struck me as I've done homework in preparation for this meeting. What makes good practice? Because there are people who practice a lot. They put in a lot of hours,

Starting point is 00:21:34 but their skills don't improve or improve much. So what makes good practice for you? Very, very, very good question, Tim. First of all, I say practice does not make perfect. They say practice makes perfect. No, practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. You can practice something wrong. When you've done it, it's perfectly wrong. And I see it in my industry all the time.

Starting point is 00:21:59 They'll practice a second deal in some awkward fashion where the most common one is a strike second. And I'll give a visual clue, a picture. The card is turned face up on the deck. They'll hold, first of all, usually they hold the deck in real tight, what's called a mechanic's grip, a real deep grip. And I'll lighten up the grip a little bit. And then when they go to take the card, they'll bypass the card they've taken so they can hit the second card and deal it out. And this is the standard second deal that you'll see people do. But it has all kinds of tells.

Starting point is 00:22:34 It has a lot of tells. First of all, you're pushing the top card over to receive it with the other hand. So why is the right thumb bypassing the left thumb? And this is because it has exposure of the top of the deck where that second card is to get a hold of it. That is a totally unnatural action, but you'll see it all the time. And then you don't have a dead deck.

Starting point is 00:22:56 One of Vernon's students and who became a peer of Vernon's was a guy named Charlie Miller who I had the privilege of spending time with. And they grew up all through the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. And Miller talks about a dead deck. When you're dealing the top card, everything below it, there's no movement. And so if there's movement being made when you're taking the second card out

Starting point is 00:23:20 and the top card is going back, you don't have a dead deck. You have movement of two different movements. The second card coming out, the top card is going back, you don't have a dead deck. You have movement of two different movements. The second card coming out, the top card going back. Now watch my second deal. I'm not crossing the thumbs at all. And my left thumb, there's no leaking of the card at the other corner. And I'm not going anywhere near the top of the deck. And that particular second deal, I have practiced. Well, I've done it in front of a live audience about 5 million times, and in practice I've done it over 100 million times, that one move.

Starting point is 00:23:58 And I proclaim, I say that it's probably the most difficult move in all of sleight of hand because there's only two, three other people that are getting it down. One guy's been working on it after he watched my videos for 30 years now. It just takes a long time. But anyway, get off track. Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Same thing with the martial arts.

Starting point is 00:24:26 You know, you throw a side kick. You know, the people, they'll swoop the kick up as they go. You lift it and you shoot it in like a blade. You practice it wrong, you sit there practicing and you're done. It's not wrong, it's perfectly wrong. Okay, and then there's another thing I like to say. Discipline breeds discipline.

Starting point is 00:24:50 They say, how do you put in time? And when I'm telling people when they want to train or something, I say, the more you do something, the more you can do of it. Discipline breeds discipline. You do something, and then the more you're able to do it, and the better you do it. And then they say, well, I just can't run a marathon. I say, don't run a marathon.

Starting point is 00:25:10 Right now, I want you to just walk down the distance of two houses and walk back. Make it so easy you can't talk yourself out of it. The next day, walk the distance of three houses, come back. Then the next day, jog down the distance and come back. And then eventually, your body starts adapting to the habit, and those endorphins start getting released. And then after a certain period of time, it's like,

Starting point is 00:25:36 will you get back in the house? Does it have to be a marathon? So discipline breeds discipline. I love that. Perfect practice makes perfect. So, let's talk about your physical practice, the training. And I have so many notes here in front of me, it's an embarrassment of riches. As I have written down here, CBS producer David Rubin, Turner's life story is too incredible

Starting point is 00:26:01 for fiction. And there's a lot to that statement we'll get back to. You mentioned the stunt work. You've flown on a trapeze, tightrope walks. You have high falls. Yeah, high falls. Cliff diving. You've done an incredible amount of physical cultivation.

Starting point is 00:26:22 And I have a line here. So on March 5th of this year, you will have not missed a workout in 49 years. True. All right. Why is training important to you? Why would you go to the trouble, as I have down here, in the 70s, there were no gyms when you were on tour, so you traveled with a wooden briefcase with 120 pounds of weights inside.

Starting point is 00:26:43 Sounds like a workout in and of itself. Why is it so important to you? Well, part of it is when I was growing up, I was always the second smallest or second smallest in my class. And I would get beat up or I'd get pushed around. And then we watched, and then we haven't really got off on this point yet yeah at nine years old I started losing my sight right my sister Lori who I called my genius sister because he's brilliant and I we both got scarlet fever I was nine 1963 she was five and that caused with for me within a matter of moments I'm fourth grade watching this chalkboard and all of a sudden it just went blurted it was like someone took the

Starting point is 00:27:34 chalk the chalkboard and smeared the chalk it was that sudden it was that sudden in the same way with my sister one minute in the she went from from full sight to legally blind. And so now we were forced in second, third, and fourth grade to watch a movie called Lord of the Flies. And I, to this day, don't know why they made kids watch a horrifying movie like that. And what it was about was a group of kids stranded on an island and a group of boys. They were all between probably 8 to 12 years old, somewhere in that age frame. And there was one boy called Piggy. And he was a chubby boy and he had to wear glasses and he had asthma.

Starting point is 00:28:25 And they found out that they could use his glasses to make a fire. And because he was chubby, they called him Piggy. And so he was picked around, and he had asthma. And then when at 10 years old, I found out that I had asthma. I said, I'm just deathly sick, because we were very poor. Our house literally was a structure set on a ditch, about a six-foot ditch. And my dad poured concrete down in that ditch to make my bedroom. And during the winter, my bed would have four, five, six inches of water under it, which means molds. And I was definitely allergic to molds. And I would just get extremely ill.

Starting point is 00:29:08 And so I was, now I'm blind, had asthma, and I was skinny. Piggy was blind asthma, and he was chubby. And so I thought, I don't want to be a piggy. I don't want to be a coward. And I was afraid I was going to be a coward, because I was afraid. And I was afraid of getting beat up. And I was afraid when I'm walking down the street, a guy named Leland, you know, picks a fight with me and I get hurt. Doug Ferguson beat me up and others anyway. So I didn't want that. And then there was another show that affected my, what kind of caused me to go off the charts the other direction was called Lost in Space. And there was a little boy on there Billy mummy play Will Robinson and there was the man on the show dr. Smith who was the man the coward hiding behind a rock while this goofy looking monster made out of paper mache would come walking up and Billy mummer mummy would save the day the little kid and I thought he's brave and I was afraid of turning out like dr. Smith and then that

Starting point is 00:30:03 and then the third thing was Tarzan movies. You'd see them walk across a tree spanning two cliffs that may be 100 feet down, 1,000 feet down. And there was always the guy that would turn around and say, whatever you do, don't look down. And then the next guy would be the coward, would look down and, ah, go scream into his death. And I was afraid I'd be that coward that would look down and panic and fall down.

Starting point is 00:30:35 So I started just taking things to the outer limits as far as pushing myself. And growing up, I had three movies on the other side that affected me. One was Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston. There's a scene in the movie where he's pulling the oars with his big bulging biceps. And that image of strength made me want to be stronger. I want to be strong. I want to be strong like him. Another one was The Green Hornet, starring Bruce Lee,

Starting point is 00:31:06 as Kato. And I thought, I want to kick like Kato. And the third one was the one that really probably set my life on fire was James Garner in Maverick. He was the cool, slick gambler, And I wanted to be a car shark. So those are the three things. But that's really what started me off on taking things to the extreme. Whatever someone else did, whatever they benched, I was going to bench more. Whatever their split was, I got to where I could do a 200 degree split. In fact, there's even a video out there, I'm stretched across two chairs and I'll touch my head to the floor.

Starting point is 00:31:48 So anyway, I just had this thing of whatever someone else did, I had to top it. Not that I was able to top everybody, which I was not. But I topped people in the top 1% and I've trained with some very world-class athletes. And I either trained them or trained with them. And people had a hard time, frankly, keeping up with me. Well, I mean, you're still an extremely fit guy. You told me before we started recording that you worked out of five this morning. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:19 And you understand this because you're an athlete yourself. That's another thing I do because it wakes me up. It gets the adrenaline going, the endorphins shooting. Because I had shows all week last week, every day. And I flew in last night at 9 p.m. And I thought, okay, I need to be on my best game because I'm meeting Tim Ferriss and we're going to be talking for two hours and my voice was already worn from all the shows I've done.

Starting point is 00:32:55 And what's the best way? The first person says, rest, relax, get ready. Uh-uh. I was in the gym and then all of a sudden I started at 5 and I went, it's 11 minutes after 7, I've been injured for 2 hours and 11 minutes. My ride's going to be here in 49 minutes. Dash to the, down to fish tacos that my wife made. She makes the best fish tacos anywhere on the planet, my wife Kim.

Starting point is 00:33:18 And I down those things and then shower and here we are. And here we are. And as you mentioned, we hadn't covered and hadn't talked about Sighted or the other CBS, the... Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Charles Bonnet Syndrome. That's French.

Starting point is 00:33:40 In English, it's Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Especially in Texas. Yeah. And I didn't bring it up earlier very deliberately because I want people to understand that your incredibly deft technical mastery of what you do stands on its own head-to- head against anyone, period, full stop. So I wanted to make that.

Starting point is 00:34:10 I appreciate that. Yeah, it's true. And that's certainly been recognized by many people. And so I didn't want to, I certainly want to chat about the Charles Bonnet syndrome, but I didn't want to lead with it. But since it came up, and we chatted very briefly about this before we started recording, could you please talk to me about the red and blue spectrum? Because I've heard you and I've read you say that you

Starting point is 00:34:47 can see things or you see things that other people don't see. And I'd love to just know what your sort of experience of reality is like. My world that I live in. Your world. Yeah. First let me explain what CBS, Charles Bonnet Syndrome is first documented in 1760

Starting point is 00:35:03 by Charles Bonnet and um it's a very rare condition and dr oliver sachs he's a best-selling author and i'm sure amazing author yes i'm sure you've he has two books one called hallucinations the other one called uh the mind's eye where he goes into specifics on cbs and he's probably documented more cases than anybody. Up until 1990 there was only six documented cases. Wow, only six up to 1990? 1990, uh-huh. Then he's documented a few others.

Starting point is 00:35:37 I'm the most extreme case on the planet. Most people... First of all, let's give you a picture view of what CBS is, Troubadour. And that's where a person that's blind and should see nothing will see sporadic colors or splatters or pieces of images or just some visual things, almost like hallucinations. Right. And they're sporadic. In my case, it's 100% 24-7. And it's not just part of my vision. I see a 160-degree kaleidoscope of beautiful, vivid colors, patterns, shapes, every subconscious image you could imagine. And I don't see them in the back of the brain like when you're dreaming or imagining.

Starting point is 00:36:25 I look at them. I see them in front of me. I see them in external space, just like you're seeing me in external space. They're like an object that you're perceiving. There's something. I'm looking at it. Right now I'm in the blue spectrum. And to explain the difference between blue and red, I have a neuroscientist that was

Starting point is 00:36:42 doing some interviewing me for some projects and stuff. And he said the red spectrum, which is more geometric shapes, everything is first of all, there's a grid. It's usually a grid like layers of bricks, and they're always perfectly aligned, and they're perfect rectangle bricks laid out just like a brick.

Starting point is 00:37:03 This is in the red or in both? This is the red. This is the red. This is the red. Okay. And then it's always maroon, which is my favorite color, one of my favorite colors in the red spectrum. So the brick, what would be the gray mortar, is actually maroon. And then the red bricks, and in those bricks are all,

Starting point is 00:37:18 every geometric shape, circles, squares, triangles, stars, just every geometric shape you can imagine. And in those shapes will be every subconscious image that's floating around in my brain, okay? That's the red spectrum. He said, if I remember, that's the lower part of the brain. And then the blue spectrum, which is, I call it the right brain, the analytical.

Starting point is 00:37:42 The other is the blue spectrum, which is very artistic. There's no random. It's totally random. If you picture, I call it like breast strokes. Breast strokes. I like breast strokes. There's only two breasts that I'm allowed to stroke. They belong to Kim. Okay. And I don't want any slaps from you. Okay. All good. Brush strokes. Brush strokes, yeah. I guess you can see where my mind is right now.

Starting point is 00:38:11 I just got in a week from away from my beautiful wife. Okay. So, brush. I did it again. Brush strokes. That's okay. I've been making Freudian slips all week. The more Freudian, the better it is.

Starting point is 00:38:26 So in the blue, you have these brush strokes. Brush strokes. And then royal blue to blue to turquoise blue to sky blue to emerald green to lime green, all the way down that spectrum. And they're just random strokes. And then floating around is, like I said, every subconscious image you can imagine. And just picture yourself underwater in a pool

Starting point is 00:38:51 with the light coming in and the light spectrum breaking down like a prism breaks down the light spectrum. So all these colors just floating around. All the images are two-dimensional, but they're layered three-dimensionally, if you can picture that. They're like panes of glass. Yes, and just back and forth, depth, forward. And the thing about it is I can take any particular image,

Starting point is 00:39:16 and I won't get slapped, but she might go again. I can take a picture, an image of my beautiful wife in her bikini. And I can take it, zoom it in, rotate it. Or where I use it most is if I'm designing, I've designed and built my own homes. Or I could patio deck. And my wife Kim will tell you, I'm sitting in my chair and I'm watching in full three dimension, like virtual reality. I basically live in virtual reality.

Starting point is 00:39:51 And so my whole, my spectrum is my own computer. So I want to design a deck. And I built this three level deck and I would say,

Starting point is 00:40:00 okay, I need four by 12s, four by 12, across there and then up two by six, and they'll anchor in there, and you'll watch me looking back and forth,

Starting point is 00:40:09 engineering this giant project with a thousand cuts. It was three levels, stairway, hanging swings, built-in flower beds, and without a single piece of paper. And I'd tell my dad, okay, he was my cutter. I said, this board has to be 192 1⁄4 inches. And my dad is a genius. My dad was a, well, he was one of my role models.

Starting point is 00:40:37 But I can't tell him or my wife what I'm going to do because I can't explain 1,000 cuts, what I'm doing. It's all in here. And so then we'd start putting it together, And then he'd watch this whole thing come together. He goes, now I understand what you were talking about doing. So that's one of the ways that I'll use it. And probably the thing I use it all mostly is like I want to remember a phone number. I can write the number down in the air. I'll see it floating in the air, just like you'd see it on a computer screen. My mind takes

Starting point is 00:41:05 a picture of it and I have what's called an eidetic memory and then it just files away. Wow. I bring it back up. Or when I'm practicing with cards, I do this every time I'm at a restaurant or when I'm people and I'll have the table and I'm watching the move, and I'm analyzing something I'm doing, and I'll see it. And my mind will create the image. And it's not flesh like you have. It's more of a conglomeration of all kinds of geometric shapes or images to create the image of an arm, the image of the cards. So it's not flesh and blood colored the same way you would

Starting point is 00:41:46 see it. But I will see the thing, the image of the constructed within my mind, what I'm looking at. And then I'll analyze it and I'll see everything going on. Yet there's a solid object between me and what I'm looking at. But yet here's the interesting thing. If I turn like this, can't do it. If you turn your head. If I turn my head, I have to be looking at the object. Like my medicine cabinet is an example. I have a friend who's a writer. He thought this was interesting. My medicine cabinet, I'm going, where is that campophanique? And I see everything in my medicine cabinet. I'm going down. Ah, there it is. And I'm seeing everything, yet the door's closed. But now if I turn this way, I have to see it by mind.

Starting point is 00:42:31 I can't see it in front of me. Isn't that kind of interesting? That's fascinating. But anyway, so I consider it a real blessing that I have this strange condition, because I use it all the time. Like I said, I consider myself very blessed. And within seconds, I can shake someone's hand,

Starting point is 00:42:56 and usually I can tell their height, weight, characteristics about them, and my mind will create an image of what I think they look like. Sometimes I'm totally out in left field, but it will create my own impression of that person. And then when they're talking, I will see some strange-looking conglomeration, mouth moving, even though it's not necessarily flesh colored, or flesh looking or human looking. But it's a representation. But it's a representation.

Starting point is 00:43:25 But it's a representation of movement and motion. If you think about it, also, for those people who are sighted, what they are perceiving, they consider reality, but they have their own lens, you have your own lens, and they're both representations, representations in a way if that makes sense and I wanted to ask a few follow-up questions with the the a did ik memory the photographic memory is that something that you had partially or fully before losing your sight or is it something that was developed over time a

Starting point is 00:44:02 bit of both it was something I had beforehand. I remember when I was five years old in kindergarten, and we were finger painting class. And I had a picture of a National Geographic image that I saw of a seascape. And so all these other kids are just doing the finger painting, their nose and their ears and their hair and their table, and I come up with this seascape and i and to this to this day was 60 years later

Starting point is 00:44:31 over 60 years later i can still see the exact thing that i created 60 years later and it was you know start off with the uh the the the ground and then i had seaweed. No, sorry, I touched your deck. Forgive me. Okay. Seaweed going up, and there would be, in this corner, I had a jellyfish with the things coming down, and a shark in the middle, and just different things that I replicated from an image I saw in a National Geographic book.

Starting point is 00:45:01 And so from the ages five, six, seven, eight, I was the best artist in the school. And I could, like I said, see a picture and I could pretty much replicate it. And then the problem, and then when I was nine and I had scarlet fever, then I started losing that ability to paint and draw. That must have been really difficult, I would imagine. That was very difficult and that was probably where some rebellion took place. I was shipped off to a special school where they had what was called a VH room back then, visually handicapped. And now you say visually impaired, you know, politically, much more polite than visually handicapped.

Starting point is 00:45:51 And I hated the word handicapped, and I despised the word blind when I had to go to the school. My sister Lori, she only went there one year. She rebelled so much, she said, put me back in a regular school. She refused to continue to go. But my vision was worse than hers at the at the time and so i she was able to get away with it i was not and um so in the at the school the best artist was a girl named uh sharon coleman and she was the best artist where i was always the best artist at Naranca in first, second, third, fourth grade. Now all of a sudden, nobody knows who I am.

Starting point is 00:46:27 Nobody cares. I'm Sharon. She's the one that does the best artwork. And so there was a guy in the VH department. There was about a dozen of us. And we'd go to, it was a regular school, but they had a VH department, visually handicapped department. And one of the guys in the VH room was a guy named Ruben Corral, who, because he was from Mexico, was like

Starting point is 00:46:48 twice my size and he was two or three years older than I was, but we were in the same grade because he didn't have the opportunity to go to special school. And he would just scribble. He couldn't draw at all. So, and he got attention. Hey, look at that.

Starting point is 00:47:03 This is Ruben's stuff. Good. So he got attention for just doing crap. And so I started doing crap. I started showing my skills the best I could. I started going the other direction and just scribbling. Although I did do one three-dimensional project that Dr. Sam Cumby, who was the teacher, I did a sculpture. And I still have it in my office.

Starting point is 00:47:29 You can still see it today, of a Buddha monk and a bald head. And anyway, it was all... What was the word? It was all properly proportioned in the end I got a in that for that much and that's one of the few things that I do I still have from that But that was a three-dimensional thing. Why did you keep that? Because I got a

Starting point is 00:47:56 Because it was actually Not saying you shouldn't understand because I did a good job But here's that's a also an astute question on your end because there was other pieces I did. And in high school, I did a collage. And I was just rushing through my art class because I could do stuff. And if you got seven and a half points, you got an A.

Starting point is 00:48:22 And I could have my art projects done within the first month of the semester. And I already got my A. And I could have my art projects done within the first month of the semester. And I already got my A, so I could mess around after that. And I did this one project, and I don't even know what was, to this day, I don't know what was so good about it. But we had a, my teacher was Mr. Suenez.

Starting point is 00:48:39 His assistant, don't remember his name, but he went to San Diego State University. He took my art project and entered it into a statewide college competition, and it got first place. And he gave me the ribbon, the blue ribbon, for first place, and they just put it on display in the hallway at the high school, on those little slides with the locked doors and the locked windows.

Starting point is 00:49:04 And then when I said, can I get my art project back? And they went there and it was gone. No breaking, there was no glass broken. So we figured the student that claimed it to be his that entered it obviously went off with it. But other projects after that, I started, I would get my A, build my project, especially the three-dimensional ones I was good at.

Starting point is 00:49:32 And then I would purposely sabotage them because you fire them in a kiln. And if you have something that has air in it, it's completely sealed, it'll blow up. So I'd make my project, get my grade on it, and then when I'd have it fired, I'd purposely put in either a ball of clay with a hole in it, with sealed air in it, or build something in it so when it was fired, it'd blow up. Why did you do that? Because I was angry that I was losing my vision and losing my ability to paint and draw. And so this was just one of the ways I was being ornery and just rebelling against my loss. So I would love to ask you about,

Starting point is 00:50:12 and this is from the very first moment that I saw the documentary, I've wanted to ask you about anger and rage because one of my first thoughts upon watching the documentary, which was very emotional for me, to be honest, was that any woman who ever dates me should have to watch this movie because it'll give her a better understanding of how consumed, for different reasons, but consumed I was by anger or driven by it at the very least. How did you relate to anger,

Starting point is 00:50:50 or what purpose did it serve for you then, and how do you relate to it now? That's a big question, so you can break it up into any... There's segments, yeah. At the time, I tried to just describe how I dealt with some of my anger, and that was self-destructive. And I had gotten into other self-destructive behavior, and it was the late 60s, beginning 70s. So for about three years, drugs was a part of that as an act of rebellion.

Starting point is 00:51:22 And purposely not trying to do my best. The only thing I worked at was cards. And I would play cards with people, and I would take their money. And my drug-dealing partner named Doug Ferguson, who died from hepatitis from dirty needles, and he would have me he would have me play cards against other drug dealers and to cheat him or trick them out of their money and that's how we supported ourselves and we well we made our money

Starting point is 00:51:57 to buy and sell right and so that was kind of, actually that was kind of the only power that I had. The rest of the time I was laughed at. And there would be times where we would be doing something. And then when I'd come out of a stoop or a blur, they'd be laughing at me. And at first they were the only people that accepted me because I was... This is the drug dealing crowd. The drug crowd accepted me.

Starting point is 00:52:30 We don't care if you can't see, you know, come on over. And the regular students were more discriminating towards some of us in the VH rooms. And so the drug people, they didn't care. But then when it got right down to it, I was more of a tool of amusement for them. And then I met a guy, and now we get off on another little tangent here.

Starting point is 00:53:10 It was a verse in the Bible that said, God created us in his image. And that always fascinated me, in his image. And so I thought, okay, I'm in the image of God. What did God take dirt and made a person? God took dirt and made an eyeball. God took dirt and made a brain. God took dirt and made an eyeball. God took dirt and made a brain. God took dirt and made a bird. And I remember watching an episode of Kung Fu and they said, Who will teach me about the universe? The universe will teach you.

Starting point is 00:53:37 And I thought, well, that's like saying the wall will teach me. But who built the wall? Who built the Statue of Liberty? It wasn't the, you know, who built the Statue of Liberty? There wasn't the Statue of Liberty, didn't build the Statue of Liberty. So then I started thinking, what, what, what? Me and the image of God, okay, God created a bird, man took dirt and created a jet. God took dirt, made eye, we took dirt and made a camera.

Starting point is 00:54:03 They're staring at us all over the place. God took dirt and made a brain. We took dirt and made a camera. They're staring at us all over the place. God took dirt and made a brain. We took dirt and made a computer. What's the chip in a who's? Made sand, dirt, just about everything in this room in one fashion or another came from dirt. And so I thought, okay, that means I can create. And so I went another direction. I got heavily into the martial arts

Starting point is 00:54:28 starting 19 March 5th 1971 and my karate instructor was a man named John Murphy and I pause you for once I'm you so what precipitated that 90 degree turn or that 180? Was there a conversation or a particular day? What catalyzed? What catalyzed that turn was I was with some friends and they wanted to watch a movie called Fantastic Voyage, which was a movie about shrinking down a ship, a submarine, and then sending it into a guy's body to go into his heart to try to fix it. And they said, hey, the Fantastic Voyage is on. Let's get some angel dust and watch the movie.

Starting point is 00:55:18 And so I realized, I've got to stop this. And there was something out there saying, you need to stop it or you're going to end up dead like Billy McComb. And I had a half a dozen, well, that's a dozen friends who have now OD'd and were dead. And I thought, if I don't stop this, I'm going to be next. And I realized, I need some help. Anyway, so I went to these people at this park, Wells Park, and I asked them if they had any angel dust. They said, we have something better.

Starting point is 00:55:49 I said, what's that? They said, a relation with the creator of everything you see. I said, do you mind if I sit down and tell me what you know? And they're the ones that told me that we're not here by accident. We're here by design and that there is a creator. And so it was at that moment that I said I was going to change my direction. Turn around. And then you mentioned the martial arts and John Murphy. That was, that was, that was, I'm a very, I can, every moment of my life is like a video. I can watch and pin in on every, any exact image or moment.

Starting point is 00:56:21 That was February 13th, 71. You know, three weeks later, you know, March 5th, my brother, who was seven years younger than me, he was nine, and he was taking karate. And I wanted to take karate because I was tired, I would get beat up. I'll get off on a little tangent. I entered another art competition when I was 11,

Starting point is 00:56:51 and I had to have my nose like two inches from the canvas as I painted these three vases with proper shadow lights coming in. It got first place. These two boys didn't like it. This blind kid got first place, and they called me Mr. Magoo. There was a cartoon out that time starring Jim Backus called Mr. Magoo. It was kind of this goofy, sight impaired person that just went through life jolly, just missing trains and planes, trains and automobiles and that was me. And so they would say, they'd flip the bird in front of my face and say, hey Magoo, how many fingers am I holding up? And while I was distracted, his friend picked the wallet out of my back pocket and then dangled it in front of my

Starting point is 00:57:28 face and said, hey, Magoo, got any money? And when I grabbed for my wallet, he then throw it over my head to his friend behind me in a cool game of keep away. And every time I turned around and grabbed it, they'd just keep going back and forth over my head. And then finally, one of them started literally slapping me across the cheeks with my own wallet saying, got any money, blind boy? And the other kid jumped on my back, drove me to the ground, kicked me in the ribs. And they ran off laughing saying, thanks for the hot dog, Magoo, because I had $3 in there. For me, $3 was all my entire life savings, card play, and everything all rolled up in three bucks. And so i was so

Starting point is 00:58:05 upset about that and uh so that jumps forward to uh uh the martial arts is that where we're and um and and and anyway so my brother was taking karate and and so I wanted to go down, and they gave a warning. Well, you know, this guy can't see, and Murphy, he didn't care if you're blind, deaf, or dumb. He beat everyone equally. He was my sensei. Sensei John Murphy. He was a year ahead of Chuck Norris. He was a class of 57.

Starting point is 00:58:39 Norris started in 58. And Murphy opened up his school in Tijuana in 1960 and he was the first white guy who was called white guy Caucasian he was Irish to get a black belt in Japan in this particular system what okay which is a kind of a cross between Shotokan and Taekwondo or you know it combines hands and feet where one shot of consciousokan, which is the number one style, was really mainly hands. Anyway, he said, we'll take them. We'll take them.

Starting point is 00:59:11 And at first he told them, don't hurt them. And at first, and the girls, I'd get beat up by the girls. I'd get beat up by the old ladies. Ladies that we would know well who would be the driver. You know, old enough to be my mother. And it was all I could do to keep from ending up on the floor. And so I realized, okay, I got to start getting better at this. And at that time I weighed 110 pounds and I had my full height of 5'9".

Starting point is 00:59:40 And Murphy said, okay, why don't you start taking, you need to start lifting weights because you got put some meat on those bones so I started punching pushing weights and I went to Gene Fisher's gym and Fisher he held the world's record for the curl at that time 1963 221 pounds recorded and 226 unrecorded. And of course he was in the 200 pound category. And so at that time I weighed 130 pounds. I got up to 130 pounds. And at 130 pounds I could pull down 220. And he would have to pull me down, lock me in, do my reps, lift me back up.

Starting point is 01:00:20 I was about 250 on the bench at that time at 130 pounds. Then Murphy would push me to the point where I could do 500 pushups in 12 minutes, 9 seconds, which is my record, but it usually is 500 pushups, maybe 15 minutes, which was actually world class time, a record of time. I don't think I could do 500 pushups in 15 days. I know that. It's a bluff on your end. Everybody out there that just listened to Tim say that.

Starting point is 01:00:51 Tim is an athlete. Tim is probably just as crazy as I am. He's being modest right now. I'm just telling you, because he doesn't want to speak for himself, listen to what I'm saying, everybody. Tim, I felt Tim out when we first got together. And I mean that in a nice way.

Starting point is 01:01:07 Check those forearms, his forearms. Popeye, I know, jealous. Popeye, you're jealous. Olive oil, he's over here. So 500 push-ups. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, but average would be 15. Earning the 20 that I slipped you earlier before recording.

Starting point is 01:01:23 World record at the time was 1,900 in hours. So I was world-class time, you know, 15 in one quarter of the time, one-fourth and a quarter of the time. And that's when I'd travel around with that briefcase with 120 pounds in dumbbells that would be broken apart, put together on the road, do my exercises, and so on. Anyway, so then Murphy says, okay, you need more weight. And so he said, I want you to take vitamins,

Starting point is 01:01:49 vitamins, everything, so I started taking vitamins. And he said, protein powders. So I've, for the past 50 years, almost 49 years, every morning, I'd throw everything under the sun, I'd even throw my vitamin tablets in the blend and blend them up with protein powder. And then I came up with the best drink for if you want to, you have two choices, burn up or work out like a madman.

Starting point is 01:02:12 And I call it liquid hell. And what it is, you take water as your base, and then I'd put in Schiff's Brewer's Yeast, which really is tasty, tastes bad. I'd put in half a banana for potassium and three to four to six jalapeno peppers. Blend it up, and you had two choices. You either worked out,

Starting point is 01:02:34 or you just sweats just started pouring out your head. And my workout partner, Jim Blowers, who you probably saw on Delt, he was the one that was talking about riding on the back of my motorcycle, telling me where to go. And he said, when he first started college, I said, okay, you have to have some liquid hell.

Starting point is 01:02:53 And the first time he did it, he threw up in the sink. And I said, you're not wasting that liquid hell. You drank the rest of that. And so he got it down, and he couldn't go through a final without having his liquid hell because it stimulated his brain and his body. Anyway, so. But it's not for sissies.

Starting point is 01:03:11 I'll just say that. Anyway, so that's what I would drink to just boost the energy level. And anyway, so I finally put on some weight and then I remember 1980 is when I broke 160, got up to 160 pounds. And then I kept pressing and I got up to, I worked out with Doug McNally, who was Mr. Universe, at his place. And I got up to 340 on the bench that's where I topped out at and I weighed in at 168 and and today when I got my first black belt my first degree black belt and Murphy wanted the hardest test and it was considered the hardest test at the time you had to fight a 10-round bout with a fresh fighter each round, 10 three-minute

Starting point is 01:04:05 rounds. And he didn't care about, he didn't want to deal with lawsuits. So most of the testing and training took place across the border of San Diego and Tijuana. And so that's where his school, he had to school in the States and another main branch. Quick question for you. Is it true that you were offered an honorary blank belt? Yes. And you did black belt? Yes. And you did not accept?

Starting point is 01:04:27 No. To get my first belt, I had to fight one round, three minutes, and plus all the katas. And the thing about the katas, because of my eidetic memory, I could memorize them in one day. Right. In fact, when I got my fourth degree black belt, I had a sixth degree black belt kata that I learned in one day.

Starting point is 01:04:47 The guy went through it, and then the next thing he sees it on film, he goes, I can't believe you did it. I just showed that to you, blah, blah, blah, just days before. And for those people who don't know, kata is a predetermined sequence of moves that you perform alone. Exactly. Doing punches, kicks, blocks, counters, and yeah, it's like a martial arts dance. Right. So a six-degree black belt kata would be like someone being shown a sort of extremely complex

Starting point is 01:05:21 halftime performance at the Super Bowl dance routine and then being able to replicate it shortly thereafter Perfectly perfectly explained exactly Tim and so I get the katas and all that stuff down overnight right off the bat It was the fighting because to let you understand how I was seen at the time So I had some vision at that time my teens and 20s My vision was measured at 20 over 400, 20 over 450 with no center vision. Because my macula, which is the center of the eye, was gone. Okay, so there's no macula.

Starting point is 01:05:53 That's your forward vision. So if you just picture yourself, there's a hat in front of your face. Wherever I turn my head, there's a hat blocking that part of the vision, okay? With me? Yeah. Out of the corner of my eye was 24, 450. So 2,200 is legally blunt. 2,050 is, you have to have at least 2,050 to drive.

Starting point is 01:06:14 So out of the corner of my eye, that's where I would see the images or shadows of my opponent. And so I'd always be looking at you like cockeyed. I was wondering about that, because I noticed that in the footage from the documentary. Yeah. Got it. So you're looking at your like cockeyed. I was wondering about that because I noticed that in the footage from the documentary. Yes. Got it. So you're looking at your peripheral vision.

Starting point is 01:06:28 Yes, because I had no forward vision at all. And that's how I know when I'm looking at people. At that time, now I have no vision at all. Right. But at that time, if I couldn't see anything,

Starting point is 01:06:38 I knew I was looking right at you. Which was... Anyway, so... Because my first belt, yellow, was one fight. Green belt, I had five two-minute rounds. Five rounds with a fresh fighter, two-minute rounds. And on a scale of one to ten, I trained, I practiced, and I thought, okay, I figure it's going to be maybe a four, five, or six. It turned out to be a 20

Starting point is 01:07:06 It was beyond my worst nightmare and that it was August 2nd 1972 and It was over a hundred degrees outside and our dojo was in Tijuana as I said There was a solid block brick brick cement block building. No windows, no air conditioning, not even a fan. Wood floor, scratched up wood floor. And whenever they would have tests, it was like blood spores, like cockfights. And so all the sadistic people would come out to watch whenever they hear that the gringos are going to be coming up

Starting point is 01:07:42 and there's going to be some fights. And so John Douglas was testing for his black belt that day, and I was testing for my green belt. I was the pre-show before the big show. Right. The warm-up act. I was the warm-up act. And so I get out there thinking,

Starting point is 01:07:58 and it was because we're all crammed into these little things. The humidity factor was in the 90s. So before I even started on porn, I was gasping for breath. As soon as I did my first set of coddles, then I did my defense moves. I was already gasping. And then I started my first round. And right before we started, the rule was we would respect each other's head. If you don't hit me in the face, I won't hit you in the face.

Starting point is 01:08:26 Body's open target, no limit. Okay, groin shots, everything, we would respect each other's knees. No knee shots, everything else was open. If you hit me in the face, then the face becomes an open target. And so Murphy said, now if these guys start hitting you in the face,

Starting point is 01:08:41 don't think about it, just keep fighting. And at that time I thought, what? I thought we were gonna mark our shots to the face. Don't think about it. Just keep fighting. And at that time, I thought, what? I thought we were going to mark our shots to the face. And within the first few seconds of the first round, bam, bam, bam, three shots, bam, bam, bam, right in my face. And I'm going, oh, my God. I realized I was fighting for my life because they didn't like us gringos down there. And everything was just set and discriminated against.

Starting point is 01:09:04 They had the Black Klan. They had the black clan, which were the black fighters, Black Federation, and the Mexican fighters, and the gringo's. Right. And so, you know, the first round, and I'm just cashing for air.

Starting point is 01:09:17 Second round, this guy watched the Bruce Lee movie of Enter the Dragon, I know it was before that, Fist of Fury, where he does a step-up heel hook, spins around with another heel hook, and I catch the one, I go, wow, that, Fist of Fury, where he does a step-up heel hook, spins around with another heel hook, and I catch the one, wow, it blocks out,

Starting point is 01:09:27 boom, only get nailed with the other one coming around the other way. And third round, this guy would like knees, so I kept getting knees in the groin. Fourth round, the guy even stands, he switch stances on me, grabbed my front hand, went right by me, and bam, right in my left eye, caught an Orozuki, a right-hand punch,

Starting point is 01:09:45 and pretty much knocked me out. And now I've seen nothing, I'm just seeing stars. And Murphy says, wipe off the blood. Don't think about it. Keep fighting. And I'm just holding myself up against the bathroom and I couldn't even hold my hands up by this point. And so then the fifth round was probably my best round because I was really a standing, I was just a standing, I was virtually unconscious.

Starting point is 01:10:09 And then they rose me, his wife yells, tempo, which means time in Spanish. And the second she wrote tempo is when I hit the ground. So I got it by one second and then I was so exhausted and have an asthma attack. I had to, now I had to stand up, I had to bow out. As soon as I bowed out, I hit the ground again. Now everybody wants to congratulate me. I had to stand up again. We weren't allowed to have water. And so I crawled to the bathroom. And John Douglas would tell this story. Murphy's probably going to be mad at me for telling it. And when he came to he says that's not

Starting point is 01:10:45 the sink you're drinking out of that's the toilet I was drinking I'm a T.J. toilet Tijuana toilet and uh and I go I don't care I was so dazed and I got gonorrhea oh no yeah but anyway so um that was green belt so then I've been brown belt was 10 two-minute rounds. And then, of course, on that one, I trained like a mad dog because I wasn't going to have that last experience. So I made that. And then from brown to black was such a jump. It took me another 10 years before I was able to take on the 10 fighters. And just to give you a quick rundown of what my workout looked like

Starting point is 01:11:22 to prepare for it, I'd warm up with a four hour weight workout. Okay. Four hour. Four hour. And I would start minimum weight all the way up to maximum weight, and I'd do as many, and when I get to the maximum, I'd lift as many times as I could

Starting point is 01:11:36 with a few seconds, many times as I could, and then I'd slowly up just five pounds at a time from 300 pounds, 395, 295, 290, all the way down to where I had just the bar, which was a 45 pound bar. And then I'd do that with every muscle group. And then I would do 500 kicks on the heavy bag. You know, 10 roundhouse kicks with this leg, 10 with this one, 10, 10, do 100 of that. Then I'd do 10 side kick with this leg, 10 side kick with this leg, 10 side this one, 10, 10, do 100 of that. Then I'd do 10 side kick with this leg, 10 side kick with this leg, 10 side, another 100, 10 back turning kicks, 10 side, whatever, step or cry side kick, but I did five different kicks 500 times.

Starting point is 01:12:14 Then my trainer, he would have a, it looked like a motorcycle seat, but it was a bag, and he would hold it with his hand, and then I would have to do 100 kicks in three minutes. And so I would simulate in the three rounds. So I would just bam, bam, bam, bam, punch, kick, punch, kick, mainly kicking because that exhausts your oxygen supply faster than punching. That's why in kickboxing matches, they're required to throw a minimum of six kicks or eight kicks, and that's because after you start getting tired, you just want to punch. It a fraction of the oxygen does to take to lift these big muscles up in the air

Starting point is 01:12:49 And so I do that and I take it first I take a 10 second break do another hundred ten others to a 20 second break hundred I do a thousand I do it ten times would be another thousand kicks from there I would do a five mile run and I lived in San Diego and those here they had big hills there and I would one of the hills run and I lived in San Diego and they had big hills there. And one of the hills was a mile and a half down, mile and a half back up. And when I got to the top,

Starting point is 01:13:10 I would sprint the distance of a house and then run the distance, sprint, run, sprint. And then I would do 10 quarter mile wind sprints and then I'd throw up. And then I'd go do my shows and I'd go perform. I'd perform at night. And then every other day I'd throw up. And then I'd go do my shows, then I'd go perform. I'd perform at night. And then every other day, I would go rounds. You know, Murph Douglas would have me go, you know, five rounds,

Starting point is 01:13:32 you know, five rounds, building up to it, and sometimes two on one because you don't have time to rest at that. But that was, and I sustained that particular discipline for eight months. And Douglas said I over-trained. I went too long. But my problem was asthma. Because being asthmatic, sometimes fear can trigger an asthma attack. And that's what happened on that green belt that I described.

Starting point is 01:13:58 And you can't fight if you can't breathe. And so I had to train my mind to not become afraid. Fear can paralyze. We can be so worried about doing the wrong thing that we do nothing. There's actually an English proverb that says, a man that's afraid to make a mistake is unlikely to make anything. In other words, totally worthless. Fire the bomb. Fear of failure, when left unchecked, can actually lead to the failure we fear yeah and so um i i just started like i said putting myself in positions and conditions to help my mind overcome

Starting point is 01:14:34 those effects and i did things i we just talked about the physical i did mental things like eating live cockroaches live grasshoppers. The most absurd thing is rotten fish guts that sat in the sun for a week. In Delft, you saw where I ate the, I chopped down on the eyeball of the mahi-mahi. And the thing is, if you don't have, if you can't take it, the person would throw up. And some people that were watching almost throw up. When I did the guts, they did throw up. Don't try this at home, kids. Don't try this at home.

Starting point is 01:15:11 This is a close track with the training profession. It was just to train my mind to be able to take whatever is being dished out. And if I can control my mind and body, then I can make it. And that triggers another thought real quick I'm going to go back to the Charles Bonnet syndrome Charles Bonnet and how how that can create strength one of the ways I use it the most and we haven't even mentioned is in training as what I can do tremendous numbers of reps. When I took my fourth-degree black belt test, I was 47 or 48. I lifted 222,888 pounds using 3,190 reps.

Starting point is 01:15:55 And the 24-year-old, 220-pound black belt who trained alongside me could not do 50% of the number of reps or weight. And that's because I don't get lactic acid buildup because I would combine the mind with the body. Now, you'll see weight people do this. Those are, come on, move it. They're trying to convince their body to do it. You follow what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:16:15 Yeah. When you combine mind and body together, they're not doing that. And what I would do is when I get to the point of exertion and I would then transfer, I'd use my CBS, like on a bench press, I would see a cable, on the bench press, I'd see a cable going up, across of it, across two pulleys,

Starting point is 01:16:34 on the other end is grill a shape thing or an Arnold Schwarzenegger and grill it together, pulling on that thing, pulling that weight up, and I would focus on that image, pulling the weight up, and during that moment, I would no longer feel the stress as my muscles continue to press. And I have exercises for every, I have a mental, visual exercise I'll use for each exercise, like the quadricep extension.

Starting point is 01:16:57 You know, you're in exertion when you're straightening your legs, right? And so what I would see in front of me is a big, giant rubber band. When the band is stretched down, when the weights are down, and then it would, the rubber band would go up and it would just go wide, and that's when it's pulling the weight up. So I'd watch it, and I would see it pulling the weight up. So when I'm doing the exertion is when I'd feel it the least. Or another image, like when I'm doing a hammer,

Starting point is 01:17:22 like I'm on my back doing a tricep, I would see a hammer falling, okay? And when the hammer's falling, it's the least amount of effort, right? Yeah. Because the hammer, the way the hammer's going down, but when I'm like this, so I'd see the hammer falling, but that's when the tricep is being engaged. And I taught my wife, when I taught my wife this, and within a month's time, what she would do, I'd say,

Starting point is 01:17:47 well look at yourself in the mirror, your reflection. And when you get to exertion, like a military press, at the point of exertion, say you wanna do, we'd always do sets of 52 reps. And when you get to 48, then transfer that, see that image of that reflection, pulling those weights up. And she got to the point where she increased her muscular endurance 30% in a month time, and she was already in top shape.

Starting point is 01:18:17 Oh, so weird. And right now, I can give you an example of that, if we were standing, if we wanted to stand up. But I would like, and of course now I'm almost 66, so I don't know if I, I used to have a demonstration that I would do where I would bend the arm of the person and there's only one person's arm I was not able to bend and doing this demonstration for 40 years and no one has ever bent my arm.

Starting point is 01:18:42 But if you want to stand up, I can, I don't know if this is... Sure, let's try it. But I'm not going to try to bend your arm because I'm, because of surgery. Just get on this side of me. All right. And see, look at those muscles. Now, usually I put myself up against the back,

Starting point is 01:18:56 so I'm pinned in. Now I'm going to have you put your arm right here. Okay. Your other arm here. Okay? Not on the wrist, I want it to put wrist. And your job, this is're gonna do is just bend this little elbow here, okay?

Starting point is 01:19:10 Okay, go ahead. Go ahead, and look, I'm not using, go, come on, come on! It's not gonna happen. And I'm not using any strength at all. Look at my hand, totally relaxed. I'll tell you how I did it. Okay. Once again, it's creating mind and body together.

Starting point is 01:19:25 What I did is I envisioned my arm as a fire hose. Shooting out that fire hose is 1,000 gallons of water a minute. You can't bend a fire hose. I'm sorry. Right? If you're thinking about a fire hose when the water's shooting, you're not going to bend a fire hose. So I get that image in my mind.

Starting point is 01:19:42 I'm just shooting that fire hose. And I've never had anyone ever bend my arm. And yet, without that, until I showed them, they learn how to do that. Then I can't bend their arm. But anyway, that's just kind of a little side note. But how I've used my CBS to create a lot of strength. And I also used it in my training with the cards. When I analyze moves and break them down.

Starting point is 01:20:07 And what I would do, I'm just kind of transitioning into something else here randomly. But what I would do and why I was able to put in so many hours is I would analyze the move. I want to second deal a certain way. So I'd analyze the move. Okay, I want no leaking. And so I'd analyze what I want to do and I'd practice it in slow motion till every exacting element of the muscle memory was firmly embedded in my brain. Then I would turn it into a subconscious habit. We all have habits where we're tapping a pen,

Starting point is 01:20:46 right, tapping our feet. That's idle energy wasted. It's like an engine of a car running, going nowhere, just idling. That's still energy expelled, right? So what I did is I learned to take all that energy and funnel it into just my hands and what's in my hands. And so that's why I would take it

Starting point is 01:21:06 and that turned into a subconscious habit. And that move, I would then sit there and practice it hundreds of times. I'd do it thousands of times, tens of thousands of times, hundreds of thousands of times. Then maybe two or three years later, I'll look down and go,

Starting point is 01:21:21 by golly, I got it. And then some of the things Vernon would say, that's not possible to do. And so I would figure it out, analyze it, show it to him, and then he'd go, I don't understand how you can do that. Well, what I loved discovering in the process of prepping for this conversation and I want to put a button in the black belt test in a second but that Vernon would describe to you the ideal of how something would be performed even though in reality he hadn't seen it executed that perfectly and you with your powers of visualization and the way that you would digest his teaching, would then go and develop the ability

Starting point is 01:22:10 to do what he thought could not be done. At least that's my understanding. That's exactly right. And he did that for... I had the privilege of being with Professor Vernon for 17 years. In those first 5, 6, 10 years, like you said, he would describe to me, he'd say, Richard, this is the way it has to be done.

Starting point is 01:22:28 Your hands have to be natural. You don't want this deep grip when you're going to deal a second or a bottom. Your fingers need to be on the sides because it's more natural. That's more the way you're going to see your general person in the public hold a deck of cards. And so you don't want to create any unnatural suspicion by your actions. And so he would tell me, okay, you have to be able to do it with those fingers on the side. And so, okay, fingers on the side. And you don't want any of this action here.

Starting point is 01:22:58 So I'd practice with my hand on the table without moving it. And so I would take the pieces of what he said, and he would actually tell me, he'd say, feel my hands, feel the position my hands are in. I would feel his hands, okay, got it, got it. Okay, oh, okay, I got it. So I'd see the picture in my mind of what his hands were showing me,

Starting point is 01:23:20 but he never did it because it's an action. I really couldn't see him do the action because my hands were getting in the way of him executing the action But I knew the action of what he was showing so in my mind. I would see his hands Visualize what he said This is the way it should be done And then I would come up with it and create it and then the next time you'd see me he'd go Hey, hey, come on, watch this, watch this. Look at this, watch this action, perfect action.

Starting point is 01:23:46 You know, he'd get all excited. He'd have all the other card guys come over and, watch it, perfect rhythm, perfect rhythm. Anyway, Larry was one of my critics at the time. But we became good friends, same with Tony Giorgio. And so that's what he would do is he'd trick me. And it was only until years later that he told me he made them up He just wanted to see what this obsessed kid would come up with

Starting point is 01:24:10 That's why my work is kind of as most 99.9% of the gamblers and cardman out there will tell you it's it's unique and separate from the way any other person handles the cards. And I want to tie up one loose end with the black belt test just to flash forward because we covered a lot of it. But ten fresh fighters, ten rounds, you end up with a broken arm at some point. Seventh round. Seventh round. So you're fighting with a broken arm.

Starting point is 01:24:45 There's footage of this, of course, in the documentary, which I encourage everybody to see. And you get your black belt. There was coverage of this experience. Of course, there were some cameras, but also there was a piece in, was it the LA Times? LA Times. Now, why did you, my understanding is you did not like the piece or you did not like the headline. Why is that?

Starting point is 01:25:07 Well, because they used the word blind man earns black belt. And at that time, I was very stubborn. And I was just stubborn and probably self-absorbed. And I wanted my work to stand on its own. And I wanted to earn it the way Terry, Crook, John Douglas and the other his top other black belt fighters did. That's why when they offered me an honorary black belt he said you put in your time, you put in your lumps.

Starting point is 01:25:35 I said no, I want to do it the way you did and then that's when I started the training like I described earlier but it took me 10 years, 13 years and 3 months and 5 days from when I started to when I finally got it from the beginning to super nuts. But anyway, the fact that they had to put the word blind man, Ernst Black Belt, to me it was like, I don't like the theme, handicap makes good. I want the theme, okay, I just made good because I did it. And to be perfectly honest with you, I kept telling people, I wanted to do it the way they did it.

Starting point is 01:26:09 And people would say, but you didn't. And I'd go, yes, I did. And it was literally, Tim, within the last six months that someone said something that I understood what they said. When they said, I didn't do it the way they did it I did it way the way they couldn't have done it they weren't sight impaired when they did it I was I never understood what they were saying because I was so pig-headed about I wanted I wanted to do it the way they did it but then when you flip it I I finally got the message I did it in a way that it was very unlikely that they or anyone else would have had a hard time doing if they could have done it at all.

Starting point is 01:26:50 Oh, probably next to impossible, if not impossible. And I want to dig into the visualization because it seems to be such a superpower. And I might ask you what you consider to be your superpowers. But this visualization and the CBS and the eidetic memory that you mentioned really seem to coalesce to give you some incredible abilities, whether that's the feats of strength or work with the cards. You mentioned earlier that the way you see things when you're scanning or planning the design and construction of a three-story patio or deck, for instance, is different from dreaming. That begets the question, what is dreaming like for you? Ah, very good, very good question. Because, you know, like you were saying, I see my subconscious in external space.

Starting point is 01:27:55 So, you know, and it's just a constant, stagnant situation of all these colors, patterns, just there until I want to bring them into play. And it doesn't matter if it's day, night, if my eyes are open or closed, I see the exact same thing with my eyes covered up in a vault. I'll see these vivid, bright colors

Starting point is 01:28:18 when there's absolutely no way of light getting in. But when I dream, in my dreams, I'm never sight impaired. And I dream in full color with audio and visual and I see perfectly. And everybody I see in those dreams

Starting point is 01:28:35 is perfectly clear. Which, you know, that, someone brought that to my attention in some questions that I was asked. And I thought,

Starting point is 01:28:44 well, I guess that's kind of unusual. But yeah, I'm never, like I said, part of the dream is never that I'm sight and prayer, nor do I see any of the CBS symptoms in any of my dreams. Now, if I wake up in the middle of the night, say, and I had to take some Tylenol or something from some surgery, I've had 24 surgeries from all my high impact living. And medication, when I wake up, will turn everything into a metallic colors and usually a lot of times it's purple. This is if you wake up in the middle of the night?

Starting point is 01:29:22 Middle of the night after taking some kind of medication from some kind Of an injury that I'm on medications turn it metallic and it turns it Usually a purple which is not it's not a pretty purple to me. I don't like it You mentioned maroon was one of your favorite colors and then roll blue on the blue spectrum What other favorite colors do you have and did you have them before? Losing your sight or did you have them before losing your sight, or did you develop them afterwards? I probably wasn't aware of favorite colors before so much as I am now because I see them all the time.

Starting point is 01:29:55 And the different shades depend on the time of year, depend on the particular day. Sometimes it's just really vivid blues, and it's just beautiful sometimes when I'm out walking with my beautiful wife Kim and my CBS will create a skyline. In other words the things will be darker here and that's the skyline and then it'll be lighter shades to

Starting point is 01:30:24 give the image of earth, sky. And then I go in, and I have to ask my wife, is it still light out? Because it will stay there, and sometimes it's late into the night, and I can't get it. Sometimes it can bother me because I want that to go down because it's now nighttime. So there are some times that it will be a bit on the distracting side.

Starting point is 01:30:53 What I have as a note to ask, I didn't want to get any of the details beforehand, but a note to ask you about your experience of wind. Ah, that's a fun, I can see the wind blow. Whenever I'm walking down the street with Kim or whatever, of course I automatically see the images of trees, but they're more like clouds, and they'll be green shapes and colors to replicate, give the image of trees.

Starting point is 01:31:25 Okay. But whenever the wind blows, everything, all my visualization things that I see will go with that wind. It will gust. If it gusts, they'll move a little bit more. If I do this, everything just now just went, oop, it jerked. If I tap my tie, everything just jerked over and went back straight. Just weird little things. Like when I go in, I'm in a pool.

Starting point is 01:31:49 My eyes are closed the whole time. I don't need my eyes open when I'm swimming. I don't have to worry about the chlorine and stuff. Right. And so when I'm above the pool, there's a certain hue. In other words, a level of brightness of the color. When I go under the water, I actually see myself going underwater and the hue changes. It deepens like putting on sunglasses. Sunglasses off, sunglasses on.

Starting point is 01:32:16 Even as I made that image, my eyes are closed, I just all of a sudden things went darker and lighter. I can pretend that I'm opening and closing my eyes. The hue is like pulling down a shade that has a sunblock. Not a sunblock, but sunglasses would be the best way to describe the hue.

Starting point is 01:32:34 The hue changes. And then if I just pretend that my eyes are closed the whole time, I'm pretending I'm opening and closing my eyes, it'll do the same thing. I don't know what relevance that had to anything, but it's just these little games. This is just a conversation between friends. Nobody listening or watching. So I'm just following my own interest.

Starting point is 01:33:03 And I want to talk about the enjoyment of not relaxing. That's more said with a smile, but when we took a little break to have some water, you said, to me, relaxing is not relaxing. You talked about how being told to relax or asked to relax is like being punished and put in the corner for misbehaving at school for you. In that case, given your obsessive compulsive dedication to training, to card mechanics, to movement, how do you replenish? What activities do you find recharge your batteries? Maybe you could just elaborate on to me relaxing is not relaxing. Okay, yeah.

Starting point is 01:33:50 And I'm going to bring up a friend of mine who's like a brother. His name is Luke Corum. He was the director of the film Delt that you mentioned. And I'll just say something quick about the film. If it wasn't for Luke, in particular, I'd say 80% Luke, and then Bradley and Russell, the producer and the writer. But Luke was the one that just had the creativity. If they would have listened to me, and they listened zero to me,

Starting point is 01:34:19 they did, I would have screwed up the film. The brilliance of that film is I lay lay at the feet of the director Luke and He would tell me and he actually lived with me He had his own place in my house when at certain times Luke's room and I never have my many times I didn't know what the cameras on or off and he would say well, let's chill, you know And which I found out his word for relaxing relaxing and chill I don't want to chill it's not fun and I said relaxing

Starting point is 01:34:48 for me relaxing is not fun relaxing is like when I was a kid and I was being punished and my parents as a punishment I'd have to stand in the corner for an hour and just stare at the corner to me chilling is not fun relaxing is not fun

Starting point is 01:35:02 to me relaxing is adventure and I would tell people and and I would tell Luke, I'd say, don't worry about the end result. When the film is done, it's going to be a piece, it'll be what it is, and it will be finished. Enjoy the journey. And look at every obstacle and every challenge and every hurt and pain that you come across as part of the adventure of the journey.

Starting point is 01:35:30 When you read a book, you don't want a book that, oh, he went and he entered this rush and he won and he entered that one, no trouble he won, and he climbed this mountain and he won. That's boring. You have to have antagonists, protagonists, and you have to have challenges. You have to have things that you have to overcome. So I would tell people, whatever the situation is, look at it as part of the adventure. My livelihood almost came to an end five years ago.

Starting point is 01:36:00 Well, multiple times. Like I said, I've had 24 surgeries. I had to recount them just last week. am I at 22, 23, or 24? I realized I have two steel knees from all the years of kicking. I took a shot here, roundhouse kick here. At first I did surgery and finally had to be replaced. And just millions of kicks just finally did them in. I've had five hernia surgeries.

Starting point is 01:36:23 I did a backfl flip off my front porch, landed on my fifth disc on my back, on the brick, drove it out my belly button. I've had three back surgeries. And then fortunately, finally, and that's so complicated, doctors, it's just, they have a hard time with backs. And then they have this thing called a neural stimulator,

Starting point is 01:36:41 Medtronic makes, and I have that. And it short circuits the pain from the back to your brain Amazing ever since that like my wife said give our life back. We have we have this table available. We have some cards Would you like to like to show anything? Yeah, you have a deck of cards there for yourself. I do shuffle them up All right. We'll see this now how amateur the shuffle can be here. I can barely shuffle two hands. Well, then use one. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:37:10 I just showed you how. All right. Okay. All right, we're good to go. Switch decks with me. All right. Okay. Here you go.

Starting point is 01:37:19 Now, in poker, you've heard of wild cards like deuces are wild, baseball have multiple wild cards. Yes. Other games, they'll just cut a card, that'll heard of wild cards like deuces are wild, baseball have multiple wild cards. Other games, they'll just cut a card, that'll be the wild card. Just cut off half the deck. I'm going to move. There's one card left over here. I can put it on my deck? Yes. Okay, just cut the deck in half here.

Starting point is 01:37:37 Tell me when you got it. Okay, just to make it more random, just say any random number. Three, four, five, seven, anything you want. Six. Six. One, two, three, four, five, six. What's that card? Queen of diamonds. So the queens will be the wild card, okay?

Starting point is 01:37:52 And you just shuffled these cards, right? I did. Now, have you ever played poker for money? And let me ask this. Have you ever played in a casino? Or have you ever wondered, when I play in a casino, am I getting conned? I have lost in a casino. Okay. So that thought has in a casino, am I getting conned? I have lost in a casino. Okay, so that thought has crossed your mind. Am I getting conned?

Starting point is 01:38:10 Now, I'm going to show you. You just handed me a randomized deck. And I'm going to do this in an interesting way. In the high stake games, I'll cut between every shuffle, because that buries the top and bottom halves of the deck. I'll give the deck a little riffle, and people like to cascade the cards into them. Give it a cut. So I'm telling you what I'm doing as I do it and I shuffle did everything look legit look legit and not a movie saw was so you're already in trouble now I'll show you not a move I saw was was honest not a one I got a one now show

Starting point is 01:38:40 you how fast I could uncut that deck what's that card that is the two clubs the two clubs so they'll pass the deck to the right to be cut, and now the deck is no longer cut. So two still on top. Watch again now. Watch again. I'm showing you how fast I can uncut the deck. The deck is no longer cut.

Starting point is 01:38:54 Yeah. And that was about a half a second. Yeah. Now, you've heard of Texas Hold'em. I have, yeah. Okay, well, we'll do a little hand of Hold'em. And in Hold'em, they have what's called a cut card or a burnt card. They put a card, the deck on a face-up card. Now after the fact, you're going to tell me

Starting point is 01:39:07 – keep everything off the table here, give me a full table here. Okay, alright. After the fact, you're going to tell me how many people step up to my Hold'em table. Let's pick a number, five or six, because we don't have a lot of room. Five. Five players. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Burn. And we have what's called the flop. And what are those three cards?

Starting point is 01:39:29 You've got the king of hearts, the two of hearts, and the queen of clubs. Deuces are not wild, but the queens was your card. So that means there's a pair of kings on the table. There's a burn and a turn. What's that card? That's a king of... Burn, turn. So right now we have three kings because the queen is a wild card. What's that card? That's a king. Burn turn. So right now we have three kings because the queen is a wild card.

Starting point is 01:39:46 What's that card? That's a queen. Right now we have four kings. Let's get rid of our burnt card. And you're my partner sitting over here in hand number five. Let's see what you have in the pocket. What's that? That's a queen.

Starting point is 01:39:58 What's that? That's a queen. So in the poker you would have five of a kind, five kings, or you'd have a royal flush depending on how you wanted to play the hand. In other words, you killed them. Slotted them, beat them, whipped them big time. Now shuffle that deck. I'll show you how far I can push the envelope. All right, so I'll shuffle this one. I think we got two cards that got turned up on that one.

Starting point is 01:40:24 Okay, that's your job. Make sure that one's all legitimate. Yep. Okay, and then I'll switch with you. All right, there we go. Okay. And you can make sure everything's legitimate on that one. Yep. We'll give the deck a cut, and we'll play my favorite game, Seven Cards Done. And this will take a couple minutes to unfold, but it's interesting. Now, we have a deck of cards shuffled by Tim. Now, we'll say with the same number of players.

Starting point is 01:40:50 You choose. Four players or five? You choose. Four. Where do you want to sit? Number one, number two, number three, or number four? I'll be number one. Number one, right out of the chute. I'm getting ready. I'm dealing a card in slow motion to hand number one.

Starting point is 01:41:03 Before I continue, take this deck, mix them up. Don't give me the whole deck back. Just pull out any random part of that deck and put them in my hands. Just do something quick. Just a couple of cards? No, more than a couple. Just a stack. So I'm going to work with whatever you give me, okay?

Starting point is 01:41:19 Tim just handed me back a random stack of cards. We're dealing a card to player number two, player number three, and player number four. You're number one. Slow motion. Watch carefully. There's your card. We go player two, three, four. Now we have what are called the door cards,

Starting point is 01:41:37 which means the face-up cards. What's that card? Jack of spades. Jack, one, player two, player three, player four. You're number one. What's that card? Ace of clubs. Two, number three, number four. You're number one. What's that card? Ace of clubs. Two, number three, number four. You're number one.

Starting point is 01:41:49 What's that card? Ace of diamonds. Okay, mix them up. Mix them up. Mix them up some more. Mix up the entire deck? Whatever. You're the boss.

Starting point is 01:41:55 Okay. And just have any part of that deck you want. So you're doing everything you can to screw things up. Okay? And you just, okay. That's like five cards less than the last time you had me. Okay, we have player two, player three, player four. And so far we have three cards face up. Yes?

Starting point is 01:42:12 That's right. And what's that card? It's Queen of Diamonds. Wild card. Do it again. Mix them up. Hand me any part of the deck you want. So you're shuffling, cutting. You chose how many players. You chose where you want to sit. You hand me any random part of the deck. Oh, my gosh, getting stingy. Down to six cards.

Starting point is 01:42:30 Player two, player three, player four. And we have what's called down and dirty. I'm now dealing the card off the top to Tim's first position. Two, three, four. Put that with the rest of the stack. Okay. Now let's see what you have in your hand We're playing seven card stud high Chicago. That means high Spain the whole splits the money

Starting point is 01:42:50 So let's see what you have. What's that card Queen of that's a queen a wild card So we'll put it over here in the what's that ace of diamonds? That would be a pair of aces here's the Queen's wild What's that ace clubs that equals three aces? What's that? This is Jack of spades Jack. What's that? That's a ten of spades ten ten jack ace. What's that? That's the queen of spades Another wild card. So right now you have four two aces in two Queens, right? That's right So you right now in that would equal four aces And the best possible hand in wild card is five aces. We're playing high spade in the whole split spot. What's that?

Starting point is 01:43:30 It's ace. Ace of spades. Five aces. The best possible hand you can get in poker is five aces. You shuffled. You cut. You chose how many players you wanted. You chose where you wanted to sit.

Starting point is 01:43:44 And you kept mixing them up. And you didn't even give me a full deck. You could honestly say, that Turner doesn't play with a full deck. That Turner does not play with a full deck. And yet I dealt you the perfect hand in poker. That's incredible. That's regrettable? It's incredible.

Starting point is 01:43:58 Oh, that's better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Incredible. That's regrettable. Amazing. All right. But that shows you how far I can push. And that particular thing to be, and I know this,

Starting point is 01:44:09 and I don't mean to sound boastful, because it's hard to talk about when you're asking people, asking questions about yourself. It's hard to talk about yourself and not sound bad. But Vernon, when he first saw me do that, I said, Professor, what do you think about combining this and this and this? And he goes, Roger, you can't.

Starting point is 01:44:24 No, stop. Not possible. It can't be done. And I said, Professor, what do you think about combining this and this and this? And he goes, Roger, you can't do it. It's not possible. It can't be done. And I said, oh. He said, you can't do it because three reasons. One, your brain can't respond that fast. Your hands cannot be that sensitive. And you would break rhythm.

Starting point is 01:44:39 Put those all cards back together from this deck. Okay? He said, it's not possible. And we were at the Magic Castle, and for 10 minutes, I sat there. He was sitting at the bar, and I was standing next to him, and I was depressed.

Starting point is 01:44:52 For 10 minutes, I sat there, and I go, this is the ultimate. This is the perfect way. This is the... And I thought, and he said, it can't be done. Then all of a sudden, I remembered, but I can do it. I said, Professor, come watch my show.

Starting point is 01:45:04 And he came out of the show after me and goes, Richard, what the hell were you doing in there? I don't understand what the hell you were doing. I said, remember when you said you can't combine this and this, that's what I'm doing. All right, I'm saying how the hell you can do that? And he goes, Max, Max, come here, watch this, watch this. And everybody for the next 18 months, every time I was there,

Starting point is 01:45:21 he'd have me, shuffle the cards, how many players do you want? Where do you want to sit? Watch this, watch this, and over and over. And two years later he goes, I on the cards, how many players you want, where do you want to sit, watch this, watch that, and over and over, and two years later he goes, I still don't understand how I'm going to do that. And he knows exactly what I'm doing, and exactly how I'm doing it. Yeah, that's amazing.

Starting point is 01:45:36 So I have these, all the cards are facing the same way, I guess two decks worth of cards, I don't know how they're split up. Yeah, we'll just keep them 52-52, it's the same. Great, great. Who knows how many, split up. Yeah, we'll just keep them 52-52. Great, great. Who knows how many? Roughly 52 over there, I suppose. All right.

Starting point is 01:45:52 Wonderful. Now you, just because this was mentioned before we started recording, you audit cards. Is that right? What's the right term? Analyze. Analyze. Yeah. A US playing card company is the largest maker of cards in the United States. They just merged with Carter Monday, which is the biggest card maker.

Starting point is 01:46:14 They've been starting making cards since 1765. US playing card companies, they've been around for 150 years. Bicycle is the most recognized pack of cards in the world. It has been for over 100 years. And in 1988, I got some cards. They were so bad. I told them, these are not the cards you've been making. I can prove that you are subcontracting your paper out, blah, blah, blah.

Starting point is 01:46:41 Anyway, they signed a rep. I proved to them, and they said he was proven right. Then in 1993, they started miscutting their cards by turning the things over. I said, these are not the cards you've been making for 100 years. I can prove it. At that time, they were getting flak from the casinos. The casinos were not happy with the cards. There was something wrong with them. I'm the one that identified the problem. That was the blade was going through the wrong side of the card, which affected the integrity of the card and the ability for it to be handled properly. And so then they finally put me on retainer in the 1990s.

Starting point is 01:47:16 And I helped them make the best card in the world. And they do make the best cards in the world. And just to give you an idea how far their director of research and development would push me, he would send me out, usually it was two dozen decks or like 20 decks, but I'll make it real small so you can understand. Let's say six decks. So if it was two dozen, there would be 12 pairs. 12 pairs. So we reduce our illustration down to six decks.

Starting point is 01:47:51 There's three pairs. And one of the decks... Three pairs of decks. Three pairs, yeah. Six cards, six decks, which is three pairs. So we're down to six decks, which would be three pairs. And when I say pairs, each pair was ran together. That was a particular run of that deck. And so they would say one of the decks,

Starting point is 01:48:15 they just changed one of the chemicals in the coating. This was probably the most elaborate one that I did. Just one of the chemicals was changed. Not the whole chemical, not the whole process. One of the chemicals was changed in their coding. And so not only did I have to say deck one and three are a match, two and four are a match, and five and six are a match. And it was five and six that had the chemical change. And so not only did I, and they had those cards coded. When I say coded, they had a secret code like Q752916J, which that was their key in Cincinnati to understand these two are the pair, these two are the pair, these two are the pair. I did not have the key. Right.

Starting point is 01:48:59 You know, but I just had these random numbers that I'd put down in my report. My son, Asa, would tell me, well, this one, Dad, is J752. This one is 67J4, which meant absolutely nothing to me. And then I'd find out the 67J4, and they were the match. And so I'd have to pair them up, match them up, and then analyze the snap, the embossing depth, the cut, the caliper, what I call the right period, and all these things, and which one is a better card. And they would take that information

Starting point is 01:49:31 and fine-tune their machines to help make the cards that they make, which are by far the finest cards you can buy. They're now in use. So I know we have just a little bit of time left and we're practically neighbors since you're in San Antonio. That's right. We're very, very close by.

Starting point is 01:49:53 I'm curious to know, and this is sometimes a difficult question, but I'll just ask one or two more questions. If you could put a message, a quote, anything non-commercial on a billboard to get a message out to millions or billions of people, is there anything that comes to mind that you might put on that billboard? Yeah. In America, we have opportunities.

Starting point is 01:50:22 Success depends upon the use we make of those opportunities. That would be one. Another would be not going down. Not going down. Not going down. Another one would be consider every obstacle, as I mentioned, every obstacle, challenge, hurt, pain in your life as part of the adventure of life. That's what gives life spice. And then circling back to when I was talking about the surgeries, and my career was almost at an end, I was at Penn & Teller's Theatre.

Starting point is 01:50:59 I was going to be on their show, their fourth season, the third season, and I was in the gym, the real gym, where else, with my friend Doug Gorman, and I said, okay, I paid $17 for my workout. That's a ridiculous workout price. And so as soon as I got in there, one of those benches that you set them up like this, like you're doing standing curls. Right. Or, you know, you sit in your curls. Or you can recline it back for like, you know, triceps or lay it all the way back.

Starting point is 01:51:30 Like you want to do sit-ups on there. Adjustable bench. Adjustable bench. And it was propped like this. At about 45 degrees. Yeah, at 45 degrees. And I couldn't, I pulled that thing, I couldn't get it to go down. And I felt up, it was butted up against the wall and so I took that bench and I moved it over like this and Wham my thumb was here and it was you know Those commercial grain benches the steel bars that went around here and the steel bars

Starting point is 01:51:59 That that was the frame of the bench just came down and crushed my thumb. What did I do? I know he's crazy, and your people that are listening and watching say, yeah, he's a little on the crazy side. And, oh, okay, don't let me get off track on here, but did you know I'm a certified oddball? A certified oddball? I am certified. I did see your card.

Starting point is 01:52:19 Yeah, yeah, I'll explain. You've heard of Ripley's Believe It or Not, right? Yes. In 1984, I was on a TV series, Ripley's Believe It or Not, right? Yes. In 1984, I was on a TV series, Ripley's Believe It or Not, hosted by Jack Palance. I'm also an exhibit in the second largest Ripley's in the country. And I'm in the 2015 issue of Ripley's Believe It or Not Book of Eye-Popping Oddities.

Starting point is 01:52:38 Right. Receive a certificate. Certified. I am a certified oddity. So you might be an oddball, Tim. I'm certified. You're certified. I'm a certified oddball. Okay you might be an oddball, Tim. I'm a certified oddball. You're certified.

Starting point is 01:52:46 I'm a certified oddball. Okay, so this contraption comes crashing down. So this contraption comes crashing down. I crushed my thumb and I called Doug. I said, bring me a bucket of ice and don't ask any questions. I figured I saved $17 for this workout. So I iced for three minutes, worked out for three minutes. Iced for three minutes, worked out for three minutes.

Starting point is 01:53:01 The next minute I worked out, oh my gosh, my thumb was as big as my big toe. I go, I ran upstairs, grabbed my cards and went, oh my gosh, I can't feel. So I called the producers, Lincoln and Andrew. They were the executive producers of the show. I said, Mike, I had a little trouble. A bench crushed my thumb. I think I could do the first and third part of what we rehearsed, but I don't think I can do the second. He said, get down here. He says, you're going to the emergency room. And they sent me to the emergency room, and they got in there, and the first thing they did is they poked a hole in it.

Starting point is 01:53:34 They said a fountain of blood shot out. I ended up having to go into surgery, and because I thought this may be the end of my career. And Luke and the boys were flying in to get some footage with Penn & Teller for Delt. And they were in air when this happened. So they land thinking they're coming in to film Penn & Teller. And about whatever they were going to ask them. Only to find out that I just got crushed.

Starting point is 01:54:06 And instead, they're filming me showing my thumb that's every shade of black and blue, but the color is supposed to be. Anyway, so I ended up in surgery. And I thought, OK, if this is the end of my life, I don't want to be out. I told the surgeon, I don't want to be out. I want to be fully conscious. I've went through multiple surgeries and I'll just shuffle the cards with my other hand while you work on this one. And that'll just, that'll be my anesthetic. And so he thought I was nuts and you can watch it. And I said, I want to film it too. So if this is the end of my

Starting point is 01:54:41 career, I want footage. And so they said, okay, well you just put our anesthesiologist out of business, he can film it. And you can go on YouTube, it's Crushed Dealing Thumb Feature and Crushed Dealing Thumb, one is the short version, one's the long version, it's on YouTube. Crushed Dealing Thumb is the way you look it up. But after one, it's graphic. Because he takes a spoon and pops my thumb open like a hood of a car.

Starting point is 01:55:09 Then he takes it, he cuts it open, and he's squeezing the button. We're talking the whole time back and forth, and I'm shuffling cards, and they go back and forth, shuffle in the thumb, and we're talking about this. And I said, man, this is so cool. And he goes, why don't people want to do this? He says, they go schizoid. People go schizophrenic when they go through something like this. He said, I had to be totally unconscious before I did it.

Starting point is 01:55:33 I just had a hangnail rebruce. This is a hand doctor talking. Anyway, but that gets back to, yeah, I am a certified oddball. So you have your thumb popped open like the hood of the car, and we'll link to those videos in the show notes at TimDuckBlogs. We will be able to find all of those videos. And what happened after that? Did you meet with Penn and Teller?

Starting point is 01:55:56 No. Lincoln Andrew said, you'll come back for our fourth season. Don't worry about it right now. Take care of your thumb. It literally took to the day before my thumbnail came back because they didn't know if it was going to take or I grew out another one or I was going to end up with no thumbnail at all. Fortunately, I grew out a new one. And it was literally Friday before that my manicures finally got the last part of the wiggly, woggly-looking thumbnail to be matched up.

Starting point is 01:56:26 And I went on and I started filming on the following Monday. So it took almost a year to the day. And so I got on their show and had a blast. And I fooled them faster than anybody in the history of their show. And it was really fun. And Penn and Taylor are just amazing performers. They are just top-notch. And Taylor is so funny. and Penn and Teller are just amazing performers. They are just top-notch. They are incredible.

Starting point is 01:56:50 And Teller is so funny, and people don't realize it. And if you watch it on the show, and I'm told this afterwards, he was staring at what I'm doing, and he's trying to say, well, bring down the trophy now. And over the headpiece, he's being told, don't bring down the trophy. We want Richard to do his entire act. And then beforehand, they said, Richard, you got to tell us how you do this so we can make a judgment. This is their judges, Johnny Thompson and Michael

Starting point is 01:57:13 Close. I said, well, you know, Vernon and I are the only ones that really knows this stuff. We know that. We got to make some judgment. I said, okay, watch. I showed them in slow motion what I was doing. I showed them. They go, my God, it really is impossible. And so then what Penn hears over his head, and this is what I was told, is don't, he stood up. They were supposed to, I was supposed to have a six-minute interview with Allison while they discussed how to do it. And then, of course, they had it down to one minute when it broadcasts. And they go, they said over the head, don't ask us. We don't know how the hell he did it.

Starting point is 01:57:46 And so then Penn turns around and says, we have nothing to say, you fooled us. And then the cool part was, I walk off stage with Penn and I hear this. And this is exactly how he talked. Richard, FFFF. I said, who's that? It's me, Teller. He said, it was so wonderful to be so completely and thoroughly astonished. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And I thought, let's get some selfies.

Starting point is 01:58:16 And then the really fun thing was at midnight, I get a call. They said, Teller wants to know if we could come up and get a signed deck of cards from you. I said, this is backwards. I'm supposed to ask for autographs from them. I said, does Penn want one too? They said, Penn would love it. Anyway, so that was kind of a really cool thing. And like I said, they're extraordinarily talented and extraordinary talents.

Starting point is 01:58:43 And I was so honored that they like dealt and then they tell her actually wrote one of the on the Film posters. Oh, yeah, one of the blurs. Yeah, very well earned Yeah, and the entire story and this is this is a perfect way to wrap up because that entire story Makes me think back to Tony Giorgio early on. And what was he saying? Don't make the money. Won't get the money.

Starting point is 01:59:08 Won't get the money. Now, later though. Later though. What did he say? In 2001, I just finished my show at the castle, and there's Tony. And he and I battled each other for 20 years, 25 years. And they said, Richard, Tony's here to see you. And there was what's called the Vernon seats

Starting point is 01:59:27 where Vernon had one corner and that's where Tony was seated because Vernon had passed away nine years, 10 years before. And they had one seat across waiting for me to sit down. All these top card guys were sitting there waiting. They won another battle between Georgio and Tony,

Starting point is 01:59:41 Georgio and Turner, Georgio and Turner. They always have these showdowns like gunfighters. And so I didn't want to have any part of it. And I said, no, I'll just stand there for an hour. They said, they finally said, Richard, Tony was waiting. And finally, I thought to myself, you know what? Tony was mean and hard on me, but I have to credit at least half of my accomplishments to him being my antagonist. And I thought, okay. And I said, Tony, I just want to thank you for all your years of encouragement. You were hard on me.

Starting point is 02:00:16 You were divisive at times. But people respect you because you do the real work, and you could do the real work. And because you pushed me hard you made me better and i wanted to thank you for that and he goes why thank you richard that's very nice of you did you ever get that center deal down and and of course he knew i did i said would you mind showing us so now i sit down now for the next two and a half hours we're doing what everybody wanted to see and after every uh thing he turned to us, that'll get the money. That'll get the money.

Starting point is 02:00:47 And then he actually proposed. He said, we have the perfect scam, the perfect threesome. He said, I'll tell the people you're a high-stake gambler, but you can't see, but you would love to play Hold'em. I'll be the person who reads the cards to you. He said, there's not five people in the gaming world that understands your work. He said, we have a third agent, third part of the crew that you'll do the good hands to. And so from the guy who said, never get the money, actually proposed us putting together as a team and hustling together. And then I actually have a handwritten letter, five page handwritten letter, one of my best treasures from Tony Giorgio. And then emails that say, love Tony.

Starting point is 02:01:32 Amazing. It had to be taken out of the castle in ways that wasn't pleasant to him to become a very dear friend. And I actually had the privilege of writing one of the magazines, his obituary, because I had a 39-year relationship with him from fighting to earning his respect. And really quickly that came from my first director a man named steve tarrow who was a tv and movie star back in the 50s and early 60s and he was i was in the theater company called the lambs players from 1972 to 78 and one of the things he would tell me is he would well

Starting point is 02:02:17 on stage he'd watch me and i'd be looking out of the corner of my eye remember we talked about that so i had no forward vision so I'm talking to my character, and I'm looking over here. He said, Richard, you need to, it looks odd for you looking off to the side. I know that you can't see where the shadow is unless you turn your head to the side. He said, just look at the voice. And he taught me how to square my head towards the voice

Starting point is 02:02:39 and give the impression that I could see them. He said, you've seen an actor who played the part of a blind person, you flipped the roles. You're a blind person, you played the part of a sighted person. And he said, and if you, he says, he would watch me practice it before and after every scene, he says, you love cards.

Starting point is 02:02:59 If you become the best card man in the world, you will earn the respect of your worst enemies. And then that was the case with Tony Giorgio. He was the guy who was an enemy. It was my nightmare every time I went to the castle, if we ran into each other, to become a very dear man. And that sounds like another billboard. If I could put up a billboard for you, that's what it would say.

Starting point is 02:03:25 That'll get the money. That's very nice of you. That'll get the money. And this has been so fun. We didn't even get into your hustling stories. And this entire prep has been an embarrassment of Rich's. So I hope this isn't the last time that I see you. Hopefully we get to spend some more time together.

Starting point is 02:03:42 You name it. If I'm up here, I'll let you know I'm coming. Anytime you want to visit or do something again, I'm at your... It'd be my honor and privilege to hang out together, even if it's to go have a protein shake. Protein shake, or maybe I can just get my ass handed to me in the gym, or maybe a bit of both. And what a pleasure to spend time with you finally in person, which I've wanted for so long. And people can find out all about you, RichardTurner52, the number 52, RichardTurner52.com on social. And I'll link to all of these in the show notes as

Starting point is 02:04:18 well. YouTube.com forward slash AsaT52. That's A-S-A-T-52, and then also youtube.com forward slash RichardTurner52. We'll link to all of this. For speaking, you're repped by APB Speaking Bureau. My American Program Bureau, APB, and that's one of my favorite things to do now is for some reason people are inspired, and my wife says, people want to hear your story,

Starting point is 02:04:43 and I always want to just be an entertainer but I have to say I'm that I am really blessed that I have the privilege of speaking and entertaining some of the most amazing companies in the on the planet and I can't wait to see what you do next you are also of course featured in dealt which has at least last I checked 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. And it is one of my favorite documentaries I've seen in certainly the last five years. It's just spectacular. And I am greatly inspired by you, slightly terrified of you. And I look forward to watching your further ongoing adventures and hope to have a protein shake in the near future.

Starting point is 02:05:35 But thanks very much for coming. Really appreciate it. It was my pleasure, Tim. It was a pleasure to be with you, and I'm honored as well. Thank you, sir. And for everybody watching or listening, we will have a lot to link to in the show notes and many resources. We also have, of course, the video if you're listening via audio, which you can check out at youtube.com forward slash Tim Ferriss or just go to Tim.blog and you'll

Starting point is 02:05:58 find it there. For the show notes, all the links, just go to Tim.blog forward slash podcast, type in Richard Turner and bam, lickety split, you go to Tim.blog forward slash podcast, type in Richard Turner and bam, lickety split. You'll have what you need. And until next time, be safe, train hard, practice perfectly if you're going to practice. And thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is five bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the

Starting point is 02:06:37 coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Inktel. I've used them personally ever

Starting point is 02:07:23 since I wrote the 4-Hour Workweek, I've been asked over and over again how I choose to delegate tasks, how I do 80-20 analysis, and so on. At the root of many of those decisions is a simple question. Actually, two questions. Number one, how can I invest money to improve my quality of life? I use that in investing as well. The second, how can I spend a little money or moderate money to save significant time? Inktel is one of those investments. They're a turnkey solution for all of your imaginable customer care needs. I used Inktel during the launch of the 4-Hour Body, which was very, very involved. And they provided 24-7 customer service for my land rush campaign

Starting point is 02:08:02 because it was critical for me to take care of every person who purchased my books and participated. This allowed me to focus on the things that I am better at, my strengths, like the marketing plan that we'd worked on for six months, implementing that. Inktail trains their experienced customer service reps to know your business and your products inside and out and make your customers raving with fans. They answer more than a million customer service requests every year, and they can do so across all platforms, including email, phone, social media, text, even chat. Leaving your customers with poor service or just mediocre service, which by the way, in a competitive pool is a huge liability. Long wait times or unanswered messages

Starting point is 02:08:45 carries a massive cost and risk to your business. Intel removes the logistics and headaches of this type of communication, allowing you to focus on your strengths and grow your business. It can be a real competitive advantage. And I see many, many e-commerce companies and tech companies thinking of customer service as a good enough checkbox or an afterthought. And just like Airbnb, you design in innovative ways to be a competitor and to win. You can do the same thing with customer service. So as a listener of this podcast, you can get up to $10,000 off.

Starting point is 02:09:22 It's a big discount. $10,000 off your startup fees and costs by visiting Inktel.com forward slash Tim. So check it out. For more info, go to Inktel.com, I-N-K-T-E-L.com forward slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by Nulo Pet Food, an independently owned company out of Austin, Texas

Starting point is 02:09:42 that delivers the very best pet nutrition with high meat, low carb recipes for dogs and cats. Food, an independently owned company out of Austin, Texas, delivers the very best pet nutrition with high meat, low carb recipes for dogs and cats. I am super stoked about this sponsor. I had no idea they were based in Austin. But I found Nulo through a number of friends of mine and veterinarians. It's what I feed my own dog, Molly. And when I switched Molly over to Nulo, that's N-U-L-O, a couple of years ago, it not only made an immediate difference in the way she looked, her coat, for instance, is much softer and much shinier. I could also tell it made a huge difference in how she felt and performed day to day. So I have Nulo all over

Starting point is 02:10:14 the place. There's a bag of Nulo about 30 feet away from me in the office where I sometimes feed Molly when she comes here. I have Nulo at home. I have Nulo in gallon-sized bags for travel. Nulo is always with me and Molly. She loves how it tastes because Nulo pet food has a lot of meat in it. And I can't really imagine feeding her anything else at this point. If you have a pup and you've been thinking about upgrading their food quality in 2020, check out nulo.com slash Tim. That's N-U-L-O.com slash Tim to see some of Molly's favorite products. By using the promo code Tim, T-I-M, you'll also get 50% off any trial size bag on their site. So two things to remember, Nulo.com slash Tim, and then promo code Tim.

Starting point is 02:11:01 As good pet parents, it's up to us. It's up to you, doggy parents, cat parents to get the nutrition piece right for them. So check out nulo.com slash Tim and commit to feeding your pets better food this year. They'll love you for it and you'll love what it does for them. So one more time, that's nulo.com slash Tim.

The Tim Ferriss Show - #411: Richard Turner — The Magical Phenom Who Will Blow Your Mind

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