The Tim Ferriss Show - #546: Master Magician David Blaine — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life.You’ll get plenty of that in this special episode, which features my interview with David Blaine from my 2017 TV Show Fear{less}. The “less” is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless.Fear{less} features in-depth, long-form conversations with top performers, focusing on how they’ve overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big.It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free, my dear listeners. You can find the video of this episode on YouTube.com/TimFerriss, and eventually you’ll be able to see all episodes for free at YouTube.com/TimFerriss.Spearheaded by actor/producer and past podcast guest Vince Vaughn, Wild West Productions has produced a string of hit movies including The Internship, Couples Retreat, Four Christmases, and The Break-Up.In 2020, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act, starring Jimmy O. Yang and Cedric The Entertainer. In addition to Fear{less}, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck, ESPN’s 30 for 30 episode about the ’85 Bears, and the Netflix animated show F is for Family.Please enjoy!*This episode is brought to you by “5-Bullet Friday,” my very own email newsletter that every Friday features five bullet points highlighting cool things I’ve found that week, including apps, books, documentaries, gadgets, albums, articles, TV shows, new hacks or tricks, and—of course—all sorts of weird stuff I’ve dug up from around the world.It’s free, it’s always going to be free, and you can subscribe now at tim.blog/friday.*For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. Optimal minimum. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I also be a person? and thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. The Tim Ferriss Show. special episode, which features an interview from my 2017 TV show, Fearless. The less is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless. Fearless features in-depth, long-form conversations with top performers, focusing on how they've overcome

fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big along the way. It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free, my dear listeners. So thank you, Wild West. You can find the video of this episode, which is gorgeous. I think they did an incredible job on youtube.com slash Tim Ferriss. Remember, two R's, two S's, youtube.com slash Tim Ferriss. And eventually you'll be able to see all of the episodes for free at youtube.com slash Tim Ferriss. eventually you'll be able to see all of the episodes for free at youtube.com slash tim ferris so you can swing over there and see what is currently up before we get started just a little bit more on wild west spearheaded by actor producer and past podcast

guest vince vaughn wild west has produced a string of hit movies including the internship couples retreat for christmases and the breakup Breakup. In 2020, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act, starring Jimmy O. Yang and Cedric the Entertainer. In addition to Fearless, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck, ESPN's 30 for 30 episode about the 85 bears, and the Netflix animated show F is for Family. Wild West has also produced the documentaries Give Us This Day, Game Changers, subtitle Dreams of BlizzCon, and Wild West Comedy Show. And now, without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation from Fearless. I'm Tim Ferriss, author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and now TV host. I've spent my entire

adult life asking questions, then scouring the globe to find the answers. On this show, I'll share the secrets of pioneers who have faced their own fears. We'll dig into the hard times, big mistakes, tough decisions, and how they got through it all. The goal isn't to be fearless. The goal is to learn to fear less. Welcome to Fearless. I'm your host, Tim Ferriss. And on this stage, we'll be deconstructing world-class performers of all different types to uncover the specific tactics and strategies they've used to overcome doubt, tackle their hardest decisions, and ultimately succeed on their own terms. So let's take a look at my guest by the numbers.

17 minutes, 4 seconds. His world record setting breath hold. If you can believe that, it's true. 44 days, how long he survived without food in a plexiglass box. 63 hours, 42 minutes, and 15 seconds, the amount of time he spent encased in a block of ice. For nearly 20 years, he has risked his life for your entertainment. Please welcome to the stage, world-renowned illusionist and endurance artist David Blaine. So David, I have wanted to have this conversation for years now. Yeah, I'm excited. We're going to have fun tonight.

And I thought one way we could start is with a video that maybe does not represent the most fun, but I think is a good video nonetheless. Awesome. This is as close as I come to doing a magic trick. You're doing good. Here we go. Working the next set of cuffs. Come behind.

Just a little bit of air in one. You guys get ready. There are some bubbles here. Go! Go! Go! Divers are in. Just relax. Relax. We got you David. You're alright. You're alright. The divers are in the sphere. You're okay David. Just relax. We've got you. Come on up. You're okay. You're okay.

They brought him up. Martin Stepanek and Manny Ray Crookshank have got David out of the bubble. So that is a terrifying video. What happened in that particular situation? Why did things go sideways? In training, when I had worked on that, the record was, I believe at the time, was nine minutes. And I had never gotten time was nine minutes and I've never gotten up to nine minutes. I got to seven minutes and 47 seconds

dry no oxygen just breath holding and I figured if I starve myself, I'm in the sphere my metabolism everything slows down I would be able to miraculously hold my breath much longer. And it did the opposite effect. So when it came time to do the stunt, I had handcuffs on, I was strapped at the bottom and I just started to convulse. They jumped in to get me and you can't see in the video. And I was like, no, like I held my finger up to stop them because I thought I could keep going, but I'm blacking out. And luckily they did jump in because he had to take these things off to pull my head above the water. Seems like one of the main dangers of any type of breath hold training is you feel fine until you're not.

Right? I mean, with some of it. But when you black out, see, I learned that Navy SEALs, as part of the training, what they do is they make the SEALs comfortable with blacking out underwater. So what they do is they strap them to 45 pound plates and make them walk the bottom of a pool and they walk until they black out underwater and then they get pulled to the top and they're brought back and they're fine but that makes everybody not afraid of drowning

you have no fear because you've already blacked out underwater you've already experienced worse case at Ted met where you have a great presentation, it's been a hugely popular talk, but what I remember personally was with a small group sitting in the audience and having you train people. So check this out, guys. Or maybe I'm making this number up, maybe 15 people in the audience. You got up to almost five minutes. I got to 333. I remember very specifically, but there were people in the audience who got past five. And these were people completely untrained. My breath hold record for me was around 45 seconds. I have lung issues. And I got to three minutes and 33 seconds. And there were other people who just kept trucking. And that was maybe 15 or 20 minutes of exercises. Yeah, 20 minutes total.

That was scarier than any of the stunts that I've ever done. Talking at that conference. Oh, talking at the conference. Yeah. The stunts are easy, but I was in front of like 500 of my favorite people, you being one of them. And I had never given a public talk where I wasn't doing magic. So just to stand there and have to talk in front of everybody that I respect so much, I was like three days, three nights, no sleep. So that was its own stunt. So, I mean, it's all relative, right, guys? I mean, he's not afraid of that, but he's afraid to talk in front of 500 people. So whatever your fears might be, it kind of puts it in perspective.

What was your childhood like? How would you describe your childhood, early childhood? I grew up in Brooklyn with a single mother and we didn't have much. She worked multiple jobs, but she was so incredible because she allowed me to dream, imagine. Yeah, there you see. And also, do you see I have leg braces on? Oh, yeah. So I was born, I was born with my feet turned in. And so I couldn't run fast and I couldn't swim fast. So at the age of five, I was on the YMCA swim team. And that's where I started to learn to hold my breath because in order to keep

up or even be faster than the other kids, I learned how to swim without breathing. So all the other kids had to learn how to do this and I would just swim straight across. And that's where I started to develop an ability to hold my breath. Wow. But so back to my mom, yeah. So she was just, I could ask for nothing more amazing. She was the best gift that I could have had as a child. And she'd walk me through the park all the time. And even if I was late for school, like one time I was walking through the park and I was late. So, and she was walking me before she had to go to work. And I was like, mom, look, there's King Kong. And instead of her saying,

no, no, we're late. Let's go. She said, where, you know, she engaged, right? So we walked all the way over and it was just a log, you know, a tree that was down. But the idea that she let me imagine and believe and didn't want to stifle that, that's what made her so incredible. How were you introduced to magic or magic tricks? When I was about five years old, my mother gave me a deck of cards and I would carry it everywhere that I went. It just was like a treasure to me. And I would go to the library and wait for my mother to finish work and pick me up. And one of the librarians one day walked me through a simple book of magic, self-working stuff.

And when my mother came and I did it to her and she went crazy, I became obsessed with doing magic and getting her reaction and then getting her friend's reaction. So I never did it for the other kids because they would have been really difficult brutal. Yeah So I was lucky I just did it to my mother's friends Did you want to be a magician from that point onward or what did you think you were gonna be when you're little what did your Mom think you when I was five I said to my mom. I'm gonna be a magician one day and she went that's amazing So you've stuck to the script like you I'm going to be a magician one day. And she went, that's amazing. So I believe. So you've stuck to the script. Yeah, stuck to it.

How has she affected how you live your life today? I mean, I think part of it, she was so brave. You know, when she got sick when I was a teenager and fought cancer, and she fought without a complaint. She was very tough. But the way she approached suffering and death was almost like she was so graceful about it that I was curious, you know, the suffering that she endured and how she found so much beauty out of it. I think that was like one of the sort of planted

the seed to, you know, what is there on this other side of enduring things that are... And not viewing it as just a bad thing. And were you... You were with her when she passed? Yeah, she died in my arm. I can't even imagine. That was... I remember at that moment, I felt like my body was like one big twig, and it was like... snapped.

And I became really afraid to connect like that to anybody else. How did besides the you know putting the armor on or not wanting to necessarily connect in that way did anything else change? But I think also at that point that's when I became fearless because at that point I felt like I had nothing to lose. So when I was 19 or 20 or something like that, I was at the airport and my bag was missing and I saw a whole bunch of identical bags coming out and there was all these guys dressed in identical jumpers

and I was like, I think you guys have one of my bags because I have the exact same bag. It was a Tumi bag. They said, go ask him. Knock on the window. And it was a limousine, a white limo parked out front with tinted windows. And I knock on the window. And the thing rolls down. And Mike Tyson's there with his fist up.

He's like, you got a problem? And I was like, holy shit. No, Mike, you're like my favorite person. And I grew up, da, da, da. So he says, jump in. So I jump in the limo with him, and we drive to the hotel he's staying at. And I'm doing magic to him. It's amazing.

And along the way, he says to me, he says, you know, I wasn't supposed to be the heavyweight champ. He's like, I didn't have, I wasn't tall enough. I didn't have long arms. He's like, but I had nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain. And I was kind of like, that was like another, like great piece of information from Mike Tyson. So you, I mean, these, these types of encounters just blow my mind. Cause if I look at like your chronology, so at 18, I think it was, uh, and I don't know if this was a milestone chronology, at 18, I think it was, and I don't know if this was a milestone or not,

but I believe this is when you jumped a turnstile, got in some trouble for that? Yeah. Can you tell people about this? I was doing magic in restaurants, and it started as a waiter where I would do magic, and then people wanted to come back and just see me doing magic, so I started walking up and down Park Avenue and trying to get different fancy restaurants to hire me, not hire me, let me do magic to the people that were dining and then they

would tip me. As I started doing that, I started getting hired by wealthy New Yorkers to do their parties and things like that. One night I jumped over a turnstile, and that's when Giuliani was sweeping everybody. So I got locked up, but as I was going there, I kept breaking out of the cuffs for the cops, so they liked it.

Cops love that, by the way. I'm kidding. They actually do. Oh, do they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have to pause. So you're like, hey, guys, these aren't working. How do they respond to that?

Yeah, no, no, they're all good. They know that I'm not really a threat, but, you know, so it's good. They know they just have to go through the motions. Yeah, so I get put in central booking, and central booking is crazy. It's like everybody's in and out of Rikers, so it's like a tough room, and you're being moved from one cell to another, and there's like 40 guys in there. And I'm like, oh man, I'm going to get my ass kicked. So the four biggest guys are sitting on the ground playing spades. So I walk up to them and grab the deck of cards from them. And I'm like, let me show you something. They're

ready to kill me. And I start doing magic. And then what happened was they started to go crazy. And these are the toughest guys in the cell. So then the whole cell is around me, you know, 30 guys or 20 some guys all going crazy. And then the guards come in and everybody was reacting to me doing that. Like they were all going crazy again. I was like, whoa. So these people on Park Avenue, these super powerful people, and then in prison, these guys, the reactions are so amazing and so similar. I want to show that. So that became the impetus for the first TV show, which was called Street Magic. You know the guys that do three-card money, right?

Right. All right, this is that game for you right now. Not for me, bro. No, no, no money. No money. This is just pretend. Instead of three cards, hold your fingers like this, so hold your fingers like this. Look, watch. This card, right? Remember diamonds. Forget ace, just diamonds. Hold

it parallel. What card do you have? What? What card is that? Can I look at it? Yeah, but name it, name it. What is it? Ace of diamonds. Diamonds, just diamonds. Look, show it to them, make sure it's all right. Bingo, bingo. All right, show it to them too. Bingo, bango. Bingo, bango. Cool, man. Hold it like this, look. Lower, lower, lower. Watch.

This one, same thing. Just remember hearts. Forget ace, just hearts. Watch this switch, ready? See, I switched it. Look, I'll do it again. See it switch back. Just switch twice so quick you didn't see it.

Sorry. Get up off my shoe, Hunter. Sorry, sorry. You got to switch. Yeah, switch twice. Look, I'll do it so you can see it. Look, here's the move. See how the borders line up? Don't put it on the bottom., Hunter. Sorry. Sorry. You got it switched? Yeah, it switched twice. Look, I'll do it so you can see it. Look, here's the move.

See how the borders line up? Don't put it on the bottom. No, I'm sure I'm teaching you. I know I'm teaching you right now. That's how I do it. Hold it tight though to make it impossible now. I got it tight. Because you know the move.

I have diamonds. Ready? Right. Without looking at it, what would you bet on? Hearts or diamonds? I can't bet. I can't get no money. All right, but pretend bet.

Would you bet hearts here or hearts here? Or could I impress you if the heart was on top, diamonds on bottom? The heart's on top because you had the heart. Turn your hand over. Nope. Go ahead, turn your hand over. You're a clown, Joe! You're a clown, you bitch! Everybody thinks they're so different,

but really there's also generalities among people, so you can really kind of look at a group and you can estimate which person's going to react a certain way and you get better and better as the more you do it now it's kind of like what psychics do sorry like psychics basically when you walk in they profile you right away and they've done it so many times that they can kind of cold read what you do where you're from what you're looking for whether you're skeptical whether you're not so it's like you just learn to read people. Read the cues. Yeah. What are some lines

or approaches that you use when you just cold approach somebody? There was a magician named Harvey Cohen that I used to love. He taught me so much. And he would approach people when he would do magic. And he would say he was very fumbly with the cards but while he was fumbling cards he was secretly like loading cards in your pocket doing all this stuff so he'd kind of approach with this non-approach it wasn't like look i'm a magician i'm going to amaze you it was almost like he couldn't hold the card so you'd be like hoping that he was going to succeed and then then at the end when you thought everything had gone wrong and there's two cards in your pocket and one on the, you know, so it was like the approach

that I always like to do in magic is the opposite of what a magician would do. Because I always imagined if somebody could really do magic, they wouldn't really have big patter. They would kind of be fumbling. They'd say, look at this thing, and then just do something. Right. So that was always the approach, was simple. Simple and understated, I think, is the best approach. At what point did you go to acting school? You did go to acting school. Yeah, I went with Brian Callen, who was amazing. I learned so much from him.

He was incredible. How did you decide to go to acting school? Well, you know, there's a famous quote that Orson Welles said, but it's from Robert Houdin, where he says, a magician is just an actor playing the part of a magician. So at that time I was a close-up magician. There was really no, there was no business in it. There was no way to make a living at it. So I figured I would study acting and take it seriously and maybe apply it to magic and see what happens. And it was a really valuable year because what you learn in acting school is living truthfully in a given imaginary circumstance. So it's interesting because when

you apply that to magic, it's like instead of these are just tricks, you kind of like almost believe what you're seeing on some level, not believe it like, ah, how do I do that? But you kind of play into that as opposed to the silly pattern, the silly trick in it. I feel like the magic comes to life that way. It makes a performance more interesting. One of the best things Brian taught me there, he was an early mentor to me. One of the quotes that his dad gave to him is always surround yourself with people that will inspire you or help you grow. And that was just a great piece of advice from him. I took that very seriously and pursued people that I looked up to or that I admired and tried to learn things from them since I didn't have really, you know, a father figure or anything like that.

Did you look for father figures kind of throughout that adolescent period or was it more surrounding yourself with peers? No, well, I mean, early on, I would read about all the people I looked up to. And, you know, that was kind of like my college was finding people that did things that I was really amazed by and then learning as much as I could. And then what I started doing is I started finding all the books on Nobel Prize winners, and then in literature specifically, and then I would read what books they recommended, and then I would read the books that they recommended, and on the back of that book, it would be what this book was influenced by. So I started going through lots of that stuff. The original hyperlinks. Yeah. When did you start fasting, and why?

I've been obsessed with fasting since I was a kid, but I think it started when my mother gave me Siddhartha to read, the Herman Hesse book. And I read it when I was 11 years old. And in it, he fasts and he stands and he does these things where he sees the world in a different way and he realizes that he can control his body and with his mind. So that was the beginning of the seed of the curiosity. And then loving the way you feel when you fast, like colors change, the blues become vibrant, you notice the sky, you become more emotional. So I took everything away and it was incredible. So the fasting, so Siddhartha is one of my favorite books. Really?

Absolutely. And I remember... Have you guys read that? It's a short read. It's amazing. It's a short read. And I remember at least in two instances. So he's trying to court this noble woman, I think she is. And he's also trying to get a job with a merchant at one point.

And they ask him, because he's effectively at least acting the part of monk at the time. They say, well, what can you give? What can you do? And he said, I can think, I can wait, and I can fast. And he talks about the value of not being beholden to food. And he says, for instance, if you asked me to work for you right now and I needed food, I'd have to say yes to whatever you offer me. Because since I can fast, I can think about it more rationally.

But I've done seven and 10 day fasts. I've never gone as far as you have, but it's incredible when you click over from carbohydrate dependent to pulling on your fat stores. I mean, cognitively, everything changes. It's very, very interesting. It's hard to go. Like you can't go back to how it was before in terms of viewing food and so on. Yeah, it's totally different looking back over your stunts all the magic the endurance feats Which ended up being more dangerous than you expected or scarier than expected?

probably the 44 days with the water fast in London in a box because I think I went into mild organ failure and I dropped a 33% BMI, which was well documented, but it was the recovery on that. I think to this day, it's still screwed up my metabolism and my weight goes up and down really fast and it did real damage. It's a vitamin deficiency, so the pigment leaves. David Blaine, who has been there 44 days. No food, only water. Yeah, I lost 60 pounds in 44 days. The Plexiglas diet.

Not recommended. Not recommended. Any way, shape, or form. Your dietician will not have this on the multiple choice options. What did your refeeding look like after that? Well, that was a really interesting part. So after I did the 44 days, I was rushed to the hospital where I stayed for, I think, two weeks. When they started refeeding me, I think my phosphate levels jumped out of control,

and I almost went into shock and died, and that was the refeeding syndrome. We published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine about the refeeding syndrome, which is because most hunger strikers in the past, they do it and they're very anti-government, anti, you know, it's for a statement, whereas I just did it as a performance piece. And therefore I was was willing to give all my blood and all my urine to doctors and let them use it as research. So it actually became useful in the sense that there was a real documented study of the prolonged effects of fasting. 44 days. Or starvation, yeah Were there any any of your performances on the flip side that you thought were gonna be very difficult or very scary that were? Easier than expected for you for whatever reason

Nope What does magic mean to you because you do so much more than magic. I mean, you really have sort of a full stack performer kit at your disposal. But what does magic mean to you? And for me, it's just a beautiful performance art. Like it's something where, and it's also like you learn a really difficult skill. It defies logic. And then you have an immediate reaction to it so it's something you can do almost anywhere anytime and it's also a constant pursuit of information but information that

isn't readily available so it's like you have to dig up history you read about a guy that had done something from 100 years ago he died took his secrets to the grave. So you spend years trying to understand how he did it. And it's trial and error, practice, repetition. And then finally, all of a sudden, you're able to do these things that you had only read about. One was called The Human Aquarium, which is about a guy that could convert his body into an aquarium where he could store creatures. Another was... Yeah, I'm not kidding. This is a real trick.

Yeah, another was a magician. So he put a sturgeon in his mouth and regurgitated it? Well, anything, yeah. Anything that could live in water and land. But then you also find there's another guy that was the human dragon, and he could drink kerosene. It would float on top of a gallon of water in his stomach.

And then he would blow fireballs out of his mouth, igniting a huge fire. And then just when he thought that was the end, he'd use a gallon of water that was stored in his stomach and put out the fire. But of course, one time he did it wrong and died. And took his secrets to the grave so you know inadvertently yeah but so i see the footage i'm like i want to do that you know so i spent like 20 years trying to figure it out and i couldn't because there was no nobody nobody had the secrets so i was like oh man maybe this isn't such a smart idea so we. So we're going to pull up this video involving an ice pick. You can see how complex and how dangerous

to take an object and put it through your hand is. And especially where David is doing it, there's a whole complex of arteries there. You want me to pull it out? Yeah. Gnarly. Look at it. Nothing. Just a hole.

No blood. Nothing. Just a hole. There's not even any blood on this thing either. Nothing. Explain that one, Dr. Rubin. Okay. I don't think that deserves applause.

I think that deserves, like, you're out of your mind. Condemnation. Off the stage. But ironically Before I leave I brought another thing similar that I have an x-ray of that I'll show you that I recently learned so I'll show it to you before I go Yeah, it's a little crazier than this one I think the only way that I can even begin to approach talking about that is let's assume that It's totally real like you actually figured out how to put that through your head. That's the

The only place I can go with it. What is your self-talk when you're practicing that? Well, I mean, Houdini used to do this thing where he'd push pins through his face and then pull them all out, swallow razor blades, pull them out threaded. But I'm not threaded, but there are ways to do things that are real that, you know, you would assume it can't be done because you would assume that you're going to bleed. But there's a way to, and I started with acupuncture needles, just trying to see if you could go straight through. I had x-rays taken, MRs, you know, the whole thing so I could know where all the blood vessels and everything lie. And then I found a sweet spot and just started, you know, slowly figuring out how to go through the hand. Is there any particular trick or stunt that has obsessed you for a long time that you have not yet been able to figure out? Yeah, the craziest one, I've been obsessed with the idea of sleep deprivation

yeah because no but when you do sleep deprivation like the the native americans would do it and they would you get this really incredible hallucination vision quest yeah so it's like any i've done like five and a half days of no sleep and that for me hallucinations start to really kick in at like 55 hours if i'm standing up the whole time and it's a really rough environment. And even though it's scary, it's also like you're having these dreams and these nightmares, but you're awake. But the North Koreans used it as an ultimate form of torture on the Americans when they were hostages. And many of those hostages came back tweaked for life so it's like there is what is the breaking point the the risk benefit right analysis may not be in your favor

so i remember at one point it's one of my favorite parks in new york city bryant park was that where you were on top yeah i was gonna stand on this pillar for a day and a half with no food, no water, and nothing to catch me if I fell. My legs are numb, my back is numb, but at the end of this hour I'm gonna jump. I'm gonna jump straight down. Hopefully I'll survive. I remember reading at one point that, talking about hallucinations, the buildings became like wolf heads yeah animal heads yeah animal heads you look back they see the shapes of just normal buildings and you suddenly think wow that looks like a lion so i was up there for like 36 hours but i started hallucinating at

like hour 30 but just light hallucinations so the buildings that were behind me that were perfectly flat i started looking at it was like wow I didn't know those buildings were lion heads. That's a light hallucinator? Yeah, that's light. So the people below that were working on the thing and the people at ABC suddenly decided that there's no way I was going to hit my target. So they built this huge thing of boxes. It was enormous, which pissed me off. And I ended up jumping and hitting the mark. But that was during mild hallucinations.

Have you ever learned anything from your hallucinations? Very curious. I'm not trying to imply that you have to have. Yeah, for sure. Just curious, because I'm in my mind comparing it to, say, some descriptions of the psychedelic experience. No, also you have that as well, but one of the things that I did learn is out of anything

that I did that was extremely difficult, when your brain starts to go, like when you start to lose control of your mind, there's nothing is horrific imaginable so it's like i never understood when somebody has mental illness i never understood how severe that is but it's like when i go through those things and it's like all of a sudden the world becomes scary because you don't have control anymore and i I learned that, like, now anybody that I meet that has any kind of mental illness in any way, I'm extremely compassionate to it. Not just compassionate, but I'm like,

yeah, this is the craziest thing ever. When that starts to set in, have you developed any strategies to cope with it? Well, that's interesting because basically what happens is your brain is trying to trick you. So the brain knows that you need sleep so the brain can recover and your immune system, everything is built. So what happens is when you're staying awake, even if you have people helping you, your brain is coming at you with your biggest fears and anything that is your weakness, your brain is trying to say this is happening to you and you need to go to sleep. Otherwise this is going to get worse and worse. So you start seeing like blemishes appearing all, but they're not there. You see your hand

change into spider webs, like everything that would freak you out so you would decide I can't do this anymore is going. So you have to do it often enough and have a very sensitive, careful team around you that are guiding you almost, that teach you how to override what your brain is trying to tell you to do. That's pretty wild. Also a trained skill. Do you have any fears? I mean, what are you afraid of or what makes you anxious? Anything? I don't, I'm not, I don't, well, first of all, I used to be horrified of insects. I would see like a cockroach. Ah! But I think I learned that from my mother because she was really afraid of bugs. But then I went to Botswana, Africa, and I was sleeping in this little tent with these hippos circling the tent all night,

and you're there by yourself, and you're in this little tent filled with spiders and all these bugs, and they become like your good friends because these hippos could chomp you in half in one second. I mean, you're mentioning something that I think is really worth underscoring because it seems to have come up a couple of times, which is if you're afraid of something, you can try to think your way out of it or you can just expose yourself to it and sort of inoculate yourself with these small doses. So if someone, for instance, Cato, was considered the perfect stoic, and he cared how people judged him at one point. He was very concerned with how other people felt about him, so he started wearing odd-colored clothing and so on so that he would get ridiculed.

He did it on purpose so that he could practice not caring about being embarrassed about things unless they were truly important. And practicing poverty, similar idea. Even, you take Seneca or some of these other famous Stoics, and they would take a certain period of time and eat the cheapest of food, sleep on a hard floor. Sleep on a bare floor. Exactly.

So that they would know, is this the condition I so feared, is what they would ask themselves. So I want to pull up some audience questions from Twitter. This is at T-Y-K-O-E. What are somewhat average things that you can't do despite all attempts? Dance. Karaoke. Karaoke, God, yeah, that's a tough one. Not much.

I always do. Nothing but a hound dog. I don't know why. It's like my default. I'm like, I can't do karaoke, but that's my go-to. It's like wearing the odd clothes. So you can be a stoic. We should just go out and karaoke until we're...

I'm up for it. I'd be hard watching, at least. The next question is somewhat related to what we were just talking about. What is your secret reserve of strength when you feel that your body or mind can't push through? That's a really good question. So what I do is a lot of it is based on numbers. So I create and I run it across the board. So it's like if I'm going to run a 10K, I make sure that I get not just to the 6.2, but I'll go always further, like maybe to 7, or I'll pick a number that's important. And then I have these superstitions that if I don't get to this number, something that's based on numbers, you can use the halfway mark,

like, okay, I'm going to get to 22 days of a fast, but I know I have 44 days. So first I reach the 22-day mark, and then I start counting backwards. I said, well, I already did half, so that half, so now I could pretend I'm starting fresh, so I have 22 days to go, so let me get through another 11 days. Let me get through. And it's basically just breaking it down in little chunks but making sure that you get to that finish line. Didn't you do something or have a very similar superstition when you were a kid in school, really, like your school bus?

You had to do certain things, pull a leaf off a tree or something terrible would happen. Yeah, I would stop and there'd be a leaf that was just out of reach when you jump. And I'd just keep jumping and jumping. And then I'd have to put something down until I got that. Just little things. But it's weird because for me, it was almost like training. Because I'd set a goal that was very difficult. And then I just wouldn't quit until I got it.

And part of it was the superstition of doing this ridiculous thing that has no meaning, but just not quitting until it's done. This one's from Facebook. This is Patrick Makuka Zagambo. I like this question. I have 90 days to practice to perform a close-up magic event. What skills should I focus on to maximize my results in such a small time frame? I mean, the way I do it is not the way others do it. But what I like

to do is I like to commit to something and put myself in the hot seat because I already committed to doing something that I'm not ready for. So like your thing, when you did a week to get ready to do something, so you're all in because you have no choice. So even just when I do certain big magic stunts or feats, I announce them before I do them. And then I work diligently to get there. So I would say find a few things that you really like, work on them, research them, learn how to do them, and they're going to be very messy. Keep working until you start to figure out how to do it among friends and family, just

let me try this, try it, try it over and over, and then go out, maybe to a friend's party or wherever you are, and try it over and over and over and over. And after you fail a few hundred times, you might start to become okay at it. Yeah. And I find also with a lot of these questions like this, I think you made a great point. People are looking for more information or some type of particular way of training. But what they really need is just social accountability and the incentive, right?

So if you publicly announce it, you will figure out how to make it work. You're committed to it. I have a buddy, A.J. Jacobs. He lives in New York. He's a writer for Esquire, a really good guy. And he couldn't lose weight despite all of his attempts. And he wasn't obese. He described his physique as a python that swallowed a goat, just kind of like middle-aged paunch. Like in the little prints.

Yeah. And he wanted, and he wanted to fix it. And so, and he, and he, he had all the diet books. He just wasn't doing it. So he, he's, he's a Jewish guy. He wrote a check, I believe it was to the American Nazi party for like a thousand dollars, gave it to either one of his best friends or his wife and said, if I don't lose like 20 pounds by the end of next month, I want you to mail this in. In which case his name would be on the record, like public records having donated to this organization. Lo and behold, he lost the weight. So I think the accountability is such a huge part of it. What are you learning right now, Josh Anderson on Facebook? What am I learning learning currently so what i'm working on is

i'm trying to figure out how to put together a stage show because i've never really conquered that and and haven't done it in a way that i feel is right yet so i've been working just getting up on like little comedy stages and and and trying out different things. And the idea of being able to do something in an intimate room and then also in a bigger room, that's my goal. So that's the thing I'm working on diligently and I'm most consumed with right now. And it's a big learning curve. You need to do thousands of shows before you really figure out what you're doing.

So it's hard to get that time and space necessary, but that's my big goal. Working on your material. Yeah, figuring out how to work it. I remember watching a comedian in the documentary with Jerry Seinfeld and also another up-and-comer. It was so sobering and reassuring to watch because you see Seinfeld, who's one of the biggest stars in the world at that point, and then he goes back to work on new material as a stand-up, and you just see him bomb.

You see him bomb in these little venues, and he just forgets his lines. He just sits there on stage, and he's like, one minute, trying to remember his lines. It's just excruciating, but it's reassuring in the sense that you're like, okay, this guy, it's not like he just wakes up in the morning with a finished one-hour set. No.

You just have to put in the time to hone it and refine it. So when you think of the word or hear the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind for you? My mother. She was a schoolteacher, and she came from a very powerful family, left her family, moved to Brooklyn, decided to do social work and teach and things like that. And she was really incredible and really cared about doing and helping and giving. And so to me, that's, that's like the greatest thing you can do. So she was in that regard, extremely successful. What's success to you personally? When, when you give as much as, as you, you know, I think like, um, Bill Gates is a great example

because he, he's made so much money, but he basically figured out that he knows that he can figure out how to give it better than most institutions can. So he directs his money outwards. So it's not like I want to have so much. It's like, I want to amass this amount so that I can give it to the right places. I think that's really important. And, um, you know, for me personally, it's like one of my favorite stories. So around Thanksgiving, whenever I can, I go to BAMC, which is the Brook Army Medical Center. And I go into the burn unit there where all the kids that are burnt from the war and just terrible tragedies.

So every year that I would go, I'd try to get everybody that I can. And one year, there was a kid named Victor who was 21 and a really handsome kid that got blown up in a Humvee. And when he was rushed to the hospital, he had basically been burnt exactly on half of his face and the top of his head, but half of his face was completely burnt. The other half was perfect. And he wouldn't go out. He wouldn't interact with the other people. He stayed in his room. He was more angry that he was suddenly burnt on half his face than the actual losing the fingers, losing the ears, all that stuff. And I asked the nurse,

have I done it? She said, yeah, but there's one kid, but he won't see anybody. He won't even talk to the nurses. He won't meet with the therapist, nothing. I said, bring me to him. She said, no, no, no, he won't see anybody. I said, just bring me to him. So she asked his mother who was standing in the room with him all the time, dying inside. And the mother's like, sure. I mean, my son's not going to talk to him, but sure. I walk in and he's like stone face. He won't even look at me. Let me try. And I grab his hand, which people don't touch him like that. Like, like, like nothing's wrong. So I grab his hand, let me show you something and hold your hand out. And I start doing magic to him. And all of a sudden, because I'm not treating him like he was disfigured, suddenly I see him interested. Then I keep going and he cracks a little smile and I see his mother when that happens bawling

in the corner but holding it in so I'm like fighting my hardest not to cry anyway I could completely finish doing magic to the guy put my hat on his head which you should not do because it's open wounds and I leave the hospital content that now I've done magic to everybody, including the guy that didn't want to see me. And then I decide to come back the next morning, the day after Thanksgiving. And the mother comes out and she's bawling. And she says to me, when she sees me, she's like, right when right when you left my son let the nurses put him in a wheelchair and he went out with the other guys and he started his physical therapy so it was like just that little bit of like being can

treating him like there was nothing this way and so I came back the next year and he had had all this so So he looked really good. He had all this reconstructive surgery and it was in Texas. And I took him out for dinner and then to a strip club. We had the time of our lives. It was amazing. Wow. All right.

It's hard to follow that up with just about anything. But what is your, if you have one, your end goal with magic? What keeps driving you? I think the ultimate goal is just I always want to just bring magic to the people. Just bring magic in a good way or in a new way or in a different way. So that's the end goal. Yeah, maybe we should try something in here yeah we can try something in here you guys want to try something live all right so how should we

how should we begin can i take the uh the x-ray so one of the new things that i've been working on. Might be hard to see, but I'll let you hold this up. So this is an x-ray. Can you all make it out somewhat? Can you all see what that is? See, yeah, there's a sword that I recently learned how to push all the way inside. Like a sword swallower, basically. And I learned it to work on one new trick so if I could yeah good so here's my little now you guys are seeing this when it's brand new

so and this is much bigger than the one in the picture the one in the picture is actually pretty thin and the esophagus is is very very. So I'm going to try to push this down inside. And lots of people assume when sword swallows do what they do that it's a trick, but it's really not. I recently learned that in studying this. I don't know if I'm going to succeed, but we'll try. You gotta come closer though. To make sure it's real. Thank you. I'm not going to have him try it yet.

I'm going to give Tim a week to learn it. Let me give this. It might have some food and stuff. No, I'm just kidding. Should we try this one other thing? I'll let Tim help. So there's something else I've been working on, which is a strength thing. Just because you're the closest, do you want to help with this?

Do you mind? You'll have to jump up on stage? I'll give you, here. Good. So, one of the things I've been obsessed with is just feats of strength. But Tim, can you mix the deck? Shuffle it up.

Not very good. Let him shuffle too. But you agree that they're all shuffled, there's no order, nothing like that, yes? So Tim, I'm going to give you like a quarter of the deck. Okay. Just tear it in half. Exactly. Oh God, here we go. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna give you a like a quarter of the deck. Yeah, just Yeah, like yeah tear it in half exactly. Oh god. Here we go That's

Altogether so it's one neat grip and make it neat all together. Oh my god I'm gonna mess this up. No, but put them like like this flat and then yeah, and then rip it so it's one unit Otherwise you're ripping one card at a time. That's the only way I can do it So it's difficult it's difficult so I'm gonna teach you the technique right now So the idea is this so see I pinch here then, and it's almost like pretty simple. See? That was very cool. But, okay, you know what?

Which half do you want? This one. Okay, so take that. And now do this for me. Pick up a bunch of cards, put them on bottom. Yep, and put them on the bottom. Good. And do it again.

Pick up a bunch of cards, put them on the bottom. Good. And do it again. Pick up a bunch of cards, put them on the bottom. Good. And do it again. Pick up a bunch of cards, put them on the bottom. Good. And do. Cut, pick up a bunch of cards, put them on bottom. Yep, and put them on the bottom. Good. And do it again. Pick up a bunch, put them on bottom. Great. Now every time you do that, the top and the bottom card and the middle cards, everything is going to change.

Understood? So every time you do it, the order changes. Yep. This time, I want you to do it behind your back. So behind your back, I want you to cut the deck, complete the cut, and then keep them behind your back. Good? And they're slippery. Don't let them spill. And take either the top piece or the bottom piece and hide it in your pocket. Either the top or the bottom, it's up to you. And we don't need the rest of the big pile. Good. So here's the idea.

Can I give you these? Yes. So just to show you that they are shuffled, you did mix everything up, correct? Yes. Yes. I'm going to have you just choose one from inside. Okay, actually we'll do a few. So here, you just reach in and pull.

Yeah, pull. One or two? One is fine. Now let me just say something. Most people would go for the obvious card, like the ace of spades, or even the king. You didn't do that. You shifted. You went to a card that was not obvious. What card was it? The nine? The seven of spades? So when you chose, you had the choice and you shifted around and pulled one. But behind your back, you didn't know what you chose. You just pulled the card without looking and hid it in your pocket. Correct? So you have half of a card in your pocket,

and there's another half of a card in your hand. You want me to take it out? Sure. Let everybody see. Put them together, see if they fit. David Blaine, everybody. If you had a huge billboard, you could put anything on it, something short, meaning get a message out to the world, what would you put on it? I mean, it's the last thing that my mother said to me is God is love.

What does that mean to you? Well, to me, it means like love is the ultimate God. So like loving everything and everybody and not being filled with hate or animosity or fear and trying to find love to me, that's like, that's the ultimate in life. David Blaine, you're amazing. Guys, give it up for David Blaine. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and

two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before

you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog.com slash Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog.com slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.