Transcript: Mentalist Oz Pearlman on The Diary Of A CEO Podcast

Why should they watch this?

I’ve studied you. That’s what I do for a living. And I have something for you. And on Dragon’s Den, I love when you make an offer. I love the visual of the moment where you can change someone’s life, right? A founder, you evaluate their company, you make them an offer.

So this is an offer, but it’s not for now. You have to stick around till the end. If you open it now, it’ll be meaningless. At the end of this podcast, you’re going to open this piece of paper and I think it’s going to be something you will talk about for years to come.

Put it somewhere, maybe right under your mug where it never leaves our sight, and we’re going to come back to this later.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I’m going to put it—

OZ PEARLMAN: You know what this is? It’s your future.

STEVEN BARTLETT: This is my future, one hundred percent.

OZ PEARLMAN: Don’t open it yet. You don’t want to know your future yet.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And why should they stick around and listen?

OZ PEARLMAN: Oh, because trust me, you don’t want to miss the rest of this. Otherwise you’ll have to see the highlights. Put it somewhere we see it the whole time.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Okay, so I’ll put it—

OZ PEARLMAN: I’ll put it here or under your mug or anywhere. We never lose sight of it. Wonderful.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I’ll put my mug on top of it. For anyone that can’t see because there will be some people listening on audio, he’s just passed me a white piece of folded up card and I’ve put it underneath my mug.

OZ PEARLMAN: It’s an offer you can’t refuse.

Building Trust and Transparency

STEVEN BARTLETT: Listen, guys, we’re not colluding. I remember watching the Joe Rogan episode and wondering whether you and Joe Rogan had colluded to do the thing, because it blew my mind.

So my objective today is to be completely honest with my audience. And also, if I see you do something, do you want me to say it?

OZ PEARLMAN: For sure.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Okay. Do you actually want me to say it?

OZ PEARLMAN: I mean, I guess so while I’m here.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Okay, fine. Okay.

OZ PEARLMAN: I mean, they trust you. Why do people listen to you? Great interview questions, but they trust you. That’s how you build an audience.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, I’d feel bad if I duped them. And what is it that you think you know that the average person doesn’t know about the human condition?

Understanding How People Think

OZ PEARLMAN: I know how people think. So I think what I learned at a certain point were skills that are for success in life. Let me explain to you.

The fear of rejection is something that I think is the number one factor between failure and success. Most people don’t try to achieve their goals because they’re fearful of what will happen if they fail. Or they set themselves up for failure instead of for success.

What do I mean by that? When I was 14, I’d walk up to you at a restaurant. I talked my way into getting a restaurant gig because I’d been doing magic tricks since I was 13. And I started learning by iterating what makes people, when I walk up to them, comfortable with me, what makes them uncomfortable.

I started learning how people think and it’s down to the smallest little nuances. I learned that if I approach you directly, the same way that animals fear you when they see two eyes versus if I turn ever so slightly and approach your table at an angle, you only see one eye.

We’re hardwired from thousands and thousands of years of avoiding predators that one eye is less danger. Animals aren’t as fearful of you. So I walk up to you, I create time limits.

I learned quickly that if I walk up, the first thing someone thinks is, “Oh, my God, is he going to be here long?” The next thing is, “Do they even know this kid’s working here? Is he any good at this? Oh, God, I need money. Do I have to tip him? I didn’t bring cash.”

All of these thoughts that go through your minds, they’re known as heuristics. It’s how we deal with our life every day. And if you can know what somebody’s thinking, not to perform a mentalist trick, but know what they’re thinking when they meet you, or when you ask your boss for a raise, or when you ask a girl or a guy out on a date, you knowing that is a huge tactical advantage.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And specifically, how would you do that? What would you say?

The Power of Preparation and Positive Framing

OZ PEARLMAN: What I would say is in my mind as a mentalist, what I do most is prepare. I prepare in advance for what will work, what won’t work, and all the troubleshoots in between. Plan A, B, C, D, all the way to Z.

So in that situation, every time I learned something new, I learned quickly that people didn’t know if I was working at the restaurant. “Am I just some kid who walked up to you? Well, who is this?”

So I walk at an angle so they know I might be leaving soon. I’m one foot in, I’m one foot out. I would then say to you, “Did you hear what’s going on tonight? It’s your lucky day.”

Right away, that’s a different thing. That’s a dopamine hit. That’s the same way when your phone buzzes. That’s why we’re hooked. “Who texted me? What does this say? Is this a like? Is this a comment?” That’s that lottery.

By me saying to you a question that denotes positive energy without a yes or no, you don’t have a way to stop me. If I said, “Hey, do you want to see me do magic?” “No. Get out of here.” Boom. We’re done.

Asking people questions that are open ended, that are inherently positive, almost always generates a great response. “Did you hear why it’s your lucky night?” “Oh, why is it my lucky night?”

And I say, “The owner brought me in as a special treat to do something amazing for you.” So now listen to this. The owner, they know I’m working there. The owner brought me in. I know the owner. Social value, social currency as a special treat. That means you don’t need to pay me money. They’ve paid the bill. Amazing.

And then to show you something amazing. So I’ve given you no point at which to say no. I’ve given you very few angles to think anything but positive. And I’ve done this all in hopefully less than 10 seconds. That’s the intro.

Now, you better have your A game. I better have a trick that’s going to blow them away and capture their attention.

Creating the Positive Curiosity Gap

STEVEN BARTLETT: So let’s just pause there for a second because I think everybody, whether you’re a content creator or you’re working in sales or you’re interviewing people to join your company. What I heard there was you created this positive curiosity gap. Where immediately—and that’s also what MrBeast does at the start of his videos.

OZ PEARLMAN: The hook instantly. Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s like a positive curiosity gap where you need that gap closed. And you said, in that case, “They brought me in. Have you heard what’s happening tonight?”

OZ PEARLMAN: Yep.

STEVEN BARTLETT: “It’s amazing. You brought me in as a treat to do something amazing.” Immediately, I need to know what this is.

OZ PEARLMAN: What is this?

STEVEN BARTLETT: And I don’t want you to leave. And then you’d blow them away somehow.

OZ PEARLMAN: I blow them away. But the lessons to be learned from there are things that I’ve used for the rest of my life. And they apply so much to today’s day and age, where what is the currency of our time? Attention.

This very moment that someone’s listening and watching can allow you to blow up a business. We have never been in an era where your phone, having a phone can allow you to become a global superstar, to launch a business. It’s like a hundred years ago, this didn’t exist, this option.

So knowing how to connect with people on an emotional level and then knowing what does your audience want? That’s what I learned early on. Just knowing how people think and using that to entertain them.

Reading Body Language and Behavior

STEVEN BARTLETT: How much of it is based on my body language, how much of it is based on how I behave? And I say that because the audience, they’re all professionals working in their careers and they’re very keen to better understand people through observation.

OZ PEARLMAN: Sure.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Whether it’s their team members or whether it’s clients or whoever it might be. So I’m wondering if there’s anything I can learn to be a better observer of the people in my life.

OZ PEARLMAN: Absolutely. So for my performances, let’s break this down. I’m an entertainer. That’s what I do for a living. And now, after many years, people ask me, “How do you do it? How do you do it?” I’ve realized you don’t want to know how I do it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You don’t?

OZ PEARLMAN: Really. If I were to guess. Let’s do something fun. You have a deck of cards?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: Let’s just sweeten the deal. These are your cards, correct? This is not—I’ve not touched these. There’s no magic trick involved.

STEVEN BARTLETT: These are all cards? Yes.

The Invisible Deck Demonstration

OZ PEARLMAN: Here’s what I’d like to try for you. Put them down in front of you, please. You’ve mixed them up. Do you want to mix them some more?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yes, I do.

OZ PEARLMAN: Please mix them as much as you’d like.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Just say that because I just saw—

OZ PEARLMAN: No, don’t say a word.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Okay. There you go.

OZ PEARLMAN: The moment I touch those cards, my brain flips a switch and goes, “This is a magic trick.” That’s what I know. I know that archetype. I’m not touching those cards. I couldn’t care less about those cards.

Imagine that in front of you instead was an invisible pack of cards. Steven, this is where I changed gears, where years ago, I spent hours and hours learning sleight of hand.

Pick up the invisible deck, please. Just pretend, just like that. And I want you to spread them out in front of you, face down. You can’t see them.

And, Steven, you close your eyes, you reach down, and here’s the part where we can’t collude because they’re invisible. And you don’t know what you’re about to do, much less me.

And I want you to reach down and imagine you just grab a card at random, face down. Do it for me now, please. And stop right there. Freeze.

Have I told you what to do at this moment? Have I said anything? Is there any way that you could know what card you just picked in your hand? Or I could know, or any of this?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No.

OZ PEARLMAN: No. This is spontaneous, impulsive, and in the moment. It’s the gold standard for what I do. Don’t say a word. Look at it. Look at me. Just think. The cards are red, they’re black. There’s the hearts, the diamonds, the clubs and the spades. There’s the number cards. There’s the big cards. Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King. Close your eyes. That’s it.

I’m going to take these cards that are next to you. Oops, sorry. And I’d like you to keep your eyes closed if you don’t mind, and this is not a card trick, but I want a visual for your eyes. Hold your hand out, please, and hold it as if you were holding one card in your hand. Keep your eyes closed. Do not open them. I’m going to place one card in your hand, close your fingers, and freeze right there before you open your eyes. Tell us, what was that card?

STEVEN BARTLETT: The three of diamonds.

OZ PEARLMAN: Open your eyes, take a look.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It is very, very difficult for me to understand how you do that.

The Art of Reading People

OZ PEARLMAN: Now, here’s the question. So I tell you this. If I were to teach you that you could do it, it would take you quite some time and you’ll learn. And it was a narrowing down of a lot of options into one, which is a lot of what I do. I limit your options and I read what you are giving off because there’s no magic trick, there’s no sleight of hand involved in this. Are we in agreement? This is an invisible deck. You took out a card. Let’s put these away.

But here’s where I would say what’s applicable is knowing how to read people more effectively in your life. Not for the sake of a trick, but knowing what they’re actually thinking. Now, if you’re watching this, and you said you’re a business person, you want a tangible takeaway for body language. You ask yourself, was there a body language thing? Was there something that you did specifically? Was there a flex of an arm? Was there a twinge of an eyebrow? Was there something that you can see? There are definitely markers.

But what I would describe to people is for a lot of people, they want to know a core thing. Is someone interested? Yes or no. And is someone lying? Yes or no. If you could know those two things, I think that opens up a world of possibilities. How many major moments of your life had to do with if somebody liked or was interested in what you were doing, be it in sales or business or personal, or if somebody was telling you the truth or lying.

Understanding Benchmarks and Detecting Lies

The best way to learn if somebody’s lying to you is learning their benchmarks. Let me explain to you what that means. Meeting somebody one time, it’s very hard to know things about them. One time transactions, you can’t really gauge who they are as a person. But how many people in your life do you meet once? Few. Most of the people you meet, you meet often. So a lie detector machine. Have you ever been lie detector machined?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Never.

OZ PEARLMAN: So the way they work is they have to ask you questions beforehand to set your benchmarks. They have to check. And they see. Tell me an honest answer. Is your name Steven Bartlett? Yes. They look at your indicators to see what honesty looks like. And then they look to see tell me a lie. And now they try to compare the two to each other.

So what I do when I watch people and observe is I try to see what do they look like when they’re telling me the truth. And these are fun things you could try at home. See, when somebody tells you a story, how many details do they insert? What’s their cadence? How do they speak? You can tell when people are lying more often than not. If you observe them often, you can see it. Do they add more details so you can try to find fun ways that seem to be white lies to see what do they do when they lie versus what do they do when they tell the truth? And then start to trust your instincts more.

I think a lot of things that I do, I’ve unlearned bad habits. I think that when we were growing up, most of us had much better BS detection systems. When you’re 2, 3, 4, you know if your sibling’s lying to you, you know if people are lying to you very well, you’re kind of very young, and there’s an instinct involved that I think is akin to when I play ping pong. I can’t think about my shot. I just do the shot. I don’t know how I did it. My body just goes into motion.

So when I’m performing, I am the way people always ask me, are you doing this in every moment of your life? No. It’s tiring. I’m focused, hyper focused on what you’re doing and the things that I’m watching that will give away certain elements. And I’m influencing you. There’s misdirection, and I’m guiding you in a certain position in a certain way to what I want you to select.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Say I was trying to sell you something.

OZ PEARLMAN: Sure.

STEVEN BARTLETT: We’re doing a presentation. I’m a marketing agency owner and I would like you to buy this marketing campaign from me instead of this one or no campaign. So what are some things you could tell me that I should be thinking about or doing if I’m selling to you to make you buy what I would like you to buy?

It’s Not About You, It’s About Them

OZ PEARLMAN: Number one rule. I call this channeling your inner mentalist. It’s not about you. It’s always about them. That’s been the number one secret to my success. I shouldn’t have been. I’ve been on all different networks doing what I do. On CNBC, I’ve been on there dozens of times. That’s the financial network. How many other magicians or mentalists have ever been on that? Zero. It doesn’t make sense. That’s a serious network. They do finance. Why are they bringing me on?

Because I tailor my presentations to the viewer. I don’t think about myself. A card trick is about me. Me doing something related to stocks and bonds and dividends and interest rates that is fascinating to the person watching. The same way if I go into a room with football players, I make everything structured on football.

So I challenge you that when you make a presentation like that, are you just thinking about you or where can you highlight the attributes of what is this person missing? What’s wrong with what their status quo is? What are you missing? Listen to your consumer. Listen to your client. Listen to your audience. They will tell you. They will give you the answers to what you need to give back to them.

So many people, when they approach someone else, they approach with the following. How great am I? How great is my product? It’s all about me, me, me. This needs to be benefits oriented language. All of it should be you. I want to make your life easier. I want to make this migration to our platform seamless. What’s currently bothering you? I want to know all the things that you, that are your moments of resistance, what’s resisting you from saying yes. And every time you tell me one, I want to be prepared to check that off.

That’s so funny you mentioned that. I know you want no downtime. Here’s how we can ensure no downtime. You want to anticipate what they’re going to say the same way a mentalist does. But in this case, you’re not guessing cards or numbers or names. You’re guessing the thoughts of what’s keeping them from buying your product.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And is that practice per se? If this was, if I was pitching to you and you’re the CEO of Uber and I want you to work with my agency before I go into that meeting. You talked about preparation earlier on. Do you write down or just think about the rebuttals or the person that you’re contending with and then try and tailor the presentation to a set of ideological ego factors that you believe that person’s coming into the room with?

The Power of Taking Notes

OZ PEARLMAN: Right. So I write down everything. Literally one chapter in that book is all about how taking notes has changed my life. So at every show and through every interaction that I ever have with somebody, I write down. I had a show last night, a show the night before. I will write down. I have a shorthand to make it quicker, but I will write down everything that I did, everybody that I met, things that I remember about them. And I will do this immediately when I finish the show. If I might have a meet and greet in photos the moment it’s done. You’ll sometimes see me in an Uber in my hotel and I’m writing furiously everything while it’s still in my mind and fresh.

Because information is power. And the number one thing that people care about is themselves, their family, their friends, their career. All of us are the star of our own movie. You’re the star of your movie. I’m the star of my movie right here. The person behind the camera star. Everybody else’s supporting cast.

So think of it this way. If you can remember things about that person, not creepy. What if they told you something? Last night, I met somebody. She has two children. They’re three and five. Her oldest son absolutely loves this one YouTube star. They live. I know where they live. She just shared a lot of details with me that in her mind are kind of like Snapchat. They vanished. They didn’t vanish to me.

So now that I’ve written those down, I might see her in a month, in a year, in a decade. Do you know how great that feeling is to somebody when you remember things they told you? It’s like winning the lottery. It’s literally like you get to do a magic trick, like I do. But people give you credit. I will remember at shows who hired me for the show. Oh, they know this person. Now we have a chain. We have a referral link. I might see them again. I guessed their ATM pin code three years ago. It was 6124. I now know that I bump into them there and I don’t have a supernatural memory.

Another part of the book is how to improve your memory, which I think is also a huge secret to success in life. That people don’t realize we have phones now. We think our phone does it for us. That’s not true. And I say to him, I go, John, I sure hope you changed that pin code from 6124. He is blown away. Steven, do you understand that’s not a trick. I wrote it down. I’ll tell you exactly how I did it. All I did was take the time to review it before I got there and made him feel special.

And do you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to talk about that moment for years to come. I’ve created a memory. If you can create memorable moments for others, they will remember you, and they will spread the word to others. And that’s how you, whatever you do in life, what you do for others is what’s going to eventually propel you to success. I would say give gratuitously, but the more gratuitous you give. There’s this funny way in the world where the universe bounces back. And the more I do for others, they want to do the same for me.

STEVEN BARTLETT: If you were to make that really practical for me. So you have a shorthand book, which you write in every time you meet someone, to keep details.

OZ PEARLMAN: You can do it in your phone. I do it in my phone. So I have calendar entries. Let’s be very clear. Let’s give you brass tacks. I will write in, if you look at my phone right now, the event last night, set list. I wrote down the name of the host, his wife. They have three children, they have twins. Everything about this is very fresh in my mind, and I’ll remember it for a day, but then it will kind of dissipate.

Which tricks did I do? What happened in the tricks? What were funny moments that were off the cuff? Who did I meet earlier that day? I met somebody. And again, I’m writing all this stuff down because that information is power. That information, the longer you hold it, it’s a coupon with no expiration date. And when you serve it up to that person, in fact, it’s the reverse. The longer you hold onto it, the more impressive it is.

If I met you yesterday and you told me your favorite color is magenta, and I say it to you tomorrow, not that exciting. But in two years, if when I meet you and we see a car, I go, Steven, that’s your favorite color, magenta, isn’t it? Not as a trick, just there in your mind. Dopamine. How did you remember that? You’re touched that I remember that about you. That’s what people care about.

People think about again, their family, their friends, their faith, their business, all of that. The more that you can make someone else shine, the better it happens to you. Everything is about when I, my whole act is geared towards making other people look good.

The Power of Small Things

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was thinking about this quite a lot, and I actually posted on my LinkedIn this morning about the paradox of small things. And what I said in the post, it’s reflecting on Jimmy Fallon. I was on his show this week, and he mentioned that we have this tradition at the end of the podcast with the guests. It’s a small thing that we do at the end of the show.

And the fact that he remembered it and told his audience about it, and he said he brought him to tears, made me realize that actually, the small things in life that we often overlook, like remembering someone’s name or as you said, their family, some sort of intricate personal detail, they’re so powerful because most people don’t think they matter.

That’s it. So when one person in your life remembers a tiny detail about you that kind of matters to you, even your name is something that matters to you, it’s so shockingly rare that it’s so shockingly powerful, because most people think it’s so unbelievably petty. And this is, I think, the paradox of small things, that they’re actually, in fact, really big things.

Life-Changing Moments

OZ PEARLMAN: Well, think about how many small things. If you were to look at your life and just have these little roads, these fork in the road where one path led to this. And I have those moments where in my life where somebody said one thing to me, sometimes offhanded, they don’t even remember it. And it changed the course of my life.

And there’s little moments. I had one, so I worked on Wall Street. I didn’t think that you could be a magician or mentalist. It’s crazy that it never even occurred to me as an option. But at one point, there’s two moments, but one of the big ones is I’m doing something for the CFO of my company, Merrill Lynch. He does not know that I work for the company.

And I used to do this magic trick with sleight of hand where I take five $1 bills, I hold them, I snap, they turn to hundreds. Amazing. It’s a great trick. And at that moment, he’s an Australian guy, and he goes, we need you working here, mate. And everyone laughs. And it’s a joke I’ve heard a hundred times, a thousand times.

And I go, it’s funny, sir. I do work here. And he thought it was a joke. I broke character a little. I go, no, seriously, I work at 95 Green at your Global Technology Services department. And he looked at me and goes, what are you doing working here?

And that moment, to him, I assume, was nothing. It was forgotten moments later. But that moment changed the course of my life because there was a switch in my mind that was, what am I doing working here? You know where you kind of can visualize your future. Is this my path? Is this what I’m going to do forever, or am I going to decide that?

You live one life and I’m going to go for it. And I think for a lot of people who are listening to this, I’m not saying to quit your job, but you ask yourself, look in the mirror. Is this what I want to be doing? And I think for a lot of people, they might want more, whether that’s their own business, whether it’s to climb the rung of a ladder.

And it’s that moment that somebody can change your life and take action and decide, I’m going to do it. But also formulate a plan. Be effective and smart in your execution.

Taking the Leap

STEVEN BARTLETT: And in your case, leaving Merrill Lynch to go and become a mentalist is quite a leap.

OZ PEARLMAN: Huge leap. Everyone thought it was crazy.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Same with Derren Brown.

OZ PEARLMAN: No one said to me, oh, this is a great idea. Even though I’ve got to tell you the truth, most people were very happy for me. But behind closed doors, I think they thought, this kid, he’s nuts.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You kind of were nuts. Because statistically, probabilistically, the chance of you becoming a quote, unquote, successful mentalist is extremely low.

OZ PEARLMAN: Extremely low.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I mean, there’s probably a handful of mentalists that earn a lot of money.

OZ PEARLMAN: I would say it’s a very low number. But here’s the question you should ask yourself. Why not you? The framing of that is always, of course, there’s statistics, but why not me? And so I think the way you think in your mind, the voice in your head that tells you that loop determines things. So it’s all about setting yourself up for success rather than failure.

Understanding Human Behavior

STEVEN BARTLETT: How much of being a mentalist is understanding human behavior versus everything?

OZ PEARLMAN: I don’t even know how to answer that. Literally. I’m a student of the human.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How people behave, but the practice of it, because Derren Brown is, I consider him a friend. And if I’ve learned anything from him, and I do think he’s the most incredible person on and off camera, it’s that much of his work is making you think the trick is happening here, but actually the trick is happening over here. And he’s misdirecting you to focus on my left hand. And the trick is taking place in my right hand.

OZ PEARLMAN: That couldn’t be more true. That’s exactly it. But that is knowing human behavior.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Explain to me why.

OZ PEARLMAN: I don’t want to say controlling because it sounds very devious, but I’m controlling your attention and your thoughts. I’m guiding you in a certain way to either select what I’d like or to give away something that you feel you have not given away. Should we do a fun example?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Sure.

A Demonstration

OZ PEARLMAN: Do you know off the top of your head how many episodes you’ve had of this show?

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think it’s roughly 500, I believe.

OZ PEARLMAN: So, close your eyes. I want to make this a visual game. You’re in this room of all different people that you’ve looked at, you’ve seen, that you respect. Okay. Some of them could have been guests on the show. And then you get a tap on the shoulder, you turn around, you look at this person, and it’s somebody you’ve met before, 100%.

And they say something to you. They’ve said it to you before, and you get deja vu, and it’s something impactful. It left an impression on you. Is that a fair assessment?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: And that inherently right there, boom. That makes you think of another person. I don’t know whether, I don’t think they mentioned this other person, but something about that takeaway or that thought or that moment of clarity or wisdom made you think of someone else in your life. It was connected to them.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: This next person, person number two, I’m calling. They jumped over. Open your eyes. When was the last time you had spoken to that person number two?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Today.

OZ PEARLMAN: Today. Okay, let’s lean into this. Think of their first name. Count the letters to yourself. Don’t say it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: And somebody you know well, you’ve spoken to them today. I watched your eyes. You went up, up, up, up, up. Five letters, isn’t it?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: You asked me how I do it. You said, do I study people? You just gave it away yourself. There’s five letters to choose from. There’s 26 in the alphabet. Pick any letter in this person’s first name, mix them up a little.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: And then you grab one out and you just decide, this is the letter I want to focus on.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: Now, knowing you, knowing you as an entrepreneur, knowing you the way you give interviews, I think I know what you would want to do. Knowing that you know Derren Brown, you know how some of this works. So your instinct was to go against your instinct, because you go, I know this would be obvious. You didn’t think of the first letter, did you?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No.

OZ PEARLMAN: You didn’t want to. You thought that would give it away.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: Because once I know that, it’s easier to figure out the rest. And then I know there’s vowels in the name. And so inherently you said that limits my subset. You didn’t do a vowel, did you?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No.

OZ PEARLMAN: L. Are you thinking of an L? No, I got it. It’s funny because by you saying no, it means you gave away both. I’ve written this down. Can you close your eyes for the viewers who are watching this as a video? I’m going to show them and for everybody else to know who’s just listening in their headphones while running or doing something. This can’t change what I wrote down.

Open it up. You thought of an S but switched from the L. Is that correct? Tell us all. What is their first name?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Jules.

OZ PEARLMAN: Jules.

The Challenge of Being a Mentalist

STEVEN BARTLETT: Working in the sales team at a startup can be a strange experience because one month you’re chasing leads like the future of the business depends on it, which often it does. And then the next month you’re buried in them. Pressure builds up and eventually it starts clouding your judgment. Then you end up making a reactive decision instead of an informed one.

You know, you walk into rooms and people hear that you’re a mentalist. So they’re already somewhat on edge.

OZ PEARLMAN: Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And you can see, you can see that they’re on edge, right?

OZ PEARLMAN: Yeah. You got to sweeten it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What do you do about that? Because everywhere you go, people are going to be like, f*, this guy might be able to guess my, you know, that’s what they’re thinking. He can guess my bank pin. So I’m going to give nothing away. So you must be meeting people that are closed off your entire life. How do you get them to go from closed to open up?

OZ PEARLMAN: I think it’s being likable. So think about it. If you met somebody who could really read your mind. And I can’t read minds. Just, I want to be clear throughout the process because people say, oh, what’s he trying to teach? I can’t read minds. I’m not psychic. I am not supernatural. I don’t claim to be.

You could do this, maybe not as well, because I think there’s an inherent talent, just same as musical talent. I can’t play a guitar. I can’t sing to save my life. No matter how much training you give me, I will never have the voice of Harry Styles or Ed Sheeran. It’s not in the cards for me.

The Art of Misdirection

STEVEN BARTLETT: But you’re tricking me to think that my eye movements played a role.

OZ PEARLMAN: So I will tell you this. I am tricking you to believe that certain things are more important than others. Your eye movements and body language play a role, but whether it played a 10% role, a 50% role, 100% role, that’s 100% true. My job is to misdirect you and to use multiple methods so that as soon as you go down a path and you think, you got me, I jump to the next lane, I do it a different way.

STEVEN BARTLETT: There’s also a possibility that 0% of that trick you just did was about my eyes.

OZ PEARLMAN: I didn’t say it was about your eyes though, did I?

STEVEN BARTLETT: You said you looked up them. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

The Power of Confidence and Overcoming Procrastination

OZ PEARLMAN: That is absolutely true. Try it for yourself, though. Honestly, try it for yourself. How many letters somebody counts if they have a long name? It takes longer to process. You aren’t going to be able to use a name and counting the number of letters in your day to day life. So if I were to show you how to do it, you were to attempt it and you were to get it right 75% of the time, which you’d be shocked that you would. You’d then go, now what? Who cares?

Most of you are not going to take and spend the next decades learning mentalism. Rather, I’m going to try and take the most important parts of mentalism and show you how you can use them.

Another huge one is just confidence. How do people build confidence? When I was 14 and I started doing this, was I this hyper confident teenager? No. My folks just got divorced. My life was pretty tumultuous. I think I did this as a way to not have to deal with all of the trauma and kind of sadness. And confidence gets built over time.

So what’s a better way to fast track that? For a lot of people, you walk into a room, you have to give a presentation. Are you nervous as hell? I think most people would say yes. Would you agree to that? What can you do tomorrow to get in there and feel like you own the room? The same way I go on TV for a million people or right now for millions.

I think there’s so much of it has to do with there’s a panic that we have in us where we take and we fear a certain feeling, which is, I have certain things that I dread doing. Like, let’s say I have to call someone and give a call of things I don’t want to say. I have to turn someone down for something I hate that I’m avoiding it at all lengths. The same way you procrastinate things you don’t want to do.

The 24-Hour Trick for Overcoming Dread

I have this little trick in my mind where what I do is I ask myself, what will I feel like tomorrow about this? What will I feel like tomorrow? What if I could fast forward my feelings to tomorrow and instead of just, you know, up in the air, try it right now. What’s something that you, the listener, don’t want to do? You don’t want to call someone. You don’t want to deliver bad news. You know this person’s about to ream you out. You’re avoiding it at all costs. You’re moving in your calendar to tomorrow, the next day. You keep doing that.

Do it now. And I want you to set an alarm 24 hours from now. Put it in your calendar. I’m for real. Put an alarm that says tomorrow. Write down how you feel about this scale of 1 to 10, right when you finish the call, you’re going to feel in the dread before you’re going to feel an 8, 9, 10 of dread the next day when the alarm goes off, ask yourself, how do I feel?

Most of the time, you feel nothing. Two or three, it’s out of sight, out of mind. So what if you could trick your brain the same way I tricked you to think your eye movements have anything to do with it? Trick your own brain to see how you feel a day from now, you feel nothing. So what if you can just start doing that to yourself? Rewire your brain. Say, I’m going to feel nothing in a day. Screw it, I’m going to do it now. And just that trick of getting over procrastination builds a tremendous amount of confidence.

Creating Separate Personalities to Handle Rejection

Another one is, I would walk up to tables and people would kick me out. They’d be like, get out of here. They wouldn’t pay attention to me. Things that would hurt my feelings. So what I did is I created in my mind some way where I have two separate personalities. This guy was Oz the entertainer. Oz the magician. Now Oz the mentalist. This guy was Oz Pearlman. They don’t know the real me. That’s a different guy.

So when I walked up to a table and got turned down or rudely rejected, instead of me feeling that pain in myself, I pushed it somewhere else. And I go, you know what? They didn’t like Oz the entertainer. That’s a different guy. That’s not me.

And so the same way that if you took right now a bowl of water right here and we poured salt in the water, it’s salt water. But what if we could take an invisible small piece of plastic and put it right down the center? And now you pour all the salt in one side. This side is immune. This is fresh water. If you can do that in your own mind, the same way that I use my tricks to trick your mind, trick your own mind, that will take away the sting.

Because so many of us, we don’t go after our goals because we’re scared of what happens if they don’t work out. It’s all about accountability. You fear the rejection. And if you can get over that, it is a superpower in life. The same way you asked me, how did you know it was going to work? Because I stopped thinking about it not working. And people that have that singular focus on making something work, those are the entrepreneurs, those are the people that you see achieve. Those are the athletes, those are the people who have a hyper fixation and focus on a goal, that they will make it happen. They manifest it.

Reading Your Audience

STEVEN BARTLETT: And what about communication, your communication style and how important that is? What are you thinking about when you’re communicating as an entertainer to make sure people are paying attention and they’re engaged?

OZ PEARLMAN: Be watching the audience all the time. The audience never lies. So you have to really assess what the audience is throwing at you. And I’m seeing people and I’m seeing, are they interested? Are they on the edge of their seat? Are they leaning forward? Indicators of interest? Are they sitting back and checking their watch? Are they yawning?

Obviously you can’t do this with everybody. When I’m in a room with a thousand people, maybe one guy’s hungover, maybe their baby didn’t sleep last night and they had a red eye flight. I can’t know everyone, but I can watch individuals and see how they’re reacting to me. And I can quickly change and pivot and see how I can continue keeping their attention.

And if I was listening to this right now, am I turning it off? Am I fast forwarding? Am I getting tangible takeaways? If I get three things from this that I can put into action tomorrow, this is smash success. Because if I get one thing that somebody says to me, like one tidbit that they say, I feel like that can change your life, then take action.

Action Over Inspiration

I’m all about action because I think in so many instances, there’s no accountability. Inspiration, motivation is garbage. I could care less if I’ve inspired you. I want action. What is your goal? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to make a certain amount of money? Are you making a million dollars next year? Is that really going to make you happy?

So a lot of the time we make goals that we think of, but then we get them. You know, I have made more money in the last 10 years than if you asked me 10 years ago, I dreamt possible. Does that make you happy? It makes life easier, but I don’t think it’s just pure fulfillment. I know a lot of people that are very, very wealthy and they aren’t happy. I’m around a lot of wealthy people. It’s just the nature of my thing. And I ask myself, they’re billionaires, and if this isn’t making you happy, what is?

I don’t think that money is always the goal that you should attain. I understand why. I didn’t have a lot of money as a kid, so that was like a barometer of success for me. But as I have kids and as I see that life is short and feel my mortality, I realize some things are much more important than money.

But if you have a goal, let this be the cue. Not to inspire you, but to literally take action right now. What is it that you want to do? Somebody talked to me the other day, said, man, I love watching you run. I would love to run. Stop. Start running tomorrow. Put a reminder in your calendar, literally tomorrow, my first run. Then put one 30 days from now to make sure you’re accountable and then decide what makes you accountable.

For me, I don’t like to be embarrassed. So I’m going to write to 10 people that I know and tell them I’m signing up for 10k, so that now, if I don’t go through with it, it’s going to come up in a future conversation and they’re going to say, hey, Steve, whatever happened with the 10k? Now I have to eat humble pie with 10 different people and say to them, you know what? I didn’t do it. Oh, oh, okay, you didn’t do it. I want that to be my motivator. Maybe your motivator is internal, maybe it’s external. But find what motivates you and use those levers to generate action.

Balancing Misdirection with Authenticity

STEVEN BARTLETT: You know, in your profession, a lot of it is, like with Derren Brown, a lot of it is he’ll make you think that, like we said earlier, it’s my right hand, but actually it’s my left.

OZ PEARLMAN: Yep.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How do you contend with being someone whose job it is to sort of misdirect me, to make me think it’s my right hand, not my left or whatever, but then also trying to give people information that will make them successful in their lives?

OZ PEARLMAN: Right. Well, the ethics of it. I’m not trying to sell you anything about being a mind reader or a mentalist. This is a separate pursuit. The skills surrounding everything I do, those skills, it’s like “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” It’s a book I’ve read over and over and over. I don’t want to say it’s dated, but it’s of a different era.

The skills that allowed me to reach near the top of my profession aren’t the tricks. There’s other people that can do that. There’s other people that can do this. There’s other people that can guess your card. So what led me to here? Do I do it better than them? I’ll let you decide that.

Making It About Them, Not You

My secrets to success are the exact same ones you can apply to your life. That’s the key. The fact that I’ve made it about them, not me. How have I been on all these TV shows? How have I had such a wide diversity has nothing to do with performing. It has to do with me turning the mirror around.

The moment you realize that you will be successful in your life, when you start making other people the star, thinking about them, thinking about what’s going on in their head. That’s true mentalism. What are they thinking and how do I deliver on that? How do I make them look good? How do I make them like me more? How do I win them over so that when the moment comes for them to recommend somebody or to give them a raise or do something, they know that you’re the person that they think of first.

And I think those skills, again, I wouldn’t, it’s not really mentalism, but it’s the exact same tools that I use. It’s not guessing numbers or names. It’s knowing how to influence others. And if I wasn’t able to influence people, none of the things I just did would work. You would just say, no, I’m not going to do that.

The Art of Active Listening

STEVEN BARTLETT: On the skill of listening, which I think is also so important to what you’re saying there about being likable and winning people over, do you have a system or a framework for being a great listener? You talk about it a little bit in the book near the end. I think you have five ways to become a better active listener.

OZ PEARLMAN: Yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Can you run me through those?

The Power of Listening: A Lesson from Steven Spielberg

OZ PEARLMAN: Sure. Should I give you a funny story to kind of lead this off? So I did a party for Steven Spielberg. Yeah, it was his father’s 99th birthday. It was pretty intimate affair. I was noticeably nervous in my mind, not for the performance, but to meet Steven Spielberg. So he defined an era of my childhood. And I feel like likely for a billion or several billion other people.

So at the end of the show, he comes up to thank me and I’m ready. I was able to ask Steven Spielberg zero questions. Do you know why he talked to me the whole time? He kept asking me questions, rapid fire this and about my life and about what drove me and this. And I just wanted to keep being like, pause. I got questions for you. You’re Steven Spielberg. He made it all about me. All about me.

And I learned at that day that it’s a greater power to listen. And that the most interesting person in a room tends to be the most interested person in the room. And that some of the people I’ve seen that are the most successful, the most authentic and genuine, they will look you in the eye, they will lock in, they will not be looking around at other people, and they will give you their 100% undivided attention.

And they will ask you questions that other people haven’t asked you before. And I challenge you. Don’t just do the normal question. When you meet somebody, oh, what do you do for a living? Oh, we. As soon as we do that, we go into autopilot. I go into autopilot. And I’m not judging you. Most people do that. Right. 50% of people have to be below average. Right. And 49.9% are above average.

That’s inherently the challenge yourself to be the outlier and think of a question you can ask someone if you have time to think of it in advance or in the moment that throws them out of autopilot, that makes them think, wow, I haven’t really thought of that before. Asking questions that are not yes or no questions are also great. Ask questions that let them explore who they are.

I think that’s a big part of active listening. And I let the audience guide me to what’s of interest to them. When we walked in here today, I said to think of a favorite of a category. If I knew the category, would I be able to guess what the answer was?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No.

OZ PEARLMAN: What is the question? You know what? Tell it to me. I don’t even want to write anything down. I want you to just say it out loud. Give me the question. What is the question that you have defined the answer to? Give me that question. Ask it to me. What is my favorite car? What is my favorite car?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: And you think there’s no way I could know that? No prior research could have alerted me to it?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No prior research.

OZ PEARLMAN: No. You decide the same way that you do with Jules. I want you to think of the name of the car, whether it’s the brand, whether it’s the make, and I want you to pick one letter out from anywhere from. I’m assuming it’s more than one word. Unless you just said Ford. Again, I don’t want to lead you, but if it is more than one word, and if it’s 2, 3, 4 words, decide on one of the words. Have you decided on one of the words?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, one of the words.

OZ PEARLMAN: Don’t say another word. Now he’s just saying. That was interesting. Decide on one of the words and pick one of the letters. Something interesting to you. Grab the one letter and just focus on that. One letter.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: You have it?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: Now, you asked me. You said it’s all misdirection, right? The eye movements. This is all just window dressing. But you just gave something away. You said one of the words with a question because you were confused. You didn’t know what to do. If there was only one word, I would never have said that. If it was three words, why would it be one of the words? Of course it’s one of the words. So you did one, and then I think this one went through your head. You read. You went to the last. Did you think of the last letter of it?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No.

OZ PEARLMAN: Okay, so that would have been my first guess. But now that you didn’t, I’m going to go back. Are you doing the letter Y?

STEVEN BARTLETT: No.

OZ PEARLMAN: Maserati, Ferrari, Lamborghini. That’s not like you. Close your eyes. Open your eyes. I’ve written it down. I can’t change my mind. What car is it?

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s my Cybertruck.

OZ PEARLMAN: It is your Cybertruck. That’s what I thought it would be.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking of the letter T.

OZ PEARLMAN: T. I didn’t originally think of Y. You did.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. And then I moved to T. Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: If I got it right every time, it would be a magic show.

When Performances Go Wrong

STEVEN BARTLETT: So sometimes when you perform, things must go wrong.

OZ PEARLMAN: Sometimes it depends what level they go wrong at, what scale.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: If it goes destructively, catastrophically wrong, it’s not always good.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Tell me a time when it went catastrophically wrong.

OZ PEARLMAN: Oh, so you can dig up old TV appearances from 15 years ago where just, you know, purely. I started learning that if you do something linear, which is if I show you my hand and tell you where this is going, then you have the power. What do I mean by that?

If I said I’m going to guess this and then I get it wrong, then you know I got it wrong. What if you don’t know the ending of the movie? Then if I show you an alternate ending, you don’t know that the movie wasn’t supposed to end that way. So I learned early on that I’m not going to let you hold the cards. I hold the cards.

So when you even. The notion of get it wrong means you knew what getting it right was, does that make sense?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: But what if you don’t know what getting it right was? Because I’m doing so many different things at once that I will eventually find a way to get it right. You see what I mean?

Breaking the Ice in Social Situations

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. And have you learned any ways to break the ice in social situations? I think you talk about you. Do you talk about this a little bit in the book, but one of the ways that you talked about is object, sort of handling the objection that you’re assuming one has, approaching from a different angle. But just generally in life, when you meet these people and you’re trying to disarm people.

OZ PEARLMAN: Yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is there anything else that is worth knowing there that people can use for their in their everyday lives?

OZ PEARLMAN: I like having an inner monologue out loud. So I like to take things that I know everyone is thinking and open up, show some vulnerability. So a great way. You’re in an uncomfortable social setting. What do you want to do? You want to shut down? You want to be here?

I think walking up to somebody has a real power and say, I’m so nervous. I don’t know anyone here. Do you know anyone here? That moment of opening yourself up. And I don’t want to call it oversharing, because some people take that to too much of a degree and start telling you too much. But showing that you are a real person and vulnerable. I think just it’s a magical quality.

And I’ve had people that do it to me that you gain an intimacy and a familiarity with them very quickly that you wouldn’t have if we were just small talking each other. Have you ever met those people that have that instant charisma that when they walk in the room, everyone gravitates towards them and you don’t know what that is? What is that quality they have? Did they train it? Is it innate? Are they born with it?

For me, I didn’t have that, so I cheated and started doing magic tricks.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I remember Jimmy Carr saying to me that, you know, people think comedians are depressed or whatever, but he said, a better question to ask is always who are you trying to cheer up?

OZ PEARLMAN: Right.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And I wonder if that’s relevant at all to your situation.

OZ PEARLMAN: I think I was trying to connect with people.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: I think that I was nervous, a little bit awkward. I wasn’t introverted. I had no problem walking up to strangers. But I think that it became this just this addiction to watching people being amazed and overjoyed. And the reactions. I live for the reactions.

Some people that do magic, they do it for themselves in a guilty way. I kind of do as well, because there is a selfish angle to seeing reactions. But to me, it’s more the joy. And to this day, what I like to say that I do for a living is not deceive. My job is not to fool you. My job is to create memorable moments, not amazing moments. Amazing is a subset memorable.

Because if I amaze you and you forget it, I have failed. I failed. It’s the same as if I walk into a movie that’s an action movie. I eat a lot of popcorn. I walk out. Ten minutes later, you say to me, what was the movie about? I don’t know. Right, that I don’t know. And a month later you ask me, have you seen that movie? And I go, did I see that movie? That right there, that response is the death for what I do. Apathy.

The Importance of Memory

STEVEN BARTLETT: And in the book, in page 166, you talk about improving one’s memory.

OZ PEARLMAN: Yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What do I need to know? Why does it matter to improve my memory? In what way does improving my memory help me to connect with other people?

OZ PEARLMAN: So we’ve gotten to the point where we don’t need our memory, right? A lot of people don’t know how to drive to a place, a city next door. They literally with if GPS went out, good luck. Right. You don’t know anyone’s phone numbers. How many people’s phone numbers do you have memorized? Few and far between.

STEVEN BARTLETT: One.

OZ PEARLMAN: Exactly. Tomorrow, your iPhone goes away. No, no. No Apple, no cloud. You’re screwed. You’re screwed. Am I right? If you can’t get that back, your life. So what do we need our memory for?

I think memory is a superpower because no one expects you to have it anymore. Years ago you need, now you don’t. So I’m going to give a great example, one that I have in my book, which is something applicable where you can’t cheat. Cheat is I have my phone and I feel a lot of us, whether we’re parents or kids or teenagers or any stage of life, you are, you’re going to meet new people at some point soon.

You meet them, you shake their hand, you say, hello, you just forgot their name. Literally, they just said it to you and you forgot it. How many times this occurred to you? I’m guessing numerous. And now you can’t enjoy that conversation because all you do is feel dread. Now you’re looking for someone around that you know to introduce them and pray to God you go, “this is Steven. Say hello. Tell him your name.” You know you want that moment.

So I have a trick, a tip for that specific situation as well as others from memory. But I’ve repurposed the instructions on a shampoo bottle so it sticks in your head. Shampoo bottles have three words on the back. Lather, rinse, repeat. Right? Lather makes your hair smell good. Rinse cleans your hair. Repeat. We got to sell more Pantene Pro V. So we all know that everyone knows. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Listen, Repeat, Reply

I will describe it as this. Listen, repeat, reply, listen, repeat, reply. So easy. The first step sounds silly, comical. Why am I even saying this? The first step is what 95% of us do wrong. We don’t actually listen. When you hear that person’s name, it’s not a memory issue. You never even knew the name to begin with, because right when you walked up to them, just like a computer, read, write. Very hard to read and write at the same time.

For our brains, you were thinking of something else. You were thinking of what you were going to say back to them in most instances. So at that moment, the number one thing to do is actually listen. Quiet your mind. So simple, so easy. But that’s where we screw up, right?

When I walk up to you, I make sure that I’ve heard your name because I instantly repeat it twice. “Steven, is it Steve or Steven?” I want to make sure I’ve just said your name three times already. Your chance of forgetting it have gone down dramatically.

The last one is reply, which is use one of the three following tactics. One, you could learn how to spell it. You have a name that can be spelled. So I go, “is it Steven with a V or a ph?” And with a V, I go, “I like Steven with a V better. That’s the right way. Am I right?” So now I’ve associated it, Steven with a V.

If it’s not a name like that, if it’s, you know, Jacob, you’re not going to spell that. I’m going to say to you, I might comment. I go, “Jacob, I love that shirt. Where’d you get that from? The V neck’s Jacob, really sharp.” So now I’ve created a visual hook. You’re Jacob with the V neck shirt. Now I remember you.

Third one is, if you want, you can do something that’s a connector to someone else, you know. So if I know a Steven, “it’s so funny, you know, my sister’s dating a guy named Steven. Small world.” So you really quickly connected it. That happens in five seconds, what I just said. Everyone likes a compliment, everyone likes a hook.

You will not forget that person’s name for the rest of the party, I promise you. And this works on people of all ages. It’s not a memory issue. If you can remember your best friend’s name, you can remember the name of somebody you met at a party after five seconds if you practice and do exactly what I just said.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And I think a huge part of it, as someone that does meet a lot of people, is you go into the meetings with people and because you don’t really think the small stuff matters, you don’t think most people don’t think someone’s name matters that much. They think they’re walking into the presentation, they’re pitching for a million dollars. They’re thinking about the campaign. They’re thinking about, you know, how they’re going to structure the offer. They’re not thinking about the name being pertinent.

So you walk in, you shake hands. “Hi, Deborah. Nice to meet you, Deborah.” You walk to your chair, you’re still thinking about the campaign, the campaign, the campaign. And within three minutes, you’ve lost their name. And I do think it really has a huge impact.

When I was reading your book, I was thinking, do you know what? I don’t do a good job of that. I meet loads of people all the time. I walk up I say my name, they say theirs. For me, that’s not important information, right? And I thought, you know, until you…

OZ PEARLMAN: Get it wrong, and then that’s the memory they carry of you. I would say to people, if you don’t know someone’s name, we think that it’s a dreadful thing to ask them. Again, it’s an avoidable thing with this, but I would still say that you’re still showing interest and there’s a few tactics around it, but say, “forgive me, but I really would like to know. I don’t know why it slipped my mind. Tell me your name again, please.”

I think even that is a much better way to play it because, again, you’re human, they’re human. Everyone’s vulnerable. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. So I’m okay with letting people know that there’s a human side and humanize it. And sometimes, if I can figure it out, I will. But I’ll say, “give me a clue.” And I go, “help me out. Tell me where.” It’s like, oh, my God. And sometimes I have a memory hook and I’ll remember who introduced us. I go, “oh, I met you through Steven.”

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And what else should we, should my audience know about? You’re someone that focuses on the audience. What else should they know about that you think can directly improve their life?

The Power of Storytelling

OZ PEARLMAN: I mean I’ve given you a lot of the core tenets that I think have made me successful, which is eliminating that fear of rejection, utilizing notes, making it about other people. I think wrapping things up in a story is a huge one that we touched upon lightly.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But why a story?

OZ PEARLMAN: Because stories are remembered. Stories are interwoven into our DNA. Each of us have a story to tell. I think such a big one is deciding what makes you memorable. The more that you can become memorable to others, the more people talk about you. It benefits you. No matter what you do in life.

When you meet somebody, know that you’re going to weave the narrative of what they leave, what they think of you. Right? You have to kind of, their memory is malleable. There’s a trick I used to do when I was a teenager where I would have somebody pick a card. It was a card trick. They would put the card back in, they would sign it, I would throw it on the ceiling. The deck would fall down, but their signed card stayed stuck on the ceiling.

But when they described the procedure back to someone else, they would leave out the part with me throwing the deck. Why did they forget such an important detail? And I couldn’t understand why? It’s not that their memory was faulty. Something happened, I realized what it was, what I put my attention on. They put their attention on.

Everything in life, if you’re focused on the negative, you start to feel negative. I, when I threw the deck up, sometimes wouldn’t look up with it. I would throw the deck up, I wouldn’t look and then I’d catch it. Such a small minute detail. But me doing that meant I caught the deck. No one knew what happened and I let them look up and discover the card themselves rather than me.

Do it somehow in their brain, they deleted that one detail of me throwing the deck. And now I had a miracle. And that changed my way of thinking from there on out. Which I said to myself, it doesn’t matter what I do. It matters what people remember and what’s the story they tell others.

Where Your Focus Goes, Their Focus Follows

STEVEN BARTLETT: The thing I really learned from that is that your focus is driving someone else’s focus. So when I’m, you know, when I’m going through my life, I need to make sure my focus is in the right place, the place that I want it to be.

And I notice that sometimes as a podcaster, because when, obviously, so I’m trying to manage this conversation, and I’ve got these notes written in front of me. I’ve got pens, books, props. I’ve got a little net under front of me that has photos in it and other bits and pieces and all this stuff. And I do notice that during the podcast conversation, if I don’t look up at the guest and I start looking down a little bit, or even if I’m just looking down to see my next bullet point or to think about something, right, I distract the guest.

But it also, in everyday life, the other thing that I think we’re all guilty of, and you talk about this in your book, is we sometimes reach for our phone a little bit, right? Your card story. That’s what it said to me. It said that, oh, my God, people’s focus really is where your focus is. So if I’m having a great conversation with you and you’re a client or something, and I just glance at my watch, you just did it then with me again, you just glanced down at my hand, right? And I never realized until you said that card thing how important it was to make sure my focus is in the right place.

OZ PEARLMAN: Your focus is in the right place. But also know the fact that your memory is malleable. So in my profession, I employ all different tactics. I can tell you one is confusion. Your brain, it’s very difficult for your brain to read and write at the same time. So if I want to distract you from a method and I confuse you, then it’s exactly like an Etch A Sketch.

Maybe you’ve drawn a picture and the moment you get confused and you go, “oh,” you forget what you just did. Exactly. And the Etch A Sketch has just been shaken, and now you can’t recount the series of events properly. And at that moment, you’ve now created this beautiful watercolor painting that hasn’t dried. I can move some of the pieces around and I can redraw your picture a little bit and I can change your memory of what it is.

During certain points when I’m performing, and this has to do when you talked about public speaking and storytelling, I tell you the story that you’re going to tell others and I take out the pieces I want out. I want this gone. I want this gone. I want this gone. I’m going to edit your memories.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Give me a specific example.

The Nature of Mentalism and Dual Reality

OZ PEARLMAN: Well, that’s the nature of what I do. So in a certain routine, again, what I would ask someone, if I ask somebody to think of someone important to them and then later on I guess the name of their first kiss, they will forget how the question was orchestrated, how I set up the initial ask and what happened during the initial ask.

And then the story they will tell to someone else’s, I don’t know how, but he guessed my first kiss. Now when they tell that story, he goes, he told me to think of anyone and I thought of my first kiss and he guessed it. What if I didn’t? What if I narrowed it down and I actually told you to think of your first kiss?

But the initial question was think of anyone and see all those people swirling around your mind and then one person come up to you you haven’t seen since elementary school. First girl you ever kissed, you’re blown away. Now the people that watched it have also seen a different effect. It’s known as a dual reality. The reality one person experiences is different than the other.

If you walk in to a conversation in the middle, you don’t know the context, but you know the ending.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: So I’m using that because again, when you tell me the methods of mentalism. Mentalism is all about group dynamics, the way people think. If I was performing for you in a group, it would be utterly different and completely easier. This one on one interaction is far more difficult because I have no lanes to weave around.

It’s like if I was passing you in a car on a four lane highway. I’ve got space right now. You and me are locked in. It’s very difficult for me to use others because the way you feel next to someone else, you’ll behave differently than by yourself.

The Role of Obsession in Success

STEVEN BARTLETT: And you’re someone that started doing this at a very young age and has developed and evolved their skill set over time. And so you’ve got five kids and I’m wondering how important you think obsession is to get to the very top.

OZ PEARLMAN: You’ve gotten to blessing. It’s a blessing if somebody can find an obsession.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You’ve got to the top of an industry where very few people get to the top of. And even if they do, they don’t end up on the biggest platforms in the world. So thinking about the characteristics of your success for this kid, it was obviously obsession was a huge part of that, right?

OZ PEARLMAN: Yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How old were you in this photo?

OZ PEARLMAN: Probably 14. Probably right when I started a restaurant. That looks 14 to me.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Okay, 14 then. And you’re 43 now.

OZ PEARLMAN: That’s right.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So you’ve been doing this decades and decades and decades.

OZ PEARLMAN: The majority of my life.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How important do you think that is to reach the top of any industry?

OZ PEARLMAN: I don’t know if I would say the time matters as much because I’ve seen people that are phenoms in much, in much like more compressed times. I don’t want to say that you need your 30 years passion.

The people that excite me the most to be around in my life, the people that I look up to and I’m on the edge of my seat, always have a passion. I don’t care what that’s for. I don’t care if you are, you know, a trash man and your obsession is trash. Like something that I would never think about.

I’ve met so many people where they have a topic that meant nothing to me at the moment. But once I start speaking to them, their level of excitement they’re feeling, like the fact that they’re so invested makes me feel invested.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But to hone your skills to the point that you can reach the peak of a mountain. I was speaking to someone called DJ EZ and he was saying to me, he spends seven hours a day, he’s a great DJ and when I watch him, it’s like watching a magician play the decks.

And he said to me, he spends seven hours a day sometimes listening to 700 different new tracks a day, just listening to 20 seconds of each. And I don’t think people often get to see that level of obsession. They see people sat here, but they don’t get to see all the like the messy journey to here.

OZ PEARLMAN: Right.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And I think it’s important to show them what that messy journey to here looks like because then they can decide for themselves in their own life if whatever thing they’re pursuing is worth the trade. Like is it worth it to sit here and to be who you are now for like that you say worth.

OZ PEARLMAN: It as if it’s a negative thing. I think it gave a definition to my life. I think that to have a passion is something so few of us. I’ve hit the lottery in life. I get to meet interesting people, I get to bring joy, I get to live my dream. Everything I do is of my own volition.

I couldn’t, I don’t even know how I’d complain for an iota of a second. I’ve won the lottery, times the lottery, times the lottery. I don’t know. It’s not even my profession. I have a mindset where I could die tomorrow, right? Everybody who doesn’t think that way, that you don’t have gratitude for today is like, I don’t know, I’m a natural optimist. I just think that.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But I mean, what does that actually look like? Because no one was there to see those, what, 30, 20, 30 years? How much work was there? And is it like you were doing it part time? Is it free time? Is the shower? Are you thinking about it in the shower?

The Creative Process and Fulfillment

OZ PEARLMAN: So I think I’ve been thinking about it for decades. And now, even now, it consumes my thoughts at certain points in time, even though I try to try to also be present in the moment. It’s not like an absolute obsession. Seven hours a day is pretty rough, but the muse of creativity comes to me and it’s so fulfilling.

It’s the same way. Like this book. Putting this book on paper, you’re an author as well, was such an exceptional challenge. Because my thoughts, and then crafting them out of the page into words, and also at the end of the day, who cares about me?

I always have this mindset of, I need to prove to you. I don’t come from the assumption of, you should watch me because I’m great. I have an inverse. I said, I need to define to you why you should be watching, why you should be listening, why this should excite you, why this should amaze you.

Hopefully it inspired you to take action and you got something tangible that will provide a value in your life. And I wouldn’t have written the book, trust me, the book. I didn’t need to write this book. I wrote the book because so many people had said to me, we want to know what helped you achieve success.

And they’re fascinated by this pursuit. And I think that was it. I just was driven by the people around me that they said, you should write this. And I felt I finally had a story to tell.

The Pitfalls of Success

STEVEN BARTLETT: And what’s the one thing about your success and your new life that if this guy knew, he may have hesitated a little bit to pursue the life that you now have?

OZ PEARLMAN: I think being very busy and success has its pitfalls. If you assign your self esteem to something others can give you, be it fame, be it money, be it things that are intangible and that can be taken away and you don’t define your self worth by something internal like your own drive, competing against yourself, creating your own goals, then it’s fleeting.

Fame, for example. There’s going to be ups and downs. Every career has a life cycle. Right now things are going very well. There’s no question that a certain point the peak hits and now you go down and it’s inevitable. And I don’t think about that. I’d like to continue the peak or continue go climbing and climbing, climbing.

But when that happens, I’m aware of it and I will not. It’s not something that will define who I am. This is part of it, I think having outside interests and challenging yourself outside of your comfort zone. For me, ultramarathons, marathons, athletic pursuits that cannot be bought, they must be earned.

And I think that’s something we value more and more in our day to day life. Because again, there’s influencers, there’s people, there’s followers, there’s all this stuff that I don’t want to call fickle. But it can be bought. What can be earned, Earned are things that you. This has been earned by you.

This has been you putting in sweat equity for decades, believing yourself. Each time you get a big guess, you harness your momentum and get a bigger guess. You’ve earned this. You create a team around you. I think that’s something notable and that people should decide what’s your goal. And as you strive towards it, that’s where you feel the fulfillment.

For me it’s been being on the road. Like the biggest negative is being away from my children and wife. And that’s success. And I can’t not do that. If I want to be successful, I have to be gone a lot. And so I have to find that balance between the two of having my kids miss me, but also creating a life for them in the future and also juggling the fact that I have major career ambitions.

Actionable Advice for Achieving Goals

STEVEN BARTLETT: And is there anything else that my audience might be able to take away an action in their own lives that is in line with maybe this David Goggins quote on the front of your book. Learn to master the most powerful weapon your mind. Is there anything else that my audience should be aware of so that they can show up better in their lives in the pursuit of their goals?

OZ PEARLMAN: I think defining your goals is huge. Looking yourself in the mirror and being honest and seeing what that voice really says to you. Because I just, like everybody else, have had feelings of inadequacy, feelings of, I’m not going to be able to pull this off.

And it’s not that. It’s not as if there’s a superhuman thing of I’m, you know, I’m putting my head down. I’m going to get through it. Like, Goggins doesn’t stop. If you ever met him, he is a machine. He’s amazing. But he goes out and he’ll tell you he’s the first one who doesn’t want to go out and run when it’s raining and cold and freezing.

But you know why he does it? Because he didn’t want to do it. That’s where the real work is. When I’m doing a workout, that’s exceptionally hard. When it gets to the hardest part, that’s when I tell myself all of this was easy. This is where I’m actually growing.

So I challenge you right now to assign yourself a goal right now. If you get one thing out of this podcast, decide one thing that you want to strive for. Define it, Define it. Don’t do these pie in the sky things. Goals that are achievable have to be quantifiable. Be it a number, be it something achievable, decide what it is and make tomorrow the first day you go after it and create all of the things that will help you succeed, not fail.

Most of us, when we start a goal, the joke is, you start January 1st, everyone’s starting their fitness journey by February. No one’s in the gym anymore. Why is that? Why does everyone give up? Because the hard work is at the beginning. Those first few weeks of setting a habit in place.

I have a lot of things in here that are all about how you form habits. I literally put in the book Proven habits for success. It’s not tricks. For example, atomic habits had a huge impact on me. Some of these books that show you where’s that inflection point from you trying to do something to you ingraining it in your muscle memory. And now it becomes self fulfilling.

You keep doing it because you like doing it. I didn’t love running when I started. Now running is my vacation. I enjoy running. It gives me a flow state. I make up new ideas. I get to kind of check in with myself. I think physical activity is so important.

So many of the chronic diseases and things we have are lifestyle choices and inactivity. We could solve so many huge problems. We have simply by eat healthier and start working out a little more. And nobody wants to hear that, but you do a little bit of hard work, you continue and you maintain.

So, yeah, I’m hoping that’s useful, but that’s what I want people to do. If you take action tomorrow and start making your goals happen, get inside your own head. That’s what I want you to do right now. But do you remember when I had you close your eyes and I had you see hundreds of different people?

I had you envision people that you’ve met, famous people, people that you like, people you care about, all those different people. And one person tapped you on the shoulder, gave you a piece of advice. Do you remember that?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

OZ PEARLMAN: And that piece of advice set in motion. You thinking of Jules?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yep.

OZ PEARLMAN: Who was the person who tapped you on the shoulder? You turned around, you looked them in the eye, and they said something to you that changed your life, created a memorable moment, and put in place that domino effect. Tell me, who did you think of?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Michelle Obama.

OZ PEARLMAN: Open up that piece of paper.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Funny.

OZ PEARLMAN: It’s a photo of Michelle Obama.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Looks gorgeous, though. Okay, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for your next guest without knowing who they’re leaving it for. And the question that’s been left for you is—

OZ PEARLMAN: Oh, fantastic.

STEVEN BARTLETT: If you could live forever, would you? And why? Or why not?

Living Forever and the Curse of Immortality

OZ PEARLMAN: Whew. I think I would. I think I would. An obsession of mine growing up has been science fiction. My favorite books to read, the ones that just capture my imagination. And there are so many books I’ve read about immortality.

And there’s a book that this brings to mind by Octavia E. Butler, which is underrated. It’s called Wildseed, and not a lot of people have read it. It’s a sci-fi book, and it delves into this exact subject. And just what would it be like to see all the people around you pass away and the sadness?

And then what would you do? Because at some point, you’d feel empty. People just die, right? It’s kind of like think of it as the life of an insect. Just they disappear. They come, they go, they come, they go. And I think that eventually you would revert back to being completely numb and cold.

But at the same time, death is just that abyss that everyone, no matter how much we avoid thinking about it, talking about it, you’re going to die, I’m going to die. And one day, you’ll have that final breath. Will you know it’s going to happen? Will you not? What will you think about in those moments? What will you go into it with? Will you still have that fear of death?

I think our whole lives are an extension of trying to avoid thinking about our eventual death. I think I would love to live forever, but I bet you once I live forever it would start to be a curse. I can’t wait to think of the question I’m going to ask the next person.

The Power of Connection and Curiosity

STEVEN BARTLETT: Thank you so much. Thank you for writing a book that inspires people to live their better life. I think all the principles in here are all human principles that focus on how we can relate better to other people.

And so many people are struggling to connect with other people for so many reasons and that’s causing so much downstream mental health issues and physiological issues and disconnection in the world. And we’re seeing that increasingly. If you go on the Internet, you see a lot of disconnection because we’re struggling to relate to people.

And I think it’s, you know, the most, I think for me the most important byproduct of the work that you do is you make people curious and open minded. And there’s so much that comes from that. People just being a bit more curious and that’s, you know, that all people get the magic of it. I think it makes people’s minds expansive and if people have expansive minds, then that might just be the catalyst to all types of progress.

OZ PEARLMAN: I love it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you know what I’m saying?

Rediscovering Wonder Through Children’s Eyes

OZ PEARLMAN: I think being open minded and having a different feeling than the usual, which is in our day to day we get into this autopilot where yes, we feel pings of joy, pings of anxiety, pings of depression, pings of happiness.

My, I told you, the thing I got addicted to was giving people this different feeling which is a feeling you lose out children, you see it in their eyes again. It’s a little hokey to say but when I see my 3 year old or my 2 year old discover something new and you see it through their eyes, it’s a gift, it’s something you get back because once you’re an adult you can’t have that same thing because you’ve become jaded to the world.

And suddenly for them to see a butterfly fly and it’s like this joyful experience and seeing it through a kid’s eyes, it’s honestly, it’s been the greatest joy of my life is seeing joy of my kids. It’s seeing that because it’s in our DNA. That’s my version of immortality.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Humans lose that, we get more humans.

OZ PEARLMAN: Humans lose that more and more. And it’s sad to me because I have lost it, knowing how I do the things I do. So to ask me the good question is, if I get fooled by another magician or mentalist, how does it make me feel? Amazing. It’s the best feeling.

And I try immediately to hold back the part of me that wants to know how it was done. Because right away, there’s a professional curiosity, the same way that a movie star or a director can’t watch a movie and just think of it, they’re watching. Here’s how I did the camera. Here’s this panning shot. Here’s the ISO, right? They can’t disconnect from how the sausage is made.

I, because those moments are so few and far between, I instantly, in my mind, stop. I stop myself in the hell. And I enjoy that wonder because it’s so few for me that I can’t. Because I know how everything’s done. So when I get it, I love it.

Keeping Magic Alive

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s like the day you figured out Santa Claus wasn’t real, it’s like bursting an illusion. And when I figured out Santa Claus wasn’t real, my world got small. Like, the possibilities of the world got smaller. Because when magic existed, anything was possible. And that’s a great place to. But when I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real, it was like, oh, you know.

OZ PEARLMAN: Yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s like, oh, there’s no magic in this world.

OZ PEARLMAN: Right.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And that’s not a nice way to believe. And the work that you’re doing and the performances that you do, the entertainment you bring keeps people’s minds open and lets them imagine, be creative and believe that there’s still magic in this world. And that’s a wonderful thing.

I highly recommend people go get your book. I’m going to link it below and put it on screen for anyone that wants to grab it. It’s called “Read Your Mind: Proven Habits for Success from the World’s Greatest Mentalist.” And the people on the back are some of which are my friends. I’ve got an investor of mine on here, many of my former podcast guests on here, as well, like Jay Shetty and Mark Cuban and Adam Grant. And on the front, David Goggins. Thank you.

OZ PEARLMAN: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for putting this out in the world. And I enjoy this, even though your recent one on AI scared the crap out of me. But I’m honored to have been a guest and I can’t wait to write a question for the next person and live on.

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