Oz Pearlman is a magician of sorts, but sleight of hand has nothing to do with his tricks. He’s a master at deceiving the mind. Oz is a mentalist who has dedicated his career to tapping into our subconscious to find out what we’re really thinking, and he says we can all do it too. In this interview, Dr. Oz and Oz uncover the fascinating phenomenon behind the power of the mind, and the surprising ways we can all harness the ability to control our thoughts to better our lives and wellbeing.To see Oz Pearlman at work in the studio, click here: https://goo.gl/gLrYJE. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Children can actually be much more challenging than adults because they're not grounded.
Adults, they don't realize that they do things in patterns over and over and over.
And the more unpredictable you think you are, you're usually the most predictable and easy person to read.
So to answer your question, on live TV, that's where it becomes a real thing.
And I've done things that were very much big gambles.
They go, what if you didn't get it right?
Because there's no trick.
They go, what if right now in this moment I said something different?
And I go, I would have been screwed.
Hey everyone, I'm Dr. I'm Dr. Oz and this is the Dr. Oz Podcast.
My guest today is a magician of sorts, but sleight of hand has nothing to do with his tricks.
He's a master at deceiving the mind.
Oz Perlman is spelled like mind, Oz, but now Oz Perlman is a mentalist.
What does that really mean?
We can get into that.
He's dedicated his career to tapping into our subconscious to find out what we are really thinking.
And he says, we can all do it too.
As a doctor, I've always been fascinated by the power of the mind, especially when discovering more about the ways we can harness the ability to control our thoughts to better our lives and well-being.
This is going to be a super cool interview.
Moses here is going to reveal his tricks, and I'm going to start off with the most basic one of all.
We were in the hallway before this show started, and Charlemagne the God, big radio host, was walking off.
We interviewed him earlier, and he just ran into him in the hallway.
And so we started talking, and I watched you do several tricks that were unimaginable to me.
And most people would think this is some kind of magic, but you corrected him when he actually was completely confounded by your ability to literally pick out people in his phone book that he had never thought about before.
And you said, no, it's actually a mementalist.
What is that?
So it's not that different.
I did start out as a magician.
It's not one of those things where I'm nitpicky about it, but it's a very different approach because a magician, when you see them, it tends to be sleight of hand.
So you know that you're watching a trick.
For example, the Statue of Liberty didn't really disappear by David Copperfield.
It's still there.
Exactly.
Versus what I'm doing hugs that line of, is this a skill?
Is this a talent?
There's really no gimmick.
So when you watch what I'm doing a lot of the time, a magician has props.
I can show up and do a show for thousands of people, and I have a small little briefcase, pens, paper, and that's my tools, you know, how to make it visual.
But in essence, I'm learning how to read people, how they make decisions, how they behave, whether by themselves or in groups.
It's kind of reverse engineering the mind.
People think...
And they have patterns in their behaviors that you could do.
You probably noticed you're a mentalist to some degree.
You just haven't given it as much time, effort, and years of work as I have to go to the next level with it.
All of us are mentalists in a way.
Where do you study mentalism?
I mean, honestly, my shows are my main way that I study.
The more I perform, the better I get.
But it's a craft.
It's something that you can learn from others.
Just to find a mentor to become a mentorist?
I was more self-trained.
There's books, there's videos.
Anything in the world, there's a book, right?
The best place to put a secret is stick it in a book.
Then somebody won't find it.
But with me, it was mostly, I started as a magician and the fundamental tools of magic are misdirection.
You learn how to make somebody look at your right hand when you're doing something sneaky with your left hand.
You're learning how to, I don't want to call it manipulate, but influence people's way of thoughts.
And that's what magicians do, but then they also have props.
It's a crutch.
As I became more of a mentalist, I started less and less doing the magic tricks.
I still love them.
I still love a good card trick, but the magic was more of a crutch.
Mentalism is more pure.
It's almost the purest approach to entertainment other than stand-up comedy where you got nothing.
You walk on stage with just a microphone.
For me, it's me and my audience.
It's that level of interaction, that level of emotional connection.
Do you use it on your wife?
My wife is immune.
It's like the lowest lane to Superman.
It does not work on her.
She's impervious.
She has like a magneto helmet, and she can bust any mentalist.
She's the worst audience to have.
If she says she likes what you just did as a mentalist, you just hit a walk-off home run.
Oh, no.
So if you say, where do you want to go to dinner, you don't know where she wants to go to dinner.
I am the mortal man.
I know that the third option I present, I'm going to go back to the first option.
It's going to be sushi.
She's like, I don't want sushi.
I'm like, what do you want?
Four options, then we go back to sushi.
This is a traditional dilemma, I think.
There is no man who understands this woman.
I think that's the mystery that keeps us going.
I am still a mere mortal.
When it comes to going on Netflix and finding a movie, God help us all.
Because I can read her mind, and even if I read her mind, I'm still somehow wrong, even when I'm right.
You make it seem so matter-of-fact.
But again, Charlemagne is a street-smart guy.
He's all over the media.
He's pretty wise about not falling for pranks.
You had him...
Push through his iPhone, all the addresses, stop randomly at one, look at one, and then you actually predicted...
I don't know how you did it.
Exactly who it was, and you spelled it.
So I didn't predict.
It's really important to say predicting means that I'll know the future.
In his situation, it was different because some of the things are influence you.
Imagine a hypnotist gets you to do something, right?
There's door one, two, three.
How do I make you pick door three?
How do I make that the most enticing?
And know how psychology works, reverse psychology, all those little factors that are going to make you decide.
Same thing that marketers do, to be honest.
Mentalists just do it better.
But in his case, he picked somebody.
And what was funny is if they watched the video, if you can see it, is he picked somebody and he decided that one, I haven't talked to them in too long, so he changed his mind.
And that's where I really make believers out of people.
And if you could just see his face at the moment with all the, just everything, he lost all color in his face because he couldn't believe it because he thought of someone and then changed his mind to someone else.
And I got the person he thought of first, which is kind of the holy grail.
If you pick something right now, great, but how could I have known what you thought of a second before?
How do you know the channel that you went down a road and you didn't go the other's way?
Did you influence who he was going to pick, or did you see from how he picked them?
I saw...
I played a game of hangman that I can play better than almost anybody other than somebody that does what I do, and even then, there's very few of us, which is a name can be broken down.
To you, it seems impossible, but it's the same as any steps.
How do you lose weight?
How do you make a big change in your life?
You need to break it down to little steps.
So for me...
I can know what he's thinking in terms of the letters.
So as soon as he thought of a letter, I can tell what letter he started.
I figured out how many letters were in it based on how long it took him to react and think.
I said, count how many letters are in your head?
He said, I got it in one second.
I knew it was three letters at that point.
Because if it was Elizabeth, oh my God, it's a long name.
So at that point, I now know the first letter, I know the name, and what really takes it to another impressive level is if you can do it with foreign names, where he had the name Chi, and that took the extra couple of years of practice.
Otherwise, I would have said Carl, but it's reading people.
What was the tip-off in his reaction that you knew that it was a foreign name like Chi and not Carl?
There were definitely...
You know what?
Should we try something fun right now?
Yeah, please.
Just a quick second.
I have so many questions for you about you, Bob.
Let's do one fun thing, just so you can see it.
I have a two-year-old.
We were just exchanging photos.
I was showing you my little boy.
And he's right now getting to the point where he loves reading this book called How Do You Feel?
Are you happy?
Are you sad?
And he's learning for kids.
How do you...
Just for the purpose of this, I'm going to videotape this.
Yeah, sure.
It's okay, because I want folks who...
If they want to go out, you know, go to dros.com with a podcast link.
And you can actually see the trick here, so you know this is not some game.
Absolutely.
This is always my biggest concern, is I watch this stuff on television, and I think, it can't possibly be true.
That's all the YouTube comments, is fake, fake, fake.
I've watched all your YouTubes.
I've watched America's Talent.
Howard Stern was a very close friend of mine.
Yep.
Right?
I mean, I saw him react when you did your tricks on the set.
If you don't...
Howard's seen everything, and Howard does not suffer fools gladly, where he will bust you in a heartbeat.
If you're doing something that's not quite right, and I like test conditions.
I love to do something where somebody says, no, I don't want to do it that way.
I go, great, let's change it.
Let's do how you want.
And you have to take away the challenge, because really, honestly, I'm not here to fool you.
I'm here to entertain and show you a little bit of how it works, but great example.
If I told you right now, I saw somebody in the street and go, he looks sad, you wouldn't be impressed.
A two-year-old can do that, right?
My son.
Well, let's show you kind of a micro-expression, something I've learned to do.
It's just a dice.
I want you to, I don't want you to roll it and make it a game of chance, but take it, move it around, and whenever you want, just stop and set it to a number, whatever, which is random, right now in the moment, and then cover it up.
I'm going to turn my back, don't let Lisa see, turn it to any number you want, and then cover it up.
And tell me when you've done it, and your hands are on top, and there's no possible way that I could have seen what you did.
Did you do it?
I did.
Okay.
I moved it around a couple of times.
As long as you saw what it's on right now.
You saw the number.
I got it on video.
Great.
If we looked down, we'd see that number right now.
There's no way I could see your hands are on top.
So here's what I think.
Dr. Oz wouldn't have done, he just wouldn't have done anything that I influenced him on.
So right now when it was sitting here, it was on a five.
And then I moved it to a three.
It was subtle.
I didn't make a thing of it.
He saw both numbers.
They registered in subconscious.
Would never have done either because then it feels like it was forced on him.
So what is he like?
He's an ambitious man.
Driven.
Successful.
Would have gone right to the top.
No, alpha.
I think he did six.
You started with a six, didn't you?
Can we see?
How do we do?
I would say one because one's his favorite number.
He didn't do it.
He did a six because you might have known.
No, no, no.
That might have been luck.
That might have been luck.
Again, again, again.
One more time.
One more time because now it gets much more exciting.
Much more exciting because now that he did it once, what does he do the second time?
And now he knows that you said one, so he goes, I can't do that because Lisa told him I like a one.
Oh, wait.
Tell me when you're done so there's no way I could see.
Would he do six again?
That's the real question, the reverse.
Let me know when you're back so I can watch your reaction.
I'm done.
Now you're going to ask me at the end of this, how do I do it?
Right?
So the same way that you could look and a child could look and see an expression on your face, I've learned how to dial in in these numbers.
He 100% said, I'm going to reverse psychology.
He's never going to guess six again.
He did six again, didn't he?
I would guess.
Of course.
See, we know him.
We know him well.
You just got 30 plus years on me.
How about this, Doctor?
One last approach.
Come on!
Because the skeptics, this is like a dice from a Yahtzee.
They'll say, oh, he's got dice or maybe there's a trick.
No tricks.
Imagine right now you took two dice.
You rolled twice.
And I always like to make the thing best at the end.
Always peak.
Imagine you have three dice.
And this is the best.
You're going to see this like deja vu.
Imagine you roll three dice right now on the table.
Go ahead.
Invisible dice.
Do it now.
I did it.
And they land.
And this is the craziest part.
They land in exactly the order.
And you've seen this exact pattern before.
You chose it.
You could see it in your mind.
Can you see the pattern right now of those three dice the way they landed?
Left to right.
Can you see it?
I can't see it.
And you can see it clearly because you've thought about this.
It's in your mind.
It's like front and center.
Yes.
Did you tell Lisa?
Is there anybody who could have known?
You're picturing this right now.
I want you to close your eyes for a moment.
And I want to show the camera.
And I want you to hold it so nobody says I changed it or anything it was.
And I want you to tell us right now.
Open your eyes.
From left to right, they landed.
These three invisible dice.
They're not even real.
This all happened in your mind.
Tell us the three numbers that landed one after another.
Go one at a time, please.
Five.
Take a look.
Come on!
That's impossible!
Now you know they don't let me in the casinos.
They have people like me on payroll and also they neutralize a lot of my advantages.
So the advantages you think that you don't realize is in this kind of situation, I'm the director.
I'm telling you what to do.
In a casino, they tell you what to do.
Does that make sense?
It makes sense, but in a casino, there's still people, you're reading people, aren't you?
There's too many people and it's too fast.
The advantages are neutralized to an extent.
I can make jokes about it and I'll say I'm not allowed in a casino, but the truth is, there's kind of like the way you could count cards at blackjack.
To a degree, I can do that.
I can tip the odds in my favor somewhat.
But at the end of the day, they'll notice that I'll keep winning very quickly, and it's, you know, boom, you're out.
They're not in the business of losing.
So let's dissect what you just did today.
Sure.
So first, I held a Yahtzee dice, which is bigger than normal dice.
I purposely went to different numbers for a while just to sort of see how it would feel and looked at them, and I think if he's going to read my mind, I'll read so many numbers, he'll get confused.
Then I left it on...
My favorite dice number, which is a six.
Right?
So...
She thought a one.
She thought a one.
Because one is my favorite number.
Eleven, actually.
But I always...
I like ones.
He always picks one for everything.
One is like his thing.
But I went with six because in a dice, six is better usually.
Sure.
You get to move the pieces more along the board when you play with your kids.
So...
Try to beat your kids.
You have to win at everything.
So I'm dissecting my own mindset, but what did you see in my face?
What made you think you had a one in six chance of getting it right in theory, but you were, statistically, you were one over six to the fifth power or something, or one six factorial.
Do most people pick six?
No, but it's more commonly picked than things like four.
Four is not picked often.
That's the least picked number.
Because who likes a 4?
I don't know if it's a bad luck thing, it just doesn't stand out.
Right?
Nobody likes to pick, if you give somebody an option to pick a number between 1 and 10, outliers are people that pick 1 or 10. Those are stick in the muds and you know who they're going to be because you said between 1 and 10, right?
And then 3 or 7 are very lucky.
And like you said, in Asian culture, an 8 is going to be incredibly lucky.
So you're going to know certain things, and then if somebody takes a little moment with it, then maybe it's a five, and that's because they played soccer as a kid, and that was their jersey number, and there's patterns of behavior.
But what I said to you, the same way that I'm teaching my son to recognize happy, sad, use his words, is every one of those, one, two, three, four, five, and six, I can fine-tune your reaction and what they'll be.
So I don't care if your favorite is a 6. That didn't matter.
I just knew how you would react to a 6 versus to a 4 versus to a 2. So if we kept doing it over and over, I would get better the more we did it.
In fact, the first roll is the riskiest for me.
The 20th, I could be sitting here with my eyes closed, about to fall asleep, and know exactly what you would do.
It would be like reading a book.
So it's not that you're influencing me to pick a six.
Not at all.
Not in this case.
Well, you were because you'd already predisposed him not to go to three and five.
Right.
So you'd narrow your odds.
I would have known if you would have done that.
Exactly.
So I knew it's, you know, it's like when you walk up and say, go to any one of these doors, any one, you touch the two a second time, nobody wants to touch that one.
Is that right?
Sure.
It's the opposite.
I think you're going to go there because I'm pushing you in there.
Well, think about how a used car salesman or think about how a real estate broker, they'll never take you in order from the best house to the worst house.
Right?
Because then you just hate everything after the nicest place that was just above your budget.
It's nice to show you this place.
You're like, oh, this is okay.
This one's better.
This one's amazing.
We need this one.
There's certain patterns to the way people think.
If you've ever driven somewhere for the first time, The first time you drive there, it feels like it takes very long.
You're not used to going there.
The second time you drive there, it flies right by because you know all the markers.
It's become familiar.
So if I can lead you into that path of familiarity, I can get you to do what I want a lot of the time.
So the first time is the most difficult.
To read somebody initially takes much more challenge.
When I did the imaginary throw...
That was your choice, right?
You decided, five, five, six, you made those choices, and that's more of an influencing you, exactly.
You did.
So how did you influence me to put two fives instead of four, five, six?
If I did that, you'd be my new mentalist assistant.
So there were things you said to me that made me think that.
Yes, absolutely.
There's a lot more where that came from, but first, a quick break.
Do you know who Darren Brown is?
Of course.
He's arguably the most well-known mentalist in the world right now.
Besides O's prolet.
Ah, take it.
I'm obsessed with him.
He's an unbelievable legend.
But he does things like, there was one show I watched where he planted things along the road as someone was driving to where he wanted them to go.
Right.
Things that they didn't notice consciously at all, but completely influenced me.
Their answers when they got to the place where they were supposed to be.
Is that happening to us all the time now?
And could you do that to someone, like put things in this room that would completely change his answers?
I do that in my live show.
So there will be things that you just don't even notice.
Because right now, think about your brain.
Your brain isn't just an amazing device at processing reality, but it's the best editor in the world.
Imagine right now if you took your phone and you hit record on the next 24 hours of your life and then tried to watch them.
How tedious that would be.
But if you then find, your brain decides what moments are important.
Here's the best example.
Do you remember what you ate for breakfast four days ago?
No, but do you remember where you were the minute you found out that Donald Trump was elected president?
Most people do.
For better or worse, some people either felt very positive energy or very negative energy at that moment, but there's an emotional attachment, right?
So my whole life's work is not to fool you, not almost to entertain you.
It's how do I become a person who, when you meet me and we interact, You have an emotional attachment to that moment so you don't forget it.
It's memorable.
It's something you'll remember hopefully months, days, and years later.
That's really all that matters, that I don't get edited out like everything else.
And honestly, forget being a mentalist.
That's something you can do anywhere in your life.
I don't care what you do for work.
If you can find a way to be that memorable person, that person who has an impact or is remembered in that kind of emotional way, there's an attachment to it, that's everything.
Negative or positive.
I mean, one could say either or.
I would prefer to go in the positive direction, but that just depends on who you...
You'll be remembered.
I've got to dissect you a little bit here now.
So, you're a little kid.
Yeah.
You begin to get excited about magic.
What was it in you that it was fulfilling?
I mean, you're making it seem very accessible, which is what a great teacher does, and I thank you for that, but this stuff is not self-evident, or there'd be a lot of mentalists wandering around out there.
Right.
There's very few of you of your caliber.
Well, thank you.
I think that with the mentalism, I'll get back to the kind of the history, but mentalism has a steep learning curve.
So think about a comedian.
I just love the analogy because I love comedians so much.
My favorite thing to watch is they get up there and they'll bomb a little bit, but they usually have a couple of jokes that are good.
And hey, people laugh and you get some positive feedback to encourage you to keep going.
Now think about a mentalist.
Imagine right now if we did the same thing and you set the dice and you said six and I said four.
Oh, I got it wrong.
We do it again.
I get it wrong.
I get it wrong five times in a row.
Some people do that, they go, that's the last five times I ever do it.
Now imagine doing that for the next month, two months, three months, and getting through that.
And I finally get one right.
Now I'm starting to read and I go, oh my God, this works with him, but it didn't work with her.
And now there's a real steep curve where something doesn't work for a very extended period of time.
And most people that do it will just go back to a card trick.
Where I know when you pick the card and you put it back, voila, amazing, you know it's going to work.
So a lot of people dip their toes.
They start as magicians, they dip their toes as mentalists, but they go back to being a magician.
Or they only dabble.
To be just a mentalist requires a level of commitment that few are willing to put in, and even more so, few are willing to put in the work to get good, like you said it, to really stand out and, yeah.
Without giving up some profound secret that would destroy all of mentalists for a minute, can you give us an example of a classic thing that is taught early in your training that could all be a tell?
See, it's interesting to describe it.
I want things to be memorable, but I like water cooler moments too.
Right.
I don't want it to just be memorable for you.
I want it to be so memorable you want it to other people.
Sure.
Now, by the nature of what you're doing, Charlemagne the God is out there, right, talking to his buddies at the Breakfast Club about this crazy Oz Perlman.
I'll probably mispronounce it Oz.
Mm-hmm.
It doesn't matter.
As long as he's saying my name, I don't mind, good or bad.
Because of the interaction.
But for me, I like to say things to people that they're going to go home and say, that's what the poop is supposed to look like when it hits the water.
I don't care what it is.
But I want them talking to other people about it.
So what's a mentalist trick or skill that you learn early if you're just going to dabble in it?
Well, I give you a trick, but it's not applicable unless you want something more Parler-esque versus I can give you a takeaway of something where the same skills that I'm using can be used as soft skills, if you will.
If I walked into a room and did no mentalism, how would I differentiate myself from other people?
So one of the things I do in my show, which goes such a long way, is I remember people's names.
And it's so funny how that sounds so trivial.
But knowing people's names is defining.
If you can do that in your day-to-day life and remember people, you meet them and you know everybody's name, it's kind of overwhelming.
Most people are very impressed by it.
And it's one of those things where I learned it early and I've used it to a large degree over time where I'll know hundreds of people's names during the show.
Do I have an exceptional memory?
No.
It's a muscle that I've trained.
But there's a few different skills that you can do that right after the end of this podcast, you're going to go, wow.
I'm never going to have that moment at a party where I met someone, turned away, said hi to my wife, and go, oh my god, what was their name again?
And then you have to do that fake, oh, hey!
This is my wife.
Do you want to come meet my friend?
And you have to find a friend to introduce.
This is John.
Hey, John, say hello!
This is like every party we go to.
Every one.
So I will give you the big secrets, the three big secrets.
So the main one, the reason you don't remember the name is you didn't listen to it.
So at that moment, you were doing one of three things.
You were thinking of something else.
Oh my God, did I leave the oven on?
Where are the kids?
What's going on?
Or you're thinking the big one is what I'm about to say next.
Most people in the conversation aren't listening as much as thinking of what they're going to say next.
Imagine if you had just met a celebrity that you were dying to meet.
That moment is going to be so vivid in your mind.
You're going to take in every little millisecond.
Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm meeting.
If you met Barbra Streisand, you were a fan.
You will relive that moment for a million times.
Imagine if you could take just a thousandth of that attention, look them in the eye, and when they say their name, you always repeat it.
Like, if you noticed, I did that when you met Charmin, the guy, go, Lenard.
One more time, Lenard.
And how do you spell that?
Just so I know.
There's no O, right.
And I want to make sure I say it right.
I repeat it.
So you always listen, repeat, and then if you can, give a compliment, which is a great way to win people over no matter what you do.
Hey, I love your shoes.
Those shoes are great.
Lenard, where'd you get those?
Now, you don't have to overdo it.
If you meet four people in a row, you don't give everyone a compliment.
Hey, Dr. Oz.
Hey, Lisa.
But that little bit of training, just take that piece of advice right now, and whether it's your social life, Your business life, it will translate into, I don't know, better sales, better connection with people, just such a huge difference.
If you can give yourself that task, listen at the moment when you shake their hand, when you say, what's your name?
Oh, what was it?
I just want to make sure, repeat it back, and it will stick.
Try it.
It was interesting, just outside when Lenard was having you spell his name, he was impressed you cared enough to want to spell his name.
Right.
Which is in itself a compliment without having to actually give a compliment.
Which is cool.
Do you remember the name of the girl that was with him?
Cheryl?
No, the blonde.
Oh, no.
I didn't meet her.
I didn't meet her, so otherwise I would tell you.
Alright, so back to you a little bit.
Sure.
So, as a little kid, what made you want to do magic?
So, when I was 13, I saw a magician on a cruise ship, and I was blown away, and I think there's a couple different things going on.
One, my parents were getting divorced at the time, and a lot of people, a lot of magicians, they'll have this narrative thread where this fills a gap, where you have a lot of...
It's a good release, an escape.
Yeah.
Whatever you're going to dabble into, hopefully it's more positive than negative, but I also found more father figures, so to speak, where there was other magicians, and there was camaraderie, and there was a lot of fun in the fact that learning this craft, and it gave me something to obsess over.
I'm a very obsessive person, whether it's magic, I run races, and I've kind of done a lot.
Yeah, marathon, ultra marathon.
Ultra marathon.
Ultra.
And you won the New Jersey Marathon four times?
Yeah, that's true.
That's crazy.
I've done this race in Death Valley, if you want to hear something really off the top.
It was 135 miles.
It was 125 degrees when I did it.
You could cook an egg on the side of the road.
The asphalt was so hot.
You could cook an egg.
Just, hey, flip an omelet.
So what it means is I won't dabble.
If I get into something, I can't just...
Dip my toe in the water.
I dive in and swim to the bottom of the pool and I really want to be the best at it or be unique or different.
So with Magic, I just, every book at the library, I checked it out again and again and again.
Whatever money I could rustle up, I started doing kids shows.
I was very entrepreneurial and my mom was not buying me stuff.
She's like, you want to do this?
Go out there and work.
And so at 14, I started doing restaurants where I'd go to a restaurant.
I'd say to them, hey, I do Magic tricks and I got my sales pitch going and they hired me.
And you learn how to interact with the crowd.
You learn so much about human dynamics and the way people behave and how people are different when they're alone versus when they're in a group.
And you start to...
I did my mentalist training before I ever knew what a mentalist was just by so many hours.
Those 10,000 hours that going up to tables of people that don't want to see you.
Who's this little kid?
I was this little shrimp coming up and interrupting us during a personal moment.
We're having dinner right now.
I don't know you.
And learning how to diffuse tension.
Kind of learning the way people think.
When I walk up to them, they think, is he crazy?
What does he want?
Does he want money from us?
Is he any good?
Can we get rid of him?
I knew everything that you were thinking at the moment you thought it.
I knew just the right thing to say to kind of make you relax and go, oh, he's not.
He's really good.
And, oh, he doesn't want to tip.
And, oh, he's going to leave in a minute.
And before I know it, they want me more than I want them.
And that's the distinction you want in everything in life.
Every negotiation, they want you more than you want them.
You're going to win.
How do you flip that energy?
Do you own their concerns?
Or do you do something that just distracts them from those concerns?
So I like to establish rapport early on.
In a situation, instant rapport.
Like, I just want you to be comfortable around me.
Because if somebody walks into your circle, they're invading your space.
Sometimes you're invited, but if you're not, that's a whole different dynamic.
So I come up cheerful, but not too cheerful.
I match their energy and just go up by one degree.
So if people are very somber, I'm not this...
You know, over the top.
Yeah, people take it easy.
And if they are excited and exuberant, you've got to match that energy.
And then very quickly, just little comments that are thrown aside.
The same way that you saw, but didn't notice that a 5 and a 3 were set on the dice.
Same thing, we'll be like, hey, the host brought me in tonight.
Something special for you guys.
I've got to leave in just a minute, but let me show you something incredible.
So in that moment, The host brought me in.
You know that I'm part of the restaurant.
This is going back 20 years ago.
You're going to leave.
I'm going to leave very shortly, meaning I'm not going to be here.
I have to go.
Also, this is something special for tonight.
You're part of something special.
Right away, you've just done a few things, and if you can know that you don't do something long, you do one quick thing for them.
I used to turn a $100 bill on $1 bill into $100.
Who doesn't want that moment of magic?
Then they want to keep seeing more.
Did they keep the cash?
No, I would take their 100 and turn it back to a 1. I'm out of here.
Now, how about the predictions you've made about Super Bowl victories and things that don't seem...
You can't use mentalist tricks to get a whole country to think differently about a game or all the athletes to think differently.
So some of that is what I would describe as very educated guesses.
Where I tell people that is legitimate.
Some of the predictions I've done are as legitimate as it gets because there's no trick.
People say, well, you must have done a trick.
How can you do a trick when you go on TV, national TV, and say, the Eagles are going to win.
There's going to be a fumble in the last quarter.
They're going to win the game right then.
And there was an injury early in the game.
Very specific things.
And this wasn't in an envelope where people will say you switched something or you didn't.
No trick.
People bet.
People were making bets based on my...
Predictions.
So I've tried to scale that back a bit because now that I have a real track history, I've gotten so many big things right in a row that I will now sometimes send things in advance, have them sealed, notarized, put in a safe, and then they'll reveal them after the fact so it doesn't influence results.
What gives you those skills to be able to...
Analysis.
Just analysis.
Yeah, because people wrote to me after I got the Final Four right, and I was the only person who got Xavier, and I got all these things right.
I mean, you don't understand.
Hundreds of inquiries came in.
Give me NBA. Give me hockey.
I go, I don't know anything about those.
I haven't analyzed those.
I can't...
Well, go to the Super Bowl, because we were there.
You probably already know this, but we're big Eagles fans.
Yep.
From Philadelphia.
And so we're sitting there watching the game.
Witness it all happen as you describe it.
Yep.
Why would you think he would come down?
Most people were picking the Patriots by 10 points.
Right.
That's not a fourth-quarter fumble game.
I looked at the game.
I looked at the teams.
I saw what I thought, and it was an educated guess.
Could I get it wrong?
Absolutely.
It's not the same as when I'm doing mentalism with a person, where this is very defined, black or white.
If I got it wrong, it's...
But here's the thing.
To a degree, people remember the hits more than the misses.
So had I missed it, eh...
I live to fight another day.
Correct.
My incentives are not symmetric.
I win more.
If I win, if I lose, I don't lose quite as much.
Did you get the election?
Well, I told my wife I thought Donald Trump was going to win, but I didn't want to predict it because that's a no-win battle.
If I had said it, I had friends that would disown me.
If I said the other way, yeah, with politics, I just don't even want to make predictions.
But you probably could because it's human nature reading more than a football game.
I think with politics, I mean, now Nate Silver and some of the polling and people can figure these things out to a T at this point.
I mean, I don't know.
But they missed it.
I think some got it, but yeah.
Got a lot more questions to go, but first, let's take a quick break.
Why do people like being tricked?
What is it about what you do that...
I don't think most people like being tricked.
Because a trick, to me, seems...
If it's like a puzzle or a challenge, and it's, I'm smarter than you.
If I set up a dynamic of, I'm smarter than you, then people will resist.
They'll say, I'm going to outsmart you.
So most of my show is defined by doing things that build.
So the first thing I just did, you nailed it.
One out of six, hey, you could have maybe guessed it.
So I like to do things that get increasingly more impressive as we go, and a bit of a journey where as I take you along, I teach you little things.
I teach, like, I do a thing, a human lie detector test.
That way, how many years have you known each other?
Should we give them the answer?
I mean, that's not a...
I could Wikipedia that.
83 we met.
83. 35 years.
So when Lisa was four years old, this is an adorable, adorable story.
Pre-K. You're a bad boy.
Nurse-er.
So how many...
There's things before 1983, we're looking at 35 years, that we could do.
How about this?
I'm going to give you human lie detector.
Can you detect when somebody's lying?
All right.
Now, this is a great thing to use at home.
There's all different situations where if you could get...
50, you became 60, 40.
How useful would that be?
You're not going to be a human polygraph, but I'm going to give you, Lisa, I'm going to give you four questions.
Okay.
Now, if I ask you a question really fast and I tell you lie about that question, you're going to, you might stumble.
Right.
You don't know what every single question I'm going to ask you.
I do not.
And before we even start, okay, at this moment, see the first question being told and see yourself answering it.
And the second question and third and the fourth, and define exactly what you're going to say.
Do you know?
Because you're going to tell the truth or lie, but you know what you'll say on each question, right?
Can you say that?
Like, if you need to, make sure in your mind, make that decision exactly which one you're going to lie on or which ones or if you're going to tell the truth or whatever you're going to do.
Decide that now.
Okay.
Watch.
Now, what I need is in a polygraph, there's a benchmark.
They always strap you in and they ask you a question.
What's your name?
Lisa's.
And they go, where do you live?
And you might say New Jersey.
And then they say lie.
And you go, I live in California.
And now they can tell what it feels like when you lie.
They always set a benchmark.
You have to establish what it is before you say what it isn't.
Now, question number one, only you know if you're going to lie or tell the truth, is going to be, I'm going to ask you, what's your favorite color?
Now, before we do it, do you actually have one so I could even do it or not really?
It depends what day, but today I have a favorite color.
Okay, so let's just say for today, I'm going to ask you, what's your favorite color?
And then the next question is, let's say, I'll say, where did you go on a recent amazing trip?
Okay.
Okay.
You can think of one, okay?
Or if you're going to lie, you'll tell a place you've never been to.
Okay.
Are you with me?
Okay.
Yes.
And then we'll do another question.
We'll say, what was the name of your first grade teacher?
Okay.
And you'll know whether you're going to tell a truth or a lie.
And then the last one is, let's say, I don't know, what is your favorite meal in the summer?
Okay.
Is there one or no?
Again, I'm like one of those annoyingly confusing people.
Forget Neil.
Forget Neil.
One last thing.
I like a lot of food, but I have a favorite.
Give us a question.
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Let's do it.
Okay, watch.
All right.
Now, I'm going to ask you a question.
Just say, what is your name?
Lisa.
Okay.
And now, lie to me.
I'm going to ask you again and make up a totally weird name.
What is your name?
Gloria.
Okay.
So, a little bit, and the pen is a little bit...
I'm going to ask you to put the pen down because they can't see it, but that was very much a giveaway.
Okay.
It's an amateur hour to find this one out.
I played with the pen the entire talk.
Describe what happened.
Well, she finished with the pen, and then on Gloria, it was a very different Finnick, and it was very clear.
I mean, anyone could have seen that one.
So here, we'll try this, and only you know if you're telling the truth.
So I've seen what you do when you tell the truth.
I've seen what you do when you lie.
First question, I'm going to wait one Mississippi, and then you'll answer.
So I'll say it.
What is your favorite color?
Blue.
Oh, sorry.
Give me one second.
She wanted to be right on it.
I know you told the truth right there.
Am I right?
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
It was very clear cut.
Now, the second question that I asked you was going to be about a vacation.
Now, I'm going to say it, and then I want to pause for a second.
Okay.
Because I don't want you to think that you're rushing to, let's do it again.
What was a recent amazing place you went on vacation?
Greece.
Okay.
Definitely told the truth again.
Just very clear cut.
Did you tell the truth?
I did.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Third question was going to be about a teacher.
Let's try it.
We'll wait a pause, and then you'll answer.
Okay.
What was the name of your first grade teacher?
Mrs. Daring.
Okay.
Now let's do the last question.
Okay.
What is your favorite thing to eat during the summer?
Pizza.
Okay.
So here's the...
I'm going to tell you what she did.
So right off the bat, pizza, summer, no way.
You definitely lied about that.
Am I right?
Way too heavy.
I did.
Way too heavy.
He wouldn't have done it.
Doctor, I was like, I can't believe...
I lied.
And then we went and you said Mrs. Darien.
And again, it was the way you said it.
So I can tell the difference.
You lied about that one too.
Am I right?
So we're four for four on detecting truth or lie.
If you're ever at home, you need marital advice, I'm going to help you.
I never lie.
She never lies.
She can tell what I lie.
So let me show you what you could do at home.
So what's your takeaway?
What's your aha moment?
Never play with a pen.
Yeah, never play with a pen.
But what if you're at home and you have, maybe it's the kids, maybe it's your husband, I don't know what, and I don't want to ruin any relationships over this.
But the key is the benchmark.
People always think you're going to be nervous and finicky when you lie.
Some people aren't.
Some people are much more subdued.
But if you set a benchmark, if you start asking somebody things that you know are true, like, oh, man, last night you went to that party.
What did you think of this?
What did you think of this?
And get answers that are true and see the pacing.
Usually somebody will change their pacing when they lie, meaning if they're telling a story real quick, then when they lie, they're going to suddenly tell it more slowly.
Well, you told me to go slower.
No, no, but yours were very...
I gave you the little cushion, but I could see the way you would do the difference.
It was very clear to see.
Once you saw it, it was night and day.
It was just the same as seeing the color red or blue.
So see the difference in pacing.
Also, people, when they lie a lot of time...
It's easy to tell the truth because you don't have to make anything up.
If you took an MRI of your brain, you would know this better than I. It's simple.
You're just accessing one part of your brain, the memory, boom.
When you're telling a lie, creativity.
All these other parts of your brain light up if we had a CAT scan.
So people are trying to add a lot of embellished details and they'll kind of move around.
And there tends to be, for a lot of people, moments where they answer quicker.
Most people will speak quicker when they lie and tell the truth slower.
But that's not a certainty.
That's why I said a benchmark.
Some people that are very fast talkers suddenly get much slower when they lie.
Are you devastating at poker?
So I'm pretty good at poker, but again, poker is too fast.
I can't just sit here and say, hold your cards up, Dr. Oz.
Look at me.
Look at the first card.
Think of that card.
Dude, I don't have that potential to take you through all the motions I need.
I'm not omnipotent.
It's not Mel Gibson and what women want.
She I just don't have that level of quickness.
I have to be the one pointing the camera, like a director.
And if we went slow, meticulous, yes, I could devastate you at poker.
But most likely, you would instantly not do the things I'd want you to do.
You get the cards, you look at them, you go, you bet, and you throw me off.
I wouldn't have time to read you fully.
I'd have an advantage over you, but a professional poker player would have an advantage over me just because they've played poker.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of hands.
Is that what they do when they're playing?
Absolutely.
They're finding the differences.
So that's why they'll play so many hands.
They'll do what I just told you, which is a lie detector test is built.
If you didn't do the benchmarks, you wouldn't be able to do a lie detector.
If they didn't ask you the first questions to see when you're telling the truth and when you're lying and see what your body looks like, here's this signal, here's this signal, it wouldn't work.
So do the same in your real life.
I know parents that are mind readers.
They know when their kids are lying to them.
They know exactly.
They can look at their kid and go, I know he's lying to me right now.
Lisa's like that, exactly.
Yeah.
And also, what mothers do, and Lisa's very good at it, is they ask the extra question.
Sure.
I say, what are you doing?
Nothing.
All right, go out.
I'll see you later.
Yeah.
Where are you doing nothing?
Who are you doing nothing with?
Yeah.
Oh.
And then immediately shift to something that's truth.
So right at that point, ask something that goes, oh, last week, do you remember when you went with Jeremy?
And you got that thing, what was that?
And right away, you're going to see it's so clear cut.
When they start telling an honest answer, and then you right away switch gears and go, oh yeah, and when you're going today, who are you going with again?
It's going to be such a shift in pace.
That's right.
Such a shift in this pacing of it that you'll be able to detect the lie.
Poor Louis.
Yeah, poor Louis.
This is only a month old.
He's in trouble.
You know what?
Let's do this.
This is, take it to the next level.
This is what I told you in the show.
I asked you about the first grade teacher.
You lied.
I asked you about the food pizza.
Pizza's boring.
Food is good.
But let's do this.
You went to your first grade teacher.
Do you know the name of her first grade teacher?
Don't say it, but you don't know.
Okay.
Now, you said Mrs. and just repeat, it was durian.
Am I saying that?
It sounded almost like...
She's my second grade teacher.
She did a small lie.
Now, I don't think that she switched genders.
Most people don't want to lie big.
So she could have just said that it's Mr. Darien.
You understand?
You could have done that.
I don't think she did.
One, it wouldn't have been as plausible.
Who knows?
First grade teachers.
Now, Also, most people, when they switch, they'll either switch to something close.
You don't change the name completely.
Do you see what I mean?
She could have done a third grade teacher, but if that third grade teacher was really weird or really long...
So I bet it's the same.
I bet it's similar amounts of letters.
Don't say, but Darian would have been six letters.
Don't say anything.
I think it would have been...
Here's what I want you to do.
The actual first grade teacher, the way you change in your mind from the truth to lie, this I'm not going to be able to explain.
This is what real mentalism is.
Go back, and there's no way I could know this, right?
No way.
I didn't tell anybody this.
There's no way I could look this up online.
I don't know it.
Choose a letter in the teacher's last name of the truth, the real one.
Just grab a letter out of the middle somewhere.
Just think of one letter.
Do you have it?
Yep.
Now, the other name started with a D, so you thought potentially of a D, but you didn't do a D-L. Are you thinking of an L? I'm not thinking of an L. There is an L. You thought of the L, and it's very funny.
You thought of the L, you thought of a D, which is the same as the other one, and it sounds almost like a color.
Can I show you?
Mrs. Who?
What was your first grade teacher's name?
Can you see what I wrote down?
Mrs. Red Mile.
What is it?
Red Mile.
Red line, close enough for me.
This ain't a bunny out of a hat show.
Hold a second now.
I'm watching you, Lisa.
You looked at her head, her hands, back and forth.
How do you get red line from daring?
Red mile, rather.
It's impossible.
It's not a precise science.
People like it better when I'm not dead eyes.
How'd you even get red?
Do you know her first name?
No, no.
That's it.
No on-demand feature to the show.
Keeping her anonymous.
You had Lisa do a little magic.
Here's the doctor.
The mind-body connection.
People actually get this.
They can look in each other's eyes and see when someone's sick and not well.
And when you love people, you can sort of tell when it's not working and it is working.
Pets can detect it.
I mean, there's something there.
There's things that we don't understand.
So how does mentalism deal with that mind-body connection?
Is there an ability to figure out things that are wrong in you or in others by studying exactly some of these subtleties?
So I've never found a real therapeutic approach to this.
I can't embellish and say that I have because I can't force things upon people they don't want.
So nobody can ever say, oh, you're not going to read my mind right now.
I don't want you to.
Of course I can't.
You have to open up to me.
It's not hypnotizing you.
It's not a mentoring candidate.
What I can do is break down barriers.
So a lot of situations where people necessarily don't get along or people are...
This is a great way to break the ice and to open people up.
I can be in a room where people are not necessarily in good spirits and I warm them up.
And there's a real value to that.
I do a lot of things where I've gone to hospitals.
There's a bunch of hospitals in New York and outside where I'll go do things...
I mean, magicians do it too with these kids.
And it's so fulfilling where you go there and just on the Upper East Side, there's one on 90th and 5th.
And I go there every year and make a point of it and just seeing their eyes light up and the parents and the siblings that are also dealing, which you don't realize, like the dynamics within a family when somebody's ill and they have to deal with it, they almost, you see it on them as well.
The stress, the having to go to the hospital all the time.
They're having to deal with the uncertainty.
And yeah, that really warms it up.
To read their minds and to show somebody that things are possible that you didn't think were possible.
And that message carries through in a lot of different ways.
But you teach us the power of the mind.
I think I teach you that there's things that you don't believe are possible.
That is impossible what you just did.
And these are...
I want to say these are very the tip of the iceberg.
If we really had some time to sit down, blow you away with things that I do.
But when you see that and you get that sense of wonder and amazement again, it opens you up to think, wow, maybe something I want to do is possible too.
That's kind of the messaging that goes through with it because, yeah, you can achieve a lot with your mind.
Could they use you with criminals?
So I've never tried that.
I just don't like things that hug the line where people, I don't purport to do things I can't do.
So with some of those things, I would do it because I think that some of it could potentially work in certain ways, but I don't want to be responsible for life and death scenarios.
I've worked with folks who are professionals picking juries.
They look for subtle things like that.
They do the same things I do.
They have a lot of the same skill set.
Yeah, I would think.
It almost sounds like you.
When they speak, they're channeling you.
Saying, you know, that person's not going to like this.
This person's going to like this.
Which, of course, is a huge...
You know, there are 12 people, right?
You've got eight to vote for you, and you're going to be in pretty good shape.
What if you're wrong?
What happens?
There must be a time when you don't get it right.
Oh, absolutely.
So what do you say?
First of all, why is that?
Why does it happen to someone as experienced as you?
What do you say to the victim in that case?
So here's where it depends.
In a stage show, it's actually better for me to get things wrong.
I can assure you that if I had said red mile instead of red line, which I did not get wrong on purpose, you'd still have been impressed with both, but most people would honestly find this more impressive.
I was.
I'll tell you why.
why because if I had known it, then why would I have said something wrong?
Do you understand what I mean?
So it shows you that it's not a card trick.
There's not, it's an actual assessment where I'm trying to figure you out.
Now in certain instances in my live stage show, when you live and I'm interacting with people, whether it's dozens or show here in the city, it's about 150 people come in every Friday night and they get to be a part of it.
Most of the audience gets to be a part of it.
I can't get every single person.
Now when I'm doing this well, you don't actually know when I get things wrong.
Right?
I pivot.
I move.
You don't even know.
It's kind of like a boxer that faints, and you won't even know that I didn't go to this person because I felt something wasn't right, and I couldn't quite get what I needed from them, and I can't read them as well.
Certain people are much easier to read than others.
For example, children can actually be much more challenging than adults because they're not grounded.
Adults have the way they behave, their mechanisms are set in stone, and they don't realize that they do things in patterns over and over and over, and the more unpredictable you think you are, you're usually the most predictable and easy person to read.
Oh my goodness.
So to answer your question, on live TV, that's where it becomes a real thing.
And I've done things that were very much big gambles on major national TV shows where...
They said to me, what if you didn't get it right?
Because there's no trick.
They go, what if right now in this moment I said something different?
What would you have done?
I go, I would have been screwed.
And I go, that's the reason.
No risk, no reward.
And I'll do things on air where I'll tell someone, think of anything.
And right at the last moment, I go, right now.
So everybody in America knows this isn't fake.
Change your mind.
Right now.
And they would change their mind.
And you can see in their eyes.
And you can see with the fact that they...
Didn't think of that a moment ago.
That they didn't think 5-5-6.
Like we could have said, I'm going to do this instead.
Or I could do this.
And that really sells it.
Because now you know it's real.
Like you made this person do this.
You must have influenced them or known to a T how they would behave.
And if it goes wrong, it goes wrong.
Listen, I'm very much of the mindset that you, if you don't take risks in life, You won't grow.
If everything's just comfortable and you do the same thing over and over, you're going to get the same result over and over.
And that's the same case whether you want a promotion, whether you want to lose weight, whether you want, you know, anything that you want to achieve, you have to get out of your comfort zone.
And so I push myself to do new things each time, and they are risky.
Oh, it's relevant.
Congratulations.
Wonderful, wonderful.
Thank you.
Look at what you're doing.
I'm telling you, it's so impressive at so many levels.
Thanks for helping us learn how to read our own minds anyway a little bit better.
