Oz Pearlman (Mentalist): This Small Mistake Makes People Dislike You! They Do This, They’re Lying! | The Diary Of A CEO Transcript

Oz Pearlman, mentalist and author, discusses reading people, building confidence, and habits for success with Steven Bartlett

Steven Bartlett interviews Oz Pearlman, a former Wall Street professional turned world-renowned mentalist, on The Diary of a CEO.

Summary

Steven Bartlett interviews Oz Pearlman, author of Read Your Mind: Proven Habits for Success from the World's Greatest Mentalist. Pearlman argues that the skills underlying his mentalism career — reading people, eliminating the fear of rejection, making interactions about others rather than yourself, and building memorable moments — are directly transferable to success in business and personal life. He demonstrates several live mentalism routines during the conversation, including guessing a card from an invisible deck, identifying a five-letter name, and — in a closing reveal — correctly predicting that Bartlett would think of Michelle Obama. Pearlman also discusses the importance of memory, active listening, storytelling, and goal-setting, drawing on his journey from a tumultuous teenage home life to the top of his profession.

Key Takeaways

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Introduction and the invisible deck

Oz Pearlman: I've spent three decades reverse engineering the human mind to show you how you can use it to know what somebody's thinking when they meet you, or if somebody is telling you the truth or lying. So let's do something fun. Imagine that in front of you was an invisible deck of cards. Spread them out in front of you. I want you to reach down and imagine you just grab a card at random. Now look at it. Look at me. Okay, close your eyes. Hold your hand out, please. Now, before you open your eyes and tell us — what was that card?

Steven Bartlett: Three of diamonds.

Oz Pearlman: Open your eyes. Take a look.

And it's not magic. I can't teach you this. And these secrets, these habits, they're applicable all throughout life. Trust me, you don't want to miss the rest of this.

Who is Oz Pearlman and why did he write Read Your Mind?

Steven Bartlett: Oz Pearlman, you're a guy who can apparently read people's minds. In fact, the book you've just written is called Read Your Mind: Proven Habits for Success from the World's Greatest Mentalist. So for anyone that isn't familiar with your work and what you do, why did you name your book Read Your Mind? And can you read my mind?

Oz Pearlman: Therein lies the dilemma. My whole job is to make you believe that I can read minds. But here is the honest truth. I can't read minds. I wish I could read minds. That's impossible. I read people. Very different skill. This is built on the world of magic — what I do. Misdirection, influence, suggestion. Knowing how people think indicates to me what they think.

I've spent three decades reverse engineering the human mind. I'm teaching you habits for success because the skills that I have at reading people effectively — walking into a room, taking charge, influencing them — all of the things surrounding the entertainment portion are things that apply to everyone. If you can use these secrets, these habits, they're going to lead you to success in your personal life, in your professional life, in your relationships. And that's what I've done. I think that if I had done this same playbook and not been a mentalist, I'd be successful in any field. They're applicable all throughout life.

I'm pausing for one second because someone listening to this right now — I'm always thinking about the person watching us. Why should they be watching me right now? That's my question. Who cares about me? They don't know me. Why should they watch this? I've studied you. That's what I do for a living. And I have something for you.

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 will 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 —

Oz Pearlman: You know what this is? It's your future.

Steven Bartlett: This is my future?

Oz Pearlman: One hundred percent. Don't open it. You don't want to know your future yet.

And why should they stick around and listen? Because trust me, you don't want to miss the rest of this. Put it somewhere we can see it the whole time.

Steven Bartlett: I'll put it here.

Oz Pearlman: 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 — 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.

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 — 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: Do you actually want me to say it?

Oz Pearlman: I mean, I guess so while I'm here.

Steven Bartlett: Okay, fine.

Oz Pearlman: They trust you. Why do people listen to you? Great interview questions, but they trust you. That's how you build an audience. I'd feel bad if I duped them.

The fear of rejection and how people think

Steven Bartlett: And what is it that you think you know that the average person doesn't know about the human condition?

Oz Pearlman: I know how people think. The skills I learned at a certain point are skills for success in life. Let me explain. The fear of rejection is, I think, 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.

When I was 14, 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 comfortable with me when I walk up to them, and 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?

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? So I walk at an angle so they know I might be leaving soon. I'm one foot in, 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 and 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.

Steven Bartlett: So let's just pause there for a second, because I think everybody — whether you're a content creator, 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.

Oz Pearlman: Yes.

Steven Bartlett: Where immediately — and that's also what Mr. Beast does at the start of his videos — the hook instantly.

Oz Pearlman: 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? It's amazing. You've 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'd 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 — 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 having a phone can allow you to become a global superstar, to launch a business. A hundred years ago this option didn't exist. So knowing how to connect with people on an emotional level, and then knowing what your audience wants — that's what I learned early on. Knowing how people think and using that to entertain them.

Reading people through observation

Steven Bartlett: And how much of it is based on my body language? How much of it is based on how I behave? 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, whether it's their team members or 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?" I've realized you don't want to know how I do it. You don't 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? I've not touched these. There's no magic trick involved.

Steven Bartlett: These are all cards. Yes.

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. 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. 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, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King. Close your eyes. That's it. I'm going to take these cards that are next to you — and I'd like you to keep your eyes closed if you don't mind. This is not a card trick, but I want a visual for your audience. Hold your hand out, please. 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.

It's 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.

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. If you're watching this and you're a business person wanting a tangible takeaway for body language, you ask yourself: was there a body language thing? Was there a flex of an arm? Was there a twinge of an eyebrow? There are definitely markers. But what I would describe to people is that 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, that opens up a world of possibilities. How many major moments of your life had to do with whether somebody liked or was interested in what you were doing — be it in sales, business, or personal — or whether somebody was telling you the truth or lying?

How to detect a lie

Oz Pearlman: The best way to learn if somebody's lying to you is learning their benchmarks. 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.

A lie detector machine — have you ever been lie-detectored?

Steven Bartlett: Never.

Oz Pearlman: The way they work is they have to ask you questions beforehand to set your benchmarks. They check — 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. 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. 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. When we were growing up, most of us had much better BS detection systems. When you're two, three, four, you know if your sibling's lying to you. You know if people are lying to you very well when you're very young. 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, people always ask me, "Are you doing this in every moment of your life?" No. It's tiring. I'm focused, hyperfocused 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.

Selling and persuasion: channelling your inner mentalist

Steven Bartlett: Say I was trying to sell you something. 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. 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?

Oz Pearlman: Number one rule — I call this channelling your inner mentalist. It's not about you. It's always about them. That's been the number one secret to my success.

I've been on all different networks doing what I do. I've been on CNBC dozens of times. That's the financial network. How many other magicians or mentalists have ever been on that network? 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 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: 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 their status quo? 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 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 a practice per se? If I was pitching to you — 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 and ego factors that you believe that person's coming into the room with?

Oz Pearlman: 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 everything. 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 with photos, the moment it's done, you'll sometimes see me in an Uber or 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. Everybody else is supporting cast. So think of it this way. If you can remember things about that person — not creepily, but 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. I know where they live. She just shared a lot of details with me that in her mind are kind of like Snapchats. 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, but people give you credit.

I will remember at shows who hired me for the show. 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 and I say, "John, I sure hope you changed that pin code from 6124." He is blown away. That's not a trick. I wrote it down. 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. The more gratuitously 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.

The power of notes and remembering details

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. 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. Like everything about this is very fresh in my mind and I'll remember it for a day, but then it will 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'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, the longer you hold on to it, the more impressive it is.

If I met you yesterday and you told me your favourite colour 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 favourite colour, 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. The more that you can make someone else shine, the better it happens to you. Everything is about — my whole act is geared towards making other people look good.

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. I was 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 it brought him to tears — made me realise that actually the small things in life that we often overlook, like remembering someone's name or their family or some intricate personal detail, they're so powerful because most people don't think they matter.

Oz Pearlman: 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.

Steven Bartlett: And this is the paradox of small things — that they're actually in fact really big things.

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 moments where one path led to this — I have those moments where somebody said one thing to me, sometimes off-handed, they don't even remember it, and it changed the course of my life.

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 are 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 one-dollar bills, I hold them, I snap, they turn to hundreds. It's 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. It's a joke I've heard a hundred times, a thousand times. And I go, "It's funny, sir. I do work here." He thought it was a joke. I broke character a little. I go, "No, 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?"

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 — what am I doing working here? Where you can kind of visualise 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.

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 I was crazy. Same with Darren Brown. No one said to me, "Oh, this is a great idea." Even though, to tell you the truth, most people were very happy for me. But behind closed doors, I think they thought this kid is nuts.

Steven Bartlett: You kind of were nuts, because statistically, probabilistically, the chance of you becoming a successful mentalist is extremely low. There's probably like 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 are 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 behaviour as the foundation of mentalism

Steven Bartlett: How much of being a mentalist is understanding human behaviour versus —

Oz Pearlman: Everything. I don't even know how to answer. I'm literally a student of the human — how people behave. But the practice of it — because Darren Brown is someone I consider 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. He's misdirecting you to focus on his left hand and the trick is taking place in his right hand.

Steven Bartlett: That couldn't be more true. That's exactly it. But that is knowing human behaviour. 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.

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.

Oz Pearlman: 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. 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, one hundred percent. And they say something to you — they've said it to you before — and you get déjà 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 they mentioned this other person, but something about that takeaway, that thought, that moment of clarity or wisdom, made you think of someone else in your life. It was connected to them. This next person — person number two — they jumped over. Open your eyes. When was the last time you had spoken to that person?

Steven Bartlett: Person number two?

Oz Pearlman: Yeah.

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: 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 are five letters to choose from — there are 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 Darren Brown, knowing how some of this works. So your instinct was to go against your instinct because you thought 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 are vowels in the name. 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?

Steven Bartlett: No.

Oz Pearlman: 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 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.

Likability and disarming people who are on guard

Steven Bartlett: You know, you walk into rooms and people hear that you're a mentalist, so they're already somewhat on edge. And you can see that they're on edge, right?

Oz Pearlman: Yeah. You've got to sweeten it.

Steven Bartlett: So what do you do about that? Because everywhere you go, people are going to be like, "This guy might be able to guess my bank pin, so I'm going to give nothing away." You must be meeting people that are closed off your entire life. How do you get them to go from closed to open?

Oz Pearlman: I think it's being likable. Think about it. If you met somebody who could really read your mind — and I can't read minds, I want to be clear throughout the process, 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. The 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.

Steven Bartlett: But you're tricking me to think that my eye movements played a role.

Oz Pearlman: 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, a 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've got me, I jump to the next lane, I do it a different way.

Steven Bartlett: There's also a possibility that zero percent 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 — one, two, three, four, five.

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 name-counting 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 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.

Building confidence and overcoming procrastination

Oz Pearlman: Another huge one is just confidence. How do people build confidence? When I was 14 and I started doing this, was I this hyperconfident teenager? No. My folks had 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 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. 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 so much of it has to do with a panic that we have in us where we fear a certain feeling. I have certain things that I dread doing. Like, 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.

I have this little trick in my mind where I ask myself, what will I feel like tomorrow about this? What if I could fast-forward my feelings to tomorrow? 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 it 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 — I'm for real. Put an alarm that says "tomorrow." Write down how you feel about this on a scale of 1 to 10. Right when you finish the call, you're going to feel an 8 or 9 out of 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 and 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.

Another one is — I would walk up to tables and people would kick me out. They'd be like, "Get out of here, dude." 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. I go, "You know what? They didn't like 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 centre, 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 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 hyperfixation and focus on a goal that they will make it happen. They manifest it.

Communication, audience awareness, and taking action

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. I'm seeing people — 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 hung over. 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 a smash success. Because if I get one thing that somebody says to me, one tidbit, I feel like that can change your life. Then take action. 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? A lot of the time we make goals that we think of, but then we get them. I have made more money in the last 10 years than if you'd 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 fulfilment. 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 a 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 realise 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.

Somebody talked to me the other day and 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 a 10K. So 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, whatever happened with the 10K?" Now I have to eat humble pie with 10 different people. 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.

The ethics of misdirection and the real secrets to success

Steven Bartlett: You know, in your profession — a lot of it, like with Darren Brown — he'll make you think it's my right hand, but actually it's my left. How do you contend with being someone whose job it is to sort of misdirect me, but then also trying to give people information that will make them successful in their lives?

Oz Pearlman: 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 — it's like How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's a book I've read over and over and over. The skills that allowed me to reach near the top of my profession aren't the tricks. There are other people that can do that. There are 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.

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? It has nothing to do with performing. It has to do with me turning the mirror around. The moment you realise 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 they think of first?

Active listening: the Steven Spielberg lesson

Steven Bartlett: On the skill of listening — I think it's 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. Can you run me through those?

Oz Pearlman: Sure. Should I give you a funny story that kind of led this off? So I did a party for Steven Spielberg. It was his father's 99th birthday. It was a pretty intimate affair. I was noticeably nervous in my mind — not for the performance, but to meet Steven Spielberg. He defined an era of my childhood, and I feel likely for a billion or several billion other people.

So at the end of the show, he comes up to thank me. And I was 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 — about my life, about what drove me. 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 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.

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.

I challenge you — don't just do the normal question when you meet somebody. "Oh, what do you do for a living?" As soon as we do that, we go into autopilot. I'm not judging you — most people do that. 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 favourite — 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? 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.

Steven Bartlett: What is my favourite car?

Oz Pearlman: What is my favourite car? And you think there's no way I can know that? No prior research could have alerted me to it?

Steven Bartlett: No prior research. No.

Oz Pearlman: You decide — the same way that you did 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. I'm assuming it's more than one word — unless you just said "Ford." I don't want to lead you, but if it is more than one word — if it's two, three, four 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 — just saying that was interesting. Decide on one of the words.

Steven Bartlett: Yeah.

Oz Pearlman: 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 it 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. 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 thinking 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. I was thinking of the letter T.

Oz Pearlman: T.

Steven Bartlett: I did originally think of Y.

Oz Pearlman: You did?

Steven Bartlett: Yeah. And then I moved to T.

Oz Pearlman: If I got it right every time, it would be a magic show.

When things go wrong on stage

Steven Bartlett: So sometimes when you perform, things must go wrong.

Oz Pearlman: It depends — like what level they go wrong at, what scale.

Steven Bartlett: Yeah.

Oz Pearlman: If it goes 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 — 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 have the notion of "get it wrong" — it 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.

Steven Bartlett: Yeah.

Breaking the ice and social vulnerability

Steven Bartlett: Have you learned any ways to break the ice in social situations? You talk about this a little bit in the book — one of the ways is 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 them, is there anything else that is worth knowing that people can use in their everyday lives?

Oz Pearlman: I like having an inner monologue out loud. 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. I think walking up to somebody has a real power, and saying, "I'm so nervous. I don't know anyone here. Do you know anyone here?" That moment of opening yourself up — 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. It's a magical quality. I've had people do it to me, and 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 quality is. 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 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: I think I was trying to connect with people. 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 addiction to watching people being amazed and overjoyed in 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. 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. And a month later you ask me, "Have you seen that movie?" And I go, "Did I see that movie?" That response is the death for what I do.

Memory as a superpower

Steven Bartlett: And in the book, on 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? And 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. A lot of people don't know how to drive to a place a city next door — literally, if GPS went out, good luck. You don't know anyone's phone numbers. How many people's phone numbers do you have memorised?

Steven Bartlett: Few and far between.

Oz Pearlman: One.

Steven Bartlett: Exactly.

Oz Pearlman: Tomorrow your iPhone goes away. No Apple, no cloud — you're screwed. If you can't get that back, your life is in disarray. So what do we need our memory for? I think memory is a superpower because no one expects you to have it anymore.

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 teens or any stage of life, we'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 has 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." You want that moment where they say their name.

So I have a trick, a tip for that specific situation. 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. Lather makes your hair smell good. Rinse cleans your hair. Repeat — we've got to sell more Pantene Pro-V. So we all know that. Everyone knows lather, rinse, repeat. I will describe it as this: listen, repeat, reply. Listen, repeat, reply.

The first step sounds silly. It's 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 and write, very hard to do 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 has gone down dramatically.

The last one is reply, which is to use one of 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?" "With a V." "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 Jacob, you're not going to spell that. I'm going to say to you, "Jacob, I love that shirt. Where'd you get that from? The V-neck. Jacob, really sharp." So now I've created a visual hook. You're Jacob with the V-neck shirt. Now I remember you. The third one is, if you want, you can do something that's a connector to someone else you know. "It's so funny — my sister's dating a guy named Stephen. Small world." So you've very quickly connected it. That happens in five seconds. 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 practise 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 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, 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.

Oz Pearlman: Until you 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 showing interest is valuable. There are 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 humanising it. And sometimes if I can figure it out, I will. I'll say, "Give me a clue." And I go, "Help me out." And they'll be 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."

Storytelling, focus, and the malleability of memory

Steven Bartlett: What else 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?

Oz Pearlman: I've given you a lot of the core tenets that I think have made me successful — eliminating that fear of rejection, utilising 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: Why a story?

Oz Pearlman: Because stories are remembered. Stories are interwoven into our DNA. Each of us has 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 thinking about you. 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?

I realised what it was. What I put my attention on, they put their attention on. Like everything in life — if you're focused on the negative, you start to feel negative. When I threw the deck up, sometimes I 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 doing 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. I said to myself, it doesn't matter what I do. It matters what people remember. And what's the story they tell others?

Steven Bartlett: The thing I really learned from that is that your focus is driving someone else's focus. So 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 — I'm trying to manage this conversation, I've got these notes written in front of me, I've got pens, books, props — 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, 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.

Oz Pearlman: Your card story — that's what it said to me. It said that 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. And I never realised until you said that card thing how important it was to make sure my focus is in the right place.

Your focus is in the right place, but also know that your memory is malleable. So in my profession I employ all different tactics. 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, you forget what you just did exactly. 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 watercolour 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 with what you talked about with 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.

Oz Pearlman: Well, that's a nature of what I do. So in a certain routine — what I would ask someone — if I asked 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 is, "I don't know how, but he guessed my first kiss."

Now when they tell that story, they go, "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 comes up — someone you haven't seen since elementary school, the first girl you ever kissed — and you were 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.

Steven Bartlett: Yeah.

Oz Pearlman: If you walk in to a conversation in the middle, you don't know the context, but you know the ending.

And I'm using that because 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.

Obsession, passion, and the journey to the top

Steven Bartlett: You started doing this at a very young age and have developed and evolved your skill set over time. You've got five kids. I'm wondering how important you think obsession is to get to the very top.

Oz Pearlman: It's a 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, obsession was obviously 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 at the 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 for 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 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 — they always have a passion. I don't care what that's for. I don't care if you are a trash man and your obsession is trash. 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, their feeling of being 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 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 the messy journey to here. And I think it's so important to show them what that messy journey looks like, because then they can decide for themselves in their own life if whatever thing they're pursuing is worth the trade.

Oz Pearlman: You say "worth 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 complain for an iota of a second. I've won the lottery times the lottery times the lottery. I have a mindset where I could die tomorrow. Everybody who doesn't think that way, who doesn't have gratitude for today — I'm a natural optimist.

Steven Bartlett: But what does that actually look like? No one was there to see those 20, 30 years. How much work was there? Are you doing it part-time? Is it free time? Is it the shower? Are you thinking about it in the shower?

Oz Pearlman: 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 also be present in the moment. It's not 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. My thoughts, and then crafting them onto 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 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.

I wouldn't have written the book — trust me, 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 who said you should write this. And I felt I finally had a story to tell.

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 are going to be ups and downs. Every career has a life cycle. Right now, things are going very well. There's no question that at 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 climbing. But when that happens, I'm aware of it, and it will not define who I am.

I think having outside interests and challenging yourself outside 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 there are influencers, there are followers, there's all this stuff that 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 in yourself. Each time you get a big guest, you harness your momentum and get a bigger guest. You've earned this. You've created a team around you.

I think that's something notable. And people should decide what's their goal, and as they strive towards it, that's where they feel the fulfilment. For me, the biggest negative is being away from my children and wife. And that's success — 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 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.

Mastering your own mind: goals, habits, and the David Goggins principle

Steven Bartlett: Is there anything else that my audience might be able to take away and action in their own lives — 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 as if I'm superhuman. Goggins doesn't stop — if you've 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. If you get one thing out of this podcast, decide one thing that you want to strive for. 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. 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 eating healthier and starting to work out a little more. And nobody wants to hear that. But you do a little bit of hard work, you continue and you maintain.

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. And that piece of advice set in motion you thinking of Jules.

Steven Bartlett: Yeah.

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. It's a photo of Michelle Obama. She looks gorgeous there.

Closing question: would you live forever?

Steven Bartlett: Okay, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the 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?

Oz Pearlman: I think I would. An obsession of mine growing up has been science fiction. My favourite books to read, the ones that just capture my imagination. And there are so many books I've read about immortality. There's a book that this brings to mind by Octavia E. Butler, which is underrated. It's called Wild Seed, and not a lot of people have read it. It's a sci-fi book, and it delves into this exact subject. 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. It's kind of like the life of an insect. 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. In 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 lived 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.

Final reflections on wonder, connection, and the magic of open minds

Steven Bartlett: Thank you so much. Thank you for writing a book that inspires people to live their better life. And I think all the principles in here are 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 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. That's 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. I think being open-minded and having a different feeling than the usual — 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. I told you the thing I got addicted to was giving people this different feeling. Which is a feeling you lose out on. Children — you see it in their eyes. When I see my three-year-old or my two-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 — it's like this joyful experience. And seeing it through a kid's eyes, it's honestly been the greatest joy of my life. It's seeing that joy of my kids. It's in our DNA. That's my version of immortality.

Steven Bartlett: And humans lose that. We get more —

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 — 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 the camera work, the panning shot, the ISO. They can't disconnect from how the sausage is made.

Because those moments are so few and far between for me, I instantly stop myself from the "how" and I enjoy that wonder. Because it's so few for me that I can't — I know how everything's done. So when I get it, I love it.

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. The possibilities of the world got smaller, because when magic existed, anything was possible. And that's a great place to live. But when I found out Santa Claus wasn't real, I was like, "Oh."

Oz Pearlman: Yes.

Steven Bartlett: It's like, there's no magic in this world.

Oz Pearlman: 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.

Steven Bartlett: I highly recommend people go get your book. 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. I enjoy this. Even though your recent one on AI scared the crap out of me, I'm honoured to have been a guest and I can't wait to write a question for the next person and live on.