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

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life. You’ll get plenty of that in this special episode, which features my interview with David Blaine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifx9yA3Y9KA from my 2017 TV Show Fear{less}. The “less” is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless. Fear{less} features in-depth, long-form conversations with top performers, focusing on how they’ve overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big. It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free, my dear listeners. You can find the video of this episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifx9yA3Y9KA on YouTube.com/TimFerriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss, and eventually you’ll be able to see all episodes for free at YouTube.com/TimFerriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss. Spearheaded by actor/producer and past podcast guest Vince Vaughn https://tim.blog/2017/05/31/vince-vaughn/, Wild West Productions https://twitter.com/wildwest has produced a string of hit movies including The Internship https://www.amazon.com/Internship-Vince-Vaughn/dp/B00F55HNBY/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Couples Retreat https://www.amazon.com/Couples-Retreat-Vince-Vaughn/dp/B009CFYVJK/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Four Christmases https://www.amazon.com/Four-Christmases-Vince-Vaughn/dp/B0091X5IWM/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, and The Break-Up https://www.amazon.com/Break-Up-Vince-Vaughn/dp/B009CFY4NS/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20. In 2020, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act https://www.amazon.com/Opening-Act-Jimmy-Yang/dp/B08K39LBD2/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, starring Jimmy O. Yang and Cedric The Entertainer. In addition to Fear{less}, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck https://audiencenetwork.att.com/audience/undeniable/season-5, ESPN’s 30 for 30 episode https://plus.espn.com/30-for-30 about the ’85 Bears, and the Netflix animated show F is for Family https://www.netflix.com/title/80028732. Please enjoy! * This episode is brought to you by “5-Bullet Friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/?utm_source=timblog&utm_medium=timblog&utm_campaign=podcast-sponsorship,” my very own email newsletter that every Friday features five bullet points highlighting cool things I’ve found that week, including apps, books, documentaries, gadgets, albums, articles, TV shows, new hacks or tricks, and—of course—all sorts of weird stuff I’ve dug up from around the world. It’s free, it’s always going to be free, and you can subscribe now at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/?utm_source=timblog&utm_medium=timblog&utm_campaign=podcast-sponsorship. * For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss https://twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss https://instagram.com/timferriss/ Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast include Jerry Seinfeld https://tim.blog/2020/12/08/jerry-seinfeld/, Hugh Jackman https://tim.blog/2020/06/26/hugh-jackman/, Dr. Jane Goodall https://tim.blog/2020/04/16/jane-goodall/, LeBron James https://tim.blog/2018/11/27/lebron-james-mike-mancias/, Kevin Hart https://tim.blog/2020/05/20/kevin-hart/, Doris Kearns Goodwin https://tim.blog/2018/09/07/doris-kearns-goodwin-leadership/, Jamie Foxx https://tim.blog/2015/12/06/jamie-foxx/, Matthew McConaughey https://tim.blog/2020/10/19/matthew-mcconaughey/, Esther Perel https://tim.blog/2017/05/21/esther-perel/, Elizabeth Gilbert https://tim.blog/2020/05/08/elizabeth-gilbert/, Terry Crews https://tim.blog/2017/12/20/terry-crews-how-to-have-do-and-be-all-you-want/, Sia https://tim.blog/2020/08/12/sia/, Yuval Noah Harari https://tim.blog/2020/10/27/yuval-noah-harari/, Malcolm Gladwell https://tim.blog/2016/06/21/malcolm-gladwell/, Madeleine Albright https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/, Cheryl Strayed https://tim.blog/2017/03/30/cheryl-strayed/, Jim Collins https://tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim-collins/, Mary Karr, https://tim.blog/2020/11/11/mary-karr/ Maria Popova https://tim.blog/2014/10/21/brain-pickings/, Sam Harris https://tim.blog/2020/05/15/sam-harris-2/, Michael Phelps https://tim.blog/2021/01/21/michael-phelps-grant-hackett/, Bob Iger https://tim.blog/2020/01/16/bob-iger/, Edward Norton https://tim.blog/2019/10/31/edward-norton-motherless-brooklyn/, Arnold Schwarzenegger https://tim.blog/2015/02/02/arnold-schwarzenegger/, Neil Strauss https://tim.blog/2014/06/24/neil-strauss/, Ken Burns https://tim.blog/2019/09/12/ken-burns/, Maria Sharapova https://tim.blog/2017/08/26/maria-sharapova/, Marc Andreessen https://tim.blog/2016/05/29/marc-andreessen/, Neil Gaiman https://tim.blog/2019/03/28/neil-gaiman/, Neil de Grasse Tyson https://tim.blog/2019/10/03/neil-degrasse-tyson/, Jocko Willink https://tim.blog/2016/09/21/jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/, Daniel Ek https://tim.blog/2020/12/03/daniel-ek/, Kelly Slater https://tim.blog/2020/09/08/kelly-slater/, Dr. Peter Attia https://tim.blog/2019/11/27/peter-attia-fasting-metformin-longevity/, Seth Godin https://tim.blog/2016/02/10/seth-godin/, Howard Marks https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-marks/, Dr. Brené Brown https://tim.blog/2020/02/06/brene-brown-striving-self-acceptance-saving-marriages/, Eric Schmidt https://tim.blog/2019/04/09/eric-schmidt/, Michael Lewis https://tim.blog/2020/05/01/michael-lewis/, Joe Gebbia https://tim.blog/2018/03/08/joe-gebbia-co-founder-of-airbnb/, Michael Pollan https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind/, Dr. Jordan Peterson https://tim.blog/2021/03/01/jordan-peterson/, Vince Vaughn https://tim.blog/2017/05/31/vince-vaughn/, Brian Koppelman https://tim.blog/2020/04/23/brian-koppelman/, Ramit Sethi https://tim.blog/2019/05/07/ramit-sethi/, Dax Shepard https://tim.blog/2020/11/18/dax-shepard/, Tony Robbins https://tim.blog/2014/10/15/money-master-the-game/, Jim Dethmer https://tim.blog/2020/05/18/jim-dethmer/, Dan Harris https://tim.blog/2020/11/19/dan-harris/, Ray Dalio https://tim.blog/2017/09/13/ray-dalio/, Naval Ravikant https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/, Vitalik Buterin https://tim.blog/2021/03/08/vitalik-buterin-naval-ravikant/, Elizabeth Lesser https://tim.blog/2021/03/16/elizabeth-lesser/, Amanda Palmer https://tim.blog/2019/04/18/amanda-palmer-2/, Katie Haun https://tim.blog/2021/02/18/katie-haun/, Sir Richard Branson https://tim.blog/2017/10/09/richard-branson/, Chuck Palahniuk https://tim.blog/2020/09/02/chuck-palahniuk/, Arianna Huffington https://tim.blog/2017/10/18/arianna-huffington/, Reid Hoffman https://tim.blog/2015/08/31/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley-reid-hoffman-plus-michael-mccullough/, Bill Burr https://tim.blog/2017/09/17/bill-burr/, Whitney Cummings https://tim.blog/2015/06/26/whitney-cummings/, Rick Rubin https://tim.blog/2015/05/15/rick-rubin/, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://tim.blog/2020/03/26/vivek-murthy/, Darren Aronofsky https://tim.blog/2017/09/09/darren-aronofsky/, and many more. 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• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers, and it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time, because after all, the podcasts, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free,

• 0:44Tim Ferriss?

  it's always gonna be free, and you can learn more at tim.blog/friday. That's tim.blog/friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with, and little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So, check it out, tim.blog/friday.

• 1:27Tim Ferriss?

  If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot, and you can, of course, easily subscribe anytime. So, easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog/friday, and thanks for checking it out, if the spirit moves you.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 1:50Speaker 02

  No, we're just seeing an appropriate time.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 2:07Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, to tease out the routines, habits, etc. that you can apply to your own life. You will get plenty of all of that in this special episode, which features an interview from my 2017 TV show, Fearless. The "less" is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless. Fearless features in-depth, long-form conversations with top performers, focusing on how they've overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big along the way. It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free, my dear listeners. So, thank

• 2:49Tim Ferriss?

  you, Wild West. You can find the video of this episode, which is gorgeous, I think they did an incredible job, on youtube.com/TimFerriss. Remember, two Rs, two S's, youtube.com/TimFerriss. And eventually, you'll be able to see all of the episodes for free at youtube.com/TimFerriss. So, you can swing over there and see what is currently up. Before we get started, just a little bit more on Wild West. Spearheaded by actor, producer, and past podcast guest Vince Vaughn, Wild West has produced a string of hit movies, including The Internship, Couples Retreat, Four Christmases, and The Breakup. In 2020, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act, starring Jimmy Oh Yang and Cedric the Entertainer. In addition to Fearless, their television credits include Undeniable with

• 3:33Tim Ferriss?

  Joe Buck, ESPN's 30 for 30 episode about the 85 Bears, and the Netflix animated show F is for Family. Wild West has also produced the documentaries Give Us This Day, Game Changers, subtitle Dreams of BlizzCon, and Wild West Comedy Show. And now, without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation from Fearless.

• 3:57Tim Ferriss?

  I'm Tim Ferriss, author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and now, TV host. I've spent my entire adult life asking questions, then scouring the globe to find the answers. On this show, I'll share the secrets of pioneers who have faced their own fears. We'll dig into the hard times, big mistakes, tough decisions, and how they got through it all. The goal isn't to be fearless. The goal is to learn to fear less.

• 4:27Tim Ferriss?

  Welcome to Fearless. I'm your host, Tim Ferriss. And on this stage, we'll be deconstructing world-class performers of all different types to uncover the specific tactics and strategies they've used to overcome doubt, tackle their hardest decisions, and ultimately succeed on their own terms. So let's take a look at my guest by the numbers. Seventeen minutes, four seconds. His world-record-setting breath hold. If you can believe that, it's true. Forty-four days, how long he survived without food in a plexiglass box. Sixty-three hours, forty-two minutes, and fifteen seconds. The amount of time he spent encased in a block of ice. For nearly twenty years, he has risked his life for your entertainment. Please welcome to the stage, world-renowned illusionist and endurance artist, David Blaine.

• 5:24Tim Ferriss?

  So David, I have wanted to have this conversation for years now. Yeah, I'm excited. We're gonna have fun tonight. And I thought one way we could start is with a video that maybe does not represent the most fun, but I think is a good video nonetheless. Awesome. This is as close as I come to doing a magic trick.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Focusing, you're doing good. Here we go.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Working the next set of cuffs. From behind. Just a little bit of air in there, you guys. Get ready.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  There are some bubbles.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Go, go, go.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  The divers are in.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Relax, relax. We got you, David. You're all right. You're all right.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  The divers are in the sphere.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  You're okay, David. Just relax. We've got you. Come on up. You're okay. You're okay.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  March the panic and man you rate quick sink. I've got David out of the bubble.

• 6:30Tim Ferriss?

  So that is a terrifying video. What happened in that particular situation? Why did things go sideways?

• 6:38Speaker 03

  In training, when I'd worked on that, I never, the record was, I believe at the time was nine minutes. And I'd never gotten up to nine minutes. I got to seven minutes and 47 seconds, dry, no oxygen, just breath-holding. And I figured, if I starved myself, I'm in the fear, my metabolism, everything slows down, I would be able to miraculously hold my breath much longer. And it did the opposite effect. So when it came time to do the stunt, I had handcuffs on, I was strapped at the bottom, and I just started to convulse. They jumped in to get me, and you can't see in the video, and I was like, "No!" Like, I held my finger up to stop them, because I thought I could keep going, but I'm blacking out.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  And luckily, they did jump in, because he had to take these things off to pull my head above the water.

• 7:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, seems like one of the main dangers of any type of breath-hold training, is you feel fine until you're not, right? I mean, with some of it.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  But when you blackout, see, I learned that Navy SEALs, as part of the training, what they do is, they make the SEALs comfortable with blacking out underwater. So what they do is they strap them to 45-pound plates and make them walk the bottom of a pool. And they walk until they blackout underwater. And then they get pulled to the top, and they're brought back, and they're fine. But that makes everybody not afraid of drowning. You have no fear, because you've already blacked out underwater.

• 8:01Tim Ferriss?

  You've already experienced the worst experience. At TED Med, where you have a great presentation, it's been a hugely popular talk. But what I remember personally, was with a small group, sitting in the audience, and having you...

• 8:12Speaker 03

  You held your breath.

• 8:13Tim Ferriss?

  Train people. So check this out, guys, or maybe I'm making this number up, maybe 15 people in the audience.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  You got up to almost five minutes.

• 8:19Tim Ferriss?

  I got to 333. I remember very specifically, but there was... There were people in the audience that got past five. And these were people completely untrained. My breath hold record for me was around forty-five seconds. I have lung issues. And I got to three minutes and thirty-three seconds. And there were other people who just kept trucking. And that was maybe fifteen or twenty minutes of exercises?

• 8:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, twenty minutes total. That was scarier than any of the stunts that I've ever done.

• 8:44Tim Ferriss?

  Talking.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  At that conference.

• 8:46Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, talking at the conference?

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. The stunts are easy. But I was in front of like five hundred of my favorite people, you being one of them. And I had never given a public talk where I wasn't doing magic. So just to stand there and have to talk in front of everybody that I respect so much, I was like three days, three nights, no sleep. So that was its own stunt.

• 9:08Tim Ferriss?

  So, I mean, it's all relative, right, guys? I mean, he's not afraid of that, but he's afraid to talk in front of five hundred people. So whatever your fears might be, it kind of puts it in perspective. What was your, what was your childhood like? How would you describe your, your childhood, early childhood?

• 9:21Speaker 03

  I grew up in Brooklyn with a single mother. And we didn't have much. She worked multiple jobs. But she was so incredible because she allowed me to dream, imagine. Yeah, there's, you see? And also, do you see I have leg braces on?

• 9:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  So I was born, I was born with my feet turned in. And so I couldn't run fast and I couldn't swim fast. So at the age of five, I was on the YMCA swim team. And that's where I started to learn to hold my breath. Because in order to keep up or even be faster than the other kids, I learned how to swim without breathing. So all the other kids had to learn how to do this and I would just swim straight across. And that's where, that's where I started to develop an ability to hold my breath.

• 10:04Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  But so back to my mom, yeah. So she was just, I could ask for nothing more amazing. She was the best gift that I could have had as a child. And... She'd walk me through the park all the time and even if I was late for school. Like, one time I was walking through the park and I was late, so, and she was walking me before she had to go to work. And I was like, "Mom, look, there's King Kong." And instead of her saying, "No, no, we're late, let's go," she said, "Where?" You know, she engaged, right? So we walked all the way over and it was just a log, you know, a tree that was down. But the idea that she let me imagine and believe and didn't want to stifle that, that's what made her so incredible.

• 10:49Tim Ferriss?

  How were you introduced to magic or magic tricks?

• 10:52Speaker 03

  When I was, so I was about five years old, my mother gave me a deck of cards and I would carry it everywhere that I went. It was like a treasure to me. And I would go to the library and wait for my mother to finish work and pick me up. And one of the librarians, one day, walked me through a simple book of magic, self-working stuff. And when my mother came and I did it to her and she went crazy, I became obsessed with doing magic and getting her reaction and then getting her friends' reactions. So I never did it for the other kids, because they would have been really difficult.

• 11:26Tim Ferriss?

  Brutal.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I was lucky, I just did it to my mother's friends.

• 11:29Tim Ferriss?

  That's a tough crowd.

• 11:32Tim Ferriss?

  Did you want to be a magician from that point onward? Or what did you think you were gonna be when you were little? What did your mom think you were gonna be?

• 11:38Speaker 03

  When I was five, I said to my mom, "I'm gonna be a magician one day," and she went, "That's amazing." So.

• 11:45Tim Ferriss?

  Incredible. So you stuck to the script?

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, stuck to it.

• 11:49Tim Ferriss?

  How has she affected how you live your life today?

• 11:54Speaker 03

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

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Sort of planted the seed to, you know, what is there on this other side of enduring things that are...

• 12:26Tim Ferriss?

  And not viewing it as just a bad thing. And were you, uh, you were with her when she passed?

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, she died in my arms.

• 12:34Tim Ferriss?

  I can't even imagine.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  That was, uh, I remember at that moment, I felt like my body was like one big twig and it was like, snapped. And I became really afraid to, uh, connect like that to anybody else.

• 12:50Tim Ferriss?

  How did, besides the, you know, putting the armor on or not wanting to necessarily connect in that way, did anything else change?

• 12:57Speaker 03

  But I think also at that point, that's when I became fearless because at that point, I felt like I had nothing to lose. So when I was nineteen or twenty or something like that, I was, I was at the airport and my bag was missing and I saw a whole bunch of identical bags coming out and there was all these guys dressed in identical jumpers. And I was like, I think you guys have one of my bags. Cause I have the exact same bag. It was a Toomey bag. They said, go, go ask him, knock on the window. And it was a limousine, a white limo parked up front with tinted windows. And I knock on the window and the thing rolls down and Mike Tyson's there with his fist up. He's like, you got a problem? And I was like, and I was like, holy shit.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  No, Mike, you're like my favorite person and I grew up, da-da-da, you know? So, um, he says, jump in. So I ju- and so I jumped in the limo with him and we drive to the hotel he's staying at. And in, and I'm doing magic to him and it's, it's amazing. And along the way, he says to me, he says, you know, I wasn't supposed to be the heavyweight champ. He's like, I didn't have, I wasn't tall enough, I didn't have long arms. He's like, but I had nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain. And I was kinda like, that was like another, like, great piece of information from Mike Tyson.

• 14:14Tim Ferriss?

  So you, it's, I mean, these, these types of encounters just blow my mind. Cause if I look at like their chronology, so at eighteen, I think it was, uh, and I don't know if this was a milestone or not, but you, I believe this is when you jumped a turnstile, got in some trouble for that?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:34Tim Ferriss?

  Could you tell people about this?

• 14:35Speaker 03

  I was doing, I was doing magic in restaurants. And it started as a waiter where I would do magic and then I people wanted to come back and just see me doing magic so I started walking up and down Park Avenue trying to get different fancy restaurants to hire me, not hire me, let me do magic to the people that were dining and then they would tip me. As I started doing that, I started getting hired by wealthy New Yorkers to do their parties and things like that. One night I jumped over a turnstile and that's when Giuliani was sweeping everybody. So I I got locked up but as I was going there I kept breaking out of the cuffs for the cops so they liked it.

• 15:12Tim Ferriss?

  Cops love that by the way, I'm kidding.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  They actually do.

• 15:16Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, do they?

• 15:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:17Tim Ferriss?

  So, I have to pause. So you're like, hey guys, these aren't working. I mean, how do they respond to that?

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, no, they're all good. They know that I'm not really a threat but you know, so it's gonna...

• 15:29Tim Ferriss?

  They know they just have to go through the motions.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I get put in central booking. And central booking is crazy. It's like everybody's in and out of Rikers so it's like a tough room and you're being moved from one cell to another and there's like forty guys in there. And I'm like, oh man, I'm gonna get my ass kicked. So the four biggest guys are sitting on the ground playing spades. So I walk up to them and grab the deck of cards from them. And I'm like, let me show you something. Like, you know, they're ready to kill me. And I start doing magic. And then what happened was they started to go crazy and these are the toughest guys in the cell. So then the whole cell is around me, you know, thirty guys or twenty some guys, all going crazy and then the guards come in.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  And everybody was reacting to me doing magic, like they were all going crazy again. I was like, whoa. So, these people on Park Avenue, these super powerful people and then in prison, these guys, the reactions are so amazing and so similar, I wanna show that. So that became the impetus for the first TV show which was called Street Magic. You know the guys that do three car money, right?

• 16:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Alright, this is that game for you right now.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Not for me, Brian.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  No, no, no money, no money. It's to just pretend. Instead of three cards, you just... Hold your fingers like this, so. Hold your fingers like this. Look, watch. This card, right? Remember diamonds. Forget ace, just diamonds. Hold it, pal. What card do you have?

• 16:54Speaker 04

  What?

• 16:54Speaker 03

  What card is that?

• 16:56Speaker 04

  Can I look at it?

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but name it, name it. What is it?

• 16:59Speaker 04

  Ace of diamonds.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Diamonds, just diamonds. Look, show it to them, make sure it's alright.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Bingo bango.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  Alright, show it to them too.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  Bingo bango.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  Bingo bango, cool, man. Hold it like this, look. Lower, lower, lower, watch. This one, same thing, just remember hearts, forget ace, just hearts.

• 17:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  Watch this switch, ready? See, I switched it. Look, I'll do it again. See it switch back? Just switch twice so quick you didn't see it.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Get off my shoe, huh? Sorry, sorry. You got it switched?

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, it switched twice. Look, I'll do it so you could see it. Look, here's the move. See how the borders line up?

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Don't pull it on the bottom.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  No, I'm teaching, I'm teaching you right now. That's how I do it. Hold it tight though, to make it impossible now, because you know the move. I have diamonds, ready?

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Without looking at it, what would you bet on? Hearts or diamonds?

• 17:37Speaker 04

  I'm betting, I can get no money.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  Alright, but pretend bet. Would you bet hearts here or hearts here? Or could I impress you if the heart was on top, diamond was on bottom?

• 17:44Speaker 04

  The heart's on top because you had the heart.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Turn your hand over.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Go ahead, turn your hand over.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Everybody thinks they're so different, but really there's also generalities among people. So you can really kind of look at a group and you can estimate which person's gonna react a certain way. And you get better and better at it the more you do it. It's kind of like what psychics do.

• 18:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Like psychics, basically, when you walk in, they profile you right away. And they've done it so many times that they can kind of cold read what you do, where you're from, what you're looking for, whether you're skeptical, whether you're not. So it's like, you just learn to read people.

• 18:26Tim Ferriss?

  Read the cues.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:28Tim Ferriss?

  What's, what are some lines or approaches that you use when you just cold approach somebody?

• 18:33Speaker 03

  There was, there was a magician named Harvey Cohen that I used to love. He taught me so much. And he would approach people when he would do magic. And he would say, he was very fumbly with the cards. But while he was fumbling cards, he was secretly like loading cards in your pocket and doing all this stuff. So he'd kind of approach with this non-approach. It wasn't like, look, I'm a magician, I'm gonna amaze you. It was almost like he couldn't hold the cards, so you'd be like hoping that he was gonna succeed. And then, then at the end, when... You thought everything had gone wrong and there's two cards in your pocket and one on the, you know. Wah! So it was like, the, the, the approach that I always liked to do in magic is the opposite of what a magician would do.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  Cause I always imagined if somebody could really do magic, they wouldn't really have big patter. They would kind of be fumbling, they'd say, "Look at this thing," and then just do something.

• 19:23Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  So that was always the approach, was simple. Simple and understated, I think, is the best approach.

• 19:29Tim Ferriss?

  At what point did you go to acting school? You did go to acting school?

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I went with Brian Callen, who was amazing. I learned so much from him.

• 19:36Tim Ferriss?

  How did you decide to go to acting school?

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Well, you know, there's a famous quote that Orson Welles said, but it's from Robert Houdin where he says, "A magician is just an actor playing the part of a magician." So at that time, I was, I was a close-up magician. There was really no, there was no business in it. There was no way to make a living at it. So I figured I would study acting and take it seriously and maybe apply it to magic and see what happens. And it was a really valuable year because what you learn in acting school is living truthfully in a given imaginary circumstance. So it's interesting because when you apply that to magic, it's like, instead of these are just tricks, you kind of like, almost believe what you're seeing on some level. Not believe it like, "Ah, how'd I do that?"

• 20:21Speaker 03

  But you kind of play into that as opposed to the silly patter and the silly trick in it. I feel like the magic comes to life that way. You know, it makes a performance more interesting. One of the best things Brian taught me there, he was, he was an early mentor to me. One of the quotes his dad gave to him is, "Always surround yourself with people that will inspire you or help you grow." And that was just a great piece of advice from him. I took that very seriously and pursued people that I looked up to or that I admired and, and tried to learn things from them. Since I didn't have really, you know, a father figure or anything like that.

• 20:56Tim Ferriss?

  Did you look for? Father figures kind of throughout that adolescent period? Or was it more surrounding yourself with peers?

• 21:05Speaker 03

  No, well, I mean, early on, I would read about all the people I looked up to. And, you know, that was kind of like my college was finding people that did things that I was really amazed by and then learning as much as I could. And then what I started doing is I started finding all the books on Nobel Prize winners and then in literature specifically. And then I would read what books they recommended and then I would read the books that they recommended. Then on the back of that book, it would be what this book was influenced by. So I started going through lots of that stuff.

• 21:34Tim Ferriss?

  The original hyperlinks bibliographies.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:38Tim Ferriss?

  When did you start fasting? And why?

• 21:41Speaker 03

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

• 22:19Tim Ferriss?

  So the fasting, so Siddhartha is one of my favorite books.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Really?

• 22:23Tim Ferriss?

  Absolutely. And I remember.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Have you guys read that?

• 22:26Tim Ferriss?

  It's a short read.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 22:28Tim Ferriss?

  It's a short read. And I remember at least in two instances, so he's trying to court this noble woman, I think she is, and he's also trying to get a job with a merchant at one point. And they ask him, because he's effectively, at least acting the part of monk at the time, they say, well, what can you give? What can you do? And he said, I can think, I can wait, and I can fast.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:51Tim Ferriss?

  And he talks about the value of not being beholden to food. And he says, for instance, if you asked me to work for you right now and I needed food, I'd have to say yes to whatever you offer me, because since I can fast. I can think about it more rationally. But I've done seven and 10 day fasts. I've never gone as far as you have. But it's incredible when you click over from carbohydrate dependent to pulling on your fat stores. I mean cognitively, everything changes. It's very, very interesting. It's hard to go, like you can't go back to how it was before in terms of viewing food and so on.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:24Tim Ferriss?

  It's totally different. Looking back over your stunts, all the magic, the endurance feats, which ended up being more dangerous than you expected or scarier than expected?

• 23:39Speaker 03

  Probably the 44 days with the water fast in London in a box because I think I went into mild organ failure and I dropped a 33% BMI, which was well documented, but it was the recovery on that. I think to this day, it's still screwed up my metabolism and my weight goes up and down really fast. And it did real damage. So vitamin deficiency, so the pigment leaves.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  I lost 60 pounds in 44 days.

• 24:18Tim Ferriss?

  The Plexiglas diet.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Not recommended.

• 24:20Tim Ferriss?

  Not recommended. Your dietitian will not have this on the multiple choice options. What did your refeeding look like after that?

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Well, that was the really interesting part. So after I did the 44 days, I was rushed to the hospital where I stayed for, I think, two weeks. When they started refeeding me, I think my phosphate levels jumped out of control and I almost went into shock and died. And that was the refeeding syndrome.

• 24:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  We published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine about the refeeding syndrome, which is because most hunger strikers in the past, they do it and they're very anti-government, anti... You know, it's for a statement, whereas I just did it as a performance piece. And therefore I was willing to give all my bloods and all my urine to doctors and let them use it as research. So it actually became useful in the sense that there was a real documented study of the prolonged effects of... Fasting.

• 25:20Tim Ferriss?

  Forty-four days.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Or starvation, technically, yeah.

• 25:24Tim Ferriss?

  Were there any of your performances on the flip side that you thought were gonna be very difficult or very scary that were easier than expected? For you, for whatever reason?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 25:39Tim Ferriss?

  What does magic mean to you? Because you do so much more than illusion and magic. I mean, you really have sort of a full stack performer kit at your disposal. But what does magic mean to you?

• 25:51Speaker 03

  And for me, it's just a beautiful performance art. Like, it's something where... And it's also like, you learn a really difficult skill. It defies logic. And then you have an immediate reaction to it. So it's something you can do almost anywhere, anytime. And it's also a constant pursuit of information, but information that isn't readily available. So it's like you have to dig up history. You read about a guy that had done something from a hundred years ago. He died, took his secrets to the grave. So you spend years trying to be, you know, trying to understand how he did it. And it's trial and error, practice, repetition. And then finally, all of a sudden, you're, you know, able to do these things that you had only read about.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Like, one was, you know, called The Human Aquarium, which is about a guy that could convert his body into an aquarium where he could store creatures. Another was... Yeah, I'm not kidding.

• 26:46Tim Ferriss?

  This is a real trick.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, another was a magician.

• 26:49Tim Ferriss?

  Wait, so he'd like put a sturgeon in his mouth and like regurgitate it?

• 26:52Speaker 03

  Well, anything, yeah. Anything that could live in water and land. But then you also find there's another guy that was the Human Dragon. And he could drink kerosene. It would float on top of a gallon of water in his stomach. And then he would blow fireballs out of his mouth, igniting a huge fire. And then just when he thought that was the end, he'd use a gallon of water that was stored in his stomach and put out the fire.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  But of course, of course, one time he did it wrong and died. So...

• 27:24Speaker 03

  But, and took his secrets to the grave, so, you know...

• 27:27Tim Ferriss?

  Inadvertently.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, but so I see the footage, and I'm like, I wanna do that. You know, so I spent like twenty years trying to figure it out. And I couldn't, because there was no... Nobody had the secrets. So I was like, oh, man, maybe this isn't such a smart idea to do.

• 27:44Tim Ferriss?

  So we're gonna pull up this video involving an ice pick.

• 27:49Speaker 05

  You can see how complex and how dangerous to take an object and put it through your hand is. And especially where David's doing it, there's a whole complex of arteries there.

• 28:11Speaker 05

  You want me to pull it out?

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, gnarly.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Nothing, just a hole. No blood, nothing, just a hole.

• 28:22Speaker 05

  There's not even any blood on this thing either.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Nothing. Explain that one, Dr. Rooted.

• 28:31Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  I don't think that deserves applause. I think that deserves, like, you're out of your mind.

• 28:42Tim Ferriss?

  Condemnation, off the stage.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  But ironically, before I leave, I brought another thing similar that I have an x-ray of that I'll show you that I recently learned. So I'll show it to you before I go. Which is a little crazier than this one, I think.

• 28:57Tim Ferriss?

  The only way that I can even begin to approach talking about that is, let's assume that it's totally real. Like, you actually figured out how to put that through your hand. That's the only place I can go with it. What is your self-talk when you're practicing that?

• 29:12Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, Houdini used to do this thing where he'd push pins through his face and then pull them all out, swallow razor blades, pull them out threaded, but there are ways to do things that are real that, you know, you would assume it can't be done because you would assume that you're gonna bleed. But there's a way to, and I started with acupuncture needles, just trying to see if you could go straight through. I had x-rays taken, MRs, you know, the whole thing so I could know where all the blood vessels and everything lie. And then I found a sweet spot and just started, you know, slowly figuring out how to go through the hand.

• 29:54Tim Ferriss?

  Is there any particular trick or stunt that has obsessed you for a long time that you have not yet been able to figure?

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, the craziest one, I've been obsessed with the idea of sleep deprivation. Yeah, because, no, but when you do sleep deprivation, like the Native Americans would do it and they would, you get this really incredible hallucination.

• 30:14Tim Ferriss?

  Digital quest.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's like, I've done like five and a half days with no sleep and for me hallucinations start to really kick in at like fifty-five hours if I'm standing up the whole time and it's a really rough environment. And it's, even though it's scary, it's also like you're having these dreams and these nightmares, but you're awake. But, the North Koreans used it as a ultimate form of torture on the Americans when they were hostages and many of those hostages came back tweaked for life, so it's like there is, what is the breaking point?

• 30:47Tim Ferriss?

  The risk benefit.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:49Tim Ferriss?

  Analysis may not be in your favor. So, I remember at one point, it's one of my favorite parks in New York City, Bryant Park. Was that where you were on top?

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:18Tim Ferriss?

  I remember reading at one point that, talking about hallucinations, the buildings became like wolf heads or something?

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, animal heads, yeah.

• 31:27Tim Ferriss?

  Animal heads.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  When you look back, you see the shapes of just normal buildings and you suddenly think, wow, that looks like a lion. So, I was up there for like thirty-six hours, but I started hallucinating at like hour thirty. But just light hallucinations, so the buildings that were behind me that were perfectly flat, I started looking at them, I was like, wow, I didn't know those buildings were lion heads. So the people down below.

• 31:49Tim Ferriss?

  That's a light hallucination?

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, yeah, that's light. So the people below that were working on the thing and the, you know, people at ABC. Suddenly decided that there's no way I was gonna hit my target. So they built this huge thing of boxes that was enormous, which pissed me off. And I ended up jumping and hitting the mark, but that was during mild hallucinations.

• 32:14Tim Ferriss?

  Have you ever learned anything from your hallucinations? Very curious, not trying to imply that you have to have.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 32:20Tim Ferriss?

  Just curious, because I'm in my mind comparing it to say, uh, some descriptions of psychedelic experience.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  No, yeah, also, you have that as well, but, but one of the things that I did learn is out of anything that I did that was extremely difficult,

• 32:38Speaker 03

  when your brain starts to go, like when you start to lose control of your mind, there's nothing is horrific imaginable. So it's like I never understood when somebody has mental illness, I never understood how severe that is. But it's like when I go through those things and it's like, all of a sudden, the world becomes scary because you don't have control anymore. And I learned that like now anybody that I meet that has any kind of mental illness in any way, I, I, I'm extremely compassionate, or not just compassionate, but like, yeah, this is, this is, this, this is the craziest thing ever.

• 33:17Tim Ferriss?

  When that starts to set in, do you, have you developed any strategies to cope with it?

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Well, that's interesting because basically what happens is your brain is trying to trick you. So the brain knows that you need sleep. So the brain can recover and you can, your immune system, everything is built. So what happens is when you're staying awake, even if you have people helping you, your brain is coming at you with your biggest fears. And anything that is your weakness, your brain is trying to say this is happening to you and you need to go to sleep, otherwise this is gonna get worse and worse. So you start seeing like blemishes appearing all of a, but they're not there. You see your hand chains into spider webs, like everything that would freak you out, so you would decide, I can't do this anymore,

• 34:07Speaker 03

  is going, so you have to do it often enough and have a very sensitive, careful team around you that are guiding you almost, that teach you how to override what your brain is trying to tell you to do.

• 34:23Tim Ferriss?

  That's pretty wild.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's pretty wild.

• 34:25Tim Ferriss?

  Also trans skill. Do you have any fears? I mean, what are you afraid of? Or what makes you anxious?

• 34:32Speaker 03

  I don't, I'm not, I don't, well, first of all, I used to be horrified of insects. I would see like a cockroach, "Ah!"

• 34:40Speaker 03

  But I think I learned that from my mother, because she was really afraid of bugs. But then I went to Botswana, Africa, and I was sleeping in this little tent with these hippos circling the tent all night. And you're there by yourself, and you're in this little tent filled with spiders and all these bugs, and they become like your good friends, you know, because you're, like, these hippos could chomp you in half in one second.

• 35:05Tim Ferriss?

  See, I mean, you're mentioning something that I think is really worth underscoring, because it seems to have come up a couple of times, which is, if you're afraid of something, you can try to think your way out of it, or you can just expose yourself to it. And sort of inoculate yourself with these, these, these small doses.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:23Tim Ferriss?

  If someone, for instance, Cato was considered the perfect Stoic, and he cared how people judged him at one point. He was very concerned with how other people felt about him, so he started wearing odd-colored clothing and so on, so that he would get ridiculed. He did it on purpose, so that he could practice not caring about, being embarrassed about things, unless they were truly important, right? And practicing poverty, similar idea, right? Even, you say, you take Seneca or some of these other famous Stoics, and they would take a certain period of time and eat the cheapest of food, sleep on a hard floor.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Sleep on bare floors, yeah.

• 35:57Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly. So that they would know, you know, "Is this, is this the condition I so feared?" Is what they would ask themselves. So I want to pull up some audience questions from Twitter. This is @TYKOe. What are somewhat average things that you can't do despite all attempts?

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Dance.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Karaoke?

• 36:23Tim Ferriss?

  Karaoke, god, yeah, that's a tough one. Not much. I always do, nothing but a hound dog. I don't know why, it's like my default. I'm like, I can't do karaoke, but that's my go-to.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  It's like wearing the odd clothes. So you can be a stoic, we should just go out and karaoke until we're...

• 36:40Tim Ferriss?

  Be hard-watching, at least, yeah. The next question is somewhat related to what we were just talking about. What is your secret reserve of strength when you feel that your body or mind can't push through?

• 36:52Speaker 03

  That's a really good question. So what I do is, a lot of it is based on numbers. So I create, and I run it across the board. So it's like if I'm gonna run a 10K, I make sure that I get not just to the 6.2, but I'll go always further, like maybe to 7, or I'll pick a number that's important. And then I have these superstitions that if I don't get to this number, something terrible is gonna happen. So by committing to this, this almost superstition that's based on numbers, you can use, you know, the halfway mark, like, okay, I'm gonna get to 22 days of a fast,

• 37:33Speaker 03

  but I know I have 44 days. So first I reach the 22-day mark, and then I start counting backwards. I said, I already did half, so that half, so now I could pretend I'm starting fresh, so I have 22 days to go, so let me get through another 11 days, let me get through, and it's just, it's basically just breaking it down in little chunks, but making sure that you get to that finish line.

• 37:54Tim Ferriss?

  Didn't you do something or have a very similar superstition when you were a kid in school, really? Like your school bus, you had to do certain things? Pull a leaf off a tree, or?

• 38:04Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 38:05Tim Ferriss?

  Or something terrible for that then?

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I would stop, and there'd be a leaf that was just out of reach when you jump, and I'd just keep jumping and jumping, and then I have to put something down until I got that, just little things. But it's weird, because when, for me, it was almost like training, because I'd set a goal that was very difficult, and then I just wouldn't quit until I got it. And part of it was a superstition of doing this ridiculous thing that has no meaning, but just not quitting until it's done.

• 38:33Tim Ferriss?

  This one's from Facebook. This is Patrick Makuka Zagambo. I like this question. I have 90 days to practice to perform a close-up magic event. What skills should I focus on to maximize my results in such a small timeframe?

• 38:48Speaker 03

  I mean, the way I do it is not the way others do it, but what I like to do is I like to commit to something and put myself in the hot seat because I already committed to doing something that I'm not ready for. So like your thing when you did, you know, a week to get ready to do something. So you're all in because you have no choice. So even just when I do certain big magic stunts or feats, I announce them before I do them. And then I work diligently to get there. So I would say, find a few things that you really like. Work on them, research them, learn how to do them, and they're gonna be very messy.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  Keep working until you start to figure out how to do it among friends and family. Just let me try this, try it, try it over and over. And then go out, maybe to a friend's party or wherever you are, and try it over and over and over and over. And after you fail a couple, you know, a few hundred times, you might start to become okay at it, you know?

• 39:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and it's, I find also with a lot of these questions like this, I think you made a great point. People are looking for more information or some type of particular way of training, but what they really need is just social accountability and the incentive, right? So if you publicly announce it, you will figure out how to make it work.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  You're committed to it.

• 40:13Tim Ferriss?

  I have a buddy, A.J. Jacobs. He lives in New York. He's running for Esquire, a really good guy. And he couldn't lose weight despite all of his attempts. And he wasn't obese. He described his physique as a python that swallowed a goat, like, just kinda like middle-aged paunch.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  Like in The Little Prince.

• 40:29Tim Ferriss?

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

• 41:02Speaker 03

  What am I learning currently? So what I'm working on is I'm trying to figure out how to put together a stage show, because I've never really...

• 41:11Speaker 03

  Conquered that and haven't done it in a way that I feel is right yet. So I've been working, just getting up on like little comedy stages and trying out different things. And the idea of being able to do something in an intimate room and then also in a bigger room, that's my goal. So that's the thing I'm working on diligently and I'm most consumed with right now. And it's a big learning curve. You need to do thousands of shows before you really figure out what you're doing. So it's hard to get that time and space necessary, but that's my big goal.

• 41:52Tim Ferriss?

  Working on your material.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. Figuring out how to work it, yeah.

• 41:57Tim Ferriss?

  I remember watching Comedian, the documentary with Jerry Seinfeld and also another up-and-comer. It was so sobering and reassuring to watch because you see Seinfeld, who's one of the biggest stars in the world at that point, and then he goes back to work on new material as a stand-up, and you just see him bomb. You see him bomb in these little venues, and he just forgets his lines, and he just sits there on stage, and he's like, "A minute," trying to remember his lines. It's just excruciating, but it's reassuring in the sense that you're like, "Okay, this guy..." It's not like he just wakes up in the morning with a finished one-hour set.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 42:32Tim Ferriss?

  You just have to put in the time to hone it and refine it. So when you think of the word, or hear the word "successful," who's the first person who comes to mind to you?

• 42:42Speaker 03

  My mother. She was a schoolteacher, and she came from a very powerful family, left her family, moved to Brooklyn, decided to do social work and teach and things like that. And she was really incredible and really cared about doing and helping and giving. And so to me, that's like the greatest thing you can do. So she was, in that regard, extremely successful.

• 43:11Tim Ferriss?

  What success to you personally?

• 43:14Speaker 03

  When you give as much as you, you know, I think like, um, Bill Gates is a great example because he, he's made so much money, but he basically figured out that he knows, he, he can figure out how to give it better than most institutions can. So he directs his money outward. So it's not like I want to have so much. It's like, I want to amass this amount so that I can give it to the right places. I think that's really important. And, um, you know, for me personally, it's like, one of my favorite stories, so around Thanksgiving, whenever I can, I go to BAMC, which is the Brooke

• 43:56Speaker 03

  Army Medical Center, and I go into the burn unit there, where all the kids that are burnt from the war and just terrible tragedies. So every year that I would go, I'd try to get everybody that I can. And one year, there was a kid, uh, named Victor, who was 21, and a really handsome kid that, that got blown up in a Humvee. And when he was rushed to the hospital, he had basically been burnt exactly on half of his face and the top of his head, but half of his face was completely burnt. The other half was perfect. And he wouldn't go out, he wouldn't interact with the other people. He wouldn't, he stayed

• 44:41Speaker 03

  in his room. He was, he was more angry that he was suddenly burnt on half his face than the actual losing the fingers, losing the ears, all that stuff. And I asked the nurse, have I done it? She said, yeah, but there's one kid, but he won't see anybody. He's not, he won't even talk to the nurses. He won't meet with, they're nothing. I said, bring me to him. She said, no, no, no, he won't see anybody. I said, just bring me to him. So she asked his mother, who was standing in the room with him all the time, dying inside. And the mother's like, sure, my, I mean, my son's not going to talk to him, but sure. And I walk in and, uh, he's like stone face. He won't even look at me. Let

• 45:22Speaker 03

  me try. And I grab his hand, which people don't touch him like that, like, like, like nothing's wrong. So I grab his hand, let me show you something. Hold your hand out. And I start doing magic to him. And all of a sudden, because I'm not treating him like he was disfigured, suddenly I see him interested. Then I keep going and he cracks a little smile. And I see his mother when that happens, bawling in the corner, but holding it in. So I'm like fighting my hardest not to cry. Anyway, I completely finished doing magic to the guy. I put my hat on his head, which you should not do because it's open wounds.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  And I leave the hospital content that now I've done magic to everybody, including the guy that didn't want to see me. And then I decide to come back the next morning, the day after Thanksgiving. And the mother comes out and she's bawling. And she says to me, when she sees me, she's like, "Right when you left, my son let the nurses put him in a wheelchair and he went out with the other guys and he started his physical therapy." So it was like, just that little bit of like being, treating him like there was nothing. And so I came back the next year and he had had all this, so he looked really good.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  He had all this reconstructive surgery. And it was in Texas and I took him out for dinner and then to a strip club. We had the, we had the time of our lives. It was amazing.

• 46:58Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, alright. It's hard to follow that up with just about anything, but what is, what is your, if you have one, your end goal with magic? What keeps driving you?

• 47:11Speaker 03

  I mean, I think the ultimate goal is just, I always wanted to just bring magic to the people. You know, just bring magic in a good way or in a new way or in a different way. You know, so that's the end goal. Yeah, maybe we should try something in here.

• 47:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, we could try something in here. You guys want to try something live? Alright, so how should we, how should we begin?

• 47:34Speaker 03

  Can I take the x-ray? So one of the new things that I've been working on.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  Might be hard to see, but I'll let you hold this up. So this is an x-ray. Can you all make it out somewhat? Can you all see what that is? See, yeah, there's a sword that I recently learned how to push all the way inside. Like a sword swallower, basically. And I learned it to work on one new trick. So if I could, yeah, good. So here's my little... Now you guys are seeing this when it's brand new. So, and this is much bigger than the one in the picture. The one in the picture is actually pretty thin. And the esophagus is very, very thin. So I'm gonna try to push this down inside.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  And lots of people assume when sword swallows do what they do, that it's a trick, but it's really not. I recently learned that in studying this.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  I don't know if I'm gonna succeed, but we'll try.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  You gotta come closer, though.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  To make sure it's real.

• 48:56Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 49:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's real.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna have him try it yet. I'm gonna give Tim a week to learn it.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  Let me give this...

• 49:40Speaker 03

  It might have some food instead... No, I'm just kidding.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  Shall we try this one other thing?

• 49:52Speaker 03

  I'll let, I'll let Tim help. So there's something else I've been working on, which is a strength thing.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  Just because you're the closest, do you wanna help with this? Do you mind, you'll have to jump up on stage, I'll take, I'll give you, here.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  So, one of the things I've been obsessed with is, is just feats of strength. But Tim, can you mix the deck, shuffle it up?

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Not very good. Let him shuffle too.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, my creepy head skills are limited. But you agree that they're, they're all shuffled, there's no order, nothing like that, yes?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  So Tim, I'm gonna give you a, like a quarter of the deck. Just, yeah like, yeah, tear it in half, exactly. Oh god, here we go.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  That's...

• 50:54Speaker 03

  Altogether, so it's one neat rip. And make it neat, altogether. Oh my god, try it, you're gonna mess this up. No, but put them like, like this, flat, and then, yeah, and then rip it, so it's one unit. Otherwise you're ripping one card at a time. That's the only way I can do it!

• 51:13Speaker 03

  So it's difficult. It's difficult! So I'm gonna teach you the technique right now. So the idea is this. So, see, I pinch here, and then... And it's almost like, pretty simple. See?

• 51:34Speaker 03

  That was very cool. But, okay, you know what? Which, which half do you want? Uh, yes, sir. Okay, so take that. And now do this for me. Cut, pick up a bunch of cards, put them on bottom. Yep, and put them on the bottom. Good, and do it again. Pick up a bunch, put them on bottom. Great. Now, every time you do that, the top and the bottom card and the middle cards, everything is gonna change. Understood? So every time you do it, the order changes, yep? This time, I want you to do it behind your back. So behind your back, I want you to cut the deck, complete the cut, and then keep them behind your back. Good? And they're slippery, don't let them spill. And take either the top piece or the bottom piece and hide it in your pocket.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  Either the top or the bottom, it's up to you. And we don't need the rest of the big pile. Good. So here's the idea, can I give you these? Yes. So, just to show you that they are shuffled, you did mix everything up, correct? Yes. Yes? I'm gonna have you just choose one from inside. Okay, actually, we'll do a few, so here. You just reach in and pull, yeah, pull. One or two, one is fine. Now, let me just say something. Most people would go for the obvious card, like the ace of spades. Or even the king. You didn't do that. You shifted. You went to a card that was not obvious. What card was it?

• 53:04Speaker 03

  The nine? The seven of spades? So when you chose, you had the choice, and you shifted around and pulled one. But behind your back, you didn't know what you chose. You just pulled the card without looking and hid it in your pocket. Correct? So you have half of a card in your pocket, and there's another half of a card in your hand.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  You want me to take it out? Sure.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Let everybody see. Put them together, see if they fit.

• 53:52Tim Ferriss?

  David Blaine, everybody.

• 53:59Tim Ferriss?

  If you had a huge billboard, could put anything on it, something short,

• 54:05Tim Ferriss?

  meaning get a message out to the world, what would you put on it?

• 54:09Speaker 03

  I mean, it's the last thing that my mother said to me is "God is love."

• 54:15Tim Ferriss?

  What does that mean to you?

• 54:16Speaker 03

  Well, to me, it means like, love is the ultimate god. So like, loving everything and everybody and not being filled with hate, or animosity, or fear, and trying to find love to me, that's like, that's the ultimate in life.

• 54:30Tim Ferriss?

  David Blaine, you're amazing. Guys, give it up for David Blaine.

• 54:38Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half-page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. Kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends,

• 55:18Tim Ferriss?

  including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So, if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday. Drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.