How to Master Any Conversation, Communicate With Confidence, and Deal With Difficult People

What if you could walk into any room and become the person everyone remembers? Someone who can communicate with confidence, command respect, and create lasting connections? Today, Mel sits down with Oz Pearlman, a world-renowned mentalist who has spent decades mastering the skills that make people more trustworthy, respected, and likeable. On stage, Oz creates the illusion of reading minds. But in this energizing conversation, he reveals some of the tools behind his success that you can use in your own life to read people, talk to anyone, and communicate with confidence. You’ll learn how to pay attention to what 99% of people miss, build instant trust, and become unforgettable in the process. Whether you want to speak up at work, make a stronger first impression on a date, or go after what you want in life, this conversation will show you how to become bold, magnetic, and memorable. Oz will teach you: -The questions that kill any conversation and what to ask instead -The #1 way to become the most interesting person in any room -How to stop waiting for opportunities and create your own -The “fast-forward” trick that helps you get over dread and finally do what you’ve been avoiding -How to never forget a name or other important details about people again -How to tell when someone isn’t telling you the truth This episode is your guide to becoming more confident, reading people, building instant connections, and becoming more likeable. In this episode: 00:00 Introduction 11:14 How to Make a Great First Impression Instantly 15:17 How to Meet New People and Start Better Conversations 27:56 How to Handle Rejection and Do Things You Dread 33:00 How to Beat Procrastination and Take Action Fast 36:03 Why the First 10 Seconds of Meeting Someone Matter Most 44:01 How to Remember Names and Never Forget Someone Again 52:04 How to Tell If Someone Is Lying: Body Language and Hidden Cues For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page: https://www.melrobbins.com/episode/episode-411/ Follow The Mel Robbins Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelrobbinspodcast I’m just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I’ll see you in the next episode. Stream The Five Star Weekend only on Peacock. Visit https://peacocktv.app.link/tl8ockxmk3b for more. — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 0:08Mel Robbins?

  Are you ready for one of the most amazing things you've ever heard? Not just today, not just this week, but this month? Because I'm going to tell you what happened in our studio today. What you're about to experience is one of the most fascinating things that has ever happened on this podcast. I personally am so shocked by this episode. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it and figure out how to explain to you what's about to happen. So here goes. You and I are sitting down with the top mentalist in the world, Oz Perelman.

• 0:47Mel Robbins?

  And now, it seems like he can read people's minds, but he's actually an expert in reading people. And he's here to help you read body language, talk to anyone, and communicate with confidence. Today, he's teaching you the same skills that he's mastered after 30 years as a mentalist. How to pay attention to the things 99% of people miss. Because when you learn to do that, you become more confident, connected, and in control. He will also show you exactly how, step by step, to become the most interesting person in any room. A simple trick to help you never forget someone's name again. How to eliminate your fear of rejection once and for all.

• 1:32Mel Robbins?

  And why the first 10 seconds that you spend with anyone are crucial. And there is so much more that by the time you finish listening, you will never walk into a room, a conversation, or a first impression the same way again.

• 1:58Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am thrilled that you're here today. I mean, look, it's always an honor to be together and to spend time with you, but this episode, oh, boy, did you pick a winner. And if you're a new listener, you're here because someone shared this with you. I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today, you and I are talking all about how to read people, talk to anyone, and communicate with confidence with the one and only Oz Perelman. Now, Oz is one of the most extraordinary performers on the planet. He's an Emmy Award-winning, world-renowned mentalist with more than 30 years of experience.

• 2:41Mel Robbins?

  And he's mastered the art of reading people, guiding attention, and using a little mystery to make the impossible feel real. Oz has performed on some of the biggest stages, amazing everyone from celebrities to CEOs to world leaders. And you're going to hear some of those stories today. His appearances have been viewed over 1 billion times. And he is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Read Your Mind. And you know what? Whenever you watch or listen to Oz, everybody always asks the same question. How did he do that? Please help me welcome the extraordinary Oz Perelman to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 3:23Mel Robbins?

  Oz Perelman, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me on. What an honor.

• 3:28Mel Robbins?

  What an honor. The last time I saw you, we were both dressed in black tie on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, and we had just booked you to do this interview.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Timing is everything in life. Am I right? It was serendipitous. We are much more comfortably dressed this time around. And yeah, I'm excited to be here.

• 3:47Mel Robbins?

  Oz, one of the many reasons why I was so excited to be able to sit down and learn from you today is I believe that you have so many amazing and surprising things to share about success, living a meaningful life, handling difficult situations, and creating opportunity and success for yourself. And so, I would love to hear you just speak directly to the person who's with us right now, listening or watching, and share a little bit about what might change about their life or their mindset or what's possible if they truly lean in and take to heart everything

• 4:28Mel Robbins?

  that you're about to share with us from your remarkable career and life.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  I think all of us are going after the same things, right? Happiness, health, living a successful and fulfilling life. And none of that occurs in a vacuum. It all has to do with your interactions with the people around you, your family, your friends, within your work and professional life, your clients, your colleagues. I spent 30 years learning the way people think and how to interact with them. As an entertainer, my job is to get inside your head and create memorable moments of wow and awe. What I want to do is give you that ability in your life. How do you become the most memorable person in every room you walk into? How do you gain that confidence quickly? How do you overcome the fear of rejection that I think holds us back both in our personal and professional lives? I've experienced it.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  What can you do to fast-track that? And lastly, how do we have more stimulating conversations and connections with the people around us?

• 5:26Mel Robbins?

  So Oz, how would you even describe what you do?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  So, a mentalist is a form of a magician. I want to tell you what I'm not. I am not psychic. I do not have supernatural powers. I cannot talk to the dead. When people ask me, what is it that you're performing? They are tricks. That is the truth. It appears to be mind-reading, but that's the illusion I'm trying to create in my audience. All of it with the goal of creating these memorable moments that you leave amazed and telling everyone else around you what you experienced. I have figured out the way people think. I've studied it for decades, and I know how to influence them and guide them in certain directions. And I know how to get information from you that you simply don't know how I'm getting. And here's the really important part for you, listening to this, is that magic is such

• 6:11Speaker 01

  a focused discipline of, look how great I am. Shine this spotlight on me. Look at me. Somebody told me this once, and they said to me, everybody is living a movie, and you're the star of your movie. Everyone else is supporting characters. Some people are extras. The more that you can find a way to make other people you interact with feel like they're also the star of your movie, the more that they will help you in your life. It sounds selfless, but it's a selfish approach that ends up being so selfless. Because when I meet people, I want to create a memorable moment for them that they will talk about to others. And it took me so many years to understand that that's what I do for a living. I create memorable moments.

• 6:54Mel Robbins?

  You know what this reminds me of is it reminds me of this quote about purpose that has stayed with me forever. And it's this, that purpose is not the thing you do. Your purpose is the thing that happens in other people when you do the thing that you do. And that's exactly what you're talking about.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Right. People don't remember what you did. People remember how you made them feel. And that's such an important thing to comprehend and understand the difference between it. Because so many of us think about when we leave a room, did I say the right thing? Did I embarrass myself? Did I talk too fast? Did I talk too slow? What did they think of me? Most of the time, people aren't thinking what they thought of you. It's how they felt around you that matters.

• 7:42Mel Robbins?

  That's that famous Maya Angelou quote. I have a question for you. If the person listening or watching has never had the experience of either seeing or being in the presence of a mentalist.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 7:55Mel Robbins?

  Before we go any further, could you just give a simple example? Let's say the person who's listening or watching right now is actually in front of you or at one of your shows. Can you just give a simple example so they can grasp, like, what you do?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  I have one better. That's like explaining a song instead of singing a song.

• 8:14Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Let them, right? Tens of millions of people, can't stop talking about it. Your book is piled up out there. I'm going to turn my back. You're going to be flipping through this book. You're going to be stopping. Boom, on one page. And when you go there, this is a conscious choice. There's a reason for this page. And when you go there, I want you to stop on that page. I want you to bring it close to your body. And I'm going to turn and make sure there's no way, no mirrors. I'm covering my eyes. Go to that page right now.

• 8:43Mel Robbins?

  Okay. And the page I'm going to is one where the number of the page...

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Has a meaning to you of some sort. Something hard, something I couldn't have looked up, something there is just no feasible way, but to you, it has a meaning. To you, you're going there for a reason.

• 8:57Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 9:02Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  No, you've gotta tell.

• 9:04Mel Robbins?

  I am on this page.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Your listener, your viewer, they know you, you're their friend Mel. You have not told me what page you are going to.

• 9:10Mel Robbins?

  No.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  There is no conceivable way.

• 9:11Mel Robbins?

  No.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  That I could know what page or what meaning this has or any of it. I want you to take your finger, drag it up and down on the page. You're going past all the words you wrote. And it's as if you stop on one word, you're drawn to it.

• 9:24Mel Robbins?

  I'm doing it, yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  It's like magnetized and you circle it with your finger.

• 9:26Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Your finger starts making swirls around it.

• 9:28Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  And you feel compelled and you just keep circling that word and then you stop and you close the book tightly and you put it back down. Boom.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Count in your mind how many letters are in that word, but just to yourself, not out loud. Now, I'm gonna tell you right away, just by saying "K" so quickly. It was fast. It was an easy word to count. If you had taken longer, if you had struggled, if the word was "especially", "Oh, I gotta count that word now", and then the two L's, double letters always throw people off. You said "okay", not because you were trying to give it away, because you were done counting. Which means to me, that the same way I have a five-year-old who's in first grade, in kindergarten, going into first grade to cite words, you don't count them.

• 10:13Mel Robbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  You just know them. The word you picked was either three, four, or five letters. Four letters. It was a four-letter word, wasn't it?

• 10:21Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  It was four letters. Think of all the letters. Now, while the page had a meaning.

• 10:28Mel Robbins?

  I'm trying to manage my face, so I'm not showing you any signals.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Think of all the different letters, as if they're Scrabble tiles, as if we're playing Wheel of Fortune.

• 10:36Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  And suddenly, any one of those four letters, maybe it's interesting to you. You just decide that letter, it blinks and lights up and you see one of the letters.

• 10:44Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Can you see it right now as if it's in front of you?

• 10:46Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  So, I know that we read from left to right. So, I know that your brain would have processed looking from left and going to the right, and then you would have stopped, and most people go back to the start of the word. You didn't, which is interesting.

• 11:01Mel Robbins?

  How do you know that?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Well, I watched you look.

• 11:02Mel Robbins?

  And I just gave that away, because I did, okay, go ahead.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  You weren't thinking of the last letter of the word, were you?

• 11:06Mel Robbins?

  Uh, no.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  I don't think so, cuz you jumped back. It starts with a W. You're thinking of the letter "W", aren't you?

• 11:14Mel Robbins?

  How the hell do you know this?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I think I'm done. I just want everyone that's listening and can't see to know that I've written a word. I've written down one word, I can't change it. What was the word out of your entire book, The Let Them Theory? Did you go to any page, circle any word? What was that word?

• 11:30Mel Robbins?

  "Want".

• 11:31Speaker 01

  "Want" is what I wrote down.

• 11:34Mel Robbins?

  That's incredible. That's the word.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  That's the word.

• 11:38Mel Robbins?

  That's the word. That's what a mentalist does.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  That's what I do.

• 11:44Mel Robbins?

  Wow, well, I want to know how to do that.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  So, I will tell you the truth, is that this will not be useful to you in your life. You think it will.

• 11:52Mel Robbins?

  Then why am I listening to this, or watching this episode?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  This trick is a trick. At the end of the day, you guessing a word, you guessing a number, you guessing somebody's ATM PIN code, unless you have nefarious purposes, will be excellent for entertaining.

• 12:05Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  But I will tell you the skills that you will wanna use, which is how do you walk into a room and immediately command attention? How do you walk into that room and become the most memorable person in it, so that when you leave, everyone is talking about you? What's at the core is how you make people feel. There's other people that can do these tricks, I assure you. But it's how do people leave my show? How do people leave an interaction with you and feel? And think about how many times you've been to a party, and you've left and you've said, "Did you meet that one person?" You go, "Chris, did you meet them? I love them." Why did you love them? Why did you connect with them in such a meaningful way, when you maybe met 20 or 30 other people? How do you analyze what made them so interesting?

• 12:43Mel Robbins?

  Well, it's typically because I'm laughing, and they're a great storyteller, and it's like, or we have a lot of connections. Or you can go deeper in the conversation, because you're talking about something that's a shared interest.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Right. They went beyond the surface, and they made you feel like you were the most interesting person. Almost every time you realize it, it's not just somebody who's constantly talking about themselves, it's them finding a way to bring things out of you that you haven't before. So, one of the big ones, as I mentioned, autopilot. I think so many of us, when we meet new people, we're right away scared. "What am I gonna ask him? What am I gonna talk about?" And you start second guessing yourself.

• 13:23Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  I think the most important thing is, the first three questions you wanna ask that person, don't, because that's what everyone else asks.

• 13:31Mel Robbins?

  What are the first three questions?

• 13:33Speaker 01

  So, the dreadful ones. "Where are you from?" You know, "What do you do for a living?" All of the questions they've been asked a thousand times before, their brain goes into autopilot. There's a heuristic in their brain that says, "I'm gonna answer these questions." I would do a little more sleuthing below the surface, which is something where you notice something about them. People love a compliment. Those glasses are so unique. I'm so curious, where did you get them and what made you get those instead of another one? And so now, we get to tell you something about a choice we made, that most people haven't thought to ask us. Also, you've complimented us, which is a nice feeling right from the jump. So, it should be genuine, but have a question that branches out, and that hopefully, somebody else hasn't asked before.

• 14:14Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know what I love about that just one technique, which I wanna make sure as you're listening or watching, you grab it and you employ it? Is that you turned a compliment into a question.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:28Mel Robbins?

  Cuz a lot of us are practicing the art of learning how to speak to each other again, so we might be standing in line with somebody and go, "Oh, I love those socks, but I didn't ask you a question."

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:40Mel Robbins?

  "Those socks are crazy amazing. What made you wanna put those on this morning?"

• 14:44Speaker 01

  That's a great question, right? Because now we branch, and I go, "You wouldn't believe it, my son got me these last year for Father's Day, and now what's happening? Percolating, dopamine, I'm feeling good. Wow, what an interesting person, they asked me this question." And now, where do you go from there? You've opened up new branches of a conversation that instantly would have been shut down otherwise. If you have to go to one of those dreadful first three of what does somebody do for a living, put a different spin on it. Again, my tricks have different packaging. I could do this trick, and I could've just asked you to pick a playing card. You put it back, I find it, eight of diamonds. Would've had the same appeal as a word from your book and a page that has meaning, which I'm gonna get to later. It wouldn't, because the story differs.

• 15:26Mel Robbins?

  So, for the interaction, where you're at a networking meeting.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:32Mel Robbins?

  And you say, "Don't just do the, 'Hey, so what do you do for a living?'" What is the twist that you recommend that allows you to be more interesting?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  I think that I would say, I would open with how you feel, because you'd be shocked at how often other people feel the same way, which is, "I get so nervous at these, I don't know what to say, but you seem so friendly. Can you tell me one funny thing you did at one of these before?" Just, again, open up a story. Never ask a yes or no question, or a question that ends with a period. Because what you're doing then, is you're allowing people to close doors. I wanna open a door that leads to room with more doors.

• 16:07Mel Robbins?

  We are getting so many people writing in, asking for specific advice about, "How do I actually talk to people that I don't know, and especially in a professional setting?"

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:22Mel Robbins?

  So, is there something you can give as a recommendation?

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:27Mel Robbins?

  To just try and experiment with? Cuz I think for a lot of people, it doesn't come naturally.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Sure. So, let's break this down into two channels, like two little options.

• 16:35Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Option one, you can prepare. You know someone you might be meeting. You get to do homework. It's not cheating, it's called being prepared. So, if you can do that, and I wanna give you an example from my life.

• 16:46Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  That was pivotal.

• 16:47Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Which is, I, a few years ago, performed a show where the President, President Barack Obama was speaking.

• 16:52Mel Robbins?

  Okay, how nervous were you?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't think I was that nervous, because I like to convert nervousness into preparation. So, in this situation, it's not that I'm flaunting or trying to be showy. I take what you would describe as nerves and say, "I'm gonna prepare."

• 17:04Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  I'm nervous if I didn't prepare.

• 17:06Mel Robbins?

  And were you gonna do a trick on President Barack Obama?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  I hope so, but I don't know if that's going to happen. So, what I'm told is that I'm performing later in the night, he's gonna be doing an opening session, and so he's going on before me, and he's not staying, is what I was told.

• 17:18Mel Robbins?

  Got it.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  I never believe that when somebody says. When somebody says it's not happening, or "No, I think not yet." So, the same way you have "let them", I have "no, not yet".

• 17:26Mel Robbins?

  Love it.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  And I have another theory, which I wanna tell you, which I call it "make them". So, this is where instead of "let them", I think that "make them" is what I'm all about. It's what my last 20 years of my life have been, because I'm not waiting for gatekeepers to tell me that you're gonna be big as a mentalist. This is a category that didn't really exist. And how do you make them remember you? How do you make them talk about you? So, with the President, I didn't know if I'd have any time with him. So, if I am, I wanna make it count. Cuz it might be a handshake, it might be five seconds, 10 seconds, two minutes, who knows, but I've gotta make it count. So, what can I do in that moment? Everyone is going to walk up to him with one version of, "It's an honor to meet you, President. Here's a story I have about you. Here's something that you won't remember, but I will." I realized.

• 18:10Mel Robbins?

  I'm sorry to laugh.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yes, but.

• 18:13Mel Robbins?

  But we've all done it too. We see somebody that we admire, we're like, "Oh my God, I was an idiot, I..."

• 18:18Speaker 01

  There's nothing wrong with that, though. But, that's what 99% of people do. I want you to be the 1% who doesn't.

• 18:25Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Who breaks the mold.

• 18:27Mel Robbins?

  What do I do?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Here's what I did. I thought about this line for months. So, at the moment, where there was a meet and greet, it was impromptu, the President was talking to different people. "I wish I was taller, I'm 5'7 and 3/4, I need that 3/4, Mel." But all the taller guys are getting looked at, all the women. Finally, he turns to me, right when we shake hands, I lock eyes with the President, and I say, "Thank you so much for the gift, sir." Right away, I see in his eyes, I see in his eyes, you don't have to be a mentalist, confusion, which is what I wanted to elicit. And in that moment, he said the same thing that I believe 99 out of 100 people would say if a stranger walked up to you and said, "Thank you so much for the gift." What gift? He goes, "What gift?" Which set me up perfectly for me to say, "I'm gonna be performing in 15 minutes."

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Which means that technically, I'm going on after you, so I forever get to tell people that President Barack Obama opened for me.

• 19:19Mel Robbins?

  Oh my god, that's brilliant!

• 19:21Speaker 01

  So he laughs, and now I'm playing chess, not checkers, where I want him to say, "What are you performing?" It goes exponentially better, Mel, because he goes, "Oh", and he looks at me, and he goes, "I know you. Oh my god, the thing you did with Aaron Rodgers was incre-" I'm looking at my wife, who's at the show, being like, "He knows who I am right now, he knows who I am!" So right at that moment, he's still locked in. And I knew that my moment was fleeting. And I said, "Are you ready for the most amazing thing you've seen? Not today, not this week, but this month. Do you have 30 seconds, sir?" So right away, notice that I've I've set up a lottery system of who's gonna say no to this. Not, "Can I show you a trick?" That's not, I'm not showing you a trick. "Can I show you the most amazing thing you've seen?" I've set up a tone of how good it's going to be.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  "Do you have 30 seconds?" 30 seconds for most people, the minute he said back to me, "30 seconds", I've got him. So it doesn't matter what he said. He either says no, or 30 seconds. Once he said 30 seconds, I'm already 10 seconds in, and we're gonna go much longer than 30 seconds.

• 20:20Mel Robbins?

  So what'd you do?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  I handed him a business card in his hand. I said, "Think of anyone you're gonna talk to in the next week." And he goes, "I got someone." I go, "Change your mind right now. So when you tell this story later, you will always say, 'How could he have known? I changed my mind in the middle. How could he have known?'" And then he said, "I got it." And I say, "Turn it over." And when he turned it over, it says, "Say hello to Marty for me." And he just flipped out. There's a, you can see the clip. It's, uh... So that was my moment with him. And that was something that I would say, years, I'd been thinking, "What's my elevator pitch if I had this moment with the president?"

• 20:51Mel Robbins?

  Think about who you're gonna meet. Think about the situation. Think about what you would do with that 30 seconds if you have the chance, which is not guaranteed-

• 21:00Speaker 01

  At all.

• 21:00Mel Robbins?

  -to actually meet this person. And so, I take it, you had prepared, you knew exactly what you were gonna do, and you weren't waiting for the gatekeeper.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:09Mel Robbins?

  You just did it.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  There's no agent, there's no manager, there's nobody in life that will ever be as vested in your success as yourself. So you don't wait for people to say and invite you, "Here's how you're going to be a star", or "Here's how you're gonna be the number one salesperson in your organization", or "Here's how you're gonna be the best mom or the best dad." Sorry, that doesn't exist. Everybody's trying to figure out this game of life at the same time. I've met people that are literally one or two of the three wealthiest people in the world. I've met presidents, I've met royalty, and I came to the conclusion, at a certain point, I had this pedestal. Everyone's figuring it out, just like I am. And so, I'm trying to say to myself, "When the moment happens, and if you can create that moment", because so much of what people will say is lucky, is putting yourself in a situation where luck can happen.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Which is years and years of moving towards that moment. For me to have gotten to that, I could tell you five steps that even got me into the room with the president, that all of which occurred not because somebody opened the door for me, but that I kept putting a toe in, and then another toe, and then another toe, and squeezing it, and then opening it up, and finding an opportunity. And when that opportunity came, exceeding the expectations of the person I was with, and having a give-and-take relationship where I keep giving, giving, giving, giving, so that at the moment, when I wanna take, it's not even a take, they wanna give back to me. And I think that's so important, is that you're constantly doing that with the people around you.

• 22:31Mel Robbins?

  I love that you're saying this, because I always talk about these like, at-bat moments. There is these moments in life that really matter. And there's a lot of people, and you may be one of them as you're listening and watching, that are sitting around hoping to be found. Sitting around hoping your boss notices you. Sitting around, or you're working hard with your head down, hoping somebody finds you or, quote, discovers you.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:58Mel Robbins?

  And in today's world, that does not work. You have to do what you're talking about, which is to understand that the things that you want are your responsibility, and you gotta learn how to ask for what you want, you gotta be willing to be seen, and a lot of this comes down to what you're talking about. About seeing the opportunity that you have more ability if you prepare, if you know what you want. So if the, if it's around understanding, first of all, that there are no gatekeepers, except for the way we gatekeep ourselves. And you gotta prepare. And the secret that you keep saying is not doing the same old, same old-

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:35Mel Robbins?

  -so that you put the spotlight on someone else. What's the next step?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  I implore you to find a way where, if you're at the start of your career, or if you're at the start, even if you want help in anything, look to see that person who would be a mentor or help and guide you, and see, what do they need? Instead of you leading with, "What can I take from you?" It might be information or time. What is it that they want back? And I'm gonna give you just a great example. This is where I've mentored a lot of other people that perform and do what I do. And many of them will lead with, "How did you do this trick?" And I'm not gonna answer that, because it just doesn't show that you've put in the work.

• 24:08Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  But I had one young guy who came to me and looked at my website, studied it, and said, "I just wanted to let you know that you had typos on this page, this page, and this page. That your press, this link was broken, this link was broken, and that your Wikipedia had a bunch of errors. If you'd like, I'm happy to compile all of this, fix your Wikipedia for you, and send an email with every page and where it is to your web designer to help you out." He didn't ask a single thing. I go, "Wow! Thank you so much. Yeah, that'd be great." And then after that, found another thing he could do, and another thing. And so what happened after about three iterations of this? I said, "What can I do to help you?" Right? I wanted to help that person. The same way that sending somebody a thank you card, or a gift, will almost always elicit,

• 24:52Speaker 01

  at the very least, a thank you back. And maybe that's not the door opening, but it's a toe in the door.

• 24:57Mel Robbins?

  I love that. I also loved what you said, "Don't wait for a gatekeeper." Can you unpack that more for the person listening or watching?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  So I think a lot of us have this dream, and I did, because I didn't grow up thinking I'd be in showbiz. I am first-generation immigrant.

• 25:13Mel Robbins?

  What did you think you would do?

• 25:14Speaker 01

  So I was on the path of, again, I don't call it first-generation, but my parents said, "You go to school, you get a degree, you get good grades, and then you get a job, and then you work for someone else." That was the way I was conditioned and brought up. That was what I was defined as success. I started doing magic when I was 13 years old. I won't give you the whole life story. When I was 14, my folks had gotten divorced. We didn't really have a lot of money. It was very messy. And I wanted to keep performing and getting new magic tricks, and they're very expensive. And so for me to do that, I had to start working. My mom's like, "I can't, you gotta go work." So I walked over to a restaurant, you know, half a mile from my house. I somehow sweet-talked myself into getting a job, being a close-up strolling magician, printed my own business cards, hand-cut them, and started getting gigs doing children's birthday parties and corporate events. And so, when you ask me, "What did I view?",

• 25:59Speaker 01

  I never viewed it as I could do this full-time professionally. I did this in order to get my degree to go work in a corporate job. And I worked on Wall Street for a few years, and at a certain moment, there were all these lightbulb moments, as you call them, of, "Wow! Could I actually do this for my living? Could I do this? Make it from like, something that's a dream into a reality?" I think so many of us have that of, "Is this what I'm currently doing? What I was born to do? Is this what my calling is?" And at a certain point, I couldn't keep going for it if I was always on the wall. I had to jump in the pool. I couldn't just dip my toes in the water. So in 2005, I quit my job. I went for it full-time. And it was not something everyone around me thought was a smart fiscal decision. It seemed pretty crazy to go from working on Wall Street with a very well-paying job

• 26:44Speaker 01

  to you are suddenly a magician slash mentalist. And day one of me doing that, I realized, no one is gonna call me in like, in a 1920's vaudeville and say, "I'm gonna make you a star, kid." That's not gonna happen. I had that moment, sitting on the couch, watching daytime TV, and saying, "I don't have to do anything right now, Mel. I could just eat cereal and sit in my boxers, watching TV." And I thought for about five minutes, "This is the most glorious morning of my life", and then this feeling settled in. And I go, "Oh my god, I don't have a boss. I could just keep doing this, but no one is gonna make this happen if I don't." And I turned off the TV, and I said, "I gotta start making moves." And there is no playbook for being a movie star, or a mentalist, or a rock star,

• 27:29Speaker 01

  or so many of these careers. So I think you've gotta start defining your goals and what success is in taking small incremental, quantifiable steps towards achieving it.

• 27:38Mel Robbins?

  Oz, let's just take a quick break so that we can hear a word from our sponsors. And don't go anywhere, because there is so much more Oz has to teach you, including an incredible trick for remembering people's names. We're just getting started, so stay with me.

• 28:03Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are learning how to read people, talk to anyone, and communicate with confidence with the world's top mentalist, Oze Perelman. For somebody who is listening or watching, because I have a feeling this is going to be one of those episodes, that a lot of people send to their adult kids, or maybe they send to their spouse, or they send to somebody who is really resistant to putting themselves out there, what would you say to somebody who is uncomfortable with even just putting that little toe in the water, who sits back and watches everybody else do it, but could do it? What do you want to say to that person?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Whenever people see you at a certain level, they don't see all the years that came to being here. So, they don't see me at 14 years old, walking up to a table, being rejected, because they didn't want some 14-year-old shrimp coming over while they had a babysitter, and who are you? And you start doing cartridges, "Get out of here, kid," and they don't care about my feelings. I'm not their kid. And that hurt. I can't lie to you and say that being rejected in that way doesn't hurt. And if it happens at one table, and then another table, and then another table, it crushes you. And so, what I learned at that age, and I think that it's helped me throughout my whole life, it's a form of resilience, is I learned how to overcome not just rejection, the pain of rejection, but what happens over time is you have a fear of rejection.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  I would argue that most of those people that you're mentioning aren't even feeling rejection. They fear the rejection so much that it stops them dead in their tracks before trying. And so, here's the cheat code. I want to give you how to fast-forward and cheat, so you don't have that fear of rejection, because this is what I did when I was 14 years old. And I did it as a way, and it was selfish, because I couldn't fail. I couldn't leave that restaurant and just be like, "I'm not doing this, because I want to keep getting magic tricks." I'm like, "I gotta buy more tricks, Mel," so I can't let these other people be in charge of my future, because they're hurting my feelings. So, I can't explain to you how I fell upon this, but I realized that I need to separate

• 30:09Speaker 01

  myself, this part of your psyche that takes the hurt, and feels it, and separate it from this other person. I had this paradigm shift, where I go, "They don't know me. That person does not know me. I'm Oze Perelman. They don't know me. They know the guy who just came up to them and did tricks." And I called him "Oze the Magician" in my mind. I created this split personality, where all of the anger, chaos, frustration, hurt, got put on this other person, where I could deflect that responsibility, and go, "They don't know me. I'm not hurt when I leave that table." I said, "Thank you very much, guys. I'll see if I can come back later. Appreciate you." And I had none of that pain, because I separated myself, and it's almost like having an agent, where your agent gets to have the calls, where they go, "I don't want to do this negotiation. I don't want to talk to that person about this thing."

• 30:54Speaker 01

  You have an agent that handles it. I became my own agent. And somehow, I created a set in my mind, where I said, "I no longer feel the pain of you rejecting me, because you're not rejecting me. You're rejecting this part of me, and you don't know the real me." I realized that if I give away 60 business cards in a night, in the next year, I quantified it, one or two of those people will call me for their kid's birthday party, or for some other party. One or two of them will call me. So, rather than focus on 58 no's, every no gets me closer to a yes. So, I want you to start seeing it that way in your mind. Right now, you're so scared to do it. You're so scared to do something. You're dreading it. Five-second rule, I remember where I got that one, right?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  I get out of bed, I want to go for a run at 5:30 a.m. I'm so groggy. I go, "Houston, we have liftoff. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I get up." So, that works for me, but I'm going to give you a tag to your five-second rule.

• 31:48Mel Robbins?

  Please.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  What's my language of dread? Confrontation. I hate confrontation, Mel. Like, if I have to talk to the guy who did our landscaping, and argue about the fact that the trees weren't pruned, and I gotta argue about money, I hate that. I will defer it and move it in my calendar for three days. If I have an argument with my sister, I don't want to talk, I don't want to... So, how do I deal with this? Here's what we do. Are you ready?

• 32:10Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  You've got a phone, I've got a phone. Right before you do it, we're about to employ the five-second rule. In my mind, I ask myself, "How much am I dreading this on a scale of 1 to 10?" It's a 9. I don't want to do this at all. I put an alarm for 24 hours from today, and I write, "Dread talking to landscaper," as my thing. Took me three seconds to do that. Right then, five-second rule, I make the call. I rip the Band-Aid, I do it, no matter what. I rip the Band-Aid, I do it, I get it over with. Force yourself to do it. Here's what's going to happen. The next day, the alarm's going to go off. If you even remember what this was a day later, ask yourself at that moment, "What do I register the dread that it was talking to landscaper?" It's a 2. It's a 1, if I even remember it.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  What happened? Learn from my job. My job is to deceive you in order to entertain you. I have studied the way people think for upwards of 29 years. The human mind is wired, where right now, all you did, nothing happened. You feel better. Why? Time elapsed, nothing else. Time went by. What if you could fast-forward those 24 hours, and feel the 1 or 2 now? I call it "Fast-forward your feelings." I literally, I say to myself, "I want to feel the way I do now, 24 hours ago, before I do it." And if you do this two or three times, you will realize, all it is is perception. All that happened is perception. You are in charge of your mind. So, right before I make that call, I go, "I'm going to feel a 2 now, because in a day, I'm not even going to remember this." So, you know what?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Before I count 5, 4, 3, I'm going to feel the same way I do in 24 hours now, because I so know that that's how it's going to be. I feel better now, let's make this call and get it over with. I've just tricked my mind and traveled into the future, knowing this is how I will feel.

• 33:54Mel Robbins?

  I love this, and I want to make sure that as you're listening or watching, you actually got the step-by-step process, because I do think it's genius. You have a phone call to make, you've paid somebody to do something, they didn't do the job right...

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Or a family conversation.

• 34:09Mel Robbins?

  Or a family, but even just like the neutral one that you gave of, "Oh, my God, I paid, and it didn't get done right, now I gotta call the person, and there's going to be a this and a that." And so, we've all felt that. And what you're saying is, you set an alarm in your phone, it says...

• 34:24Speaker 01

  24 hours from now.

• 34:25Mel Robbins?

  24 hours from this moment. Dread calling landscaper.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 34:30Mel Robbins?

  And then, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you call the landscaper.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Must. You rip the Band-Aid. You do it now.

• 34:36Mel Robbins?

  You must do it now. You get it over with, it goes however it goes. 24 hours later, you've even forgotten about the call, and the alarm goes off, and now the fact that you are being reminded that you dreaded this so much, and it's already in the past, you're now training yourself in that moment to reflect on the fact that it wasn't that bad.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Right, which your mind is programmed to do.

• 34:58Mel Robbins?

  Here's what I think is genius about this, and I'm going to try this. And the reason why I think this is genius is because for the last 16 years, I have been counting 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to get out of bed. I still hate getting out of bed, but I think if I were to set the alarm, which I'm going to do tomorrow morning, and I then reflect the next morning on the fact that it wasn't so bad, I might actually train myself not to feel the dread in the morning, versus just having to constantly push myself through it. This is fascinating.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Dread is associated with starting, that the first step is far harder than the 10th. And so, you just set things aside, "Who's guilty of this? I move it to my calendar tomorrow. I move it to my calendar the next day. Let's just move it to next week." Let's keep moving things that have no end timelines, right? Creativity requires a deadline. Certain things that are open-ended never end, because I never want to do them. How many of us have those things that we'll do one day, right? When's that day going to come? And so, for me, with a lot of these things, unless they're forced upon me, which could be that I disappoint others eventually, and they get mad at me and say, "Well, when are you going to do that thing? The time is now." I will keep pushing the end line, and when it takes place. And so, I had to do this as a survival mechanism, because that dread feels worse than doing

• 36:17Speaker 01

  the thing.

• 36:18Mel Robbins?

  Oze, I want to take a quick pause, so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors, and I can tell, since you're a mentalist, you knew that was coming before I even said it. Don't go anywhere, we have so much more to dig into when we return, so stay with me.

• 36:41Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today, you and I get to learn from one of the top mentalists in the world, Oz Perelman. Okay, so Oz, I want to go deeper because one of the other things that you say is that the first 10 seconds that you spend with someone are critical. What is happening in those first 10 seconds? And what should you be taking note of?

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Can I throw it back to the restaurant days? Because that changed my life. Truly, when you look at me now, when I approached a table, I started noticing patterns. And that's what we do throughout life. We notice patterns when we behave with other people. How do we interact? And what do those patterns yield? Right? This does well, let's do it again. I noticed that if I approached people, right away, right when people see you, within the first second, there's so many judgments that occur. Now, in the situation I had specifically of walking up to you at a table, right away, they asked themselves all of these questions. Who is this guy? What's he doing here? Does he work here? What's he, oh my God, he's got a deck card. Is he a magician? Is he any good? Is he gonna leave?

• 37:41Mel Robbins?

  Is he gonna embarrass me?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  That was, is he gonna embarrass me? Does he need money? Oh my God, do I have money? All of those questions occurred in a split second. My job wasn't just to entertain you. My job was to diffuse tension and to answer every one of those questions, put a checkmark next to them as quickly as possible, in as few words and actions as possible, and then flip the power dynamic. You now want me to not leave. Now, I'm in charge of your attention. I'm holding it in the palm of my hand in a very different way. So, right away, I noticed a few patterns. When you approach somebody head on, this is so silly, and you want to know about body language reading, try this today. Five minutes after this. If you approach someone head on, we are hardwired to feel danger

• 38:26Speaker 01

  when someone comes directly at you. I would approach tables at an angle. So, when I walk up to you, notice, I walk up and approach at an angle with one eye showing, not two. It feels from a, like, just from a Pavlovian response of fight or flight, what it is, you feel less danger. I immediately put a time constraint in place. Because the lingering person who walks up to you, you don't know when they're gonna go, they're close talking, oh my God, how long is this conversation gonna be? If I walk up to you and say, "I only have 30 seconds", right away, I've taken away so many of the parts of tension that you had. Who is this? Are they gonna stay? What are they doing? Is this gonna be long? And then, right away, I know that you don't know if I work there. You don't know who I am. Am I asking you for money? Right away, I knew that money and getting a tip makes you awkward.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  I see people searching, honey, do you have money? So, I would say to you, "Have you heard what's going on tonight? This is your lucky night." So, right away, I've asked a question that has no yes or no. Because no one says, "No, I don't like lucky nights." I go, "The owner has me here as a special treat for all of you, and I'm gonna show you the most amazing thing you've seen this week." So, I haven't ever given you a question you can say no to. Because when I used to walk up to you, the deck cards, "Who wants to see a trick? No thanks, kid." I've allowed you to stop me. So, I kept cutting down the amount of words, same way a great comedian makes a premise short and the punchline fast, to check every box, so that by the time I walked up to you, you're intrigued,

• 39:52Speaker 01

  you're interested, you know I work there, you know the owner, social currency, has blessed you with being here. I'm here as a treat from the owner. I'm not asking you for money. I don't want money. And so, now, you're loose, you're relaxed. And now, keep in mind, I've opened the door, but you better deliver. So, what I've done is I've taken away all the tension, but I better have a great trick as an opener. All I've done is just started. I'm not giving you the secret to how you're gonna be a success at what you do. That's on you. But I've given you the way to open the door, so that the person is now interested, and they've bought in, and now you get your shot at bat.

• 40:26Mel Robbins?

  How do we apply all the knowledge that you have to those 10 seconds of first interacting with somebody?

• 40:35Speaker 01

  So, this is gonna be situation-specific, right? In your personal life, let's say you're meeting somebody that you're interested in. That's gonna differ very greatly than if you are a pharmaceutical rep and you're meeting a new doctor, or a new administrative assistant who's gonna open the door to that doctor. Every one of these situations is different. But in every situation, the common denominator is, you need to start thinking like the person in front of you. Because most of us, when we walk up, are thinking about ourselves. And what are we gonna say about us? And what's gonna matter about me? And I want you to take and stop that. That's where I said, "Make them. Make them care about you. Make them talk about you. Make them remember you." And you do that by making it about them. Make it about them.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  When you walk up to that person, try to be aware of what makes them tick. When you are, like, I had a Delta flight recently canceled. Shout out, I love Delta, I fly them all the time. But I had another one, and then another one. And I'm stuck at the airport, and I'm walking up to the airport attendant, and everyone else is being rude to this person. And that agent, do you think that's gonna help when you are the 10th person to come up and be rude and flex your status and all that?

• 41:38Mel Robbins?

  And by the way, do they have any control over the weather or the equipment, or the timing out? Did they cancel it on purpose to screw you? No?

• 41:47Speaker 01

  But you're mad, and I think that if you walk up to that person, and you just say, "What a rough day, huh? All these people coming up to you. I know this isn't your fault. I know you wish things were going smooth. If you could help me out, is there any chance that there's another flight you could get me on before this?" Right? Just right there, the way you've empathized, lead with empathy. So, if you want to walk up to somebody, right away, leading with empathy and having an awareness of who they are, what makes them tick, and putting in one statement where you, you're not a mentalist, but use my playbook. Get inside their head, think, what's it like for them? If you're that pharmaceutical rep, and you go in there, you said, "I bet you've had so many people pitch you today, all different products. I want this to be the best one you've had all day." Do you have even 30 seconds? I've gotta tell you something exciting. Right?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Something where you just allude to what their day is, and what they're going through, and what's happening with them. I think that goes such a long way. If you're meeting somebody and you, like, flirting, I'm not telling you what your pickup line is. But I can tell you that, right away, leading with either a compliment, a smile, a time constraint, or just saying something very friendly that you see through their eyes, the world, is going to make such a bigger impact than immediately saying something about you.

• 43:00Mel Robbins?

  I love that. And it immediately gave me an example in a work setting. Because I think a lot of time, it's easy to be tentative about approaching somebody. When's a good time? When's this? When's that? And months can go by before you get time on someone's calendar. And if you take what you're teaching us, which is stop thinking about yourself. "I need time with this person. Why is this person, I'm not getting the time, blah, blah, blah, blah." And you think about the person you're trying to reach. Geez, they have a lot going on. Holy cow, there's a lot coming at them. Boy, this is a really busy person. So, if I step in their shoes, and I see them going down a hallway, you don't walk up and say, "Hey, I need time with you." You start walking with them, you say, "Hey, I know you're really busy. Can I, I'm gonna walk with you for the next 30 seconds? Because there's something really important that I need to share with you.

• 43:44Mel Robbins?

  I wanna make sure it's on your radar." Boom. Now, all of a sudden, you've got my interest, and you're walking with me, and I'm gonna give you more than 30 seconds.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely. If you can, if you can put any type of benefits-oriented language, where it's not even, "I have something important to share with you." It's, "I wanna make your life easier, and I have an excellent way, so that you're making more money, having more time yourself." Again, invert the value proposition, so that when you're approaching somebody, you're always saying the thing that you're doing to make their life better, easier, anything.

• 44:14Mel Robbins?

  You could literally say, "I wanna save you a gigantic headache, because I see an issue brewing, and I wanna bring it to your attention." Now, I'm stopped.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Boom.

• 44:23Mel Robbins?

  Now, I'm not even walking. And I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking, you gotta have a 30-minute Zoom call scheduled at some point to be able to lay out what this is. And there's a way to use these strategies. Think about the other person, flip it, so it's not about you, frame it in a way that it would be interesting to them, diffuse any of the objections, and now you're in. And it takes just a few seconds.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Right. It's changing your mindset in a way.

• 44:47Mel Robbins?

  You know, one of the things, Oz, that you're exceptional at is remembering people's names. And I would love to have you speak a little bit about why is this an important skill to develop in yourself? And what happens in the other person's brain when they hear their name?

• 45:06Speaker 01

  So, our name, from the time we're young, is something special to us, right? And if somebody forgets your name, make no mistake about it, it hurts a little bit. There's a sting to the fact that you weren't as important. Now, maybe your memory was faulty, maybe it was all, but if you forget someone's name, no matter what you think, it's not a good thing. And we've all felt it. We've all done it. We've been on the receiving side and the giving side. So, most of us make a huge mistake in thinking, they'll say to me, "I'm so bad at remembering names. Oh, how can you show me you're so good at it?" I'm going to tell you that the main culprit in forgetting people's names has nothing to do with your memory. It's that you never even knew the name to begin with. So, most people, when they think they've forgotten a name, they never imprinted it on their mind.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  And the reason is, when the person told you their name, you didn't listen. That's literally, it's the simplest step. It's so silly, you're not gonna believe me. I have a set of three directions that I have stolen from shampoo bottles. But I call it the lather, rinse, repeat of shampoo bottles, which, what do you do with shampoo? Everybody knows. Put it in, lather, smells good, rinse, clean hair, repeat. We gotta sell more product. I repurposed it. I call it listen, repeat, reply. Please say it again. Listen, repeat, reply.

• 46:18Mel Robbins?

  Listen, repeat, reply.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  I want this to be something that 10 minutes after this episode, you will start using, and 10 years from now, you will still be doing on a daily basis. Listen, repeat, reply. You will not forget a name again if you follow these directions. I don't care what your memory's like. The listen is the simplest by far, but for a lot of us, it's the hardest. When you meet someone... Listen to their name. I know it sounds so simple, but what does that mean? It means quiet your mind because at that moment, most of us are thinking a bunch of things. The big ones are, do I know this person already? What am I gonna say next? Oh my God, did I feed my dog this morning? Did I X, Y, Z, a million thoughts are going through your head? And our brains are not good at reading and writing at the same time.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  They do one of them really well at best. So right when I meet someone, I clear my mind and I say, what's your name? Tracy and I immediately repeat, listen, repeat. I'm going to repeat their name a minimum of twice immediately after hearing it. Like I met the person doing sound downstairs. There was no name tag. I go Caroline? And I go, is that, did I say it right? Is it Caroline? So right away, I'm gonna repeat the name twice. You right then have about a 90% less chance of forgetting that name in the next 15 seconds. We're gonna go beyond the 15, but in those 15 seconds, it will not go away. Listen, repeat. The last one really ensures that it is solidified in your mind. Reply.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Say something back that hooks it in your memory. Here are the three that I like to use. First, a compliment. A compliment, right away, I go, Mel, I love your glasses, Mel. Where did you get those? So it does two things. One, people like to hear compliments. Two, it's a visual. So now you're Mel with the glasses in my mind. Right? I've connected to something visual that I see. I've said your name more than once. Next one, how do you spell the name? Now for a lot of names, you'd be shocked. If it's John, I go, are you John with an H or you're John with no H? And I go, John with the H, that's the right way to spell it. I've now said the name four times, right? You're going to remember, John with the H. You can do that with Tracy, you can do that with Michelle. One L or two L's. I go, Michelle with two L's. I know so many of you, the Michelle with one L.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  You, you, you make a joke, you make something. Third, if you can connect it to somebody you already know. So if, if I meet somebody and the guy's name is Evan, I go, it's so funny. Evan, I go, we've got a great music teacher named Evan. He's a great guy. So anything you can do to connect it with an existing memory, now that's Evan. And you see it next to this other person, Evan. This is not a memory palace. This is not a mnemonic. I'm not gonna, I'm telling you 10 minutes from you hearing these words. Try this. Try it three times today and you will be doing this for the rest of your life. Listen, repeat, reply.

• 49:05Mel Robbins?

  Why is it so important to develop this as a skill?

• 49:08Speaker 01

  I have noticed time and again that people who are genuine, people that are authentic, people that look you in the eyes, care about you in that moment, make you feel seen, heard and understood. They are going to go so much further in life than everyone else that are gonna say, please, that are gonna say, thank you, that are gonna do these things. You know, I don't think the nice guy ends last. I think that those little wins accumulate over time. And you ask me, how did you achieve success? By doing these things day in, day out, small little bits. Those people will become your champions. Those people who you thought nothing of and you knew their name and you took the time to write down notes afterwards about their children or what was important to them. And you know that information a month or a year or a decade later, they remember you. They talk about you.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Memorable moments and they will champion you and elevate you in your happiness, in your success, in your life.

• 49:59Mel Robbins?

  You just mentioned taking notes and you and I share something in common, which is this habit of keeping notes once you meet someone. So share a little bit about this habit.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  So I find that taking notes, I did it as a matter of necessity because I have a lot of clients that book me for events and they'll book me again and again. And so what happens is it's very awkward for me because we have an asymmetrical interaction, which means that sometimes I do things that people will remember and talk about for the rest of their life. I'm not trying to brag, but that's my job. That's what I try to do, create those moments. And that for lack of a better term, I will have done that to several thousand other people in between the time we last met. So it's not that they don't mean a lot to me. It's that that will blend in with other ones because contrary to popular opinion, I am not a memory expert. I use my memory effectively in certain ways. And the beautiful part is I can cheat when it comes to my memory. I can write notes down.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  So what I realized is I didn't wanna do a show again, see someone there and have forgotten this amazing experience I gave them.

• 51:02Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Because to them, I look in their eyes and I see that they're disappointed. And so I did this, it was born of necessity, started taking notes over a decade ago on what was happening. And then I took more notes and more notes. And I do this, it's a great way to train your memory because as soon as my show ends or as soon as a dinner party ends or as soon as anything. Some people think, I don't know why, that it's like a weird sociopathic tendency that you're cheating. I disagree vehemently. I think that you're being given information. Why would you let it flow through your fingers like sand? It becomes more valuable the longer you hold on to it. It shows that you care. It doesn't mean that you didn't remember. If I look at those notes before I go to a show, that shows I care. And people will give me credit for knowing something or remembering something

• 51:46Speaker 01

  that I truly didn't remember, but I took the time to review it. So I tell you, find an easy way. Maybe it's notes. I will write notes down in my calendar and in an app after every event, after meeting people. And you don't even have to introduce it as a, for me, I'm not doing it as a trick. I'm not pretending I didn't know this information about you.

• 52:05Mel Robbins?

  I, I've shared this before on the podcast and also, you know, in speeches, but you can use this same strategy at your favorite restaurant.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 52:13Mel Robbins?

  You can use it at your local coffee shop. And if you find you're the kind of person that goes in and you can't remember the barista's name or you can't remember, you know, the woman that is working on Tuesday nights at the restaurant, just make a contact file for the restaurant. And in the notes app, just describe people and constantly be adding to it. Like it's an incredible thing to do.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 52:37Mel Robbins?

  Incredible. Because when you call people by their name, particularly in these more casual relationships, people are floored. You also say that every one of us has a built-in BS detector.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 52:51Mel Robbins?

  How can you use it to tell when somebody's lying to you?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  I have seen so many instances where my first instinct was correct. Now, not every time, but enough statistically that it's a statistical advantage. I would tell most people that if you can really be honest with yourself, with what you believed at the first moment, kids are lying to me right now. Well, maybe this, no, I bet you they were lying. I bet you more often than not, they were. That person you went on a first date with, something doesn't feel right? It's probably not gonna be right four or five or six dates from now. There's so much in your instincts that you will talk yourself out of. And I've learned to have that voice that says not to, I don't listen to it.

• 53:31Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know, it's interesting. I love this because I feel the same about myself, that intuition, another way to think about it is pattern recognition.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  That's all it is. It's iterating on pattern recognition.

• 53:41Mel Robbins?

  Yes. And if you have this intuition or this sixth sense, it means your mind, body and spirit is recognizing a pattern. And to me, even if you catch it wrong and you make a decision, you realize the, like, pattern recognition was wrong, making the decision and then gathering the data adjusts the patterns that you spot.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:06Mel Robbins?

  And so to me, there is no other way than to act on your intuition and the pattern recognition and the sixth sense that you have, because that's the only thing that hones it. Because you need both the right calls and the wrong calls to adjust the settings to recognize the right patterns. Like I totally agree with you.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Some of the sixth sense is stuff that's subconscious that you don't realize.

• 54:30Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  So I can give you great examples of BS detection with people you know, which is when they vary from their benchmarks. So again, this isn't a foolproof and it's not infallible. So I don't wanna tell people something that you're gonna then say, oh, it didn't work. But it works more often than it doesn't, which again, is my barometer for success in many ways. I have no way to tell you 100%, here's where someone's eyes look if they're lying. There's different things that vary how people behave, but here's the key. People will change the amount of details, the speed with which they speak, the cadence with which they speak when they lie. You can normally detect when people that you know are lying because they change from what they normally do. So let me explain to you. I can't tell you one or the other. Most of us will add unnecessary details when we lie.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  We'll add more details that we don't need to embellish. You know, the person who calls in and goes, I got a fever of 104 and oh my God, and this, and you didn't need all that. If you were really sick, do you know what you would've said? You said, I'm really not feeling well, I can't make it today. All of the embellishment is almost always a lie. Unless you're a person who embellishes all the time. And now if you just say to me, I'm not feeling well, I know you're lying. So what I would describe is notice people's patterns when they tell the truth. If you know them well, you've literally taken in thousands and thousands of data points of them doing this. You just haven't consciously studied what they do. I do. And then see what it feels like when you're not sure if they're lying and you'll be able to tell almost always it's different.

• 56:01Mel Robbins?

  I would love to switch gears and talk about difficult people. So let's say that the person who is listening or watching right now is dealing with somebody who is really challenging, whether it's a difficult coworker or maybe it is a rude customer or somebody that is like defensive, maybe it's even your partner.

• 56:20Mel Robbins?

  What do you do in those moments where things get tense? Or there's a lot of friction? What's the best way to handle these situations?

• 56:32Speaker 01

  So for me in my professional environment, hecklers are an issue, right? Somebody who wants to figure you out. And this can go down a few different paths or channels. One is analyzing what is at the core their motivation for doing this? So for a lot of people, the motivation is attention. They want attention. You have it. And there is an insecurity playing out where they feel lesser than. Also, I have a profession that relies on deception at its core. At the end of it, I don't tell you how I did it. So it can be presented as an intellectual challenge for some people where they say, you know, something I don't, therefore I feel insecure. I feel threatened by you, so I want to figure out how you did it.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  So in that moment, if I know what they want is attention, I want to give them that attention. And if that means that I can give them a peek behind the curtain, for some people, they want to feel intelligent. They want to feel they've caught me. So what can I do? Why don't I let them feel like they caught me? But I'll let them feel like they caught me on something simple. I'll let them behind the curtain. I'll go, you know how this works. Let me show you something. And I bring them in and I include them and they feel like, wow, I've now gotten what I wanted, that spotlight, that shine. He is noticing me. But now we've already built that rapport. So again, this is how I do it in my life. But who are the hecklers in your life? Who are the people that don't believe in you, that are talking down to you, that are telling you, hey, stay in your lane, you know, don't bite off more than you can chew?

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Certain people that are bringing you down with their energy, right?

• 58:01Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  I think that in many instances, you have to look at what's motivating them. And I think so much of the time, it's a mirror for their insecurities. It's the compare and despair mentality, which is what they're saying to you is what they actually feel about themselves. And so know that where they're coming from is from a position of they're insecure about that. Now, you're not going to change who people are. Let them, obviously. So if somebody is bringing you down, I think that me knowing where their motivation is coming from and knowing that they don't really want to bring me down, they feel down. That's where it's coming from. If I'm diffusing a heckler whose energy is going above mine, never try to overcome them. Anger is not going to best in that situation.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  You're in a fight with like a family member and you're getting elevated and you're about to say something you can't take back? Pause, breathe, write it in email, draft it, and don't send it. Put an alarm for 48 hours, see if you still feel that strongly. And if you want to send it again, I've deleted pretty much every one of those emails I've ever drafted because some things you can't take back.

• 59:06Mel Robbins?

  I really loved what you said about how this kind of flipping it around to understand that somebody's not trying to bring you down, they feel down. And that they're projecting at you the things that they feel they're lacking in themselves.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Almost always.

• 59:25Mel Robbins?

  Almost always. You know, how do you know when it's time to stop trying to win someone over and simply just walk away?

• 59:31Speaker 01

  I think that I get to pick my audience. That's a beautiful part about me. I get to pick the people in my show who I'm using. Mine is sometimes on TV. You have to decide what is right for you and decide if, at the end of the day, is this person helping to uplift me or bring me down? And I think that's something you have to trust yourself on. And even if their example is one where it's frustrating or scorn or negativity, you can't control how they behave. All I can control is my reaction to that. And trying to understand and assess where are they really coming from and what's the root cause of it? Because in so many instances, the root cause is not actually that they want to bring you down or make you feel bad.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  It's that they feel bad inside and they don't know how to deal with that.

• 1:00:17Mel Robbins?

  Oh, as you talk about the power of leaving people wanting more, how can the person listening or watching use that right now in their everyday life? Whether it's in a meeting or it's on a date or it is in even your friendships?

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  That's the number one rule of showbiz is leave people wanting more is where is that curve where you get right to the top before it starts to go down? That's something you learn over time and that's built on confidence is leaving people wanting more. In a meeting, answer the questions and then move along. So many of us will keep talking when we've had our fill. We've said everything we wanted and then right then we know, I got to fill more dead space. Silence is sometimes golden in negotiations and in life. Took me a decade to learn that when I'm done performing in effect and I do something amazing, I let them react. I used to try to fill the time, fill the space, start talking over people. And it's kind of like what a comedian calls stepping on laughs.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  If people are still laughing, don't start your next joke. Let all the laughs finish before you move on. Otherwise, you're eating your own dessert. When it comes to dating, I think be just out of grasp. Be just out of grasp. Just, I'm not saying to play games, but you don't want to overshare. You don't want to give too much too early. So many people have that pattern and I think it's the same in business is you overwhelm somebody earlier. Try to match someone's energy. When I would do job interviews, so many people would either go in too much or too little. If you walk in and you're too down, you're not remembered. If you're too up, oh, take it easy, buddy, just a little too much. How many coffees?

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  If you can match the level, a snort laugh out of Mel, I nailed it. I nailed this episode.

• 1:02:09Mel Robbins?

  Now it's time to leave us with, now we're wanting more.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  But if you can match the energy of the person across from you, just try to calibrate where you're the same as them. And every now and again, you leave them wanting more. I had, this is a cheat sheet in life, on my resume, I had professional magician on my resume when I finished college and somebody saw that. Every single person, Mel, not one, you could put me in a lie detector, at one point looked at my resume while interviewing me and went, professional magician? Nobody looks at that and doesn't make a comment. It's impossible. And now, how do you leave somebody wanting more? At that moment, I said, if we have time at the end of the interview, maybe I'll show you one thing. Notice all of the words I used in there. Maybe at the end, I didn't let them say to me, do something now because now they're in charge.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  I also said, maybe at the end, if we have time, I've created that time constraint. I've created scarcity and demand by my words alone. So how do you leave people wanting more? Do that in your life. Don't overstay your welcome. When you've finished speaking and you have everything, stop. That's the hardest thing for most of us to do. Stop, just like a negotiation. Here's my offer. And then let them continue talking because most of the time, the person who speaks last in a negotiation loses.

• 1:03:29Mel Robbins?

  You've certainly left us wanting more.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:32Mel Robbins?

  And I also know you have a flight to catch.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  I have a flight, but we have to do one last thing.

• 1:03:35Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Are you ready? I love to leave you on a moment that's memorable. You picked the word want.

• 1:03:40Mel Robbins?

  Yes, I did.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Out of every page in your book.

• 1:03:42Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  And you went through there and I said to pick a page with some sort of meaning to you, not random.

• 1:03:48Mel Robbins?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Why would it have meaning? I think that page was connected to what's most important to you, the people that you care about, somebody in your life. And that page, whatever that page was, has something to do with another person. Is that right?

• 1:04:01Mel Robbins?

  Yes, correct.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Think of any letter in their name.

• 1:04:04Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  The page, imagine you flipping to it again and stopping and you stop, I think you stopped closer to the second half. The page has three digits, doesn't it?

• 1:04:16Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  And I didn't think it was a lucky number. Thought it was a date. It's a date, isn't it?

• 1:04:22Mel Robbins?

  It is.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, but your book has only 300 pages, so you might have given this away in a way. It's February, isn't it?

• 1:04:35Mel Robbins?

  It is.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  February makes it two. Think odd, think even, it's an odd page, isn't it?

• 1:04:44Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  You're thinking of February 17th.

• 1:04:47Mel Robbins?

  I am.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  You went to page 217.

• 1:04:49Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  And I want you to imagine that person walking through this door right now. You look right at him or her, him or her, her, is it a female?

• 1:04:57Mel Robbins?

  It's a female.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  You look her in the eyes, you say, how have you been? Is she alive?

• 1:05:01Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  And you look her right in the eyes and you go, how have you been? And you click, Jody, is it Jody?

• 1:05:06Mel Robbins?

  It is Jody. Oh, my God. It's Jody. Yeah, it's Jody. That's incredible. And her birthday is February 17th. Yeah, it's Jody.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Give the people what they want. It all worked out.

• 1:05:25Mel Robbins?

  That's absolutely incredible. You just gave me a memorable experience I will never forget. And I am sitting here spinning in my chair because I can't believe you just did that. And it's a sign to me that I need to go call my friend Jody and check in because she has a lot going on right now in her life and I'm worried about her a lot. I so appreciate you taking the time to come here and the way in which you explain all of this wisdom and insights and the tools, it's like magic.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:06:01Mel Robbins?

  So thank you for sharing your gift with us.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:06:04Mel Robbins?

  And I also want to thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that could truly change your life. And there is no doubt in my mind, if you lean into this and you recognize that opportunities, the life you want to create, the things you want to experience, the connections that you want to make, they're all right there for you to create for yourself. And the tools that Oz Pearlman gave you today are going to help you do that. And in case no one else tells you this today, as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And part of what makes your life better is taking responsibility for the things that

• 1:06:45Mel Robbins?

  you want, getting out of your own way and doing what you need to do to create it for yourself. And I am certain after what you listened to today, that you have the tools to now go do that. So go do it. All righty, I'll see you in the very next episode. I'm going to welcome you in the moment you hit play. You know, one of the things that you are also, oh, hold on a second.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Taking the light that shines on you and reflecting it, I'm going to try this again. Is that all right?

• 1:07:17Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  I got sidetracked.

• 1:07:19Mel Robbins?

  Yes, I definitely need this because I'm a little dehydrated. Okay. Oh, that tastes so effing good. Yeah, I was literally, okay, great. I just realized.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Am I too long in rambling? I can't tell.

• 1:07:31Mel Robbins?

  No, you're great. And the stories are great. The top mentalist in the world, Oz Pearlman. Now, he's, oh, I got, okay, let me do that line again. Oz, one of the reasons why, many reasons, I'll start again. And you're talking about sort of some of the things that your early career, sitting in your boxer shorts and going, oh, my God.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  People don't need that visual right now. Keep the shirt on, Mel.

• 1:07:54Mel Robbins?

  The world is my oyster, but I got to shuck it. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.