Mentalist Oz Pearlman: Mind-Reading Secrets & The Ultramarathon Mindset

In today’s episode, Rich sits down with celebrity mentalist and ultramarathoner Oz Pearlman to discuss the art of mentalism, the ultra runner mindset, how to cultivate intuition, and leverage behavior for confidence, endurance & resilience. One of the world’s busiest and most in-demand entertainers, Oz is noted for his unique blend of magic and mentalism that always leaves the host and audience breathless. He has appeared in most major media outlets and his client list reads like a who’s who of politicians, professional athletes, A-list celebrities, and Fortune 500 companies. In addition, Oz is a 2:23 marathoner and has competed in some of the world’s most prestigious ultramarathons, including Badwater, WS100, and Spartathlon. The visually inclined can watch the magic transpire on YouTube. As always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Pick up Rich’s lates book VOICING CHANGE Vol. II HERE. For full show notes and to read more about Oz, go HERE. Enjoy the show! Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:06Speaker 01

  The biggest part is not knowing how to do the things, it's knowing who to pick to do the right thing with. So what I do is more analyzing how people think, reverse-engineering their decision-making, and some elements of body language reading, psychology, and honestly, group dynamics, social dynamics. Knowing how people behave and studying that for decades, and then knowing how to entertain people, that's the key word. It's entertainment. I'm not psychic. I don't pretend to know the future. But it's reading people and making it very entertaining and doing it in such a way that it's not explainable. Like, the key is, it's kind of, you watch magic and you know somebody did something fast. My hands don't move fast. I just do stuff where I'm very good at guessing things. But, in essence, yeah, I know how to observe people. I generally know how you're gonna behave, and even in the moment where you think, "I'm

• 1:51Speaker 01

  gonna change my mind, I'm gonna do something different right now," I know you're gonna do that. And I'm doing it through means that have nothing to do with supernatural. I don't have a skill that you couldn't possess if you were willing to train for 20 years.

• 2:15Rich Roll?

  People of the internet. Well, here we are. How's it going? Good to have you. Good to be here. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is a unique one, that's for sure. He's a world-class mentalist. We'll get into what that means, don't worry, as well as a highly accomplished marathoner and ultra-runner. His name is Oz Pearlman, and if that name sounds familiar, perhaps it's because you caught his act on America's Got Talent in 2015, where, week after week, this guy performed mind-blowing, never-before-seen mentalism routines that made him essentially a household name overnight.

• 2:58Rich Roll?

  Today, he's one of the world's busiest and most-in-demand entertainers, with a client list that reads like a who's-who of politicians, professional athletes, A-list celebrities, and Fortune 500 companies. He's appeared everywhere: The Today Show, Ellen, Jimmy Fallon, where his unique blend of magic and mentalism always leaves the host and the audience breathless. Oz is nothing if not charismatic. As you'll soon see, he is just insanely skilled at his craft. It's a craft that is stunning to witness. And he's also super-accomplished on foot, racking up finishes at many of the world's most prestigious ultras,

• 3:41Rich Roll?

  like Badwater, Western States 100, the Spartathlon, as well as racking up a 223 marathon PR. A few more things I want to add into the mix, but first.

• 4:01Rich Roll?

  Okay, so today's conversation covers, of course, Oz's story. We talk about the art of mentalism, what it is, what it isn't, how he mastered this craft. What mentalism, being an entertainer and being a devoted ultra-runner who continues to clock 100-mile weeks, has taught him about human behavior, about obsession, perseverance, patience, self-worth, entrepreneurship, and more. I really don't want to spoil this one any further beyond imploring you to please stick around to the end because this wizard performs straight up the craziest sorcery imaginable.

• 4:45Rich Roll?

  It's a reveal for the ages that left not just me, but my entire team absolutely stunned and breathless. How's that for a tease? Okay, so let's get into it. This is me and Oz Perlmutter. So before we started the podcast, first of all, thanks for coming here.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  I'm really looking forward to getting into this with you. There's so many cool things to talk to you about. Before we even started, you had me doing a whole bunch of stuff. I suspect that at some point you want to do some kind of reveal or, you know, blow my mind with something. We can do that at the end or at the beginning.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  That's the plan. I like to end big.

• 5:27Rich Roll?

  Okay, we'll end big. Well, why don't you, you know, kick it off by just explaining what mentalism is so we're all clear on kind of the playing field in which you operate. I think it gets sort of conflated with magic and mind reading and tarot card reading and all kinds of other stuff, so lay the groundwork on what it is that you do.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  So it's interesting because I would never have believed if you would have told me I was going to be a mentalist. This is not like the career path I thought I was going to be on, which is shocking to this day. It's kind of like magic of the mind. So everybody can visualize a magician because you think somebody picks a card and they're going to find it with fast hands, right? That's kind of the dynamic, sleight of hand. So what I do is more analyzing how people think. Reverse engineering their decision making and some elements of body language, reading, psychology, and honestly, group dynamics, social dynamics, knowing how people behave, and studying that for decades, and then knowing how to entertain people, that's the key word, it's entertainment, it's not, I'm not psychic, I don't pretend to know the future, I don't,

• 6:29Speaker 01

  I would have won the lottery by now, Rich, between me and you, but it's reading people and making it very entertaining and doing it in such a way that it's not explainable, like the key is, it's kind of, you watch Magic and you know somebody did something fast, my hands don't move fast, I just do stuff where I'm very good at guessing things.

• 6:46Rich Roll?

  You're very much an expert at this, though, I watched a whole ton of your videos, I watched all the America's Got Talent performances, and Ellen, and the Today Show, and all this sort of stuff, and you have an incredible, like, stage presence and command of what you're doing, and it's impossible for me, as a layperson, to try to deconstruct what the cues are that you're, you know, the sort of foundation that you're laying, and you're so in this flow of what you're doing, but I have to imagine that you're paying such close attention to, you know, what's coming out of the person's mouth, how you're kind of queuing them up, how you're leading them down a certain path, and if there's something not going your way, you have to kind of redirect it and, you know,

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  land that plane in the place that you want it, where you want to stick that landing, right, so, it seems like you're kind of reverse engineering all of this, like, you know where you want it to end up, and you have to take this person on a journey that's gonna land them there without anybody being the wiser.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Very well put, like, exactly that, think of a movie, and this is the best way to describe it, think of a movie with the director's cut that you never saw, right? The director points the camera at what they want you to see, but there's other elements in the movie, so, what I do, it's very funny, because it's not linear, not to be, like, too in the weeds, I don't usually just say, hey, think of this, and I'm gonna guess this, I kind of take you on a path where amazing things happen, and you don't really know exactly what's going to take place, and that's the advantage for me, that's why I'm not working for the FBI profiling people, or like, at a casino, there's certain things I do that give me a tactical advantage in life, if you will, but it's also done on the course of entertainment, where I can't just go into a casino and rack up winnings, I can do certain things, but they know how to neutralize my advantage, but, in essence,

• 8:28Speaker 01

  yeah, I know how to observe people, I generally know how you're gonna behave, and even in the moment where you think, I'm gonna change my mind, I'm gonna do something different right now, I know you're gonna do that.

• 8:37Rich Roll?

  We're going to get into how you know that, and I know you're going to be cagey about what you're willing to reveal, but I'm going to work on trying to get you to divulge a little bit.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Right, spill the beans.

• 8:47Rich Roll?

  But you have done some kind of financial predictions and, you know, Super Bowl and Final Four stuff, like you go on Squawk Box, so that's a different animal than like reading an individual. So that does get into, you know, predictions and, you know, sorcery.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  So some of that stuff was straight up, like the way I describe it is when I'm doing a show, it's a combination, it's like routines, tricks, it's all the above, there's psychology, but I know that a lot of stuff's going to work, the predictions that I've done, for the most part, it's like I'm sailing without a safety net, there's, you know, there's no, like the Super Bowls, I got a bunch of them right, and then I got one wrong, and it's like, what are you going to do? And everyone's like, oh my God, you got it wrong, I'm not psychic. So what I did is kind of analyze the way anybody would handicap things, and the Final Four was amazing, I mean, I nailed the Final Four, and then that, so again, all of these things, that's why people started betting on it, and I had to put a disclaimer out there being like, hey, bet at your own risk, because eventually this house of cards might crumble, and I couldn't get every single one right, but technically speaking, I got a lot more right than if you were flipping coins.

• 9:45Rich Roll?

  Did you bet on it yourself?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  I definitely bet on stuff.

• 9:48Rich Roll?

  You did?

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  And how does that play into, we're going to get into your background, but does that play into, you know, the stock market and investments and things like that?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  I'd like to think I'm somewhat of a savvy investor, because my background is working on Wall Street, but I'm actually much more of a vanilla boring type person when it comes to investments. I don't like taking big swings and risks, I've got kind of a thought on low-cost index ETFs, growing your wealth slowly over time, consistently, but with some, you know, kind of what I would describe as asymmetrical bets, like right now cryptocurrencies, I think is a no-brainer for people to invest in, but, you know, that's a little bit, that's a topic that's a little controversial.

• 10:26Rich Roll?

  Right, that's its own podcast.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 10:28Rich Roll?

  The thing, the one performance of yours that got me more than probably

• 10:35Rich Roll?

  All the others was the one on America's Got Talent where the panel had to guess the number of gumballs in the jar.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Oh, nice, man.

• 10:43Rich Roll?

  And then all the numbers lined up to be this long number that you had predicted. And I just, I can't even wrap my head around like how you pulled that off.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Oh, man, thank you.

• 10:52Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, Nick Cannon reaches in and there's gumballs and they, they take out and there's a receipt in there and the receipt, the item number.

• 10:59Rich Roll?

  For the purchase of the gumballs themselves.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. So it was, man, it's, it's one of those things where what I want to do is a one, two, three punch. I want to do something that you kind of think you figured out. You're like, man, I think I kind of know how you might've done that. Then the next one's like, oh, wow, I don't know. And then the third one is totally unexpected, just a kick to the brain and you're just like, I'm done. So that's why I kind of like to, all my setups on TV, if you kind of watch them are just like boom, boom, boom, and the biggest one at the end.

• 11:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I'll, I'll link up that video as well as a bunch of other videos of yours in the show notes. But yeah, ostensibly the, the, the number on the receipt for the gumballs lined up perfectly with the series of numbers that if you went down the panel in order, like the exact series of numbers.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:42Rich Roll?

  It was unbelievable.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 11:43Rich Roll?

  And I want to work our way up to America's Got Talent. So let's, let's start at the beginning. You're from Israel, but you moved to Michigan as a young person?

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Yep. So I moved to the States when I was three. Like I was born during a war and then my dad was an engineer and he got a job here. Kind of they do an exchange program because everyone in Israel goes to the military. It's kind of at 18, everybody does. And so he was in the Navy. He was designing engines and he did like an exchange program. We were supposed to come for two years and then we ended up loving it and staying in the States.

• 12:11Rich Roll?

  And just stayed. Where in Michigan?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  So I moved a couple of places before, but I ended up, uh, middle school, high school and college. I lived in Farmington Hills, Michigan, kind of outside Detroit.

• 12:20Rich Roll?

  I was, uh, born in Grosse Pointe.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  We always, we always do this. I don't know if they'll see this on the podcast, but we hold up our hand and point where in Michigan. All the Michiganders will know. And that's how I describe where I was.

• 12:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All my cousins and extended family are, are Michigan people. My parents went to U of M.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Go blue.

• 12:35Rich Roll?

  And the whole thing. So I just, you know, I'm, I'm the black sheep because I came out to California, but you know, maize and blue.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Wait, what's wrong with you? You wanted beautiful weather, Rich? You wanted sunlight some of the year? What's wrong with you, Rich Roll?

• 12:47Rich Roll?

  Go blue, right? My grandfather swam for University of Michigan, um, under Coach Matt Mann and the natatorium is called the, the Matt Mann Pool.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 12:57Rich Roll?

  At University of Michigan. Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  They have a strong team, I think.

• 13:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So he was a legend. Yeah. They've built an incredible program there. I mean, Michael Phelps, you, you went to U of M, right?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 13:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You probably were there when Phelps was there.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  I'm trying to think of the overlap.

• 13:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. How old are you?

• 13:12Speaker 01

  I'm turning 40 this year.

• 13:13Rich Roll?

  Oh, you're probably a little older than him then.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm older than him. Cause yeah, he was in oh eight. Man, I'll never forget that Olympics.

• 13:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  I watched every event he was in. I would, man, that was just like eight, eight, eight. I remember that opening ceremony and I think that was the best Olympics ever in my life where he won every medal and he out touched that guy. And like, I was screaming. I was in, in my house or at people's homes, just like yelling, screaming. That was, I think that was the best Olympics ever.

• 13:35Rich Roll?

  And before you got into running, you were a swimmer?

• 13:38Speaker 01

  I was a swimmer. I was a competitive swimmer as a kid. I was never good. Um, I started school when I was five and then I skipped fourth grade. A little bit of nerd. So I was always two years younger than everybody I was friends with and I was really little. So I think actually in hindsight, I'm still not big, like five, seven and three quarters. I like to add that three quarters in, very important. Uh, but I still don't think I would have been a good swimmer, but I got better as we increased because I think at a certain age, like I was 16 when everyone was 18 around me. And if I had those extra years, I think I would have gotten better. And I got to be a decent freestyler.

• 14:09Rich Roll?

  Right. That was your stroke.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Freestyle and I could do very strong at, at fly, but only for a quick period. Like if I was in the medley relay, I could crush a 50 fly. I was almost as quick at a 50 fly as I was 50 free because I wouldn't breathe. We used to do those shooters. Do you, you remember those shooters where you go underwater to one side, completely don't, no breath and then back. And then you have, you have them on like a, on an interval and you have maybe five seconds to just get yourself just absolute depletion. I would say swim workouts are probably the hardest ones I've ever had in my life where at the end of a workout, I would be in the shower on the floor, even though it's the high school bathroom floor, which is horrendously disgusting because I couldn't stand up.

• 14:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, swimming teaches you how to suffer, right?

• 14:47Speaker 01

  So much.

• 14:48Rich Roll?

  And that definitely plays into, you know, being an ultra marathoner. You've already, you already have that background and familiarity with, with, you know, how to push yourself. And there's something about being in the pool where you can push yourself really hard, but you're not going to get injured like you would in running. Like if you went out and killed it every day in running, the way that people do in the pool, you'd end up with, you know, you'd end up, you know, with a problem pretty quickly.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're absolutely right.

• 15:12Rich Roll?

  So in running, it's more, it becomes more about holding back and conservation and knowing when to choose your moments to go hard.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  And swimming had something to it because I did cross country for one season and I hated it. I was the worst one on the team, not figuratively, literally. I was the worst person on the team. My coach later on, when I started like running and winning marathons, this guy was in shock. He goes, wait, O's? He thought it was impossible. He thought it was a practical joke or an April Fools because I was the guy who not only was the worst, I brought the morale of the team down. Like I, my friend, we would cheat, like we always in Michigan, there's mile blocks. You know, 12 mile, 11 mile, like the movie Eight Mile. We knew that during part of our workout, we would run by my buddy's house. So we would sneak into his house. We would play GoldenEye. We would watch out the window to see when the other guys came back and we would quickly hyperventilate, throw water on our face and run the last half mile with them full speed.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  So like I was actually destroying part of the team ethic because I would be like, let's go play GoldenEye at your house, bro. And it was very funny.

• 16:10Rich Roll?

  Undermining the whole thing. Well, when did he become aware? I mean, let's, let's just so people who are watching or listening know, like you're a 223 marathoner, right?

• 16:19Speaker 01

  That's my PR, yeah.

• 16:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's unbelievable. Is that what you just ran in New York?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  No, I wish.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Not bad. I ran 229.

• 16:27Rich Roll?

  229, okay.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  And so I've done-

• 16:29Rich Roll?

  And 23 was a couple of years ago?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  223 was about five years ago. It was right before I had my first kid. My wife had our first kid.

• 16:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, then kids.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Kids, man.

• 16:38Rich Roll?

  It all goes out the window.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Oh man, it did go out the window for a little bit. I still managed to keep it somewhat together, but after our first kid, I just let training slip. And you know that feeling when you think you're still in shape, so you go after it, but you're not in the shape you were?

• 16:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, I know that well, yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  And you go out in the first- Half marathon is just based on the fact that you have so much miles in your legs that I just crushed the first half and then a nice dose of humble pie on the second half.

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, all right. So you sucked at running. You had some background in swimming. You were a precocious kid, kind of advanced academically.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:10Rich Roll?

  Where does the, where does the mentalism and the magic start to creep into your fascination?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  So my folks got divorced when I was 13, which was like, I don't, for some people, a very traumatic type of event. In my case, it was kind of, it set me on a path where I needed something to fill the emotional void is what I would describe it as, to not really deal with the family tumultuousness. And I had just seen a magician on a cruise ship. This, this, things happened very close in time. And I was obsessed. And that's kind of my personality in general is when I get into something, it's full tilt. Like, I never half ass it. I really, I went to the library, I checked out every book, I read them cover to cover. I started just practicing card tricks, literally 18 hours a day, from the time I woke up until night. I had waterproof cards to practice in the shower. Psychotic.

• 17:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The nerdy magic kid. There's nothing worse than that guy.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  And I actually met a kid, there was a kid who transitioned from being like, the magic guy from middle school to becoming, he was more of, what would I describe it, the music guy? His name was Ryan Hertz. I'll never forget this. If he hears this, I'd love it. And I used to drive him crazy because when we got into high school, he didn't really want to be as into magic, because he was known as the magician. And I would tirelessly, like, bother this kid. Teach me a trick, teach me a trick. And with magic, you kind of have to prove yourself. It's something where people don't give you the secrets until they know that you're really serious. Do you know what I mean?

• 18:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  You only teach other magicians tricks. And with mentalists, it's even more of a close knit network, where you don't really share things unless you kind of know other people have, I don't know, the credentials or the experience or they're, I don't know, one of us, so to speak. And so, over time, he started kind of sharing stuff with me and he saw that I was doing this for real. And I just started doing it, my mom at some point was like, hey, I'm not buying all these tricks for you in books. You gotta go do it. And that was kind of my inner hustle at 14. I went and got a job half a mile from my house, just walked into a restaurant and booked it. And I started working at that restaurant. And then I started doing kids' shows. And I was doing this all the time to make money.

• 19:04Rich Roll?

  Just right out of the gate, like, knew this is what you wanted to do.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  I never knew that I would do it as a living because I didn't know that that could be, I didn't know that was possible. Like, all I saw was David Copperfield on TV. And it's kind of like watching movies. Nobody, at least I don't think I could be a movie star. Like, I don't know anyone who's that. So I don't think that's actually possible. Like my archetype is you gotta go be an engineer or a lawyer or a doctor, you know?

• 19:27Rich Roll?

  But you got that like Mark Cuban hustle gene.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  You're a bit of a salesman.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 19:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  I'm 100%. I almost don't think I'm a mentalist. I'm a salesperson who's damn good at selling this product, which is that I can read minds.

• 19:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And where does that come from?

• 19:45Rich Roll?

  Like, does that, is that a reflection of like your parents getting divorced and a desire for attention? Or is there some just inbred thing that you have that drives you to succeed? Because you have a big motor inside of you. It would be enough just to have this huge career as a mentalist, but then to layer on top of that all the ultra marathoning and all of that, like in the level of obsession and attention to detail that you bring to everything. Like, that's a, I mean, that's your superpower, I think, that that kind of underscores and drives all of this.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  You know, I think that I liked standing out. Even as a kid, I liked being known for something. And at different stages in my life, I was always kind of known. My greatest fear was to be like not known. Apathy is the worst thing. If somebody watches my show and at the end, they go, I know how you did this. I know how you did that. I don't mind that. That's engagement. Not even like social media. That's like live. I like that you leave there thinking about me. And I want to be memorable. And so if somebody leaves the show and it's like a movie that was a popcorn flick that it went in one ear, out the other, and a day later, like, oh, I don't even remember seeing that. That is death to me. Like, that kills me on the inside. If somebody's sitting there on their phone not paying attention, I need to know what I'm doing that's wrong, that's not capturing their imagination, their attention. And so I think what I loved about magic was the iterative approach.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  It's that every time you do it, you get an instant response. It's like stand-up comedy. It's not like making a product like this even to me. I don't know what's going to happen with this. People absorb it on their own and they're going to listen to it while they're working out, while they're sleeping, while they're, you know, doing a million things. I love the immediate appeal of seeing an audience's reaction and seeing how I can improve upon it. And that's what the rush is of performing live. And the same with racing. I love the excitement of a race.

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  Right. It's truth. It doesn't lie to you, right? Like, running doesn't lie to you and the response of the audience is gonna be honest. And I think what, when I think about what you do and what I've observed in watching your stuff, that distinguishes you from other people of your ilk is that you weave into the performance some reveals, like you want that, you're like, here's kinda how I do it. Like, you drip out a few things to like, let them know, like, hey, this is kinda how I do it. You're not gonna tell them, you know, anything too major.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:56Rich Roll?

  But you kind of cue them, and I think that creates an emotional connection where they feel like, oh, cool, like, now I'm really alert, cuz I'm looking for those cues that he's talking about, how he goes from one place to the other and, you know, creates this sort of tapestry that, you know, lands in such a mind-blowing place.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  You nailed it, man.

• 22:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  That's what you gotta do, it's like breadcrumbs.

• 22:17Rich Roll?

  I mean, I don't see other people doing that, though. It's, you know, like, that level of divulgence. Did you come up with that yourself, or?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I did it because I'm the biggest skeptic. So, it's like, funny, I'm the person who watches these things with the eye of a skepticism, and honestly, people that like mentalism will go down a few paths. One, they'll just like watching it, right? It's kind of a cool thing, and I get a lot of my shows where people say to me, I don't even like magic, but I love you. And that's, I find that a great compliment, because I'm the same way. When I watch, like, Copperfield or somebody do an amazing illusion, a lot of times, I don't know how it works, but it loses me because I know there's a method. Does that make sense? There's like, I know that somehow, whether you created it, or bought it, or something, there's a trick there that you're doing, and I know it. It's still amazing, and I respect it, I love magic. But when I'm watching certain things with mentalism that hug the line, like, things I've done that I can tell you for a fact, have a real danger component. Like, some of the things on America's Got Talent that were live, 15 million people are watching,

• 23:10Speaker 01

  the producers know how I'm doing this. And they say to me, but wait, it could go wrong this way, this way, this way. Like, they're sitting, looking at me like, wait, but don't you understand? I go, I do know that. And they go, well, what happens if it goes wrong? You only have four minutes, it's live TV, we can't extend, we're commercials. And I go, that's the rush. Like, that's, what you just said is it, because the fact that you know that, the audience feels that, and you can't fake. Real, not danger, because I'm not gonna die. You know, I'm not actually getting physically hurt, but I could bomb and it could go absolutely wrong. And that makes me sharpen my focus and that makes it all the more exciting for the person watching and for me doing it. And you know that when you watch somebody who's excited, you feel that emotion, you mirror that response.

• 23:48Rich Roll?

  Right. So where does it first kind of creep in to your life in a professional way? I mean, you go through high school, you're at University of Michigan. I assume you're doing this at parties and stuff like that.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Totally. Picking up girls. This is like, this is like when you're 14 and suddenly you do a trick and a girl's like lights up. I'm like, oh my God, I'm sold.

• 24:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Uh, but I had this thing where at 16, I finished high school. My parents, my dad moved back to Israel, uh, my mom moved back to Israel. My dad had like another woman and split up and just a lot of, a lot of drama, let's just say. And I was on my own. When I say on my own, like I supported myself in college. It became suddenly a thing where I need to figure out who's paying for tuition and all these things. And that's when you say the hustle, some of it is born of necessity, where I gotta pay bills. And I was just turning 17 after freshman year. And so magic was one way that I could do very well and earn money. And also it created my drive where there is no playbook in entertainment. There's not like a, hey, read this and now you'll be successful. You gotta make things happen. So I was a constant networker. I would be places, I would be doing stuff, handing out my business cards and I kind

• 24:48Speaker 01

  of learned how to sell ever since I was 14, how to approach a table of people that are eating food that don't know you, that are like, who is this kid? What does he want? Is he good? I started to know how to deconstruct people's inner dialogues, monologues of like what they're thinking and just like a sales tactic, how do you neutralize their thoughts that are negative before they happen so that by the time you leave, they want more of you? Uh, it is kind of, if you ever heard of pickup artistry, like the people that know how to, it's not for picking up, but like sales dynamics, negotiation skills, how to read a room, all of those things. I didn't really read books. I just kind of learned them over time because I just did so many shows when I was a kid and learned to deal with rejection very well. And most people are so fearful and I learned that very soon.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Rejection's not a big deal. It's something to embrace and learn from and then get better at.

• 25:36Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  So I got really good at that.

• 25:38Rich Roll?

  Right. So you're going into restaurants and pitching the owners like, let me, let me, you know, do my thing.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:44Rich Roll?

  Uh, and then, you know, get tips or whatever, or get hired by the restaurant to just come in and do a show during dinnertime?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Oh, so what, what ended up happening is what the people, you, you target the right restaurants. I learned early on, like at a young age, like, I want to be at restaurants for a variety of reasons where people either have bigger budgets or people that are going to hire me for parties. And as that advanced in life, when I moved to New York City, I started realizing like, where are the corporate people at? Because it's better to try and negotiate with somebody who's not spending their own money than their company's money. And I started learning those things. But at 14, I'll give you a great example. I went up to a table, two women that did not seem to want me there whatsoever. I did my stuff for them and she asked me for my business card, which was weird because I didn't think they liked me. And then she called me about three days later and there was National Tire and Battery, which is kind of like a Pep Boys type thing in Michigan.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  And they were having three grand openings and they hired me. I'd never gotten a corporate gig in my life. No idea what to charge. I don't, you know, they, I don't even know if they know, like they're calling a 14 year old boy.

• 26:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  At those, at those events, at each single one of those were Detroit Red Wings players that were there for the national openings along with me. And every one of those were future Hall of Famers, like Steve Isner, Nick Lindstrom, Dino Ciccarelli. And these guys are huge in Detroit. These are massive celebrities. This was like being with Michael Jordan. And so I'm at these parties, these events, I'm doing stuff with these guys, photos in the newspaper and suddenly just, you know, you gotta make your luck in a certain way, but once you get it, you have to embrace the momentum. And that's something I learned early on in life and I've done that ever since where if you go to America's Got Talent, a lot of people do that. And then that's kind of it. That was a stepping stone. Like every one of these things I try to use and keep the momentum going. Roll that snowball down a mountain.

• 27:22Rich Roll?

  But it's interesting that with that level of success at such a young age, that it still didn't break the spell of, of, you know, pursuing it as a full-time thing.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Not at all. I didn't, I didn't think that it's possible. Like, do you know when you have a, you have like a switch in your brain? That it's only like, the only way I can describe it, an off, on, off switch. And I've had a few moments in my life where people either intentionally or unintentionally. Just gave you that confidence or just made you aware that, oh my God, this is possible. And a lot of times you don't believe in yourself because you've just never seen anyone else do it.

• 27:53Rich Roll?

  Well, the only models are people that are out in Hollywood or New York City and they're big names and you can't, there's no internet. So, and there's, they're not doing podcasts telling you how they did it. So it's impossible to imagine that you could find that path for yourself as just a kid living in Michigan.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  And nowadays, everything is at your fingertips. Like, the world is in your hand and it's just incredible what people can do.

• 28:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right. So you end up going from, from college to Wall Street, right? Which is unbelievable. You, you, you get this job at Merrill Lynch. But you were like, you weren't in the, you weren't like an analyst, right? You were in like the, the IT department or something like that?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  So my background, I went to school for engineering. I started with computer engineering, but I was so bad at programming that I was just like, I can't do this. But I was very good at math. I was kind of like, almost a math genius. When I was 12, I took calculus and I took, math was always easy. I don't think I'm incredibly intelligent. I just, it's almost like when you watch the movies and you see like the guy who just knows how to solve all this stuff. From when I was a young kid, just math was like a language that I just understood. I can't explain it any other way. And so I was always very good at math and electrical engineering was kind of like the same. I didn't, wasn't a passion. I didn't love it, but it was easy for me because I was good at math. So I just did that.

• 29:05Rich Roll?

  That's amazing. Do you, is there, do you think there's an overlap between the skills that you've developed as a mentalist and that math ability? Like, it's the same part of the brain?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  It's, it's similar because I can engineer things in a certain way, right? Like, I imagine if you take a problem and you try to break it apart into little pieces, like a Rube Goldberg machine. You know those things where the mousetrap and then the dominoes and then this and that? So I see that when I watch a mentalism. Like, when I come up with stuff for mentalism, most of what I do is kind of stuff I've come up with. If you watch the TV appearances, you won't see anyone else doing it because in most case, I've invented it. So I just think, what do I want to happen? What do I want you at the end of this to be like, oh my God, he did this. One sentence that you could tell a five-year-old and they would understand. And then I go backwards and reverse engineer that Rube Goldberg machine. And that's kind of like a math problem, if you think about it. How in the hell could I fool somebody who's intelligent? I'm going to a corporate event tonight with people that have, you know,

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Incredibly successful careers, doctorates, they know what's going on. How am I going to fool them with, in essence, magic tricks?

• 30:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  But that's my goal. But more than fooling them, it's entertaining. If they're just fooled, then it's kind of a challenge between our egos. I want you to have fun. I want you to leave laughing, enjoying yourself, and wanting to have a drink with me, not being scared of me.

• 30:19Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I think the math stuff really helps me because my memory's very good.

• 30:22Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  In a show like that, I will know everything about the whole audience.

• 30:26Rich Roll?

  Right. And you have this facility and practice of trying to remember everyone's name and, you know, kind of scoping everybody and getting as familiar as you possibly can with every individual that's going to be attending the event so that you have a shorthand when it comes to spinning your yarns and doing your thing, right?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, like in the Bourne movies, you know what I mean? In Jason Bourne movies?

• 30:48Rich Roll?

  Like the hyper vigilance.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  The hyper vigilance. I like the part with the situational awareness when the first time when he goes, he's in the bar or he's in the restaurant, he's like, how come I know that that guy's doing this, that person's doing that, and right now I could, you know, run for six? Like, he has this whole line. I love that monologue. I met Matt Damon once on the Today Show, and I was like, dude, I love that scene. And that's kind of what you train yourself to be aware of, not 24/7.

• 31:10Rich Roll?

  That's what I was going to ask. I mean, can you turn it off?

• 31:13Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 31:13Rich Roll?

  Like, does it drive your wife crazy?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Other things of mine drive my wife crazy. We could have a long list if we interviewed her, but not that part. She would actually be like, why aren't you doing more stuff? Why did you forget the kids had to go to swimming at this time? But no, that's something that it's like a focused, disciplined approach. It's kind of like when you step up to the start line for a race and you're like, focus. You visualize where you're going to be. The same thing approaches when I'm at a show. Like, you'll see me before the show, walking outside, like if I'm doing a show at a public, like at a theater, and people watch me. And that's very unusual because most times the performers are backstage. You don't see like the rock star or the comedian before. And I'm walking around, saying hello. I'm just walking and I'm watching everybody, everything about them, mannerisms, things, like, and that's the time that my team knows. You never talk to me in the 15 minutes before a show

• 32:00Speaker 01

  because imagine your brain just completely at 100% churning, like everything is going into my brain right then that I'm absorbing and taking in that I'm going to use in the show. And that's it. Like, that's the most focused I ever am in my life.

• 32:12Rich Roll?

  And what are you looking for specifically?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  A million things like that's I can't explain how to what round peg fits in a square like when I know what tricks I'm gonna do and what routines I can just sense that's the art the biggest art is not knowing how to do the things it's knowing who to pick to do the right thing with does that make sense yeah so that's why I say it's the director's cut it's you're not picking if you brought me in a casino and said right now sit with him do this poker thing with him it's not how it works with me I don't you don't have the constraints I get to make choices

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  But when you walked into the studio today did you were you doing that?

• 32:44Speaker 01

  I do it automatically yeah

• 32:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah so will you tell me what you noticed and kind of filed away that might be useful?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  I'll tell you at the end once you've seen what I'm gonna do

• 32:52Rich Roll?

  Alright that's a deal

• 33:01Rich Roll?

  So there's a couple like interesting inflection points the first one is this sort of dinner party event at Merrill Lynch that you know kind of changes your life in a in a pretty material way

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah so I I worked at Merrill Lynch and it's important to know that my job was like I'm this 21 year old kid who just gets hired is like you know I was an intern and then they hired me and this was right after 9/11 and in Wall Street they did this thing with called contingency recovery where you had to move all the operations in case New York got attacked again the servers wouldn't be gone you know what I'm saying like that's all the financial data of the world and so I was the guy who when they were buying all these servers for hundreds of millions of dollars I get on the phone with somebody a million times smarter than me and he goes I need eight million dollars to buy all these servers and I go you can have three million dollars I was hated I was a punching bag at the company so what I end up doing to sweeten the the kind of soften the blow was I'd go to happy hours with these engineers that had to talk to me a 22 year old 21 year

• 33:55Speaker 01

  old and make the decisions through me I was red tape I would do magic for them and they would be like this guy's not so bad after all right they would end up loving me even though they should hate me does that make sense?

• 34:04Rich Roll?

  Right and then they bite the bullet and pay and and take the take

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Right because it was like internal I kind of managed the servers for the company at the time like I I was a project manager so what I'm saying is words circulated throughout my company up the rungs up until about a year after I'm working there I got hired to do a show for the CFO of the company he has no idea that I work at this company he thinks I'm like a professional magician right they don't for some like small dinner party for a select crowd And at the time, I did a lot more sleight of hand magic and I did a trick where I take five one dollar bills and I snapped my fingers and they just turned to hundreds. And he starts laughing. He's like, oh my God, it's obviously, we gotta get you working here. He's like Australian guy.

• 34:45Rich Roll?

  Anybody can turn ones into hundreds.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 34:48Rich Roll?

  Should be working in my bank.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And everyone laughs and I go, I do work here. And he thought I was, you know, busting his balls. And he's like, what do you mean? And I'm like, I literally, I work in your global technology services department, 95 green. And the guy couldn't believe it. And he just looks me square in the eyes. And I can see it vividly, you know, if you recount a story enough, but also I still see that moment. This is like 16 years ago. And he goes, what the hell you doing working here? And it was like, literally, like I said, you flip a switch inflection point, where I just said to myself, what am I doing working here? And it was just because I'd always thought like, you know, my parents raised me like, you gotta get a job and this is a paycheck.

• 35:22Rich Roll?

  And you didn't have that guy when you were 16 telling you that. You didn't have that mentor voice.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Not even the mentor voice. The voice in your head's the most powerful. The one telling you like, you can't do that. Like, that's not, that's maybe that somebody does that, but that's not you, right? You don't really believe you could be that person. And so I just, at that moment, just, I don't know, I went home and there was a lot of other factors. Like, a lot of things, luck and timing in life, which is, I wasn't married, I didn't have any kids. I didn't have any bills that if I, God forbid, something really bad, I couldn't turn it around. Couldn't. Also, it was before the market crashed. If this was in 2009, I probably would have held on to that job for dear life.

• 35:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  So I said, you know what? Let's do this. I got savings. What's the worst that's gonna happen? I'll have to go find another job in a year. And I said, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna give myself a year. And the scariest part is, and I'd been working, keep in mind, I had restaurants. I was hustling. I never didn't hustle.

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  So the side hustle was going on the whole time you were at Merrill Lynch, anyway?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  The side hustle got to be to the point where I was working so much that my girlfriend at the time was like, I'm always gone on weekends. I'm doing bar and bat mitzvahs, which are huge in the New York City, Tri-State area. People spend as much on bar mitzvahs as they do on weddings and other places. And so I was doing all these shows. I was working. I'm either working at my day job or I'm working at night. And I just finally said, I can't do this. You can't like jump in a pool just by dipping your toe in. You gotta go for it. And you've gotta be hungry. So I needed that push to have that day one where I was on the couch and I wake up and I don't have to like go to work.

• 36:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  And no one's calling you or telling you, you have to do anything. You become your own boss. And that's when it dawns on you. And that first year, I didn't do nearly as well as I did when I was working on Wall Street, where you need to, you need to make things happen. And it's kind of like you've got to do it or else no one's going to do it for you.

• 36:59Rich Roll?

  Right. And so that's 2002, 2003, 2005. Gotcha. So American, America's Got Talent doesn't happen until 2015.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Ten years.

• 37:09Rich Roll?

  So it's a full decade of, you know, doing pushups and putting in your 10,000 hours, right? Everything good takes 10 years, man.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  I honestly, I believe it.

• 37:19Rich Roll?

  In my experience, I've seen it so many times. I've experienced it myself. To develop a level of mastery and command, I really think it takes a decade. And yeah, there's always going to be outliers and people who seem to find a way to shortcut that. But for the most part, but you had tried to get it on the show earlier, right?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  I had.

• 37:36Rich Roll?

  And it didn't work out.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  So I wasn't a fan of the show and then Howard Stern went on. And I have a bunch of friends that are Howard Stern fans. I loved Howard Stern. And when he went on, it kind of like changed it where I was like, I started watching it religiously. And I really enjoyed the show. And I again, didn't really believe that I could be on the show. It's one of those, I don't know, I'm confident in certain regards, but other regards just doesn't always seem like, I don't, I don't know how you do that. And I luckily had another TV appearance. And so a TV producer from America's Got Talent, they'll sometimes reach out and they'll say, come on in to audition. As opposed to what's known as kind of like a cattle call. Where you go in with thousands of people, usually into like a giant warehouse. And you just take a number and you wait. That's what you see on the show when they show you. So the first time I went in, I did a producers call, which is more of a red velvet rope. Come on in and you go right in.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  And it went terribly, like terribly, not so much from my own perspective, but the way it was set up. I went into a room, imagine right now, if we went into this room and there was just a camera person and they go, okay, do your thing. And I'm like, I can't do my thing. I'm a mind reader.

• 38:35Rich Roll?

  You need a guy.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  I need someone who's mine to read.

• 38:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  So it flopped badly because it wasn't set up well. And quite honestly, it was a blessing in disguise. And you know, there's always a silver lining. People say that, but in this case there was. Cause it's like you said, those pushups and those years, I didn't go back on for about three more years. And those three years, I did a huge volume of shows and I got better and better. The more you do it, the more you iterate, the more you see it works and kind of my persona developed and. When I went back in, I went in not caring. I was gonna go in two years later, but it was so cold out. It was 15 degrees Fahrenheit with like a wind chill and I went out there to stand in line and I stood in line for three hours. I was dying. And then I had a show. I thought I was gonna be done and I had to go do a show and I'm like, screw this. I told my wife, I'm like,

• 39:18Speaker 01

  I'm done. Like this, I'm not, and I skipped it. And then the next year I came back, thank God, it wasn't that cold. And I waited for like seven hours. I did not care. I say that not, I'm not lying to you, I did not care at all what happened. I went in there like I owned the place and I killed it. Because kind of like actors that do auditions, you hear about actresses that go in, they don't think they're getting the part. So they just are so loose. I was so loose, I walked in and then I went in and then I just cracked jokes. I go, guys, we don't even need to do this. You already found the guy who's gonna win a million bucks. And I was just like, completely just let it go because I really didn't think I was getting on and they loved it. And that was it. And that was the season that I ended up getting third place.

• 39:55Rich Roll?

  It is powerful when you don't care.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  It's the greatest power you have to say no.

• 39:59Rich Roll?

  You're, that like, ability to detach from expectations and results just allows you to flourish in those high pressure moments.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Thousand percent.

• 40:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe you got third. I don't know who, no, I mean, I, I, I watched your performances and I was like, who's better than this? Like, I don't know, I don't watch the show that much. So I don't know who won and got second that year. But, I mean, you had those people eating out of the palm of your hand. I mean, they were going insane. And I would imagine it's very difficult to thread this needle week in, week out. So you have to do six performances, right?

• 40:38Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 40:39Rich Roll?

  And you can't peak too early. Like you can't blow your best stuff on the first or second one. You gotta, but it has to get better and it has to be good enough. So you're gonna make it to the next round. So that's a difficult kind of equation to square.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  The highs and the lows of that show, if you ask me the part of my life, you know where you live something that's surreal because you know you lived it, right? But it happened so quick that it almost feels like it was a dream or a movie. The last stages of that show, when you're so in it. And obviously other people, some people watch those, some people don't, but when it's your life and you're like there. You, on a Tuesday, you'll perform live. And it was the number one show on TV. I don't know if it still is, but it is the number one TV show in the country and to some de facto in the world because it's watched on YouTube internationally. You get calls, as soon as you get on that show, people call you from all over the world. I was called from six continents. And so you perform on Tuesday night live, which is its own beast. You can't screw anything up. There's nothing. It's not edited at all. If you screw anything up, you're done.

• 41:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  The next day on Wednesday night, they tell you if you got through. So that Wednesday night, you're on like a high that you just can't believe. Your skin is like, you know, like tingling. And then you have maybe five minutes before you walk backstage. And the producer goes, okay, great. Tomorrow morning, we gotta talk about what you're doing in six days. And we're doing a rehearsal in four days. And so it's like.

• 41:58Rich Roll?

  And they need to know, how much do they need to know ahead of time? Everything? I mean, you had mentioned earlier that you had to walk them through it. So you have to actually explain to them how you're doing it? So they're in on it?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  This is the one joy of that show, I call it the emperor has no clothes, is when I do almost every other TV show, I've got two things working with me. I'm trying to fool the audience and entertain the audience at home while also not letting the producer and TV staff know how in the world I'm doing this. Most TV shows you'll go to, they'll be like, I have no idea how we just did that. Like I did Ellen a couple of months ago, and I did a thing in the audience. If somebody wants to watch, I don't want to spoil, but I did almost like a mass suggestion of an entire audience. And at the end of the show, I wish you had a clip of Ellen five seconds after the cameras ended, where I go, Ellen, this is your audience. She's done that show for 19 years. She understands that there's 250 people in the audience and that I don't have a way to set anything up with them. Do you understand? It's not, she knows, I go, this is your audience, you know? And she goes, she grabbed me, she goes, I know that.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  She understands that if you're watching at home, you're saying, this is fake. This has to be set up. He must have told those people what to do or like done something or she knows that those people get loaded in, in a room, that she comes out, there's a warm-up act. There is no way to know who's gonna be in that audience or, do you understand what I'm saying?

• 43:06Rich Roll?

  Sure. Yeah, I mean, I saw the clip. And I think I have a sense of how you led them to that place.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  I hope you try.

• 43:14Rich Roll?

  And everybody can watch it, or maybe we can cut it into this video so people can see, you know, part of it. But there are, you are, there are Easter eggs.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Oh, I want Easter eggs.

• 43:23Rich Roll?

  If you watch it a bunch of times, you can see where, you know, a little bit about how you're getting them to arrive in, in the place you want them to be.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so that's the, that's the best part. Yeah, man, I don't know the AGT stuff and I didn't plan ahead. So a lot of people that I've talked to, they'll plan ahead. I've consulted, I've like helped other people that are doing the show because you kind of, once you have an inside track, you can be very helpful to them. And I've found time and again, anyone who plans it, who's like, I'm gonna do this in my first round, this is my second round, they don't make it through the first round. Like you got it, it's like a football player. If you are thinking about what you're gonna do after you catch the ball, how you're gonna run and get a touchdown, you end up dropping the ball. So I literally swear on my life, I did not know what I was gonna do the next round. All I focused on 100% putting the best act together I could for this round. And I also did in the last three, all original material, which a lot of people don't. They do the stuff they know kills that they've done hundreds of times. I said, if I'm gonna

• 44:13Speaker 01

  be on this stage, I gotta do stuff that's like next level each time and kind of raise the bar.

• 44:17Rich Roll?

  So you're coming up with new stuff. You weren't, it wasn't like, I have six of my best things, I'll move them around in this way, and that's how this is gonna play out.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  No, two, like two, two of them at the beginning were my, my core act, the audition, because you audition with something you've already done. It would be silly to do something you haven't. In fact, the producers, you show them your best thing and they're like, do that on the first show. But the last round, for example, I did this thing with chairs and it was kind of wild, where they all sat in chairs. I made that up five days before and it was just, it was a whirlwind of insanity. I love, I hate and love a deadlines, because that's where I get creativity. Like three days ago, I had a show for a client that's had me three times. And they need me to do something different. And I, you know, I complained to my wife endlessly. I'm like, this sucks, you know, but, but I love it secretly inside. I love the fact that I'm gonna have to come up with practically a whole new show.

• 45:07Rich Roll?

  The constraints are what pushes the outer boundaries of create, creative expression.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 45:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah. How do you come up with this stuff? I mean, do you get on the, the mentalist hotline and call your mentalist bros? Like how many, first of all, there probably aren't that many of them, right? You guys talk to each other and share trade secrets and, or is it all proprietary and locked down?

• 45:26Speaker 01

  We're not as, it's, it's, there's a network of people. It's primarily guys. I don't know why. There's a ton of Israeli guys too. It's so weird. I don't know what's in the water.

• 45:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's a guy called Lior?

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Oh, Lior Sushart's a good friend of mine. There's so many Israelis for some reason. I don't know why else. I don't know. Like David Blaine is Jewish, David Kopchil is Jewish. I don't know what's in the water, but some. Somehow this religion has been drawn into this profession. I don't know how to explain. There's plenty that aren't too, but I'm just saying it's a weird, I don't know. Uri Geller is like the original, one of the original mentalists. The guy used to bend spoons and got debunked on Johnny Carson. But there's a network of people I bounce ideas off of and they're sounding boards. And there's some elements that I make up a lot of the stuff myself. Some of it is kind of, you have a set of tools. Think of it as, I'm trying to think of the close thing. It's almost like an artist. You know, you have watercolors. I have this paint. I have this medium. And now how do I put those together? Some people use the tools to create the finished product. I start with the finished product in my head.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Like when I did that Ellen appearance, I knew exactly what I wanted the end to be. That moment where an entire audience all simultaneously does something unbelievable together. That's what I wanted to finish on.

• 46:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  I backwards engineered the rest of it to create layers. And to hopefully have something that's like a fully formed piece where every piece connects, almost like a movie with callbacks. Like a great comedy routine has callbacks to the beginning as well.

• 46:42Rich Roll?

  Right. And every word that's coming out of your mouth is completely well thought out. Even though when I'm watching you, it looks like you're just spontaneously responding to what's going on.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  It's both. So it's, it's, it's exactly that. It's scripted in a way that I know where I want to end up. But at the same time, I'm juggling while on a motorcycle. I don't know what's going to happen. It's the ultimate rush when you do those types of shows because I, like if you watch on some of these shows, I, my show, people throw frisbees in the audience. I do everything in my power to make sure you know, like I've done shows at T-Mobile Arena in Vegas where we literally shoot T-shirts in the crowd. You do not know who will catch that when they stand up and I'm going to read their mind. Because the first thought you think if you watch my show is this is set up. This is like, he went and talked to that person and paid them or told them. That's what I would think if I'm watching. So if I say, Ellen, you go pick anyone in your audience right now, stand them up and I'm going to tell them the name of their first kiss. Wow. Right? Like that's a legit, like I didn't set that up. How could I?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  So I try to reduce every possible way you think I could do it. As soon as you've got one, I say, you know what? I know what you're thinking right now. You did it by this way. So let's make sure I can't do it and let's try it this way instead.

• 47:47Rich Roll?

  There's an interesting relationship between this obsession that you have with this and kind of the rush of doing this high-wire act because I'm sure there are certain people, like when someone's picked from a huge audience, that you know full well, oh, this person's gonna be putty for me, and other people where you're like, this guy's gonna be a fucking problem.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:08Rich Roll?

  Right? And that not knowing, like, has to be frightening, but it's almost like gambling, right? It's a weird, kind of, exciting dynamic to live in. And the stakes are high for you because it's your reputation, and this is what you do for a living, and people have an expectation that you're gonna be able to pull this off.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  It's almost also like a therapist, too, because when you say that, when this person's gonna be difficult for me, why are they difficult for me? So, you think about dynamics, what dynamic am I creating between that person? Do they want attention? Like, a lot of people, if they heckle and they wanna figure you out, what is it that's the core need that you're actually doing? Do they wanna be included? Do they wanna be a part of it? Do they wanna be shown to be dominant to me? If you're looking at kind of an alpha, if you walk in a room, how do you diffuse that tension? It's so nuanced, it's kind of dissecting what a person's core need is, and then a lot of it is changing people's memory. Like, most of my job, I describe as making memorable moments, and people's memory is malleable. So, what people think they saw is very different than what they remember and what they tell

• 49:12Speaker 01

  others. And I've been working on that for 20 years, is knowing how you will describe what I do to somebody else. And that's something you think is, well, how could you affect that? That's all I do. Every word, linguistics, timing, pausing, doing certain things, like knowing exactly where your eyes will go and what you'll do in a certain moment. When your moment, in your mind, if I ask you to think of something, that moment when I go, okay, have you got it? And, when I say "and" determines when you will change your mind, or if you'll stick with it or not. People don't believe, half the things I do, if you knew how I do it, you'd be like, I can't believe I fell for that. And the other half, you go, that's not possible. It hugs the line of being absurd, absurdly easy, and absurdly difficult.

• 49:54Rich Roll?

  Right. So when you're asking somebody to think of a certain person, or what have you, you have already laid the groundwork, kind of leading them to a place where they're much more likely to, you know, pick the person that you want them to pick. Because of all these verbal cues that you've kind of seeded in that. I think, wasn't it with, was it with Al Roker, where you kind of worked in a Taylor Swift song title into whatever you were saying to him? You know, little things like that, that were, you're kind of consciously unaware of, but work on your unconscious mind, and lead you to make a decision that you weren't, that you thought was random?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:30Rich Roll?

  Which is disturbing on some level. Like, it's, we could have a broader conversation about free will. Like, the fact that people are so easily manipulated, and you're so capable at doing it, is a little upsetting.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:44Rich Roll?

  Right? You know what I mean?

• 50:45Speaker 01

  I use my powers only for good. Can we put that out there, gang?

• 50:48Rich Roll?

  Right. But, you know, you could, you could be a character on that TV show, The Boys, you know, and sort of weaponize, it's basically like, bad superheroes doing bad things.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Oh, got it.

• 50:56Rich Roll?

  Because they're full of ego, and greed, and what have you. But you could weaponize this.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  You could. Well, I mean, it is weaponized.

• 51:02Rich Roll?

  I'm sure people do.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do.

• 51:04Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 51:04Speaker 01

  I mean, I would, I don't, I'm not going to tell you what is and isn't possible, but I watch a lot of psychics, and people that do various types of readings, and talk to the dead. And I'm watching them, and I can't tell you, for a fact, they're not doing what they say. I'm not going to pop anyone's bubble about what's supernatural. But I watch people that are telling you things about loved ones that are gone, and things like that. That a while I watch them, I go, I could do everything they're doing, better than them right now. And I'm doing it through means that have nothing to do with supernatural. Like, I'm, I don't have a skill that you couldn't possess, if you were willing to train for 20 years.

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  So, when you're doing this...

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  You're paying attention to nonverbal communication, like physical tics. You're trying to plant ideas in people's heads, making subtle suggestions. Talk to me a little bit with, you know, to the extent that you're comfortable divulging, like the, the, the kind of human psychology piece here. Like, what are you looking at specifically? Like eye movements and the way people move their hands and whether they get flushed in their face or look away or look at you. Like, I know just habitually, when I'm trying to think of what I want to say next in a conversation like this, I kind of go, you know, I like, my head tips up.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:10Rich Roll?

  And then I see, like, I watch, why are you doing that? You know, it's like, I'm not even consciously aware of this, of the many, many things that I persistently do that are just habitual, that I'm sure are clues to you. You're, you're looking at somebody, you're like, okay, you know, where is that person? And how can I move them in this direction? What are the key things that you're looking for?

• 52:30Speaker 01

  So it's not, it, it sounds like it's so simple that you can just have people do things. Most of it is just reducing tension and building rapport. Think of it this way, when somebody gets relaxed around you and they're, they're having fun and enjoying themselves, they let down their guard and that's when you get a lot more out of them, just in a, in a relaxed way. I think of that movie, uh, Talladega Nights, you remember Ricky Bobby's like, I don't know what to do with my hands right now.

• 52:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  When people are uncomfortable, they don't know. So a lot of it is kind of, I get people to drop their guard, relax, and then they're, they, I don't want to say they acquiesce, because you think I'm planting thoughts in their head throughout. A lot of it is reading kind of what people are doing. Like, if you're getting a choice, I'm going to guide you towards a choice where I'll see what you'll pick, or I kind of work with you in a way that seems impossible to know what you would have done in a situation.

• 53:13Rich Roll?

  But I have to be relaxed in order to be malleable for you, right? Cause if I'm, like, I'm hyper-conscious of what I'm doing right now. Because I'm like, this guy's looking at me and he's trying, you know, so it's like, I'm, I'm like, what am I doing?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Rich is flexing for the people listening to the podcast, just flexing the whole time.

• 53:27Rich Roll?

  I'm like, what am I doing with my hands? But you have to get me to a place where I am not thinking about that anymore.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it won't.

• 53:33Rich Roll?

  And that becomes natural. And then those movements and patterns become like a window.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  You'll think it's happening at the wrong time. So the thing is, you'll think, okay, so right now he's trying to read me. And then when you relax and stuff, that's when we kind of do stuff. And so it's the same. Is you know what I would say that most people do with their kids and their spouse in a certain way. And I know it. It's not a manipulation. It's you know, when people are the most suggestible. And you know, the ways to kind of influence them like my wife knows that the best way to get me to do something. Is a test of pride. If I need to go clean something or build something outside and she says, I don't want to do that. But she goes, there's no way you can get that done in under an hour. Right. It's kind of like the trick I use on my five year old. She knows that I am a five year old at my core. And we still all have lizard brains. I'm a lizard brain. I don't think I've advanced beyond the age of like 14. I'm 14 going on 40, but at the core, there are still ways that she knows how to work me over.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  My family knows how to work me over, you know, whether it's guilt or whether it's a sense of can you achieve a record? And you, in my profession, I'm trying to find ways when I'm performing with somebody to either loosen them up. Which isn't always the case. Like I did a show in Aventura, Florida a week ago. And I guess this guy's bank PIN code and his, his, the best reactions, the best because the guy was so tough and didn't want to do it. And everybody knew, knows him from this company. It was awesome. And he didn't even react at the end like that. I got it right. He wouldn't give it up. No, no, no. It was the best. He goes, he just looked and he had a mic and he goes, screw you. And he just sat down. It's the best. It's the best. It's you know, like you, you're not always going to get the, oh my God. And it was just things like that are great. And it was funny because in, as I do it, I actually show people how I'm doing it.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  I go, look, you said this number. And so in your mind, you thought, because I made him lie. I do a lot of stuff where I explain to people, how do you detect if someone's lying? Now, it's not a hundred percent, but how can you see things when someone's lying? And, and then how do you deconstruct the lie? So if I saw someone think of a color, but tell me a different color. Generally, if they tell me a different color, I can actually tell them or a number. If they lie, I can tell you what you actually thought of based on how you lied. And so I showed the audience how to do it in a very simplistic way, something they could kind of try later. Just in this context, not something we could do right this second because it was a financed like company.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  But I'm saying that guy did not want to be in it. Like, literally, I had somebody picked that didn't want to. But that doesn't matter in a certain way. It's not like I'm hypnotizing him to cluck like a chicken. There was nothing embarrassing. He had a ton of fun with it. He was the star of the night. But I was still able to read him because he falls into patterns. It's kind of like knowing people's behaviors. Have you ever done those personality tests that explain to you what your emotional language is?

• 56:06Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Right? Am I a love language? Am I a...I don't remember them all because they don't fit into my shows much. But you know what you need to kind of get your own, I don't know, like, what's the word I'm looking for? To whatever satisfies your...

• 56:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Is it ego?

• 56:20Rich Roll?

  But essentially, you're looking for, there's a certain number of archetypes, right? So you have the skeptic. You have, I imagine, like, the skeptics and then the people who are really ready to have a good time. Those are the most gratifying.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:32Rich Roll?

  And then there's, you know, some people probably that, you know, make it challenging for you.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Honestly, I told you, the apathy. Somebody who kind of looks at you kind of like, oh, this is a clown, or they're not interested. Then I feel the need to pull them in. And sometimes I don't want to win that battle. Like, I will entice you. Like, I hope that when you see a show like this, it's entertaining. But I can't, I can't overwhelm somebody who's just kind of not into it.

• 56:56Rich Roll?

  How much of this derives from NLP, like, neuro-linguistic programming?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  There's some, and it helps, but you can't do that with everybody. You know what I mean? Some of that stuff, it's something that works for 60 or 70% of the population in certain instances is not reliable. It's kind of one tool in an arsenal.

• 57:12Rich Roll?

  There was this article that I came across in Forbes, the title of which was, was how your body... It's five ways your body language gives you away.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:21Rich Roll?

  And it's this article, you know, about what you do. And amongst this list of five things, there was some pretty interesting stuff. Like, one of them was when your eye movement, your eye movements go up and to the left, then you're accessing part of the brain that stores memories. When it does the opposite, up and to the right, then you're accessing imagination. And the person is sort of constructing an idea or a memory, right?

• 57:45Speaker 01

  You can tell someone's changing their mind.

• 57:47Rich Roll?

  Things that you would be paying, trying to pay attention to.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  You can also tell how long, how far back someone's thinking in time. So if somebody thinks of a memory, you can actually, almost like watching a processor on a computer. If it takes longer, it's a big program that takes open. You can tell certain things about like, oh, they just thought of something from 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Or, oh, they just thought of one person and they just changed to another person. And I can tell if you thought of a guy and then you changed to a girl. Like, there's certain things that once you see them, it's almost if you just watched a TV show and it showed you, these are the 10 ways this plays out. And they're going to work 90% of the time and you memorize them and did them over and over and over. You could actually learn certain things that you go, well, wait, you're reading their minds. You're not. Your face is telling you something that your brain is doing because your body's connected.

• 58:27Rich Roll?

  Right. I would love to have you sit down with Dr. Andrew Huberman, the neuroscientist. Cause there's something interesting about the neuroscience of the way the brain works and how the neurons are firing that overlaps in the Venn diagram of human behavior and what you're paying attention to that I think could be really fascinating.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  That would be cool.

• 58:47Rich Roll?

  Like the neuroscience of, of mentalism.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  I would love that. Get some analysis of some of it and do something crazy for him and then kind of have him deconstruct.

• 58:55Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, what has it taught you beyond what we've already talked about, about the nature of human behavior and the malleability of it and, you know, how personality works and the like? Like you must understand so deeply, you know, about the kind of operating manual, the operating system of the human animal.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Do you, do you like to play ping pong?

• 59:17Rich Roll?

  Kinda.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  So the reason I ask is I love ping pong. I like the meditative quality. I'm not great at it, but I'll play ping pong. And you know, sometimes you get into a series, there's other things like it. Running is similar, but it's not as quick. Running is kind of like you can zone out and you get into that zone. You know, not a runner's high, but where you forget, have you ever just forgotten 10 miles of a run? 20 miles of a run? You just, I don't even remember I just ran.

• 59:36Rich Roll?

  Right. You realize you just said forgot 20 miles of a run. Like most people are going to, are going to get angry.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I know, I can, I know who I'm talking to here. A fellow kind of insane guy. So during ping pong, I will have things where I don't know how I just landed that shot. I literally don't know what my brain did where there's instinct. And so I think there's, you operate on a level of instinct and muscle memory, the muscle in this case being your mind, that I will do things in performances that I will try afterwards to be like, how did I know that? Do you understand what I'm saying? I can't tell you the answer, and I don't believe I'm reading minds. I really want to be clear. I don't have a superpower. This is nothing supernatural. But if you've done this, it's just like a tennis player. I've seen Federer do shots that I don't think are humanly possible. Or Novak or any of these people. And so the same thing applies in my world where I'll have moments where I guess something and I go, you right now just did this?

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  And they go, huh? And I go, I don't know how I did that. Like, I won't know how I did that. And it's just because I've seen it before and I went on my gut and I went with the instinct. And here's the thing, people amplify things that are correct. They forget things that are wrong. So in my profession, I get credit when I hit things that are right. Like people will go, oh my God, like if you'll hear a story from somebody that might have seen me 10 years ago and you're not going to believe he did this and this and this. Some of that might not be true because their memory is a little different because I kind of, I kind of changed things up in their mind and how they remember it. But other times I might have nailed something that in 20 other instances I got wrong. But people remember the big hits. They remember that moment when they won the lottery, not the five years that they built, picked numbers and they were wrong.

• 1:01:07Rich Roll?

  Have you had any colossal fails?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 1:01:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What was the worst, most disastrous failure?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  So, I mean, the thing-

• 1:01:17Rich Roll?

  It's gotta be like nerve wracking.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  It's so nerve wracking. So when you're on live TV, that's the biggest, that's the, like, there's no safety net. Because live TV, there's no, when, if I'm wrong, this is the best way to explain it. If I'm wrong, I can unwind out of it sometimes if I have more time. Because I just need more time to get back to the bottom of what it is that happened, right? I just need more time to try and figure it out. And, and so on live TV, usually a hard stop. You do the Today Show, you know, like 20 times, there's a clock and when that clock hits zero, there's a commercial. So if you're going to screw things up, like, that's it, you're done. So I don't have the time. So I'm so focused, like laser. And that's why you see me talking fast because I know I have to get to a certain end goal. And when I do a stage show, it's much more free flowing because I have fun, I have time.

• 1:02:02Rich Roll?

  Right. And you have strategies to find your way, like if it's going sideways to like course correct and move it back on track. Right.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Like if you watch that Ellen thing, at every single juncture, there's one of those diagrams, you know, yes, no, maybe, that like creates a pattern. I don't know what those are called exactly, but I have a chart in my mind of everything that could go wrong at this moment, how I will address it, what will happen next. And very few of them end in a, you're screwed. Like I've always got a path out in my mind of how I'm going to do this.

• 1:02:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  On colossal failures have generally been things that are outside of my control. Like, for example, I did a show one time, um, God, this was in like South Carolina or somewhere, where it's generally like a corporate event. They bring me on stage, they're gonna have a smoke machine. Didn't know there was gonna be a smoke machine. There's gonna be a CEO popping out of a life-size genie lamp. Didn't know this was gonna happen. And just all these things went wrong where the smoke machine didn't stop, there's smoke on stage, I can't see the person whose mind I'm trying to read. Trick goes south. Just things where you just leave the stage. The worst thing that can ever happen is when a TV producer or the client comes up to you and they go, oh, man, I'm so sorry about that. Like, they feel bad because they know you're better than this and you're just crushed because you tanked.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Um, and there's, I don't know, things like that. There's been failures on my part, but there, yeah, I don't know, there's a few that I can think of that, like were gut punches, where I left the stage and I'm like, oh. And generally, people feel worse for you. They feel okay about, like, they, do you understand, they feel bad for you, not like, they're not mad at you, they're just like, we know you're better than this.

• 1:03:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  But yeah, bombing in front of thousands of people.

• 1:03:33Rich Roll?

  But you gotta bomb if you're gonna, it's like a stand-up comedian, like they have, you have to know where the edge is, right?

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  You have to touch that line.

• 1:03:40Rich Roll?

  And the only way to know that is if you cross it once in a while.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  I love stand-up. Stand-up comedy is my favorite thing to watch. Uh, you know how kind of like movie stars wanna be rock stars, rock stars wanna be movie stars? My dream is like, I always wished I was a stand-up comic. Like, I'd love, it's the most pure thing in the world.

• 1:04:01Rich Roll?

  You must be approached by CEOs and businessmen who are like, I need a little bit of that magic when I go to my next negotiation or where I have to go to this board meeting. Like, how do I get people on my page?

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16Rich Roll?

  It's sort of tangential to your act and what you do as a mentalist, but this skill of understanding people and how to guide them towards this result is very powerful and I think is something that a lot of people would pay a lot of money to better understand, like to be like a consultant.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  It's something that I would consider as kind of like an act two. Like, I love performing. I really, it fills a void and it's a rush for me. I'm in the corporate space. Most of my clients are Fortune 500 companies and that's most of what I do.

• 1:04:48Rich Roll?

  Right. Usually you're always wearing a suit. It's all very family friendly. It's all about making whoever hired you look like a superstar. Like, that's all very consciously plotted out.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Fully. When I went on America's Got Talent, I saw it as a commercial. They've just given me a TV commercial that if I'm lucky enough will be over 45 minutes of me, maybe even an hour if you add it all up, on primetime TV with millions, hundreds of millions eyeballs. What do I want somebody to watch and think? Because they don't know who I am.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  And so that show is so great at crafting a narrative. And for me, it was like the Wall Street guy. The guy who left Wall Street, had a career that should have been very fruitful, left it to take a chance on a dream and then that's it. Like, I do appeal to that crowd because honestly, I know their industry. I know most industries really well. I study. If I go in and do something for a company that does finance or if they do some sort of multinational product, pharmaceutical, anything, I will know their product inside and out to the point where they go, "You could work for us." You know, that's my goal, is to be somebody on their team, not just performing with them, but like not for them, but with them. So, yeah, that was very on purpose to do the suit and be corporate, just because I'm not really, I don't want to be edgy. I'm not swearing in my shows or putting people down.

• 1:05:56Rich Roll?

  You're the Jim Gaffigan of mentalists.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  I've worked with Jim many times. Amazing guy. Love Jim.

• 1:06:01Rich Roll?

  Well, back to America's Got Talent. So, you do your six performances, they all go well, you end up third. Of all those judges, though, who was the most difficult? Like, who was the biggest challenge among the panel? I mean, Howard called you like a dark wizard.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  So I ran into Howard Stern this summer in Long Island and it was funny because I was out running and he uh he's got a place near me in Southampton and I I'm running around and I'm running around I see him and he's very he's easy to spot he's very tall and he's notorious to kind of germaphobic and it's covid and I didn't want to go near him but I I had to say something and it's actually we're on a track and I just run by and I say Howard I go I gotta say thank you man you you changed my life and he didn't instantly recognize me but then I go I was on America's Got Talent I was O's and he knew he's like right away he goes oh my god the mentals like he remembered very vividly about it he's with his wife and I kind of walked he was a few laps over I walked a lap with them just talking about how much it changed my life because that show that show is so different than being on any other show if you go on like Jimmy Fallon or something that traditionally

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  is like you know you think that's making it people aren't emotionally invested when somebody watches a sport team you have your team that you root for so something about America's Got Talent the people that like it a lot of people watch it with their family it's you know there's not a lot of stuff on TV that transcends ages you can have your six year old and you know it's gonna be appropriate and you could have your eighty six year old grandma there and so people decide who their money horse is and early on a lot of people just got very emotionally invested in me I don't know and so I'll meet people to this day who are like yo I voted for you and it's just wild how much people will root for you and so I think of the judges I had great rapport with everybody I feel like Heidi and I had a great dynamic Mel B was a little bit Mel B is hard to crack

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  because certain people when you say they're they're kind of a free spirit and you don't know what will happen in the moment and when you're on live TV like that and you ask somebody to think of something like oh my god I don't know and she's she's changing her mind like eight times and it's not that I mind that because I know she's gonna do that like I'm anticipating it's that I'm on a clock and so with people like that I have to create a different dynamic because I I need them to stop changing their mind where I want them to and she's going on her own tangent and so you have to start creating like It's like a game of chess. It's just like chess, but I'm playing seven moves in advance with somebody that doesn't know I'm playing them. And so I'm playing a game of chess with somebody where I have to control it and I have to like do something that jolts her brain in a way that she stops and we go back to what I need. I'm, I don't want to say it because it sounds like

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  a manipulator, but I'm controlling what you will do inside your brain through a lot of different physical, verbal, and non-verbal communications. And she's very hard to do that with.

• 1:08:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The one kind of standout thing that you did with her was have her write down someplace that she went on vacation with a certain individual. And it's got to be tricky because these are celebrities and you can Google this stuff, right? So you have to pick something or, or get them to, you know, kind of engage in a, in an experiment that's not going to be anything that's on the internet or discoverable online.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Right. Like think about this, just visualizing something in your brain and where your brain would go. What like you're, you've done Ultramans, right? What other, have you done Ironmans as well?

• 1:09:09Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Never an Ironman. It's so funny. Jump right to the big one. So what was your PR at the Ironman or the Ultraman? I apologize. Do you remember it?

• 1:09:17Rich Roll?

  The total time?

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Is it, it's consolidated, right?

• 1:09:20Rich Roll?

  Cause you do three days. Yeah. The added, the total time, I don't know. It was like 23, 24 hour. I can't remember. I don't know.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  Do this.

• 1:09:27Rich Roll?

  I mean, I remember some of the individual daytimes or.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Imagine this. I don't know if you're PR-ing, but just, this is just visualize. I want you to see this, the way your brain works. Visualize you crossing that finish line. And you've done that how many times?

• 1:09:38Rich Roll?

  Twice.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Twice. So imagine a third time. And now this is in your brain. Just play this out in your mind. I just want you to see how your brain would work on this. Not a trick. You cross the finish line.

• 1:09:46Rich Roll?

  Like you say, not a trick. Cause there's something tied to this. I don't trust you.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  I want you to imagine you cross the finish line and right at that moment, somebody takes a photo of you and you just go, now, did you go fast? Did you not? I don't know how the clock works, but tell me a very specific time. What would you have seen the time be above your head when you crossed that finish line? Would it have been faster than the last one you did or slower?

• 1:10:06Rich Roll?

  Faster.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Right? Cause everybody wants faster. Are you sure though? Are you sure?

• 1:10:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  What would the time be exactly? How many hours?

• 1:10:12Rich Roll?

  Well, this would be, should I tell you? You want me to just tell you?

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I want to know how you thought about it.

• 1:10:16Rich Roll?

  So the time would be for the double marathon. Like the time that's displayed.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:10:21Rich Roll?

  Because the third day is a 52 mile run. So it just displays the time for that segment of the race.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Perfect. So what would you have seen it say above you?

• 1:10:31Rich Roll?

  728.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  Seven hours and 28 minutes?

• 1:10:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  On the dot?

• 1:10:36Rich Roll?

  Zero zero, yeah.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Seven hours twenty on the dot. You crossed as it went to that.

• 1:10:39Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  So why did you do that? I'm curious.

• 1:10:43Rich Roll?

  Why did I say?

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Why did you just say that right now? Yeah.

• 1:10:45Rich Roll?

  Well, I remember in, in 2009, I, I, if memory serves me, I ran it in seven fifty-one or something like that. So I was thinking, well, if I was gonna do it faster, and then I just randomly picked that number.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  You think so, right?

• 1:11:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  So, the interesting part is you'll say to yourself throughout, like, could I have done that? Or I, there's, that's impulsive. I just want everyone to know, because I want you to know the way your brain works. Did you feel influenced in any way?

• 1:11:12Rich Roll?

  I didn't feel influenced. I probably was influenced in some way.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  And then at the end, when I say, because it's the best part, because everybody knows that when we cross those finish lines, how often do we hit the nail on the head? Because it would piss me off if I was trying to get under a time. Like, if I wanted to be under two thirty, and I went two thirty zero zero, I know people that that's happened to them. Or like, I know a guy who went three hours on the dot, and it eats at his soul, and you said seven twenty-eight, and then I said to you, are you sure on the dot? And you said, yes, seven twenty-eight zero zero.

• 1:11:36Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  I just want you to remember you said that.

• 1:11:38Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:11:40Rich Roll?

  Some kind of crazy bullshit is coming my way, I have a feeling. I would really like to be on the Mentalist group chat.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  The Mentalist group chat?

• 1:11:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. Is there such a thing?

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  There, there are WhatsApp groups. How do you break into that one?

• 1:11:53Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  The problem is, is that it's, it's almost like, um,

• 1:11:55Rich Roll?

  Encrypted, I hope.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  Acronym heavy, so that you'd, you'd be looking at, you'd be like, I don't understand what any of this stuff is saying that they're saying. So it'd be very funny to, uh, to note it.

• 1:12:03Rich Roll?

  How does, how does, uh, what is, what is your take on like, the Hollywood treatment of mentalism? Like, we have, there was the TV show with Simon, Simon Baker-Denny, The Mentalist. Um, and then, did you see Nightmare Alley?

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  I haven't seen it yet.

• 1:12:17Rich Roll?

  You haven't seen it yet?

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I, so don't say anything.

• 1:12:18Rich Roll?

  How have you not seen this movie?

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  I know it's about a mentalist, you feel me?

• 1:12:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Bradley Cooper is playing a mentalist.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  I know, I listened to a podcast interview.

• 1:12:25Rich Roll?

  Like, the tradition, like, the, the rooted, you know, early tradition of this art.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  I'll make the only excuse, I have three young kids,

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I get it.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  And I travel so much that when I'm home, I'm like, it's just recent that, like, the, I don't wanna call it post-COVID,

• 1:12:36Rich Roll?

  Watching on a plane.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  But is it on planes? I didn't see it today.

• 1:12:40Rich Roll?

  Well, you can down, I think it's streaming, you can download it to your computer or something

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  I gotta do that. I haven't seen any movies in a while. It's not that I don't love media, but I end up getting, uh, enticed when my wife picks a show, and then if we have some hours together, I just like, I, that's, that's, uh,

• 1:12:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  By the end of the night, I'm like, we're

• 1:12:55Rich Roll?

  But you probably saw the TV show, The Mentalist, right?

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  Of course, yeah. I did a promo spot one time for it. It was like the real life mentalist. I said, I'm not nearly as handsome, not as good of hair, or Australian. But so that show is very, it's exactly, it's amplified. It's like anything where you do a doctor's

• 1:13:09Rich Roll?

  Solving a crime every week.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Right. It's not like Baywatch, where every time somebody falls, you do CPR and they come back to life. But they had little points in it that were true. And they had little things, they kind of overdid it, where there's little points where you watch him like tap someone on the shoulder right when he says something and that kind of inserts. I don't really do a lot of hypnosis in my show. There's people that are really great at hypnosis and that's amazing to see. But there are overlaps between hypnosis, auto-hypnosis, which I think a lot of people don't realize they're doing to themselves. You have a voice in your head telling you things all the time that's incredibly powerful. And that that's kind of, it's like the way you model things. How did I, why did I never think that I could do this professionally? Cause I never knew that you could. But if you're as a kid being told that you can do certain things over and over,

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  then you don't even have that voice in your head telling you, you can't. You're like, of course I could do this. It's like you said, now people can go on YouTube and find someone that does what they do. So there's a lot of that going on in the show where I kind of reframe what you're gonna do. You'll see. There's something funny about what you just said, where you realize later, like, how did he get me to think that?

• 1:14:12Rich Roll?

  Have you ever been like approached by NYPD to come in and, and help them solve a crime?

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  No, not yet. Not yet. I don't know if they want me on the crime scene. That could either do. I had one bad moment where I had like kind of bad press, but it wasn't my name was in it. Where there was a government agency that used me, but like in an event. And it was when they were like, they were like, they brought a mentalist and they never said my name. Not for anything like, not to solve any crimes, but they were like, kind of told, because the optics of it don't look good. But, but I knew it was me, because I knew what the thing that they were talking about. And they're like, I'm glad they didn't say my name.

• 1:14:45Rich Roll?

  So many career trajectories for you, as if this stage thing doesn't work out.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Right. I would love a sales training or anything like that, coaching in the future, because I think that a lot of the skills I, I have are soft social skills that you, they're used in the guise of entertainment. But what does everybody want in life in general? You want to be remembered, right? You want to walk into a room and command attention and, and stand out, because all of those things, no matter what you're doing, right? Everybody is selling in essence. Doesn't matter what you're selling. You could be a teacher. You're selling an idea to your students, right? Everybody's selling something to other people, even if you work alone, at some point. That's why when you ask me if I'm a salesman, like I think so, yes, I think everybody's a salesperson in some regard. And it's just knowing how to connect with others in a certain way is always useful.

• 1:15:29Rich Roll?

  So what are some of those things? If someone's listening to this, maybe they are a teacher, or they're going into, they've got to make a presentation to their boss. What are some simple things that you could impart to somebody who can start to think about, you know, how to, how to present themselves in a way that's going to allow them to, you know, succeed?

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  Some of the biggest ones are the simplest, and they're ideas that you just think that can't be right. But listening, and truly listening, is something that we don't do very often. We're so distracted nowadays, that you don't actually take things in, I find. When, when people ask me, how do you memorize everyone's names? There's no mnemonic. I'm not doing a trick. I am just listening to every person. And then I have a few techniques to get it back to them. So I know it's kind of been like, imprinted on my brain. But most people, when you meet them, think about it. As you're shaking their hand, or saying hello, or doing anything, you're thinking of something else in your brain. You're thinking what you're going to say to them, or your mind is elsewhere. If your mind was 100% locked in, imagine if you met, I don't know, who, somebody you admire, respect, somebody that you've always wanted to meet, in that moment, every part of your brain will be hyper focused. Like

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  I met Steven Spielberg. I remember everything. I remember what he was wearing. I remember how he smelled, everything, because it was such an incredible moment in my life. Imagine if every time you met somebody, it felt like that. So it's not going to, but you can create an awareness. And when you really listen to people, I think it opens them up. And that's part of my job, is I just sit there, I deliver jokes, I do other things, but when it comes to listening, I listen to everything they say, because most people give things away they don't even realize.

• 1:16:56Rich Roll?

  How do you practice that, though? Like, what is a technique for, you know, cultivating that, that level of like, you know, presence and focus?

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  So something easy at a dinner party. Let's say you go to some dinner party coming up, and you just want to test yourself. How am I going to remember all these people's names? Oh, my God, I met six new people. And it happens in quick succession. So what I do is every single time I meet somebody, I try to create some sort of comment. So a compliment is the best. I'd be like, oh, my God, Casey, how do you spell that? Is that K A? And when they spell it, you spell it back to them. That helps tremendously. You're not going to spell everybody's name if you meet them. It's a little weird, but sometimes a great compliment. Like, oh, my God, I love those glasses, Rich. Did you get those glasses? I gotta get those too, Rich. You say the name twice, and it makes you remember the name if you can. There's a few, honestly, just try the next time you do it, to clear your mind, don't think of anything, and as you hear their name, say it to yourself three times.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  You'll be shocked. Somebody who's forgetful as can be will do this and they'll try it and the first day they do it, they'll remember three people's names very well. Now, it's different if you want to remember their name long-term, right? Because right now, what you've done is you've done a like impression in the sand. When the ocean comes by, it's gonna wash it away.

• 1:18:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you need it for the next 30 minutes. I mean, I started doing that out of necessity, just because I meet so many people and I'm

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  It's awkward if you go in there.

• 1:18:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's like, and I've been in that situation, like signing books or whatever, and they say their name, and then I have to sign their name and I can't remember what they just said.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  It happens to everybody. It happens to me too.

• 1:18:20Rich Roll?

  It's terrible.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  It's such a bad feeling.

• 1:18:21Rich Roll?

  So I was like, I can't allow that to happen. So just intuitively, I was like, you know, starting to do that, just so I could be in that headspace.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Rich Roll?

  But it's tricky, because you don't want to, if you start saying the name of the person too much.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  Then it's not good.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  It's awkward, yes.

• 1:18:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, then you really sound salesy.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  I think the listening is one of the big elements that can help people, just a very quick, easy one. It's a muscle. It's like anything else, that you become a better listener. I think you become better as a parent, as a spouse, as a sibling. Like, most people don't really practice it, because what you're doing is trying to wait for your turn to speak, right?

• 1:18:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  It's almost like the Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I'll go back and read that book again, and it's from, I don't know, almost 100 years ago now, what was it? I don't know the publication date, but I find gems in there that are so obvious, over and over, as to, it's what you said earlier, benefits-oriented. It's better in a podcast situation, it's difficult, because I'm here to talk about myself, but I try to deflect when people ask me about what I do all the time, and learn more about what they do, and see what's intriguing about them. What's the topic that's most, you know, vital to them? Is it their family? Is it their career? And the more I learn about them, the more they open up to me, and the more comfortable they are around me. And that's kind of like when I do the Cocktail Hour, when you said, when I'm at a theater and I'm walking around, I'm saying hello, I don't want someone to be starstruck. I go, oh my God, you saw that TV show? What did you think? I go, tell me this, what would you do if you were on there?

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  What did you think of? I'll just find some way to ask a question that deflects from talking about me.

• 1:19:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  And to get a little more of them, and try to open them up. Because that's the best way to kind of cut the ice, cut the tension, and that's in a setting where I'm trying to read their mind later. I don't want them to be on guard.

• 1:19:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  I want to find things that are interesting to them. Like, if I ask you about a memory of your own, like doing a race that you dedicated your life to for two years to get to that point, you get focused on yourself, you start forgetting that I'm trying to, you know, watch you and look at what you're doing, you kind of, that's it. You asked me earlier.

• 1:20:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  How do I make you relax? Well, I found a way.

• 1:20:15Rich Roll?

  Let's talk about running.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:17Rich Roll?

  So, when is the running thing start to work its way into your life?

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  So, I have twin older sisters. They're about seven and a half years older. And there was always a little bit of, because I was a baby brother. I don't want to say sibling rivalry, but I always wanted to kind of have some sort of one-upsmanship on my older sisters. And in 2004, I'm working like a day job. I think a lot of people fall into this trap where you stop, really, you start going out to happy hours. You're eating like crap. You don't feel good. Like, I didn't really feel as good. I was letting myself go in a way. And just unhealthy lifestyle choices. And I was missing a goal. I like, listen, this is a very comfortable thing to say, but I found life boring in a way because it became very repetitive. And listen, these are very first world problems. There's people that don't have food, that don't know how to pay their next bill. I didn't have that issue, but I wanted a challenge.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of people are drawn towards endurance sports because there is no challenge. It's something is lacking. I want that illusion of danger, whatever you want to call it, challenging myself, seeing what my medal is. So, my sister signed up for a marathon. I thought this was insane because in 2004, it wasn't mainstream. Not everyone was doing marathons. So, I on a whim sign up for a marathon. Somebody tells me, well, you should do the Boston Marathon. I go, okay, how do I do that? And they're like, well, you have to qualify. I'm like, well, how do I? So, you have to run one really fast. So, I reverse engineered. I found out what the Boston Marathon time is, and I go, I'm gonna run that. Not knowing that you have to kind of be fast to do that. So, then I started running on a treadmill, didn't read any books about like, how should you train? And I did a calculator, I actually probably did in my head. I'm like, this is how many miles per hour this is. So, I just set the treadmill.

• 1:21:49Rich Roll?

  So, I'm just gonna run that pace for every run?

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so that didn't work well. Because that was a little too fast. And later on, I learned where heart rate training was and what have you. So, I do the first marathon. I have some fitness in me. I end up running that pace for about 17 miles. I did a Philadelphia marathon.

• 1:22:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  And then I just fall apart, like traditional.

• 1:22:09Rich Roll?

  It's the classic story, 17 miles, 17, 18.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  You hear that noise? That's me hitting the wall. I was like crying pretty much at mile 21. And at one point, I'm just walking and I'm so broken. And I see these two guys walking in front of me. Everyone else is running because I was going pretty fast. So at that point, you know, it's like The Walking Dead where I am. Little did I know that once you start doing ultras, that's the real Walking Dead. But I see these two guys walking that are about 200, 300 yards ahead of me, really far. And so I get enough energy to be like, I'm gonna run to them and I'll walk the rest of the run with them. Like I'll walk, so misery loves company. So I run for like 30 seconds and I'm getting within like the point where I can hear them. And I see these two guys. I don't know who they are to this day, but I hate them and I love them. They looked at each other, they nodded and they started running.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  And I literally screamed, "F you!" Because I was so mad, like, "Why did you start running?" And I got this adrenaline that I kept running from that point on. And I actually ran the rest of the race slow, mind you. Somebody could fact check it. I don't know. I ran like 320 something, 325, 320 something, but I was hooked. My sister did one marathon and was like, "Never again." I did that one and I was like, "I'm gonna read how to train. I love this." And then I started getting into it and I started chopping time and getting faster and faster and faster. I did Ironmans. Because again, I feel like you have some nutcase friend who's into this. I had a buddy at the time, Michael Arnstein. I know Michael. The fruitarian. I've had him on the show, early, early days. Early days. I saw Michael. Back in his office in New York.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I know that office. Well, I had my 30th birthday party there. And so I met him. We both read books. Dean Karnasis was like a huge inspiration. Yanis Kuros, like Scott Jurek. I started reading these books. And it was like a gateway drug where we did a marathon, we each signed up for a 50 miler together. We were supposed to do the 50 miler together the first time and at mile 3, he dropped me and ran ahead. I was like, "Judas!" I ended up passing him later. But then, you know, you read about Western states, so I'm like, "I gotta do Western states." And then Leadville and then I ended up doing Badwater and just all of these. It's a whirlwind. Every single time before I did a lot of these races, I met somebody who did Badwater. I thought they were insane, but then suddenly you meet them and you're like, "I guess it's not that insane." Like, "That person did it. Like, I could probably do it." And so everything became possible.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  At a certain point, because you realize it isn't impossible, other people have done it. And I guess that was the challenge.

• 1:24:29Rich Roll?

  That's wild. So you've done Badwater, Western States, Spartathlon.

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  Spartathlon's amazing. If anybody hears this and is into running or wants something, man, Spartathlon is just epic.

• 1:24:39Rich Roll?

  Did you do that with Aronstein?

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  We did it twice. It's on YouTube. The videos are incredible. Yeah.

• 1:24:43Rich Roll?

  Is Mike, how's Michael doing?

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  I think he's doing well.

• 1:24:45Rich Roll?

  Is he doing good?

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:47Rich Roll?

  I know that he, I mean, I haven't talked to him in many years, but I know that he, he would run, he lived like in the suburbs.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Rich Roll?

  North of Manhattan.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  To and from.

• 1:24:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he'd run to and from his office, which was like in midtown.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, 30 miles a day.

• 1:25:02Rich Roll?

  And he would just eat fruit off the fruit cars, fruitarian, right? Did he get you on the fruitarian diet?

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  I was doing fruitarian for a while. I was never full fruitarian, but what I would do is I'd eat fruit. It's almost like a Jesse Itzler thing. I'd eat fruit till 5:00 PM. And I, my body got adjusted to that really well. And then I'd eat pretty healthy at night. And I still do a very similar thing when I cut weight for marathons. Like I'm not heavy by any stretch, but like for New York City, I cut about 12 pounds. Because when you're trying to run fast, like ultras are one thing, but when you're trying to run fast, you gotta be lean.

• 1:25:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Like my wife does not like it. She calls it manorexic, but I will be pounding bananas all morning. I'll be eating mangoes. I mean, I can eat yellow mangoes till I'm yellow in the face.

• 1:25:39Rich Roll?

  That's not necessarily the best strategy with ultras, though. It's a different thing.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  No, no. And then keep in mind, I eat other things at night to fill out and like lean proteins. And I love rice. I literally, rice is my favorite food. I could give up anything, but I just love rice and spicy hot sauce, which is kind of gross, it sounds like, but just, and so I will lose weight and I can lose like a pound a week. And I get really, it feels amazing when you're running fast.

• 1:26:03Rich Roll?

  What's your favorite race or the hardest race that you've done?

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  I think Spartathlon, because it's just, it's so epic.

• 1:26:09Rich Roll?

  Part of Badwater.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so epic. It's just, they just, I've never been at a race where every, it feels like the Olympics for, for the modern man. Ironman Hawaii is cool, but it's a little less, it has less of a soul. I, you know, it feels like a corporate thing. I'm not trying to knock it. It's amazing, the history of it. And I'm around, just, everybody's a badass. Like when you go to Hawaii, I just see somebody and I'm like, oh, I meet this woman who looks like she's 32, she's 62, and she's going to completely crush Me at the race too. You know what I mean? Like everybody there is the top of the top at everything too. They're all people that are so accomplished in life. You meet them and like you run a business and you're a mother of four and you're like the best. Triumph. I just, I was blown away by the people I met, but Spartathlon, I met people that are like when I did it the first time at mile 76.

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  I DNFed. I was not mentally prepared for running 153 miles in a row. I just didn't know what that was. I thought I did, but I didn't. And I got passed by these two guys that are in their 50s that are German. I'll never forget this image. I'm on the floor. I'm done. Like turn me over. I'm cooked. I'm waiting to write my DNF speech. Keep my, I've been throwing up for eight hours. That's a different story. You can find on YouTube. It's hilarious. But still excuses. I should have finished. Um, these guys are running in the middle of the night in Greece, drinking beers, these two German guys drinking beers. Like I'm not, I'm not joking. They have beers. They look like they're out for a jog at mile two. Their mental toughness is they will die before they don't finish this race.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  And I came home and I was so embarrassed that I didn't like, do you understand? You're like, I was just, I watched the people at the finish line. I was crying. I was so emotional. You can see in this video, cause I'm seeing people that are way less fit than I am in every objective measure. I'm like a 225 marathoner at the time. I'm seeing a woman in her 60s who can't run a four and a half hour marathon to run, save her life, who finished this race when I gave up. And it's so inspiring. It's so humbling that when I came back the next year, it was like, my mindset was there is no way I'm not finishing.

• 1:28:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  And when we finished, I like broke down. I'm on my knees and it's also epic because the, the Greek, the Greek, uh, like the

• 1:28:08Rich Roll?

  Right. Explain, explain the, the, the idea behind the race for people that don't know.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  So if anyone saw the movie 300, that Gerard Butler flick, they have a scene in it where they say, the way they frame it is that the Persians were gonna invade Greece. And that the, in Athens, they sent a Fidipides from the Acropolis, they sent this guy running and they retraced the steps 153 miles. They said it was in 36 hours. This guy's in flip flops. He ran there and delivered a message to King Leonidas of the Spartans and 300 Spartans at, at, uh, forgive me if I forget the place.

• 1:28:38Rich Roll?

  Thermopylae?

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  Thermopylae, yeah. Right there. It's like this, uh, near Corinth that they save, they Held off the like the Persians, thousands, tens of thousands of them. And that gave enough time for the Greeks to get assemble an army and eventually save civilization. Like they frame it as we would not have democracy here and now if they hadn't done this. And if this one runner hadn't done this epic run. And so when you get there, when you like, everybody's honking their horns, everybody knows, everyone's behind it. When you get in town, they have like a parade with thousands of people from the city. They put a crown on your head of like, um, olive branches that are wrapped together and you drink water that people give you in togas. When you get within a mile, all these kids in bikes are there, everyone's honking. The whole city knows what you're doing, like they are, it's not like a Boston marathon, it's not anything.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  This is in their soul. These people are so proud, I can't even tell you. You bow before this statue and you deliver a message and you like hand it. And it's, it's like a religious.

• 1:29:31Rich Roll?

  And there's only like, I don't know, 60 finishers or something like that?

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Every year is like 20%.

• 1:29:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Most people that go there and the year that we finished, uh, up until that time was the lowest finisher rate ever. Cause it was 95 degrees. There's no ice. It's like Europe, you know where there's no ice? There's no ice. There's a funny story with Scott Jurek. Uh, have you ever had him on?

• 1:29:49Rich Roll?

  No, but I know him.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  I believe he's vegan. He couldn't get ice in his race report anywhere. The only place I think his girlfriend or wife at the time could get ice. I don't want to spoil this story or like massacre it. I remember is at a butcher shop and he had to put ice all over them that was filled with blood. And this guy's a vegan.

• 1:30:01Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  With animal blood all over his body.

• 1:30:04Rich Roll?

  I hadn't heard that story.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Great story.

• 1:30:06Rich Roll?

  So I think Dean, didn't Dean run it in the sandals?

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dean ran it in sandals. I can't remember how he did, I love Dean so much, man, the greatest. Uh, Dean got me into ultra running, like his book, I have his book, he autographed it like, and then we became friends since. But I have things like highlighted and I made him, I made him initial the line where he ran from Napa to San Francisco. For a hundred miles overnight to then run the marathon. I'm like, dude, you are just, I love Dean, man.

• 1:30:32Rich Roll?

  So what is the, uh, the overlap? Like, how do these two worlds, um, kind of coexist?

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  I'm geeking out too much on ultras.

• 1:30:40Rich Roll?

  No, it's like, I love it, but like, I'm interested in, in, in the overlap between what you do professionally and how you're running kind of informs that. Like, does it, you know, how does it enhance your creativity? What is the practice around that? What are the kind of mindset tools that you develop that are applicable in both of these disciplines?

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  I've tried to figure out, and it's not like, it's hard to articulate some of it, because everybody knows that if they find something that's a practice, like you just called it, whether it's yoga, whether it's meditation, whether it's running, is your brain gets into a zone that I think we don't have enough of nowadays, which is you tune out, which you don't, you're not thinking of all the parts of your life that you have to do, and you're not on your phone, or electronics, or things that suck you in. And that's when my biggest creative bursts happen. They happen when I have to do something, like you just said, necessity is the mother of invention, constraints, you have to have those. And also, when I'm running, I'm just like, that's when I zone out, I just, there's something about moving, and it's different for all different people. It's funny, because I don't think of running as something I would enjoy. When I see someone running, it doesn't look fun to me.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  And when I was a runner in high school, and I hated so much, I still am that person, but something about it now just evens me out. It kind of, the way my mind goes into that zone, it's made me a better mentalist, because I go into that same thing where I can hyper-focus in a way, and it's kind of like visualizing a race. Before I'm ever at a race, I've already run that race 100 times in my head. I've already thought through where it's going, and that same kind of methodical

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  deciphering all the little angles of it, and trying to also, while also just letting yourself go, it's a little bit of both. Like, mentalism, what I do, it's an art and a science.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  And running, I think, is the same way.

• 1:32:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, the way I think about it is, you're basically flexing this muscle of being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like, you're acclimating yourself to a certain kind of discipline that just inures you to this idea that you always have to be like iterating, and creating, and pushing forward, because the running is always like holding you to account, right? So, if you carry that level of discipline into your professional life, like, these two things can feed each other. But I do think there's something you kind of just briefly mentioned about not getting ahead of yourself. In ultra running, like you have to be present with that pain and suffering.

• 1:33:04Rich Roll?

  If you have such a long distance to go and you're having a hard time and you start thinking about that, like you're toast, right?

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  You're toast.

• 1:33:11Rich Roll?

  You have to be rooted in the moment. And I would imagine, not being a mentalist, but thinking like for you to do what you do on stage, like you have to be so in it, in the moment of what you're doing in order to be able to execute.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Like I can't, if I lose track of it, it's kind of like saying the same thing, if you if you're thinking about what you're gonna do after you catch the ball, you don't catch the ball. And that's, a lot of my mess ups have been that I'm thinking too far ahead and I really have to focus on what's happening at that moment. And running is, I don't know, it's a great escape. It's just, it's so fun to not know what's gonna happen. And with the ultras, the big challenge of it is just knowing that you're going to suffer and seeing how you're gonna do in the suffering.

• 1:33:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and the longer it is, the more of a mental thing it is.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all mental.

• 1:33:58Rich Roll?

  And so, and the mental is what you do.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  Right, the mental is all I do.

• 1:34:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:03Speaker 01

  They go hand in hand.

• 1:34:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  I'm actually trying, I'm planning to do a long run this summer. I've been wanting to do it for years, is I'm gonna run, because I'm out in Long Island some of the summer, from Montauk to Manhattan, which is around the length of a Spartap on 140 to 150.

• 1:34:16Rich Roll?

  That far, wow.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  It will depend, as the crow flies, it's a little less, but there's no, it's not, you know what I mean? You gotta kind of weave a little bit, it can't be on the highway. And so I would love to do that and potentially to like, for a few charities, give some money to some great causes, get some sponsorship deals and people on board. And I'm hoping to do that this summer. I've been, and I wanted to do it last summer, then a race got in the way. And then before that was COVID, so it was a little tricky to get it underway, but I think this summer will happen.

• 1:34:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but how many gigs are you doing right now?

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  Ton.

• 1:34:44Rich Roll?

  You're a maniac.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Maniac.

• 1:34:46Rich Roll?

  And are they huge gigs, small gigs? Like what does it look like now?

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  It really varies. So, I mean, I would say I did an event in somebody's living room recently, that was for like 15 people. And then I have a show coming up that's for 15,000 people at an arena. So it runs the gamut. I would say the majority of the events that I do tend to fall in the neighborhood of 150 to 1,000 people. That's, I don't want to say it's a sweet spot, but that's probably the most. And then I sometimes I'm doing things that are public ticketed like fundraisers for various organizations that bring me in at galas and fundraisers all across the country. And those I promote, like I put on my site. But like you said, the suit and tie, I'm big in the corporate circuit.

• 1:35:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  So I don't have any touring theater shows. I had a residency in New York for a while and then COVID hit, so that kind of got shut down. But it's just companies. It's kind of one of those things like kind of like the speaker circuit where somebody sees me at one, I don't advertise and then they like what they saw and they want me for this one and this one and this one. And that's kind of been, word of mouth has been good to me.

• 1:35:43Rich Roll?

  I could see you doing like a Vegas residency type of thing. Isn't that where all the magicians ultimately go?

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  I don't know if my wife will come with me to Vegas. We've had the talk and she's like, oh, you're going to Vegas. She's like a New Yorker at this point. She really loves the city. I think at one point I might do that. I also love running in Vegas. It's just one of those places where I have such good runs. You never have to stop in Vegas. I can always weave. You know how they have, it kind of reminds me of Michigan.

• 1:36:09Rich Roll?

  If you go outside the city, I mean, like Alex Honnold lives in Vegas and he loves it because he has access to all of these climes and all this natural beauty that's, it's just, you know, outside of town.

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  I did like a 40 mile training run once right before, right before a gig. That's like my go to is I just, if I land at 10 a.m., just drop my stuff at the hotel and then my wife knows, she's like, can track me on there, like get back for the gig, but I will just go as long as I can if I can fit in.

• 1:36:33Rich Roll?

  So you'd literally run 40 miles right before a gig?

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  I mean, I, two or three days ago, I, it's all time constraint. So I got into Florida. I had to do a couple of things. I had some client calls I had to do and then I ran 30 miles right at that point. It was four hours. I ran, I was hitting 731s. I like, I posted it online, but I just ran two hours out, two hours back and then I got in and then I'm an expert at it. I have my like suit laid out. I'm nothing if not methodical. Shower, 25 minutes later, suit and tie ready, sound check. I actually think it makes my show better.

• 1:37:03Rich Roll?

  You could, you should FedEx your suit or whatever ahead of time.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:08Rich Roll?

  And just show, you know, just wear your sweats on the plane and get off the plane and run from the airport to the venue. I'm sure there's a shower at the venue.

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Man.

• 1:37:15Rich Roll?

  Get changed, do your thing.

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  I'm too nervous about my stuff not arriving. That's like my nightmare, even though the thing about mentalism, magic, you have props. Mentalism, there's no props. You are the show.

• 1:37:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  That's why a lot of magicians eventually, like some magicians end up going towards mentalism, or they add it in their show because it packs small, it plays big. That's the way to describe it. And a lot of people, you don't need all the big props. Like you gotta bring cases and this and that, I need boxes and I need tricks. That's the one sweet spot of it. I can show up and if you lose all my luggage, you could send me to Staples. I'll get, "Look, what did I bring here? I brought literally a notepad and a Sharpie."

• 1:37:48Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  Like, that's what I need because a lot of times I have to connect, construct my thoughts and I write stuff down before because it doesn't happen in real time. I have to think of what you're gonna do and kind of show you in advance. But I can do a show and I've challenged myself with nothing. Get like 50 bucks, go to Staples and, and I'm ready to, to perform for a thousand people.

• 1:38:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:04Speaker 01

  It might not be quite as smooth. Like I might not have quite the accoutrement, but I can easily do it.

• 1:38:09Rich Roll?

  Where's the big television special? The, you know, the, the...

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  I'm knocking on wood here.

• 1:38:14Rich Roll?

  Is that how?

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  I had one on NBC. So I had one show on NBC that was a special. I got very lucky. We got nominated for an Emmy and I won. And so I got that one.

• 1:38:22Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that. Wow.

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  And then I never got, I've never, you know, if anybody's listening right now at NBC or ABC, we've pitched a bunch. Uh, you know me, I'm determined. So I think it's, it's on the trajectory. Even though honestly, you know what's funny is being on TV, I'm not saying I wouldn't want to do it, but every single day, being on TV becomes almost less relevant because the people on streaming now have a global reach.

• 1:38:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  So you can kind of create your own thing. There's people on YouTube that are getting a thousand times the eyeballs of anybody on, on, on network television now. So it keeps just evolving and changing. And I have an idea that I've been trying to make for a while. That's just a, a, a very unique special. That's never been done before. That's a mentalism that's just like, I, I've always loved David Blaine and how he pushed the envelope and he did it in endurance with his body as well as amazing magic. And there's a gentleman named Darren Brown, who's based in the UK. That's a household name throughout Europe. He's incredible. Um, who's been in the States. He's just not quite as famous here, who created these just incredible specials where you, you know, what the mind is capable of in hypnosis. So I've got something. Um, it's, I don't want to spoil it yet because it hasn't

• 1:39:24Speaker 01

  happened, but it will happen in the next couple of years and you will hear about it. It's gonna be incredible.

• 1:39:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. It is amazing what David Blaine has done.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  Have you had him on here?

• 1:39:32Rich Roll?

  No, I haven't. I've never met him. I'd love to meet him.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:36Rich Roll?

  What he does is remarkable, but it's very different. You know, he's a lot, so much of it is putting himself in grave danger and, you know, these crazy endurance challenges that he's done. But the hot air balloon thing that he did

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:49Rich Roll?

  most recently was with YouTube.

• 1:39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, with YouTube.

• 1:39:53Rich Roll?

  So it didn't even, it wasn't even on television and that's really the one that I watched.

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:39:57Rich Roll?

  And I would imagine, I would love to see the numbers on that, to see how many people watched the YouTube versus like his other specials. It was pretty remarkable how they documented that whole thing.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was so cool. And they had, they had all different, they had all the angles during, and you could kind of live stream. And the cool part was the engagement. You could be chatting with other people about it during. So you're getting all the snarky remarks.

• 1:40:17Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  I don't know if you're ever on Reddit, but like some of the people on YouTube, the comments-

• 1:40:20Rich Roll?

  I try to stay away from Reddit.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  No, no, but the comments are almost better than the content because they're so funny. There's people that are just, they just, best jokes ever at the right moment. But yeah, they're all about, I think YouTube is very much looking for that live content, something that you have to watch in the moment to be there, kind of like the same way sports, where if you watch it the next day, you know, nobody wants to watch the Super Bowl recorded on your DVR the next day.

• 1:40:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  You want to be part of the zeitgeist and the conversation.

• 1:40:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  That's why I'm trying to create something that's just like that, that's in the moment, you have to watch it, that something big is on the line.

• 1:40:49Rich Roll?

  Right. All right, man. Are you gonna fuck with my head or what's going on?

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  Oh, we gotta do this. So, wait, we gotta tee it up. But I wanted, before we do this, I want to, I want to ask you one thing here. I'm just gonna write this down, which is, I want them to know our history, you and I. Because like, it's really important, because if I'm listening to this, I'm the guy who's like, well, wait, what happened before? So, we got connected through Adam Skolnik, is that right?

• 1:41:10Rich Roll?

  Correct, yeah.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  We have connections because I've known David Goggins for a while, and Adam knows David. And then Adam attended a Zoom show. So during the pandemic, like my whole career ended. I thought in April of 2020, I'm like, I'm a free man. I'm, I'm, I'm retired. I gotta find a new gig. And I started doing these shows over Zoom and reinvent, like, how can I do this? How can I read people's minds when they're not even in the room? Adam saw it. He told you, you guys heard about your New York City marathon, and you sent me an email. And it was like, when I was trying to connect, and you, I saw the way you sign off, which I loved, right? Peace plus plants.

• 1:41:40Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  Right? You articulate those two, kind of a brand messaging. I want you right now, and everybody should know, this is right now happening. You don't know what's about to happen. Do you guys have a Sharpie or something for me?

• 1:41:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we can get a Sharpie.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  I think I got a Sharpie. Here. I'm gonna write this down, and I want you to see it. Peace. And if you're just listening to this, just narrate for them. I'm writing down peace plus plants. Is that what just happened?

• 1:42:02Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  Okay. And I want you to see it visually. How did you come up with that? I mean, I'm assuming because two things, obviously, plant power, vegan and peace. Like, what made you think of that as what you were going to use as, what do you want to call it? Tagline?

• 1:42:16Rich Roll?

  It just, it happened organically. It wasn't like any kind of conscious decision. I think I just said it at the end of a podcast one day and I thought that was cool. And it just kind of became a thing organically.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  And words have power, right? You've had 600, almost 700 of these things. You've changed people's lives all around the world. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to jump down and think of another word. Okay, not peace, not plants, and don't let me influence you. Whatever word you want, it doesn't have to start with a P either. Could, but it doesn't have to. And I want you right now to randomly think of a word. The only thing I ask, don't think of somebody's name. Because if you think of your wife's name, your kid's names, that's a very obvious approach. Think of a word. It could be a noun, an adjective, a descriptor, a verb, whatever you want. Think of a word right now. You got it?

• 1:42:55Rich Roll?

  Got it.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  Now, you know what I do. And the problem is if I came into this fresh, if we did this fresh right now and you didn't know me, I would say, stick with that. But what I want you to do is jump from that to another word. Now, hear me out. Let's say you thought of the word green, you might think of grass. Or you might think of Michigan State Spartans. You might think of anything else that's connected to it. Whatever word you just thought of, I want to make this impossible. That you don't say, oh my God, he made me think of this word. So I want you to leapfrog, like a game of telephone. From that word, pick another word that for some reason connected that word to this word. Can you think of another word just because of that that jumped into your head? That word made you think of a new word.

• 1:43:30Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  So now we have two levels of separation, right? This is like we're getting all the way to Kevin Bacon.

• 1:43:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  You got another word in mind right now?

• 1:43:38Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:43:39Speaker 01

  One more time. Jump from that word to a new word.

• 1:43:42Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:43:47Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  You got it?

• 1:43:48Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Okay. Can you tell everybody else, there is no way that I could have known what you would have picked? Because, honest to goodness, you didn't even know what you were going to pick. Is that true?

• 1:43:59Rich Roll?

  True.

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  Okay. So, tell us all, what is that word? I want to know. I'm not guessing it.

• 1:44:04Rich Roll?

  Enlightenment.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  Enlightenment.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  And you jumped from two other ones. We couldn't know what those are. Now, can you tell everybody, I don't, we're doing this on audio or video. Can you tell everybody what happened? I don't want to be involved in it. I don't want to touch it, nothing.

• 1:44:16Rich Roll?

  So when we were scheduling this podcast and we found a date and we were just locking in all the details, you emailed me or you texted me and said, I'm sending you this FedEx. I just want you to keep an eye out for it. And when it arrives, I want you to not open it, but I want you to sign your name on it and date it.

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:44:36Rich Roll?

  Write the date that you received it.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Do you have it?

• 1:44:38Rich Roll?

  Yes. It's like right over there. Can you guys, Jason, bring that over?

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna hand that. I don't want to touch it.

• 1:44:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  And I want to ask you a question about this specifically. Okay. Piece plus plants. Did you sign that yourself?

• 1:44:52Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  You did. Where has it been since that moment? That's the next thing I want to know.

• 1:44:56Rich Roll?

  It hasn't left this studio.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  Hasn't left this studio. And I want to see if I have this. Rip it open, please. I should have brought something here.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Is there any conceivable way that somebody working with you could have switched the contents?

• 1:45:15Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  Or inserted something in or taken something out?

• 1:45:17Rich Roll?

  This is my name and I dated it and this has not been opened. And I, and this, as soon as it came in, I did this.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Perfect. Now we see what I found in there.

• 1:45:25Rich Roll?

  Is another sealed envelope and on it, it says sealed on February 28, 2022 at 11:19 a.m. And then you signed your name.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  So now there's two facets to this because I wanted to make sure for my reputation that nobody switched what's in there because then I'm on the line. And then on the other side, I said, please don't open it until, can you turn it around? Please don't open it until we are on the podcast.

• 1:45:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  Now that one's still, if you look, there are sides to it. Tear it open as well, please.

• 1:45:51Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:45:53Speaker 01

  Now, Rich, if you've learned anything about me from this point, it's, I'm nothing if not methodical. So now we got one more layer. Done. Now I know, now I know you guys didn't mess with my stuff.

• 1:46:03Rich Roll?

  This is a manila envelope with my name and my logo on it. And there's so much tape on this. This is like.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  We taped it like crazy. And that is why I brought a safety light open. What did you take out of your pocket?

• 1:46:12Rich Roll?

  I'm not gonna be able to open this without that.

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  Slice it open, Rich.

• 1:46:17Rich Roll?

  How do you use this?

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  I like how Rich can't, doesn't open his own mail. No, don't go there. Don't go there in the little hole at the top. You ready?

• 1:46:23Rich Roll?

  I like this. I see.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  And do a nice little smooth, uh, along the top. You're gonna cut yourself. Be careful. Here, just flip it over.

• 1:46:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, I got it. I've never used one of those before.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  Now, there is a safety seal. Can I show them this?

• 1:46:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Can you guys, I don't know, do you want to do this with the camera? Are you gonna do this for like a behind the scenes or no?

• 1:46:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, let's make sure.

• 1:46:42Speaker 01

  Can you guys see if it's sealed? The, the safety seal on here. And Rich, this thing, this knife, hold on, grab this knife. I want you to cut open the next thing. We've got business cards in here. Unrelated.

• 1:46:52Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  It's cut in my pocket. Okay, so take this thing.

• 1:46:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  And can you confirm the seal is intact? So, can you see what I'm talking about? Do you see it? Grab it, grab it. I don't want to, this thing, the seal, take it out, please, safety seal.

• 1:47:05Rich Roll?

  This thing?

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it should be attached to the staples. Grab it out, please. All the way, all the way.

• 1:47:09Rich Roll?

  Alright.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  And is it, okay, so it didn't rip.

• 1:47:11Rich Roll?

  Safety seal, intact and secure. It was, it was stapled.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  Stapled, well, check, it was attached to the staples. So, grab it out yourself. I don't want to touch that one. Rich, roll, yet again.

• 1:47:20Rich Roll?

  It's another-

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  Stapled everywhere!

• 1:47:22Rich Roll?

  Alright, another light blue envelope stapled all the way around 360 degrees.

• 1:47:28Speaker 01

  Rich, this, that, this stapled. Uh, you could either cut it with that, or you know what? Screw it. You might be able to with the tape, just rip that bad boy open, tear.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Tear it like crazy. Can you get in or no?

• 1:47:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:42Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:47:44Rich Roll?

  And then pull this out. It's some note in here.

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  Been sitting there waiting for you, February 28th.

• 1:47:47Rich Roll?

  Alright.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  And it's like you, stop, stop. Before we do this, put it against your body. You haven't read it yet, have you?

• 1:47:53Rich Roll?

  I've not read it, no.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  You're sitting across from me. How many podcasts have you done?

• 1:47:57Rich Roll?

  Uh, we've published 666.

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  As of this moment, it might change. I want you to close your eyes. Close your eyes for me for just a second. You're holding it, it's in your hands, not gonna change. It's been in there since February 28th. Close your eyes and imagine it sitting across from you. I like to call it the ultimate interview. Because you're a person who explores, you want to get in depth, you want to hear those moments. And I say to you, if you could, I ask people this question all the time. If you could have dinner, or in your case, interview, somebody famous, we've all heard of, dead or alive, male or female. And the reason I have you close your eyes, because like, it'd be like Googling this person. A picture is worth a thousand words. See that person's face in your mind right now. Can you see that person's face like they're in the room with you?

• 1:48:36Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  As if he or she is sitting across from me. Say their name.

• 1:48:40Rich Roll?

  Abraham Lincoln.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  Read what's in your hand. Open it up, please.

• 1:48:47Rich Roll?

  The whole letter? Please. "Hey Rich, I'm very excited to meet you and be a guest on your podcast. What I love about a great conversation is you never quite know where it will take you. Athletic achievements, past and present, seeing yourself cross the finish line in 728,

• 1:49:07Rich Roll?

  or winning a race, maybe discussing our favorite books. I lean towards fiction, but could see you diving deep into a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Only..."

• 1:49:20Rich Roll?

  Dude. "...only time will tell, and hope it is very memorable for you and your listeners. Peace and plans and enlightenment." O's. That is unbelievable. 728, Abraham Lincoln, and enlightenment. Three for three.

• 1:49:42Rich Roll?

  That is crazy. So for people who are watching or listening, it didn't quite get fully explained, but before the podcast started, we did an exercise where you asked me to go on my phone and go into Google image search and think of somebody dead or alive who would be a great podcast guest. Yeah. And I just thought that I randomly selected Abraham Lincoln. And I have it down. You didn't look at my phone. I'm over here. Yeah, you didn't look at my phone. It doesn't really matter if I didn't. And, uh, and here is the picture that I pulled up on my phone a couple hours ago before the podcast even started.

• 1:50:22Rich Roll?

  That's crazy, man. That is unbelievable. I thought I, I thought I had you. I thought I was immune from your wiles. Rich is like, "I got this down. I got this." That's why I was, I was trying to up the bar. Cause I, my thing going in was like, "I'm just gonna, I'm gonna pick something so obscure and crazy that there's no way that this guy would be able to predict or with any..." But you know, I fell right into your web somehow. Wasn't, yeah, of course you didn't go for something obvious.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  And we got a new tagline. Peace plus plants plus enlightenment. You heard it here first.

• 1:50:53Rich Roll?

  Now I'm gonna go back and, you know, like a forensic expert and re-watch this whole thing and try to figure out where the cues were dropped or how you led me in a certain direction to have me say those things.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  That's what I want our listeners, just up those download, keep downloading this until we get it all the way to the top of iTunes. I like that. Let's keep going.

• 1:51:11Rich Roll?

  Is it all there? Is it all there?

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  It's all there all the time. It's just, it's taking a puzzle and putting all the pieces together. It's a little difficult for most people to do because that's my job.

• 1:51:20Rich Roll?

  That's unbelievable, man.

• 1:51:23Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna watch Nightmare Alley now that you said it.

• 1:51:24Rich Roll?

  You gotta watch Nightmare Alley.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  I hope I left you guys with a crazy moment. And we're gonna definitely do some stuff when we kill the podcast for all the team in here who puts in some really hard work, incredible operation you've got.

• 1:51:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thank you. Well, that was mind blowing.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:51:36Rich Roll?

  I just, wow, unbelievable, man. Really a pleasure to talk to you.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  You too.

• 1:51:43Rich Roll?

  What you do is, is not only super fun, it is, it is a gift and it is beautiful. I watch a lot of your videos and just to see how excited everybody gets and, and how much enjoyment and joy that you bring to people's lives. And now you get to go and do it in person again after we've kind of weathered these last two difficult years. So it's gotta be really gratifying to be able to do live events and be with people.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  There's nothing compares. Like the Zoom stuff is fun and I'm really not complaining because it was, you know, put food on the table during this whole thing. And it was actually wild because at a certain point you didn't realize you could actually do more events because you can just go into a studio. I don't have to fly across the country.

• 1:52:20Rich Roll?

  Cranking out Zoom, Zoom stuff all day long.

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  Back to back to back. I'm doing one in Singapore, then I'm doing one for, you know, Europe, and then I'm doing one for San Jose, like every time zone. I'd be up at 5:00 AM, one at midnight, one at, like, I could do multiple every day. And I'm wearing, you know, the old joke goes, I'm wearing shorts and flip flops running across the street, wearing a suit and tie up top. Cause I have a studio that I rented and we decked it out, you know, and. It was incredible, but it never, it doesn't hold a candle. Like you've gotta be, what I do is just the enjoyment of seeing people, feeling them. There's nothing like it. I mean, I think almost every form, even this, interviewing somebody on Zoom is just not the same feeling.

• 1:52:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you don't have to tell me.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:57Rich Roll?

  I know, I know the thing, man. Well, I'll be looking out for that special.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:53:03Rich Roll?

  If there's anything I can do to help you. This was an absolute joy. I know you gotta run and you're going to do this, this event tonight, but next time you come to LA.

• 1:53:10Speaker 01

  In the same resort you were at, the same resort.

• 1:53:12Rich Roll?

  I know. I was speaking at this resort yesterday and you come in, you're like, I have to go to this place. I was like, I was there yesterday.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  And neither of us have ever been there before.

• 1:53:19Rich Roll?

  And I'd never been there before.

• 1:53:20Speaker 01

  How weird is that? We've probably both been all over. If you like, drop the pin on all the places I've been around LA that they do events. So it's just, you know, confluence. A lot of stuff is like that. Where in my show, I'll get lucky and I'll take advantage of the luck. I have stuff where I literally get lucky. I'll just look at somebody and say, um, is it this? And they go, yeah. And I'm like, I swear to you, that wasn't mentalism. I just swear to you, it was a guess that landed and, and it's just, I get lucky with guesses. People don't believe me when I say I'm a very good guesser.

• 1:53:47Rich Roll?

  That you are, for sure.

• 1:53:49Speaker 01

  Thanks, Rich.

• 1:53:49Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. Well, next time we go running and I'd love to have you back.

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  We are definitely going running. I'm holding you to that because this was not enough today. I want to get out there, get some miles on the trails with you.

• 1:53:57Rich Roll?

  Cool. So for people that want to dig deeper into O's, O's Pearlman is your website, ospearlman.com, O's the Mentalist on all the social media sites.

• 1:54:05Speaker 01

  And it looks like Oz. You gotta blame my parents. Weird is really, O-Z, like Oz the Mentalist, but I don't know, we say it O's.

• 1:54:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:54:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:54:11Rich Roll?

  O's it is. Anything else you want to cue people up on?

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  No, I, if I end up doing this, this charity event, which I'm like 99% sure at this point, this charity run, I'll pop it up on my social and it's going to be for some great cause, a couple charities I support all the time. And if you're in Long Island, come find me out there running. I'm going to do some mind reading and running at the same time. I'll pick like a Thursday or Friday this summer and just do 135 mile run, just go suffer a little bit.

• 1:54:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, keep me posted on that. Maybe I'll pop in for a segment.

• 1:54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I told your partner, Crime Adam, about it and he like, thought, he's like, yeah, we should do it.

• 1:54:44Rich Roll?

  I know. I wish Adam could have come today. He's out in the desert.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  I heard.

• 1:54:47Rich Roll?

  So next time.

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  I'll be there in a week.

• 1:54:49Rich Roll?

  Cool, man. So that's it. Talk to you again soon. Peace, plants and...

• 1:54:53Speaker 01

  Enlightenment.

• 1:54:54Rich Roll?

  There you go.

• 1:54:55Speaker 01

  Love it, Rich. Thanks, man.

• 1:54:56Rich Roll?

  Cheers.

• 1:54:58Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. Supporting

• 1:55:43Rich Roll?

  the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder. Graphic and social media assets courtesy

• 1:56:25Rich Roll?

  of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodiate. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.