722 Mindset and Persuasion with Derren Brown

WHAT STORY ARE YOU TELLING YOURSELF? Whatever it is, you’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. You’re projecting your story onto everyone around you without even realizing it. That’s why mentalists are so successful- they suggest a story to you that you accept as true. Whatever your way of thinking, it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can be free of your own story. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk with someone who changed his own way of thinking to become an incredible illusionist and mentalist: Derren Brown. Derren Brown uses magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship to create series and specials on stage and television. He’s won two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment and has also written books for magicians as well as the general public. He doesn’t use his skills to deceive others for his own benefit. Instead, his acts are often designed to expose the methods of faith healers and mediums. So get ready to learn why humans are so easily persuaded on Episode 722. Some Questions I Ask: Do you believe there are mediums who can see into another realm? (25:54) What is your greatest superpower? (27:46) When you meet people, what goes through your mind first? (30:02) Did you used to have a bigger ego? (38:05) Why did you get into magic? (39:27) Do you have any regrets? (47:11) How can we rewire our minds? (1:02:37) In This Episode You Will Learn: The two ways faith healers deceive (19:56) Why it’s important to make peace with the parts of you that aren’t “right” (46:06) The effects of coming out as gay later in life (48:46) The three main fears people have (55:27) The importance of accepting yourself (59:44) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 722 with mentalist and illusionist Darren Brown.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:32Lewis Howes?

  Albert Einstein said, "Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them." I am so excited about this episode because this is someone I've been wanting to interview since day one. I became a fan of Darren Brown probably nine, 10 years ago when I learned about him through a friend who introduced me to his work. And I went down the rabbit hole of watching every video I could of this person and just became fascinated with the way his mind thinks, how he studies human nature and psychology, and how he gets people to do certain things they normally wouldn't do. For those that don't know who Darren Brown is, he is an English mentalist and illusionist.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  And since his television debut with Darren Brown Mind Control in 2000, his name in the UK is pretty much synonymous with the art of psychological manipulation. He's produced several other shows for stage and television in both series and specials. He'd written several bestselling books and his 2017 US debut show, Secret, won the New York Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience and he's planning a Broadway return in 2019. So make sure to get your tickets for that. But right now, guys, he has a number of specials on Netflix. And when I tell you I've been freaking out about them and telling them to everyone,

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  they are so much fun to watch. They're riveting and they will blow your mind, literally. One is called The Push and he conducts a social experience.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  To see if people will commit murder and you are going to freak out in the last few minutes when you watch this, go to the Netflix, go to your Netflix and watch The Push. He's also got Miracle, which shows him onstage healing people and not necessarily saying that he has powers to heal, but showing ways that you can through different psychological triggers and things like that. And his newest show is called Sacrifice. Holy cannoli. This is unbelievable. He gets someone to, I don't want to spoil it for you actually, but he'll tell you more about it in this interview, but Sacrifice is going to shape the way you think about

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  everything in your life and how you think and judge other people. And it will inspire you. It brought me to tears at the end. Crazy experience. So The Push, Miracle, and Sacrifice, watch them on Netflix after this interview. In this interview, we talk about his belief in stoicism and how it controls his thoughts and actions. Also, how we can become masters of our own minds throughout our lives. The good and bad ego provides for magicians and other performers. Also, the three fears that people typically have and how it holds them back and the effects of coming out as gay later in his life, what that did for him in his early childhood and later in his life. We talk about that.

• 3:36Lewis Howes?

  We talk about God, religion, so many different things. I'm so excited for you to dive into this. Let me know what you think. Take a screenshot, tag me @lewishouse and Darren Brown over on Instagram and Twitter. Let us know what you enjoyed most about this because I'm super fired up and pumped about this one. Again, a big thank you to our sponsors and I'm so fired up. You guys have no idea how pumped up I am about this. Something about understanding human psychology, the way we think, the way we do things, why we do the things we do, why we're influenced, I'm obsessed with and it's always fascinating me. I'm curious about why I do certain things and why others do it. And Darren Brown is the man to reveal all of this for us today.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only Darren Brown.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  All right, welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We have the legendary Darren Brown in the house. My man, I'm gonna gently-

• 4:36Derren Brown?

  Yeah, I hurt my hand. I've been having a lot of powerful LA handshakes this week.

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  All the power players are just gripping you and-

• 4:43Derren Brown?

  Each hurt very much. I appreciate, I appreciate the gentle, British handshake in fact.

• 4:48Lewis Howes?

  How's the British handshake go? Is it like a dead fish?

• 4:50Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Hello.

• 4:51Derren Brown?

  Like you have to maybe, you're supposed to guess how much it weighs or something.

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  Okay. I first learned about you, I think in 2010, somewhere around then. When a friend of mine, I believe James Wedmore, was all into magic. He used to be a magician himself, like when he was a kid. And he just appreciated the art of magicians and mentalists and illusionists. He turned me on to you and I kinda went down the rabbit hole then. Kind of lost track of you for probably four or five years. But kinda picked it back up recently because you've had a number of specials that have come out on Netflix.

• 5:22Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  Blown my mind.

• 5:24Derren Brown?

  Thank you.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  One called The Push, which, literally go watch this tonight on Netflix. If you're listening to this or watching this, I'm telling you, it's gonna blow you away. If you appreciate anything that I've done on this show, you will love this. Without telling the whole thing, The Push is essentially you get people to kill people on video and-

• 5:45Derren Brown?

  That makes it sound just, just-

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  You get, you get people to kill people, literally, but no one dies. But they think they're killing someone.

• 5:54Derren Brown?

  Yeah, it's an exercise in social compliance. It was to see whether you could, yeah, ordinary social compliance in a big sort of hidden camera setup where there's one real guy who doesn't know he's in this kind of Truman Show environment. Everyone else is an actor. Just starting with little things.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  Little lies.

• 6:11Derren Brown?

  Little lies, whether it could build to the point that he would murder.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  It's unbelievable. It's just mind blowing. And you watch it at the end, it's like- It just makes it, it's so suspenseful the whole way through.

• 6:25Derren Brown?

  It's kind of anxiety inducing.

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  It's so much anxiety, but it's really, it's like making a murder on steroids. And with like a mad scientist behind the curtain, you're like muhaha, you know, it's like. It's so funny. You're talking about the psychology of the whole thing all the way through. It's, it's beautiful piece of art and just very entertaining. Go watch the push. Then you have a new show out called, new in the US at least, called The Sacrifice or Sacrifice.

• 6:50Derren Brown?

  Sacrifice, yes, it's brand new.

• 6:51Lewis Howes?

  And this is freaking mind blowing because it's perfect timing with all the elections that have been happening and all the different things in social media where people are against each other. They're, they're trying to build walls everywhere. They're excluding people or comparing each other against other societies and countries. There's a lot of fear in the world. And I think you eliminate this fear by creating another experiment, a social experiment, where you get someone to, who is essentially, well, I'll let you explain it because I don't want to make sure I said the wrong thing.

• 7:27Derren Brown?

  First of all, explain that. So my background is in magic, but the kind of psychological side of magic and working a lot with, excuse me, with suggestion and I began as a hypnotist. That was my kind of first weird way into all of this. But as I grew up, the desire to just kind of like do tricks and go, hey, look, aren't I clever? Which is kind of the subtext, right?

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:45Derren Brown?

  I kind of grew out of that. So although I still do stage shows that are kind of a bit more like in that traditional mode, the sort of 20 year, 18, 20 year TV career I've had in the UK. I appreciate no one really knows me here, but in the UK, I've sort of, what I tried to do was take the idea of the sort of magic and make it into something that was dramatically more resonant. So now what I do is I'm kind of behind the scenes and the deception is something we're all part of and in on, apart from normally one person. So it's quite separate now from any kind of magic. It's not really about that. It's.

• 8:21Lewis Howes?

  An experiment.

• 8:22Derren Brown?

  Yeah, these really are, yeah, these are, these are kind of social experiments, but with a a view to normally changing and transforming something and doing something worthwhile.

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  And you're not, and you're not necessarily in performing the act yourself.

• 8:36Derren Brown?

  No, no.

• 8:37Lewis Howes?

  You're like letting other people, you're like orchestrating the, the trick or the experiment.

• 8:41Derren Brown?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 8:42Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to actually like.

• 8:43Derren Brown?

  And persuading. It's kind of, so I'm using the kind of psychological techniques. And the kind of the, um, just the power of sheer like production and, and like actors and stuntmen, all the kind of stuff around it to create.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  Pressure, authority, all these things that make you say yes.

• 9:03Derren Brown?

  To get someone to a certain point. And I've, I've done various things with that over the years. So this new show, Sacrifice, is taking a guy, so an American guy, who's, he's been a right wing guy and he's, doesn't like immigrants, that's his thing.

• 9:16Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't like immigrants.

• 9:17Derren Brown?

  Doesn't like immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants.

• 9:19Lewis Howes?

  And he likes people who it's like, if you're from here, great. If you're not, we don't want you.

• 9:23Derren Brown?

  Yeah, that's kind of his bottom line. And I, the challenge is, I get him to the point. So he, so he thinks he's taking part in one show.

• 9:34Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 9:34Derren Brown?

  Which he thinks is a documentary. So he knows he's taking part in the show. Often when I do these things, they have no idea there's even like a TV show going on. But he thinks he's taking part in one show, which is a documentary about, he thinks he's got a microchip that I've implanted in him.

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Which is amazing. Oh my gosh.

• 9:46Derren Brown?

  And he, he thinks he's trying, trying out.

• 9:48Lewis Howes?

  That's gonna enhance his performance or something, right?

• 9:50Derren Brown?

  Yeah, exactly. He's trying, like, so he's got a motivational thing, this biotechnology. But the actual agenda of the show is to, is to try and get him to the point where he willingly takes a bullet and lays down his life for an illegal Mexican immigrant.

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  It's unbelievable. And the scene at the end.

• 10:08Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  When he has to make the decision, I don't wanna spoil it here, but when he has to make the decision and you watch his conscience, and it's unbelievable. Again, you guys gotta watch this because at the end it's gonna blow you away.

• 10:21Derren Brown?

  It was, it was a really emotional journey.

• 10:23Lewis Howes?

  It's so unbelievable. And I hope it was as powerful in person as you guys made the production.

• 10:28Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah. Even more maybe. Cause these things take like 10 months of maybe of work.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  For one moment.

• 10:36Derren Brown?

  For one moment. Or for one, yeah, but, cause you're not only creating that moment for the guy, Phil in this case, this guy's called Phil, I'll stop calling him the guy, but also you, you're also having to create everything as a completely convincing fiction for somebody. So there's not only, not only you gotta make it work as a, as a kind of a story, but this guy can't know that. This whole, again, it's Truman Show, you know, you can't, you can't break the fiction for the person. So. It's amazing. It's, there's a lot involved. We did a show called Apocalypse, which was ending the world for somebody. So here's somebody who's kind of gotten, he's sort of disengaged from life, he's like, kind of selfish. He lives with his parents, they're like, you've got to change this guy, essentially.

• 11:22Derren Brown?

  So I took the stoic idea that you value, like, we need to value what we have more. And one way of doing that, and the Stoics, which were, you know, this big philosophical, philosophical school, five hundred years before Christianity sort of burst into the scene, they were the most. Stoicism, yeah. Popular, I'm sure you've spoken about it with many people, so I, I'm a big fan of the Stoics. So I took this idea, so the idea was, okay, so how do we take everything away from him in order to have him value what he has? Appreciate these things, yeah. So we ended the world. So what we did, we took, we had cameras in his house, so he'd applied to be on the show, right? There's normally some application process, and we vetted him, and we decided he'd be robust enough for it, ideal for it, and also suggestible enough. I look for people that are naturally quite suggestible.

• 12:06Derren Brown?

  And then you tell them, hey, you're not on the show. Yeah, exactly, we're not, we're not gonna use you. Months later, you come back and like. And then months later, we put cameras in his house, so his family were in on it. He's like twenty something, you know, twenty-three, I think he was, lives with his family. So we got hidden cameras throughout his house, and began this process of convincing him that the world was gonna end through a meteor strike. So if you imagine, like, he's watching TV shows, where they have, like, guests and scientists on, but we've, like, re-recorded our special versions of it that are only playing on his TV. That he knows that it's like an authority, it's. Yeah, yeah, he just thinks it's a regular episode of his show. We had control of his phone. We hacked into his phone so that we could send him, like, on his news apps and things like, even the NASA site. We were able to create convincing replicas that we could drop in these news stories.

• 12:51Derren Brown?

  I was tweeting as his favorite, because he was quite into science, tweeting as his favorite scientist and so on. So bit by bit, we drip-fed this idea. He'd be out in a cafe that we knew he was gonna be in, and we'd have the radio playing in the background with, like, real DJs that he knows, like, famous UK DJs, talking about this thing, it's like, is it gonna happen? Is it not? Is it a hoax? And then we created this. Like pyrotechnic event for him where the world ends.

• 13:17Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 13:18Derren Brown?

  And then in the second part of the show, he wakes up seemingly weeks later in a hospital.

• 13:24Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 13:25Derren Brown?

  And everywhere's deserted, there's no, no one around. And he, he, he then begins, basically he goes, he goes through the plot of Wizard of Oz. He learns the important things, he learns about courage, he learns about having a heart and learns about leadership. And you know, kind of having a brain, I guess is that other part of Wizard of Oz thing, but and he finds his way home and, and finds his, and is finding his way back. And kind of claiming himself as a, as the best version of himself and he finds a few other people, but there are zombies. There's no easy way of saying it. There's this whole kind of like zombie.

• 13:58Lewis Howes?

  I haven't seen this one yet. I gotta watch this one, dude. I gotta watch this one.

• 14:01Derren Brown?

  It's great. So these are, yeah, these are big, elaborate, quite cinematic.

• 14:05Lewis Howes?

  It'd take years for you to plan out probably, at least to think about. You did another one, I think I read, I haven't watched some of them because they're not in the U S, but there's another one you did where you're like, a guy's afraid of flying and you like help him overcome his fears and has to like.

• 14:17Derren Brown?

  And then he has to land.

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  Land the plane or something?

• 14:19Derren Brown?

  So again, that was like, I sort of imagine airplane, everyone's an actor apart from you, there's hidden cameras, then there's a medical emergency, can anyone land this plane? This is the end of this big transformational experience for him. He goes, he gets up, he rises to the challenge, says, I'll do it. And he's terrified, like terrified of flying, has no idea this is being filmed. He goes to the kind of like the cockpit to go in and, and do this. He's again, very suggestible. So he's kind of conditioned. I can put him to sleep very quickly.

• 14:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:47Derren Brown?

  So I step out, he doesn't know I'm there. I step out, hypnotize him. We land the plane, he's like, you know, we land the plane, we then get into um, one of those very convincing.

• 14:55Lewis Howes?

  Simulator.

• 14:56Derren Brown?

  Simulator.

• 14:56Lewis Howes?

  He's asleep.

• 14:57Derren Brown?

  He's asleep. And he then wakes up and steps into that. Then he goes through this whole like plane landing experience, which is completely convincing for him. And comes out, I don't know if you've seen the game, you know, that Michael.

• 15:07Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's the best. It's amazing.

• 15:09Derren Brown?

  This is a constant reference point for me.

• 15:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 15:11Derren Brown?

  So he comes out and it's like a big party like at the end of that, like all these, all these people that are there that were part of the journey and so on. I've started spoiling the ending of all these shows, but Sacrifice is the new one.

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  I didn't spoil the ending for Sacrifice.

• 15:22Derren Brown?

  Sacrifice is the only one I've done that's kind of like, I think resonant and kind of.

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  It's so relevant too. Whatever you guys do, go watch both of these, The Push, The Sacrifice, right now, we're gonna talk a lot more. And then you have a stage performance, which is just.

• 15:36Lewis Howes?

  I hope you edit these things because if you don't, you are like a perfectionist with your words on stage. And it's really annoying. Because when I speak on stage, I'm like, man, I wish I could present that way. So hopefully there's some editing in these things because it looks like you never miss a word.

• 15:51Derren Brown?

  Well, it's like you've been quite long tours, I do.

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you've done so many tours.

• 15:54Derren Brown?

  Gets in there, yeah.

• 15:55Lewis Howes?

  But you do something which I thought was fascinating, which is you kind of demystify these like faith healers that

• 16:02Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  try to manipulate. Because I think there are a lot of great faith healers or people in spirituality that help a lot of people, bring them faith, bring them like peace of mind, bring them inner peace.

• 16:14Derren Brown?

  And there are some that

• 16:15Lewis Howes?

  And there are some that try to manipulate to get more money out of you, that say like healing you and give me more money.

• 16:20Derren Brown?

  And then create a bad cycle of self blame and so on.

• 16:24Lewis Howes?

  And you create this experience on stage, which it just blows my mind, where you recreate it. You say, listen, you know, I don't believe in God. I think you said that, like I'm an atheist. And, but I'm going to heal you today. And I'm going to show you through the power of suggestion, the power of influence, the power of like all these other, you know, stage performance techniques that these fake healers do.

• 16:46Derren Brown?

  So this show is called Miracle, which is also on Netflix, basically those three shows.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna watch them all.

• 16:51Derren Brown?

  Shows that I've done and they're all on, they're all on Netflix.

• 16:52Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 16:53Derren Brown?

  The rest of it, you'll have to dig around on YouTube and my YouTube back catalog.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  But this one, you get everyone to like, you're like, if you felt a healing in the, on the audience, you're like, stand up and come to the back of room. And there's a line of like 300 people who had some type of healing in like three minutes.

• 17:08Derren Brown?

  Do you know, it was amazing. I thought, I've toured for like 20 years in the UK and each, I do a brand new show every two, every two years. So this show Miracle was like one of the recent shows. And in that whole experience, that kind of career, nothing, nothing was as interesting as doing this every night. And see, because you're basically, there's, there's kind of two components to this idea of faith healing, at least as I see it. And certainly as I was doing it and I was learning from the faith healers and using their techniques. One is adrenaline. So you create, as you know, you know, with your own background, you're not really feeling pain.

• 17:40Lewis Howes?

  Feeling like

• 17:41Derren Brown?

  Yeah. So if you get adrenaline going, it's a painkiller. That's the first thing. So if you've, if you've got a, like, if you've got some back pain. And, you know.

• 17:50Lewis Howes?

  And you're slouched in a bad, yeah.

• 17:51Derren Brown?

  A wild lion walks into the room, you're not worried about your back, right?

• 17:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:54Derren Brown?

  The pain goes, so you, adrenaline kills pain, that's the first part of it. The second part of it, which is where it gets really interesting, is the stories that we tell ourselves, which is a recurring theme in my interests in life and work, and how we get restricted by that. And what was, what I didn't expect was how, I thought it was gonna be people saying, oh, I had back pain and now it's gone. But within a week of doing the show, I remember a woman coming up in floods of tears, she was maybe in her forties. She'd been paralyzed down one side of her body since being a kid. And for the first time, she was able to move her arm. And this is how you can, of course, you can start to go mad as the healer and start to believe in it, right?

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  Believe you're like a god.

• 18:34Derren Brown?

  Starts to take an effort to think, no, exactly, this isn't something I'm doing, this is something you're doing. So that psychological component, so basically, it's like the part of our, you know, not for everybody, of course. I'm only dealing with a percentage of the audience, right? So you, I got maybe two, three thousand people in the audience, and here are three hundred, right? So we're, we're kind of, the numbers are getting smaller.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Most people aren't feeling it, or maybe they didn't have pain, or whatever.

• 18:55Derren Brown?

  Exactly, yeah, and then the number that get invited up is smaller again, right?

• 18:59Lewis Howes?

  Like the more suggestible people, or the more like?

• 19:01Derren Brown?

  The people, yeah, exactly, the people that certainly experience the most. But the fact that, you know, if you x-rayed this woman before and afterwards, clearly nothing has changed, right? But her, somehow, in the story she was telling herself about this condition, I can't move my arm, this is something I live with, it's a restriction that I have. Maybe the, a bit of adrenaline at the start, and then the kind of the, the challenge of like, if you couldn't move something before, try it now, notice what's different and come up and tell me. Just that sort of, okay, I'll think about it differently, just snapped her out of it. She's not just feeling a difference, she's actually kind of physically moving. And night after night, these things happen, and it varied from night to night, and some nights were more dramatic than others. But it was extraordinary. And then, and again, percentage is getting smaller, right?

• 19:45Derren Brown?

  So now we're in the top, like, probably half a percent, which is always gonna be kind of extraordinary. But people then saying, like, a year later, this is, you know, this is a permanent thing. Again, I'm thinking, it'll work for ten minutes when they're on stage.

• 19:57Lewis Howes?

  Right, because they got the adrenaline and they're.

• 19:59Derren Brown?

  Yeah, but they'll, they'll go back and they're gonna be as they were, which is, which is where those healers, where it starts to get nasty. Because then they're saying, if you, if this healing doesn't last, it's, you know, it's your fault, you didn't have enough faith, and so on. So that's where it gets nasty, so I. I'm being open and saying, look, you're gonna go back, it's probably gonna be the same. Don't throw those pills away, regardless of what I said earlier on, but.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  Some people it works for.

• 20:20Derren Brown?

  It so it continued to work.

• 20:21Lewis Howes?

  Well, here's the thing, you know, my, my girlfriend, Jen, she's a doctor of physical therapy and she, she works on people who are in chronic pain, right, who are broke, who pulled muscles, who like have bad neck pain, you know, back pain, knee pain, all these things, joints. And she'll get them on her table and literally have them start changing the story around. It's an emotional thing that they're holding on to, they're just really tight.

• 20:45Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Lewis Howes?

  And when you get people to relax, they can usually move better.

• 20:48Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Lewis Howes?

  And the pain goes away. And so the way you were doing it, I was just watching, I was like, wow, you're just getting people to really relax. You have them take deep breaths, you have them like, I think, close their eyes at one point.

• 20:57Derren Brown?

  There was a kind of, yeah, there was a visualization there. But it wasn't really even relaxed, it wasn't like a, cause you can't stand on stage and have people just relax for twenty minutes. You know, it was, it was, it was, it was just amazing, it was just like, it was, it was, it was crazy. And, and, and then I started to think, well, maybe I could, um, maybe I could like, present this as a, as a thing. Cause you could pack out stadia if you said, this is a secular healing show, you know, I'm not making any claims. But that's what that is when you start to get mad, cause we never advertise it as a healing show, because then of course.

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  But you heal people there, or people are feeling better.

• 21:31Derren Brown?

  Yeah, but you don't want people coming to the show wanting healing, cause then you're, you're into a kind of a dark area, so anyway, yeah.

• 21:36Lewis Howes?

  What you do, what you're doing cooler is you start to guess where people's, or not guess, I shouldn't say that, but you start to call out where people's pain is.

• 21:43Derren Brown?

  Where people's pain is and.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  And you're just, by looking at them, it's like your left knee, and they're like, what? It's like, yeah, my left knee can't, you know, whatever.

• 21:49Derren Brown?

  And that isn't someone going, ugh, which is a little obvious, but yeah.

• 21:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly, but it's amazing.

• 21:52Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, but again, I'm using, I'm using the techniques that the healers, that the healers use.

• 21:56Lewis Howes?

  Really, what are, what are those, are you allowed to share or?

• 21:58Derren Brown?

  I always find if I, if I say, oh, this is how, this is how they do it. People then go, oh, okay, well, that wasn't how the healer, I saw, oh, the psych, you know, I do a lot of stuff debunking, like psychics and mediums. And I never say exactly how I'm doing it, cause then people go, all right, well, that's not how my guy did it.

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Got it, yeah.

• 22:14Derren Brown?

  But, you know, I've, I've sat in those, um.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  You've studied a lot of them, right?

• 22:18Derren Brown?

  You know that, well, yeah, and like, talking a bit about some of the methods which are kind of unpleasant, but you know those like, the studio audience type of psychic, like the TV psychic, the medium that comes out and there's a big audience. I sat in that audience, I won't say who it was, but he was certainly a big name a little while ago and, uh. He came out and you have an audience of believers, of course, right? And he comes out and he's saying, so is there anybody here who's hoping that someone's gonna come through? So like, you know, fifty hands go up. And so, well, tell me and I'll let you know if they come through. So who are you hoping will come through? And people start to just tell him everything he wants to know. And is there anything that I can look for that would be absolute proof that no one could possibly know? And they tell him all these things. Yeah, it was my son and he died and this and it's just heartbreaking.

• 23:01Derren Brown?

  And then they start taping and of course, you know, he comes out and says all those things.

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 23:05Derren Brown?

  And it's horrible sitting there and you kind of think, there's not even, like, if you're a magician working, I have to work so much harder because you've got to prove you're not cheating, in inverted commas, prove. You know, you've got to like show there's nothing up your sleeve and then still do it.

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  He's asking questions before, yeah.

• 23:20Derren Brown?

  Yeah, when you've got an audience of believers, it's different. But it's because the lie is so bad, I think, I think that's why people don't believe it. You'd rather believe that that was really happening than that.

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  Do you believe there are mediums that, or individuals like that, who can connect on a different way? Or is it?

• 23:36Derren Brown?

  No, I think, I don't, I think because it's, it has been tested, it's been looked at again and again. It never holds up, never once in the history of that business, which is like maybe the second oldest industry in the world. It's never, it's never holds up. And, and our capacity for, I, I, I did this one, in one of the stage shows I did, I had people up on stage and I did, I did mediumship, right? But I'm debunking it as I'm doing it. So I'm saying, I've got your grandmother here, her name's Alice, is that right? They're like, yeah.

• 24:06Lewis Howes?

  How do you know the name?

• 24:07Derren Brown?

  And she's saying, that's, that's my secret. And she's saying, and she's not saying anything, I'm lying to you, you understand this? But she's saying she had a little dog called Jasper, is that correct? Yep, and she's, I'm making this up, she, and I'm, so I'm debunking it as I'm doing it. I'm saying I am lying to you.

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  And you're making it up or you had other?

• 24:24Derren Brown?

  I'm not making, well, I'm telling them correct information, but at the same time, I'm saying. I am lying.

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 24:31Derren Brown?

  So it's a kind of an interesting, I felt theatrically kind of an interesting sort of weird play. Anyway, so after the show, there was a girl at stage door who said to me, could you put me in touch with my grandmother? And I said, well, I hope it was clear from the show that I can't really do it. I'm kind of debunking it. She went, oh, no, no, I know it's fake and everything, but would you be able to put me in touch with my grandmother? And it was just a really interesting moment of our capacity for that kind of dissonance to like, hold those twin ideas in your head that are completely conflicting is extraordinary. So our capacity to essentially kind of fool ourselves, I think is so.

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  To wanna believe, to wanna believe that this person can or that this person's connecting to someone somehow.

• 25:14Derren Brown?

  Yeah, exactly. And I think there's a lot of that you've got to get through before you reach the possibility of anyone doing it for real.

• 25:20Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is your greatest superpower? Cause I think you can do a lot of things extremely well and I feel like you're a master, you're a student of life and understanding people and you've been doing this for a long time. But what do you think is your greatest skill set?

• 25:36Derren Brown?

  You're very kind. I'm happy if my breath smells okay in the afternoon.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  You have a weak handshake, I understand.

• 25:43Derren Brown?

  If I have a toolkit, like a magician has got his deck of cards or whatever. I think my toolkit is people's stories that they tell themselves. I think that's what interests me.

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  Can you give an example?

• 25:56Derren Brown?

  So like even just like a magic trick, right? You are, when you watch, you might watch a card trick and you go, you know,

• 26:04Derren Brown?

  he had me pick a card and then he put the card back in the deck and it disappeared. And then it was in my, it was in my pocket. That's impossible. Now that, that is a story you're telling yourself and you're going from point A to point B to point C. But of course, there's like also eight point one, eight point two, you know, but you, what the magician's doing is just encouraging you to edit the story in such a way that normally all the sleight of hand happens right in front of you, but. You don't pay attention because it doesn't seem important. And then the bits that do seem important are the bits that later are going to join up to form a story, right? And they're a little, like, when I used to do a lot of this kind of magic. And like a thing I'd always say is, so let's say you've got like a deck of cards at the beginning that is in a special order, so you can't shuffle them. But there's a point halfway through the trick where they can shuffle them.

• 26:48Derren Brown?

  I would normally say at that point, okay, look, shuffle the cards again, but this time do it under the table. Right? So they follow that instruction, but it sounds like they've shuffled the cards before to them. Does that make sense?

• 26:58Lewis Howes?

  Shuffle the cards again.

• 26:59Derren Brown?

  Because I say shuffle the cards again, but this time do it under the table. Now, they haven't shuffled the cards before because they were in a special order. But then later, when they're reconstructing the trick in their head, let alone when they're then telling someone else about the trick.

• 27:10Lewis Howes?

  Shuffle the card a bunch of times.

• 27:11Derren Brown?

  Yeah, I shoveled it at the beginning, you know, and it's like a false memory that you start to implant. So, so, yeah, you're just working with stories. And so what I do, because the sort of magic I do isn't very like propy. It's kind of like more based around suggestion. So it really is, there's also conjuring in it as well. I mean, I'm using magic techniques too, but largely, like, the bit that interests me and the real ones of it is just, yeah, is people's ongoing perception.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  I hope you're enjoying this interview with Darren Brown. I'm fascinated with everything he's said and everything he is about to say. But I wanted to take a quick moment to talk about my Greatness Mastermind. Now, if you are an influencer, a content creator, or you have a business that is generating seven figures or eight figures, then make sure to check out greatnessmastermind.com. This is a highly curated group of passionate individuals looking to make a massive impact in the world while also looking to double, triple, and 10x their income year by year. Every single time we come together as a group, we bring in celebrities and business icons

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  to teach masterclasses. The members of the group collaborate to help generate more networking opportunities and more opportunities for business growth. And we teach you the leading strategies about. Scaling your business, building a massive following and generating more sales. So if you're interested to being a part of a community, highly curated group of passionate leaders from all over the world, then check out greatnessmastermind.com right now and only apply after you read the entire page. And if you feel like it's the right fit for you, again, check it out at greatnessmastermind.com. And now let's get back into the interview with Darren Brown.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  When you meet people, what goes through your mind first? Not trying to ask you like about me, but just in general, like what goes through your mind when you see someone? Are you always thinking of like, I wonder if there's a way I could tell them a different story to like create an aha moment? Or I'm just curious about this individual or are you just kind of not thinking anything?

• 29:29Derren Brown?

  No, do you know what? The work that I do is like, is very sort of controlling. Like I seem to be able to control people's minds or control people's actions, whatever. I actually think that's a terrible way of living. I'm a big believer in the stoic idea that you're, there's like all the things you can control and then the things you can't control. If you try to start controlling things that you can't, you're just going to get frustrated and angry and anxious, right? But the only things you can control are your thoughts and your actions, and that is it. That is it. So you have this choice, you try and control all this other stuff, or you could just decide that it's fine, that everything else is fine. And the thing is, it always is, it always is.

• 30:11Derren Brown?

  And if you let that thought of, so like, you know, your partner is driving you mad because essentially they handle stress badly and they're putting it all on your head or whatever, whatever that is. And you're in charge of how much you maybe do try and help them or how much, how much, how kindly you can meet them. But essentially if they handle stress badly and they're having a bad time, you can emotionally separate a little and go, that's okay, it's okay. And in that sort of clarity that comes with that, then you can actually be like a better partner and be a better help. As opposed to making it all about you and turning it into a huge big thing that you don't need to do. So there's like, there are gray areas, but essentially, it's like, I'm sure sport is the same.

• 30:54Derren Brown?

  Like, so you, if you're going to, I don't know, tennis, you're going to a game of tennis. If you try and control the thing you can't control, which is the outcome. So if you go in thinking, I must win, I must win this game. Then what happens, you start to lose, you become anxious, you don't play as well. Whereas you can go in thinking, I will play as best as I possibly can, the best of my abilities.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  And I'm not gonna react and be negative and I'm gonna.

• 31:18Derren Brown?

  Yeah, well, it's just, it's just a different story. You're in, you're in your thought, you're on this side of the line. And of course, you play better, you do actually play better, so the results tend to be better. But you're just, you're just trying to keep it on the right side of the line. So there are kind of, you know, like matters of social injustice that you think, well, that's not fine, that needs changing. Well, fine, but then just emotionally commit yourself to doing your absolute utmost to change that thing. Not to an outcome that may, that this may not be the time, that may be like, gonna be years after you've done your efforts, that that's gonna change. But you'll do a better job, cause you'll be less bitter, you'll be less frustrated, you know. So what I'm saying is, in life, I'm like, you know, the least controlling person.

• 31:58Derren Brown?

  Actually, what you, what I think is more important is to have an easy relationship with fate, fortune. You know, the Greeks used to, they really believed in this thing called fortune that. Imagine a graph, right, and I, I love this image, and it comes up, I wrote a book on, on happiness, and this, I just found this a recurring image. From the ancient Greeks onwards, so imagine you've got like an X, like a X, your X axis and your Y axis, right? And a, is it that way or is it that way, I can never remember, but so along one axis, you've got, say the Y axis is your aims. The things you wanna do, the things you wanna achieve, right? So that's like that axis. This axis down here is just stuff, it's fortune, it's stuff that life throws back at you, it's stuff you can't control.

• 32:40Derren Brown?

  What we are told again and again and again is, if you believe in yourself enough, and if you set your goals clearly enough. You can sort of, the life you lead, this line will be kind of up here somewhere, really in line with what your goals are. And I mean, that can work sometimes, and that's great when it does. But what you're not then respecting is this, the stuff that just happens that you don't have under your control. So what happens is like when people, we call people losers now, right? Like they've lost, we used to call them unfortunate. So it's a slightly more sympathetic approach to when things don't go right in people's lives. So what I think is important is that actually what we live is an X equals Y line, right?

• 33:21Derren Brown?

  We, we try and do certain things and we try and pull the line a bit up here and then life pulls back a little bit. And you can either let that drive you mad, or you can just let that settle in as a kind of.

• 33:33Derren Brown?

  That's what life is, right? That's what life is, which is whether you make your peace with that or not. Are you like a dog that's pulling at the lead and sort of like this all the time? Or are you kind of trotting along a bit more harmoniously with it? So this, I, I think this is, I think a, a really, a really big thing. And that same idea comes up, do you know Michael, she said me hi, who wrote Flow?

• 33:51Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 33:52Derren Brown?

  He studied like, yeah, athletes, musicians, chess players, anyone that had like a zen state, like a state of flow where they felt this is the best version of me and I'm achieving the most. And what he saw was that they're in this X equals Y line. Imagine like you've got your skills on this side, you've got the challenges you're facing on this side. When your skills roughly match your challenges, you settle into this flow state, right? You lose any sense of like time and those things, regardless of what the skill is, like a lot of people.

• 34:23Lewis Howes?

  Anxiety, anything you're like.

• 34:24Derren Brown?

  All that just got, yeah, you're just in the zone, you're in the zone, right? If your skills are greater than the challenges, you kind of get bored. If the challenges are greater than your skills, you get anxious, but there is this X equals Y line. Schopenhauer, like great eighteenth, nineteenth century German philosopher said, you know, if you, I guess it's so relevant today when we're just told believe in yourself and set your goals. Like, so if you're playing a game of chess. You start out with a plan. But if you just stick to that plan all your life, if you stick to that plan for the game, it's nonsense. Because like someone else is playing, so you have to adjust, right? So again, you've kind of got this idea of moving harm. Freud, Freud who started psychoanalysis, he wasn't trying to make people happy. He figured life is pretty much unhappy a lot of the time.

• 35:07Lewis Howes?

  Suffering, yeah.

• 35:07Derren Brown?

  Yeah, so he said, I want to restore what he called natural unhappiness. As opposed to unnatural unhappiness that people have.

• 35:14Lewis Howes?

  Natural unhappiness.

• 35:15Derren Brown?

  Just natural unhappiness, he called it. And none of this sounds kind of...

• 35:18Lewis Howes?

  It's like being in the UK, yeah.

• 35:19Derren Brown?

  Like, yes, like living with our weather in the UK and our teeth. You know, and it doesn't sound kind of like, you don't sell a lot of books with those kind of, it's a sort of pessimism. It's like a strategic pessimism, it's been called, you know. But I think actually it's, a little bit of that is valuable. Because otherwise, it's like the faith healer that says, if you don't continue to feel better, it's your fault. You've let yourself down because you didn't have enough faith. And if you swap out faith for self-belief, like, I don't know if you're a fan of like, you know, The Secret, but it's the same model.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:47Derren Brown?

  And it says quite explicitly, if these things don't come to you.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  It's your fault.

• 35:51Derren Brown?

  It's your fault. It is your fault because you let go of that self-belief. And it's a recipe, I think, for anxiety and disaster.

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  Do you face a lot of anxiety in your life?

• 36:00Derren Brown?

  I don't. No, I don't particularly. I have the opposite problem that I'm, I'm...

• 36:04Lewis Howes?

  You're too relaxed.

• 36:05Derren Brown?

  I'm so good at avoiding anxiety.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  How do you avoid it?

• 36:09Derren Brown?

  I just have this natural constitution that I just avoid stress. But then I don't, the difficulty is getting stuff done then, isn't it? Like, anxiety is really important.

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  Because you need a little pressure to complete things.

• 36:18Derren Brown?

  Yeah, that's our signal that something needs changing in life, right?

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  You have a deadline, and so I've got to do this thing, or yeah, something's not working, I've got to change.

• 36:25Derren Brown?

  How do you change, you don't change your job. You don't know it's wrong unless you start to, you know, hate your job. You don't cross the road on your own without letting go of your mother's hand first, right? Something has to die in order for something new to, to live, right? And I'm forty-seven, so as you get kind of into the middle bit of life, you start to notice... You're kind of like, your ego has to now just settle down and you actually putting yourself in service of something that's bigger than you, like whether it's, you know, your kids or a, or a passion or whatever it is, those things start to become important, like, you know, things have to sort of, you have to let go of some things to, you know, to, to move on, to, to move into, you know, growth, but you don't grow unless you embrace some level of anxiety, it's, it's tough, so I find that difficult, because like, I'm, I'm

• 37:10Derren Brown?

  too the opposite, and I, I need to embrace a bit more anxiety probably in life.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like, did you used to have a bigger ego at one point? Have you like, started to kill the ego off for yourself?

• 37:19Derren Brown?

  Oh, I was, you know, I was a magician, it's just awful, it's embarrassing, you know.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  Trying to please people or trying to like?

• 37:24Derren Brown?

  Oh, trying to impress, it's just terrible, because it is, the bottom line of magic is, is look at me, aren't I impressive, that's it, that's all it has to say, it is the quickest, most fraudulent route to impressing people, and there's some wonderful magicians, and I, you know, I love great magic, of course, but there's a lot of grown up lonely children in that world, because you, you learn to show somebody something that is a cheat, you know, it might be actually really easy, and they go, you're amazing, you're amazing, and that's quite an addictive cycle, so I think I've, I've hopefully let go of some of that, but I know I was, I was, I was unbearable, like, I couldn't.

• 37:58Lewis Howes?

  Why did you?

• 37:59Derren Brown?

  Have a conversation without doing tricks.

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:01Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  Because you just wanted to, because you wanted that, it was like a drug, it just felt like, it always felt good, it was that hit?

• 38:06Derren Brown?

  Yeah, and like, we don't like people that are trying to be impressive, and that was like, such an obvious truth, that I just hadn't quite realized, we like people that are kind, and we like people that are, are nice to be around.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  Good listeners, and yeah.

• 38:17Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  And always trying to get all the attention or whatever, right?

• 38:20Derren Brown?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:22Derren Brown?

  And interestingly, we don't like people that necessarily like us, because we always try and be like people, we try and be like people we admire, to get them to like us, so we, we instinctively try and, you know, be like them, and actually, it's not really what we necessarily are drawn to in people, I don't think.

• 38:36Lewis Howes?

  Why were you so into magic or learning about this stuff in the first place? I remember hearing a little bit about.

• 38:44Derren Brown?

  I was a really insecure like kid who needed to impress and feel solid. I saw a hypnotist in my first year at university and I kind of, so I was studying law, right? I was supposed to be a lawyer and it this, I saw this guy and it just ticked all these boxes. It was performance. I'd never really thought of myself as performing, but I think that I needed that. And the control side of it was like, it was, it was a great show. It wasn't making people look stupid or anything, but it was, it was nonetheless, I kind of, a bit of me was like, all those, the kids that I found like intimidating at school, those kind of sporty, sporty guys.

• 39:23Lewis Howes?

  Guys that looked at me, big guys.

• 39:26Derren Brown?

  Yeah, they're now like the, they're the ones that tend to respond really well to this kind of stuff. So now I'm in control, you know, it was all that kind of stuff. It was, it was um, and hopefully, you know, hopefully I've grown out of some of that at least.

• 39:36Lewis Howes?

  That's why you got into it in the first place from insecurities and it was like.

• 39:40Derren Brown?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 39:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow. When did you realize that you had like a gift for this? Were you just all of a sudden funny and interesting and a great storyteller in the first like few months? Or did you bomb a lot and get embarrassed even more and?

• 39:52Derren Brown?

  It isn't a gift, I don't think. I think it's, it's like if you have that insecure thing or whatever that makes you, start playing the piano, right? Like probably not everyone's gonna play the piano, but anybody in good in, in theory, you just got to put in thousands of hours, the ten thousand, whatever, whatever the figure is today, um, uh, but not everyone's gonna do that. So, yeah, it clicked for me and it, um, but that, it was a slow process. I remember one weird seminal moment and I was the guy at university that would hypnotize you, right? That was my thing. So I would, people would come over and I, I was learning hypnosis, so I'd sort of, you know, practice it on people.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  Repricing every day, just all the time?

• 40:26Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, all the time, all the time. So, and I would leave, like if they were good, if they responded well, I'd leave them with this suggestion. If you come back and I click my fingers and tell you to go to sleep, you'll go straight back into the sleep state, right? And, and if people are highly suggestible, that will, that will work with them. So, and it just would, you know, speed up the process the second time. And this guy came one week and I thought I'd seen him before. So I sat down, I said, click, I click my fingers, go to sleep. And he went, he went out.

• 40:55Lewis Howes?

  He went to sleep.

• 40:55Derren Brown?

  He went, he went to sleep. Well, it's not sleep, but he went into this kind of relaxed state and we, but essentially went into a trance. That's what it, look, you did the, you know, he slumped out. And we did whatever we were doing. I can't remember what it was. Maybe, you know, he wanted to give up smoking or something like that. And then.

• 41:11Derren Brown?

  It was only afterwards when we were talking about it and I realised I hadn't met this guy before. So, well, how did he? Because it's like, I don't have magic fingers or something, nothing I'm doing. And I just realised it was just my, my kind of commitment to that. I did my confidence, my belief that he was gonna respond, just. And the fact he was very suggestible was just like a fortuitous coincidence. And that was, that was a moment of going, right, the key to this is not these like long scripts that I've been learning. And it's not really the technique as such, it's just something about that person's ongoing experience in the moment, which I'm kind of. It's up to me to manage that and if, if, um. So now on stage, I get people up and I shake hands with them and they collapse out on the floor.

• 41:54Derren Brown?

  Hypnotised, inverted, whatever that means, you know, there's a whole other discussion as to what it is, but. I know that that moment of stepping up on stage is bewildering and then suddenly an audience.

• 42:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, and there's lights and they're like, and they just boom.

• 42:05Derren Brown?

  Or desperate for direction, desperate for clear instruction, which is like a gift if you're hypnotist, because then you know that whatever you say will just unconsciously, you know.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So I, someone tried to hypnotise me once and I was like, I wanna be hypnoti-, I was like.

• 42:19Derren Brown?

  You were too enthusiastic.

• 42:20Lewis Howes?

  Well, I was like, first off, I was like, I never wanna be hypnotised. And I'm watching, things like that. This was back in the day. And then I met a guy who was like hypnotist. He was like, you know, well, I'd love to like show you and guide you if you want. I was like, alright, I'll try it. I'm open to it, like. I just don't know if it's gonna work. And he's like, well, you need to come into the space that it is going to work. You know, that's what he said to me. He was like, I want you to.

• 42:42Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  You know, you wanted to be this, this is something you want, like, we're gonna work on whatever. And he did the whole like arm pull thing or whatever and it just wasn't working. Like, and I was trying to.

• 42:52Derren Brown?

  Pulling your arm?

• 42:53Lewis Howes?

  It was just like a quick like, you know.

• 42:55Derren Brown?

  Oh, that's like a stage setting, how are you?

• 42:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it was just like a little, you know, I don't know, like a little pull where you.

• 42:58Derren Brown?

  Be careful, that was really.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, sorry, I screwed you up. Don't break the hand, yeah. But at the same point, I was like, okay, I'll just like try to like go along with it and, and really just try to more relax in like the process and just try to like. Be relaxing, breathe and relax. He took me through like a pro, like a visualization of like becoming your, your greatest self. He actually put me through an actually nice process because I love the power of visualization. I've been doing it as an athlete since as long as I can remember. And I believe in the suggestion, the story we tell ourselves. The projection, I would say, this is how I'm going to show up tomorrow at the game. And I'd walk myself through every move, every play, every whatever it may be and see myself performing well. And I'd also be putting years of hard work to back it. So it wasn't just like, I'm going to do great with no work.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  But we affirming that belief. And so he put me through a nice little kind of guided visualization, meditation, whatever we'll call it. And he was like, I want you to imagine the greatest version of yourself standing right in front of you. And in that moment, I'd actually never heard the way he told it before. And then I was like, wow, I could see myself like with a hundred percent confidence, calm, poised, like the best looking version of myself, whatever, just like standing perfectly, not slouched, just every part of me, the best version. And I was like, wow, I can push myself to be a greater person by seeing it first and then taking the action steps to becoming that.

• 44:20Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  So I was like, that was a nice little.

• 44:22Derren Brown?

  As long as you build in, build in this kind of sub clause that because like people can set these kind of goals that last forever. Joseph Campbell, I'm sure you know, big writer on myths said, you know, you can spend your life climbing a ladder and then realize you had the ladder against the wrong wall. You know, there's like, so there's, it's, I mean, it's wonderful.

• 44:41Lewis Howes?

  Why are we climbing the ladder, right? Why are we climbing this or?

• 44:45Derren Brown?

  Yeah, we, well, we, yeah, we spend a lot of time focusing on stuff like this. We have this image of this version of ourselves that we're moving towards. And it's always out there somewhere and it's kind of like all those things that, well, that look, it's helpful. Like if you're going to have a self-image, of course, why not have a great self-image? Because we tend to make terrible ones, but it's just an image, it's just a picture in the head. It might as well be a good one.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:05Derren Brown?

  But in the meantime, there's also like the here and now, and there's like making your, yeah, your relationship to the, to the parts of you that aren't right is, or don't feel right. And making peace with that and understanding that in a different way. Like, you know, if you're in a relationship. And I heard this, but as a philosopher in England called Alain de Botton, I really love this. He said, if you go to sleep, if you go to bed twice a week with your partner and you're thinking, what am I doing with this person? This is terrible. That's normal. Right? That is like a normal thing to start with. And that's, to me, is much healthier. That kind of thinking is healthier than, I'm gonna have the perfect relationship and I can visualize that perfect and I'm gonna make it happen.

• 45:49Derren Brown?

  Because sometimes that's great, but sometimes it just sets you up for a kind of, why have, you know, an impossible standard? So there's a balance, right? There's a, I think there's a sub clause that goes, if, if everything turns out brilliantly, then yes.

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:02Derren Brown?

  But if it doesn't, then that has, that has to be okay. There has to be a situation that's comfortable and also exciting. Why not also be happy with things as they are? Yeah, exactly. It's, it's an important bit that gets missed.

• 46:16Lewis Howes?

  Appreciating and being gratitude and all those things. Do you have any regrets of all the work you've done? Or just anything in your life where you regret? Maybe something you did or something you didn't do or something you wish you've done? And I have no clue what you're gonna say here, but I'm just curious. Do you have regrets from, whether your personal life, your career life?

• 46:38Derren Brown?

  Well, I, I, um, it's difficult. I always think of like, um, a friend said this, which I thought was great. You know, Richard Wiseman, if you come across his work, is a kind of popular psychologist, is great. He's like, you know, he's like trying to pull out a, it's like a big jar with loads of different colored threads. You know, you're just, so you try and pull one out. But of course, it just all comes out together. So how you, how you go back and like, remove one thread from your life. I'm gay, but I didn't, I didn't come out till I was like thirty. So that's like, that's kind of late.

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  Seventeen years ago, right?

• 47:06Derren Brown?

  Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that's like, I do kind of think, that's normally where my mind goes. Do you regret anything? Cause that was like a really long time. But I don't think I'd have put half the energy into sort of doing the stuff that I do if I didn't.

• 47:23Derren Brown?

  If I wasn't A, desperately trying to avoid any conversations about sex and just like basic human conversations, so that you tend to get very good at like deflecting attention with, you know, dazzling amazing things, right? That's like a good strategy if you're trying to avoid that kind of subject. So, you know, weirdly that kind of helped and so I don't know.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  So you can justify these things as well, you're like, well, I wish I would have came out earlier, but at the same time.

• 47:49Derren Brown?

  Yeah, and you know what it really, what it really did, and I think we're gay or straight or whatever, there we, we often have things about ourselves that would be good to come out about, right? Stuff that we just carry a lot of shame around about, I could never tell people. And what's fascinating and why the coming out thing, regardless of what it's about, not necessarily about sex, about just anything, if it's something to come out about, and this is what I found, it's liberating, not because you get to go, oh, I'm gay or I'm whatever, is that you realize no one gives a, no one cares.

• 48:20Lewis Howes?

  Maybe in two or three people or something.

• 48:22Derren Brown?

  Yeah, but they don't, yeah, but.

• 48:24Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 48:25Derren Brown?

  We would, the, the, what really settled into my head was this idea that we'd worry a lot less about what other people think of us if we realize how seldom they do. They really don't really get, so once you've done that with your big thing that you've carried all this shame around for, then you realize, oh, everything's fine.

• 48:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:42Derren Brown?

  So because of that, I, other than, I was probably a bit of a dick for a long time while I was like struggling with all that stuff, but that's I kind of, you know, you've got to forgive yourself that.

• 48:50Lewis Howes?

  Can't repeat with it, yeah.

• 48:51Derren Brown?

  Yeah, so I don't, I don't know, I don't have any regrets, it's actually kind of, it's fine, I'd like to be, you know, I kind of, I'd like to be a better partner and a better person, but those are things that I think are, you know, good to engage with in the present.

• 49:06Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything you're struggling with right now? Is it like, or what is the biggest challenge for you? Cause you don't have anxiety.

• 49:12Derren Brown?

  Oh, no, hey, look, I have anxiety, I'm, don't think, I just mean my, I get so good at natural.

• 49:18Lewis Howes?

  Avoiding it.

• 49:19Derren Brown?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I don't have anxiety like some people have anxiety, but there are different patterns, aren't there? So you've got classically anxiety pattern and avoidance pattern, so like if there's a stressor, if there's a challenge, if there's something in your life that comes up that's stressy, do you? Run towards it like a magnet and try and fix it, like some people do, is what my partner does is like. Absolutely like, and makes it worse, I think.

• 49:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:41Derren Brown?

  Um, but are you drawn to, are you drawn to stress?

• 49:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:44Derren Brown?

  Or do you just naturally avoid it? I'm very good at avoiding it, but that isn't, both sides have their ups and downs, right? Then it kind of, it's kind of nice, we work well with each other because we, he makes me a little more engaged in things and I, you know, help him calm down a bit about other stuff.

• 50:00Derren Brown?

  What I find interesting at the moment is the tension between

• 50:07Derren Brown?

  the urge, it was kind of like what you were saying about the, do you know Nietzsche, he kind of had this line of become who you are, that was his, that was his drive, right? So there's, there's that one idea of, that there is a, a version of you that's out there somewhere that you want to clear everyone out of the way so you can just focus on that. And I think as you know, if you get married or you have kids and stuff, that, that kind of tension, that sense of like, eh eh eh, can be very strong. And then there's the other completely conflicting impulse, which is, well, maybe the best version of myself, rather than being out there somewhere, which I'm never going to reach, right? Is actually.

• 50:41Lewis Howes?

  Right here.

• 50:41Derren Brown?

  Yeah, maybe the self is something that extends and is sort of active and fluid and extends out into the relationships and that you're in now, but you know, both are important. What's, what's hard is, and I think this, you know, is just generally in, you know, in life is, is hard is, is

• 50:58Derren Brown?

  conflicts, ambivalence is important and again, real, it's part of life that things conflict and things are ambiguous and things, you know, messy and, and that that's okay. And actually it's okay to let completely conflicting, opposing ideas settle. I, I feel, look, it was, I mean, politically, you know, we're, we're so like this now that we each think the other side is just mad and evil. And we've kind of forgotten that, which is kind of what sacrifice is about.

• 51:25Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, yeah.

• 51:26Derren Brown?

  We've forgotten that actually the dialogue between the sides. Forgetting the personalities involved, but the dialogue between the sides is actually where you find humanity and where truth is ultimately going to be found, right? You've got two very different narratives about, you know, the conservative urge is essentially about protecting the group, right? It's about holding things together. Hierarch is holding that together, but it can happen at the expense of the weaker individuals. And then the left-wing narrative is about protecting the weaker individuals.

• 51:56Lewis Howes?

  And tearing down.

• 51:58Derren Brown?

  Yeah, and letting, if that can happen at the expense of the overall structure, that's, you know, that's fine. So sometimes we do have to think as a group, sometimes we have to think as individuals. We've evolved like along both lines and both sides ultimately are gonna, are gonna be important. So dialogue is important and likewise in life, things are messy and they're complex and they're ambiguous and there is a, growing up is tolerating ambiguity, I think.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  That's true. What is your greatest fear?

• 52:27Derren Brown?

  You're gonna forget about my hand and give me a really hearty handshake at the end of this. I don't like spiders. I don't, greatest fear, I don't know. I think, I think kind of, you know, getting it all wrong. I hate the idea of like letting, letting my partner down. You know, just sort of letting things and people down, letting myself down. I kind of, I really think about these things and try and get them right and I try and communicate them through the work that I do and, and you can only ever be good enough, right? Again, it's not about ever being perfect.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  You can give your best, yeah.

• 53:05Derren Brown?

  Yeah, you can.

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  You can't control how people respond or react.

• 53:07Derren Brown?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  To the way you show up, right?

• 53:09Derren Brown?

  Yeah, so it's not a kind of anxiety fear, but in terms of the things that I think about that part of me, as I said, wants like everyone clear out the way and I just wanna pursue these things, but then what am I gonna be? I think I, I think I'd become this great fascinating version of myself. I'd probably just become some weird old man, you know? We cross state, don't we? We develop like a sort of a hard shell when we're on our own for too long. And what relationships do is they make you more conscious of all the things that are just mad about you. Because otherwise you're unconscious of them. And it's the things you're unconscious of that will own you. And will come back and bite you. So, relationships are so important. Because I'm naturally kind of a bit of a loner. It's like, I'm really aware at the moment of that tension.

• 53:51Derren Brown?

  That, for me, in the kind of middle bit of life, that's kind of, that's what I find really interesting at the moment.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  Since you are, you do like to be alone, it sounds like, and be kind of in your art and your crafts and your photography, like, isolated in some sense of the word. But I'm hearing you say that you, when you are around people, your partner, you don't want to let those people down. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

• 54:10Derren Brown?

  Yeah, because that's a potential for sort of.

• 54:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:12Derren Brown?

  Not only letting other people down, but just becoming this intolerable, horrible version of myself as well. So, it's that, it's just trying to get that stuff, you know, trying to get that stuff right. Are you, like, how old are you?

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  Thirty-five.

• 54:23Derren Brown?

  Thirty-five, okay, so you've probably got a while before those sort of things start to become, uh, start to become pressing.

• 54:29Lewis Howes?

  Well, I think, uh, I've been talking a lot about this in, just in my work, that, and through all the people that I've interviewed over the years of different backgrounds and stuff, there's really three main fears that I've found that most of us have.

• 54:41Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 54:42Lewis Howes?

  Uh, the fear of failure.

• 54:44Derren Brown?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:45Lewis Howes?

  We don't go after something, or pursue something, or speak, or do music, or whatever it may be, because we don't want to fail. That fear of like, oh, I'm a failure, I'm a loser, right? The fear of success, where then we're leaving our pack, our community, because if we're succeeding and they're not coming with us, then I'm alone, and they're not going to accept me, or the pressure that I have to perform again, have to repeat the success, right? You might have felt that when you had this hit show, and it's like, it's gotta be better, it's gotta be better, right? And then the third one.

• 55:18Derren Brown?

  Spiders.

• 55:18Lewis Howes?

  Spiders, yes, spiders and snakes in the heights. Uh, the fear of judgment.

• 55:23Derren Brown?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Of, either way, making sure that people like us, fear of like, well, either one, if I succeed or fail, are people going to like me? And for me, the judgment is always, was always the fear. Until I addressed it about five years ago. Because as an athlete, I was taught that you had to fail to succeed. And I was the youngest of four. I was the, the, I was this tall when I was like 11 and just like goofy and gangly. I wasn't like this stud athlete or whatever. I was the one that everyone made fun of. I had a, you know, I was in special needs classes. So it was hard for me to read and write all through college. Almost flunked English in high school, all those things. So I had a lot of insecurities about the perception people had about me.

• 56:07Lewis Howes?

  Like my image, my ego, like what do they think about me? What do they say about me? Am I, am I saying the right things? Like I always thought was off. So that judgment was what drove me to be a great athlete, to succeed, to achieve, to perform well and to win at everything. So it was like accomplishment driven. And I realized that failure wasn't a fear for me because coaches taught me, you've got to practice. You're going to miss shots. That's how you learn. So I was like, all right, I'm going to fail every day and it's okay. That's the foundation for achievement. And that's all I wanted was the success. But it was like, did I slip? Did I look silly? Did it, you know, the fear of like what people think about me?

• 56:44Derren Brown?

  Yeah. You're still living that out, that same fear of judgment. You're still living it out, but you've turned it to something.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  I'm aware of it. Very aware of it. I, well, I started to accept it. And five years ago, I opened up about being sexually abused as a kid and I've talked about it many times on this show. And, you know, wrote a book about all that stuff. And it wasn't until I fully opened up about all my fears and insecurities about that and many other things. It wasn't until I like opened up about it and my fear was like, everyone's going to judge me. Everyone's going to, no one's going to love me. No one's going to accept me. Like they're just going to make fun of me even more.

• 57:18Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Lewis Howes?

  And I had everything to lose, right? I had a successful business and career and everything. But I was like, no one can know about this stuff. Like no one can know that you're gay, whatever. Maybe that was a feeling. I don't know.

• 57:30Derren Brown?

  Yeah, totally.

• 57:31Lewis Howes?

  And for me, it was like the most shameful thing that I held on to for 25 years or until I was 30. And when it happened, I was like, man, this weight, like, no one, no one cares.

• 57:40Derren Brown?

  No one cares, yeah.

• 57:41Lewis Howes?

  And in fact, they cared more about me. At that moment, they were like, I respect you more. I trust you more. Cause I felt like something was, your ego was in the way.

• 57:51Derren Brown?

  And when people are like that, when people have that thing that like people when they're closeted, for example, whatever it is, there's always a bubble around them. Like, I knew I had it around me, and I have friends that have come out since. And there's just a bubble, and you just can't quite get to them because they're constantly affecting.

• 58:06Lewis Howes?

  Something missing, right? And that was, that was.

• 58:08Derren Brown?

  And you were probably doing the same, as was I, and then. So people only, people only go, ah, and they step in closer. It's only a good experience.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  And all of a sudden, everyone was telling me vulnerable things about them that I never knew. And I was like, wow, we can connect on a deeper level.

• 58:23Derren Brown?

  Yeah, it's a whole, it's amazing thing to kind of discover, isn't it? It's such a simple thing for everybody else, but it's amazing thing to discover.

• 58:29Lewis Howes?

  But once I kind of let go, listen, I still have an ego and like, you know, I wanna, you know, perform well and all these things, I wanna do a good job and, and do all that stuff. But it's like, I care so much less about the way I look. And the way people are judging me. Cause I'm like, they're gonna judge me whether I'm doing nothing or doing something. Either way, the people are gonna judge me. For a moment, and then they're gonna let go and judge someone else, like, whatever. And so I think I've come to the point where I've accepted myself. And, cause I used to not think I was enough. And that's why I was like constantly living in one of these fears.

• 59:02Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  So, and I think once we can start to just accept who we are, as opposed to saying, well, I'm not the perfect version of myself, like you were talking about, let me be where I'm at right now, and appreciate the moment.

• 59:12Derren Brown?

  And I, you know, I think the most we can hope for often is just being conscious of these things. There is, there is a, we can't always, it's, you know, it's not easy just to go, oh, great, and then change anything, but being conscious means that it earns you less. So like, from the, from the word go, we come into this world, and we are given powerful messages from our, you know, parents, our caregivers, our authority figures, kind of going. Here is the relationship between you and the world. You are small, the world is big. You have no power, the world has power. And we learn very quickly what that is. What are... It's a skewed vision. We have, you know, Jung talks about the greatest burden the child has to bear is the unlived life of its parents. How great is that? So that's like right on us from the word go.

• 59:53Lewis Howes?

  Putting the pressure, yeah, yeah.

• 59:55Derren Brown?

  But we are adapting creatures, right? The thing that makes us so great at evolution, because we adapt, really starts to kind of fuck us up a bit with this sort of life thing, because we adapt to that, we internalize it. And we go, okay, so I'll think of myself like this, and I'll think of the world like this. And we start to kind of live that out. We develop a template of what love means from our parents, which is entirely unrealistic, because we see all the nice stuff, like they presumably, hopefully, please God, give us the best side of themselves. But we don't see the arguments they have when they're, you know, we know what it's like now as adults, what the experience of parenting is like. We don't see them screaming and arguing and losing sleep.

• 1:00:34Lewis Howes?

  I saw that.

• 1:00:34Derren Brown?

  Maybe you did. But very often at least, so there's a idea of like this template of what love is that isn't really like realistic. And we start to bring that into our... That becomes our template for our adult relationships, because that's all we know, right? And then we're projecting all of that stuff onto our partners.

• 1:00:54Lewis Howes?

  And expecting certain things, yeah.

• 1:00:56Derren Brown?

  And we live out these same patterns. Everything comes back again and again, because we just... The stuff we're not conscious of is the stuff that rules us. And if we bury, you know, we bury one part of us, like if you're, you know, if you're the homophobic, I don't know, homophobic televangelist who, you know, preaches against all that and then gets, you know, caught in bed with some guy, and there's like a big skeleton, it'll come back and bite you if you bury these things, you know. So the most we can do, I think, is become conscious of how we adapt in these ways to skewed messages, skewed, you know, our compasses are all over the place. We internalize it, we think that's the truth, and then we go through life kind of looking for things that in a familiar way repeat that pattern.

• 1:01:40Derren Brown?

  So people can have the same problems with relationships again and again.

• 1:01:43Lewis Howes?

  Because that's what they know.

• 1:01:44Derren Brown?

  Because that's what they know.

• 1:01:44Lewis Howes?

  That's what they're supposed to be, is true. How do you think, no matter where we're at in our lives, how do we rewire and master our mind? How can we say?

• 1:01:55Derren Brown?

  You're asking me like I know. Bear in mind, the only reason why I have any language for this stuff.

• 1:01:58Lewis Howes?

  You've studied this stuff.

• 1:01:59Derren Brown?

  It doesn't come naturally. If it came naturally, if it was all second, I wouldn't have the language.

• 1:02:03Lewis Howes?

  That's why you're an expert, because you've studied this. And with all the experiments you've done and all the people you've worked with, just by observing people. How do you think? I feel like you've had thousands of interactions with people. Where you've been able to set things up for them. Tell a story or not tell a story to have them go in a certain direction. So how do we rewire our minds to at least be aware? What we want, what we don't want, and how do we become more of a master of our minds as opposed to it being a master of us?

• 1:02:36Derren Brown?

  I think we set our goals realistically. We allow for failure to be comfortable. We align ourselves with that X equals Y line and not try and crank everything up here. Because if we're trying to do that, we're just buying into someone's system somewhere. And we're just making, we're gonna make life miserable for us eventually. And we're gonna blame ourselves when that happens.

• 1:02:57Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean failure comfortable? Meaning be okay with failure?

• 1:03:01Derren Brown?

  Yeah, is it even failure? I mean, I don't know, it's just a different, it's just experiences, isn't it?

• 1:03:05Lewis Howes?

  It's learning, yeah.

• 1:03:06Derren Brown?

  Yeah, how you make your peace with the fact that? Life isn't gonna always produce what you'd like it to and make that okay. That's huge. And as I said, become, the best we can do is become more conscious of these things. So that can happen through psychotherapy, right? A psychotherapist is gonna hopefully, like depth psycho, like psychoanalysis, that kind of thing. Increases your, your sort of dialogue with yourself, increases your consciousness about those things. But it's very expensive and it's long form and a lot of people aren't interested. But that's one way of doing it. Another way, I guess, is to, is to look honestly at your life and see, well, where are these, where are these recurring patterns? What are, what keeps cropping up? What am I a bit obsessed by? What am I constantly trying to avoid?

• 1:03:50Derren Brown?

  Or just keeps coming back and biting me? What's life keep throwing at me that's, that's like, that's bad and causing problems? And then? We just trace that back, see where it goes back to, are there any other possibilities, are there any other ways of behaving? And it's not like it just goes great and then you change, but you become more conscious of it. And then it's like a little drip by drip feeding into the soul that, you know, can can make a difference. I think, I think, you know, I think these are sort of modest.

• 1:04:17Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:04:17Derren Brown?

  Modest goals.

• 1:04:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. I'm curious, who is um more influential in your your your youth, your mom or your dad? To you more.

• 1:04:28Derren Brown?

  Well, uh, both. My dad may be kind of in a sort of negative sense. I mean, there was not like any bad blood, but this is quite common, I think, with like boys that are gay growing up, is that you tend to have the stronger bond with the mother and the father's sort of there's just kind of a bit of a disconnect there. So, but of course, both are not being hugely influential because both of those impulses inform who you are as as an adult. But I was closer to my mother certainly, which is, yeah.

• 1:04:55Lewis Howes?

  What was the greatest lesson that your mom and your dad taught you?

• 1:04:58Derren Brown?

  I heard recently somebody say, it was so great, how great is this, that um kids spend their life wanting their parents to apologize. Parents spend their lives wanting their kids to say thank you. Not a nice, not a nice thing. Because I studied law, I was surrounded, like neither of my parents, like my dad barely read or write, neither of them went to university or anything, anything like that. So here I was amongst all these other law students that were like from these really big, powerful families and they were, the first set of exams we came across, I saw that they were all really um nervous, not because they were gonna fail for them, but what their parents were gonna say. And I'd never had that experience, I couldn't relate to, so your parents would

• 1:05:41Derren Brown?

  your parents would be angry at you for failing and, you know, so I and I wrote, I wrote my parents a letter because I just suddenly realized, oh, they've, actually, they've done like this amazing. Thing of just saying you just do what makes you happy and they'd never tried to. The only thing they ever wanted me to do is learn to drive and that's the one thing I don't do, I don't drive. You don't drive? It was so like incensed that they'd try and uh. You still don't drive? I still drive. No way. Uh which in LA here is just like. That's why I get it. Mental illness. You don't need to, yeah. In London it's fine. Right. So um I've kind of slightly lost track of your question, but. The greatest lesson that your mom and your dad taught you. That was it. It's like, I feel I've done kind of well in my life and then what they were giving me was just. Do what makes you happy. And that's always been my impulse. I've had no genuinely no ambition.

• 1:06:26Derren Brown?

  I'm, which is why I'm kind of like cynical about the whole goal setting thing. I've never, never done that. I only felt. Is what I'm doing now, you know, enjoyable and interesting and feel worthwhile and, and that, that was on. Day one when I graduated and I had no money and I was just doing magic tricks. And I thought, oh, this is kind of fun. I quite like this. I'm. Walking around dreaming up tricks and then going out and performing in the evening. That's nice. And that is exactly the same now. That like doesn't, that hasn't. It's on a bigger scale now. It's a bigger scale, but like being kind of successful with what you do doesn't really. Doesn't really change those things. You mentioned like the fear of success. I, I have a good friend. I found this a really interesting thing. He built up a company, pulling back, he was um, he had a relationship with his father.

• 1:07:11Derren Brown?

  Where he felt he had to achieve and show achievements to get. Approval. Approval, exactly. Really common, really common. Again, in terms of those. Yeah. Stories that we get in from an early age and then we just kind of adapt to it and think that's what we have to do and think that's real. So. His way of responding to that was that he had to be a really high achiever. And you know, the world becomes dad, right? The world becomes wanting approval from, from everyone. So. He built up this company and he had this dream that I'll. Build up this powerful company and then I'll sell it and I'll be a multimillionaire and. Dad will love me. I guess then, yeah, essentially brackets, you know, dad will love me. He did it. He built up this company and. He's a very good friend of mine and he sold it and he sold it for a lot of money.

• 1:07:57Derren Brown?

  And then he was in therapy within like a year because that. Need that thing, that doesn't go away, like that's the thing that has driven him in his life. Now he's done the thing, he's achieved the goal. So now what? And he went to therapy and realized that he was not alone, like this is a really common thing. This is another whole thing with the goal setting. There isn't just the problem of what if it doesn't work, what if it does work? What if it works and you've spent like thirty years making, yeah. Cause the thing that was making you do it is still there. And now it's got nowhere to go and that's like, then you've got no meaning. And like, forget happiness, meaning is like what, what we need, right? We need to make sense of ourselves in the bigger scheme of things.

• 1:08:40Derren Brown?

  So what happens when that goes out is horrific. But you know, great for him because now he's, he's like become conscious of that stuff now. So he's, he's worked, you know, a lot of that stuff out, but.

• 1:08:50Lewis Howes?

  That was my, that was kind of my upbringing as well as like, I wanted to prove people wrong. That was my meaning.

• 1:08:56Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Lewis Howes?

  It was like a negative meaning. It was like the three to five bullies that picked on me in school and told me I was stupid and laughed at me when I couldn't read in front of the class. Like that stuck with me and I was like, I'm gonna become so big, so strong, so athletic, so talented. Then I'm gonna prove these kids wrong. And I did, right? It's like I achieved all these accomplishments and went on and did all these great things or whatever. And I was like, why am I still not happy? Yeah, I was like, I'm proving them wrong, but why am I still not happy?

• 1:09:25Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25Lewis Howes?

  Like I did the thing that they said I couldn't do.

• 1:09:28Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Lewis Howes?

  And I still don't feel good about myself.

• 1:09:30Derren Brown?

  That's because you never reached the point, you, you never reached the point when you fully proved them wrong, you're still.

• 1:09:34Lewis Howes?

  There's always another thing, there's another thing. And so I stopped, I stopped that as well as like, okay, instead of trying to prove a few people wrong that I don't even talk to.

• 1:09:41Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Lewis Howes?

  Or whatever, and don't even remember their names. But it's like, why don't I shift my meaning and purpose towards lifting others up? And, and serving humanity and serving people in a powerful way to support and educate, entertain, whatever it may be. To, to help people as opposed to. Getting back at people.

• 1:09:58Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  And I think that.

• 1:09:59Derren Brown?

  That's a good one. That's a good idea.

• 1:10:00Lewis Howes?

  Right, and that that that gives me so much more meaning and it and it strips anxiety from me. It strips anxiety and it strips like the fear of judgment.

• 1:10:08Derren Brown?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:08Lewis Howes?

  Because I've been speaking on stage for about ten years. I used to be so terrified to speak on stage. And then went through a year of public speaking training and Toastmasters just to force myself to dive into the fear. So I was like, I don't want this fear to control me anymore. And I used to, you know, I got good at speaking on stage, but I still get really nervous before.

• 1:10:26Derren Brown?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:27Lewis Howes?

  And it wasn't until about three years ago where I talked to a guy who was like a coach of mine who was like, because you're still concerned about what people think of you.

• 1:10:34Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Lewis Howes?

  You're focused on like being perfect and missing a word or forgetting a story. He's like, you're gonna mess up. Just own the fact that you're not gonna be perfect.

• 1:10:43Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:43Lewis Howes?

  And quit focusing on what people think about you and start thinking about them and being of service to them.

• 1:10:48Derren Brown?

  Yeah, and the idea, see, I think I think a lot of that fear of public speaking is helped by the realization that it's an idea that you're all engaged in, that you're presenting and everyone's learning about and you're in, it's not about you. Which is also the difference between proving those people wrong and being of service.

• 1:11:06Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:07Derren Brown?

  To humanity, as you put it, is that it's not about you. And I think things get better in life when they're not about you.

• 1:11:12Lewis Howes?

  So much better.

• 1:11:13Derren Brown?

  I can't think of any job that you don't become better at that job when you stop making it about you. A teacher that's just looking for kind of approval for the kids to like him and all those things. It is not gonna be as good as the teacher that's genuinely about serving those.

• 1:11:26Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 1:11:26Derren Brown?

  Those kids and it's, and public speaking is the same thing. That's the trouble we focus on. It becomes about us. And the guy that's just gonna drive us mad if it's about the ideas.

• 1:11:35Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:37Derren Brown?

  Uh, if it's about, it's again, that sort of middle life thing, I think. You're just letting go of ego and serving something bigger. We find meaning in life by finding the thing, something that's bigger than yourself and just throwing yourself into that thing.

• 1:11:47Lewis Howes?

  Let's go into that because you talk about being an atheist, right?

• 1:11:50Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Lewis Howes?

  Did you grow up believing in God or religion? Or and then when did this shift? What was the idea behind that?

• 1:11:58Derren Brown?

  Okay, so I grew up, I didn't have like a religious family or anything, but I went to sort of Bible reading, Sunday School type thing when I was quite young. So there was a teacher at school I really liked and she ran these classes. So I went to that and I, so I just, you know, believed in it. And then by the time I was old enough to realize, oh, I actually have a belief that not everybody has, I was kind of, I was pretty inculcated, so that wasn't going to shift. So that was fine. I didn't have a lot of Christian friends or anything and I, but I had one good friend at university, at school first and then at university. And then it actually started to change with the fact I was learning hypnosis and magic because it, there was such a negative reaction, such a strong abreaction from my Christian friends.

• 1:12:41Lewis Howes?

  Of you performing these things?

• 1:12:43Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you shouldn't like that.

• 1:12:45Lewis Howes?

  You're the devil.

• 1:12:46Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I thought, well, okay, that's, that's just them not understanding what it is. So, okay, that's sort of, all right, but that's like just fear, isn't it? And then, so that was the first little drop of a kind of skepticism. And then I had a friend who was a psychic healer and we used to have long arguments because I was so skeptical about that kind of stuff, which magic tends to teach you because you learn about how we fool ourselves, right? And how tricks work and naturally, you know, so you tend to become quite skeptical about those sorts of belief systems. And I started to think, well, I'm just, am I just doing the same? Is it just another circular belief system? So I thought, well, I should really look into it. Maybe I should try and, because I was the guy that would sit you down in a pub in England

• 1:13:30Derren Brown?

  and tell you why you should believe in God. Here are these arguments.

• 1:13:34Lewis Howes?

  You would do that?

• 1:13:35Derren Brown?

  Yeah, I was that guy. Like I could prove to you.

• 1:13:37Lewis Howes?

  In like high school and college?

• 1:13:38Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, I was, I was that guy.

• 1:13:39Lewis Howes?

  You were hardcore into the Bible?

• 1:13:40Derren Brown?

  I was pretty hardcore. I could prove to you why God existed, all those things. But part of me thought. Yeah, and like for two thousand years philosophers have like not been able to answer that question, so probably I'm like, you know, I'm overreaching there a little. So I just, you know, I kind of started to look into things like how the Bible was put together and so on, and then the

• 1:14:00Lewis Howes?

  The translations, the this, the that.

• 1:14:02Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Lewis Howes?

  A bunch of people writing stories.

• 1:14:04Derren Brown?

  Exactly, and bit by bit, the conviction fell apart, which I thought, well, maybe that'll give me a more honest belief based on a kind of, you know, a kind of honest sort of doubt, weirdly, you know, rather than just all these convictions that didn't really have any intellectual bravery to them. There was a lot of intellectual cowardice, you know, but anyway, it all fell apart. I didn't, I couldn't really put it back together again.

• 1:14:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:14:26Derren Brown?

  What then tends to happen is you go from being, if you're a real believer, you become a real disbeliever. So I was a very vocal atheist. And I still am in the sense that atheism gets a hard rap because people think it has an agenda attached to it, which obviously it can do with certain people, of course, or, you know, individuals bring what they want to it.

• 1:14:46Lewis Howes?

  Just like anyone with any belief, yeah.

• 1:14:48Derren Brown?

  Yeah, but like, I don't know, do you collect stamps? No?

• 1:14:51Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:14:51Derren Brown?

  No, so you are an apophilatelist, right? You could be described as an apophilatelist. Which doesn't mean anything, it's okay, but if people started to suggest that like you held an agenda as an apophilatelist, that that kind of implied any kind of, anything, you know, you'd get sick of, you know, sick of the label. So I'm an atheist and I don't believe in God, but now what I think is

• 1:15:13Derren Brown?

  I kind of see religion as like, well, at some point, it really gave people the experience of transcendence. Somewhere in history, people were having kind of a phenomenological, like an experiential embodied experience of transcendence. That meant, like, it meant something, that whatever was happening historically was there in living memory with people, whatever this guy was talking about, whatever the experience was and was like Giving people a real thing and then time moves on. And that thing moves out of living memory, whatever the sort of historical context was. So to recreate it, you you you introduce practices, things that you can do rituals and things that will just give you back a bit of that.

• 1:15:55Derren Brown?

  But of course, it's now you're now moving into belief as opposed to a kind of embodied knowledge that it that it was. And dogmas start, all these things start to kind of come in that are replacing what was actually a very, an experience.

• 1:16:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:16:06Derren Brown?

  And then, you know, of course, that body, that church gets powerful and monetized and political, you know, so there's a whole lot of. And then you are where we are now, where to me, a lot of the atheist arguments feel a little bit like it's that kind of straw man thing. Like, of course, you can point at some of where we are now and go, well, that's kind of silly, that's ridiculous. But I think to give religion its credit, it's there's, it may not be doing a very good job at it now, but actually, those things are signposts back to what is important. Which is the value of transcendence, which is only what we're talking about. All it means is, it doesn't have to mean anything overtly spiritual, it's just losing yourself to something bigger. Which is what you're saying, right? What you've done, turning.

• 1:16:50Lewis Howes?

  Service, yeah.

• 1:16:51Derren Brown?

  Yeah, turning that thing of proving the bullies wrong to serving something bigger. And that's massive, but we don't instinctively get that that's a like a that is an important thing. It takes people like you to say, this is a valuable thing and makes a difference and we go, does it? Okay, but actually, like that, which is why I think that the mythological side of religion is is important. Because these sorts of, that things have to die for new things to grow, you know, these are kind of religious myths that serve, I think, this very basic need to transcend. Because when we don't put it somewhere valuable, we put it in, you know, the idea of money, wealth, fame and so much, don't serve it, they do not. Yeah, they don't serve it, they don't give you that, they don't give you that experience that you use.

• 1:17:33Lewis Howes?

  What is the thing you believe the most then? And what is the thing you're, what's the meaning that you're giving that's bigger than you right now? If it's not God or religion or faith or in those things.

• 1:17:44Derren Brown?

  I think it's, I mean, this will sound very self-centered, but I think in as much as we can only sort ourselves out, can't we? You've got to just sort yourself out and then before you even think about anybody else. So I, if there's anything in my life, it's trying to maintain the best possible.

• 1:18:04Derren Brown?

  Which does not mean perfect, just good enough. Kind of dialogue with myself and understanding of that. So I can just do this thing as well as I can, which is, you know, that's a life project.

• 1:18:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:15Derren Brown?

  Not one that's of any interest to anybody else. I don't expect it to be, but like that's, that's,

• 1:18:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:18:19Derren Brown?

  That's interesting enough. And then what's nice is taking stuff that, that I do learn out of that. And then like putting it into a book, putting it into a project. That's nice. Because again, it was less about me. So that's where it gets valuable.

• 1:18:33Lewis Howes?

  Have you been able to answer the question about why you're here, where you're going? What's the point of all this? Have you been able to figure out a solution, a proof, a formula?

• 1:18:44Derren Brown?

  I don't think they're helpful questions really. I think what's, the helpful bit is what's important to us. And I think meaning is important. I think it's, meaning is more important than happiness. We think it's happiness, but it's not.

• 1:18:55Lewis Howes?

  Meaning brings us joy.

• 1:18:57Derren Brown?

  Me, yeah. Me, meaning puts everything else into place. And the other part of that is that thing about tolerating like ambiguity. Like the trouble with words like meaning and happiness, and even words like the self is that they hide the fact. They're not nouns really. They're verbs. These are active things. Like maybe there's no self, maybe we just kind of self, maybe our, what this is, is something that happens in our relationships. And, yeah, and happiness is, maybe it's an activity and meaning is an activity. And which means they're messy and they're complex and they're active. And that's like, that's a tricky thing to kind of maintain and hold in place. But I, that, that, all that stuff is important to me.

• 1:19:36Lewis Howes?

  What about the thing you're most proud of? What's the thing you've done that you're most proud of that maybe, maybe a lot of people don't even know about?

• 1:19:43Derren Brown?

  I, to be honest, it's, uh, the first thing that comes to mind is when I've done this show, like this show Sacrifice. Sorry to come back to it.

• 1:19:49Lewis Howes?

  Oh, it's all good. Bring it up, man. I love it.

• 1:19:51Derren Brown?

  Um, in the show Sacrifice, this guy goes through a genuinely transformational experience that is, has really changed him.

• 1:20:00Lewis Howes?

  And has he stuck with it?

• 1:20:02Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah. And he will tell you this, because I did say to him, I'm gonna probably do some promotional stuff around the show. Is it all right for me to say, what do you want me to say? And he said like, apart from having my kids, this is the best thing I've ever done. I do it in a heartbeat. And when you watch it, like he's going through some dark stuff. So you wouldn't necessarily take that for granted that he would say that. So given that television and entertainment can be such a kind of. Ludicrous.

• 1:20:23Lewis Howes?

  Produced.

• 1:20:24Derren Brown?

  Meaning, well, just as a meaningless kind of experience to occasionally do things like that that make a difference. I think in terms of feeling proud of anything, that's all I can really think of. I don't really feel proud of things that relate back to me because that's not as interesting, but because it's like.

• 1:20:40Lewis Howes?

  Helping someone else, yeah.

• 1:20:42Derren Brown?

  Yeah, and not in a kind of like a, not in a, trying to make myself sound anything, but just genuinely, it's much easier to feel proud of something when it isn't, and it isn't about you, and it's something that's, you're gonna probably feel proud of your kids, and you're gonna feel about your own, like, business achievements, I mean, that would be, that would be normal.

• 1:20:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Your kids like spelling bee, then you're like.

• 1:21:00Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, amazing, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:03Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing that you've been thinking about, maybe for a while, that you haven't been able to create yet, and experiment, perform a trick, you know?

• 1:21:13Derren Brown?

  I don't really have them. I, um, I just sit, when there's a time for a new project, I just sit and think, what's interesting now, what's, because I've got to live with the thing for like ten months, so I, if it's some idea from a, somewhere in the back of my mind from three years ago, it's not gonna be interesting, and I'll have grown up since then, so, so no, I don't, I have no ideas.

• 1:21:31Lewis Howes?

  You're very present.

• 1:21:32Derren Brown?

  And no ambitions.

• 1:21:32Lewis Howes?

  You're very present, yeah. Until you come up with an idea, then you start acting on it.

• 1:21:36Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And you're, what's your favorite hobbies? Is it art?

• 1:21:41Derren Brown?

  Photography, I paint.

• 1:21:42Lewis Howes?

  Because you're an amazing painter, your, your work is unbelievable, man.

• 1:21:44Derren Brown?

  Oh, well, thank you, thank you very much.

• 1:21:45Lewis Howes?

  Like, you're like a professional, like a real, like, not just like some amateur, it's like, check out your, his stuff on his website, it's amazing.

• 1:21:51Derren Brown?

  Oh, thank you, I paint and take photographs, that's my main thing, yeah.

• 1:21:55Lewis Howes?

  What is it about both those things that you love the most?

• 1:21:59Derren Brown?

  It's that flow thing we were saying, you know, but that, again, that could be anything, that might as well be surfing, I guess, but that, it definitely gives me that. I have a very public job, so they're, they're also quite private things, and I, I, because I'm naturally quite introverted, really, I'm quite shy.

• 1:22:17Derren Brown?

  I don't know, you'd probably describe yourself maybe as a bit shy even though like your personality might be very extrovert, so, but I'm kind of generally quite shy, so there are things that they sit well with me, like I, photography, I do street photography, so I'm kind of out like taking just candid pictures at moment, you know, but yeah, and you're kind of in an interesting mental space because you're kind of, you're separated and you're kind of detached, but you're also very open and engaged. And in the UK, because I'm quite well known, I sort of, I, I used to naturally if I went out, keep my head down, and now I don't, I'm kind of like open and engaged, and of course, no one's, no one's stopping me or anything, that was another fiction that was living out in my head, but um

• 1:22:59Derren Brown?

  it's a really lovely, it's a great state of mind, it's that, and again, I think it's that easy that something about that X equals Y, like you're, you're just a step back, but you're also very open and it's a very porous state, I think that's a very nice place to be.

• 1:23:13Lewis Howes?

  Couple of final questions for you, and this has been fascinating, so I appreciate you all opening up everything.

• 1:23:18Derren Brown?

  I've enjoyed this so much, thank you for having me.

• 1:23:20Lewis Howes?

  This question is called the three truths that I ask everyone at the end.

• 1:23:22Derren Brown?

  Okay.

• 1:23:23Lewis Howes?

  So I'd like for you to imagine for a moment that you get to pick the last day for you, that you're gonna be on this earth, right? It's your last day, as many years out as you want to live.

• 1:23:32Derren Brown?

  Wow, okay.

• 1:23:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, it's, whatever, you're a hundred, you're two hundred, it doesn't matter, whatever age you are. And you've done everything that you want to do, you, you only think ten months out, so you do everything in ten months increments, but you've done it all, right? You're happy with your life, essentially, you've created the work, the shows, the anything you want to do, you've done it. You've got the relationship with your partner, you've had the family, if you want that, whatever it is, you've done it. And it's been a great life. But for whatever reason, all the work that you put out into the world, you've got to take it with you. Your books, your shows, you know, the amazing shows on Netflix.

• 1:24:05Derren Brown?

  As in like, none of it's gonna exist after all this?

• 1:24:07Lewis Howes?

  You gotta take it with you, and it goes into wherever you go next.

• 1:24:10Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:11Lewis Howes?

  But you get to leave the world with your three final truths. You've got a piece of paper and a pen, you get to write it down. Or maybe it's a hologram at that point, who knows what it is, but you get to give them, the world, three lessons back to the world that you know to be true, from your life experience.

• 1:24:27Derren Brown?

  Okay.

• 1:24:27Lewis Howes?

  That could benefit them or serve them in some way.

• 1:24:30Derren Brown?

  Okay.

• 1:24:31Lewis Howes?

  What would be your three truths?

• 1:24:33Derren Brown?

  I'm probably gonna be repeating myself, because I think I've probably said everything that I think to be true during this interview, but I'd say don't try and control the things you can't control.

• 1:24:45Derren Brown?

  The stuff you feel shame about, no one really cares. And flossing, I think flossing's important.

• 1:24:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's good.

• 1:24:54Derren Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay, great. Make sure you guys watch Sacrifice, which is on Netflix right now. It's all over the world too, right? You can watch it.

• 1:25:03Derren Brown?

  It is, it is all over the world.

• 1:25:05Lewis Howes?

  But anywhere Netflix.

• 1:25:06Derren Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, it's on, yeah.

• 1:25:08Lewis Howes?

  So if it's not on the homepage of your Netflix, just type in Sacrifice. I think it has an explanation.

• 1:25:13Derren Brown?

  I think once you've watched it, it's on your homepage every time.

• 1:25:15Lewis Howes?

  Then it's up there. It's riveting, yeah. So go there, watch it like tonight. I'm telling you, watch this thing. It's only sixty minutes, I think it's not.

• 1:25:23Derren Brown?

  It's not even that, it's like forty, forty-seven minutes.

• 1:25:25Lewis Howes?

  It's, you don't want it to end. I'm telling you guys, you do not want it to end. So go watch it right now, Sacrifice. Then you're gonna go down the rabbit hole. I'm already gonna tell you, I wanna get people messaging me on Instagram stories, tagging me like on your YouTube, just watching every video after this.

• 1:25:38Derren Brown?

  There's a lot there.

• 1:25:39Lewis Howes?

  Watch Sacrifice, then do yourself the favor and watch The Push right afterwards. Oh my goodness, it's crazy. The moment when, the moment when people were kicking the box.

• 1:25:51Derren Brown?

  Oh god, yes. It sounds really dark out of context.

• 1:25:56Lewis Howes?

  I couldn't believe watching this stuff. The last five minutes of the show is just amazing.

• 1:26:03Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, man, it's unbelievable. Watch The Push afterwards, it's crazy, it's gonna blow your mind. And then watch your, uh, your stage show, which is called Miracles.

• 1:26:12Derren Brown?

  Miracle is the stage show that's on Netflix as well.

• 1:26:14Lewis Howes?

  There's lots of three shows tonight, I'm telling you, you're gonna love it. I would acknowledge you for a moment, Darren, for bringing so much joy to so many people, whether it's on stage or if it's at home. Like for, for so long, you've brought joy and intrigue and wonder and creativity into people's lives when they don't have it. And I truly say this from an honest place, that you bring a lot of people hope and inspiration for a better version of themselves, whatever that looks like for them, by showing people what's possible and by showing people that their way of thinking doesn't have to stay that way. So you're... Quirkiness, your struggles from childhood to obsessing over certain things of trying

• 1:26:58Lewis Howes?

  to impress people is paying off in a massive way through your creative service. And I really acknowledge that and appreciate you.

• 1:27:05Derren Brown?

  It's an amazing thing to hear. Thank you so much.

• 1:27:07Lewis Howes?

  Of course, of course. I have one final question for you, and that is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:27:12Derren Brown?

  Of greatness, living in easy accordance with fate. By fate, I mean fortune and stuff that happens every day.

• 1:27:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow, Darren Brown. Thank you so much, man. A gentle handshake.

• 1:27:24Derren Brown?

  Thank you so much. I was actually gripping harder than you.

• 1:27:27Lewis Howes?

  It was grip. That was a good one.

• 1:27:29Derren Brown?

  Thank you for sparing my poor British soft hand.

• 1:27:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh, and where can we, where can we connect with you online? Where do you hang out on social media?

• 1:27:36Derren Brown?

  I'm on, I'm on Twitter, which is at DarrenBrown. It's an unusual name. Yes, D E double R E N, DarrenBrown. I'm on Instagram too. I may even got my photography and painting on Instagram.

• 1:27:46Lewis Howes?

  That's great stuff on there.

• 1:27:47Derren Brown?

  And my website is DarrenBrown.co.uk.

• 1:27:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:27:51Derren Brown?

  Annoyingly, because someone's sitting on DarrenBrown.com out there and they won't let it go.

• 1:27:54Lewis Howes?

  Go buy it, yeah. Make sure you guys follow Darren on all social media accounts. Which one do you hang out on the most?

• 1:28:00Derren Brown?

  Probably Twitter.

• 1:28:01Lewis Howes?

  Twitter. So send him a tweet, retweet this link to your friends, and check out Sacrifice, The Push, and the other show. So Darren, thanks again, man.

• 1:28:10Derren Brown?

  Thank you so, so much. Thank you.

• 1:28:12Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. If you did, make sure to check out the Netflix specials that Darren has right now. Sacrifice, it's gonna blow your mind. The Push, it's gonna take it even to a different level. And Miracle, you're gonna get three different experiences. Binge watch them all in one night for all I care. But make sure to tag me, at Lewis Howes and at DarrenBrown. That's D E R R E N Brown. Make sure to tag him on Twitter and Instagram and let him know what you think while you're watching those shows on Netflix. And during this interview, would love to hear your thoughts about what you enjoyed the most from this interview and what you took away from it.

• 1:28:57Lewis Howes?

  Again, a big thank you to Darren for coming on and sharing this. Make sure to get tickets to his show on Broadway next year as well. Support Darren on all the good things that he has going on. Marcus Aurelius said, "Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be and be one." And Albert Einstein said, "Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them." No matter where you're at in your life right now, no matter what limitations you might be feeling, no matter what blocks you have in your way, we must understand who we are, the human nature behind us, why we're driven to do certain things. Create that awareness in yourself right now. Start assessing your life. Start looking at the people in your life, the actions in your life, the thoughts.

• 1:29:42Lewis Howes?

  Every decision you make, start assessing them. If you want to become a better human being, it's time to assess it and become one by taking the daily actions towards the desired results that you want. Again, "Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them," said Albert Einstein. It's your time to go beyond them. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.