Mind Games, Marathons, and Mastery

Oz Pearlman2:54

So it's kind of like Right.

Oz Pearlman2:54

Well, you know what that killer instinct has I wouldn't say it's left me because it's moved into different parts of my life where that feeling there's you I don't know how well you know, but like there's races I've won a few races multiple years in a row. Yeah. And so you get the one bib which again I'm such a douchebag right now, but that feeling of getting the one bib

To the choir. And so you get there and I'll never forget I'll never forget this as long as I live. So I did the New Jersey Marathon four times. I won it four times and every time I won it you can fact check this on Marathon Guide. Check it, but it was always within one to four minutes I believe between me and first and second. So it was always a horse race. It wasn't a blowout. It was a race. And so a couple things that are really fun is one you get a police escort.

Yep. And during the the last bit it's an out and back which you can appreciate where if you're leading or you're fighting it out, you're seeing the other runners and you're clocking them and also I'm doing psychological warfare on a mentalist level. You might be doing a normal one. I'm next level psychological warfare cuz I'm in their heads as to how to how to, you know, really just annihilate their self-esteem, how to make them think like you are I'm feeling amazing. You feel like crap? That's sorry for you, buddy.

Like I'm about to go faster, not slower. You were waiting and you're dying? I'm just getting ready. I'm about to negative split this thing. And so you would see them, but by the third and fourth year, people know who I was. Not really from the whole mentalism bit cuz he's the guy who wanted every year. So, everyone on the other way for 6 miles is just cheering you on. And they're like getting you and you're like, "Yeah!" And you just getting that energy and you're fighting it out.

Man, those were the days. And I I remember one year specifically, there's about I don't know, 3,000, 4,000 people, like a large people group. One guy sees me wearing number one and I always fold it like ultra runners do. So, I fold it into a tight and put on my shirt leg in case I'm going to take my pants my my shirt off, not my pants off. And so he goes, "Dude, how'd you get number one?" And I just call him a skin be like just the best mode.

Oz Pearlman5:21

It's like a storage thing. All the junk. There's My kids will sometimes go down to see the medals because I've done at least one marathon since my streak since 2004. Never missed a year of doing a marathon. A lot of years were I don't know, 6, 7, 8, 9. Last year's the first year that I was almost not about to. I I did a 100-miler, but I don't count. I just wanted to do a marathon. And I just my my fitness again, this is a good part to talk about this, which is always there's the glory days, but then reality sets in and there's excuses and there's life and I always read in the comments, easy for you, you're richer easy for you, you've got no like there's always an excuse why not, yeah, always.

And I'm I've now got some excuses, which I you can there's 24 hours in a day. We all have them. What do you do with them? That's right.

Show me your screen time and I'll show you, you know, 5 6 8 hours of excuses on why you're not doing what you want to do. Myself included in the mirror, but um it's very funny how that works cuz last year I almost I signed up in December for a race. Oh wow.

And it was humble pie where I go out there thinking I have a fitness that I don't. I haven't put in the work. It was my slowest marathon in 21 years. It did not sit well with me. It was the second slowest marathon, only slower one was the first one I ever did. Oh my god. So it was just humble pie.

Oz Pearlman6:34

It wasn't harder, but I went out it's again, I'm writing checks my butt can't cash where I'm eating it the second half because I don't have the fitness I thought I did. Yeah. And not to, you know, make fun of people do half marathons, but you can fake a half marathon I agree.

Oz Pearlman6:53

You can fake certain distances. You it's very hard to fake a a marathon. It's near impossible to fake a 100 miler. Oh yeah. Like if you haven't done the work, it's really hard to just go out there and and and have a great race. So um I I just ate crap the second half and so I didn't run that much more in the two weeks between that one, but I signed up for another one. I did the Brooklyn Marathon and I go I did I can't live with this.

So I signed up for one two weeks later. I did the Brook uh the Queens Marathon

Oz Pearlman7:19

And I ran it 10 minutes faster, which was really good feeling because I needed to be at like at a certain threshold to feel like good about myself.

Oz Pearlman7:32

You will get this conversation.

Oz Pearlman8:30

I I'm different than that. So I don't love running, but I love what happens when I'm running. So when I'm running, the way my mind flows, the way I completely check out and tune out of of my normal day-to-day life and just the flow state you get is I don't know if it's the high, but when I see other people run, I doesn't look to me enjoyable.

Yeah. It's not a thing where certain sports look like they're fun. Like I watching tennis, I'm like, that looks fun to go play tennis. Like there's certain sports that it looks to me like it's fun. Ping pong, I love playing ping pong.

Yeah. I love it. I enjoy it. I don't play it that often anymore, but I used to growing up as a kid with my dad in the basement. And so when I'm watching people, it looks fun. Running, I understand from somebody who used to hate running, looks like it sucks and I get to other people, but when I do it, I'm enjoying that I just tune out and I can't tune out otherwise. The motion is required.

Oz Pearlman10:10

I'm not I've been for years I was just the guy who does long slow distance running and my training was all just getting the motor stronger and stronger and stronger and I always believed kind of speed kills. After I got out of my streak of like really wanting to run and win races and be fast and have to come to terms where I transitioned a lot more to I like running, I like being fast, but it wasn't with the same intensity that I had before and the same competitive drive.

Oz Pearlman11:51

No. No New York transplant.

Where did you go to college? I went to University of Michigan. Oh, cool. Oh, you must be happy. They're like

Oz Pearlman12:23

I was very forgettable. He couldn't believe it. I wrote an email. He's like, "It couldn't be the same guy. You won a marathon? Like, how?" It also doesn't track because I wasn't really a good athlete growing up, but I was also younger than everyone, which I think put me at a huge disadvantage. I started school 1 year early. I'm a summer birthday. And then I skipped fourth grade. So, that put me 2 years younger than almost everyone in my class.

Oz Pearlman12:49

So smart. I was just I was really good at I was really good at math, but other subjects early on were easy for me, and my parents kind of pushed it, and I just did In third grade, they allowed me It was a good administrator and the principal allowed me to show that if I did the whole I did not only my whole year, but I did all of fourth grade and like aced everything

Yeah. that they were willing to let me jump, which I don't know in hindsight if you're that young from your social emotional development is good for you because you're now always the smallest. You have to I think it gave me certain advantages in life, not really a Napoleon complex, but ways to win people over that that weren't tied to my physical prowess.

Oz Pearlman14:01

Were you Did you have siblings? Yeah, two older sisters, but they're eight years older. Oh, wow.

It's funny in my house cuz my kids our biggest stretch is about eight years between our oldest and youngest. Little Is it eight? A little eight more eight and a half? So it's the same as me, but we also have like a bunch of kids in between.

Yeah. So if you grow up in a house where the kids are such a difference in age, you don't really you're not close with each other.

Oz Pearlman14:21

Because by the time I have memories, you know, five or six years old, they're now teenagers who are tasked with taking care of me and my I was going to say it's like you have multiple parents.

It's almost like a de facto secondary babysitter. Not not but I'm more annoying to them than anything else.

Yeah. And truly I was such an annoying kid. Like I if you could have seen You know when you see the videos now there's a million. I have so many photos and videos of my kids, but mine are I mean the a child of the '80s, so it's like VHS that we would watch back in the day. And I was just always a ninja for every Halloween, for every birthday, just psycho. Always You just see me outside with magnifying glasses and like crushing ants with like a I just always toy guns which we never had in my house.

You would have thought I'm either going to be a soldier, a serial killer, or I don't know what. But it was just like this I I loved I had no brothers. Yeah.

And so I had cousins who when I hung with my cousins, they'd beat the crap out of each other, two boy cousins.

Yeah. That was my dream was to get the crap beaten out of me. It's like to be able to fight with them. And we would do Bushido which was like UFC before it was UFC.

Yeah. And we would just beat and older cousin couldn't beat me up as much as his brother because it's like you know, you're not allowed to beat up your brother you're getting in some trouble beating up your cousin, but I wanted to get like beaten up that bad. And it's it's a masochistic tendency, but I enjoy just the physicality that I think you didn't really have and that I'm lucky cuz I have two boys and three girls where everybody has it's just different. I know people like the gender roles I've seen it.

You go to a house where we went to house with kids who had two daughters yeah and I brought like two boys. I don't care how well behaved your boys are they're just a different energy that goes in there of like tornadoes. Like they could be well raised, they just do stuff different. You know what I always tell people if you think about kids like this. First of all, you when they're when they're like toddlers just think of them as drunk adults. They're they're drunk. Like you're like don't do that and they do it anyway.

Oz Pearlman17:45

An effective method.

Oz Pearlman17:53

Repercussions to it is very challenging. Like like creating it's man parenting is is a challenge. I don't have teenagers yet. So that's forget that. That's a whole different beast.

Oz Pearlman18:51

Well, I'm not saying what's right or wrong but it's like losing your temper is so difficult not to do it. Anyone that says that otherwise but it's not effective even though fear is a good motivator but fear is not necessarily good motivator of changing behavior. It's of hiding behavior.

Oz Pearlman19:05

I'm I'm telling Were you hit as a kid?

Oz Pearlman19:16

Not a good way. I so I've got hit and again it's like everybody has the thing that worked for them. Yeah. I I was the youngest. So I think they get you get hit less.

Yeah, definitely. My sister got it like way more. Definitely. I got it at very specific moments, but you know what when you get it like that you don't forget it.

That's right. So it it put a fear in you and I know that certain people there's a parenting movement now which is a very effective which is like you want to you want to have you want to speak to your kids and you want to have respect and I I get all of that. I'm not saying a proponent of whether you should hit your kids or not whatsoever. But there was definitely if you don't have a certain respect like I've seen people have zero fear. I don't want to be feared by my children in life.

So if you're orchestrating that but at certain points to keep them safe they have to have a respect for you and I don't know what institutes that but like it is a challenging thing because I can tell you that being hit definitely create a fear dynamic that made me respect rules that I can't decide what would have happen if I'm like I'm going to take your cell phone away. Like I don't know what would happen cuz I haven't gotten to that stage yet. Of what do you do when you have no other levers of power to exercise.

Oz Pearlman20:20

Reason doesn't always work as effectively.

Oz Pearlman21:11

Do you think it will change? So, you know how like 20 years ago, you can't eat eggs. Eggs are high cholesterol. Now, eat eggs. Every 20 years science, and again, I don't say this, but the consumer science that we get through media.

Yeah. Which is not the hard science.

That's right. Which now, unfortunately, this is where a lot of people are consuming their science on podcast. This is what they believe to be true. And again, it's neither here nor there, but will that shift and evolve? I really wonder from this movement of the psychological, the speaking, the therapeutic, the like, how do we connect with somebody on on that level? I wonder if it will go backwards at a certain point and revert back to I'm not saying physical violence, but like I just wonder if the parenting strategies will shift back to what they were before, or is this the age of enlightenment that we will continue having where the way you interact with your kids is meant to be, "Hey, reason.

Reason and feelings are the best way to get them to feel good about themselves, to have good mental health, to listen to you, to not quote unquote do things wrong that are going to mess up their life, right? What are we all trying to do? Have kids that will be upstanding individuals and be able to take care of themselves eventually. Yeah. Is that to be good people? Like, what's the what's the ultimate goal, right? Independent, good people, hopefully love you, Yeah. right? Even though I don't know if that's like I I don't feel that my kids owe me something, which is a very different mentality that I think the generation before, which is you owe me for me giving you life.

Oz Pearlman22:35

And so, there's a guilt dynamic of you need to do this because I made you.

Yeah. I've always found that fascinating cuz you didn't ask to be made.

That's right. I didn't ask. That's the greatest blessing you could have given was life, but I actually don't believe from contractual basis that you don't owe me anything for me making you as a kid, paying your thing, all that. Like, I don't When this is all done, I did this cuz I loved you and cuz you were a person, and now we're going to have to interact as two different people, not built on just a guilt dynamic of what you owe me for what I did for you.

Oz Pearlman24:45

Thanks to popping those basketballs with a knife, Heather. Oh, they've lost some good basketballs, that's for sure. But um, what did you study in college? Electrical engineering. Oh, Oh, Okay, so you're were intellectual. I was I was good at math. Okay. came easy and this was I tried computer science, but I didn't do anything based on love. I didn't go into school being like, "What's my passion? What am I going to discover?"

Yeah. I wouldn't say I was living someone else's life. You know, when some kids are like, "Ah, dad's a doctor. I got to be a doctor." Like you're living someone else's life.

What did your parents do? Uh my dad's a mechanical engineer, but that's not There's no connection. I didn't do engineering cuz he did. Um he'd been in the Navy for 20 something years and then my mom had done a bunch of different things. She was a teacher. Um she was a tutor. Um I mean, she did kind of like side businesses while raising us.

And so uh kind of the life story there is I I just didn't know what to do. I I feel like in life I kind of stumbled into things, which I don't think is a bad thing. It's worked out for me. So, if it went differently, I could maybe say something different, but I stumbled into it where I had a vision of like what will be good for life. Now, it wasn't always money driven, but I realized that if I had money and my folks, a lot of their big fights were money based.

They got divorced when I was like 13. A very very big explosion in our lives. Very messy breakup and that's what drove me. That's when I started doing magic. And when I like that was when this kind of was an escape for me, I would say. And also filled in a lot of roles cuz I didn't talk to my dad for a few years. There was a lot of like using the kids in the divorce and not not paying child support. Like there's just a lot of They bled out from the fight between them Yeah.

Oz Pearlman26:24

And and and it's funny because the later you get older, you see those things you can view it from a non-child's perspective. Uh

Yeah. There's been like points where I'm closer with my dad than my mom since and I wasn't with my dad. Like you you know that back and forth. Uh and so anyway, uh the the magic really filled a void for me at that point. And so I was always doing this on the side, but I never knew I Maybe I knew it, but I never thought I could do this as a career. It was never a goal. It wasn't like, "This is what I'm going to do.

Oz Pearlman26:56

For a little bit, but then it wasn't as fun. So, what happened is I went to college when I was just the summer I was 16, I turned 17 that summer, and my my mom had moved back to Israel. My dad had married another woman. We didn't get along. So, I was independent. I was very autonomous in the sense that I had to now pay for everything cuz I didn't have parental support financially.

Okay. So, I was doing it to pay for tuition and for other things.

Magic. I was doing magic. I had another business where I was installing and removing boat docks. Funny talk about books like it was in my book. I don't I was working like at a bagel store. I was a bus boy. Like I I from since I was a hustler. From 14 years old I'm I've been a hustler since I was 14. I've been making my own money. I've been saving money. I've been kind of very in a way that my kids just don't can't grasp. Like I was I was hustling because there was no other way to do it.

Do you understand what I mean?

No, no, yeah. Not in the pool in the shallow end. Deep end, you swim or you sink right now because there's no backup. It's a great way to be. It's really annoying at the time.

Yeah. But in hindsight, it sets you up for success because you don't have a fallback. That's right. So, figure it out or you're not staying in college because your scholarship only covers this much and the scholarship I signed up for like FAFSA, I did all the forms. Like I had to learn how to do these things. I didn't have someone doing it for me. I had a I had a paper route when I was in like the sixth grade and I remember I talk about in the book folding newspapers year round and folding the newspapers at like 5:00 in the morning so I could get out and deliver them at 6:00 to 7:00 and get over from school.

Oz Pearlman28:32

Well, it's difficult depending on what socioeconomic strata you hit as to just what becomes normal.

Yeah. Right? Like I remember I lived in Wisconsin and we again, I'm not like I would have called us lower middle class.

Yeah. That's That's I would describe me as well. I can't put a number on it, but I I believe not knowing my parents' finances in hindsight, we would not go out to eat very often. We would not get dessert, which was like one of those barometers to me that when I got older, it's like I can just order dessert anytime I want. That was like I made it, you know, like guacamole on Chipotle, but I could order dessert anytime I want. It still was this kind of like exotic thing, but as a kid, that's not a thing.

It's like vacation was not a thing. We don't like fly. We went to like Disney World once. It was just not It was just where we were at. But down the street from us, which normally your streets are all the same level of people, down the street from us was a kid who had a house twice as big as everybody else's, lot twice as big as everyone else's. I'm not going to say his name, but I remember him very clearly. And we go to his house, it was the first time I got a little bit of that compare and despair.

Yeah. Because you realize where you are in the pecking order.

Yeah. Well, why does he have this? And why Oh my god, why does he have a Super Nintendo? You know, like all this why does and I don't. And that level of It's not really jealousy. You can either channel that into a jealousy or into a drive of like I want that. What do I have to do to get that? I don't know that I had that clarity, but I had a clarity based on how much my parents fought that I don't want to fight about money in the future.

But it wasn't things that I wanted to buy that I was like I need a car, I need I bought my own car when I was 16. I saved up $2,000. I bought it myself used. I like everything about it. Like I had a value to things because I worked for them.

Oz Pearlman32:10

Kind of. David Blaine was a huge hero of mine at the time.

Oz Pearlman32:10

He was well, he came out in the late 90s when he had his first special and his first special was a complete paradigm shift where it used to be more of the David Copperfield big stage stuff. You know, like very distant and David compressed it Blaine to me and you on the street regular people genuine reactions and instead of the magician being the the the focal point the reactions of the crowd and the whole right?

It's the turning of the camera from the star to the audience that changed the game in a big way.

Yes. And so it became much more the street magic. I was much more restaurant magic really changed my life. Like a lot of the lessons and and I mean you went through it writing a book is I just started flushing out my stories. I wrote the whole book while running. I don't know if you do that too. The whole book I didn't sit down. I I sit down and wrote one page sitting. Yeah. Can't do it. So then it was all dictated. Like from that point on I would run and I tell stories and I like get it all on paper Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. and piece together the puzzles. And I realized so much of my skills now came from when I was 14 years old I walked into a restaurant. How I got the confidence I don't even know it was a fake it till you make it. And I I I I sweet-talked my way into working at a restaurant because I I really didn't know how to get business. And I think for a lot of people listening to this or who want more in life you're stuck.

And and I was 14 I didn't know what I was doing but you you don't know how to start. This is the first steps are always the hardest, right? In a marathon in training and like the whole thing. I just thought if I can go in there this is like people have money. I can give them business cards they'll call me for their kids birthday party or for these other things. And that was my first parallel cuz there was one guy I'd heard of who worked at Max and Erma's which was a restaurant nearby.

And I went to this restaurant it was half a mile from my house. I started figuring out how to approach a table because when you approach somebody they don't want a 14-year-old shrimpy kid while they got a babysitter having fun to come up to their table.

Oz Pearlman34:06

You might do that but there's people are rude sometimes they get rid of you quick. There's so many factors because the power dynamic is when I walk up to you I need you. Yeah. You don't need me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you might not even want what I'm selling. Even if I'm not selling it for money but I started realizing all these things. When you walk up to people what are they thinking?

A mentalist thing but what are they thinking? Who is this guy? Does he work here? Oh my god he's taking out cards. What he a car Is he Is he any good? Is he going to stay too long? Does Oh no Oh no, do I need money? Do I have to tip him? So, what happens is you start realizing how people think. And if you can start to dissect how they think and figure out they asked themselves 10 questions in their mind in the first 2 seconds they met me.

Who is he? What does he do? What does he do? Is he Is he here? Is Am I going to have to tip him? Is he going to leave? All those things. My job is not to entertain you at that point. My job is to answer all those questions as quickly as possible, right? I've answered every question in your mind as quickly as possible with the least amount of words possible, and then turn the tables. Yeah. Turn the tables. Listen to me cuz this is a life-changing moment.

I was no longer selling to them what I wanted. They wanted me more than I wanted them. If you can do that in your life in any relationship, I'm not saying as soon as you have the power, and I don't mean this in a bad way like like manipulating somebody, but as soon as they want you more than they want them or vice versa or what you're selling, whether it's attention or anything, it's shifted. So, when I woke up, I've answered all their questions. They now want me to stay, and I'm not necessarily staying.

Now, you've got them. Yeah. Right? That's it's it's everything. It's podcast, it's showbiz, it's sales, it's teaching someone, it's getting your kids to do what they want. Once you've convinced them that you have something they want more than they want It it it's incredible. It's a shift. So, I learned that with magic and it like changed the game for me is to just how people think and how to win them over.

Oz Pearlman36:06

So, I mostly I had one mentor, but I mostly learned from books. I would check them out from the library. I liked books better than videos, which is again such an old-school mentality, but books allow you to put some of yourself into it and figure out who you are. And like you have to interpret things in a certain way that's different. Videos allow you to mimic the the you're watching, which is the craziest thing cuz I have some videos that were very successful. One of the most successful, if not the most successful, card magic video for a beginners, I was in.

This is like another story I could tell you.

Yeah. But I was way before I was any form of fame in the real world of I was magic world famous amongst magicians.

Oz Pearlman36:47

It just A lot of teenage Asian boys loved me. It was Okay. But uh I'm just joking but like no, a lot of magicians bought this video. And I can I can tell you the story in a second because I was with this company and they were almost like amazon.com of magic at the right moment, right place.

Oz Pearlman37:18

Really like that cuz that sounds like a one person to one person but there's a market. There are magic shops.

Yep. Where you buy tricks. And before it became online, this happened and this is where I can tell you that story, the inflection point. Where you used to buy them from stores. You walk into a store. There's usually It's almost always a guy but behind the counter goes, "Oh, what what you got?" And they they they demo a trick. They perform the trick to you. You buy the trick. They take you into like the back room with the closed door and they show you how it works.

They teach it to you. Or you buy a book or you buy a video and it teaches you the tricks. Now, a lot of tricks are gimmicks. Gimmick, air quote, is if you buy the thing, you learn how to do the thing and you can do the trick, right? It has a gimmick of some sort that you don't know how it works as the audience member. Some of the gimmicks are in plain sight like a trick deck of cards. Some of the gimmicks are things that are invisible.

You don't see them as the audience member but I'm using something to perform something on you that you don't ever see. Uh so, I became this person who was kind of um I liked gimmicks because gimmicks are easier. Yeah. But what happens is you become a person who goes to a restaurant. The joke we would have is you have five tricks, you have five different decks of cards. So the person watching is like, "Why do you take a different deck every time you do a trick?" Cuz every deck is a trick deck.

And so, people figure that out real quick. And so, you ask yourself as the audience member, "Well, if I had that deck, could I do that trick?" Or can I see it? So, over time, what I had a mentor named Bruce, who I referenced, who didn't really I wouldn't say taught me tricks as much as opened my eyes to right now, you're just a guy with a lot of tricks. You want to be a magician. You want to be Superman. Who You rip off your shirt.

You're ready at a moment's notice to turn into Superman from Clark Kent. To do that, you have to be ready anytime. To do that, you need to enhance your repertoire, have diversity. And so, I started learning how to do impromptu magic, which means I could walk anywhere at any point in time and have an act with anything. I could do a trick with this book. I could do five tricks with this book. I could do a trick with your shoelaces, with your watch. I could do a trick with this cap of this.

I could do a trick with anything anywhere because Clark Kent doesn't have to go somewhere to turn into Superman. Do you see that the theory? He can turn into Superman anywhere. And if you have magical powers, which I don't, but of course as a magician, you should be able to perform at a moment's notice. And that was kind of the ethos and the mindset I took on. Now, of course you can set up things that are more elaborate and more impressive if you're ready, but there's no such thing as being unprepared.

Oz Pearlman41:20

Well, that's a good thing for your son. It's like I've told my kids the same thing is I realized at a certain point I I've read a couple books on it and it was just what's your unique selling proposition? What's your USP? There was that term that I really enjoyed at a certain point because I was just throwing out, you know, casting while trying to fish and trying to figure out who I am, which takes time.

You're not going to figure it out overnight. But it's either do something different than everyone else does. Differentiate yourself that way. Or do something better than anyone else does. Or do both. And that's really where you achieve a certain level of success. And that's studying the people before you, taking from them, trying to have mentors. Like mentors are really helpful. Later in my career, I felt like mentors were really helpful to me, but not even mentors in my profession. Mentors like big picture. Yeah. Who's doing things in life and as you get older, I mean you're going to know better than I am because I think every decade you see as you getting close to the end, you start to say, "What do I want to do?" Because time is now the most valuable commodity by far.

And I've realized that everything in life where I used to think of it is just a trade for time. Everything. That's right.

Go, "Well, no, I don't really have a company. I sold the company for money. I'm like a time I literally am a song and dance man. You hire me, I go to an event. I trade my time to get paid." Versus somebody who creates a company, well, they sell the company, they don't have to do time, but they had to put the time into make the company. There's time no matter what you do that you're trading. And what's that time worth? And what's that time worth to do the things you enjoy?

Oz Pearlman44:14

Not me. I I'm I kill with kindness. I I think that that crushes you. When you feel like you're doing nothing, like you're out for a run. I'll never forget, you probably have the same stories. This is like, you know, in the bank of your good stories, is I ran the Hamptons marathon on a Saturday.

Yeah, I've done it. Yeah, it's great one. And I I won that race in a 2:47 on a Saturday. And I signed up and I was doing the Yonkers marathon Sunday morning. The back-to-back, which Michael Wardian, do you know Michael? Yeah. has done like that and inspired me. And I've seen that and I'm like, oh my god, two in a weekend, I got to do it. And then the next day I ran 10 minutes faster at that one. And that one was a struggle. The first one I was just hanging on, staying as close I could to the guy in first until I was going to put the hammer down and just do the slowest I could to win that race.

And then the next day it was much more of a battle royale and ran it 10 minutes faster to win. So, two in one weekend. It was just And during that one I had a guy who was running first place. And he wanted to get info out of me. Like, suck. Like, oh, I was chatting, you know, I don't mind chatting at all, just having fun time at the first race. And I was didn't want him to know that I'm just dogging it. I'm going as slow as I can.

I can't remember what my time was at the time, but he's like, at one point he just asked me, we're like, I don't know, 17, 18 miles in and we're sticking it out together and he's going for it. He's like, is your you're going for your PR today? I'm like, no, you know, I'm just I'm I'm running though. And he was, what's your PR? And I tried to dodge it for a while. Finally he was, well, well, you going to tell me? And I just looked at him and I I think I went 2:25.

And we're we're running right now at like a 2:48 and he just knows, oh crap, this guy just it's like it's like Kramer in Seinfeld where he was fighting little kids. Where you have there's no chance. Right now I'm in control of the situation and in a mile or two when I decide it's done, it's done. And so it was very funny to look in his face right then because it was it's psychological warfare. It's kind of like when you run a business and you're trying to you know, vanquish your your competitors.

And you just it's sometimes it's a doggy dog world.

Oz Pearlman46:58

Never at that point. I just didn't know that was possible. I didn't see I didn't have a parallel. I never I just never it never the switch never clicked in my mind because I I liken it to being like a first-generation immigrant where you kind of you're not brainwashed, but you're programmed in such a way of like, you go to school, right? You go to college and you get a good job and then you like make money that way.

The corporate track is kind of the way that my family raised me. I don't think I came from an entrepreneurial spirit. I came from much more of a line of people that worked for other people.

Worker bee. Worker bee to a degree, exactly. Find a job, get a good job that's got stability, and go with that. Versus somebody who's entrepreneurial and sees more of an equity stake. Or I had no performers in my extended family that I can think of. Somebody who made it in show biz.

Oz Pearlman47:31

Oh, so so in college, I was working at a restaurant. This is in Ann Arbor. This is shout out to a place called BD's Mongolian Barbecue.

Do you ever remember this Mongolian Barbecue where they cook on the wok in the middle? That place was so good. So, on Fridays I would perform there, and then I was always giving out cards. I was doing lots of kids' birthday parties still. I was doing a lot of adult birthday parties and just hustling, man. Hustling.

And it was a numbers game. That's another thing that I learned like at that point where people would get no's and they'd get dejected. Yeah. And I learned I looked at it in a different way. Just the way this bottle right now is half full to me, right? Cliché optimist, whatever. But I said to myself, if I'm giving out in a night I'm going 3 hours, I'm hitting maybe on average close to 50 to 60 tables cuz I'm spending 3 to 5 minutes per table. It's just a numbers game.

It's a numbers game.

And so, if I give out this many cards, how many times do I get a call? I can't track it. I don't have a code. It's not like, you know, "Put in dial code Ken 123 for Roka classes." It's not like it, but I can track kind of when I get the calls. I found that I would get one call for a party from two tables in the next year from one restaurant. That's how much I don't know if they book, but that's usually the cadence of those cards.

So, in my mind, 58 no's leads to two yes's. So, in my mind, every time I got a no, instead of being like, these, you know, these jerks, I'm like, I'm that one I'm that much closer to getting a yes. And so, it's a very good sales tactic to trick your mind in that way. So, I was there and I was doing this and I got known in the schools like the magician. Like, you know, word just spreads. And I'd be at parties and this is how I met girls.

Oz Pearlman49:21

You kidding me? This is the the main reason I learned magic before money was just how to meet new people. It's a great way to make friends. I still to this day consider knowing a few magic tricks as a cheat code in life. I don't care what you do. I have no I don't care what you do for a living. I don't care what you do for fun. If you know how to do three magic tricks really well, really well,

Yeah. you you have an instant in for the rest of your life. It's like knowing good jokes. Yeah. Nobody ever hates this feeling. Wow. There's nobody who hates that. It's It's universal thing. You might not like the same music as me. You might not laugh at the same comedy as me. You might not like the same food as me. Being amazed is a universal feeling for everyone. That's a great point. It it it transcends all languages, barriers, socioeconomic, anything, religion, anything. So, at this at this junction, everyone knew me in the campus and somebody told me there is a magic shop opening in Ann Arbor.

Do you understand that's impossible? That's like I'm a mob boss and you're telling me that there's a new like I know my territory. There's no way there's a magic shop that opened I haven't heard of. So, it turns out it's an online magic shop, which was a new thing in 2001. Like I didn't I know the dot com thing, but nobody it didn't happen. You didn't buy tricks online yet. It was new. There's no streaming video yet. Okay.

Oz Pearlman50:36

Yeah. This is like our kids don't know dial-up. This is like and I have to try to like dial-up porn. Like forget it. This is like I'll take you back to the '90s. They don't even know what that is. So, uh I met the guys. There was two guys who started this company. It's called Penguin Magic. Shout-out to Penguin. Free plug. They're still around. They're still huge. And they started this in an apartment in Ann Arbor in a campus apartment with like all these different racks and they were selling tricks.

And they didn't really know you didn't really know how to buy them yet. It was such a new game. This is when Amazon was selling books only.

Yeah. To make a long story short, they were making their own videos, but they weren't that great of like the really short videos to give you the experience of when you walked into a magic store and you go, "What's new?" This trick and some guy showed it to you and that's what got you to buy it, right? Yeah, written instructions aren't cool. You want to see this Whoa, how'd you do that? Well, 25 bucks from now I'll show you. Yeah. So, that changed the face of magic, where people could now buy it.

And David Blaine was right around then, too. He was getting huge. And so, I started doing There was no money. I started doing their videos. And I guess lightning in a bottle, didn't really know what I would become. I had a dynamic personality and what this did for me is we started dumping on a table 50 tricks. And this is like MacGyver. Do you remember MacGyver? Here's like a piece of gum, a paper clip, two shoelaces, and a bottle cap. Make me a bomb. You know what I mean?

So, I could take all these tricks and we would shoot them out in the street or at restaurants. We'd just go somewhere and shoot me doing tricks. I could learn from the instructions in in in one session, 30 tricks I'd never done before, go out and perform them, and learn how to make them entertaining, even if they weren't that good, if they were beginner tricks. And that skill set allowed me later in life, and the reason people see me on so many TV shows is a combination of a lot of things, but it's the fact that I can make new content all the time.

Whereas my competitors kind of get they're they're of a limited repertoire in some sense. I learned early on how to just mix and match. It's like recipes in a chef. I could take this spice, this thing, this thing, throw it together, and it's a new dish.

Oz Pearlman53:01

This is water. This is not something special.

Cosmoline and gasoline. Uh it's so it's crazy. They put it in a bottle. They made the bottle a different size and a different shape than everybody else. They put this Fiji, so from the island, and they sold this company for billions of dollars. How? That is a case study that everybody should look at and think about because it's it's ab- absolutely expert-level human psychology. It's branding 101. So, I've taken magic and repackaged it. I'm able to repackage the same tricks. If you really analyze what I do, there's a structure to them.

There's like a act one, act two, act three. There's different things that I do that I pepper in, but I'm able to repackage them for NFL players, for NBA players, for housewives watching me on uh on a morning show, uh on on you know, a business show like CNBC is different than Fox Business, which is different than going on CBS where I know the demographic. Last week I did March Madness. It's all about the bracket in March Madness. So, it's repackaging things to appeal to different people.

Do people now reach out to you want to buy tricks from you? Not real. I'm not a So, I don't have I don't have commercially available tricks. I've kind of left the magic world. There's nothing you could buy. I I don't have like I've created things. So, I have I'm now selling the illusion of reading your mind and I've tried to create it in the most real way you can possibly do it. I try to keep trimming just a little bit of fat off the steak or like take off this little piece this little bit till it's just this perfect filet mignon and that's what I've done because I realized that what I'm selling is a feeling.

It's memorable feelings for people to talk about and stories they can tell later and I've reduced all the other stuff surrounding it. So, when you watch a lot of magic, there's procedure. Take these cards, shuffle these cards, pick the card. I don't have any of that. So, when you watch me do it, you don't see a lot of procedure anymore. You just see the good stuff. You see you see a reveal of the information and then you experience the reaction. You only get the good stuff.

Oz Pearlman55:21

But I just thought it was interesting and didn't do the time didn't take the time to like look I patronized this guy. But I'm like, why what would someone's What would a What would a critic of mentalist tricks be? I don't know what the critics are. Like it's it's a difficult thing from a statistical perspective. It's important to understand that like at the outset, I'm more honest than almost anyone in my trade. I'm just very clear-cut. This is not psychic or supernatural. So, I'm not claiming that.

I've said that I don't even know at this point thousands of times. Mentalism is a form of magic. So, the social contract we have with our audience when we perform magic is that when I saw a woman in half, you don't have somebody screaming going, "CALL THE COPS! HE HE KILLED HER!" We all are aware of what this is. It's a trick. It's an illusion where I am tricking you. Now, the difference with mentalism, where we get into this territory, is mentalism looks like what psychics do, right?

Magic doesn't look like anything else cuz there's nobody who's really pretend to cut a woman in half to get your money or to pretend they're communicating with dead people. So, where you get in a gray area is that if you are saying you have skills you don't have, which is I can talk to dead people, pay me 25 grand, I'll tell you what your grandma says. Again, I'm not going to say if that's true or false. That seems to me very arrogant. There might be psychics that are very real and a lot of people had very real experiences.

So, I'm not telling you what's real or not. I'm telling you that I'm not using psychic powers to do what I'm doing. My skill is learnable and repeatable. Psychics don't have that. No psychic can tell you, "I'll teach you how to be psychic or I can repeat it in a moment's notice." My skill's learnable, repeatable, it has a method, it's based in science. Everything can be explained. Whether you can will ever be as good of a mentalist as me, that's up for grabs because that has to do a lot with nature nurture, your physique.

You'll never be as fast as Eliud Kipchoge, neither will I. So, there might be a physical limitation. I believe that what's made me very strong is if I study is a is a bit of mental resilience where I'm willing to take risks that others aren't. So, when you see a lot of my TV clips and why I have so many more than anyone else in my field, that's just an objective measure. I'm not telling you it's objectively, just add up our TV clips and how many hours I've been on shows that have a certain viewership, I will have more than anyone else in my field.

You don't have to say if I'm better or worse. Why? Because I make up new things all the time, and I'm willing to go on very large platforms and do them for the first time ever. Understand what I just said to you. When I was on Jimmy Fallon, when I was on Joe Rogan, when I was on very high profile events, the first time I've ever performed the trick you're seeing, it was right there. So, most other people aren't willing to take that level of swing because their fear or what if it'll go wrong or what if I don't know how to explain it, but I'm willing to take that risk because I'm able in my mind to rehearse it over and over and over and think that this will go right and have like a unshakable belief in myself that helps reinforce that it will go right.

It's kind of self-fulfilling, and I've also mapped out everything that can go wrong. Sometimes I still eat a big pile of steaming crap, but I think I know what what to do in that instance cuz I've mapped it out. Yeah. That's a lot of what it comes down to is preparation is huge.

Oz Pearlman58:41

First date, she hated it. Wait, to go back, I just want to say the gripe. So, the gripe that people will have, a lot of it is they go, "It's fake." Hello, are you ready? I know it's fake. I'm telling you it's fake. So, like if you're debunking me, it's like literally being at the mall. Imagine an adult being at the mall and a kid goes on Santa's lap and you walk up to the kid and go, "Kid, that's not the real Santa."

Oz Pearlman59:26

So, it was very interesting when the book came out. And yours is different cuz yours is a memoir, and it says it right there. I didn't sell a memoir. My story is secondary to the book.

Yeah. My book is very clearly designed to be a guide for success. So, the mentalism is just a channel for what the book is. I don't teach a single mentalism trick in the book. I don't tell you how to do mentalism.

Oz Pearlman59:53

Buy Tom Brady's book on how to be successful, and you go, "Screw you, Tom. I'm not an NFL quarterback now."

It's very similar. But, where it gets sticky is that my presentation has deception built in. It's at the core. I won't tell you how I do it.

Right. So, I guide you on a path of false narratives and false explanations as to how it's done because that captures the viewer. Right? I'm giving you things that are almost always rooted in some realm of truth as to how I'm doing it. Am I reading your body language? Am I assessing this thing versus this thing? Did you give me a tell at that point? Well, I would tell you that almost always what I'm saying is true, but on what level? That's right.

Was it 5% of the method? Was it 20%? Was it 80% of the method? You don't know that. I am blending ingredients throughout. Now, people will give me credit for being the world's greatest body language reader, which I openly tell you I am not.

I know. Am I exceptionally good at it? Yes. That's absolutely 100% true. But, is that the way that I'm achieving everything I do? No. I'm clearly open about it. So, when people buy the book and go, "Well, I bought the book, and I can't now tell if my wife's cheating on me or not." I go, "I'm not going to be able to tell you that necessarily, but I probably will give you a 10, 15, or 20% tactical advantage of doing that and a lot of other tools in your arsenal to use when you approach and know other people." That's what I'm giving you.

And also, ways to read your own mind. That's where I think people, and again, I don't deal in debunking, either, because people that are achieving aren't sitting back like hating on others. That's you know, who's Rogan had a great scene where he goes, "Anyone like sitting there hating on you?" And the real haters are never achieving. There's just no They're too busy doing. That's right.

Oz Pearlman1:02:07

Yeah, that's your best Those haters are the best thing ever. So anyone thinks debunkers, haters, all that, keep it coming. The haterade is delicious. Like that stuff sells. If your viewpoint is attention, no one got attention. Think of Elvis Presley. Think of Little Richard. Think of people that have been They changed the game because they were controversial in some way.

Yeah. If you're liked by everyone, you have not achieved success. Period.

Oz Pearlman1:02:33

Um That's a tough question. I I really do wonder what's the most public So some of them

Oz Pearlman1:02:54

I've had I've had like flop sweat moments where you're just like, "Oh my god." Where you're just dying. You're dying inside. You're dying. And and I I wrote a bunch of them in the book cuz they're very useful to know that like not everything goes perfect. But I had I've had just a few They're They tend to be corporate events, some public events. A lot of them are learning experiences where it wasn't actually my fault, but that's a silly thing to say. Everything's your fault. The Yeah.

The with you. You can never be mad at an audience. And an audience is a parallel to everything in life, but like for me specifically audience because the audience doesn't have to be there. I could have no audience. So, if something went wrong, I need to figure out what went wrong and learn for next time. Even if it wasn't my fault, let's say the microphone didn't work, scratchy, screechy, that's still my fault. I was I didn't hire the sound tech. I shouldn't have agreed to do the show if that's the case.

Learn what's important for next time. Learn to advocate for yourself more so that next time instead of being like I don't want to be called a diva, well, then you have to be your own champion. You have to find the right way to coax success out of others and find out like a cameraman pointing the camera at the wrong thing, I'm going to learn next time how to get there earlier, coach the person, and find a way to ensure that they do something right. And also incentivize them.

A lot of the people that you rely on for success don't necessarily care about your success. They're not motivated.

Oz Pearlman1:04:08

So, so I need to find out when I walk in and for me I meet a lot of people very frequently. One of my big ones is remembering people's names. Remembering people's names, making them feel seen and heard is such a simple thing to do. Remembering something about them. Even if you don't remember, write it down. I take copious notes. And that way if I meet you again, I have a cheat sheet. People think, "Oh, he's mental. He's the best memory ever." I'm telling you right now, I cheat all the time.

I write it all down. After every show, like I have meet and greets. When I have a meet and greet before that, I tell them I need 5 minutes cuz right now I have a shorthand. I write everything down that occurred at the show. I have a shorthand so I can do it very quickly.

Yeah. So, I could probably get what would for you be like two pages of information from you. It'll be like eight lines.

Yeah. But da da da da da da da da da everything that happened at the show, everything I can remember, where that person worked, how I might see them again. And I realized this is sand slipping through your fingers. You can't catch it. That sand that's it's it's money that's just going to waste. Not even money, but like that is a coupon that never expires. Information about other people is a coupon that gets more valuable the longer you keep it.

Oz Pearlman1:05:23

Every time. So, I have a lot of repeat business, and so I learned early on that if I have to do a show again, if it's the same group of people, it's like comedy. You can't do the same show twice. That doesn't joke doesn't hit. And mine's even worse cuz they're watching now in a different way than the first time. You don't have the element of surprise to your advantage. So, at first it happened where I started having shows for repeat clients, and I go "What did I do for them last time?

I don't remember. Oh my god, am I going to do the same trick?" So, I started taking notes about that.

You. Then I started taking notes because I realized that who you know is more important than what you know. My network determines so much of my future success.

Oz Pearlman1:05:56

The door for you to the next thing? And who can So much of what you achieve is who do you surround yourself with? If you're surrounding yourself with people, which I saw I saw cuz I started reading the beginning of your book, is like what people doing drugs and going out and partying. And that's If that's your circle, That's what you're going to be doing all the time.

Oz Pearlman1:07:42

when you That's the title of the second Ken Rideout book, Dream Bigger.

Oz Pearlman1:08:05

Respect. That's a good place to be. That's a really good place to be, not needing something in the give-and-take. But, so break it down for somebody listening cuz I I can break it down for my end, too. I can give you very clear guidance. How did you get the network? So, you said I didn't try. What did you do or not do?

Perfect.

Map it out for people that are like, "I don't know anybody. I'm like in my town. I don't know anything.

Oz Pearlman1:11:22

So, I think one of the big ones is establishing most people in a give-and-take relationship. That they reach out to someone else, they want to take. Right right away, think about it again, power dynamics. Like when I walked up to you at a restaurant, if somebody has what you want, they're a mentor.

They're you five years, 10 years, 15 years from now. Maybe not in their whole, but something about them is what you're looking for.

Yeah. You're trying to take from them. Maybe take time, maybe you're trying to take advice, maybe it's money, maybe you're trying to take I want to sit down to coffee with you. I'm a busy guy, I don't know if I want to sit down to coffee with you. Start with give. So, I can tell you just from people that have gotten through my exterior. If somebody writes to me, they go, "How did you do that trick?" Strike one, strike two right off the jump is I worked really hard to figure out how to do that trick.

Why would I give it away to you right away? Like the thought that that's your first thing, your point of entry to me, right away set you in the wrong place.

Oz Pearlman1:12:23

The approaches I'm not going to say anyone's idiot cuz some people are young and don't know, but I've had a lot of people who approach me who Yeah, but who make mistakes right off the jump and that's the majority of people. You want to be the outlier. Yeah. So, what can you give that person? Now, in many instances, if they're more successful than you, you're probably not going to give them advice, you probably can't give them money.

So, what can you give them? Time back. So, I had I have I've had a lot of people come to me who are mentalists in training or magicians in training who want who come up and they've seen you on TV show and they go, "I want to learn what you have." I don't have enough of me to spread out. I have five kids. So, what got some of them through? What made So, I've had one guy who I remember I to this day we keep in touch very well.

He went went to me and said, "Love what you do." So, right away led with a compliment, smart. And then said, "I'm on your website. I'm seeing that this link is broken, that the this photo's not correct, and that you've got three typos here." Send it to your person to fix or if you'd like, I'm happy to fix it for you. I also noticed that on your Wikipedia, this is out of date, this is out of date. He came to me with all this stuff that I clearly hadn't had time to fix.

And he came to me with an action plan of give it to your person or I'm happy to help you myself no charge. Didn't ask me for anything. We did take take take. I was doing all this stuff from him that he was like I was taking all the stuff that he was giving to me without ever being asked anything. And he was smart enough to at one point when I finally said, "Man, you've given me so much. What can I give back to you?" And at that point he's like, "If you don't mind watching my sizzle reel, just tell me what I could fix in it." And I'm like, "You kidding me?

Done. Send it today." Had he led with sending me that, I would have never done it, right? I'm too busy. Think about that for yourself right now. If you're 18 years old and you're listening to this and you go, "I don't know what to give. I want I love music." Great. Have you ever called any music producing company and said, "I want to intern for you. I have time to give. I want You know what? You need coffee? I'm going to go get the coffee and fetch it for you.

Let me in the door. I don't need a full foot. Give me a toe. Give me a toe. Let me wiggle another toe. Let me get my foot in. Let me prove myself indispensable to you." And I also at restaurants, when I was starting, I got paid at some, I didn't get paid at others. Why? Why didn't I want to get paid? Because I realized that the value of the access to the people who are rich there, who could pay me to do their birthday parties, was far more valuable.

And I learned earlier that getting tips at certain restaurants it hurt me because getting tips seemed a little bit below the level of the restaurant. So, I'd walk up and I would immediately say to them, I I just want to let you know, I'm here courtesy of the host tonight and I have something incredible to show you. They've taken care of everything. Right away that takes away the tension of tip this person. They could enjoy it differently knowing that any amount they might give me, I might get $10 from this guy, $20 from this guy pales in comparison to one person hiring me that night for a $1,200 show, right?

Be smart. Know tactically what you can give. So many people are so short-sighted and say, "No, if I don't get paid right now, why would I even do it?" You've just stopped yourself before step one, two, and three when you want step five. And that takes a lot of foresight that you can't really do when you're younger and you want everything now.

Oz Pearlman1:17:34

Like people say to me, "Please follow me." And I go, "Make make content that's compelling 100% Why are you asking me to follow you? I could care less. I follow things because I want to see what you're putting out into the world. Inspire me, entertain me, do whatever hits the button on me that says I want to know more about you on a regular basis. It's so funny when somebody says to follow me. I would never ask somebody to follow me. I need to earn that.

100% That's not even from social media, which is kind of like an ickier thing, but follow me in life. Like be fascinated by me and earn it. I never like my mindset is always if I'm on TV or if I'm on anywhere, the default is it should be turned off. I need to earn your attention right then. And so many people come at it from the opposite perspective and this new generation, it's not like I don't want to be the fuddy-duddy, now feels entitled in a certain way.

There's like an entitlement sense that I have completely opposite of, which is oh, I should be heard in this I feel as if there's no reason for me to be heard. I need to become so compelling and do things that are so compelling that they have to be shared. That everyone around you, I'm not a special snowflake. I'm doing things that are just so great that you have to send it to other people.

Oz Pearlman1:18:42

And that's the key. And it's it's maintaining the fans. Not even like once I have you, I've got you forever. You need to maintain it and keep putting out output that's you know, can't be put away. It can't be can't be stopped.

Oz Pearlman1:18:54

I keep thinking there's no like I'm waiting for the big break still. We'll see the way this corresponds to it, it might be a big one. I know that my career has grown, but I'm nowhere near where I feel like you know when you see the trajectory and there's peaks and valleys. Like I don't believe I have come close to peaking yet.

I truly don't. Which is good. I think that's the motivator in life of where I said I'm competitive. The first one that really changed my life was I was on a show called America's Got Talent.

Oz Pearlman1:19:27

I got third place, but that whole show was just it was the hero's journey of not only did it get me exposure and help me define who I am in a very good way. Like I became Oz the Mentalist before I was doing a lot of magic and I just decided to brand myself that way. But also a core belief in myself.

And America were telling me that I was good. And it's the imposter syndrome of thinking I'm I'm I'm not really that good at this. Am I that good at this? You know where you don't really believe it, but if enough people tell you that you start to believe it. Even if you're not 100%. Like I still think I could be better. But I didn't really believe in myself at anywhere the near the level I I would eventually

Oz Pearlman1:20:08

Until that show gave me that external validation.

Oz Pearlman1:20:13

And it opened me up from being a very local hyper local act to the New York City area and the tri-state area to national.

Oz Pearlman1:20:20

And suddenly people know me and I just started to define my goals in a much more quantifiable measure. Like here's what I want to do. Here's where I want to be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years. Here's where I think I can take this craft and elevate what I do.

Oz Pearlman1:21:53

Yeah. Like what are we doing as like the divisiveness Anyway, I digress. How'd you get the White House the Correspondents Dinner gig and how have you navigated the potential pushback? So there's going to be pushback. It's there's 10% at each end who are the most vocal, who are going to hate you if you're if you're if you're too nice or or or or like if you're perceived as too nice, then why are you so nice to the president? I hate you. Or if you were disrespectful, then this 10% is like you're dead to me.

Like there's no you're you're trying to can a narrow thing but what's interesting is I know what I sell. So, again, what's your product? What's your product with my My product is memorable, amazing moments of wow and wonder. I am never selling politics. I am selling agenda. And some people say, well, you not saying something is something. I don't think that's true anymore. There's not this thing of silence is complicit. I don't even know what that means. I'm not in the business of politics. That's not what I sell.

It's not part of my I have political views outside of my performance, the same way that I don't really put my family in social media or anything I do. That's separate. It's like a private life. So, in this instance, what I'm attempting to do is to right down the middle. I'm merely If I'm going to make fun of anyone, it will be both sides. And this side, that side, and the other. I'm not there to roast. They literally brought me in because it's not a roasting type of show the way they have comedians.

They want it to be a piece of ginger you eat when eating sushi. They want to cleanse the palate, have it be amazing, have it be talked about, have it be engaging. Uh, but you're right. There's like I have somebody I live in Brooklyn. It is much more liberal. And they said, are you going to cancel at the last minute so that, you know, to show in the message? I go, abso- Why would I like no. I'm getting a huge opportunity. It's my mindset is wild because that's a core not knowing of what this is.

So, what I'm doing that night is hosting a dinner that celebrates the First Amendment of the Constitution, the freedom of the press, and the fact that we have a press. There's a whole lot of countries in this world that don't have a press that can say anything on either side. They only say what the dictator or leader tells them to do. We, fortunately, I don't care what your opinion is, still have a press that gets to print stuff that's very, very critical, that's very, uh, very positive, that's very You can get your media from all different places, whether it's from TikTok, if that's what you choose to do, but you can learn things.

We have a lot of freedom in this country. I don't care what anybody says. I don't care what anybody says. Go to some places that have no freedom and understand how much freedom you have. It is probably far from perfect, but it's very far from a lot of the models that exist in other countries that are completely broken. Yes. And so, just like you, I am a proud American citizen. I had to earn the citizenship. I wasn't born with it. I moved here from another country.

And I, the same, would die gladly for this country and and think that this is a land of huge opportunity and this is a huge opportunity for me and it has nothing to do with politics whatsoever. I'm there to make it a night that people will be talking about for years to come.

Oz Pearlman1:24:39

I really I was like I was like I told Ken, I'm like, "I'm the stripper who you just talked to the whole time.