The Sean Trace Show

The Mentalist's Edge | Daniel Chan | The Sean Trace Show

• Sean Trace

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0:00 | 47:20

I sat down with Daniel Chan, known as the Millionaires' Mentalist, and this conversation went so much deeper than card tricks. 

Daniel performs for billionaires, CEOs, and celebrities across the world, charging up to $10,000 a show, and he broke down exactly how he got there. 

What started as street performing and kids' birthday parties after getting laid off from PayPal turned into a global career built on one core principle: knowing your leverage and never letting someone else define your worth.

We talked about the danger of limiting beliefs; how a single negative word planted early in life can quietly shrink someone's entire ceiling. Daniel shared how he built a team to protect his time, why he keeps his best tricks exclusive to live performances, and what he learned from quietly studying the bookshelves of the ultra-wealthy. 

What's one limiting belief you've had to break to reach your next level?

SPEAKER_00

One of the things is there was someone in my family who said that they would not pay a dollar to see me perform. And it like he said it was either a dollar or a penny. And I don't know if he was saying so that thing kept in my mind this was before I got married. This was like 20 years ago. And I think that seed made me price myself lower than everyone else. And I think a lot of people in Asia had that mindset because uh because they don't have the use of the English language, because they don't have the sophistication or the communication skill. More important than magic is our ability to communicate, to articulate ourselves. And that's the thing, is the the reason why people think they're gonna become famous or they're gonna do this and that is because they're missing part of the thing, is the mastery of their language, if they want to get famous with the people who speak their language. I cannot be famous in Asia yet until, unless I'm doing stupid things or fumbling or doing things. It's because I don't have mastery of that language. And as long as you have mastery of that language and you have self-awareness to know what your unique passions and skills are, that's when you change, and that's when everything else starts changing.

SPEAKER_01

Today, would you like to introduce yourself and tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00

I am Dan Chan, and I go by the Millionaires Mentalist. I do magic, mind reading, and influence.

SPEAKER_01

What does that mean? Tell me what you do. Like, for someone who doesn't understand, um, you know, are we talking Harry Potter? Are we talking something else? What is what what do you do, man?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, um let's let's do a demonstration for you, real quick. Are you on Facebook? Yes, I am. Okay. When I snap my fingers, I want you to name a playing card.

SPEAKER_01

Uh Ace of Hearts.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting. Um do you have hotels.com? Actually, let's turn this down a little bit. Do you have hotels.com or the app store?

SPEAKER_01

Uh hotels.com on my phone?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

No.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, no. Um do you see that this is subliminal messaging?

SPEAKER_01

Subliminal messaging, no. Hang on.

SPEAKER_00

Am I missing I'm missing something? Do you see the ace of hearts?

SPEAKER_02

What? I gotta zoom in here. Thank God, my screen's too small. Oh, what? That's wild, dude. How'd you how?

SPEAKER_00

Ace of hearts.

SPEAKER_01

Oh Jesus Christ. No, I'm not sure. Dude, that's wild. That's wild, man. Sorry, I couldn't see the screen, so I'll edit that so it's a hell of more of a pipe site, but that's nuts, dude. That's wild. How did you pull that? That's wild. Okay, that's crazy, man. How did you get started down this path doing this awesome stuff, man?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I worked at PayPal for 13 months. Uh, believe it or not, I signed a petition to kick Elon out of PayPal. He left uh six months after he was CEO, and then I got laid off 13 months later. I was in customer service, and I started with the street performing, kids' birthday parties, and now I'm flying all around the world. I've done shows in Chicago, New York. I'm going to Bethesda, Maryland coming up uh to do a show. And these shows are pretty big. I mean, like, I would never have imagined that someone would fly me out to a location, pay me 10K, and let me just do silly tricks for a living. Well, they're not that silly. I just feel like they're really, to me, pretty simple now. Tricks that are really basic stuff and it's just a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome, man. I'm not gonna lie, that's absolutely awesome. And that last one blew my mind. I wanted to ask you this though, because like, you know, you see some really interesting stuff, but like, what's something about people that magicians understand better than most people? I don't.

SPEAKER_00

It's just only the best magicians. And one thing that I realized is you have to be a one of one. Because a lot of people are comparing you. And it's hard not to say no, but you need leverage to say no. It's like, how do you get to that next level? For me, it was building a team and saying, Oh, I'm not gonna do it. It's at that budget, I'll send you someone else. And then you have leverage. You have people saying, Oh, I want you. When you're like, Oh, you don't have X amount, or I'm feeling like I'm being abused. And I took a lot of abuse in the beginning. Like, I didn't realize my net worth, but I also didn't have leverage.

SPEAKER_01

And business is about business is about leverage. One of the things that I think early on in business, a lot of people don't understand is how to gain leverage. And leverage is a game. There's a game about gaining leverage, it's a chess game. And a lot of people are not even aware how to play the game, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think of this as a team sport. Like when I work with people, uh when I onboard them, there's something that they get, there's something that I get. And um I play Bug House a lot. It's a variant of chess where it's a four uh four-player variant. Um, maybe we'll play together afterwards. Whatever piece you capture, I get to put on my board. And whatever piece I capture, you place on your board. And I think about that when I'm negotiating, because sometimes if I've already locked in my time, someone offers me a bigger amount, and I used to feel bad. I'm like, oh, oh, like, what was this a bigger amount? So what I do now is I don't commit myself unless someone's paying me a significant amount. If it's anything less, I can send my son or Colin or some of my other team members that positions me as a premium in the marketplace. But I'm also doing things no one else in the world is doing. So I have something that's not a commodity. A lot of times people haven't differentiated what they do. For example, for me, I have this intro rap. I could drop it in, or you can edit it into the podcast. When I walk on, I have walk-on music and it says my name like seven or eight times, Dan Chan, corporate magician from San Fran. And when you rhymes and alliteration are hypnotic. If you have like a walk-on intro or something that brands you right before a podcast or right after something, every little touch point is something that can be used to brand you. For example, like uh this is a jacket that I was trying out, and I just you saw me throw this on. And this is a little bit to me, it's a little ostentatious. I I have something a little bit, you know, like a little bit more on brand for what I do, this white jacket. But I try lots of different things that make me stand out, that make me a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. You have to know what makes you special, you know, what makes you memorable as well, you know, because I think some people don't understand that. And it's interesting because um I think that there is this everyday magic that we all play a game with. That everyday magic is how to gain attention. You know, I do it on the podcast, I try to figure out what's gonna hook, what's gonna pull on that attention, and there's there's a magic to that. You know, it's maybe not the magic that you're doing, but you know, the great magicians capture attention better than anyone, you know? It's like this attention game, and maybe you're making them look over here, well, something's happening over here, you know? But I I wanted to ask you that because why do you think people love magic so much? Even when they know that there's there might be an explanation, but people love it still, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Well, people love magic because they initially can't figure it out. And some people like figuring out that one aspect, and then they're like, oh, I saw something else I didn't figure out. I figured out the other thing, so oh, I call myself a magician. But when you when you start learning what magic is about, it's not about fooling people. In fact, a lot of people are like very, oh, I don't want this guy to know a secret. And when I meet friends, I'll share with them one or two simple secrets that one little bit of the formula. And magicians probably will, you know, hate the fact that I'm sharing, but I'd rather make friends than to, you know, I'm not gonna give away my full secret sauce, right? But if I, you know, someone was kind enough to show me in Israel when I was traveling there a rubber band trick, which led to another thing, and which led to another thing. And I I find that if I showed you something and it was the start of your career, you'd be thankful to me. So I've had these people who after I show, like I didn't show them how it worked, but I floated a table, and this kid, um Luke, said he realized it was me later. And he said that for three years or more, he was he was so strong up think thinking that I rigged some wires to make this table float. And it was a classic trick. I mean, like it's it's it's a little bit more standard now. Um it was it's called the um, well, I won't even give the name out because that we're the best people who are original are the people who hide sources. So there's a lot of things that like I realized that you know, maybe famous magicians were doing. And when I found out who their consultants were, I'm like, oh, they use this guy's effect, this guy's principle. And then when you start doing it in a way that feel totally different, or you're the first to market, then you end up becoming a big name. And that's the thing is how do you become a big name in such a fragmented market? Back in the days, it was ABC, CBS, and MBC. If you ended up on one of those, you'd have probably like minimum 20% of the whole nation knowing who you are. Now we have TikTok and Instagram and all these things. So that's why I think it's important for people to jump on podcasts and keep relationships going. I worked with the PayPal Mafia, the guys who founded LinkedIn, YouTube, um Ancestry.com and all these other companies, including a guy who's now the ambassador to Denmark and Sweden. But the one thing I didn't realize was how do you keep those relationships going? I could name drop, but I started realizing, you know, like do I have Sean Trace's phone number? You know, like I'll do tricks to get the phone number when I'm working with celebrities now, but I'll also give them a carrot. Like, hey, I'm gonna invite you to the Magic Castle. Can you put your phone number here? And now I've got their personal phone number. Uh which is more than you know, just friending someone or following someone on Facebook. I think there's a lot of different touch points that we get in, but it's important not to spam and always give, give, then ask.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. It's the power of connectivity too, you know. And what you're talking about is seeming without with this not spam, it's like creating value.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And I think that when you are in an interaction where you're creating value, um, it's a powerful thing because I think value creators are people that are sought out and that, you know, we live in a world where a lot of people are takers. And I think if you can go, hey, I mean, obviously everyone wants something, but if you can show, but also I can reciprocate, people are more open to interaction, uh, interaction. And it it's interesting too, because I think that um it's one of the secret sauces of like connectivity, you know, that ability to find ways to create value for everyone. But I wanted to ask you this too, because when you walk on stage, when you go into a room, um, you know, one of the things that I notice with people, and people ask me all the time, uh, because everyone sees me come on my podcast and like, oh, you're really confident. And like, it was a learned thing. Do you know how I learned to be confident on camera? How I learned to be confident in front of people? I was a children's teacher. I taught like eight to 10-year-old kids, and you want to talk about a brutal audience, they would take you down a couple of notches. You're like, hey, hey, your class sucks today. You're like, all right, back to the drawing board. Wow, that was just painful. But I want to ask you this like, what makes someone feel confident when they walk into a room? When you get on that stage and you're about ready to perform, when you're in a uh, you know, you have celebrities in front of you, people that are just like really have seen it all. How do you keep your confidence? How do you go in there and just control that room?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I used to work for kids, kids' birthday parties, you're right, they're brutal. So I know there's a couple of things that I can fall back on. One, certain things that are a little bit more common in the magician's repertoire that I can nail that a little bit differently that still fool the magicians. So, like I know there's a lot of people, CEOs in the Bay Area, who watch a lot of magic and they know how some things are done. And I know for a fact that they will still be impressed, even if they've seen David Blaine. Because I've had people say, I've seen this celebrity or that celebrity, and you're better than him. So that's reps. That's knowing that you have something different. Um, and that's also curating the experience for people. Um, yeah, yeah. It's just just knowing that we're one of one. There was a guy named Arjun's son that said, How do we make you of one of one? And I kept on thinking about that. I'm like, I'm gonna every day change one little bit, do something slightly different, or do tricks that very few people are ever performing. And then when people start performing it, ditch the trick, you know, have my guys do it or other people do it and move on to the newest, greatest tricks. There's a lot of things that I put on YouTube, but there's even my best tricks. Once I put it on YouTube, a lot of times it's retired or semi-retired. I have a couple of things that you have to hire me to see me do live. And that's the differentiator. That's why people are paying 10K to have me perform around the world. I don't let anyone see my best tricks until you hire me live.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome because it's like I um I was reading this one book, and it was talking about one of the most powerful things that you can do is to not show everyone your cards, you know, and like if you're putting it all out there, um, it's like this, right? I I work with some people that are trying to build certain things, build businesses, build brands. But one of the things that I've had that was great advice for me, and then I share that with other people, is to not tell everyone what you want to be doing. Because if you tell everyone everything, so A, you'll get a couple different reactions. One, sometimes people will try to shut you down. I've got this one guy I know, nice guy, but everything I say that I want to like do, he'll find a reason that it's a bad idea. And I just leave that interaction feeling deflated. Like this person is trying to get me to not do that for some reason. And I don't know why. And he's a nice guy, but there's just this disconnect. I don't get what that's all about. But it's interesting too because um one of the things that I have to do is guard and be careful about what I put out there. Like, I'm not putting all of my cards on the table, and I'm just really careful about what I say with people now. Um, and and that's what I want to ask you this, because I've seen lots of mistakes that people make in just in business and in like networking. But I want to ask you like when someone's getting up on stage or you know, public speaking or in in front of a group of people or a person that's trying to do magic for the first time, what's the biggest mistake people can make when they're trying to impress others?

SPEAKER_00

Trying to impress others, but also doing it in front of too big a crowd. Like, for example, I think that you should go out on the streets and just test it on people who are gonna not know who you are. I I do that all the time. And when you go to bat, you only have to, you know, hit mid-300s to get to be world famous, but everyone's afraid of stepping up to the plate. Everyone's either afraid of that or afraid of street performing. Like I still will go out, you know, like you if you go to my Instagram at DanchanMagic, I am performing for these, this lady on I think United Airlines, and she gave me the best freak out reaction, and that is a gift to the world. And that is, she's freaking out, and I just walk up to people in the airport all the time, just doing magic for them. And I've gotten so many followers because I'm giving away some of the new stuff. Like they're not gonna, I know I think a lot of us fear, oh, this guy's gonna copy this, this is they're gonna do that. There are hidden toxicity in people. Like, for example, the person you talked about that's saying something, you really want to curate that. If you notice that this person's knocking down, you have to ask them, are they jealous? Or did I do something wrong the first time? And you might figure it out. But I think there are a lot of people who are very jealous in the world. And I used to be one of those people because I know that because I would see something and I would copy. And I realize that, yeah, if someone's gonna copy, they're gonna eventually copy. If it's gonna be good and you're gonna be that good, people are gonna copy and you're just gonna have to keep on running forward because the person who's running forward isn't looking behind their shoulder to see who's behind them because you're gonna lose ground when you're looking that way. You just do your thing, keep on running forward, don't worry about what anyone else is doing. Someone's always gonna be cheaper than you, and usually well, for the most part, unless you are the 0.00001%, someone's always gonna be cheaper than you and someone's gonna be more expensive. Don't complain about the person cheaper than you. And for the guy who's more expensive, if that guy can do it, you can too. I used to look at this um magician, and the the guy um uh I realized that there was a magician who was charging a hundred thousand dollars. And I was like, what the? Then when I showed up at a party, right? Some guy said, Oh, I saw this guy at a party. You're better than him. And I was like, Really? And I dismissed it. Then I heard it again and again, then I asked this guy, oh, so where did you see this guy? And he's like, Oh, my friend hired him. And then I ended up saying, Oh, your friend, which friend? He's like, Oh, he's at this party. I started creating conversations, I started listening. He comes over, I find out uh who this guy is, I show him a couple magic tricks and I ask him, is this true? Does this guy charge a hundred thousand dollars? And he says to me, he just shuts up and he leaves. I circle this guy like a shark. Like this entire party. I would not let go of I'd watch him out of the corner of my eye. This is a big room, and I make everyone freak out. And every time I make people freak out, I'm just circling him, like I'm trying to stay within eye range of this guy. He's like, dude, I can hire this famous TV celebrity magician. Why does he care about me? When I came back around, he bites on that hook the thing that I'm trolling with, all the reactions. He comes back, I do about 40 minutes of magic for him. Like my longest set, my A material, and he tells me, I ask him one more time, hey, does this guy charge 100,000? He's like, I got 25% off. I'm like, shit, $75,000 for an evening of entertainment. And this guy's so happy that he got 75. And and the guy who's next to him, his friend, says, I'm I'm better. So I just started getting rid of that limiting mindset. And one of the things is there was someone in my family who said that they would not pay a dollar to see me perform. What? And like he said it was either a dollar or a penny. And I don't know if he was saying, so that thing kept in my mind. This was before I got married. This was like 20 years ago. And I think that seed made me price myself lower than everyone else. And I think a lot of people in Asia had that mindset because uh because they don't have the use of the English language, because they don't have the sophistication or the communication skill. More important than magic is our ability to communicate, to articulate ourselves. And that's the thing is the the reason why people think they're gonna become famous or they're gonna do this and that is because they're missing part of the thing is the mastery of their language if they want to get famous with the people who speak their language. I cannot be famous in Asia yet until unless I'm doing stupid things or fumbling or doing things. It's because I don't have mastery of that language. Right? And as long as you have mastery of that language and you have self-awareness to know what your unique passions and skills are, that's when you change, and that's when everything else starts changing.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. And there's a couple things there that I want to touch on that I think are worth touching on. But one of the things there that you said that I thought was really interesting, I want to ask you about people who get themselves put into boxes or put themselves into boxes. Why do you think so many people put themselves in tiny boxes in life?

SPEAKER_00

I love that analogy. Um it's because they listened to someone say something that was negative and they let that person plant that seed. Yes. I think I'm gonna mark that clip because I think that that is um one of the most powerful things that people can walk away with.

SPEAKER_01

I think that the danger is that those seeds have been planted when some people are so young and they don't even realize what was happening. They don't even realize what that was. And that seed was planted, and then the people go on with their lives, but that limiting belief is there and it's just percolating. You know, you're not you're not an athlete, you're not handsome, you're not strong, you can't achieve these things, like whatever it might be. And I want to ask you this because you have lived a very amazing life. You have an uncommon life, but it was your life, and you've built it, and it's awesome. What helped you believe you could build an uncommon but amazing life?

SPEAKER_00

There was the only thing that I I only remember one thing my mom told me not to do, like specifically in terms of career, or like she'd always ask me, do you have enough? or like you know, like she would only uh she only asked me not to become a lifeguard. But everything else was fair game. She she thought some of the stuff that I did was real, like some of the magic stuff that I was doing could have been real. And uh, I had to show her, like, oh, this isn't demonic or anything, but it was pretty powerful stuff. Like, especially for someone who doesn't go out a lot, she just thought that it was just insane, like the the things that I was doing. Um I I find that we limit ourselves because of we don't have the mentors who have been there and done that. Once someone runs that four-minute mile, we realize that we can do it. Once someone hits that marker, we can do it too. But the the problem is, is there if you're the best in that particular market or best in that particular field or location, then someone or you have the market share, then that if they can't hire me at 10k, they're gonna hire someone at 1K. You you know what I'm saying? So um, and then when the market goes down, uh who knows? I I might be um, you know, this streak might be over and I might hit 5k once in a while. I might just say, but at least I have a fallback. I know I hit 10k uh for quite a while, and I realize, oh, someone did pay me for it. So you are people could be wrong, even if it's once or twice. The problem is people think, oh dang, he hit that all the time. It's like there's a supply and demand curve that you learn in economics or business 101. It's like the higher the price, the less demand there is. But is it possible? Yes, it's possible. It's am I doing that every day? No, I used to do 350 shows a day with what I'm earning right now. I'm and I'm not making that amount for 10,000, you know, not everyone's gonna pay $10,000, right? But the fact is, I've done it, and to achieve the same lifestyle, the number of shows, I used to charge $250 a show. Yeah and then $1,000 a show. So it's like, do would I rather do 40 shows at $250? Or should I do one at $10,000? Like 40 shows in a month. I'm old. Oh, I'm a lot older. I'm 48. I don't want to do that many shows there. I went to leverage my team and leverage, you know, the people working with me so that I have more options.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because that leverage, uh, I love that you talk about leverage and like I think leveraging teams, leveraging groups is something that's really important to break out of those boxes. But you know, it leads me also to think about this like, there are some people that stay stuck even when they're talented. Some people have the ability to get there, but they don't. And, you know, I wanted to ask you, like, because what of what you said earlier, what's a limiting belief that you had to break to become successful? What was the thing that you go, all right, this, this had to go?

SPEAKER_00

I'm only worth so much.

SPEAKER_02

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00

Right? If they will only pay me this much. I didn't know they're a CEO, they're the billionaire, they're like, uh like there was um there's an interesting negotiation recently. I did an event, and this person saw me when they were very, very young. They're still their net worth wasn't very high, but their parents' net worth was insane. And when they ended up getting, they had a special event for them, the they asked to have me. And it was just, hey, mom, I you know, can we have this? And it's like the guys, the guy has a normal job, but when you Google the mom and dad, you'll realize they are freaking loaded. And it's not about that person didn't even have the net worth to hire me, I'm pretty sure. But it was their mom, someone in their network. And it was them on their special occasion requesting me. So it's not even about it, it wasn't even about them, it was about who they were connected to. Yeah. And that's the thing. If we look at someone, we might look up them up on LinkedIn and be like, oh, he's only uh whatever, but who's his dad? And you never know who you're working with, and that's why we shouldn't discount people right off the bat. I used to have that thing is I treat people differently. My wife got me on that. It's like, you gotta treat everyone the same.

SPEAKER_01

You there is this one of the things that I learned ages ago um was that a couple things. When I worked in um in Hollywood many, many years ago, some of the people that were PAs at that time or nobodies are now like directors, like doing big things. And then there are people that uh I worked with in business that were, again, also nobodies and now are CEOs of their own companies. You do not know where people from where you look at them starting, where they're gonna end up. You know, it is wild, and the connections you just don't understand. But I think it also is it's interesting too, because as you are seeing these connections and you have to choose how to grow and how to invent yourself or reinvent yourself, you know, and you've reinvented yourself multiple times. How does someone actually change their identity like that and keep keep bouncing back and keep growing?

SPEAKER_00

Sabbaticals or saying, asking for more when you realize that you're tired, just ask for more or take time off. And you'll realize your employer is gonna be like, oh, we need you, you're essential, but you didn't have that leverage, so you need to ask more. Um you you need to ask more for what you're doing, 20% more or 100% more, because a lot often the people we're working for, and and that comes with knowing that you have leverage and that you're you're worth something. Or maybe you don't realize you're worth that, but you just need time for yourself and that you realize that the time for yourself is worth more than what you're getting. And that means having money in the bank to say no. Saying no and being able to say no and feel good about it, that means that you have three months of savings to say no. I kite surf a lot. You know, there's a lot of things I do now. I don't commit myself to a lot of events. I just say to someone, if they can't hit my mark, I will guarantee the quality of my team. And if they don't trust my team, that's fine. Then that means that I need to get my team with better promo video, with better reviews and other things. But there are people, if you are the best in your industry, there are people who are willing to pay top dollar. It's probably something that we don't know yet, or we don't under the understanding the industry, or we don't have the deepest connections. I realized there was a magician, I'm not gonna mention his name, really nice guy, but he wasn't the best magician, but he would get all the real gigs in my area. But he was the best networker, and he was truly authentic, and he was truly he he is truly authentic and he's truly a nice guy. And sometimes it's not about being having the skill. It's are you the nice guy? Are you the toxic guy? Magic's really toxic. There are a lot of people who will talk shit about you all the time. And there's also people who truly want you to succeed. And if you have those people who want you to succeed or who have who don't want anything from you, then you can have a great relationship. I have people who just invite me. Like a couple days ago, there was a guy who saw me at a library show years ago. I kept in contact with him because of one mutual interest. I think we were talking about sailing. I don't remember what else we talked about, but he was a sailing instructor. He invited me on his boat uh that he was an instructor at. And he would just, he's an instructor. He has this uh he was doing this uh catamaran, which is like half a million dollar boat, you know, a four uh three-bedroom boat, and he just invited me on his boat and he doesn't even own the boat, he just works for a company that rents the boat out and he's allowed to sleep on the boat afterwards. And I'm like, okay, I'm there. And it's not about because there's always a gatekeeper. If you try to get into, you know, Paul Abdul or John Madden or any of these people's inboxes, you're not gonna usually talk to them because they know at that point in time that everyone wants to hang out with them because they're famous. It's yeah, it you who are the people who knew me before I was famous? I trust those people, or even bring him to a party before I bring anyone else who knew me after I was famous. Because people realize, you know, I'm semi-famous, and I realize that people just want to want my connections. They heard I performed for X and they see I performed for Y and all these famous celebrities, and they assume that I can put them in that inbox. And the real reality is I just know they're EA. There's only like five or six CEOs that I have on my autodial, and I don't abuse it, and I'm not gonna pitch them anything unless I've invested, uh unless I truly believe in it, and I know that they can help. Because I know that they are pitched all the time. So I'm not gonna burn a bridge in order to get you or someone in front of this guy's inbox unless we've developed a relationship over time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, uh that leads me to a question. As you see these really interesting people, um, you've performed for billionaires, CEOs, and huge tech companies, and all of these celebrities. What's something surprising you learned about super successful people that like a regular normal person would never expect?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think there's anything, but there is one thing that I found really interesting is I would take pictures of everyone's libraries. I would just ask for permission, and I would see the same books end up on the same shelves. It's it's a lot of like what you see in the airports, you know, like those books. But when when I see so many people with that same book, I'm I'm curious. And I go to the library and I check it out, or I buy a copy of that book. Just to see what they're thinking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Right? You get a glimpse into how they approach things. And I think that mindset, one of the things that is interesting to me is that mindset is such a powerful thing. And like what you talked about earlier, um, and I think this is kind of a theme that we've talked about here in this conversation, is like when you are younger, there are seeds that are planted. You can't control all of those seeds. But as you get older, you know, it's like we have this garden planted in us when we're young, and then it starts growing up, and we're like, why do I have all these weeds? Why do I have all of this junk? And you you can't sit there and go back and you know, change the seeds that were planted before, but you can plant new seeds now. And I love this idea of going and seeing what's in the library of these people. Like, dude, if I could walk into um name any Texio, you know, Jinsen Huang, Elon Musk, uh, what's the guy from Sam Altman, if I could go into their libraries and see what books they have, I think that would be one of the most fascinating things you could do is to see like what are these people reading? Because to me, that's a like of the genius perspective, man. You know, the mindset that these people, what seeds are they planting in their own brands? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what I really found out is the most non-dis non-famous CEOs, like they just like the companies that are more famous than the CEOs, yeah, are the ones that have probably the best culture. Because there's other people leveraging things and there they're become a cult of personality to prop up the stoce where their PE ratios are way too high. I realize that there's certain people who are always in pitch mode, and there's actually people who are just really team players. And the ones that have become that talk too much on social media or who are getting way too much attention, there's I I think sometimes that's a little bit I'm a little bit suspicious about that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because they um some of them are grifters.

SPEAKER_01

Right? You know, I think that there's a lot of stuff going on when people, you know, pay attention over here, pay attention over here. You know, because it's like when I I I've always wondered this, you know, like is a part of what we're seeing with a lot of these people a big magic game? You know, are they playing this attention game where they're making us look over here, but really what's happening is over here? Excuse me. You know, and uh it leads my me to this next question that I have for you. Like, what actually makes someone influential? Like, why do you think some of these people have real power and some of them are just playing the game?

SPEAKER_00

Well, influence is defined in different ways, right? Um influence could be getting you to buy my book, um or it could be getting you to buy a product. But real influence, I think, is can I influence you to do something better for yourself and the community? I know someone who just hired me for a recent event. Um I teach the family magic, uh, one of their kids magic, and they treat radical generosity, but you won't see their name in a lot of places, but you could tell by how hospitable they are. Like the the two times I went to their events, they treat me like a guest entertainer, like a guest as well as an entertainer. They pay me to crash their party, and a lot of times it's not about like how long things run. I stay extra and stuff, but not they don't do that just to me. They do it to their the language teacher, their voice coach, and I I meet people at their event and they don't teach me any different than they teach everyone else. And I'm relatively famous, and there's just like a lot of people who are just they're genuinely nice people. And if you stay in contact with genuinely nice people with big goals, ask that someone where they want to be five years from now, even if it's outrageous, and then also ask them the steps that they're gonna take to get there because they might figure out the puzzle. You might think, oh, this guy's good. I would have never guessed Steve Chen selling, you know, geeky guy off to YouTube. I would have never guessed any of the guys from the PayPal Mafia going where they are going. But it was one, a network effect, and then them being there leading to another thing. Like I I've been featured in Business Insider seven times, okay? One of the first times was me being pitched about my pivot to Zoom because I finally cracked the PR game. Second was me performing for billionaires, third was me performing for uh um working at PayPal, fourth was for stocks, fifth was for performing for Elon Musk um at the PayPal reunion, sixth was a stock thing, and then seventh was a minor feature of me talking about why I dumped all my Tesla shares of stock. But when you crack the PR game, and once you realize where people are gonna be going in 20 years, by asking them the question, where do you see yourself? I always ask people that. A lot of most people will not tell me where they're gonna go, but I'd rather find a dreamer.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And they, there's a 1% chance they're gonna hit that, but at least they have a target that they're aiming for. Everyone else, I've been when I meet people on airplanes, they're like, oh, I'm gonna, I don't know what I'm gonna do, or I'm gonna retire. But there's that 1% chance that that guy said, Oh, I love dancing. There was this guy new in New York that I met, and he told me a very clear go. I'm like, okay, I could tell what he was missing, and I could fill in those blanks for him because if I knew I was hit in his position, I could probably get there. So I screenshotted this guy's team and I I talked to him and he was so passionate about life. I love hanging out with passionate people, but I'm gonna do a check with him, hopefully, within a year or two and give him a little bit of advice and talk to him because I believe that guy has the potential to be the next Bruno Mars. If he knew what I knew and he did the networking that I did to uh know how to do. Uh, he I I don't think Bruno Mars is any more talented than that guy. I just think that he had the right team and the right mindset and attitude and ask scale. How do you fill a big theater? How do you draw people in? Your first hits you look at Michael Jackson, I I went back and I just was like, I'm not a big fan of Michael Jackson. But I asked myself, what made him famous? If you look back at what these what he was doing, there wasn't really anything that was to me that spectacular. He had a great smile, which is what we should do more, is we should smile more. But but there's really not that much that was that great. But there were certain things that took him to the next level. What one, he put a magic trick in his uh one of his things in Thriller. He did the lean. He added some other, he added one or two tricks, and then he also did one or two signatures. He ended up with, I I think he did the moonwalk. I don't know if he was the first to do it, but he probably did it better than anyone, and he was the first to do it there. So I think it's all about a combination strategy.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's interesting, and I think it's around the packaging too, because um, you know, how can you present yourself in a way that makes people pay attention, that makes them stay there and stay focused? I want to ask you one more question though. If you could go back in time and give your younger self some advice, what advice would you give yourself?

SPEAKER_00

Build a team quicker and don't be toxic. Don't worry about what other people are doing. Be more generous. Don't view everyone as competition. If they're gonna copy, they're gonna copy. So you might as well let them copy or at least be to the first of the market and then move on. You know, if if if enough people are doing something in the industry, it means that you're about to get commoditized.

SPEAKER_01

That's interesting. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_00

Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. I post thought leadership articles. I also have a sub stack. I'm very active on Instagram. Instagram is more magic content. Uh, TikTok is a little bit of business and things that I can fail. So you can find me on all social media. You can also see me on Zoom. I do a lot of Zoom um shows for team building. It's actually really affordable right now. There's a lot less demand for Zoom, so I'm just trying to keep that pump primed. I have two or three Zoom shows coming up. I did 520 virtual shows. Uh during the pandemic, that first December, I did 52 shows in a week, 12 shows in a day, eight shows back to back on the half an hour, tripling my net worth. And I actually think that Zoom is still an underutilized platform for magicians and team building for corporations. My goal is to one day do a show for Amazon, Walmart, um, Uber, and Lyft, those four companies for all their low level employees. And I want to wow them, whether it's a penny per participant or a dollar per participant, that I want to do the world's largest show for a company like that and give them an awards banquet and appreciate the people who aren't appreciated but do it at scale. Think about how I can scale.