Behind the Illusions: 4 Powerful Life Lessons from Magician Steven Diamond

Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now, let's meet today's guest.

So this week we're going to be talking about the why of make sense, to make sense out of the complex and challenging. So if this is your why, then you are driven to solve problems and resolve challenging or complex situations. You have an uncanny ability to take in lots of data and information. You tend to observe situations and circumstances around you and and then sort through them quickly to create solutions that are sensible and easy to implement. You are often viewed as an expert because of your unique ability to find solutions quickly. You also have a gift for articulating solutions and summarizing them in an understandable language. You believe that many people are stuck and if they could make sense of their situation, they could develop simple solutions and move forward. In essence, you help people get unstuck and move progress forward. So today I have a fascinating guest for you. His name is Stephen diamond and you may know him from NBC's the Jane Pauly show or the Netflix TV series Tiger King 2, the Doc Antle Story. He's also spoken at hundreds of media outlets worldwide. He's a mental health advocate, challenging the stigmas around suicide, ocd, anxiety, depression, and healing emotional trauma. His personal ayahuasca story will move you, inspire you, and teach you life's greatest lessons. Stephen, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I have a lot to say today, so let's jump right in.

Well, let's do this. Let's go back in your life right now. Let's let our listeners get to know you. Where were you born? What were you like in high school?

Well, I'll tell you, that's a very interesting question. What was I like in high school? I Think my perception of what I was like in high school will be very different if you were to ask some of the people I. I attended it with. So let me start out by telling you. I was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, of all place, a little tiny community right on the water, right there at the naval base. Most people know Portsmouth, Virginia, because of the military base that's there. And I grew up in the Portsmouth, Norfolk, Virginia beach area most of my life.

Okay, and so as a high schooler, give us a little insight into what you were like.

Well, I'll tell you, I wasn't a popular kid at all. I was one of the more kind of ostracized kids. I was a misfit. I was different. I was unusual. I had. By the time I was in high school, high school, I was actually making more money than my parents. And so a lot of other kids didn't understand how to relate to me on that level, because I kind of saw high school as unnecessary at that point, even though it wasn't. But in my brain and the way I processed information at that time, I just really felt like that, that I had moved past high school. I was a professional illusionist, a magician. I had lions and tigers in my show even at that early age. And so I was spending my summers touring all over the world, and I was doing cruise ships and carnivals and all kinds of corporate events and things like that. And so when I would come back in the winter time to go to school, I didn't really understand how to identify with what was going on in my school and talk about the things that average high school kids like to talk about. Because I was doing things on such a different level that it was really hard for me to relate. And so that caused a lot of problems. I really wasn't in terms of. We're talking about academically, I really wasn't a good student because I didn't even try. I didn't care about passing tests. I didn't. I didn't care about listening to the teachers. I sat in class every single day trying to figure out why I was even there.

So for the listeners, just. So this is going to start to make even more sense. Stephen's why is to make sense of the complex and challenging like we talked about. But how he does that is by challenging the status quo, thinking differently, thinking outside the box. And ultimately what he brings are solutions and that are deep and meaningful and have depth to them. And that sounds like very much what you were doing in high school, right? You were Way ahead of everybody else. You're like, had to dumb yourself down.

I really was. And, you know, over the years, Gary, I've really reflected on this and tried to figure out where my tipping point was. We all remember that great book that Malcolm Gladwell wrote called the Tipping Point. And when that first came out, it really started me thinking, and I was like, where was my tipping point? Where was the point when everything changed? And I narrowed it down in therapy, actually, I narrowed it down to one specific moment. And I'll share with you this quick story. When I was about seven years old, my father took me to an amusement park in Williamsburg, Virginia, and I witnessed my very first illusion show, my very first magic show. I'd never seen anything like that before. And we walked into the gates, and right over to the left, there's a big replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater. And inside there, they had this big illusion show, Mark Wilson's Magic, at the Globe Theater. So I went and watched the show. I was totally blown away. It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen in my life. And afterwards, I walked out of the theater, my father knelt down and looked me right in the eye, and he said, stephen, what do you think about that? And I said, dad, I want to be a magician. And my dad kind of thought for a second, and he looked at me and he said, you know what, kid? He said, if that's what you want to be and it makes you happy and it doesn't hurt anybody else, he said, that's what you can do. And in that moment, to me, it was like getting the stamp of approval from my father that what I wanted to do was sanctioned and was now approved. I kissed the ring and gotten his blessing, and. And from that moment forward, I was never going to be anything else other than a professional magician. Wow. Incredible.

Wow. So from seven on is when you started practicing, it really was.

And, you know, immediately thereafter, I think the following weekend after that experience, my father took me to a magic shop. Now, in those days, we didn't have the Internet, so he had to go through these things called the Yellow Pages. No one listening to this will even remember what that is. But we had to go through the Yellow Pages, and we looked up Magic Shop, and there was one, and it was on Granby street in downtown Norfolk, which was across the bridge from where I lived. And so my dad put me in the car one Saturday, took me to the magic shop and said, get whatever you want. I got a few magic tricks, brought them back. He helped me learn Them and practice them. And he suddenly realized that I was natural at this. I was just really good. And. And when I started performing them for my friends at school, I suddenly realized that people started to view me in a different way Now. I was able to make them laugh. I was able to do some tricks that would blow their mind, and they couldn't figure out how it was done. And suddenly I went from being totally ostracized to becoming the. The most popular student in the school. And it was a. It was a very strange transition for me because at that young age, I didn't know how to emotionally process how all of these people who once hated me now suddenly loved me. And they were bringing me to their lunch table saying, hey, do that trick for my friends. I love that.

Wow. That would be a big switch. And how did you handle it?

You know, it was trial by fire.

You just. At that young age, you just kind of go with the flow. I've always kind of been a go with the flow kind of person, and I just rode that wave, and I started attracting people to me. That resonated with what I was putting out there, I guess you could say. At a very early age, I kind of understood the concept of. Of vibration and frequency and resonancy and how to. That we were both transmitters and receivers. And I kind of understood that on some level at a very young age. And so I knew that if I was putting the right vibrations out there, that it would bring to me those people that resonated with that, and that's what I focused on. And I kind of used that philosophy throughout my entire life.

Wow. Developed at an early age.

I sure did.

Okay, so you graduate from high school, I assume?

Yep.

Okay. Off to college or no college.

No college.

No college. What happened next for you?

Immediately, I jumped on a cruise ship.

Okay.

And started performing. Sailing around the world on cruise ships. And right away, at that particular point in my career, I realized that cruise ships weren't for me. Because even though you're living on the most luxurious boat that you've ever been on, you know, and you're eating the finest food in the world, and you're living a life of opulence, that's what a cruise ship is. I knew that the world was really big, and I knew that there was more for me out there than just being stuck on the. I don't care how big that cruise ship is, after about 90 days, it becomes a floating Alcatraz. So, you know, when you're a young kid at 18, 19 years old, that kind of becomes confining to you, and you feel like that. That you are maybe missing out on other opportunities. So I came off the ships after a short time and realized I needed to find something else. And I got into a car with a friend of mine from Atlantic City who was also a professional magician at the time. And we drove all the way across the country to Las Vegas, where I'd only been one time before. And I came out to Las Vegas, this was 1988, and I had these visions of being a famous Las Vegas magician. I thought that in a matter of weeks, my name would be in lights on some big marquee on the Strip, and I would have my lions and tigers, you know, in some casino showroom performing. Of course, that didn't happen. That's not the way Las Vegas works, even back then. And I actually ended up living on the street in Las Vegas for a period of time.

Wow. What was that like?

You know, it was really hard. On Netflix, there's a documentary about people who live in the tunnels underneath Las Vegas. I actually live in some of those tunnels.

Wow.

And there's this whole underworld of people that still today, even 30 years later, they're still living in these underground tunnels. They're actually wash tunnels for water to prevent us from flooding. And so when it's not raining, which it doesn't rain very much in Las Vegas, there's an entire population of people that live underground. And for about a year and a half, I was one of them. And I tell the whole story in my book, ocd, A Life Among Secret. But I'll tell you this. I was living with some of the most authentic, real human beings that I've ever met. Because when you are surrounded by people who have hit rock bottom and there's no other place to go, you find real authenticity. They have no reason to lie because their truth is stranger than any fiction that they could create. And so those people are very real. They're very raw, they're very authentic. And some of the most meaningful conversations about life that I've ever had were with some of those people.

What was it like? What took you to the streets and what was your first night there like?

That's a great question. So I. My partner, who moved out to Las Vegas with me about a week after we got here, we found an apartment right away, moved in. Everything was great. It was a furnished apartment. And then he was out looking for a job, a regular job, and he found a job at a window tenting place. And the girl, the secretary who worked at the counter was this beautiful, voluptuous blonde who the next thing I knew he had moved in with. And so now I'm stuck with this big apartment trying to pay all the bills with the money that I had budgeted. And I'd really budgeted, planned on two, not one. So when he left, I ended up getting stuck with all the bills. Money didn't last very long. And I came home from a job interview one day and the door was locked and I was in a. In a suit and it was 100 degrees outside and I had no access to any of my clothes, any of my stuff, nothing. And I just started walking down the Strip trying to find food because I was hungry. And there used to be this place called Slots of Fun where in the back of the casino, right next to Circus Circus. If you went all the way through the back of the casino, you could get this ticket at the front of the casino and then in the back you could redeem it for a free hot dog. And that was my first meal on the street. And that's. That was. I just walked the Strip for the whole night trying to figure out what should I do now. At any point I could have picked up the phone and called my dad and my dad would have flow me back to Virginia. But my pride at the time was not having it. I was going to succeed one way or another and I just couldn't pick up that phone. So it took me on a year and a half. Long odyssey. Wow.

And how do you get to the tunnels? How did you find them? Did you know they were there?

No, I didn't. That very first night I was sitting on a bench, which then was in front of what's called the Barbary Coast. Today it's called the Cromwell. And it's on the corner, corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard. And where the escalator is now that takes people across the strip. There used to be a bench sitting right there at the base of the escalator. And I sat there all night long. And I kept seeing this guy walk past me who was kind of a punk rock, had a jean jacket and a mohawk and the whole nine yards. And he kept looking at me, but not in a friendly way. And he walked past three or four times and eventually sat down next to me. And he said, you don't have any place to go, do you? And I said, no. And I said, how do you know? And he said, I. I've seen that face before. And we started talking and he told me he Lived on the streets, too. His name was Spunky. And I also talk about him in my book as well. And we became fast friends. And he says, are you hungry? And I said, yeah. He says, come on, I'll show you how and get. How to get some food. So we went to a payphone, and you can't do this anymore. This is 1988. But they have since fixed these kind of things. But we went to a payphone, and he called what was similar to a Little Caesar's Pizza Parlor. And he ordered the most disgusting pizza. Large pizza with pepperoni and anchovies and pineapple and all the stuff nobody wants. And he piled it all on the thing, and he says, just wait. And an hour later, this girl comes out the back of the place we were sitting out back, and she throws the pizza into the garbage because no one came to pick it up.

And so we went and got the box out of the garbage, and we sat there on a stoop, and the two of us shared a freshly baked free pizza. And that was my first meal on the street.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so you're on the street for a year and a half now. How did you get off of the street? Well, first of all, take us into this underground tunnel world. What's it look like in there?

What's.

How many people are in there? How did you find. You know, was it safe? Did you.

So he took me down.

He took you? Okay.

Yeah, he. He showed it to me, and it wasn't safe. And it's filled with a lot of people who have tremendous emotional and psychological problems. You're talking about the most dysfunctional part of society, and it's really Hell's Door. You go down there, and there's lots of people. They're drug addicts, they're prostitutes, they're pimps. They're, you know, every marginalized portion of society that you can find. I am a highly skilled communicator and have been most of my life, even from a very young age. And so I was able to communicate with these people and speak their language in a way that they would even talk to me, because a lot of times they won't even talk to you because they realize that you're a part of them. You're not one of us. And if you're not one of us, we don't want to have anything to do with you. That's kind of the mentality down there. So today it's very dangerous. You could be shot and killed today. Back then, the worst that might Happen is you would get stabbed or head over the head with a bottle. But today it's incredibly dangerous to go down there. I wouldn't recommend it at all. But. And like I said, there is a Netflix documentary about these tunnels, so you could look it up. I can't remember the name of it right now, but it's really good. And.

So we went down there and he introduced me and he said, this is where we can stay tonight. And he had this little place that he had built that was his little spot, and he allowed me to stay with him. Now, keep in mind, I'm in a suit. Yeah. Nobody else down there is dressed like this. So they all looked at me very, very suspiciously. And I hadn't had a shower in a day. And so I looked, you know, really, really strange. And so through this experience, I began to meet people and I began to learn the intricacies of how to survive and what to do. This was at a time when they were building the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, which doesn't exist now. It's now called the Virgin, but. But at the time, they were just building it. And it was a very strange time in Las Vegas because it was at the beginning of the transition of going from the mob era to the corporate era. And that happened in about 1991, when the Mirage opened. Nine, year 91, whenever that was. And when the Mirage opened, it kind of changed everything in Las Vegas. But prior to that, it was pretty much the same mob kind of run town that it had been for quite some time. And so we were in the middle of that transition, so everything was changing. So you kind of. In my reality, I kind of had the world below deck, and I had the world above deck. And it was interesting to try and balance the two. So you asked how I got off the street. How I got off the street was I was trying. I'd been trying for some time to find a job, and no one would hire me because I had been robbed early on and had lost my wallet, my ID and everything. So because I had no Social Security card, no id, no nothing, no one would give me a job. And there was this little convenience store on the corner of Harman and. And paradise, and it was right across the street from the Hard Rock that they were building, and it was just getting ready to open. And I wandered in one day and asked the owner for a bottle of water. And the store hadn't even opened, they were still setting up. And he started talking to me, and he noticed my clothes, which at this point was Kind of a ragged ragtag suit. And he looked at me and he goes, you. You don't belong on the street. And he was like, what's going on? And I told him my story, and he said, I'm going to help you. And I told him I didn't have a driver's license. I didn't have anything. He said, I'll help you. And so he said, work for me for a week. He said, if everything works out right, he said, I'll front you some money and I'll take you to get your id. And he did. And so I got my ID and my Social Security number again, thanks to him. And about a couple months later, I was in my own apartment. And it was all because of him. He was saving my money and was only allowing me to spend my money on food and things like that. And when I had enough money to pay the deposit and get an apartment, and there was these little weekly apartments right across the street called Harbor Island. And I moved into one of those. It was at the time, it was like $160 a week. And I moved in to one of those weeklies. And that eventually got me off the street.

Wow, that's amazing. And then how did you get. Okay, so now you're off the street, work at a convenience store. And then where did you go from there? Because obviously you got into, you know, back into the magic and back into all the other stuff.

So one day I'm behind the counter of the convenience store, and I start a conversation with a regular. This guy that comes in every single day. And he was kind of a nondescript guy, just a regular average Joe, really tall, kind of looked like Herman Munster a little bit. And got to know him. His name was Bud. And Bud and I became very friendly over a period of months. And we started telling each other our life stories. And before I knew it, Bud had asked me if I had any pictures of the animals or anything like that. And I said, yeah, I do, actually. And I showed him some pictures of me with the tigers. And he goes, you're the real deal. And I said, yeah. He said, I have a friend who is a talent agent. And he said, would you like to. Intro, would you like for me to introduce you to him? And I said, sure. Well, it turns out that Bud was a member of the Heinz fortune, like Heinz ketchup.

And he knew everybody in Las Vegas. And I had no idea all this time that I had met him that he was the heir to one of the biggest fortunes in the country. I Had no idea. He had never mentioned it, didn't tell me anything about it. So one day he brings in this little guy and introduces me to him. And we start talking, we become friends. And the next thing I know, I find out that there is a group of Korean businessmen. And I found this out from a doorman that worked at Caesar's palace who was a friend of mine. When I was on the street.

He would pay me to go get information at other properties about other guests. So I would go to, like, if somebody was staying at the Flamingo and this. My friend worked at Caesars, and he wanted to know information. I'd go and talk to my contacts there, get that information and go sell it back to him. And so this is how I was earning money. And one day I found out that there was a group of Korean businessmen that were looking for a magic show to put in a resort in Korea. And I paid him for the information of where and how I could contact these guys. And I took my VHS promotional tapes. Vhs? Feeling so old, I took my VHS promotional tapes, went right up to the guy's room and knocked on the door and said, hi, my name is Steven diamond, and I hear you're looking for a magic show with tigers. And he goes, yes, but we're looking for a female magician. And I said, well, I have white tigers. Are you interested in that? And he said, come in. And so he opened up the door, he came in, we put the VHS tape in the machine. We sat on the edge of the bed and watched my promotional tape. And he looked at me and he said, you can do that in my resort? And I said, yeah. And he said, let's bring you out to my resort, and I'd love to talk to you about putting together a show. So he said, who's your agent? And I said, oh, I have one. Of course I didn't. And so I thought about my friend Bud. And I said, bud? I said, can you put me back in contact with that guy? And so I called that guy, and the guy came and met with me. And then he met. We had. We actually had dinner with those Korean guys before they left. And two weeks later, me and that agent were on a plane to Seoul, Korea, where we actually went to the resort and saw the stage that we were going to perform on, and we negotiated a multimillion dollar deal. And that is what changed everything.

Wow, wow, wow. Now, how the heck. You know, what crossed my mind and probably some of the other listeners or people watching is now, how do you get Tigers To Korea.

It's a process. You ship them. Believe it or not. It's just like sending a FedEx. In fact, FedEx actually ships.

Wow.

So there are these special shipping containers that are designed for live animals, and there's a whole. And it has a little space for a caretaker and everything to travel with.

Okay.

So they can be taken care of. It's a pressurized underbelly underneath the. The cargo of the plane and special compartment for these animals. And you literally ship them like a giant FedEx package.

Okay, so you're in Korea, South Korea, and how long are you there? And what the heck is that like?

So it was a little over a year. I did 800 shows before I collapsed on stage of sheer exhaustion. I was doing three shows a day. Sometimes during the holiday season, I was doing four and five shows a day. Now, to put this in perspective for you, my show at the time was an hour and 20 minutes, and there were 18 costume changes in each show. So on a three show day, you can imagine how grueling that is. The choreography, the illusions, the animals. You know, you're talking about 300 pound cats that are crawling on you and putting their weight on your shoulders and stuff. So it's very taxing physically on your mind, body and spirit.

And for them and for the animals.

And for the animals as well. Yeah, for sure.

So 800 shows later, you just said, done, I can't do this anymore. I'm out.

No, my partner wasn't paying.

And so if anyone out there is watching me on Netflix and tell the story on Tiger King, they will remember my business. My first business partner 35 years ago was Bhagavan Antle, who is the doctor with the long white ponytail and the harem of women around him. He and I, he had the tigers, the animals, and I had the magic show. Two of us met when I was 16 years old and went, we need to be partners. We could make a lot of money here. And so we joined forces. And the next thing you knew, I had this giant show with lions and tigers and dancers and the cast and crew and all that kind of stuff. And we were touring all over the world and doing corporate events and all kinds of stuff like that. And when we got to Korea, I called Bhagavan and said, look, we got this contract, we've got a deposit check, we've got to produce the whole thing. He swooped in, took over the whole deal and refused to pay me. And so about 800 shows into it, my production manager looked at me one night and said, why are we doing this? And I was like, you're right. We got on a plane and we left.

Wow. How did he go about not paying you? I mean, that just seems like a dumb move.

Good old fashioned green. Wow. It's nothing more than that. If you're in a deal, at least my experience has been if you're in a deal with Bhagavan Antle, you are not the one that's going to make any money at all.

There will be, you know, he will promise you the moon and if you're lucky, you'll get a nightlight. So it's it. It was just youth inexperience. I was a young kid at the time. I was barely 20 years old. I had signed this huge contract and now I had to deliver this show. And in order for me to get the White Tigers into the show, I had to contact.

Wow. Okay, so now you're back on a plane to the US I assume. And then did you stay in that business when you got here?

I did, but I was physically in no shape to do anything. I was, when I came back from Korea, I was probably, I'm six foot tall and I, at the time, I was probably £120. I had lost a tremendous amount of weight. I was very sick. I had. My knees were shot, my hips were shot. I had a lot of physical problems and it took me about a year to recover from that. So I moved in with my sister and lived with her. She took care of me and nurtured me back to health. And eventually I moved back to Las Vegas and got another deal and started touring again.

Wow. And so that. How long did you do that and are you still doing that?

So I retired from performing after doing nearly, we estimate somewhere between 8 and 10,000 live shows in over a hundred countries around the world. 17 world tours. I did that for 28 years. And I finally brought it all to an end in 2018 when I retired from performing permanently. But really, I had pretty much stopped the international touring right around 2010.

Was it fun after a while? I mean, after you've done a thousand shows, was it fun after 5,000, 7,000? I mean, did you enjoy it at that point?

You know, this is a loaded question, Gary. I, I can only answer it in two ways. Authentically. I'll tell you before and after. So there is a delineation in my life where something happened, an event happened, and I consider my life before that event and then I consider my life after that event. And so before that event and I'll tell you what the event was in just a moment. But before that event, I loved it. I absolutely loved it, and it's what I lived for. And when you hear rock stars on TV talk about, you know, being on stage is the most addictive drug in the world, it is. There is no greater feeling in the world than to stand on a stage in front of thousands of people and have all of that energy directed at you. And you to have the skill set and the mastery to be able to work that audience in a way that is skillful and take them on this emotional journey and get them laughing and crying and all filled with excitement and experiencing wonder and all of these kind of things. You know, the art of magic, when you are sawing a lady in half, for example, our brains know that you're not really cutting this human into two pieces, but the art comes in, because if you're a master magician, you're highly skilled, and you have the ability to convince the other senses to suspend disbelief. And it's in the suspension of disbelief. Religion calls it faith, but anyway, it's in the suspension of disbelief that magicians create something called wonderful. And so when you're able to fool thousands of people at a time and convince them that what they're seeing is real, even though they know logically it's absolutely impossible, that is one of the most extraordinary feelings that a human could ever experience.

Wow. And it's probably irreplaceable.

It is. It's the greatest drug that I've ever experienced. I tell people that, you know, if you want to get high, just stand on the stage. Now, to a lot of people, that might be terrifying. There are a lot of people that go, oh, my gosh. I could never stand in a stage in front of thousands of people. But when you reframe that, the way that I was internalizing that experience, because in 1993, I visited Machu Picchu while on tour in South America, and something happened that would change the trajectory of my life forever. And it. It created this line in my life of before and after. And while I was touring throughout South America, I kept hearing about Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu. What is this mystical place? I didn't know about it. I didn't know what it was. And I went to Machu Picchu with a small group of people, and we just wanted to check it out and see what it was all about. And it was there that I met a shaman, and I didn't even know what that was. Had never heard of A shaman didn't know what it was, and he started talking to me about this plant called ayahuasca. I'd never heard of that either. And before I knew it, to make a long story short, few days later, I was on horseback heading into the jungle of Peru to this little base camp of tents. It was just this round tent in the center where everyone did the ceremony, and then these little tents on the outside where people stayed and this little shower tent, a little tent where you eat. It was very primitive. Yeah. I tell. If they're old enough, I tell people that it was kind of like something out of mash. 4 of 7. 7. It was kind of a rough kind of experience like that. And I did ayahuasca for the very first time. And it absolutely changed everything about me. And it made me realize that the reason.

I was so addicted to standing on that stage every night was because of the love, the nurturing, and the lack of attention that I never got at home.

And the second I understood that truth, I no longer wanted to stand on that stage.

And because the mechanism didn't work anymore. You know, people do what works, and they create these methodologies in their lives to take them towards what works, and we move away from what doesn't. And so when you learn the reason behind what you do, you think prior to this, you think you're standing on stage because you're this talented magician that has the skillset to be able to, you know, entertain people flawlessly. And, in fact, that was true. But that was not the reason I was doing it. I was doing it because of a lack of love and nurture that had.

Had not been given to me earlier in my life. And standing on that stage filled this void within me, this emotional void. When I stood on stage and I went like this, the audience cheered. And I interpreted that in my brain as love and nurturing. And so that's where I got my love and nurturing from. And when I did ayahuasca, Mother, Ayahuasca revealed to me that this was the mechanism behind me standing on stages every night and being so addicted to show business. And so it really resonated with me as truth, Core truth. And the more I thought about it and the more I integrated it into my being, the more I realized I didn't want to perform anymore. But I had this giant machine behind me at that point. I had managers, producers, agents, lawyers. I had, you know, all of these people behind me who were all making money off of me. And so it was in their best interest to keep me on that stage. So it took me decades to bring that machine to a halt. And literally that 1 ounce drink of ayahuasca in 1993 has led to the conversation you and I are having right now.

So let me ask you this. When you look back on 1993 and taking the ayahuasca, was that a good thing or a bad thing?

Oh, I think it was the most important thing for me because it showed me truth for the very first time. The veil of ego dropped away and I was able to see or she revealed Mother Ayahuasca. I, for me it's a feminine spirit. For me, it's, it's a, a motherly, grandmotherly type wisdom that comes over me and speaks to me. And it showed me the truth of who I really was. And it showed me that all of these skills that I had developed as a magician was just a boot camp to prepare me for the next chapter of my life, which would be as a teacher. And what I realized is I wasn't an entertainer. I was just entertaining to learn the communication skills and the other skills that I would need to share the things I would learn throughout the next chapter in my life with the world. And that's what I do today.

So if you could go back.

And.

Change what happened to you as a little kid.

Would you?

I'm not sure. It's a great question. I'm not sure I would. You know, I had some very traumatic things happen to me when I was a kid. I'll give you an example. When I was 8 years old, my very first experience with stress was finding my babysitter hacked into pieces. She had been murdered by her ex husband who came home and tried to hit on her and she refused to go there. And he was drunk at the time and he grabbed a kitchen knife and he chopped her up. And so as an 8 year old boy, I'm suddenly standing in a pool of her blood. Her head's over here and her body's over here. And I'm looking at this scene that was my very. To this day, even right now, I can smell the smell of iron. Because every time that I go back or I have a flashback or I think about that, the smell of iron, which was coming from her blood.

Stuck in my mind. And it's linked to that memory. So when I talk about it, I smell iron. And so even all these years later, it's still affecting me. And so that was my very first experience with stress and anxiety. And it was that trauma that started kind of A cascade of events that would take place in my life that would severely traumatize me as a kid. And it allowed my magic career was this double edged sword because the magic career gave me the opportunity to compartmentalize myself and not deal with any of that trauma. So I just blocked it out, packed that trauma away and didn't deal with it until one day it decided to deal with me.

Yeah, but you succeeded.

Rapidly at a much faster pace than anybody else as a result of it. So was it a bad thing or a good thing?

I think ultimately it was a good thing. You know, the truth is that I don't think think I would have the wisdom that I have in my life if it weren't for two very important events and it was me surviving all of the trauma that I did. And two, the ayahuasca ceremony. I don't think that those. Without those two things that we would even be having this conversation and I would be doing the work that I do today.

So tell us about what you're doing today now.

So in 19 or in actually in 2004, I created, I wrote my first book called OCD, A Life Among Secrets. And it's really about my struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder. I had a really bad case when I was younger and it was a double edged sword because though it held me back in a lot of ways, it also created the perfectionist in me, which is what allowed me to become the. The entertainer, the level of entertainer that I did. And so when you're obsessed with your craft and you practice to the point that your fingers bleed on a daily basis, it's like Malcolm Gladwell says, you know, in the Tipping Point that If you spend 10,000 hours doing something, eventually you become a master at it. And that certainly was true in my case. And so I think what happened is I learned how to use my dysfunction in an effective way. And I developed coping mechanisms that at the time I didn't realize were coping mechanisms, but I created this process for handling my stress and anxiety and depression that was so unique because it was unique to me and I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I was just trying to find a way to survive. But I created this unique series of coping mechanisms that worked so effectively. It became clear to me one day when I appeared on the Jane Pauley show on NBC. Jane got a hold of a copy of my book. She read it, called me and said, I'd love to have you on the show with Howie Mandel. So that you could talk about this because I'm getting ready to come public and reveal that, that I have bipolar and that she's bipolar. So I went on the show and immediately when the show aired, I got tens of thousands of emails of people saying, I resonate with your story. What you've been through is exactly what I'm going through. Please help me. And I had nothing. I wrote a book, that's it, just telling my story. I, I wasn't any kind of a guru or didn't have any wisdom or didn't know anything. And I'm like, these letters that I was reading were making me cry and these people really needed help. And so I started thinking, I need to help these people. What can I do? So I started looking for a program and I couldn't find anything at the time. Remember this is 2004 and I couldn't find anything at the time. And so my therapist actually said to me, steven, then maybe you need to be the guy that creates it.

And so I thought about that and I was like, yeah, maybe. So I started creating the very first version of my course and it was a 4 CD audio course called When Anxiety Attacks. And I sold thousands of them. And that started me on this journey. And today I have my core product which is Life skills masterclass@lifeskillsmasterclass.com and that is the do it Yourself Stress and Anxiety course. It's been updated recently during the pandemic and so it's a brand new version of the course, bigger and better than it ever was. And then I also do four times a year, once a quarter, I take a group of about 30 people to Costa Rica to do an ayahuasca ceremony in a five star, $5 million resort. It's an all inclusive luxury experience and it's a very profound, soul moving experience.

That sounds, sounds amazing. What a, what a different path than being on stage with tigers.

It, it sure is. But you know, the tigers taught me so much that applies to the work I do today. In fact, I spend a lot of time going into corporations and teaching corporations how to create a culture, a stress free environment in their workplace and kind of solve some of the stress issues that they have with their team members. And I do this seminar in the workplace called what the Tigers Taught Me. And I'll tell you, one of the first things that the tigers taught me is that every answer you'll ever ask can be found within. Because it's in present moment, awareness, stillness and silence that you will be able to answer everything. Every question that you'll ever ask. And the next thing they taught me is that cages aren't made of iron bars. They're actually made of our thoughts. And when you learn to change the way you think, you can profoundly change the reality that you experience each and every day.

So you're.

You'Re making me think of some things and.

I'd love to hear it.

If you didn't have stress.

You would have never been who you are.

Absolutely.

So if you're teaching people to have a stress free environment.

Are you teaching them to not be who they could be? Or are you teaching them to underperform? Or is that giving them an excuse to get out? Or what does that do to have a stress free environment? Because the most successful people I know in any area of life had to overcome the stress to get there. You would have never been the magician you became if you didn't have OCD.

Absolutely. You're 100% correct. You know, and let me tell you, you've hit on something which is a part of my marketing strategy, because I'll tell you that stress and anxiety, you know, I tell people that, you know, come work with me and I'll, I'll teach you how to eliminate your stress anxiety. But that's not really what I'm doing. What I'm really doing is teaching you how to manage your stress and anxiety. Because not all stress is bad. It's all about two things. It's about your perception. And there is a difference between perspective and perception. And when you begin to understand the difference between those two things, you really begin to dial in control in your life. And the second component is how you process information. How you process information determines the reality that you live. And so when you learn perspective and perception and then you add a skill set that allows you to manage your stress and anxiety, you find that you put yourself back in the driver's seat and you don't have, you don't freak out about the things that you used to freak out about, and you don't experience life in the tense, high blood pressure, confined, constricted repression, oppressive, oppressed way that you might have viewed the world in the past.

Yes, but is that a good thing?

In what way?

Going through those types of events makes you step up, makes you perform at a higher level, makes you perfect your craft and your thinking pushes you to things that maybe you wouldn't have ever been able to do in a stress free environment.

So why was that good? That's the struggle that I can, I'm sure the listeners are hearing it as they're going through this. And I'm hearing it, it's like, hey, if I went through all this and it made me way better than I ever could have been on my own. But I'm teaching people how to not have to go through that. And I'm thinking, well, why not go through that if. If it's going to make you something so much better. It's the pressure.

That's a great. Yeah, that's a great question. And the answer, the answer is very simple. It's that it's not that you don't want to go through that stuff because life is going to bring that stuff to you anyway.

No choice.

No choice.

It's going to come your way anyway. It's about how you react and how you process what is happening. Because in that you find the power and control to be able to manage the outcome of your emotions, the outcome of your reaction, how you respond to it. You know, when I was a kid, my father taught me something I'll never forget. He used to tell me, there is no good news and there is no bad news. There's only news. You're the one that puts the label of good or bad on it. So he used to explain it to me like this. He would say, hearing that a dog has been hit by a car on the highway is a completely different set of information than hearing your dog has been hit by a car on the highway. And so when you begin to learn to process information and even if you hear that your dog has been hit by a car on the highway, it's an opportunity for you to stop.

Not allow yourself to be triggered and gain the control of the situation by how you process that information.

Does that here, here's the big question.

Go for it.

If you had the skills that you're teaching now.

When you were younger, would you have become.

Who you ended up becoming.

If you hadn't reacted the way you did?

Absolutely not.

So then you were teaching yourself not to be who you became?

Well, you could make that argument, but I think that it's clear from my trajectory in life that I was a very high functioning young man even at a very early age. And I had the capacity to process a lot of information at one time that maybe a lot of other people don't. I'll give you an example. When I was 16 years old, I walked a 350 pound tiger for the very first time on a chain. When you're walking this tiger down a hallway, for example, in a building, let's Say you're in a TV studio and you're getting ready to film a commercial with a tiger or something, which we did a lot, and you're walking. You get out of an industrial elevator, a cargo elevator with the tiger. The door is open. You don't know who's going to be standing in front of the door. You don't know what's going to be down the hallway. You don't know what obstacles might come out of a doorway unexpectedly that might spook the cat at any given time. So you have to be a master at something called situational awareness, where you have to understand your environment360, and you have to be able to manage that environment. And you also have to be able to predict what obstacles may be down the line. And you have to be able to manage all of this while holding a chain wrapped around your waist that's attached to a 350 pound beast that at any moment could decide he wants to run. And you would be nothing but a feather attached to the end of that chain. And so at a very young age, I was having to learn how to manipulate information in my mind to a degree that most people wouldn't because there were life safety issues involved. And I think it was that kind of training, plus my meditation. I've been meditating for 38 years, so I think that it was that coupled with my meditation training that allowed me to have access to parts of my brain that maybe a lot of other people don't experience very often. Does that. Yeah.

You know, this is so fascinating, Stephen. And you and I could talk forever. I can tell. And I would love to. I'd love to keep going, but I know we're probably already over time, so let me ask you the last question, and you may have already answered it, but what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

It's two.

It's two things. So first thing, I live my life and always have by a quote that I read when I was about 17 years old. And the quote is, take bold action and unseen forces will come to your aid. And I have lived my entire life this way. If you will just clearly define in your mind what it is you want, very clearly. Visualize it, understand it, know what it feels like, believe that it's true. If you will just do that and then take that first big, bold step, the next path will reveal itself. The next door will open. The person you need to meet will suddenly appear. You will. You will experience wonder in a way that you never even knew existed. So that's one piece of advice. And the second piece of advice that I have is never take advice from anyone who's not successfully already doing what it is you want to achieve.

Love it. I love it. And.

I have not heard that first one, and. And then the second one I've heard a little bit differently, but I haven't heard that first one really is powerful. I really, like. I'm stealing that. Just so you know.

I don't. I don't. I don't have any tattoos, but I've always said to myself, if I ever got a tattoo, it would be that quote, take bold action and allow unseen forces to come to your aid. I have lived my life by this quote since I was 17 years old, and it has taken me around the world many, many times. You know, the reason most people fail is because of fear. And. And I think fear is what holds us back from achieving all of our dreams. And if you will just learn to conquer the fear in your head, not fear in life, just the fear that's in your head. If you'll learn the mechanisms to. To be able to manage and control that fear in your head, I promise you, you can do incredible things with your life.

If there. Well, before I. The last thing I want to do is let you tell us how people can get in touch with you. But I. I've been thinking about the title for your next book, even though you're not writing one, probably. But it. What came to my mind when you were talking earlier is something along the lines of, you know, creating the wonder drug, because that's really what you talked about earlier was this wonder drug. And really.

You know, because it starts with wonder.

And.

Anyways, I don't know why I even said that, but it just came to mind as.

I love it. I love it. And, you know, there is so much that I could talk about on that topic, because as a magician, you really learn a lot about people, and you learn about the way that people process information, because in order for me to make you believe that I'm flying through the air with the greatest of ease, I have to be able to manipulate all of your senses. And if you're any good at what you do, it will create an illusion that's just hard not to.

Wow. Okay, last thing. If there are people that are listening and they want to connect with you about, gosh, so many things they could connect with you about, what's the best way to get in touch with you.

So it's real simple. Just go to Stevendiamond.com and all roads lead to Rome. So from there you can find all of my other sites. Or you could go to lifeskillsmasterclass.com and we would love to see you in my Facebook group Life Skills Masterclass coaching. So check us out. We would love to have you on your list.

Stephen, thank you so much for being here today and I look forward to following you. You've got some fascinating stuff you've been doing and talking about. So thanks for being here.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about your yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.