722 Mindset and Persuasion with Derren Brown

This is episode number seven two two with mentalist and illusionist Darren Brown. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Albert Einstein said, once we accept our limits, we go beyond them. I am so excited about this episode because this is someone I've been wanting to interview since day one. I became a fan of Darren Brown probably nine, ten years ago when I learned about him through a friend who is introduced me to his work and I went down the rabbit hole of watching every video I could of this person and just became fascinated with the way his mind thinks, how he studies human nature and psychology, and how he gets people to do certain things they normally wouldn't do. For those that don't know who Darren Brown is, he is an English mentalist and illusionist and since his television debut with Darren Brown mind control in 2000, his name in the UK is pretty much synonymous with art of psychological manipulation. He's produced several other shows for stage and television in both series and specials. He'd written several best selling books and his 2017 US debut show Secret won the New York Drama Desk award for unique theatrical experience. And he's planning a Broadway return in 2019, so make sure to get your tickets for that. But right now guys, he has a number of specials on Netflix and when I tell you I've been freaking out about them and telling them to everyone, they are so much fun to watch. They're riveting and they will blow your mind literally. One is called the Push and he conducts a social experiment to see if people will commit murder. And you are going to freak out in the last few minutes when you watch this. Go to the Netflix, go to your Netflix and watch the Push. He's also got Miracle, which shows him on stage healing people and not necessarily saying that he has powers to heal, but showing ways that you can through different psychological triggers and things like that. And his newest show is called Sacrifice. Holy cannoli. This is unbelievable. He gets someone to. I don't want to spoil it for you actually, but he'll tell you more about it in this interview. But Sacrifice is going to shape the way you think about everything in your life and how you think and judge other people and it will inspire you. It brought me to tears at the end. Crazy experience. So the Push, Miracle and Sacrifice. Watch them on Netflix after this interview. In this interview we talk about his belief in stoicism and how it controls his thoughts and actions. Also how we can become masters of our own minds throughout our lives. The good and bad ego provides for magicians and other performers. Also the three fears that people typically have and how it holds them back and the effects of coming out as gay later in his life. What that did for him in his early childhood and later in his life. We talk about that. We talk about God, religion, so many different things. I'm so excited for you to dive into this. Let me know what you think. Take a screenshot, tag mewishouse and Darren Brown over on Instagram and Twitter. Let us know what you enjoyed most about this, because I'm super fired up and pumped about this one the Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live. And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, the sports talk and podcasts that you love right in your vehicle or on the SiriusXM app. Every SiriusXM equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three month trial, so the experience begins the moment you drive. Learn more@kia.com Sportage Hybrid Kia Movement that inspires this message is brought to you by Apple Card It's a great time to apply for an Apple Card. You'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every purchase. That includes 3% daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at Apple through this special referral offer. When you get a new Apple Card.

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The School of Greatness is sponsored by Capital One. Nowadays, most people subscribe to everything music, tv, even dog food. And it rocks. Until you have to manage it all. Which is where Capital One comes in. Capital One credit cardholders can easily track, block or cancel reoccurring charges right from the Capital One mobile app at no additional cost. With one sign in, you can manage all your subscriptions all in one place. Learn more at Capital1.comsubscriptions Terms and Conditions apply. Again, a big thank you to our sponsors and I'm so fired up. You guys have no idea how pumped up I am about this. Something about understanding human psychology the way we think, the way we do things, why we do the things we do, why we're influenced. I'm obsessed with. And it's always fascinating me. I'm curious about why I do certain things and why others do it. And Darren Brown is the man to reveal all of this for us today. So without further ado, let me introduce to you to the one, the only, Darren Brown.

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

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

All the power players are just gripping.

You and each hurt very much. So I appreciate. I appreciate the gentle British handshake, in fact. Thank you.

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

Yeah.

Hello.

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

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

Thank you.

One called the Push, which literally go, watch this tonight on Netflix. If you're listening to this or watching this, I'm telling you, it's going to blow you away. If you appreciate anything that I've done in this show, you will love this. Without telling the whole thing, the Push is essentially you get people to kill people on video, and that makes it sound just. Just you get people to kill people. Literally. But no one dies, but they think they're killing someone.

Yeah. It's an exercise in social compliance. It was to see whether you could. Yeah. Ordinary social compliance in a big sort of hidden camera setup where there's one real guy who doesn't know he's in this kind of Truman show environment. Everyone else is an actor just starting with little things, little lies. Little lies. Whether it could build to the point that he would murder.

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

It's kind of anxiety inducing.

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

Yes, it's brand new.

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

Maybe I should first of all explain that. So my background is in magic, but the kind of psychological side of magic and working a lot with, excuse me, with suggestion. And I began as a hypnotist. That was my kind of first weird way into all of this. But as I grew up, the desire to just kind of like do tricks and go, hey, look, aren't I clever? Which is kind of the subtext, right? Yeah, yeah, I kind of grew out of that. So although I still do stage shows that are kind of a bit more like in that traditional mode, the sort of 20 year, 18, 20 year TV career I've had in the UK. I appreciate no one really knows me here, but in the uk I've sort of. What I tried to do was take the idea of sort of magic and make it into something that was dramatically more resonant. So now what I do is I'm kind of behind the scenes and the deception is something we're all part of and in on apart from normally one person. So it's quite separate now from any kind of magic. It's not really about that.

It's an experiment.

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

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

No, no.

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

Yeah, exactly.

As opposed to actually like and persuade.

It's kind of. So I'm using the kind of psychological techniques and the kind of the. Just the power of sheer like production and like actors and stuntmen, all the kind of stuff around it to create.

Pressure, authority, all these things that make.

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

Doesn't like immigrants.

He doesn't like immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants.

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

Yeah, that's kind of his bottom line. And I. The challenge is I get him to the point. So he thinks he's taking part in one show, which he thinks is a documentary. So he knows he's taking part in a show. Often when I do these things, they have no idea. There's even like a TV show going on. But he thinks he's taking part in one show, which is a documentary about. He thinks he's got a microchip that I've implanted in him.

That's amazing.

Oh my gosh.

He thinks he's trying out.

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

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

It's unbelievable. And the scene at the end when he has to make the decision. I don't want to spoil it here, but when he has to make the decision and you watch his conscience and it's unbelievable. Again, you guys gotta watch this because at the end it's gonna blow you away. I'm getting chilled.

It was a really emotional journey.

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

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

Because it's not for one moment.

For one moment or for one. Yeah. Because you're not only creating that moment for the guy. Phil. In this case, this guy's called Phil. I'll stop calling him the guy. But also you. You're also having to create everything as a completely convincing fiction for somebody. So there's not only. Not only. You gotta make it work as a. As a kind of a story, but this guy can't know that this Whole again. It's a Truman Show. You know, you can't break the fiction for the person. So it's amazing. There's a lot involved. We did a show called Apocalypse, which was ending the world for somebody. So here's somebody who's kind of gotten. He's sort of disengaged from life. He's like kind of selfish. He lives with his parents. They're like, look, you've got to change this guy essentially. So I took the stoic idea that you value, like we need to value what we have more and one way of doing that. And the Stoics, which were, you know, this big philosophical school 500 years before Christianity sort of burst into the scene. There was the most.

Stoicism. Yeah.

Popular. I'm sure you've spoken about it with many people. So I, I'm a big fan of the Stoics. So I took this idea. So the idea was, I guess, how do we take everything away from him in order to have him value what.

We appreciate, these things.

Yeah. So we ended the world. So what we did, we took. We had cameras in his house. So he'd applied to be on the show. Right. There's normally some application process. And we vetted him and we decided he'd be robust enough for it, ideal for it, and also suggestible enough. I look for people that are naturally quite suggestible.

And then you tell them, hey, you're not on the show.

Yeah, exactly. We're not going to use you.

Months later you come back and.

And then months later we put cameras in his house. So his family are in on it. He's like 20 something, you know, 23, I think. He once lives with his family. So we got hidden cameras throughout his house and we began this process of convincing him that the world was gonna end through a meteor strike. So if you imagine like he's watching TV shows where they have like guests and scientists on, but we've like re recorded our special versions of it that are only playing on his tv.

That he knows that it's like an authority.

Yeah, yeah. He just thinks it's a regular episode of his show. We had control of his phone. We hacked into his phone so that we could send him like on his news apps and things, like even the NASA site, we were able to create convincing replicas that we could drop in these news stories. I was tweeting as his favorite because he was quite into science, tweeting as his favorite scientist and so on. So bit by bit, we drip fed this idea. He'd be out in a cafe that we knew he was going to be in. And we'd have the radio playing in the background with, like, real DJs that he knows, like famous UK DJs. Talking about this thing is like, is it going to happen? Is it not? Is it a hoax? And. And then we created this, like, pyrotechnic event for him where the world ends.

No way.

And then in the second part of the show, he wakes up seemingly weeks later in a hospital, shut up. And everywhere's deserted. There's no one around. And he then begins. Basically, he goes through the plot of wizard of Oz. He learns the important things. He learns about courage, learns about having a heart, and learns about leadership and, you know, kind of having a brain, I guess, is that other partial wizard of Oz thing. And he finds his way home and finds his. Finding his way back and kind of claiming himself as a. As the best version of himself. And he finds a few other people. But there are zombies. There's no easy way of saying it. There's this whole kind of, like, zombie.

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

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

It'll take years for you to plan out, probably.

Yeah, it was. It was.

You did another one, I think. I read. I haven't watched some of them because they're not in the U.S. but there's another one you did where you, like, the guy's afraid of flying and you, like, help him overcome his fears and has to, like.

And then he has to land a plane.

Land a plane or something.

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

Wow.

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

He's asleep.

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

Oh, it's the best.

It's amazing. So it's a constant reference point.

Oh, my gosh.

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

I didn't spoil the ending for Sacrifices.

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

And so relevant too. Whatever you guys do, go watch both of these. The push the Sacrifice right now. We're gonna talk a lot more. And then you have a stage performance which is just. I hope you edit these things because if you don't, you are like a perfectionist with your words on stage. And it's really annoying because when I speak on stage, I'm like, man, I wish I could present that way. So hopefully there's some editing in these things because it looks like you never miss a word.

Well, I did, like quite long tours. I do.

You've done it so many times. But you do something which I thought was fascinating, which is you kind of demystify these, like faith healers that try to manipulate. Because I think there's a lot of great faith healers or people in spirituality that help a lot of people bring them faith, bring them like, peace of mind, bring them inner peace.

And there are some that.

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

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

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

So this show is called Miracle, which is also on Netflix. Basically, those three shows, all three of.

Those, you gotta watch them.

All three shows I've done and they' they're all on Netflix. It's amazing. The rest of it, you'll have to dig around on YouTube and my YouTube.

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

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

Feeling like.

Yeah. So if you get adrenaline going into painkillers, that's the first thing. So if you've got. If you've got a. Like, if you've got some back pain and, you know, you're slouched in a bad.

Yeah.

A wild lion walks into the room, you're not worried about your back. Right. The pain goes. So you. Adrenaline kills pain. That's the first part of it. The second part of it, which is where it gets really interesting, is the stories that we tell ourselves, which is a recurring theme in my interests in life and work and how we get restricted by that. And what was. What I didn't expect was how I thought it was gonna be. People saying, oh, I had back pain, and now it's gone. But within a week of doing the show, I remember a woman coming up in floods of tears. She was maybe in her 40s. She'd been paralyzed down one side of her body since being a kid. And for the first time, she's able to move her way.

No way.

And this is how you can. Of course, she can start to go mad as the healer and start to believe in it. Right.

And believe you're like a God.

Starts to take an effort to think. Exactly. This isn't something I'm doing. This is something you're doing. So that psychological component. So basically, it's like the part of our, you know, not for everybody, of course. I'm only dealing with a percentage of the audience.

Right.

So you. I got maybe two, 3,000 people in the audience, and here are 300. Right. So we're kind of numbers.

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

Exactly, yeah. And then the number that get invited up is smaller again, right.

It's like the most adjustable people or the. More like the people.

Yeah, exactly. The people that certainly experience the most. But the fact that if you X rayed this woman before and afterwards, clearly nothing has changed, right? But her somehow in the story she was telling herself about this condition, I can't move my arm. This is something I live with. It's a restriction that I have maybe a bit of adrenaline at the start and then the kind of the challenge of like if you couldn't move something before, try it now, notice what's different and come up and tell me. Just that sort of. Okay, I'll think about it differently. Just snapped her out a bit. She's not just feeling a difference, she's actually kind of physically moving. And night after night these things happen. And it varied from night to night and some nights were more dramatic than others, but it was extraordinary. And then. And again, percentage is getting smaller, right? So now we're the top, like probably half a percent, which is always going to be kind of extraordinary. But people then saying like a year later, this is, you know, this is a permanent thing again, I'm thinking it'll work for 10 minutes when they're on stage, right?

Because they get the adrenaline and they'll.

Go back and they're going to be as they were. Which is, which is where those healers where it starts to get nasty. Because then they're saying if you, if this healing doesn't last, it's, you know, it's your fault, you didn't have enough faith and so on. So that's where it gets nasty. So I, I'm being open and saying, look, you're going to go back. It's probably going to be the same. Don't throw those pills.

Right.

Regardless of what I said earlier on.

But some people are worse for it.

So it continued to work.

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You know, my, my girlfriend Jen, she's a doctor of physical therapy and she, she works on people who are in chronic pain, right? Who are broke, who pulled muscles, who, like, have bad neck pain, you know, back pain, knee pain, all these things, joints. And she'll get them on her table and literally have them start changing the story around. It's an emotional thing that they're holding onto. They're just really tight. And when you get people to relax, they can usually move better and the pain goes away. And so the way you were doing it, I was just watching. I was like, wow, you're just getting people to really relax. You have them take deep breaths. You have them, I think, close their eyes. At one point there was a kind.

Of exercise, but it wasn't really even relaxed. It wasn't like a. Because you can't stand on stage and have people just relax for 20 minutes, you know, it was, it was, it was, it was just amazing. It was just like. It was, it was, it was crazy. And it, and, and then I started to think, well, maybe I could, maybe I could like, present this as a, as a thing. Because you could pack out stadia. If you said, this is a secular healing show. You know, I'm not making any claims, but that's, that is when you start to go mad because we never advertise it's a healing show because.

But you heal people there. Or people are.

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

Yeah, but what you do, which is even cooler, is you start to guess where people's. Or not guess. I shouldn't say that. But you start to call out where.

People'S pain is and you're just.

By looking at them, it's like your left knee. And they're like, what? Yeah, my left knee can't. You know, whatever.

And that isn't someone going, obviously, but it's amazing. But again, I'm using the technique that the healers, that the healers use.

Really?

What are those?

Are you allowed to share or.

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

Yeah.

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

You've studied a lot of them, right?

You know that. Well, yeah. And like, talking a bit about some of the methods which are kind of unpleasant, but you know, those, like the studio audience type of psychic, like the TV psychic, the medium that comes out and there's a big audience. I've sat in that audience. I won't say who it was, but he was certainly a big name a little while ago. And he came out and you have an audience of believers, of course. Right. And he comes out and he's saying, so is there anybody here who's hoping that someone's going to come through? So, like, you know, 50 hands go up. He said, well, tell me and I'll let you know if they come through. So who are you hoping will come through? And people start to just tell him everything he wants to know. And is there anything that I can look for that would be absolute proof that no one could possibly know? And they tell him all these things, yeah, it was my son and he died and this, and it is heartbreaking. And then they start taping and of course, he comes out and says all those things.

Oh, really?

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

He's asking questions for you.

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

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

No, I don't. I think because it has been tested, it's been looked at again and again, it never holds up. Never once in the history of that business, which is, like, maybe the second oldest industry in the world, it's never. It's never holds up. And our capacity for. I did this one in one of the stage shows. I did. I had people up on stage and I did. I did mediumship. Right. But I'm debunking. It as I'm doing it. So I'm saying, really? I've got your grandmother here. Her name's Alice. Is that right? They're like, yeah. And she's like, how do you know the name? And she's saying, that's my secret. And she's saying. And she's not saying anything. I'm lying to you. You understand. Understand this. But she's saying she had a little dog called Jasper. Is that correct? Yep. And she's. I'm making this up. She. And I'm so. Right.

Making it up.

So I'm debunking it as I'm doing. I'm saying, I am lying to you.

And you're making it up. Or you had other.

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

Yes. Yes.

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

To want to believe that this person can. Or that this person connecting through someone somehow.

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

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

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

You have a weak handshake.

I understand if I have a toolkit. Like, you know, a magician has got his, you know, deck of cards, whatever. I think my toolkit is people's. Is people's stories that they tell themselves. I think that's. That's what interests me.

It's like, can you give an example?

So, like, even Just like a magic trick, right? You are. When you watch a. You might watch a card trick and you go, you know, he had me pick a card and then he put the card back in the deck and it disappeared. And then it was in my. It was in my pocket. That's impossible. Now that. That is a story you're telling yourself and you're going from point A to point B to point C. But of course, there's like also 8.1, 8.2, you know, but you. What the magician's doing is just encouraging you to edit the story in such a way that normally all the sleight of hand happens right in front of you, but you don't pay attention because it doesn't seem important. And then the bits that do seem important are the bits that later are going to join up to form the story, right? And they're a little like, there's. When I used to do a lot of this kind of magic and like a thing I'd always say is, so let's say you got like a deck of cards at the beginning that is in a special order, so you can't shuffle them, but there's a point halfway through the trick where they can shuffle them. I would normally say at that point, okay, let's shuffle the cards again, but this time do it under the table, right? So they follow that instruction, but it sounds like they've shuffled the cards before to them. Does that make sense?

Shuffle the cards again.

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

Shovel the card a bunch of times.

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

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

No. Do you know what the work that I do is, like, is very sort of controlling. Like I seem to be able to control people's minds or control people's actions, whatever. I actually think that's a terrible way of living. I'm a big believer in the stoic idea that there's like all the things you can control and then the things you can't control. If you try to start controlling things that you can't, you're just going to get frustrated and angry and anxious.

Right.

But the only things you can control are your thoughts and your actions. And that is it. That is it. So you have this choice. You try and control all this other stuff or you could just decide that it's fine, that everything else is fine. And the thing is, it always is, it always is. And if you let that thought of so like, you know, your partner is driving you mad because essentially they handle stress badly and they're putting it all on your head or whatever, whatever that is. And you're in charge of how much you maybe do try and help them or how much, how much, how kindly you can meet them but essentially, if they handle stress badly and they're having a bad time, you can emotionally separate a little and go, that's okay, it's okay. And in that sort of clarity that comes with that, then you can actually be like a better partner and be a better help, as opposed to making it all about you and turning into a huge, big thing that you don't need to do. So there's like. There are gray areas, but essentially it's like, I'm sure sport is the same. Like, so you. If you go to, I don't know, tennis, you go into a game of tennis, if you try and control the thing you can't control, which is the outcome. So if you go in thinking, I must win, I must win this game, then what happens? You start to lose, you become anxious, you don't play as well. Whereas you can go in thinking, I will play as best as I possibly can, the best of my abilities.

And I'm not gonna react and be negative and I'm gonna control my mindset.

It's just a different story. You're in your thought, you're on this side of the line. And of course you play better. You do actually play better, so the results tend to be better, but you're just trying to keep it on the right side of the line. So there are kind of, you know, like, matters of social injustice that you think, well, that's not fine. That needs changing. Well, fine. But then just emotionally commit yourself to doing your absolute utmost to change that thing. Not to an outcome that may. That this may not be the time. That may be, like, going to be years after you've done your efforts, that that's going to change. But you'll do a better job because you'll be less bitter, you'll be less frustrated, you know. So what I'm saying is in life, I'm like, you know, the least controlling person. Actually, what I think is more important is to have an easy relationship with fate. Fortune. The Greeks used to. They really believed in this thing called fortune. Imagine a graph, right? And I love this image. And it comes up. I wrote a book on happiness, and I just found this, a recurring image from the ancient Greeks onwards. So imagine you've got, like an X, like your X axis and your Y axis, right? And A. Is it that way or is it that way? I can never remember. But so along one axis you've got, say, the Y axis is your aims, the things you want to do, the things you want to achieve, right? So that's like that axis this axis down here is just stuff. It's fortunate. It's stuff that life throws back at you, stuff you can't control. What we are told again and again and again is if you believe in yourself enough and if you set your goals clearly enough, you can sort of the life you lead, this line will be kind of up here somewhere, really in line with what your goals are. And I mean, that can work sometimes, and that's great when it does. But what you're not then respecting is this. The stuff that just happens that you don't have under your control. So what happens is like, when people. We call people losers now, right? Like, they've lost. We used to call them unfortunates. There was a slightly more sympathetic approach to when things don't go right in people's lives. So what I think is important is that actually what we live is an X equals Y line, right? We live. We try and do certain things and we try and pull the line a bit up here. And then life pulls back a little bit. And you can either let that drive you mad or you can just let that settle in as a kind of. That's what life is, right? That's what life is, which is whether you make your peace with that or not. Are you like a dog that's pulling at the lead like this all the time, or are you kind of trotting along a bit more harmoniously with it? So this is, I think, a really big thing, and that same idea comes up. Do you know Michael Csikszentmihalyi who wrote for Flow?

Yes, yes, yes.

He studied, like. Yeah, athletes, musicians, musicians, chess players, anyone that had like a Zen state, like a state of flow, where they felt, this is the best version of me and I'm achieving the most. And what he saw was that they're in this X equals Y line. Imagine, like, you've got your skills on this side, you've got the challenges you're facing on this side. When your skills roughly match your challenges, you settle into this flow state, right? You lose any sense of, like, time and those things, regardless of what the skill is like. A lot of people say anything. You're like all that just. Yeah, you're just in the zone. You're in the zone, right? If your skills are greater than the challenges, you kind of get bored. If the challenges are greater than your skills, you get anxious. But there is this X equals Y line. Schopenhauer, like great 18th, 19th century German philosopher, said, you know, if you guess it's so relevant today when we're just told, believe in yourself and set your goals. Like, so if you're playing a game of chess, you start out with a plan, but if you just stick to that plan all your life, if you just stick to that plan for the game, it's nonsense because like someone else is playing. So you have to adjust. Right. So again, you've kind of got this idea of moving harm. Freud, Freud, who started psychoanalysis, he wasn't trying to make people happy. He figured life is pretty much unhappy a lot of the time.

Suffering.

Yeah, yeah. So he said, I want to restore what he called natural unhappiness as opposed to unnatural unhappiness that people have.

Natural unhappiness.

Natural unhappiness, he called it. And none of this sounds like being in the uk.

Yeah.

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

Yeah, yeah.

And it says quite explicitly, if these things don't come to you, it's your fault. It's your fault. It is your fault because you let go of that self belief and it's a recipe, I think, for anxiety and disaster.

Do you face a lot of anxiety in your life?

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

You're too relaxed.

I'm so good at avoiding anxiety.

How do you avoid it?

I just have this natural constitution that I just avoid stress, but then I don't. The difficulty is getting stuff done then, isn't it? Anxiety is really important because you need.

A little pressure to complete things.

Yeah. That's our signal that something needs changing in life. Right.

You have a deadline. I've got to do this thing or. Yeah, something's not working.

How do you change? You don't change your job, you don't know it's wrong. Unless you start to hate your job. You don't cross the road on your own without letting go of your mother's hand first. Right. Something has to die in order for something new to, to live. Right. And I'm 47. So as you get kind of into the middle bit of life, you start to notice you kind of like your ego has to now just settle down and you actually putting yourself in service of something that's bigger than you, like, whether it's, you know, your kids or a passion or whatever it is that those things start to become important. You know, things have to sort of. You have to let go of some things to, you know, to move on, to, to move into, you know, growth. But you don't grow unless you embrace some level of anxiety. It's tough. So I find that difficult because, like, I'm, I'm too the opposite and I need to embrace a bit more anxiety probably in life.

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

You know, I was a magician. It's just awful. It's embarrassing, you know, trying to please.

People or trying to like, oh, trying to impress.

It's just terrible because it is the bottom line of magic is, look at me, aren't I impressing? That's it. That's all it has to say. It is the quickest, most fraudulent route to impressing people. And there are some wonderful magicians and I, you know, I love great magic, of course, but there's a lot of grown up, lonely children in that world because you learn to show somebody something that is a cheat, you know, it might be actually really easy, and they go, you're amazing, you're amazing. And that's quite an addictive cycle. So I think I've hopefully let go of some of that. But I know I was, I was unbearable. Like, I couldn't. Why did you have a conversation without doing tricks?

Really? Yeah, because you wanted that. It was like a drug. It just felt like. It always felt good. It was that hit.

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

Yeah, yeah. Not always trying to get all the attention or whatever.

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

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

As a really insecure, like, kid who needed to impress and feel solid. I saw a hypnotist in my first year at university, and I kind of. So I was studying law, right? I was supposed to be a lawyer, and I saw this guy, and it just ticked all these boxes. It was performance. I'd never really thought of myself as performing, but I think that I needed that. And the control side of it was like, it was a great show. It wasn't making people look stupid or anything, but it was nonetheless. I kind of. A bit of me was like, all those. The kids that I found, like, intimidating at school. Those kind of sporty, sporty guys. Yeah, they're now, like. They're the ones that tend to respond really well to this kind of stuff. So now I'm in control, you know, it was all that kind of stuff. It was. And hopefully. Hopefully I've grown out of some of that. At least that's why you got into.

It in the first place, from insecurities. And it was like, absolutely, yeah.

Wow.

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

And it isn't a gift, I don't think. I think it's like, if you have that insecure thing or whatever that makes you start playing the piano, right. Like, probably not everyone's gonna play the piano, but anybody in good. In theory, you just got to put in Thousands of hours, 10,000, whatever. Whatever the figure is today. But not everyone's going to do that. So, yeah, it clicked for me and it. But it was a slow process. I remember one weird seminal moment, and I was the guy at university that would hypnotize you. Right. That was my thing. So I would. People would come over and I was learning hypnosis, so I sort of, you.

Know, practice it on people repricing every day. Just all the time.

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

He went to sleep.

He went to sleep. He went. Well, it's not sleep, but he went into this kind of relaxed state. Yeah, this relaxed state. And we. But essentially went into a trance. That's what it looked. He did the. You know, he slumped out and we did whatever we were doing. I can't remember what it was. Maybe, you know, he wanted to give up smoking or something like that. And then it was only afterwards, when we were talking about it, and I realized I hadn't met this guy before. So I thought, how did he cause it? Like, I don't have magic fingers or something. Nothing I'm doing. And I just realized it was just my kind of commitment to that. I just. My confidence and my belief that he was going to respond. Just. And the fact he was very suggestible was just like a fortuitous coincidence. And that was a moment of going, right, the key to this is not these, like, long scripts that I've been learning. And it's not really the technique as such. It's just something about that person's ongoing experience in the moment, which I'm kind of. It's up to me to manage that. And if I'm so now on stage, I get people up and I shake hands with them, and they collapse out on the floor, hypnotized, inadvertently, whatever that means. There's a whole other discussion as to what it is. But I know that that moment of stepping up on stage is bewildering. And then suddenly, an audience.

There's lights, and they're like. And they just boom.

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

Someone tried to hypnotize me once, and I was like, I want to be hypnotized. I was like, you were too enthusiastic. Well, I. First off, I was like, I never want to be hypnotized. And I'd watch it and things like that. Well, this was back in the day. And then I met a guy who was like, hypnotist. He was like, you know, well, I'd love to, like, show you and guide.

You if you want.

I was like, all right, I'll try it. I'm open to it. Like, I just don't know if it's gonna work. And he's like, well, you need to come to the space that it is going to Work, you know, it's what he said to me. He was like, I want you to, you know, you want to be this. This is something you want. Like, we're gonna work on whatever. And he did the whole like arm pull thing or whatever, and it just wasn't working. And I was trying to.

Pulling your arm or was this like.

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

Careful.

That was really.

Oh, sorry, I.

Excuse the jones.

Don't break the hand. Yeah. But at the same point I was like, okay, I'll just like, try to, like, go along with it and really just try to more relax in, like, the process and just try to like be relaxing, breathe and relax. He took me through a visualization of becoming your greatest self. He actually put me through an actually nice process because I love the power of visualization. I've been doing it as an athlete since as long as I can remember. And I believe in the suggestion, the story we tell ourself, the projection. I would say, this is how I'm going to show up tomorrow at the game. And I'd walk myself through every move, every play, whatever it may be, and see myself performing well. I'd also be putting years of hard work to back it. So it wasn't just like, I'm going to do great with no work, but reaffirming that belief. And so he put me through a nice little kind of guided visualization meditation, whatever we're going to call it. And he was like, I want you to imagine the greatest version of yourself standing right in front of you. And in that moment, I'd actually never heard the way he told it before. And then I was like, wow. I could see myself, like, with 100% confidence, calm, poised, like the best looking version of myself, whatever. Just like standing perfectly, not slouch, just every part of me, the best version. And I was like, wow, I can push myself to be a greater person by seeing it first and then taking the action steps to becoming that.

Yeah.

So I was like, that was a nice little.

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

Why are we climbing the ladder?

Right.

Yeah.

Why are we climbing this or.

Yeah, well, we. Yeah, we spend a lot of time focusing on stuff like this. We have this image of this version of ourselves that we're moving towards, and it's always out there somewhere. And it's kind of like all those things that. Well, that. Look, it's helpful. Like, if you can have a self image, of course, why not have a great self image? Because we tend to make terrible ones. But it's just an image. It's. It's just a picture in the head. It might as well be a good one. But in the meantime, there's also like the here and now and there's like making. Yeah. Your relationship to the. To the parts of you that aren't right is or don't feel right and making peace with that and understanding that in a different way. Like, you know, if you're in a relationship. And I heard this philosopher in England called Alanda Bottom, I really love this. He said, if you go to sleep, if you go to bed twice a week with your partner and you're thinking, what am I doing with this person? This is terrible. That's normal, right? That is like a normal thing to start with. And that, to me is much healthier. That kind of thinking is healthier than. I'm going to have the perfect relationship and I can visualize that perfect and I'm going to make it happen. Because sometimes that's great, but sometimes it just sets you up for a kind of. Why have, you know, an impossible standard? So there's a balance, right? There's a. I think there's a sub clause that goes, if everything turns out brilliantly, then yes, but if it doesn't, then that has to be okay. There has to be a situation that's comfortable and also exciting. Why not also be happy with things that are. Yeah, exactly. It's an important bit that gets missed.

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

Well, it's difficult. I always think of, like, a friend said this, which I thought was great. Richard Wiseman, if you come across his work, is a kind of popular psychologist, which is great. So, like, you know, it's like trying to pull out a. Like A big jar with loads of different colored threads. You know, you just. Sometimes you try and pull one out, but of course it just all comes out together. So how you. How you go back and like, remove one thread from your life? I'm gay, but I didn't come out till I was like, 30. So that's like. That's kind of late.

17 years ago, right?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that's like. I do kind of think that's normally where my mind goes.

Really?

Do you regret anything? Because that was like a really long time. But I don't think I'd put half the energy into sort of doing the stuff that I do if I didn't. If I wasn't a. Desperately trying to avoid any conversations about sex and just like basic human conversations. So that you tend to get very good at, like, deflecting attention with, you know, dazzling, amazing things. Right. That's like a good strategy if you're trying to avoid that kind of subject. So, you know, weirdly, that kind of helped. And so, I don't know.

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

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

Maybe two or three people or something.

Yeah, but they don't.

Yeah, but that's it.

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

Wow.

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

That's carrying peace with it. Yeah.

Yeah. So I don't. I don't know. I Don't have any regrets as such. Kind of. It's fine. I'd like to be, you know, I kind of. I'd like to be a better partner and a better person. Those are things that I think are, you know, good to engage with in the present.

Is there anything you're struggling with right now or what is the biggest challenge for you because you don't have anxiety?

Oh, no, hey, look, I have anxiety. Don't think I don't. I just mean my. I get so good at naturally avoiding it. Yeah, I don't have anxiety like some people have anxiety. But there are different patterns, aren't there? So you've got classically anxiety pattern and avoidance pattern. So, like, if there's a stress or if there's a challenge, if there's something in your life that comes up that's stressy, do you run towards it like a magnet and try and fix it like some people do? It's what my partner does is like absolutely like that makes it worse, I think. But are you drawn to. Are you drawn to stress or do you just naturally avoid it? I'm very good at avoiding it, but that isn't. Both sides have their ups and downs right? Then it kind of. It's kind of nice. We work well with each other because we. He makes me a little more engaged in things and I, you know, help him calm down a bit about other stuff. What I find interesting at the moment is the tension between the urge. It was kind of like what you were saying about the, you know, Nietzsche kind of had this line of become who you are. That was his drive. Right. So there's that one idea of that there is a version of you that's out there somewhere that you want to clear everyone out of the way so you can just focus on that. And I think as, you know, if you get married or you've kids and stuff, that kind of tension, that sense of, like, can be very strong. And then there's the other completely conflicting impulse, which is, well, maybe the best version of myself, rather than being out there somewhere, which I'm never going to reach right, is actually right here. Here. Maybe the self is something that extends and is sort of active and fluid and extends out into the relationships and that you're in now. But, you know, both are important. What's. What's hard is. And I think this, you know, is just generally in, you know, in life is. Is hard, is. Is conflicts, ambivalence is important. And again, real. It's part of life that things conflict and Things are ambiguous and things are messy and that's okay. And actually it's okay to let completely conflicting opposing ideas settle. Look, I mean, politically we're so like this now that we each think the other side is just mad and evil. And we've kind of forgotten that. Which is kind of what sacrifice is about. We've forgotten that actually the dialogue between the sides, forgetting the personalities involved, but the dialogue between the sides is actually where you find humanity and where truth is ultimately going to be found. Right. You've got two very different narratives about, you know, the conservative verge is essentially about protecting the group. Right. It's about holding things together. Hierarchy is holding that together. But it can happen at the expense of the weaker individuals. And then the left wing narrative is about protecting the weaker individuals.

Tearing down.

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

Yeah, it's true. What is your greatest fear or fears?

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

You can give your best.

Yeah, yeah, you can.

You can't control how people respond or react.

Exactly. To the way you show up.

Right.

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

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

Yeah, because that's a potential for sort of not only letting other people down, but just becoming this intolerable, horrible version of myself as well. It's just trying to get that stuff, you know? Trying to get that stuff right. Are you, like. How old are you?

35.

35. Okay. So you've probably got a while before those sort of things start to become. Start to become pressing.

Well, I think I've been talking a lot about this just in my work, that and through all the people that I've interviewed over the years of different backgrounds and stuff. There's really three main fears that I've found that most of us have. The fear of failure. We don't go after something or pursue something or speak or do music or whatever it may be because we don't want to fail. That fear of, like, I'm a failure, I'm a loser. Right. The fear of success, where then we're leaving our pack, our community. Because if we're succeeding and they're not coming with us, then I'm alone and they're not gonna accept me or the pressure that I have to perform again. I have to repeat the success. Right. You might have felt that when you had this hit show. And it's like, it's gotta be better. It's gotta be better. Right? And then the third one.

Spiders.

Spiders, yes, spiders and snakes and hides. The fear of judgment of either way. Making sure that people like us. Fear of, like. Well, either one, if I succeed or fail, are people gonna like me? And for me, the judgment was always the fear until I addressed it about five years ago. Because as an Athlete. I was taught that you had to fail to succeed. And I was the youngest of four. I was this tall when I was, like, 11 and just, like, goofy and gangly. I wasn't, like, this stud athlete or whatever. I was the one that everyone made fun of. I had a. You know, I was in special needs classes, so it was hard for me to read and write all through college. Almost flunked English in high school, all those things. So I had a lot of insecurities about the perception people had about me, like, my image, my ego. Like, what do they think about me? What do they say about me? Am I saying the right things? Like, I always thought I was off. So that judgment was what drove me to be a great athlete, to succeed, to achieve, to prosper, perform well, and to win at everything. So it was, like, accomplishment driven. And I realized that failure wasn't a fear for me because coaches taught me, you've got to practice. You're gonna miss shots. That's how you learn. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna fail every day, and it's okay. That's the foundation for achievement. And that's all I wanted was the success. But it was like, did I slip? Did I look silly? Did I. You know, the fear of, like, what people think about me.

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

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

Yeah.

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

Yeah, totally.

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

No one cares. Yeah.

And in fact, they cared more about me at that moment. They were like, I respect you more. I trust you more. Because I felt like something was. Your ego was in the way.

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

Because they're something missing.

Right.

Something. And that was.

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

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

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

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

Yeah. So.

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

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

Yeah, yeah.

So that's, like, right on us from the word go putting.

Yeah, yeah.

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

Yeah.

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

And expecting certain things. Yeah.

And we live out these same patterns. Everything comes back again and again because we. We just. The stuff we're not conscious of is the stuff that rules us.

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You know, we bury one part of us. Like, if you, you know, if you're the homophobic. I don't know, the homophobic televangelist who, you know, preaches against all that and then gets, you know, caught in bed with some guy and there's like a Big scale. It'll come back and bite you if you. If you bury these things, you know. So the most we can do, I think, is become conscious of how we adapt in these ways to skewed messages. Skewed. You know, our compasses are all over the place. We internalize it. We think that's the truth. And then we go through life kind of looking for things that in a familiar way, repeat that pattern so people can have the same problems with relationships again and again.

Because that's what they know.

Because that's what they know.

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

You're asking me like I know. Bear in mind that the only reason why I have any language for this stuff is that it doesn't come naturally. If it was all sec, I wouldn't have the language for it.

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

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

What do you mean, failure? Comfortable meaning be okay with failure?

Yeah. Is it even failure? I mean, I don't know. It's just a different. It's just experiences, isn't it? Learning. Yeah. How you make your peace with the fact that life isn't going to always produce what you'd like it to and make that okay. That's huge. And as I said, become. The best we can do is become more conscious of these things. So that can happen through psychotherapy. Right. A psychotherapist is going to hopefully, like, depth psycho. Like psychoanalysis. That kind of thing increases your sort of dialogue with yourself, increases your consciousness about those things. But it's very expensive and it's long form and a lot of people aren't interested, but that's one way of doing it. Another way, I guess, is to. Is to look honestly at your life and see, well, where are these recurring patterns? What keeps cropping up? What am I a bit obsessed by? What am I constantly trying to avoid? What just keeps coming back and biting me? What does life keep throwing at me that's bad and causing problems? And then we just trace that back, see where it goes back to. And are there any other possibilities of any other ways of behaving? And it's not like it just goes great, and then you change, but you become more conscious of it. And then it's like a little drip by drip feeding into the soul that, you know, can make a difference. And I think. I think, you know, I think these are sort of modest.

Sure, sure.

Modest goals. And they're important.

I'm curious, who is more influential in your youth, your mom or your dad to you? More?

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

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

I heard recently somebody say, so great. How great is this that kids spend their life wanting their parents to apologize? Parents spend their lives wanting their kids to say thank you. Isn't that nice? Not a nice thing. Because I studied law, I was surrounded like, neither my parents, my dad barely read or write. Neither of them went to university or anything, anything like that. So here I was amongst all these other law students that were like, from reason, really big, powerful families. And they were. That first set of exams we came across. I saw that they were all really nervous, not because they were going to fail for them, but what their parents were going to say. And I'd never had that experience I couldn't relate to. So your parents would. Your parents would be angry at you for failing, you know, So I wrote my parents a letter because I just suddenly realized, oh, actually, they've done this amazing thing of just saying, you just do what makes you happy. And they'd never tried to. The only thing they ever wanted me to do is learn to drive. And that's the one thing I don't do. I don't drive.

You don't drive.

It was so like incense that they.

Try and you still don't drive it. No way.

Which in la here is just like London. It's fine.

Right.

So I've kind of slightly lost track of your question.

But the greatest lesson that you learned from them.

Yeah. So that was it. That was it. It's like I feel I've done kind of well in my life and that what they were giving me was just do what makes you happy. And that's always been my impulse. I've had no, genuinely no ambition, which is why I'm kind of like cynical about the whole goal setting thing. I've never, never done that. I only felt is what I'm doing now enjoyable and interesting and feel worthwhile. And that was on day one when I graduated and I had no money and I was just doing magic tricks and I thought, oh, this is kind of fun. I quite like this. I'm walking around dreaming up tricks and then going out and performing in the evening. That's nice. And that is exactly the same now that night doesn't. That hasn't.

It's on a bigger scale now.

It's a bigger scale, but like being kind of successful with what you do doesn't really change those things you mentioned, like the fear of success. I have a good friend. I found this a really interesting thing. He built up a company pulling back. He was. He had a relationship with his father where he felt he had to achieve and show achievements to get approval. Approval, exactly. Really common. Really common. Again, in terms of those stories that we get in from an early age and then we just kind of adapt to it and think that's what we have to do and think that's real. So his way of responding to that was that he had to be a really high achiever. And, you know, the world becomes dad. Right. The world becomes wanting approval from everyone. So he built up this company and he had this dream that I'll build up this powerful company and then I'll sell it and I'll be a multimillionaire and dad will love me. I guess then, yeah, essentially brackets, you know, dad will love me. He did it. He built up this company and he's a very good friend of mine. And he sold it. And he sold it for A lot of money. And then he was in therapy within, like, a year. Because that need, that. That doesn't go away. Like, that's the thing that has driven him in his life now. He's done the thing. He's achieved the goal. So now what? And he went to therapy and realized that he was not alone. Like, this is a really common thing. This is another whole thing with the goal setting. There isn't just the problem of, what if it doesn't work? What if it does work? What if it works? And you've spent, like, years making. Yeah, because the thing that was making you do it is still there. And now it's got nowhere to go. And that's like. Then you've got no meaning. And, like, forget happiness. Meaning is like, what. What we need. Right. We need to make sense of ourselves in the bigger scheme of things. So what happens when that goes out is horrific. But, you know, great for him. Cause now he's. He's like, become conscious of that.

Yeah, he's aware of that.

So he's worked a lot of that stuff out.

But that was my. That was kind of my upbringing as well. It's like I wanted to prove people wrong. That was my meaning. Yeah, it was like a negative meaning. It was like the three to five bullies that picked on me in school and told me I was stupid and laughed at me when I couldn't read in front of the class. That stuck with me. And I was like, I'm gonna become so big, so strong, so athletic, so talented. Then I'm gonna prove these kids wrong. And I did. Right. It's like I achieved all these accomplishments and went on and did all these great things or whatever. And I was like, why am I still not happy proving wrong? Yeah, I was like, I'm proving them wrong, but why am I still not happy? Like, I did the thing that they said I couldn't do, and I still don't feel good about myself.

That's because you never reach the point. You'll never reach the point when you fully prove them wrong. You're still.

There's always another thing. There's another thing. So I stopped that as well. I was like, okay. Instead of trying to prove a few people wrong that I don't even talk to or whatever and don't even remember their names. It's like, why don't I shift my meaning and purpose towards lifting others up and serving humanity and serving people in a powerful way to support and educate, entertain, whatever it may be to help people as opposed to get back at people. Yeah, that's a good one.

That's a good idea.

Right? That gives me so much more meaning. And it strips anxiety from me. It strips anxiety and it strips, like the fear of judgment. Because I've been speaking on stage for about 10 years, used to be so terrified to speak on stage, and then went through a year of public speaking training in Toastmasters just to force myself to dive into the fear. Because I was like, I don't want this fear to control me anymore. And I used to. You know, I got good at speaking on stage, but I still get really nervous before. And it wasn't until about three years ago where I talked to a guy who was like a coach of mine who was like, because you're still concerned about what people think of you, you're focused on like, being perfect and missing a word or forgetting a story. He's like, you're gonna mess up. Just own the fact that you're not gonna be perfect and quit focusing on what people think about you and start thinking about them and being of service to them.

Yeah. And the idea. See, I think. I think a lot of that fear of public speaking is helped by the realization that it's an idea that you're all engaged in, that you're presenting and everyone's learning about and you're engaged. It's not about you. Which is also the difference between proving those people wrong and being of service to humanity, as you put it, is that it's not about you. And I think things get better in life when they're not about you.

So much better.

I can't think of any job that you don't become better at that job when you stop making it about you. A teacher that's just looking for kind of approval for the kids to like him and all those things is not going to be as good as the teacher. That's genuinely about serving those kids. And it's. And public speaking is the same thing. That's the trouble we focus on. It becomes about us. And that's just going to drive us mad. If it's about the ideas, if it's about. It's again, that sort of middle life thing. I think just letting go of ego and serving something bigger. We find meaning in life by finding the things that. Something that's bigger than yourself and just throwing yourself into that thing.

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

Yeah.

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

Okay. So I grew up. I didn't have, like a religious family or anything, but I went to sort of Bible reading, Sunday school type thing when I was quite young. So there was a teacher at school I really liked, and she ran these classes, so I went to that. And I. So I just, you know, believed in it. And then by the time I was old enough to realize, oh, I actually have a belief that not everybody has. I was kind of. I was pretty inculcated. So, you know, it wasn't going to shift. So that was fine. I didn't have a lot of Christian friends or anything, but I had one good friend at university. At school first, and then at university, and then it actually started to change with the fact I was learning hypnosis and magic because there was such a negative reaction, such a strong ab reaction from my Christian friends of you performing these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you shouldn't. Like that. You're the tampering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I thought, well, okay, that's. That's just them not understanding what it is. So, okay, that's sort of all right. But that's. That's like just fear, isn't it? And then. So that was the first little drop of a kind of skepticism. And then I had a friend who was a psychic healer, and we used to have long arguments because I was so skeptical about that kind of stuff, which magic tends to teach you because you learn about how we fool ourselves. Right. And how tricks work naturally, you know. So you tend to become quite skeptical about those sorts of belief systems. And I started to think, well, I'm just doing the same. Is it just another circular belief system? So I thought, well, I should really look into it. Maybe I should try and. Because I was the guy that would sit you down in a pub in England and tell you why you should believe in God. Here are these. You would do that? Yeah, I was that guy. Like, I could prove to high school. Yeah, yeah, I was.

You were hardcore into.

I was pretty hardcore. I could prove to you why God existed, all these things. But part of me thought, yeah. And, like, for 2,000 years, philosophers have, like, not been able to answer that question. So probably I'm, you know, I'm overreaching there a little. So I just, you know, I kind of started to look into things like how the Bible was put together and so on, and then the.

The translations of this.

Yeah.

And a bunch of people writing stories.

Exactly. And bit by bit, the conviction fell apart, which I thought, well, maybe that'll give me a More honest belief based on a kind of, you know, a kind of honest sort of doubt, weirdly, you know, rather than just all these convictions that didn't really have any intellectual bravery to them, it was a lot of intellectual cowardice, you know. But anyway, it all fell apart. I couldn't really put it back together again, really. What then tends to happen is you go from being. If you're a real believer, you become a real disbeliever. So I was a very vocal atheist, and I still am in the sense that atheism gets a hard rap because people think it has an agenda attached to it, which obviously it can do with certain people, of course, or, you know, individuals bring what they want to.

It, just like anyone wants any belief. Yeah, yeah.

But like, I don't know. Do you collect. Do you collect stamps? No. No. So you are an A Phil Atlas, right? You could be described as an apholate, which doesn't mean anything. Okay. But if people started to suggest that, like you held an agenda as an apholatelist, that that kind of implied any kind of anything, you'd get sick of, you know, sick of the label. So I'm an atheist and I don't believe in God. But now what I think is I kind of see religion as like. Well, at some point it really gave people the experience of transcendence. Somewhere in history, people were having kind of a phenomenological, like an experiential embodied experience of transcendence. That meant, like, it meant something, that whatever was happening historically was there in living memory with people. Whatever this guy was talking about, whatever the experience was and was like giving people a real thing. And then time moves on and that thing moves out of living memory, whatever the sort of historical context was. And so to recreate it, you introduce practices, things that you can do, rituals, things that will just give you back a bit of that. But of course it's now you're now moving into belief as opposed to a kind of embodied knowledge that it was. And dogmas start. All these things start to kind of come in that are replacing what was actually a very. An experience. And then, you know, of course that body, that church, gets powerful and monetized and political. So there's a whole lot of. And then you are where we are now. Where. To me, a lot of the atheist arguments feel a little bit like it's that kind of straw man thing. Like, of course you can point at some of where we are now and go, well, that's kind of silly. That's ridiculous. But I Think to give religion its credit, it may not be doing a very good job at it now, but actually those things are signposts back to what is important, which is the value of transcendence, which is only what we're talking about. All it means is, doesn't have to mean anything overtly spiritual. It's just losing yourself to something bigger. Which is what you're saying, right? What you've done. Turning service. Yeah, yeah. Turning that thing of proving the bullies wrong to serving something bigger. And that's massive. But we don't instinctively get that that is an important thing. It takes people like you to say this is a valuable thing, it makes a difference. And we go, does it? Okay. But actually like that, which is why I think that the mythological side of religion is important. Because these sorts of, that things have to die for new things to grow. You know, these are kind of religious myths that serve, I think, this very basic need to transcend. Because when we don't put it somewhere valuable, we put it in, you know, the idea of money, wealth, fame and so on, which don't serve it. They do not. Yeah, they don't serve it. They don't give you that. They don't give you that extra.

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

I think it's. I mean this will sound very self centered, but I think in as much as we can only sort ourselves out, can't we? You gotta just sort yourself out and then before you even think about anybody else. So I, if there's anything in my life, it's trying to maintain the best possible, which does not mean perfect. Just good enough kind of dialogue with myself and understanding of that. So I can just do this thing as well as I can, which is, you know, that's a life project and not one that's of any interest to anybody else. I don't expect it to be. But like that's, that's, that's interesting enough. And then what's nice is taking stuff that, that I do learn out of that and then like putting it into a book or putting it into a project. That's nice because again, that is less about me. So that's where it gets valuable.

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

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

Meaning brings us joy.

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

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

To be honest, it's. The first thing that comes to mind is when I've done this show, like this show. Sacrifice. Sorry to come back to it, but it's all good.

Bring it up, man.

I loved it. In the show, Sacrifice. This guy goes through a genuinely transformational experience that has really changed him.

And has he stuck with it?

Yeah. Yeah. And he will tell you this because I did say to him, I'm gonna probably do some promotional stuff around the show. Is it all right for me to say. What do you want me to say? He said, like, apart from having my kids, this is the best thing I've ever done. I do it in a heartbeat. And when you watch it, like, he's going through some dark stuff. So you wouldn't necessarily take that for granted that he would say that. So given that television and entertainment can be such a kind of ludicrous meaning or just as a meaningless kind of experience, to occasionally do things like that, that make a difference, I think in terms of feeling proud of anything, that's all I can really think of. I don't feel. Really feel proud of things that relate back to me because that's not as.

Interesting, but because it's like helping someone else. Yeah.

Yeah. And not in a. Kind of like a. Not in a. Trying to make myself Sound anything but just genuinely. It's much easier to feel proud of something when it isn't. And it isn't about you. And it's something that's. You're gonna probably feel proud of your kids. Then you're gonna feel about your own, like, business achievements.

That would be normal. Your kids, like spelling bee. Then you're like.

Billion dollars. Yeah.

Yeah.

Amazing kid.

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

You know, I don't really have them. I. I just sit when it. When there's a time for a new project, I just sit and think. What's interesting now? What's. I got to live with the thing for like 10 months. So I. If it's some idea from a. Somewhere in the back of my mind from three years ago, it's not going to be interesting. And I'll have grown up since then, so. So, no, I don't. I have no ideas, no ambitions.

You look very present. Yeah. Until you come up with an idea, then you start acting on it.

Yeah.

Wow. And your. What's your favorite hobbies? Is it art? Because you're a photographer?

I paint.

Painter. Your work is unbelievable, man. Like, you're like a professional, like a real, like, not just like some amateur. It's like, check out your stuff on his website. It's amazing.

Oh, thank you. I paint and take photographs.

That's your main thing.

Yeah.

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

It's that flow thing we were saying, you know. But that again, that could be anything. That might as well be surfing, I guess. But that. It definitely gives me that. I have a very public job, so they're also quite private things. And I. Because I'm naturally quite introverted, really, I'm quite shy. I don't know, you'd probably describe yourself maybe as a bit shy, even though, like, your personality might be very extrovert. So. But I'm kind of generally quite shy. So there are things that they sit well with me. Like, I. Photographers, I do street photography. So I'm kind of out, like taking just candy moments at moment, you know. But yeah, and you're kind of in an interesting mental space because you're kind of. You're separated and you're kind of detached, but you're also very open and engaged. And in the uk, because I'm quite well known, I sort of. I used to naturally, if I went out, keep my head Down. And now I don't. I'm kind of like open and engaged. And of course, no one's stopping me or anything. That was another fiction I was living out in my head. But it's a really lovely. It's a great state of mind. And again, I think it's that easy. Something about that X equals light. Like you're just a step back, but you're also very open and it's a very porous state. I think that's a very nice place to be.

A couple final questions for you. This has been fascinating, so I appreciate you all opening.

I enjoyed this so much. Thank you for having me. Go on.

This question is called the Three truths that I asked everyone at the end.

Okay.

So I'd like for you to imagine for a moment that you get to pick the last day for you that you're gonna be on this earth.

Right?

It's your last day. As many years out as you wanna live.

Wow.

Okay, whatever. You're 100, you're 200. It doesn't matter whatever age you are. And you've done everything that you wanna do. You only think 10 months out, so you do everything in 10 months increments. But you've done it all right? You're happy with your life, essentially. You've created the work, the shows. Anything you want to do, you've done it. You've got the relationship with your partner, you've had the family. If you want that, whatever it is, you've done it. And it's been a great life. But for whatever reason, all the work that you put out into the world, you've got to take it with you. Your books, your shows, you know, the amazing shows on Netflix.

As in, like, none of it's going to exist after.

It's not going to exist.

You got to take it with you and it goes into wherever you go next.

Yeah, yeah.

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

Okay.

That could benefit them or serve them in some way. What would be your three truths?

I'm probably going to be repeating myself because I think I've probably said everything that I think to be true during this interview. I'd say don't try and control the things you can't control the stuff you Feel shame about no one really cares. And flossing. I think flossing's important.

It's good.

Yeah, it's good. Yeah.

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

It is. It is all over the world.

Not just us, but anywhere. Netflix.

Yeah. Yeah. It's on worldwide.

Yeah.

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

I think once you've watched it, it's on your homepage. Every time you see it, then it's up there.

It's riveting. Yeah. So go there. Watch it, like tonight. I'm telling you, watch this thing. It's only 60 minutes. I think it's now not even that.

It's like 40, 47 minutes.

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

There's a lot there.

Watch Sacrifice. Then do yourselves the favor and watch the Push right afterwards. Oh, my goodness. It's crazy. The moment when people are kicking the box. Oh, God.

Yeah, it sounds really dark.

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

Amazing.

It's crazy, man. It's unbelievable. Watch the Push afterwards. It's crazy. It's gonna blow your mind. And then watch your stage show, which is called Miracle.

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

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

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

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

Of greatness? Living in easy accordance with fate. By fate, I mean fortune and the stuff that happens every day. Wow.

Darren Brown, thank you so much, man. A gentle handshake.

Thank you so much. To end the night, I was actually gripping.

It was a grip. That was a good one.

Thank you for sparing my poor British.

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

I'm also on Twitter, which is Darren Brown. It's an unusual name. Yes. D E R R E N derenbrown. I'm on Instagram too. I mainly got my photography and painting on Instagram.

That's great stuff on there.

And my website is darrenbrown.co.uk. annoyingly, because someone's sitting on darrenbrown.com out there and they won't let it go.

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

Probably Twitter.

Twitter.

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

Thank you so, so much. Thank you.

I love it.

I hope you guys enjoyed this one.

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

You took away from it.

Again, big thank you to Darren for coming on and sharing this. Make sure to get tickets to his show on Broadway next year as well. Support Darren on all the good things that he has going on. Marcus Aurelius said, waste no more time arguing what a good man should be and be one. And Albert Einstein said, once we accept our limits, we go beyond them no matter where you're at in your life right now. No matter what limitations you might be feeling, no matter what blocks you have in your way, we must understand. Understand who we are, the human nature behind us, why we're driven to do certain things. Create that awareness in yourself right now. Start assessing your life. Start looking at the people in your life, the actions in your life, the thoughts, every decision you make. Start assessing them. If you want to become a better human being, it's time to assess it and become one by taking the daily actions towards the desired results that you want. Again, once we accept our limits, we go beyond them, said Albert Einstein. It's your time to go beyond them. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

Sa. Hey everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe, and basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling.

Up a chair at an intimate dinner.

Between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe please and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Ah, DSW Earth. Place of the humble. Brag here. The shoes are so good. No one would ever know how little you paid if you didn't go telling everyone that is. And with never ending options for every style, mood and occasion, all at really great prices, they'll definitely give you something to brag about. So go ahead, stock up on fresh sneakers from your favorite brands or try those boots you always secretly knew you could pull off. Find the shoes that get you at prices that get your budget at DSW stores or@dsw.com Let us surprise you.