Transcript of 669: Oz Pearlman (Oz The Mentalist) - Overcoming Rejection, Getting the Reps, Always Following Up, Living with Gratitude, America's Got Talent, The Curiosity of Steven Spielberg, and Making Others Feel Seen

Welcome to The Learning Leader Show.

I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader. Com for show notes of this. In all podcast episodes, go to learningleader. Com. Now on to tonight's Featured Leader. We had to go big to start out 2026 right. It's Oze Perlman, the world's leading mentalist. After leaving Wall Street to pursue his craft full-time, Oze has been on America's Got Talent. He performed for Steven Spielberg's family, and he's been with many professional sports teams, which you've probably seen clips of online. He's got five kids It's 250 performances a year. O's has mastered the art of reading people and understanding what separates the good from the great. During our conversation, we discuss why intelligent people are the easiest to fool and what that reveals about how high performers think. Super interesting. Then O's talks about the 25-minute conversation he had with Steven Spielberg that taught him the secret to being the most interesting person in any room. Then he shares how someone who makes a living reading others almost missed reading himself when deciding to leave his day job. Note, I flew to New York City be with O's in person for this one, and it was so worth it.

At the end, he does some of his crazy mentalist stuff on me, and it absolutely blew my mind. In fact, you should probably go to YouTube to watch this one. You can see some of his stuff. It is absolutely nuts. Youtube. Com/rianhawke, if you want to see that. If not, stay right here and listen. And please enjoy my conversation with Oze Perlman. This episode is Brought to you by Insight Global. I love the leadership team and the people at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit insightglobal. Com/learningleader today to learn more. That's insightglobal. Com/learningleader.

Dude, I can't believe you're wearing these shoes in day-to-day life.

You don't like them?

Those are for running only for me. Every step you take in those- Or walking in New York City. Every step you take in those is like you're ruining the carbon plate.

We'll talk about it. You're a cycle runner, too.

I'm a runner, yeah. All right, let me go on D&D. I'm doing Jimmy Fallon in two days, and I'm doing Howard Stern. No, two days, Howard Stern, Wednesday, morning, Thursday, Jimmy Fallon. They're like, We got to change this whole trick. I'm like, No, we're not changing this trick. I've been on the phone with them this whole last half hour. They're like, We don't think we can do it.

What are you going to do for You're stern. I mean, you've already did it with AGT, but like...

So Stern, I was on a year ago. I guess the word that somebody had told him before she died, it was a huge thing that Valerie Harper told him, and that they've had psychics on for 10 years trying to guess. I said, I'm not a psychic. I'm not talking to the dead. I'm going to figure it out from you, Howard. Now we set the challenge even higher.

Do you have a doubt in your mind that you won't be able to do it? Or are you like, No, I know I'll be able to do it?

When I did the Howard Stern initial one, I had a lot of doubts, but it was a calculated risk. This time, I feel much better. This time it's round two. It's almost like, imagine if you were in a fight and in round one, you won in an MMA, and then you're going to go back in. Now I think I know the weaknesses I've probed. I feel really good about it, and now I have home advantage. I've I've been there. I've seen what it's like. Now, when I go in, I'm very prepared. The first time I go in, it's so much harder.

Why?

Because at my shows, I'm the director. I point the camera where I want, I frame the shot the way I want, I'm in charge. When I walk into somebody else's set, you lay the ground rules. Once I know what the rules are, I can figure out what I'm going to do. Because my whole job is reverse engineering the human mind, how people behave, how they think, and how they act. If I get feel for how you behave and act, I can utilize that to my advantage.

How much of it is the eyes? I thought about, honestly, wearing sunglasses, a mask. Like a poker game? I would have done whatever I could to fool you, or is it just their whole being?

It's everything. Really? I'm guiding you along. It's a process.

That's so crazy. Okay, I want to go back to when you were 13. So your parents take you on a cruise, right? You see a magician, and he pulls you up on stage. Is that what happened? Sure did.

So what happened? Yeah, what happened? Shout out to Doug Anderson, who I haven't seen in decades, but he is indirectly the person who got me into magic. I mean, directly and indirectly, because I kept at it. He brought me on stage. He did a sleight-of-hand magic trick for me, comedy magic. It's known as the sponge balls. It's a famous trick within magic. I literally went back to my seat and me and my dad are starting to dissect theories. I think these balls are made out of some nuclear material that when you squeeze them, the heat of your hand makes them multiply. All these ridiculous theories, which is honestly the best part of my job is when you walk back is the wonder you feel, and then some people just enjoy it, which is totally fine. Some people are like, I got to figure this out. Most people go down that path of, I got to figure it out, but they give up. They give up after a little while. But those people who don't give up and don't give up and don't give up, and don't give up. Become the magicians, become the mentalists, because not only do we want to learn how to do it, we then want to learn to do it to others.

Who's another mentalist, though, that is O's level good? I can't think of one.

I appreciate that. The fact that you're saying that makes me feel My branding and publicity.

But honestly, I'm generally curious.

There are other people. I could tell you some of the big names in the world. There's people that have passed away. The amazing Crescan is the biggest person in the United States for many, many decades. He was on Johnny Carson over 80 times. You can fact check me. He used to do a famous trick where you'd hide his check anywhere in the theater, anywhere, in someone's underwear, up and up in a thing, anywhere, and he would hold your wrist, the person who knew it, and he would muscle read and feel hot, cold, hot, cold. If he wouldn't get to check, he wouldn't get paid. That was one of his famous tricks. I stand on the shoulders of giants. There's a guy named Darren Brown in the UK who is A-list celebrity for them, and he's really a pioneer in thinking. There's a lot of guys in Israel where I was born that are exceptionally good at this. They have the densest population of mentalists per capita of anywhere in the world. Really? Yeah, it's so weird. It's like that's the hotbed. Uri Geller was the original, the guy who used to bend Spoons in the '70s.

Do you guys ever get together? Totally. Okay, what do you talk about?

We don't talk. We just look at each other and... The good joke is mentalists at dinner. Just look at each other, laugh, then they get mad, then they look like all facial expressions. We really dissect... A lot of it is performance-based. We share war stories of what went wrong? What didn't? Idate new ideas of what we can do next, the same way you would if you were a tech startup. How do we build a better mousetrap? I think a lot of it's just relating to each other because our lives are parallel of being on the road of what went wrong at this show, What went right at this show, and how do we innovate? That's what you see in every industry, the people that make it to the top are the ones who I think are kind, respectful to others. The minute you stop thinking, you know this better than anyone, that you can learn from others, the minute you start atrophying and dying. Every day, innovate, innovate. When I meet somebody who does what I do, who's 18, I should, part of you thinks, Who's this kid? They don't know anything. I don't like that.

I like the fresh perspective. I like to hear what they're working on. Even if it's silly, 9 out of 10, I've seen that, I've learned it, the 1 out of 10, whoa, I never thought of it that way. They changed the way I think a little because their inputs are different. They're from a different era. They grew up hardwired to the internet. I'm still in my 40s. I remember AOL dial-up.

Well, that reminds me of one of the things that I'm inspired by your story after reading your book and following all your stuff is you've gotten so many reps, and I want to start back the restaurant gigs. You're going table to table. There's who are rejecting you. They don't want to do it. It feels, though, like when you see sustained excellence, someone like you, there's usually this insane amount of reps that most people don't ever see. Can you talk to me about those restaurants Where you're going? How old?

I was 14 years old. 14, okay. It's like in Malcolm Gladwell, the 10,000 Hours, everybody knows the Beatles. They were doing those gigs in Germany for nobody in the audience. This was a step above that because no one's throwing beer bottles at me. But when When I was writing the book and I was dissecting what made me who I am today, I think so much of it and so much of what I've seen again, because my luck that I get to do is I get to be around people who are successful all over the world. I get to perform for them and learn from them just like you are and seeing what makes somebody successful. What is that ingredient list that's perfect for that recipe of success? Whatever that means, whether it's a gold medal at the Olympics, whether it means you're Elon Musk with hundreds of billions of dollars, whether you're married with children and you've been married 50 years and have kids and grandkids that all respect and love you, those are all major measures of success I would love. But it's getting through the tough times and resilience, getting knocked down, getting back up.

And the restaurants taught me that because when I walked up to someone and I'm 14 and I have a very fragile ego. After three tables in a row at differing levels of rudeness, go, Dude, get out of here, man. I don't want to see this. Or they catch you. What's in that hand? It hurts. It hurts, right? That's a painful thing to experience. You know what I mean? I had to learn very quickly a defense mechanism, if you will, because carrying that pain, pain turns into anger. When I get to the next table, I'm angry at the next group, even though they haven't done anything wrong to me. I realized after a few times, I'm leaving the restaurant angry. I hate doing this, and this is fun. I love doing magic. I had a goal, which is I need to buy more tricks. My mom is like, I don't have any money. My folks got divorced. I'm not buying you more of these expensive magic tricks. I realized to get my goal I need to have a tougher, thicker skin. I learned at that point in my life that I can't take this failure and rejection personally.

I learned this one thing, which is how to take that fear of rejection and move it off of me, deflect it onto someone else. I created, I would almost call it like an agent in my own mind. When you're in showbiz, the conversations you don't want to have, your agent has. We got to negotiate contracts. He doesn't want to show up that early. He doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to do that. All of those things, when you have an agent, you're a big wig. You get someone else to do those nasty conversations. I'm 14-year-old doing restaurant. I don't have an agent. Here's what I decided. In my mind, when they don't like me, they don't know me. They don't know O's Perlman. They don't know who that guy is. They know This guy owes the magician who walked up to them. So maybe my tricks aren't good enough. Maybe my approach wasn't good enough. Maybe they had a bad day at work or their kid's sick. I made it less about me, and I was able to deflect all of that pain and hurt to this other person. They don't know him.

I just got to get better at the tricks. When I walked up to the next table, I didn't take it personally. It didn't hurt the same way. The best metaphor, visually, is if I gave you a bowl of water, this is how I think about it, and I poured salt into it. Taste that water. It's salty forever. Good luck getting the salt out of the water once you stirred it in. That's the same thing as negative feelings inside, your mindset. If you could somehow put a little piece of plexiglas this thin, nothing in the middle, and then I pour in the salt, guess what? This part all salty. But if I take this part, take a sip, taste perfect. If you can create that separation in your mind so that the fear of rejection, which honestly is worse than the rejection for most people, once you experience the rejection a few times, it's not that bad. It's like dating. It's a numbers game. You will probably not meet your spouse on the first try. You got to meet a whole lot of other people to realize what you like best in the person that hopefully ends up spending your life with.

You probably get called by a lot of people in sales teams. I would Can you imagine? Because that's a part of what you do. You wrote in your book, too, about you got to find an ally. Get an ally, and that could be your best friend. You also have to be... How to be interesting is to be interested in others. I've seen you do this before. This is what you're really good at. You've already remembered everybody's names here. I noticed it.

Even though I wouldn't ask Colin, I'm like, Colin with one L or two Ls? I didn't ask him, but that's the hook. That's the hook for Colin.

This is just part of who you are, all about the business cards and following up after a bar mitzvah, sending them a card of you Stop.

That point right there is worth every minute people use for this, which is never let someone else be in charge of your destiny. I learned that at a young age. Thank goodness, it's Silver Linings because I had a bit of a... I don't want to call it everyone's had harder childhoods, and I don't want to compare to other people, but I was pretty independent by the age of 16, where I need to support myself. I see that in hindsight as it was a painful thing at the time, given my family dynamics, but it set me up for success. I would not be here. There's no question if that had not happened to me because I needed to succeed, and that's tough. My kids will never have that. I wasn't going hungry, but I wasn't eating dessert. You know what I mean? I came from a background where I needed to create things for myself, to pay for college, to pay for my apartment, to pay for books, to pay for tuition, all of the above. I had to find a way to do it. I learned when I do a gig, and I had a couple of other businesses, too, which I talk about in here, I was very entrepreneurial, is you don't wait for someone to go, Oh, man, that'd be great.

Let me get your business card. Great for what? What do you guys have coming up? Ask them, Oh, we have a holiday party. I go, Amazing. Let me get your number and your info, and I'll have someone from my team call you. My team? Me, myself, and I, brother, there's no team. But it sounds fancier. Fake it till you make it. But I also, with confidence, said, We do those all the time. I got a call. I'll never forget this in my life. My mom would answer my phone. I didn't have a cell phone. This is 1996. My mom gets a call, and she has a bit of a thick accent, and it's like, It's a call for a corporate event. Have I ever done a corporate event? I don't even know what the word corporate is. I'm at a restaurant. I'm doing kids' parties. But they call me, and this is where our worlds diverge in a bit or converge, which is my first foray into the sports world, is I get a call, and I'll never forget this. I can visually see it. I walked up to two women at my restaurant that I worked at when I was 14.

If people didn't like the tricks, I didn't want to give a business card because I had to handprint those. I went to Kinkos. I didn't have much money. I was cutting those myself. My There wasn't like a... It was me cutting them with a paper cutter. I go, Oh, they didn't really like me. They weren't that into it. She goes, Can I have your business card? The other one goes, Can I have one, too? I'm like, All these are two of my cards. I don't know what that meant. There was no gotprint. Com run line, which I use. I give them the cards, and I'm like, Oh, they just burned half my stack. I only have 20 for the night. This woman called me a week later. They were opening three NTBs, National Tire and Battery, like Pep Boys. This was in the era of Detroit Red Wings, Hockey Town USA, winning Stanley Cups every year. I did openings with the following Paul Koffie, Dino Cicerelli, nick Lindstrom, Steve Iserman. I don't know how much you know Hockey. These are all future Hall of Famers. Sure. These guys were taking photos and signing autographs. I was doing magic for the people in line waiting to get to them to make their experience better so that while they're waiting, they get entertained, and all of a sudden, a 45-minute line goes by in the blink of an eye.

That's what they saw me do at the restaurant because at the restaurant, I was the secret weapon. While you were waiting for your food, I would entertain you. Let's say the steak came back well done, and you asked medium rare, we got to send it back. You're in a bit of a bad mood. I am the secret weapon the manager sends over to win you back over. All of a sudden, the steak comes back out. You didn't even notice. You had such a great time with this guy O's. Again, when this woman took the card and you never know what to expect, she called me. I didn't even know what was going on. When she called me for the corporate event, we instantly made up a rate. We said, This is what we do. Do you do these? All the time. I'd never done one once. Say yes, figure it out later.

I love it. Do you remember that first rate?

I know for a fact that it was $50 at this Italian restaurant. Somebody fact-checked me on this the other day. I can't remember if it was two or three hours. I feel it was two hours, which is 25 bucks an hour in '96, all cash. Irs, don't come back at me. Statute of limitations. I was 14.

Did you feel like that was a lot of money?

Oh, my God. Dude, I had another job. I worked at Bean and Bagel, making bagel sandwiches in the and doing toilets because I was the new guy, and I didn't mind. I was pretty good at cleaning toilets. I did toilets at my house, too. I had no problem with it. Oh, my God. But at that job, I think, man, I think I was making $4. 65 an hour. Wow. I got tips, not cleaning toilets, but at the restaurant, even though, again, at restaurants, at the beginning, I didn't want tips because I realized a private party for 200 bucks or 300 bucks would make me much more money than getting tips. And tips, sometimes people feel awkward about because they're like, Oh, God, do I need money? Is this guy... And if I could just take away that tension when I walk up and say, Hey, I'm here as a special treat from the manager or the owner, even better, then, Oh, we don't have to pay him. This guy's a special treat tonight. And suddenly people would open up to me more.

You said you're doing magic tricks. What's the difference between magic and mentalism?

Magic, most people know what it is, is sleight of hand. There's lots of different ways you can make this.

Cards and coins.

Cards and coins and birds and sawing women in half and all of the illusions. Sure. Illusions grand on a stage or close up in your hands with a pen, with a ring.

You could still do a lot of magic?

I'm still, knock on wood, still an excellent magician. Some will judge me. I don't get to do that much magic anymore because I rebranded about 10 years ago as O's the Mentalist. I was on a show called America's Got Talent, and I made a conscious decision to separate myself from the guy the year before, because the guy the year before, his name is Matt Franco. He's a good friend. Love you, Matt. He won, and I thought, We're too similar. We're both, for lack of a better term, white dudes in their 30s. He was 27. I think I was 33. We were too similar, where you would compare us to each other. You don't want to be compared to somebody who won the next year because that hurts my chances, I feel. I need to be different, do something unique, or do something better than anyone else, or if you can, do both. That's the ultimate. I learned that early on. Branding is so important. When I went on that show, I'm going to tell the story I want, not let the show tell the story about me. That's a story-driven show. America's Got Talent isn't just about your talents.

What story connects with America here in their heart that makes them root for you and vote for you? I was doing mentalism, but mentalism is much harder than magic in a certain way. I'm going to tell you why. Because magic can be practiced in front of a mirror until you get almost perfect at a trick. Mentalism is near impossible to practice at home without an audience. It's a comedy. You can't tell jokes to a mirror and find out if they're funny. You need the audience to do it because mentalism is magic of the mind. It's the illusion of reading someone's mind, influencing their thoughts, or getting secret information that you would never know.

How much of that act like asking Heidi Klum to stand up and slowly turn around? How much of that was you-I would have been canceled nowadays for doing that, but that was so funny 10 years ago. That was great. I just watched it last night.

Please go back and watch that clip. It's so funny.

Did you Were you planned to do that or were you saying, I'm just feeling it in the moment?

Did I plan to make her turn around? Oh, 100% planned it. I thought it was hilarious.

So the whole thing was all planned.

What's happening with the trick is not planned. It's jazz. I hope where this will go, but it's a pick your own adventure. As things are going, I'm adapting. Because, again, you don't know what somebody will do in the moment.

Because part of what it makes you good, in addition to making people go, Oh, my God, how does he do? We were just talking about, How does he do this stuff? It's also you're very quick. Howard makes a joke. You have a great come back. Obviously, that stuff's not planned. That's just on the fly. Is that just natural your personality? Do you actually work on that element of being funny, quick-witted? Where does that come from?

Some of that, I believe, is just I love comedy. It's the same way that when you hear movie stars try to become rock stars, you always see the movie star doing a band. I am the mentalist who wishes he was a stand-up comedian. I have a lot of friends that are stand-up comedians. If I study anything as an art form, it's stand-up comedy far more than what I do. I actually try to avoid watching others that do what I do in a certain way because I want to be my own unique lane. I still watch and I still love it as a craft. But if I had to decide between the two for the rest of my life, never watch another mentalism trick or watch stand-up comedy, it wouldn't even be a thought. I adore stand-up comedy. It's the purest form of entertainment that exists. You, the audience, and a microphone. For some, they've gotten to the point where they play arenas, stadiums at the top end. That, to me, is mind-blowing. I've had the good fortune to meet some who have now become good friends, and I love watching that. By watching comedy over and over, I think you start to get a feel for timing, where to pause, what's funny, how to get people on your side.

Right With a heckler, there's a very fine line between punching down and offending your audience versus having them on your side and laughing with you at someone as opposed to laughing at someone. Those are two different things. The audience will turn against you very quickly if you're rude or dismissive or offensive. But the answer is fully, I think that that's developed over time. But there's something in there where, again, if you want to know about me, I can tell you all about me, but how do you apply that to your life? If you're not a comedian, if you're not a mentalist, if you're not an entertainer, Charisma and charm, and those are two slightly different things. They sound the same, but I actually read a whole chapter just called Disarm with Charm. It's how to be charming to someone. It takes the sting out of so many things in life. It allows you to win people over quickly. What is charm? What is charm? How do you define it? Just the ability to smile, to make someone laugh, to be vulnerable in a certain moment. That's a skill that's developed and that if you study it well, you can develop it quicker because everyone thinks it's natural.

How much are you... I was thinking about from the second you walked in the room, you remembered the names, you made a comment about my shoes, you were grateful that I had your book. Then we did this whole little act that we're probably going to finish at some other point. How much of it is that intentional or is that just O's? Is that just how you are? You don't even think you just show up in that way. I'm curious of how much of it you have to actually, okay, I'm going to prepare to walk in that room. O's the mentalist the second I walk in, I'm put on a shirt. No, that's just how you are.

If you were to meet me in day-to-day life, which I think you've met me slightly in civilian life, I'm the same person, and I think authenticity shows. Have you ever seen people when you watch them and then you meet them after, they're not the same person?

It's a bummer, man. It happens on this podcast.

You've seen podcast, but I'm sure you've seen on TV. Absolutely. You're integrated in the sports world where you see someone, they're on, but when they go off camera, it's like, wow, she's super different or he's not that guy. I'm not saying that's good or bad. You can be very successful in your career, and you don't have to be. I'm a slightly more exaggerated version of myself when I'm performing. The volume is turned up a little, the charisma is turned up a little, the ability to joke around, but it's me. I think that resonates. The audience knows it. You know it when you see it. That's what the quick wit is. That's what all those things are. So am I intentional? Yes. But certain things that, again, the book, and I'm not trying to be a salesperson, I'm not teaching you any mentalist tricks. I'm not teaching you how to read minds. The book says, Read your mind. That's what I do for a living. But the first words out of my mouth in the book is, I can't really read minds. It's all an act. And so what are the skills that have allowed me to get to the top of my Are they just mentalist tricks?

They're not. I've learned it. They have nothing to do with mentalism. They're the same tricks you can apply in every part of your life. Just what you said, walking into a room, smiling, having no hesitation, connecting with somebody, remembering their name, giving them a compliment, such easy low-hanging fruit, separate you from 90% of other people if you can do them consistently and effectively.

And genuinely, though, from you, and again, we've hung out outside Inside of this, too, it feels the exact same. It doesn't feel like it's an act. Sometimes you come across, let's say, again, going back to sales professional, that's what I did for a long time leading up to this. I think what makes you really good at that is being genuinely curious, interested in the other person, genuinely, for real, listening to them, asking follow-up questions, sometimes making jokes. But if it ever feels like you're in character or you're not authentic, it immediately is like, It's a bad feeling. I feel like that's something you've also mastered. How would you help other people? Because it sounds weird. How would you help other people be more genuine? It's just be more genuine. But I think that's part of what makes you good.

Vulnerability is something that, again, it was a catchword for many years, but many of us don't understand it effectively, which is just think why people behave the way they do in certain scenarios. Let me give you a great example, and it's one that, again, you'll try to find, but it has a direct parallel to your life. I'm in New York City. When we get into elevators here, it's not like the suburbs. You get in the elevator, you don't look at people, you look up, you wait to get to your floor, and you get out. Why is it, and this experience has happened to most people, it's a little jarring and frightening, if an elevator stops, if you get stuck in an elevator, and I'm not wishing you for hours, but I've gotten stuck in an elevator with strangers for 30 seconds to 90 seconds. The elevator gets stuck, we're all looking around, we all realize what just happened, and suddenly there's this moment where the tension between us melts. The tension goes away, and everyone opens up to each other like, Oh, man, we're stuck in here. What are we going to do? There's just this levity that occurs.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. What happened? Why did that happen? We were all strangers. We all ignored each other until this moment. We maybe are going to share 30 extra seconds with each other. What changed? What shift in our behavior occurred? I think there's something where we shared an experience together. You were able to be vulnerable about it. It's the same as if I walk into a room and I'm at a party. I was recently at a party. I didn't know anyone. I got invited by one person. It was like, a birthday party, and I had to be there, and it was great, but I don't know anyone. There was a couple there, and at one point, I just walked up and I say to them, I go, Do you guys know anybody? I don't know anybody here. Everyone laughed, and we just broke the ice. All it took was coming up with the lightest bit of confidence even if I didn't feel it, acknowledging my feelings of like, I don't know anybody here. Do you guys know anybody? I don't know who to come up and talk to. Being real with somebody in that moment immediately takes away the used car salesman feeling.

You've just been honest. Even if you were selling something, say, I've got to hit this quota and I got to be honest with you, I don't know if this is the best choice for you. I think I might have a better product. Why don't you tell me more about what you need right now? I want to find a way to get you the thing that you need the most, not that makes me the most. Right away, do you know how much that just reduces someone's feeling? Because everyone feels as if you're about to got you me.

You come across, and it seems like you have genuine confidence. This is a question that comes up. I have, I think, a very strong feelings about this, but I want to hear your thoughts. How somebody else, what could they do to build O's, the mentalist level, confidence in themselves?

I tried to distill that because that comes over time for a lot of us. Experience over time leads you to confidence because you've seen- Reps. Reps.

Evidence.

There's just no question, the reps lead to it. Going on TV. This week, I don't know when this is coming out. If this is afterwards, I'm on Howard Stern. We're just talking about this. I'm on Jimmy Fallon on Thursday. Truthfully, if even Even a year ago, I would have done this, I would have been much more nervous. But you ask me, what makes you confident? Being prepared is a huge one. Yes. Most of us think we're not in charge while you're so confident, you could be more prepared. If you're going to go into an important meeting, who is in the room with you? Well, I don't know that. How do you not know that? How do you not try to learn a little bit about them online? It's so easy to look up right now very easily. I walked in here, 650 podcasts. I've done my homework. That's the latest bit you can do. Walk in there, and I'm not saying to stalk I'm one, which is what people tell me, Did you hire private investigators? No. But I will do the least bit of due diligence to understand what makes this other person tick.

Right away, going in with confidence has to do a lot with preparation. Also, there's some level of knowing what really matters. How do I explain this? I was very, very nervous the first time I tried out for America's Got Talent. This is a show that 10 years ago changed my life. I didn't get on the first I bombed, and it wasn't my fault. Usually, I always blame myself, but they didn't know what I was going to do. I was doing a mind reading act, and they didn't have an audience for me. I walked into a room with a guy on a headset who was like, Do your thing. I'm like, I'm not a singer. I need to read someone's mind. The whole time he was distracted on a headset, it didn't go well. There's no reaction. It sucked. I learned that, one, I was very tense. I didn't advocate for myself. I wasn't my own biggest cheerleader. It's a difference between being a diva and setting your boundaries. Of what I need for this to go right. Again, if you're going to go in, this is a great example, and you're going to talk to your boss about getting a raise.

It's been months you have laid out in your mind the case, why do I deserve this? They promised me this six months ago. All these things. Are you going to go in there on Monday morning when you know they have a million things on their plate? They're busy the weekend. What are you thinking? Think like them, not like you. Notice patterns. When does this person seem in the best mood? Is it Wednesday afternoons? Why is that? They They do their Pilates class. Again, be a mentalist. Do some analysis of your own. You ask me, Where do I get the conference from? I get the conference from preparing very effectively and then knowing that the preparation has worked in the past. Will it always work? No. Things still fail. But I know that when I did America's Got Talent, I tried out a second time. I didn't get on that time either. When the third time happened, I realized my life didn't end every time I didn't get on the show. I still had a job. I was still able to feed my family. Life was still pretty good. You know what? If I don't get this, it's not the end of the world.

There's a real power to having a realization that it's not the end of the world. Life goes on. The planet will still spin. In a thousand years, you and I will be dust. It ain't that serious. There's some realization of realizing that and saying, Do your best, prepare, and don't whiff it. But at the same time, you've got to come in less tense.

One other story I loved in the book about connecting with people is You're about to meet one of your heroes, and so you're prepared to like, I'm going to ask him a million questions. I can't wait. And this is Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg. And so you're all amped up and ready. And yet you get there and you do your work, and then afterwards, you guys get your time to talk. But it didn't go maybe like you thought it would go. What happened?

So I did Steven Spielberg's dad's 99th birthday, which was awesome. It was in LA. I didn't know how many people were going to be there. I thought small. It's like a group of 65 to 75 people, if I remember Seven tables, all family, a couple of friends, but it's really intimate. At the end of it, Steven beelines to me. I'm like, Oh, yeah, I'm ready. I thought, You don't know how much time you're going to get with him? Maybe 30 seconds. Shake hands. Great to meet you, Steven. Bam, I'm going to hit him with a question or two. He talked to me for upwards of 20 minutes, to the point where it got awkward. I'm like, Should I go? Do you need to talk to your family? He just asked question after question after question. When I left, it was like a blur. When You know when you leave like something in a blur, certain things are adrenaline and you leave. It's like if you do sports and you get off the field. I'm like, What just happened? I didn't ask Steven Spielberg a single question about Jaws, close encounters. I had all these things I wanted to ask him about inside baseball.

Sure. I'm like, Man, I totally screwed that up. But over time, the lesson from it, it got through to me. I go, It wasn't about me. It wasn't like what I was going to ask him. It was about him. It was learning what makes him tick. I I just realized that's why he's Steven Spielberg, because even though he could have been braggadoosh, he could have been this guy who's like, Look at me. Yeah, I'll tell you this movie. He didn't do any of that. All he did was ask about me. He made me feel so interesting because of all the stuff about me. Now, keep in mind, I have a weird job, but I realized he does this with everyone. He has a natural thirst, a natural curious spirit that's allowed him to become that incredible director. You watch movies of his where the characters pull you in. I learned at that moment, no matter what heights you attain, no matter who you become, and I wanted to be ambitious and driven, if you can make the other person feel like they're a star when they meet you, they will always remember that memory. They will always remember it.

That's a real lesson I've learned and taken away, which is try to deflect. Yes, if people ask you questions, answer, but ask them something about themselves back that no one's asked them. Make them feel seen and heard, and make them feel like they are the star of your movie as well.

When you see and hear Steven Spielberg doing it, it's the ultimate. I mean, that guy could just sit back and answer questions from everybody all day, and we'd all love it still.

Do you know who I am? I'm Steven Spielberg. He has every right to say that.

Yeah, but it goes along with the next question I'm going to ask you because after 650 plus of these and you spent time around some of the most powerful, impactful people in the world, and I think about the commonalities of those people, leaders, specifically, who have sustained excellence over time. That's one of them. Is they're genuinely curious people, they're good listeners. What are some other attributes of the people that you you've spent time around that have sustained excellence over time that's like, Oh, that might be a little different than just the average normal person?

I think that to some degree, and people don't want to hear it, little things add up to big things over time. If you were to ask my kids, What do I ingrain them all time? Gratitude and being polite. I think that one of my secrets to success has always been being very polite. I know that sounds so silly. Please thank you always. Write a thank you note. When I was Coming up and doing like barn bat mitzvahs, birthday parties, I realized early on something, which is when people are throwing a party, it's very stressful. You're throwing like a 60th birthday or kids bar mitzvah, a wedding in the rehearsal. It's stressful, man. You got to deal with people. You got to deal with the event planner, this. You're spending a lot of money. The person hosting doesn't always have the greatest time. They're so worried about everyone else. How do you make them feel seen, heard, and understood, and realize that what they really want for most people is to know that it was a great party. When I used to of bar and bat mitzvahs, that was my big market, I would take a photo with the bar and bat mitzvah kid, the guest of honor, at some point, usually while I'm doing a trick, I'm like, Here, take my phone.

I'm like, Do something cool. We get a fun photo of the two of us. I found this online service where I could instantly upload the photo. I would always give a compliment that wasn't generic, something about their kid that stood out. Specific. Very specific. They're poised, they're comedic timing. They told me that they're doing so great at lacrosse, and I can see their competitive spirit. Something that is not generic that also shows that you've raised a good child, that you've put in the work to make this person who they are. Do you know what I'm saying? The compliments I love hearing about my child. I don't know why I had that sense as a 25-year-old, but I knew that if I'd send these cards to them on Monday, the parties are usually on Saturdays, it would get there Tuesday or Wednesday, and they would get something that proved to them because they might not have seen me performing. They heard about it from others, but the parents rarely saw me. I, to this day, and this is 15, 20 years later, will get emails when I'm on TV and stuff from being like, Yo, I just dug up this card from 17 years ago.

You were at Benjamin's Bar Mitzvah, and now he's 30 now, and he has a kid of his own, and I'll never forget that this... That has a staying power where, again, It's the little touches. It wasn't much. I took a photo. I found a service online. The same Jesse Itzler. Do you know Jesse?

Yeah, he's been on here a few times.

Great guy. The power of a handwritten note in today's day and age, when everything's AI and everything's email and everything's automatically sent to you through some CRM, there's a power in the human touch that still exists. I think that so often I've seen it where the people I've really connected with and you say, what's really shined? The human touch, the little things that they do that are like, wow, they remembered that about me or they knew me, and they're like an A-list celebrity. It's crazy. They didn't have to. How did you remember that about me? Take notes, write stuff down. I have a whole chapter. All I do is take notes after everything. I'll I leave here today, I'll write some stuff down, I'll remember it. If I run into that person again in a month, in a year, in five years, it's not even remembering it. I can cheat. I can literally look at my phone and say, Oh, my God, we met at this place. Look, I have a note about this person. It's literally like a mentalism trick to reveal that information to people, even though they gave it to you already, because it shows you took the time.

I was trying to sum you up after reading this and my experiences preparing for this, and it was very kind Very curious, pays very close attention. Then I wrote, follow up, follow up, follow up. It's just that it seems like a little thing, but it's a huge thing that your whole career... Now, you've also made the most of your opportunities when you've earned them. You've got big opportunities. You made the most of them. But the early days of the follow up, follow up, follow up, I think that's something anybody can do. You don't have to read minds to follow up. You just got to pay attention and put in a little bit of extra effort, but not even that much. But anybody can do it, but It's weird that most people don't.

Most people don't. You just hit the nail on the head, which is most people will also assign blame to others in a certain way. What will happen is you'll do a follow-up and you'll say, Well, they didn't write me back. Oh, man. And then, Screw that. You immediately say something nasty about them. What if they're just busy right now? What if the timing isn't right? There's so many levels of things where put the ball in their court, but you keep the ball in your court at the at the same time. You don't want to be overly aggressive. We know the people that follow up too much. That's a whole different can of worms. There's a little Goldilocks zone of finding the right amount of time to give someone and giving them the right excuse. A good one is, I used to always do this, is I would say If somebody needs me more than I need them, the dynamic has shifted. But what if this is a TV producer and I really want to get on this show and they don't really need me at all? Well, I'm going to stay in touch, but I'm going to give them the out and say, Hey, I know you've been so busy lately.

God knows how much stuff is on your plate right now, so let me know how we're doing. If not, I'll make sure to check back in a couple of months. I will make sure to check back in. When I'm following up, all I'm doing is saying, Oh, by the way, I promise to get back to you, so I didn't want to... I didn't forget. They forgot, but you've now taken it on yourself to have an entry point again. Think of it as you're dating someone, you left your toothbrush in their room, in their bathroom, you have a reason to come back, I got to get my toothbrush back, right? You want to proverbially leave some hint or something there for the follow-up. Some of the biggest things I've ever landed, ESPN, the thing that brought us together, can backtrack to a bar mitzvah 18 years ago where I first met Adam Schefter, and the first seed was planted, and I had to keep watering it, watering it, watering it, small plant, small plant until it grew into this thing. Now, look at all the things that came from all the things I've done with ESPN, where Adam Schefter originated them.

Then from there to Pat McAfee, to AJ Hawk, to all these other people and all these other channels, to Mike Green, all these people I've now met who have now become champions of me within a network and other networks.

It also is a great reminder. I had an amazing mentor. I still have them named Rex Caswell, who told me, You are interviewing for your next job every single day. You have no idea who might be in the audience. You have no idea, but you give it your all every single time. One time, Adam Schefter is in the audience. Now, that's one of the people that has set you up along with a bunch of others. But I think that's a good lesson in life. You never know. You got to give it your all every single chance you get. Yes.

I wouldn't say having a mindset of fear, but there is a scarcity mindset that I like, which is if I'm not performing for even a week, in my mind, I go, I'm unemployed again. I got to get back at it. I could be at the top of the game.

You probably have gigs, though, lined up for a long time now, right? Yes. At this point, for a while, you- Even now, I still have the same mindset.

Really? There's no question. It's a hunger.

Do you still feel like it could end tomorrow?

100%.

Do you Can you genuinely think that?

I know it's not going to because I have things booked out.

Yes. You have productive paranoia.

I would call it productive paranoia.

Jim Collins, Good to Great, is like, I'm going to be overly, insanely prepared every single time, whether it's a podcast or a show for a billion people, I'm going to be so prepared. I'm not going to leave anything important to chance.

I think so. I have a little bit of I have to leave things to chance because otherwise it gets stiff. I go into it with a very loosey-goosy. I know what's going to happen, but if you watch structured performers, and I could offline just show you somebody who does what I do, and then you watch them and go, Oh, wow, they're not loose the way you are. The way you just said, there's the jokes, there's this. They have almost like an actor or actress who's saying lines. They're saying lines to a show that they've already rehearsed.

You can feel that probably, yeah.

Some people don't mind it. There's still people at a very high echelon that can do that.

I like the being quick-witted and being able to respond to Howard Stern. Like your friends, even if you're, Were you nervous at that, AGT? Were you nervous? Yes.

But I convert nervousness into a different energy. Nervousness, when people say it to me, I'm not anxious. Nervous is a healthy emotion. Anxiety is different. My mind is just catastrophied and say, This is going to go wrong, this is going to go wrong, this is wrong. My nervous energy is, I'm going to do everything to make this go right, and I know it's going to go right, and I'm going to kill it. I have that fixation, but the nerves are, Let's get into it. Then the moment, it's like starting a marathon. Once the marathon starts, I'm in the sweet spot. Once the performance starts, that's what I've been training for. That's I'm going to cherry on the Sunday. Now I'm ready. I'm not nervous while performing. No. Sometimes I'm nervous while preparing.

Yeah, that anticipatory, you're about to run out in front of a hundred and five thousand people in a football game. It feels amazing, but it's a little bit like Then you just want to get hit. You just want to have the first line or the first trick, and it goes okay. We did some stuff before to prepare. What was that all about?

I like to give you an idea. It's really important to say.

I see your marker here. I'm like, what is he preparing? What's he doing?

What is this market? I wanted to ask you questions that you'll say later, was he leading me in a certain direction with the questions? Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. But I said to you, you've done over 650 learning leader podcast, and each one of those, hopefully, has been insightful for you and for your listeners. If you can get one little tidbit out of it, that's an amazing thing. I asked you to take a moment to marinate on this and said, if you were to think of the first person, if I said you could interview anyone, right? Not someone you've already done, but somebody new. I said, if it could be number one person, how quickly, bam, does that pop in your head? The number one person. It was quick. Near instant, near instant, right? It was quick. It was quick. You know why? Because that's easy to do. It's like asking me, what's my favorite color? It's blue. It's so easy. I know it. It's a muscle memory thing. I wanted to shake you out of autopilot. If you were to now go down the list and say, you've done that first person. It was incredible.

Who's number two? I go, Oh, well, number two. Then it takes usually a hint longer. See the nod? The nod took longer that time. Thinking in the second one took a little longer. But then if you were to keep making a list and I would say, Do number three, they'd be a struggle. Do number four. Right this minute, can you think of who'd be number four? See, it's a struggle. See, and stop. You don't have to. But I want everyone to see what spontaneity means. Right now, that look in your eyes of, Oh, God, who would I pick? That's what I want. I want the struggle. Now, if you were to go back and back, the number two person, I feel in your mind that you were like, You're not going to get this one. Is that how you felt?

I don't think there's any possible way, and I feel bad.

No, no, totally fine. Then when I said to you, number three, and you were on the fence about number three, and you, All right, got it. Then when number 4 is a struggle, and you didn't even think about it. You didn't think about this before. I want to make sure they understand that. Go back to number 3.

Okay.

See, I've seen who number 3 is. I think number 3 in your mind doesn't have that same level where I think you I want to interview them, but I think it's achievable. I think that literally in your mind, it's somebody where you're like, I think I'm going to get them soon. You've never interviewed this person, have you? But I think you've met them before, haven't you? Don't say anything. There's something there. There's something there.

Oh, hold on.

Unfortunately, there's no way you're going to get this. I think, jump back, it's a guy. Is it a guy?

Number three, right? Yeah.

I don't know what order. Whoever you were just thinking of a second ago. If guy. You haven't met him directly, but I feel like there's maybe you're on the phone or something. There's some story here connected between the two where you've spoken to this person, and then you set it up and you're like, It's going to happen one day soon. It's somebody you've met his brother. You were thinking of Eli Manning. You're thinking of Peyton Manning, aren't you? Stop it. Is it Peyton Manning? Is it Peyton Manning who popped in your head?

There is no way, dude. There's no way.

Then the other person You definitely are getting two.

I don't think I've even written that.

You've never written this down. There's always people, haters on you. Have you ever written this down? Have you ever posted this on social media? Have you ever spoken this out loud or zero, zero, zero? Have you posted about this person ever?

I have mentioned the person before. I have.

As somebody you want to meet? Yeah. Is there any way I would know that?

I mean, I doubt your- How many people have you mentioned you want to meet? Oh, lots.

How would we know this would be the person? Did you ever say this would be my number two person? No. Right now, you challenge me. You go, I've got somebody you'll never guess in a million years. Is that correct?

Yes.

When I said it's a guy, you said number two. You would never have said that if they were both guys. So this is a female.

Dude, this is not happening.

I think that this is somebody you're fascinating with because you're familiar with her work and her work inspires you. That's where it's at. That's for sure. I've written this down. Can you cover your eyes? I hope I spelled this right. Keep your eyes closed. Keep your eyes closed. I'm going to show this. Open your eyes. I can't change where I wrote. It's written. It's done. You're thinking of when you thought of Peyton Manning, you thought of Peyton Manning. But here, am I right? You were thinking of one word, two words, three words. Who hopped in your head the moment I said, Who would you love to meet? You changed your mind multiple times. Who is it? What's her name?

Doris Kearns-Goodwin.

Doris Kearns-Goodwin.

Do you even know who that is?

Biographer. Famous biographer. Yeah. Yeah.

Team of Rivals. I mean, seriously, dude, how do you do this? That one is insane. That's why I said before we started recording, I feel bad about this one because there's no way.

No way. We end on a high note. There's always the ricochet. What I love is people always ask me the same question. I'll say, What if it goes wrong? What if it goes wrong? What I learned is it used to go wrong much more often, but it still goes wrong.

So you just say a name and it'd be wrong?

So here's the thing. You're looking at it the wrong way, which is the premise is that you would know it was wrong. Let me give you a great example. If I say to somebody, think of your ATM pin code, something I'm famous for, and I guess it, and they go, That's not the right pin code. It looks like I got it wrong. You got it wrong. But what if I say to you, Think of two I have two different football players right now, and I guess both those football players, and I tell you their Jersey numbers. And what if I wanted their Jersey numbers to be your ATM pin code, but they weren't. You never knew that that was where I was going with it. I actually got it wrong. I know I got it wrong, but you never got to that point in the trick. For you, all I did was get it right because you never knew what was going to be wrong. Do you understand? I set up the terms of what happens. Watch, the best stuff is unexpected. When you don't expect it, you don't expect it. I say to you, imagine a thought bubble.

I call it this thing. Right now above you, you see a thought bubble. This is what I said, something unexpected. I said person, place, or thing, but you've already done a person. I say a place or a thing, and I want you to close your eyes and see a thought bubble just this second appears above your head, and it's unexpected. This is the part I said when I walked in this room. I said, What if it's something you couldn't expect? Open your eyes. Person, place, thing. It's not a person because I told you not to do it. How many words are in that bubble? Tell me, is it one word, two words? How many words? One. One word. Right when I shake hands with you, imagine that I go inside of your brain, I go into that bubble, shake my hands, Zion. Zion. Is that what it said right in that bubble? Yes.

Dude, you got to give me a little bit of how you can figure that out. I just need a little bit. Oh, my God. I actually... No. I thought I was thinking, I was like, Oh, because I went to Zion National Park, and it's one of my favorite places in the world to hike. I don't even know what to say.

I have had that effect on people. Speechless works for me. Shooking up, running out of the room, throwing holy water at me. All of the above have occurred before.

O's, I know we got to go. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for having me, brother.

I love you, man. This is so cool. Thank you.

Thank you for reading my book and spreading the word. I love it. Honestly, I hope you get a few nice tidbits out of it because to me, if you get three things out of it that you still use 10 years from now, this was worth every bit of blood, sweat, and tears that went into it because it's hard writing a book, everybody.

Get reps, be curious, be genuinely interested in people, follow up, follow up, follow up, and then keep going. The confidence is built through evidence, and that's also through preparation.

Never let somebody else be in charge of your destiny. Make those mentors and champions. But at the end of the day, no one will work as hard for you as you do.

And the story of why you didn't get on America's Got Talent the first time and the second time are great stories because the third time, you advocated for yourself a little bit more, and then you did what you do. You made the most of it. I think that's something that sometimes people struggle with. Advocate for yourself. Don't be afraid to Hey, I mean, Colin probably got annoyed at the number of emails. I'm like, I need to have a tray in front of me because I have an iPad. Little details are important because I don't want to be sitting here like this. Smart. Little things like that. But that's part of what I've learned over time of, Hey, just set it up ahead of time so that when O's comes in, we can have a good time. Anyway, this is awesome.

I appreciate that. I appreciate the attention to detail.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, rian@learningleader. Com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with O's Perlman. Also, go to youtube. Com/rianhawk and watch this one, especially just the ending. If YouTube isn't your thing, but at least check out the ending when Oze is doing all this crazy mentalist stuff. When I saw that he wrote down Doris Kern's good one, I was like, Come on, dude. What is going on? But anyway, it's worth it to go watch at youtube. Com/rianhawk. Okay, a few takeaways from my notes, be the most interested person in the room. When Oze walked into our studio in New York, the first thing he did was ask everybody's name, the camera crew, the lighting people, the sound guys, all of them. Then he used their names, remembered all of them throughout the day. He didn't perform for them. He wasn't talking about himself. He asked questions about them using their name. It was really, really cool. While I thought he was super interesting with everything he said to me that you just listened to, it was really cool to see how interested he was others.

To be interesting, be interested. Curiosity is a great way to show love. Then next, it's all about the follow-up. O's hammered this repeatedly. One person who becomes an ally can open doors for you in the future, but that only happens if you follow up and follow up a lot. I love his idea of sending follow-up handwritten notes to everyone he performs for, as well as a picture that he has taken himself a selfie with the person who He even did this for me while we took a number of pictures on my phone. Right before he left, he goes, No, I got to take some on my phone. And he held his phone up himself and took multiple selfies of me and him before we left and then did the follow-up thing with me. It's really cool to see that. Then Next, master your craft through repetition. By the time O's applied for America's Got Talent the third time, he was doing 250 gigs a year. There is no substitute for volume. There's no substitute for getting the reps. Whatever you're trying to get world-class at, you need more reps than you think you do. You got to get the reps.

Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the word and telling a friend or two, Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Oze Perlman. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader. Because you continue to do that, and you also go to Spotify and Apple podcast, and you subscribe to the show, and you rate it, hopefully five stars, you write a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis, and for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.