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

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for world-class notes This is brought to you by Insight Global. 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 has the hustle and grit to deliver. My guest: Oz Pearlman is the greatest mentalist in the world. After leaving Wall Street to pursue his craft full-time, he's performed for Steven Spielberg's family, for Nobel laureates, and Fortune 500 CEOs. He ran a 2:23 marathon and holds the record for most laps around Central Park in a single day. With five kids and 250+ performances a year, Oz has mastered the art of reading people and understanding what separates good from world-class. Key Learnings (In Oz's words) Doug Anderson is the magician who got me into magic. When I was 13 years old, I went on a cruise with my parents. I got pulled up on stage and took part in a magic trick. (The sponge balls) After the trick, my dad and I started creating theories on how the trick worked. The people in every industry who make it to the top are the ones who are kind and respectful to others. As soon as you stop thinking that you can learn from others, you start dying. What is the recipe for success? It's getting through the tough times. When I walked up to someone at a restaurant, and I'm 14, and I have a very fragile ego, after three tables in a row at differing levels of rudeness go by, "Dude, get outta here, man. Like, I don't wanna see this," it hurts. That's a painful thing to experience. I had to learn a defense mechanism very quickly 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 to get my goal, I needed tougher, thicker skin. Deflect the rejection onto someone else. Create separation between you and rejection. I created what I would call an agent in my own mind. When you're in showbiz, the conversations you don't wanna have, your agent has for you. I'm a 14-year-old doing restaurants. I don't have an agent, so here's what I decided. When they don't like me, they don't know me. They don't know Oz Pearlman. They know this guy Oz the magician, who walked up to them. 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. The fear of rejection is worse than the rejection itself. Once you experience rejection a few times, it's not that bad. It's like dating. It's a numbers game. You'll probably not meet your spouse on the first try. You gotta meet a whole lot of other people to realize what you like best in the person that hopefully ends up spending your life with. "Never let someone else be in charge of your destiny." When I do a gig, I don't wait for someone to go, "Oh man, that'd be great. Let me get your business card." I go, "Amazing. Let me get your number and your info. I'll have someone from my team call you." My team is you, me, myself, and I. There's no team. But it sounds fancier. Fake it till you make it. Branding is so important. When I went on America's Got Talent, I made a conscious decision to separate myself from the guy from the year before. (Matt Franco) He won. I thought we were too similar. I had to do something unique or do something better than anyone else. That's when I branded myself as a mentalist and not a magician. Mentalism is much harder than magic to practice. 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 like comedy. You can't tell jokes to a mirror and find out if they're funny. You need the audience to do it. Charm takes the sting out of so many things in life. It allows you to win people over quickly. What is charm? Just the ability to smile, to make someone laugh, to be vulnerable in a certain moment. That's a skill that's developed, and if you study it well, you can develop it quicker because everyone thinks it's natural. What I've learned from comedians: It's the purest form of entertainment that exists. You, the audience, and a microphone. I think you start to get a feel for timing. Where to pause, what's funny, how to get people on your side. 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. I'm a slightly more exaggerated version of myself when 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. Walking into a room smiling, having no hesitation, connecting with somebody, remembering their name, giving them a compliment. Such easy, low-hanging fruit, separates you ...