#776: Derren Brown — A Master Mentalist on Magic, Mind Reading, Ambition, Stoicism, Religion, and More

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers from all different disciplines from all different places around the world. My guest today is Darren Brown. What makes him tick? How does he do what he does? What does he do anyway? Darren Brown is a psychological illusionist who can predict, suggest, and even control Human behavior. Some of his videos are absolutely bananas. You can go on YouTube, search Darren Brown, D E R R E N, Darren Brown.

0:32 Hang. People with blank. Money as an example. Or you can watch his TED Talk to see examples of mentalism. They will blow your mind. He started his TV career with shows such as Mind Control and Trick Retreat for Channel Four, that's the UK's equivalent of PBS. He has combined spectacular illusions with insights into how we see the world and those around us, or expect to see them. And rather than guard the mystery behind his illusions and manipulations, he lays bare his techniques and demonstrates how the human minds

1:03 works. A prolific creator and performer, Darren has appeared in blockbuster stage and television shows alike, including the sold out Broadway run of his one man show Secret, his Olivier Award winning tour of Svengali, and his Netflix specials, which we will talk Quite a bit about. in this discussion because they are Cuckoo bananas. They're completely nuts.

1:24 Darren is the author of multiple books, including Happy, Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine and A Book of Secrets. Finding comfort in a complex world. His new tour, Only Human, materializes on stages across the UK beginning April of twenty twenty five. Very soon. You can find Darren on Instagram and X at Darren Brown, and you can find his work, his books, and his amazing artwork also at Darren Brown. That's D E R R E N. Darren Brown.co.uk. We're gonna get right into the conversation, but first, just a few quick words. About the sponsors who make the show possible. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. I have been using ASleep podcover for years now. Why?

2:07 Well, by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top like a fitted sheet. You can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. Eight Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod, and I'm excited to test it out. Pod four Ultra. It cools, it heats. And now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second. First, Pod4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as twenty degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature.

2:32 Keeping you and your partner cool. Even in a heat wave. Or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive. I am always more heat sensitive, pulling the sheets off, closing the windows, trying to crank the AC down. This solves all of that. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those snore heavy nights,

2:55 The pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring. Plus with the Pod4 Ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand. You won't need them because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod4 Ultra itself. They have imperceptible sensors, which track your sleep time, sleep phases, and HRV. Their heart rate tracking as just one example is at ninety-nine percent accuracy. So Get your best night's sleep. Head to eatsleep.com slash Tim and use code Tim to get three hundred and fifty dollars off of the pod four ultra. That's eight sleep all spelled out. Eight sleep.com slash Tim and code Tim TIM to get three hundred and fifty dollars off the Pod Four Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom.

3:40 Europe and Australia. I don't know about you guys, but I've had the experience of traveling overseas and I try to access something, say a show on Amazon or elsewhere, and it says not available in your current location, something like that. Or creepier still if you're at home and this has happened to me. I search for something or I type in a URL. incorrectly and then a screen for ATT pops up. And it says, you might be searching for this. How about that? And it suggests an alternative. And I think to myself, wait a second, my internet service provider is tracking my searches and what I'm typing into the browser.

4:18 Yeah. Yeah. I don't love it. And A lot of you know I take privacy and security very seriously. That is why I've been using today's episode sponsor, ExpressVPN, for several years now, and I recommend you check it out. When you connect to a secure VPN server, your internet traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel that nobody can see into, including hackers, governments, people in Starbucks, your internet service provider, et cetera. And no, you are not safe simply using incognito mode in your browser. This was something that I got wrong for a long time. Your activity might still be visible, as in the example I gave to your internet service provider. Incognito mode also does not hide your IP address.

4:55 Also with the example that I gave of you can't access this kind or that content wherever you happen to be, then you just set your server to a country where you can see it and all of a sudden, voila, you can say log into your normal Amazon account as opposed to being routed to dot UK or whatever, and uh everything works. So ExpressVPN protects you and enables you because it encrypts and rerouts your network traffic through secure servers. So even though your traffic is still passing through your internet provider, now they can't read it. ExpressVPN is so fast also it doesn't bog things down at all. I usually forget that I even have it on. I can stream High quality video with no lag or buffering, even on servers thousands of miles away. Gives me access to servers in a hundred and five countries around the world, which is very helpful. as I am constantly traveling and love to do so. It's easy to use. You just choose a server location and tap one button to connect. You do not need to be technologically savvy, you don't need to know anything about how it works.

5:51 It's just one click. And it works on every device, phone, laptop, tablets, even TVs. ExpressVPN has really changed the way I use the internet, and I can't recommend it highly enough, so check it out. Right now you can go to expressvpn.com slash Tim and get three extra months for free when you sign up. Just go to ExpressVPN E X P R E S S V PN.com slash Tim for an extra three free months of ExpressVPN. One more time, expressVPN.com slash Tim. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And then I also do personal questions.

6:29 Now it is. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal mental skeleton. S I'm looking at your website right now. Darren Brown.co.uk for people who

6:50 would like to check it out. And I'm just going to mention two quotes, which are in the now streaming on Netflix section here. And the first is under sacrifice. And the quote is sacrifices in utterly bizarre, ethically questionable, totally gripping must see. That's from Paste. And then under the push. The quote is the most nightmarish and provocative piece of pop culture in TV history. And that's from the New Zealand Herald. Could you please Explain. Just in brief. These

7:23 Two specials and the premise of each. I started off doing mind reading T V shows back in two thousand and then as I sort of I guess a kind of in the world of being a magician, mind reader, sort of mentalist, and then over the years, they kinda as I grew up, I guess, and wanted to do something that I found more interesting with it.

7:42 The shows became Largely about People being put unwittingly through These kind of social experiments in slightly kind of Truman show kind of way. But a place in themselves. Or generally that was a good reason for them. Yeah, you do kind of have license in a way that you couldn't in a clinical setting to

8:03 Save things that are quite sort of dark. So in Two, you mentioned that so sacrifice was the last one I did, and the idea was to see whether A guy who was very anti immigration and big Trump supporter at the time that was all sort of kicking off and

8:20 Probably to a lot of people's ears had Kind of fairly racist views. Whether he could be brought to a point where he would lay down his life For An illegal, undocumented Mexican immigrant.

8:32 So the whole show, and this is a sort of a kind of a format that I've used in different ways is about layering in. Sometimes they don't know they're part of a TV show at all. He thought he was part of a documentary, thought we'd implanted a microchip in the back of his neck and were following I've thought about this for a long time. Following his sort of progress with that was actually that microchip thing was a big placebo and it was a a way of kind of getting a Not a hypnotic response from him, but a kind of allowing suggestion to work well with him and getting him to the point where I could layer in these triggers and then set them off at a moment that we staged using lots of Actors that you didn't realise were actors, whereby he would be given this sort of moral choice and would he do would he lay down his life. And lay down his life, meaning

9:16 Take a bullet. Take a bullet. Take a bullet. So that's sacrifice and then the push. It was another kind of life and death thing. It was to see whether Could you make s I'm saying this out loud, I realise.

9:29 How ludicrous they are. Could you make somebody push someone off a building and kill them? purely through social compliance. So it was a show about compliance. So again, you've got someone going through it that doesn't realise they're part of a TV show at all. This is completely hidden in terms of the filming. And a whole load of actors. And this Really anxiety ridden, hilarious. kind of s evening that they go through when they're um a guest at

9:53 what they think is a big high stakes auction party. And one of the guests. I'm going to split the story in case any anybody sees it. But I recommend people watch it. I've seen it. Thank you. Thank you. It's yeah, these things have always interested me and generally it's been about

10:07 As I said, kind of taking someone that by all reports needs to kind of step it up a little bit somewhere in the life and get them to that point. The biggest one I did was called Apocalypse and it involved ending the world. A lot of these ideas come from frustrated writing sessions and we're going around in circles and then one of us goes, Oh, can't we just And Apocalypse, can't we just end the world and then somebody wakes up and it's all zombies and they've got to find their way home? And so we did that. And part of the process of making the show is trying to stick to these original ideas and stick to the scale, you know, so we had a meteor strike. We had to convince this guy that it was a meteor was gonna land and uh so he hacked into his news feeds, his television, his family were in it, his house is full of hidden cameras, doesn't know we're filming in his house for months. It's like the game with Michael Douglas.

10:52 Exactly. No, that is a big uh reference point for us. Yeah, it's it's i it's exactly that. So yeah, that's been fun. I it's been a few years since I've done TV because I was out in I do stage shows as well every year. And I was out in doing a show on Broadway, and then there was Covid, and then I had a lot of theatre projects going on. So I've taken a bit of a rest. So if I come back it'll be something different. I think but yeah. That's the general picture. You're good at different. And

11:16 Just to add a little bit of Additional. Connective tissue for the push. And now I have not seen the push in a long time, but Am I right that you make reference to and I'm probably getting the pronunciation wrong here, but Sirhan Sirhan? At the beginning of that? Am I inventing that? Or is that proper memory? Different show. That's a different show, which was another it was assassination as to whether you could take so hands a hand who shot Bobby Kennedy.

11:41 It was to see whether it's a claim. how he was set up by the CIA could actually work, whether you could do those things and set up those Triggers. So we just followed basically His story and did it with somebody who had them assassinated. Stephen Fry. Again, it was in on it.

11:57 Steven Fry just for those we won't get into his bio, but the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy audiobook, if you want to get a real taste. Uh the brilliance of Stephen Fry, at least as an as a voice actor. High, highly recommend. A great man. Amazing. We'll come back to some of the ethical questions around. These social experiments. There are none. They're none. We will come back to that. But I wanted to rewind. So you mentioned I guess around two thousand.

12:26 Or so, if I'm getting the chronology right. And I believe this is referring to Mind control? Is that the right? Mm-hmm. How did that happen? And is it fair to say that that was

12:39 The first kind of catalyzing event that set the stage for a lot of what came later. I'm wondering what ingredients went into that happening, whether serendipitous, engineer, or otherwise. So I studied law. And German in

12:53 Bristol in England and I lived there for many years afterwards and I'd seen a hypnotist in my first year at university and and just Was so besotted with it. And I learned how to do that. And by the time I graduated I was the hypnotist guy at university. And I also started doing close up magic as well. And then I sort of

13:13 Kind of made a living doing those things. I don't know after sort of mid nineties I wrote a book for magicians and then that got me which is a kind of a whole there's a whole niche world of publishing there. I so I got known to that community. So when a T V company here who we're I guess we're looking for a a British answer to Blaine, David Blaine, who's sort of Shows were particularly hot and new at the time.

13:35 They spent a couple of years looking for somebody that could do mind reading'cause there really wasn't very much of it around and Yeah. So I got a

13:45 phall and I went to London and met the two guys that ran the production company, one of whom has since become my manager. And the other one is now my sort of Well we're all kind of co producers in our own company. And I showed them a few things and they really liked it and we put together this first

14:02 Sure. It was a one hour special, yeah, in two thousand. And the r I think it was the repeat of the show actually did well. So the channel four in the UK commissioned another one and then it just sort of built from there. And then there's been a couple of things I did. Three years into it I did this Russian roulette. on TV like a live thing and that got a lot of publicity. So it just kinda kept going.

14:22 And then along the way as I sort of grown up, I've kind of tried to take it in new directions, but essentially It was a mixture of a lot of background w work, I was just doing it a lot. I just loved it. I just loved sort of spending my days dreaming up. tricks and going out and performing in the in the evening.

14:39 Um as I said, writing the book and just getting known to that world and then being off of the show. What was it that grabbed you in the beginning? I don't know if it was Martin Taylor originally or or someone else, but Number one, why did you even see hypnotism on campus or while you're at university? And then secondly What about it attracted your attention enough? You're a smart guy, you could do a lot of things you'd

15:03 You already do a lot of things. What was it that Hold you in. After or during that performance. Yeah, so Martin Taylor was the hypnotist that I saw. And I think it's probably c I don't know what it's like in the States, but it's

15:18 A fairly popular student stable for in terms of entertainment. And it was a really good show. I think they're you know, sometimes they can be spoiled by people being made to look like idiots. And it wasn't like that. It was really fascinating. And it was in my first week I was a great kind of attention seeker and Just quite insecure and I didn't realise it consciously, but I think the idea of hypnotising

15:42 people, particularly I mean, often the sort of people that respond to hypnose as well are the kind of very extrovert Kind of Jock types. And suddenly you've kinda got control over that, you know, which is the exact the people that would have intimidated me. So much and had done like through school. And I think

15:59 Something in that just made it. So appealing. And I I walked back I was walking back with a friend of mine from that show and I said I'm this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna learn how to do this and do it. And I remember he said, Oh yeah, me too And I I knew that he didn't mean it in the same way I did You mean he was going to be more of a tourist and you were like, No, no, no, I'm going to medical school for hypnotism. Yeah. And of course that was, you know, there were no

16:23 YouTube videos or anything. So I was I bought and stole books and anything I could find. And I kinda learnt it the long way around. I think if you There are probably shortcuts to learning hypnosis, but it helps you to Learn it the long way around because you're gonna run into strange situations with it sometimes, which, you know

16:40 Happens and still does. So What do you mean by strange situations? Or run into strange situations. Well actually so the stage shows that I do don't really Have much Overt hypnosis. And I'm using Suggestion and subtle stuff with the audience. All the time. So I've taught every year for

16:59 Twenty years or so apart from COVID. It's a strange feature, I think, of the last show I did, Showman, which is on channel four. So this was post COVID. And maybe it's also the first Show that the kind of younger Well that kinda Gen Z world was sort of an age limit, a bottom age limit on the shows.

17:17 So it was the first time it sort of really started to be sort of populated. Maybe as well, but Ha I don't know, but there was a little bit of hypnosis in the show. Do hypnosis overtly, but it was to serve a a bigger end.

17:30 And Yeah, for the first time I must have had these really odd reactions, much, much stronger than before. I'm I'm used to sort of sometimes having to go out and speak to someone in the interval or after the show. There was a woman who I got a message in the interval that there was a woman with her head stuck to the table In the Awwww.

17:47 In the theatre. Which Sounded odd'cause it's not like nothing that I'd said or done to the audience would have I could think would have made that happen, but nonetheless people sometimes highly suggestible people, maybe it's sort of she maybe she'd picked something up anyway. So I went out and spoke to her. Because she looked drunk, she'd sort of largely been ignored.

18:05 And the rest of the audience had sort of found their way back into the theatre by this point, so I could go up and talk to her on her own. And she was Sort of furious and angry. It was a a very odd situation, which just never happened in twenty years. There were lots of sort things arose like this where I'm trying to kind of

18:26 Because you know, your natural instinct is to then You find rapport with the person and you bring them to where you want them to be. It's kind of straightforward stuff. But she was absolutely not having any of it. Didn't want me to help her. was angry and and and in the end I had to say,'Cause it was time to carry on with the show. Look, I've got to go I've got to go carry on with the show. And she's like, Yeah, you do that. You and I'm great, well you I'll see you afterwards. Yeah, yeah, I'll s and it it got slight slightly argumentative. And then I went back to do the rest of the half of the show doing this show, knowing there's a woman with a head stuck to the table. Upstairs thinking why did I get

18:59 Slightly trippy with it. And she was you know, she was fine at the end, but it's just it was an odd thing in the air that But I think a lot of the Strange. Reactions that

19:08 And this is only it's taken me twenty years to learn this, that when people do act Oddly or seem to get in quotes caught, you know, stuck in hypnosis or it's generally people having panic attacks. They've sort of you know. Hypnotist has said, Okay, open your eyes to a big audience of people and you haven't been able to open your eyes in the moment.

19:24 And then you get into a kind of a recurring spiral. Yeah, exactly. And once I started Saying Don't do this if you are prone to panic attacks. Just sit this bit out or go outside of the theater for go outside of the auditorium for a bit. It stopped, but it's It's a really interview to do with it? Have you you must have

19:42 skirted around hypnosis a lot, even if you hadn't. I have. Yeah, I have. I've had at least one or two people on the show who have practiced hypnosis. I had a clinical hypnotist from Stanford. On the show as well. And have a deep Interest but very little personal experience. Would you mind?

20:02 Defining yeah. Mentalism. Cold reading. And then Describing how you made the hop, if it is a hop from

20:12 Hypnosis to those things. Or how you incorporated them. But what are they? Hypnosis I think is very difficult to define and There are definitions of it. Of course. But in terms of what's actually happening and what's

20:25 going on has always been s there are some people that have always said it's a special state. And there are others that say no, it's just it's really just sort of behavior being motivated in a particular way. So for example, you know, you see somebody on stage being given an onion to eat and you're they're told it's the it's a delicious apple and you see them eating an onion and and it seems like well, they must be in some special state to be able to Comfortably eat an onion. And not find it disgusting. And I was

20:50 Talking about this with My co creator w one year'cause we were talking about doing these sorts of things. as part of the show and he said, I bet you can just eat an onion anyway And he went to my fridge, took out an onion, took out a big bite of it. He said, Yeah, look, that's fine, I can eat the onion, it's fine. Cause his motivation was such that he was

21:06 Wanting to prove a point and then lo and behold it's actually all right if you're motivated in the right way. Whereas if you're eating an onion going, Oh, this is disgusting, then it's gonna be very different. So I veer more towards that sort of it's just something in motivation and behavior rather than A special state. But there are things that we've done like putting people in an ice bath under hypnosis.

21:27 having them not feel the pain that you find Well they're not just faking it,'cause you couldn't just Fake that. It's not the same as that. There's something else, some middle ground going on. That's a tricky one, but also a great source of Fascination for me. Mentalism is

21:44 Well it's a sort of type of performance that It's always Has been a little niche. A magician that is obviously a magician. doing a trick with a sort of mind reading theme as if that's kinda mentalism.

21:57 somebody makes that their living then they're a mentalist, but also you could Probably think of a stage medium or a psychic as also being a sort of mentalist. So it kinda covers The performing world of

22:09 psychological or supernaturally kind of just that world as opposed to, you know The more obvious fodder of conjuring cartricks and soaring people in half and so on. It sort of I think back in the The turn of the Twentieth century. And

22:24 A lot of the things I've drawn on are really uh come from that. It's more popular. Nowadays, in the same way that when Blaine was very popular, a lot of magicians David Copperfield brought in a wave of Magicians doing that style of magic and

22:38 Lane did a similar thing with that style of magic. I think I'm probably responsible for the wave of mentalism. There's more of that around now than there was before. And it's sort of gonna be defined by whatever people choose to do that I guess that call themselves Mentalist, because my I started in hypnosis my skill bases a mix of sometimes it's Real stuff that looks like tricks and something says tricks that look like

23:00 Real stuff and it's suggestion and it's magicians techniques as well. So it's kind of a mix of all of those things. And then cold reading, which is the other one you mentioned. Is Well, distinguished from hot reading, it's the

23:13 Techniques Used by Generally fake psychics. But also the sort of thing you'd read in astrology columns and Magazines and so on.

23:22 Where you make it sound like you have some clever insight into somebody and you're saying things that sound very specific to that person. But actually are things you're just throwing out and you know that the person will pick up on the stuff that hits and, you know, matches their experience, or sort of ignore all the other stuff that doesn't.

23:41 And there are Any number of clever ways that people in that world use to make it seem like it really sounds like they've said something more specific than they have. So if you go and see a a medium on stage, Classically, you know, they'll say I'm getting a name

23:57 Gene. And then you've got hands will go up. Now that could be that somebody in the audience is called Gene. It could be well my sister died and she was called Jean, or it could be I know a Jeep. So That could be anything, but as soon as someone says, Oh, I know it's Gene. Oh, well this is This is for them.

24:13 Uh wow, how did you know I had a friend called Gene? Well if you didn't, you provided that information, yeah. And so on. So there you you're generally saying stuff when it's a conversation like that and people provide you some little thing back which you then take credit for and you this sort of conversation winds its way along and if you're not Skeptical it is. Can seem to be a

24:33 Convincing on a good day. Hot reading. Is when you're using information that you've gleaned from a person. So very specific information that you're just feeding. You're feeding straight back. So

24:45 A friend of mine was at a recording of a A very famous TV medium in the States. A good few years back and it was when this sort of thing was starting to become popular. I think probably the first big name. doing that sort of thing. And he had a studio audience.

25:00 And this friend of mine was sat in the audience. Sceptical like I would be, but just there out of curiosity. So the guy comes out Before they start filming. This is the T V personality who's the medium. This is the medium. This is the medium. Comes out to talk to the audience before they start filming and says Obviously the audience is full of believers apart from

25:19 People like my friend. And says anybody here hoping that someone's gonna come through for them? So lots of hands go up. And he just goes around and talks to people and says, Who have you lost? Oh I've lost a son. Okay, um What happened? Well, this happened, he drowned. And okay, can you tell me his name? Do you remember what he was wearing on the day? Just so that if he comes through, I'll know that it's him. So he gets all this information and then The cameras start rolling. And he just goes out and feeds that straight back to the people. I'm getting a

25:44 This is a guy and he this is a young boy, he was seven, he drowned, he's wearing a red sweater. Does anybody take this? And of course the woman in the audience is in tears and you know because she so often with this thing that The reason why people Don't want to believe it's fake. is that the lie is so ugly that anybody would actually do that.

26:04 Just to make themselves look good and to you know. that it's easier to believe. It must be real, or at least maybe they believe it themselves, or they're trying to do good, or that It's just so often just kind of ugly. So that's Hot reading, whereas cold reading is the um you have no information but you're good at making it sound like you do it.

26:21 Those are my definitions. If you were to do an online course training people to be more skeptical. How might you think about that? Would you have a signed reading of any type? Would you have them watch certain things? I've seen more and more. I think in like a foreboding burgeoning nihilism with a lot of worries around climate change and so on, people want something to grab onto.

26:44 the sort of Judeo Christian religions in many places have faded away. no longer have the hold that they did. Therefore not offering the guidance they once perhaps did. So at least in Austin, my pet theory is that people are looking for some sense of wonder at work and possibility, and then they start grasping onto QAnon. They start grasping onto Whatever the latest and greatest kind of magical thinking might be. How might you train someone in the opposite direction?

27:14 Well, first of all, I mean that's a very noble human urge. We all want to find meaning in our lives and you know, so much of happiness and good stuff comes from that, as a byproduct from that. And you find meaning in your life by Finding something bigger than you and then just throwing yourself into that. So

27:30 That's sort of okay. Like that's a the human urge to transcend Is Important and worth Honoring.

27:38 But yes, of course it can misfire, but it also misfires when we attribute it to money and success and fame if we think those things are gonna make our lives transcendent or us happier and again they they don't there's lots of ways in which it misfire is. But yeah, we can also attach it to these sorts Structures provided by Conspiracy theories and so on. I I have over my years read through quite a lot of

27:59 books on scepticism. So perhaps I've sort of just developed a kind of a way of thinking, but to me the things that have sort of landed And stay with me. At first that human idea of strong claims demand strong evidence. So you know if somebody is making a positive claim about something Yeah.

28:17 is unusual, you know, the this thing exists. Whether it's You know, something supernatural or it's up to them to come up with evidence for it. It's not up to you to try and disprove it. Because that's always gonna be a a losing battle. So, you know, when people Say all this is true is what I believe and you can't

28:35 disbelieve it. Well no, you can't. And that's fine. You don't have to sort of rise to it. And I think a lot of the problem is once you start rising to it and it gets into a sort of heated thing. You're arguing about stuff and you don't need to be arguing about I've had a a million people over the years say to me As someone that's often doing stuff that appears psychic and saying, look, this this this isn't psychic.

28:55 Say, um, well how'd you explain this? You know, this psychic said this thing to me. you know, a ghost that they saw, or um you know, these experiences that people have. And Yeah, particularly when it's ghosts of loved ones and so on all these experiences. They're really meaningful to people and I think there's Probably all sorts of other things going on. I lived in a house for a few years

29:17 That was Damp. Damp's a funny thing, you know, it it creates a real feeling of de when it's just not quite enough that you can identify it as damp, but it's enough that it just does something in the air. It's a Took a long time for us to work out it was damp, but it felt just like death. There was just something wrong. You know, that feeling of a

29:34 Room being wrong. There was um vents that air would come in and the dogs would do that thing of barking at nothing, barking midair. Turned out it was Smells coming up through vents. A friend of mine who works a lot in the sort of Parasychology world, Richard Weisman. I don't know if you've come across him, but he um He's been on the podcast. I'm sure he's a brilliant, hilarious man, but he was talking about.

29:54 windows open at just the right amount of extractor fans and things. So you you'll have air Passing. into a room at a particular frequency Where and we all know about brown noise and white noise and things that uh can make Parts of us vibrate and it makes us feel a bit sick. Well, there's a particular frequency that'll just make our eyeballs vibrate a bit. And what that means is we'll see shapes.

30:15 And it we'll see like dark patches in the periphery of our vision. Now you'd never know that. That's not somebody being Stupid or gullible if they're seeing Things like that. There's all sorts of

30:25 Stuff that goes on, but ultimately Whatever is Powerful experiences for people and I There's something wrong with leaping on them and saying

30:34 That's wrong, that's stupid, because they really can mean a lot to people, and particularly if you've lost somebody. And then feel that you're having some connection with them afterwards. So I think not rising to it and understanding these things as stories and experiences And what meaning that can have for a person. So I'm really ta I guess I'm talking more about the sort of supernatural side of thing rather than Conspiracies as such, but

30:56 Even I suppose with conspiracy theories. These are Things that mean su they they're giving this person Something. I think there's a bit of space around that that could be sat with rather than immediately leaping on them. Otherwise it's about the obvious things. Check your Sources, you know, and is this government that on the one hand you're saying is totally ineffectual.

31:16 Are they also clever enough to have created This Enormously elaborate. thing that you're saying that they've done, you know, that it's always gonna be with us and it always it points to that feeling of wonder and storytelling and how we latch on to a nice, neat

31:33 story of cause and effect and that's exactly what I do for a living. I see value in all that stuff, but it yeah, it can misfire. It's something I I think about a lot. I fund a lot of early stage science and I'll just Give people a couple of recommendations actually. This is I think Philip Britt, Ben Goldacre, wrote a book called Bad Science, which I think is worth should be required reading for every school child on some level, at least parts of it. Michael Sherman's written a lot in the area. Alright, I'll check him out.

32:02 There's also well I think the best book I've seen on cold reading and it might be very hard to get now and it's a book written for magicians and I have a load of sort of old pamphlets and strange old books on these things, but there's one relatively modern For me at least, so written in the last twenty years. Called the Full Facts Book of Cold Reading. It's a great title. He may have written other books.

32:23 With the full facts. Dot, dot, dot, but this is the full facts book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland, R-O-W L A N D. And I remember that when I was learning all this stuff, that was definitely a kind of that was a really useful It was certainly up to date at the time compared to

32:40 the very sort of strange old antique things'cause it's it's such an old profession. It's, you know, probably the second oldest profession. Around. You know, it goes right back to the oracle of Delphi, you know, giving people information that you Seemingly couldn't know, so

32:56 It's a very old literature, too. I Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. If you're doing any kind of B to B marketing, you know just how noisy the ad space can be. There's a lot of noise. If your message isn't targeted properly to the right audience, it just disappears into all of that noise, all that whitewash.

33:18 With LinkedIn Ads, this episode's sponsor, you can precisely reach the professionals who are most likely to find your ad relevant, targeting them by job title, industry, company, and much more. You can really fine tune. LinkedIn Ads allows you to build the right relationships, drive results, and reach your customers in a respectful way. environment, which is certainly not true for all of social media. You'll have direct access to a billion members, 130 million decision makers, and 10 million C level executives. So those are the people you can build relationships with using LinkedIn ads. You'll be able to drive results with targeting and measurement tools built specifically for B2B. In technology, LinkedIn generated two to five times higher return on ad spend than other social media platforms. And seventy nine percent of B2B content marketers said LinkedIn produces the best results for paid media.

34:05 So start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today and get a$100 credit on your next campaign. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash TFS to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash TFS. T F S. Terms and conditions apply. I

34:25 I'm Enjoying this conversation on a few levels, including a meta level, which is this conversation is going to be published directly before, directly after A musician who is devoutly religious. So we're gonna have a contrast. of styles as it were. Is it true that you were

34:43 Christian until reading the God Delusion. Is that it? Accurate statement. Didn't really have any Christian friends apart from one or two, but didn't have a Christian family or a Christian group. So it was relatively easy to sort of Grow out of it really. How did you end up an island of Christianity?

35:02 In the beginning. Meaning you didn't have Christian friends, you didn't grow up in a Christian family, but you yourself were Christian. How did that happen? Primary school, elementary school, who Invited me to join her.

35:13 Bible class when I was five. I just didn't know any any different. I was inculcated quite young. And by the time I realized Oh, it's not everybody that believes this. It was too late. And then I came out of it partly because I was doing magic and hypnosis and stuff at university and getting such a strong

35:33 Angry reaction from Fellow Christians, I started to see oh okay, this is just sort of fear of something that's misunderstood. Okay, and I had them literally exorcising demons from me during the show, you know, at the back of the room. It was extraordinary. Adds a little bit of extra flourish to the show. It really did added to the to the drama. And then

35:54 Soon after that I had a a good friend who was a Psychic. He learned it. tar readings and so on and I I was just looking at

36:04 Uh what to me struck me as a pretty circular belief system around it. And thinking, I'm sure I'm doing the same. I must be just doing doing the same with Christianity, but it's just a bit more um well, it's less of a fringe thing, so it's a little harder just to laugh at. So I tried to find some sort of intellectual base for it other than just what could just be a circular belief system. And never did. And magic gives you a very it really drives a wedge into that. thing of belief and skepticism. It always has been. It's always been the magicians that are exposing The psychics and the frauds.

36:34 Well well, it gives you sort of the implicit How could you explain this otherwise? Frame. I would have to imagine. Very similar to good scientists in the sense that you're As a magician.

36:47 Sort of deconstructing phenomena to ask how did they do it? How could they do it? How might they have done it? How might you explain this, right? Which I I imagine lay people Just don't do as often. But you're getting a lot of repetitions. There's a terrific magician with the great name of Tommy Wonder. Don't think it's his real name. No longer with us. But he he had this nice idea that you

37:08 The story of your trick gives you the highlights of the trick. And that in between the highlights. There will be the shadows, and the shadows is where you put your method. And what that means is that What you learn as a magician, and it's a very hard thing to decode this if you're not another magician. is you're not hiding

37:25 your methods in secret moves and so on. A lot of what you're doing, you're doing very openly, in plain sight, but you're Doing it in those little moments of relaxation that are out of the story that people are gonna follow. Later. And it's a very Hard thing.

37:42 'Cause that's such a human thing to sort of follow those cues. That doesn't matter if you're a scientist or what you are, you're still gonna do that. So you need the kind of familiarity with that. You need to instinctively Watch. And

37:55 have the kind of emotional distance that allows you not to fall for the same rhythm. It took me a long time to realise this. We were doing um Show them. Broadway, I think, and it was the first show I'd done that was a compilation of the best bits from previous shows. So it meant that

38:11 When we wrote it. It didn't have the same heart and through line as the other shows had,'cause they they're always written with that first. Didn't have an arc in the same way. Yeah, exactly. And it but it needed one and I was sort of trying to work out what that was. In real time doing the show. And I um It s struck me Especially'cause magic's such a childish thing, really. You know, you're just it's the quickest

38:30 most fraudulent route to impressing people, isn't it? So It struck me that There are a lot of those. What happens with the magic trick is that you're seeing something happened that is show you that your understanding of reality isn't right, that there's something you've missed, that your story Right, as you put those highlighted moments together and formed a narrative of what's happened.

38:52 cannot be the full picture. Something else has gone on. And Yeah. really stayed with me because in amongst that Childish sort of

39:00 really quite infantile world of magic. There was this thing that's like, well, that's a really useful Thing in life. That's The nature of storytelling, we sit around these It's like the image of sitting over a campfire, right? So you're s not over a campfire, that'd be uncomfortable, but across from a campfire from somebody. And you're in a forest and it's dark. And you're lit by this little fire and you're telling a cozy story. That's what stories are, they are cozy. And then outside of that,

39:25 is the darkness and the forest, and that's where all the monsters are, and the all the things that are being excluded. That's the what Jung would call the the shadow. It's all the stuff you're not including in your narrative. And all the stuff you You push out of your personality. They're talking about, you know, coming out late. The stuff you wanna Barry it works at a societal level as well. The parts of society you don't want to include in the narrative of who you are. These things will always come back and bite you.

39:50 Because they gain a certain power. In the shadows, you know the Oh fairy tale idea of the evil godmother banished from the christening. Who turns up, she gate crashes the christening, and lays a curse. On the infant.

40:02 These ideas resonate because They mean something to us psychologically, the things we banish, or it'll be the the hero that's vanish from the city and comes back at the end of the story with an army and defeats the the bad king, you know, these things will come back. So The point being that

40:19 In amongst all of its nonsense. There was something about magic. It does Show us that the stories we're telling We're not including

40:27 things that are important and gain a certain power. If we don't include them. It's meant that over the years, particularly with my First of all with the T V, but also with the stage shows, I think now in particular.

40:38 as I do more of those that I like to make it about. that or something allied to that. Something that's Important because How you do tricks isn't important particularly and it's entertaining and it's a lovely vehicle, but There's just something in it that I think tickles at a a deeper experience.

40:57 Let's talk about not necessarily shadow, but something you seemingly pushed away or excised for or compartmentalized at least for a period of time. You already mentioned it twice. Coming out In your thirties. Could you

41:10 Describe if there was. The moment, the conversation, the day, the realization that led you to then come out. Because there was not coming out, not coming out, then you came out, but presumably there was some type of catalyst for that. What happened? I think the sort of the lingering Christian thing didn't help.

41:28 The one Christian friend that I had. I'd got involved with That sort of gay conversion. Thing.

41:37 Which Doesn't work terribly well. Yeah. So I think it just sort of It kind of lingered and although I sort of didn't really

41:49 wasn't a believer anymore, it just kind of I don't know what it's like now for people, I'm sure it's very different, but you can c sort of think it's gonna pass. There's a lot of that, or you sort of don't really Own it. And it just got to the point was to just

42:02 silly and I've just got into a relationship and I thought well I was known in the UK and I thought I don't wanna be Don't this to feel like it's some. secretive thing unnecessarily. So I Just sort of did and Course what you realise, whatever you come out about, whatever whatever your thing is.

42:18 How little people care. I mean that's I expected, you know, the final scene of Dead Poets Society. I thought I walked out. walked out of my building the next day thinking I was gonna get a round of applause from people on the street. And of course no one cares, of no interest to anybody. And I think the reason why it can be so liberating is not because you get to Swan with the you know, shopping bags in the in the street and

42:40 Live this flamboyant life. I think you just realise that these things aren't important. And if that isn't important, if the big thing you've carried around for so long that felt so much shame about isn't important, then all the other stuff certainly isn't. So I think that's why I'm not going to be able to It's always good too. When the time is right to do those things. I um

42:58 Told my mum actually I came out to my mum and I think the next day She had a stalker of mine. a woman turn up on her doorstep saying that I was her abusive husband. It was a very confusing week. For my mum.

43:11 Yeah, That was a it was a lot. It's a rough week for mom. You mentioned Quite a while back.

43:21 Finding something bigger than yourself in there's a guardian piece I read. This was just before you turned. fifty that in the second half of life it's important to find things that are bigger than yourself and finding meaning through losing yourself in those things. I'd like to ask about this because I know a number of I won't mention them by name, some would be recognizable, but let's just call them sort of ultra skeptics. And it's hard to say that this is causal, but they aren't necessarily the happiest people who seem to be the most fulfilled. And there are exceptions, of course. Now you might say that came first and then they found the skepticism. Who knows? So I'm not saying one causes the other. In any case

43:58 Without religion. Without that type of mooring. Not saying it's necessary, but how have you found meaning. How have you?

44:09 Found bigger than yourself. What is that? journey looked like for you. I think I've Done the thing of looking for other structures.

44:18 So I Christianity around university time. So I was doing magic and hypnosis but not really as a didn't feel very full time. I was kind of a little bit drifting, but I was uh subburning enough to just sort of tick by. And I remember thinking

44:35 I don't have any ambition here. I'm just enjoying this rhythm of life. I remember quite consciously thinking, I just want to I wanna be able to take a cross section of my life at any point. And is everything. In this moment sort of roughly in the right place. Am I doing the things that you know, am I getting up when I want to and

44:50 Not having to do things I don't want to and the things that felt important to me at you know, twenty one. And if they're not. That'd be kind of easy to Change. And that became a bit of a guiding

45:00 Principle I've never had any Genuinely never had any ambition, didn't try and get a TV show or anything anything like that. I just I've always just had that. Feeling of How are things?

45:11 feeling now, and this is long before talk of mindfulness or anything like that. So that's been a sort of a guiding principle. And then years later though I wrote this book Happy Which was largely about stoicism. And

45:24 I realized as I was reading The Stoics that They were Giving language to or senecrist, I was reading first. giving language to A big part of that experience, although it's not um stoicism isn't

45:37 As you know, it's not really just about that. But it that feeling that I had really resonated. And then the way we we often find things inspiring'cause they're articulating something clearly that we half Feel. they haven't really found language for. So I kind of found myself latching onto that. And I wrote

45:53 Happy and I I wrote happy over three years'cause I was Touring and I like to write while I'm touring. So it split up over three years, and of course it meant at the end of the three years I had a different take on it. And then my feelings about About stoicism of sort of

46:05 changed over the years. But I think often, you know, one we look for another structure, don't we? So I'd left behind the sort of Christian world as a structure. And I think it was appealing In the uh hypnosis, N L P all of those things, they give a certain kind of structure to experience as well. And I think That's

46:22 Probably a part of it. And as I've grown up and got older, what I was trying to articulate there was that The first half of life I think is very much about having this sort of dialogue with the world in terms of The world is telling you

46:36 what you need in order to move forward or have a reputation or be liked or whatever. You're kind of you're this access of dialogue is very much with the world. And I think there's a A natural shift in the second half that Actually is about having that dialogue more.

46:51 Internally. I'm fifty three now and I think there's you know, I'm sort of aware of that. happening and my feelings of you know stoicism have shifted. I suppose that's it. Like we all do. We've Find uh.

47:03 thing because the experience of something bigger than yourself is how we find meaning. What do you or what have you historically struggled with? Is there anything that pops to mind? My mind immediately goes to the horror of dinner parties and high status people, which of course I come across a lot. Because I'm known a bit here and sometimes I get invited to things and

47:25 I'm not very good at that. I guess I'm quite introverted, so unless somebody is Really warm. I very quickly get into a thing of really not knowing what to say. I found myself at the Clintons.

47:37 For Thanksgiving. One year. I mean it was incredibly incredibly high status. Wonderful and everything, but it was you know kind of That sort of thing I find very difficult. I generally

47:50 Don't Hang around Oh the Famous. People here. I like the experience of

47:56 People, you know, sometimes being on a bit of a A pedestal and it's different if you then meet them and they're not perhaps they're they're a bit disappointing. It's hard to go back to their work and appreciate it in the same way, you know. So I heroes with Claire Feet situation, yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. So I think that when you say where do I struggle, I think it's What

48:14 immediately comes to mind is sort of awkward. Difficult. Things with people of high status. Maybe this is a dead end, but I'll probe a little bit more. I'm Curious also psychologically for yourself.

48:27 When you are by yourself. Does anything come to mind? And maybe this is me misreading and if so I'd love to know the origin. But that's one piece, right? for yourself psychologically, is there anything that you struggle with or have struggled with? And

48:41 then the follow up to that would be why write these books? Happy why more or less everything is absolutely fine. A book of secrets finding comfort in a complex world. Yeah. Or doing the Audible original, right? Book camp for emotion. these types of things. Are those reflective of things that you have found challenging in the past? Or

48:59 Is that not the case? I think since writing Happy That book I I've found

49:07 The world of What it is to flourish. Really Interesting. And I've Never felt it in the way in that very, forgive me, but that American optimistic goal setting mode at all. I'm very much not about that.

49:23 So that's meant that it's less simple and it's the more interesting to sort of navigate and is then'cause I I enjoy writing so much probably more than anything. I've naturally then that's been the sort of stuff that I've taken into my stage shows and very much wanted to write about as I Go along. I guess I am

49:41 A kind of reflective type. Like life's difficult. Life It has this centripetal quality. It brings us to this difficult central point and when we're there

49:52 It was interesting that the last show I did Sherman was About this. We wrote the show I don't want to spoil it for anybody that might see it, but certainly it was pre Covid and I wanted to write the show with this Thing that's

50:03 at the heart of it, that life brings us these to these difficult centers. And when we're there It feels lonely. We feel like we've failed, which is the big problem with the American optimistic goal setting model that, you know, when things don't go well, you're supposed to, I guess you have to blame yourself because you didn't set your goals well enough or believe in yourself well enough or whatever that. Strange Protestant work ethic applied to life. Tells us we should feel so

50:26 The reality is that lonely, difficult central point is exactly the human experience. It's because we're all brought to those points. It's what we all Share. And the thing that makes us feel most isolated is the one thing that actually connects us the most. And interestingly, we'd sort of written this show and then lockdown happened and it just played out the very thing that was physically isolating us.

50:48 Was the one thing we were all. Sharing. And that I think is Eternally. Valuable.

50:57 to me. And it's the thing that And I know is also the the answer to finding, you know, dinner parties with high status people difficult is that they're they're the same. They're probably hating as much of it as I'm all having these awkward experiences most of the time and you shouldn't compare your insides to other people's outsides because, you know, they're very different things. I Find that

51:20 A helpful Thought. One of the issues with stoicism for me, I suppose, is that it's another way of life being a bit of a fight. The thing I love most about it, actually reading Marcus Sarelis, he talks so much about Retreating and I love that. I love this is very um introverted aspect to reading Marcus that you don't get so much from the teachers, you know, from Seneca and Epictetus that are very much

51:41 Telling you what to do. All of it. I do love it all, but there is a bit of a constant fight at the heart of it. The images, the metaphors are They're either military or they are you know, you're a rock with a waves lashing against you, and you've got to be solid in the face of all this. You know, and you are setting yourself up for a world that's not going to live up to your standards. And I don't know. I don't know. Is that the way to live as a German

52:02 sociologist called Hartmut Rosa, who's got a terrific book. It's not an easy Reading it's a beast of a thing. Called Resonance. Have you come across this? I've heard the title, I haven't read it. It's a very

52:15 What might make a successful life And rather than being about virtue and so on, it's about A mode of relating to the world. Where

52:27 It's a level, I suppose a type of engagement. It's not an emotional state. It's not about feeling anything in particular, but it's just about what it isn't and how most of us live. is we treat the world as a resource, right? So Imagine if two artists and it's an art competition, you're they're told to go out and paint the best picture they can. And one of them goes home and does the best he can do and provides his picture. And the other one thinks, okay, all right, well, I want to do the best picture, so I better get a well, first of all, I need a really good studio space. So he finds a great studio space. And now I need the best possible easel and okay, a proper good linen. canvas and he sources that and go get the best paints And the best brushes, the finest

53:05 Brushes and so on and so on. And then You know, time's up. And this is what we're doing. Generally, we're treating the world as a resource. But what's happened is that The resources that are a means to an end, right? So they're trying to be richer and more attractive and more this and more that. Those are only means to an end. They got a bit confused with the goals somewhere along the lines. And he's suggesting a sort of rather more he talks about like a

53:29 a tuning fork. Like, you know, you put one tuning fork next to another one and the other one starts to vibrate. And it's just a different sort of relationship of resonance with the world as opposed to treating it as a resource and a number of other things that we Do. And I rather like that. And I I don't think it's incompatible with stoicism. at all. And the part of stoicism I like the most And I think that initially drew me to it is that Life is difficult, you know, and you've got your here's your X axis

53:54 And your Y axis and on the one axis you've got all the things you want to achieve, your aims and your plans and then the other axis is stuff that life is throwing back at you what they used to call fortune. And we don't really talk about that anymore, which is a shame. And we we're told if you set your goals and believe in yourself correctly that you can crank this Line of life up. So it's in line with this X axis, in line with your goals and your aims. But the reality is we live these

54:19 An X equals Y diagonal, a sort of a meandering line and sometimes we're on top. And sometimes we're not, you know, we'll have a great day and then life will throw something horrible our way. And it's that. So how do you make your peace? with this. And that image of that X equals Y line is something that Resonates throughout.

54:36 History. Schopenhauer spoke about it. Freud. He wasn't trying to make That first talking therapy was never about making people happy. His goal was to restore a natural unhappiness. Right? So y the life is basically gonna be unhappy a lot of the time and you don't wanna be

54:52 Overly unhappy, but It's just how you make your peace with the fact that life's always gonna be a bit Dissatisfying, you're always going to get caught between these polls. Michael, she sent me hi, I'm sure you know who wrote flow. Again, you're caught between anxiety boredom and uh the flow state between your whether your skills or your Challenges are gonna be

55:11 We now have to be able to do it. Idea is so helpful. And That's the stuff I love because I think that's A it's a real antidote to the fetishing of optimism and so on.

55:23 I worked a lot with um I've been around faith healers a lot. And the thing that really struck me And by faith he does I mean the kind of The Christian evangelical type that it Getting people up out of wheels and so on. I I recommend everybody watch Miracle, by the way.

55:39 My stage show. Thank you. Yes, I was stage show. I really enjoyed that. Thank you, thank you. It was it was a Amazing to do every night. I was doing it, but for a room of non believers it was quite Didn't know if it was gonna work at all.

55:53 Watching the um people out there doing it, a recurring idea is that you throw your pills away, you know, you don't need your medicine. And if the disease comes back it's'cause you didn't have enough faith. Which is this perfect Formula. For absolving yourself of any responsibility as the

56:10 Healer. And putting all the blame on the person going through it. And there's any number of horror stories, of course, of people that get caught up in that. And it's exactly the same, you know, you read something like The Secret. My supposed but she's R is it Rodaburn, Rondaburn is telling us.

56:26 quite specifically, you know, you send your wishes out into the universe. And if it doesn't provide, it's because you didn't You didn't commit to it enough. You didn't commit enough to that. to that belief. You know, it's not the fault of the system, it's your fault for not Committing to it. And I think it trickles down into

56:41 Goal setting and all the rest of it. So I I like this idea of Life's difficult and we all share that experience no matter where we are and and what we're doing. In our own way.

56:52 And Actually how do you sit? comfortably and hopefully resonantly with a life that isn't always going to give you what you want. All right, so I would like to come back to this word ambition. If somebody looks at your website, if I look at your Wikipedia page

57:07 I may describe you or be inclined to say this is an ambitious man. Given the corpus of work, right? You have six or seven books, you have The Broadway shows, the theater, the one man shows, the television, the collaborations it goes on and on and on. So What I would love to know is

57:31 How you define ambition, because maybe we're I don't want to end up arguing about God where we have different definitions of God, for instance, right? So maybe it's just in the way that you define or think about ambition. But It strikes me that you are very Active. And you mentioned.

57:45 painting a moment ago. People should go to your website just to see your painting. As well. We may come back to that if we have time. How do you Explain your productivity.

57:57 'Cause if you were just sitting in your room Trying to be receptive to the universe delivering you. signals, you may just end up sitting in your room, right? So there is some proactivity involved, it would seem. in what you're doing. How do you explain the level of productivity. What contributes to that, if not ambition.

58:15 certainly isn't ambition. And by ambition I mean I've never Sort out. something ahead in the timeline that I think would be good for me or productive or expand my reach or Those things really send

58:31 shivers through me. But I have a manager and I have co producers and grown ups essentially who do think about those things. And as time's gone on What I choose to do is become up to me, which is nice and I won't be blind to the if something

58:49 Yeah, like yes, it's a a good thing to do a A show in New York, of course, but really I'm thinking It would be very lovely to live out there for a bit and what an amazing experience that would be. But I don't I wasn't seeing it as a step to anything else. It just felt like well, that would be an enjoyable thing to do. And You know, the projects all take a long time and There is a lot that's come out of it, but

59:09 I'm not running around frantically from one thing to another. There are things that just Take a chunk of time and then normally it's I'm just sort of obliged one way or another to get on to the next one because the year before I said I'd I'd do it and somewhere people'd be making arrangements And teams have been assembled and I can't at the last minute go, I just want to sit at home. But I have had a

59:29 Time of sitting at home. the last year or so'cause I got a bit burnt out with it. And I'm very aware that I I'm really not my best if I'm not creatively engaged with

59:40 Something. So painting is very helpful for me because I can just do that. That's like a week or two of just In a studio painting, and that's lovely. Is that how long it takes you to do one of your pieces? A week or two? Well, often sometimes a bit longer'cause I don't get to give it time I want to be very fast. People should need to go to your website. Everybody go to the website. We'll go to the website. When you look at the artwork, you would

1:00:06 I mean this this could be another career for you. I mean it's it is that thank you. Developed. Very, very, very impressed. And I grew I grew up in a family of artists and wanted to be a colorbook penciler for fifteen years myself. So I paid for some of my college expenses being an illustrator and like I cannot even come close to doing ten percent of what you do with the portraits that you do. There's no way. So very Okay. Well I I really, really very much enjoy it and I I it's a nice way of shutting yourself away and just

1:00:35 throwing yourself into something for a big chunk of time, which I find helpful. So I think that's Probably part of it. really feel it's mainly due to the other people I have around me who are more savvy with So what it sounds like, which is I've never discussed with someone, is that it's not that you live in a life devoid of ambition. But you have freed yourself from the need to be ambitious yourself, which is

1:01:01 part and parcel of maybe side effects that come with it by having Team members who are ambitious on your behalf in the sense of thinking about how certain options will create. Or open other doors. And so on. Is that a fair description?

1:01:17 I think that is a fair description. I think that the if there's a recipe for Successes. Talent. F energy. So you you know, you develop your talent.

1:01:26 Because if you've got no talent and and your energy is you know how you get it out into the world. And if you've got all the energy of self promotion but no talent to back it up, it's not gonna be very helpful. And if you've got all the talent in the world, but no energy of getting it out there for people to see. That's also not great. I've certainly never had any any energy with it at all. So having a manager and people like that. to do that side of it. And very early on I realised I I needed that. So

1:01:50 I Genuinely and not saying it with any overweening false modesty or anything. I just My principle, and even more so now that I'm older, is what would be enjoyable in and of itself.

1:02:02 I forget his name, but there's a Philosophy talks about Importance of this in in midlife at these atelic Activities that we're going to do. Things that just bring pleasure in and of themselves and aren't constantly about the payoff at some point in the future. I think as we get older, those things are more important.

1:02:16 But I've always had that and Maybe I've you've never really had a Proper Job and it's sort of easier to Seems to be working out for you, all right.

1:02:25 I'm touring next year. In twenty twenty five with a a new show. And like all these things, we and we've got a title. It's called Only Human. Tickets on sale, people are buying and I have no idea what the show is yet. We haven't written a word of it. And I've kind of got used to this over the years. So you know, we're starting to kind of think about that now. If you don't know what the content is, how did you choose the title? Yeah. And a poster and everything. I know. It's

1:02:50 Well sort of got used to it now,'cause it's just the eleventh show that I've done and as soon as we say, Okay, let's Do a show next year. My manager's saying, right, well the brochures will need you know the theater brochures programs will need

1:03:03 And any subtitle description. Yeah. Or not even a description. They need an image and an AM at the very least. But it's it's a great example of, you know, how you give yourself a structure and then think within then think within that. So all the all the show titles have kind of been a bit generic. And then we found ways of of making them show of mystery and suspense. Right. I mean you've you have a lot of room. Wiggle room with the totally. It it is a little bit it is a bit like that. And is it typically this way that like you book it and then with the positive constraints You figure it out. But how did you choose in this particular case only human?

1:03:36 This was going to be related to my next question, is is how do you pick The next project. But let's get specific on the only human. How did you pick this? Sounds like you've done this more than once, knowing that you will have to figure it out later. It's absolute necessity. In the same way that you've booked the theatres, you have to come up with a show. And likewise, if you need a title for the brochures, we have to come up with the title. So Andrew and I just had an email exchange back and forth, go Okay and we

1:04:01 Send a bunch of things and or it's gonna be something about being Human and because I just know that'll be the heart of it somewhere. And within a few email back and forth, no one found that one. No one found only human.

1:04:15 Offensive or to this or to that. You don't seem to mind offensive. Are you steering away from controversial and offensiveness? Oh true. No. Well but it's also about not being too specific. You know, that's the trouble with it with an offensive bold title. It's the new thing going to be. That's the issue. And then yeah, in terms of choosing The projects. Well, I mean it's

1:04:39 Really it's what I would like To do and Yeah, I want to know how you know that though, right? Because I for instance, I'll buy a little time. So my friend Kevin Kelly, he's founding editor of Wired Magazine, he tries to give away all of his ideas. And if one idea keeps coming back to him and no one will do it. And he can't seem to get rid of it and he's It's floating around his head. Then that's how he

1:05:00 chooses a lot of his projects, at least the new exploratory projects. In my case, you know, nonfiction books, let's just say it's a book I can't find myself. I want to learn about it. I immerse myself. So it's sort of a graduate degree for myself. And there's there's a bit more that goes into it. I test it with my audience using blog posts and podcasts and things. But you were saying you want to do. And this might sound like such a silly question, but how do you know that? Right? Because there's some people who describe a feeling.

1:05:26 Or maybe they're kept up at night. But it's an excitement, it's not an anxiety. The tenor, the emotional tenor is different. How do you feel your way into it? How do you know that you want to do it? Because My experience with people

1:05:40 who have a lot of options as you would. You also have a lot of inbound. You have Sure. A wide menu. is that it's not sorting good from bad ideas. You're gonna have lots of good ideas. And then you have to choose the better idea or the great idea or the good for you idea amongst Many good ideas.

1:05:58 that you would actually like to do. So how do you pick? I think it really depends on what sort of project it is. Like it for T V and stage, I'm always writing with other people. And I don't give it any thought until the three of us are On Zoom or in a room talking.

1:06:13 And then we've got a whole Backlog of experience, there's templates that are in place that we can dispose of or use again, or you know, we've kind of got a shorthand. For the format, you mean? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. There's a sort of There's a lot of pre existing Ways we found that work which

1:06:32 Except we can often very consciously dispose with, but there's something in place So you don't feel completely at sea. I suppose it's m most difficult to book writing. Like at the moment I'm trying to get my head round uh writing another book. And that's just me, and that is that is more difficult. And that simple question of how do you know what you want, what do I really Well it is difficult.

1:06:51 So the last book I wrote was a Slightly off grid book for magicians called Notes from a Fellow Traveller. And I wrote it on the road while I was touring. Because two reasons. Firstly I I felt that a book about touring and how to put a show together and the experience nightly of Doing a

1:07:08 show for large audiences and dealing with all the stuff that goes wrong and blah blah blah would be of Use. Two magicians that are just maybe starting out with putting a show together and And all the really important stuff about performing which just isn't really written about too much in the in the magic world. So that was one reason. But also it would be really fun I need to write during the days on tour, otherwise you're just

1:07:30 Kicking around in somewhere that There may be nothing to do and what are you gonna do for a week? So writing's really important. And that was a big part of it. And sometimes it's that sort of thing, isn't it? It's sometimes I've always been If I'm driven by anything, it's

1:07:45 thinking I should be doing better than whatever I'm Doing. I always think if I can do something and I find it Sort of easy. I just presume it's a bit stupid. And I'm always sort of Trying to do the

1:07:58 Next thing. I particularly feel that with Writing and I make it more difficult for myself, probably than I need to. So the magic book was actually a really enjoyable, easy. I didn't need to do loads of research and bring a suitcase of books around with me. It was actually a kind of it's a really enjoyable lovely

1:08:14 Yeah. So now I'm trying to listen to that and I'm trying to let something settle into something that when you've got it just feels obvious. Oh well of course. Because those tend to be the best things, but it's There is no easy route and you know with the

1:08:28 T V shows, as I said, often the idea of oh can you make someone push someone off a building Everyone at the party's an actor apart from one person, could you those come sometimes from just A frustration of you Just trying too hard and going down rabbit holes and round in circles trying to find something that is clever all but and then just you go, blah, can't we just do this? And it feels

1:08:47 Obvious and A bit silly and go, Well that's it, that's it. That's exactly what it should be. So I think maybe recognizing That You know when you've

1:08:58 Got it when it Ah'cause then it tingles. You know it's right because it resonates to use that word and it's As this little Pause of it. But you ca it's really hard to

1:09:10 Full shit. Directly. But if it was You wouldn't be doing such Good stuff if it was easy to find, I suppose.

1:09:18 I will ask you'cause I have a prompt in front of me. Using forms of suggestion is self defense. So I do wanna hear a story about that. But before we get to it, since you mentioned the push. And I promised at the very beginning I would touch on the ethics piece. So for people who have watched some of these Or do a little homework. One might think as a viewer.

1:09:40 knowing that you're putting people through this process were unbeknownst to them. Ultimately they are being groomed and conditioned. And set up to do something. Very extreme.

1:09:54 that people would end up with all sorts of complex PTSD and That the Show. could produce all sorts of capital T trauma for people involved. How do you respond to people? How do you respond to people with this concern?

1:10:12 Yeah. Well, so if you take for example take sacrifice them, which was the last one. That show. Somebody's going through

1:10:22 Uh really. Like roller coaster. series of things to get to a life and death situation where they think they're gonna be shot at the end of it and so on. So the first thing is when we write the show And I'm writing these shows with a lot, we are writing the show with a lot of experience in making

1:10:38 Similar things. I've got very used to making sure this person is going to be Just held in a place that is They're okay and they're gonna be sort of safe in themselves. That that's like the first layer in the actual writing of the show.

1:10:51 And at any point, bear in mind it's if it's a big hidden camera thing, I can just step in. If anything bad happened, I could simply Step in. And also everything gets passed by is important. An independent psychological team. So we'll have a psychologist on board who knows the show, knows exactly what's gonna happen, all the things that might potentially be Triggering, you know, because someone's lost someone dear to them in a car crash, we're not gonna

1:11:15 want them witnessing a car crash, for example, you know, so but that might not be obvious, might not know that. So Everybody that Apply or get shortlisted. We'll have this session with a psychologist that they'll think everybody gets, but it may only be, you know

1:11:30 three or four people that get it by this part, but they don't if we don't want them to know they've been shortlisted, then they don't. We're also preserving this. fiction for them as to what's going on. But we'll have that too. And then during the show itself, again, we've got that psychologist. We have other independent people that are with us in the truck, watching it play out any number of measures. Where if anything is going a bit off track or they're seem genuinely some line has been cross we can step in. And I'll If I get the chance, it depends on what the show is, but if I've been able to interact with the people before

1:12:02 Then I can layer in language and triggers which I can give to the actors, particularly if I'm talking to them through earpieces. to use which I know will have An effect.

1:12:13 on the person that's going through it to Resources So I'm kind of using the hypnosis in a way that's So that

1:12:21 benefit to come back at a later point rather than me making them do stuff. Things like that are in place. Next. They go through the experience and They've always and I've done this so much now always

1:12:33 Loved it and taken a huge amount for it. No one's ever like Actually had a Bad time will come out of it. However, it looks or feels like to the crew making the show, the other actors actually have a often a far worse time because they're making you know, they're feeling terrible putting somebody through something. Guy or the girl that's been through it's always always loved it. So going back to sacrifice

1:12:54 Phil does this whole thing, comes out the other end of the show. But there's Actually the trickier part then is well how do you now deal with this person who's been through I Hopefully life changing or at least

1:13:07 Pivotal. Bing. thing in their lives. It's now gonna be a TV show that's out there. That that's weird and that's a sensitive thing. So I flew Phil Over.

1:13:17 And he came and he watched the show in My House. We watched it three times, once He needs to see it first as a show with Music, underscoring, close ups. Bits that were taken out that didn't make it to the final cut that might have meant a huge amount to him and now he's got to get his head, that's not Part of the story.

1:13:33 serve a purpose at the end of the day and you know, there's a bit in the show where he doesn't do something. And it's a bit like, Ah, he's not doing it. Is this gonna work? And you have to then get his head round he'd let us down or that he'd fail and that's a difficult thing. That's a real that's a real thing for him. We watched it a second time with

1:13:51 The other people that had done similar shows that I'd made, so the guy from the apocalypse one with the zombies and the guy from the Persian, they came. So now he felt like he had a little group of people that had been through a similar thing. And shows because he was a fan of the show. So these are people that he knew. So that was a a really helpful thing for him. And finally Bizarre, we watched it would you know Martin Freeman, the actor you come across him? The name rings a bell, but I can't conjure a face. Okay, famously Watson to Benedict come about Sherlock and all sorts of things. He's certainly a big name here, and Phil was a big fan of him.

1:14:22 Also Big star in the Fargo. I just pulled up his photo. I know who Mark got him. So we watched the show With Martin, that was the third time so Phil could sort of, you know, hopefully feel proud of it. And by this time after three viewings and got used as a T V show. But then you've got what about when the show airs? And it's a controversial subject.

1:14:42 So he might have a lot of Backlashroom. people and I remember the the first show we did that was a tool like this and when this was a bit of a learning curve for us. This guy that's been through this extraordinary journey that meant so much. I've been so excited the show's going out, and this is back in the day when it's just broadcast and everyone's gonna watch it at the same time.

1:15:01 So he's got Twitter open on his phone. And he's just reading the nastiest things about himself. His girlfriend's too pretty for him. He should get his eyebrows sorted out. It was just awful. Awful stuff. And it was really miserable for him. So we ha we got somebody out there to be with Phil in the States so they could be around During that time. Which would be sensitive and weird that it suddenly goes out in the public domain. So

1:15:22 It's a long answer, but basically there's a huge amount that we do. That doesn't really form part of the drama of the show you're watching,'cause it's A whole different story. That has to preserve The fiction what you're seeing is absolutely the guy's experience.

1:15:37 But All this other stuff has to happen to make sure that it's safe and Does the job it's supposed to do. It's there for one reason, which is to Give him a real Proper hopefully.

1:15:49 Important pivotal moment. Have hell of a job, sir. As promised. Suggestion self defense. Oh that's right, that can be a very good thing. What does this mean?

1:15:58 Do you have a story? You must have a story. Well, it was just it was an experience of It's worth knowing this actually, because I think we should all have this ready in our heads. So I had Spoken after doing hypnosis shows I would sometimes do a Q and A afterwards and

1:16:13 People would ask about Both you can hypnotize people without them knowing it and so on. It always occurred to me that you know, if you want to keep the seat next to you free on a train. You know, you don't put your bag there'cause that's what everybody does and it's just annoying. And then you want to ask the person to move their bag. Instead pat the seat and nod and smile at people. No and no one's no one's gonna sit next to you, right? So And I so I'd sort of sp spoken about this kind of stuff and then I found myself in a a sort of a a real life

1:16:39 situation and I was walking from one magic convention to another and I was this before the TV or anything, I was sort mid twenties, I was in a velvet three piece Purple suit with a Fob Watch chain. And long hair and I mean if anyone was gonna get

1:16:56 brutally murdered that night it was me and this very drunk angry guy and his girlfriend A walking towards me. Just look he's this guy's just looking for a fight. And Because I'd sort of spoken about how to

1:17:09 These slightly off kilter ways of dealing with these sorts of situations. The trick is to Act in a way that it makes complete sense, but it's utterly out of context. So the other person thinks they've missed something. You know,'cause if somebody comes up to you in the street and says

1:17:24 It's not Twenty minutes past five. Your reaction wouldn't be to go, Yeah, I know, it's whatever. You're Couldn't what, I'm sorry? You know you're like you've missed something. So he comes up to me What the fuck are you looking at?

1:17:36 Do you wanna fight? Or what it was he was saying. And I said to him. The wall outside my house isn't four foot high. And what you get, and I guess it's a similar thing in martial arts of that adrenaline dump. He asked me to repeat, first of all, what I'd said. So I said the what it's not for for high.

1:17:53 I lived in Spain for a bit, the walls were much higher, but if you look at them here, they're tiny, they're nothing. He sort of did this He just Essentially not that he could collapse, but he just sat He went and he sat down on the pavement.

1:18:06 His girlfriend walked off. I had planned in my mind what I was gonna do. My girlfriend made the right choice. She was like, I don't wanna deal with either of these people. My plan was which I didn't get to, my plan was To then give you give the person relief from the confusion and this is where the sort of The hypnotic element comes in.

1:18:24 I was gonna say to him. It's okay. It doesn't matter whether your left or your right foot is released first, but you'll find within a couple of minutes you can walk and you can move and everything, and it's it's fine. It doesn't matter if it takes a couple of minutes. So that was the plan, right? To leave him stuck. to the um cave. But I didn't get to go that far. He collapsed and I ended up weirdly sitting down with him. And saying, So what happened? What happened tonight? And his girlfriend had She'd got in a fight and she'd bottled somebody, I think. It was something like that. Jesus. Yeah. So he went off. I then walked off to this other magic convention, told everybody I was so excited. No one believed me because they thought it was just me making stuff up. But the uh if there's a takeaway there, it's should I have a song lyric or just

1:19:03 Something. friend who used to walk home from his art studio late at night and there was Always gang just like intimidating. gangs standing around. He'd always like cross over and sometimes they'd shout things and it was just horrible. I said, Why don't you

1:19:19 cross over to their side and, you know, say, Good evening as you walk past and you know and and he did, and he never had any trouble because they just thought he was Strange. So I I think um Have something like that. If someone's running at you with a knife, you know, it's not gonna help. But if you If you're in that situation where

1:19:35 People are being intimidating. It's a very um I think it's Powerful route. It has to make sense, but just be out of Context and just commit to it.

1:19:44 Could you elaborate on the making sense, right?'Cause you could be like ah boogee de boo. Dinosaurus times two. They need to feel they've missed something. So I I had that phrase in my head. The wall outside my house isn't full for high because I spoken about this sort of thing with audiences after the show. So I

1:20:00 I had sort of without meaning to kind of rehearsed it. So it just kind of Came out. So I think having Something like that. For some reason the the the the negative in it really helps'cause it's like

1:20:11 It's like they've said something that you're responding to but they haven't said you know, it just it adds it adds something. It adds something to it. You know, I'm just imagining dating you and wondering like what is he up to? Are you doing that thing? Are you doing Exhausting, wouldn't it? What are some benevolent applications of the techniques that you have acquired? What are some off stage applications. This would be an example.

1:20:38 This would be uh Problem solving example. Where else Can you apply these things? I really weirdly don't use it in real life. Now that's stoic lesson of not trying to control things that are out of your control. It's so the opposite of what my uh what this strange job is that I have.

1:20:54 So I actually very much don't. I mean the thing I'm most aware of, which is not a new thing for anybody to hear. But in my mind ties in with the same sort of world is

1:21:06 Just the importance of being Hard. So you know you're Partner Spouse.

1:21:12 Girlfriend boyfriend comes home and Has had a frustrating day and Just wants to offload and particularly For some reason if you're a guy, let alone if you're uh stoically drawn, but Our natural thing is, of course, to offer solutions and so on and it's

1:21:29 You're just doing the thing again of not letting the person be Heard. And it's so obvious. And I think I really don't walk around in that Darren Brown mode. But I

1:21:39 Catch myself consciously Just Trying to be present and hear and listen and know that it's 'Cause you know the moment you start offering solutions, they're dismissed. There's a million reasons why that isn't appropriate, you know. So you

1:21:52 you very quickly get told if you do get it wrong. But I think that's And it goes back to this thing of people's stories of ghosts and psychics that told them amazing things, just to be present with those things and not feel that it's your job to step in and kind of morally correct them or in some way put them on a different path or even offer a A solution to a puzzle.

1:22:15 We just need to sit in these things and be heard because what we're actually saying is Something deeper than the specific problem of the thing that's niggling us. Really?

1:22:28 carry a lot of it around. When I'm in work mode, I'm full of that stuff. The power of presupposition is I used to use it all the time in card tricks, you know, you you say you've got a deck of cards at the beginning, they're in a special order. So you can't have the person shuffle them, but maybe there's a point halfway through the trick where they can shuffle the cards. So at that point, I'd give them the card to shuffle and I'd say, Oh, shuffle them again, but this time do it under the table. So now they're taking the cards under the table and somehow in doing that they've accepted the word again.

1:22:55 And They're shuffling it and and later when they describe the trick and they want the trick to sound as amazing as possible because they've been fooled by it and don't want to look stupid. The amount of times they would say, Well, I shuffled the deck at the beginning. And da da da da and you know and they didn't, and then the trait really is impossible'cause they couldn't have shoveled it at the start. So the power of presupposition is Is really

1:23:16 you can apply that to yourself, I guess, and your inner Language as much as Trying to Influence others but I I just somehow

1:23:25 Don't sit in that world in real life. I think it's enough in life to try and Find a way of gathering yourself afresh and then going out in the world and taking some responsibility you know amidst your mess. I think that's enough. I don't think self esteem is that important and I certainly don't think in influencing others is that important. I think we you know we got enough

1:23:46 Should be getting on with When I first started I loved all that stuff and now it leaves me a little bit cold. I don't Think it's about that. I think just how you make peace with life that's Not always gonna go your way. That's the project.

1:23:59 That's a successful life. You read a lot? You've written a lot. Are there any books in particular? And you can name at least two, so one could be Of your own.

1:24:10 But are there any books that you have gifted or recommended? frequently to other people. They come to mind. Big fan of Jonathan Hayte. Who if you haven't had on this podcast, you you should do. He's a I have. Yeah, wonderful, brilliant.

1:24:24 I didn't die. So I've just finished his book, The Anxious Generation, which is his last one. And often find myself. Giving those to people.

1:24:33 I like James Hollis as well a lot. I don't know if you've had him on his Jungian psychotherapist. psychoanalyst, I suppose. Writes a lot in that mode. Uv in Yalom? Who He's a wonderful writer and and does that thing that O Oliver Sachs I think started of

1:24:50 writing little accounts of interesting Cases. He's a beautiful writer. Do you read fiction? No. No, I don't.

1:24:58 I don't and it's missing. I think I should, and there's probably a lot more truth to be found in reading. Fiction than in The nonfiction that I do I'm always drawn to and I always feel Because there's always a book project. Somewhere in my mind I always feel like I should be.

1:25:13 As I become more aware of that thought, I sort of feel like I can now And read more fiction. If you were to read fiction, what type of fiction might you start with? Are there any kind of parameters or characteristics? Driven by that thing of I should always be doing the thing that isn't easy, I think it would be

1:25:32 The only fiction I'd read more of that. So Dosievsky and so on. It would be that. It would be the the big heavy Classics. 'Cause that's where I feel that's Where you should start. I've occasionally been given a novel by a friend and I always find them very sort of uh forgetful.

1:25:46 So I think probably the big European works then I feel I was you wanna learn how to ski is like get dropped out of a helicopter at the top of K two. That type of approach. I love the Thomas Harris the Hannibal like a Series of books. I remember absolutely devouring those. And I was a big fan of Stephen King when I don't know what any of this says about me when I was younger, so I've definitely had And if if you brought out another one in the Hannibal series, you might go for it. All right. You know, since you like difficult, I'll just make one recommendation for a book that for nine out of ten people it's a miss because it's hard. It's dense.

1:26:20 It's called Little Big. The alternate title is The Fairy's Parliament by John Crowley. Who is also a poet. And this book

1:26:33 Little bag. When it works. At least for me and for the one out of ten that it might work for. has the most profound effect on time. perception and time dilation, it feels like you go on a

1:26:50 One to two week. psychedelic experience on a the lower end of the mystical scale. But It is Such a mind-altering book in the way that it is written as almost a fever dream with multiple intertwining timelines and magical surrealism. If you're looking for something hard that is also incredibly beautiful, and it's this book, I've never had an experience like this.

1:27:14 You have to charge through the first hundred and fifty pages. If you put it down after twenty and pick it up a week later, it won't make any sense. But If you get through it. You'll be like, that was an incredible book. Hopefully. I wanna recommend it to friends, and then two weeks later, if someone asks you what it was, you will not be able to describe what the book was about. It's bizarre. So that will be just my my recommendation. Little big by John Crowley.

1:27:40 Thank you. I've made a note. I recently read a book I really enjoyed called Picnic Comma. Lightning three words picnic comma lightning by um Lawrence Scott and I loved it and I could not tell you what it was about. I just adore it. Maybe that's the sign of a good book on some level. being lost in it to the extent that you can't piece it back together in retrospect. If you had to give, and I know you've given a a great TED talk, and I recommend people check it out.

1:28:08 Great bow tie also. But I recommend people check that out. If you had to give another TED talk, but it had to be on something you are not known for. So it can't be the magic, anything tangential to magic. Also I'm gonna take art off the table. Sadly, I'm gonna take art off the table. What might you give a TED Talk on? I think this idea that We're all joined up. By how lonely it feels when things go wrong.

1:28:31 This thing I said of life. Pulling us towards difficult places. I don't say that because I've had a particularly difficult life, but I just think it's just part of life. And it's part of someone's life is going well. It's still a common thread. I think that is not the mode that we're encouraged to live in. It was very strange when I did that TED talk and I really enjoyed it, but

1:28:51 It was um I don't say this was any disrespect to the T people at all, they were wonderful. But It was in Vancouver and you step out of That Ted building. into some of the worst

1:29:03 Homelessness in the world. Disney have staged the apocalypse. There was a bride Covered in blood. Pushing a trolley. True.

1:29:14 fire. There were just yeah, things on fire. I mean it was extraordinary. Not quite on its doorstep, but like ten, fifteen minutes walk. And it was very old. Going out and finding a coffee in the middle of all that and then going back to the sort of Talk.

1:29:25 Topics. It was a strange thing. So maybe partly for that reason, but I think the difficulty of life And how we sit well with that. I think that's that's the perennial subject for me. Maybe we should make that happen. Yeah, Vancouver, I uh Presenter T.

1:29:40 Any number of years ago, I can't remember. And Some of the worst opiate and opioid. Addiction. in North America, for sure in terms of of density. Gabriel Mate has done a lot of work there.

1:29:54 Alright, shifting topics a little bit. In the last handful of years, five years, I mean somewhat of an arbitrary time frame, but what New belief or behavior or habit, would you say? It doesn't have to be the most has improved your life the most, but are there any new beliefs, behaviors, habits that have meaningfully improved your life.

1:30:14 Ways of looking at the world. Could be anything. Being Confident. To go with my instincts on Particularly work related.

1:30:24 Things historically. Big projects are these other people around me that are putting things together behind the scenes in terms of productions and meetings and pitching ideas and so on and I get caught up with that. As I said, that productivity that you see isn't driven by

1:30:39 any sort of workaholic tendencies on my part. It's just what I find myself swept up in. So of late And it's an odd thing to be saying, No, I don't want to do this or being offered some Private gig out. Somewhere and go I'm not gonna enjoy that. Unless it's the Clintons, then you can't say no. Unless it's the Clintons. That's sort of

1:30:58 Good. I've been in a my current relationship for ten years and probably the last Five years of that is It settled better with me in terms of Those were very different, so

1:31:10 I think I'm naturally disposed to a kind of a Quite a stoic. Tlacid thing. He's very, um very fiery. And I've sort of

1:31:18 Quite enjoying the um sort of learning from that. It makes me a bit less of a people pleaser, I suppose. We've had lots of work done in the house for a long time and he's very happy to start arguments with people that are doing that. And I'm just trying to keep everybody happy and making them coffee and trying to iron over any tension. And I actually, you know, sometimes A bit of conflict is important.

1:31:37 Because it isn't really about conflict, is it? It's about being able to Have some Faith in what you actually R and want to say in the Stand for it's not about conflict. We you think it's about conflict, so you don't do it, but

1:31:48 It's not it's just about Having some faith in yourself. What caused that settling? Was it relating to it differently, that dynamic that you just described?

1:31:58 So you have ten years, like in the last five you've settled into it in a different way. What has contributed to that? I think just time. I think it's just slowly Slow processes. Breaking down. Giving up. Slow surrender. My natural predisposition is kind of mental space. I've always sort of saw myself as probably being on my own with a dog. And even getting a second dog as a couple, having now a second dog.

1:32:28 It felt, oh no no, it's wrong, it should be. I remember saying, Oh, let's not get a second one. I like that it's just me and my dog. And my partner was what you mean, m you it's us and our what do you mean, what are you talking about? And I realised That was my image of myself was still kind of a bit. Single. That's definitely a new mode. For me. I am trying to work a little

1:32:47 Less. But I've also become very aware when I when I wrote the happy book afterwards I was going out and giving talks on happiness. promote the book a little bit and because it I had all this knowledge that I found really interesting and I wanted to do something with it and not just end it'cause I'd finished writing the book. And I was really unhappy.

1:33:03 I was going out thinking I'm I'm actually feeling a bit miserable and I don't know Why and I feel a bit of a hypocrite. And I realise it was because I'd finished writing the book and I hadn't Didn't have that. engagement in a big creative project. So those are important to me and I think

1:33:18 Realising that as well. I think as we can hope for is become more conscious of the things that we do find meaning the things that we do need and having All of those. You could put a message.

1:33:30 Quote. Image. Anything non commercial on a billboard meaning Make it. present for millions or billions of people. There's a line in

1:33:40 Reverse of Rilka. German romantic poet. Which is Something like

1:33:48 Experience everything. The beauty and the terror. No feeling is final, just keep going. Always thought that was great. Drop of relic.

1:33:57 So yeah. Maybe that. Or just gather if you want something snappier, I think gather yourself afresh. For us all just to find ways of being able to Do that.

1:34:05 What we need in a life just to kind of Get ourselves back together and step back out of the world. I think that's having that and knowing what you need. That's a big Tick, isn't it? Well

1:34:15 Darren. I could keep going, but I want to be respectful of your time and this has been a great wide ranging conversation. My AirPods are starting to run out. They're starting to keep dipping out. Yeah. So people can find you on social at Darren Brown. We'll link to everything on Instagram and On X Darren Brown D R E N Brown dot co dot UK. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we wind to a close? Requests of my audience, things you'd like to point them to, anything at all? Just to recommend our hairdresser that we uh that we both share. Uh yes we do share the same stylist and beard trimmer. It's a good look. It looks good on you. Thank you. Very you too. It was very good to finally uh finally make

1:35:01 Contact. Thank you so much for thank you for having me. My pleasure. My pleasure. And for everybody listening, we'll link to everything in the show notes, Tim.blog slash podcast. And until next time, be just a little kinder than is necessary to others and also to yourself. Thanks in. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading.

1:35:52 albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmas, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. I don't know about you guys, but I've had the experience of traveling overseas and I try to access something, say a show on Amazon or elsewhere.

1:36:36 And it says not available in your current location, something like that, or creepier still, if you're at home and this has happened to me. I search for something or I type in a URL. incorrectly and then a screen for ATT pops up and it says you might be searching for this, how about that? And it suggests an alternative and I think to myself, wait a second. My internet service provider is tracking my searches and what I'm typing into the browser. Yeah.

1:37:04 I don't love it. And a lot of you know I take privacy and security very seriously. That is why I've been using today's episode sponsor, ExpressVPN, for several years now, and I recommend you check it out. When you connect to a secure VPN server, your internet traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel that nobody can see into, including hackers, governments. people in Starbucks, your internet service provider, etc. And no you are not safe simply using incognito mode in your browser. This was something that I got wrong for a long time. Your activity might still be visible, as in the example I gave to your internet service provider. Incognito mode also does not hide your IP address. Also with the example that I gave of you can't access this kind or that content wherever you happen to be, then you just set your server to a country where you can see it and all of a sudden voila. you can say log into your normal Amazon account is supposed to be routed to.uk or whatever.

1:37:54 And uh everything works. So ExpressVPN protects you and enables you because it encrypts and reroute your network traffic through secure servers. So even though your traffic is still passing through your internet provider, now they can't read it. ExpressVPN is so fast also it doesn't bog things down at all. I usually forget that I even have it on. I can stream high quality video with no lag or buffering, even on servers thousands of miles away. Gives me access to servers in 105 countries around the world, which is very helpful. as I am constantly traveling and love to do so. It's easy to use. If you just choose a server location and tap one button to connect. You do not need to be technologically savvy, you don't need to know anything about how it works. It's just one click and it works on every device, phone, laptop, tablets, even TVs. ExpressVPN has really changed the way I use the internet, and I can't recommend it highly enough, so check it out. Right now you can go to expressvpn.com slash Tim and get three extra months for free when you sign up. Just go to ExpressVPN E-X-P-R-E S S VPN.com slash Tim for an extra three free months of ExpressVPN. One more time, expressVPN.com slash Tim.

1:39:06 This episode is brought to you by 8Sleep. I have been using 8 Sleep Podcover for years now. Why? Well by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top like a fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. 8 Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the Pod, and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second. First, Pod4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool, even in a heat wave. Or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive. I am always more heat sensitive, pulling the sheets off, closing the windows, trying to crank the AC down. This solves all of that. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those snore heavy nights, the Pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring. Plus with the Pod 4 Ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand. You won't need them because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod 4 Ultra itself. They have imperceptible sensors, which track your sleep time, sleep phases, and HRV.

1:40:20 Their heart rate tracking is just one example is at 99% accuracy. So get your best night's sleep. Head to 8Sleep.com slash Tim and use code TIM to get$350 off of the Pod4 Ultra. That's 8Sleep, all spelled out 8Sleep.com slash Tim, and code Tim T I M to get$350 off the Pod4 Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.