Read your mind, p.3
Read Your Mind, page 3
Even now, I run my events this way. I still want to shake hands and perform close-up mentalism. What makes mentalists unique is that there are no other entertainers—comedians, singers, athletes, keynote speakers—who work close-up for groups of two to twenty people at a time. It’s such a powerful experience to be immersed in the show from only a few feet away. When potential clients see that, if they get the gold package, I’ll do the close-up work, they go, “That’s amazing, thank you!” When you price yourself this way, you increase your revenue by providing something extra you’d have provided as a matter of course. What’s interesting in this example is that sometimes what feels natural or easy to you has its own worth. In my case, talking to people beforehand is fun for me, so putting a price on an element of my work that I love not only increases my revenue but also helps me clearly value my own work.
Bottom line, everyone wants to feel like a VIP, and that became evident in my restaurant work. There are simple ways to create that feeling that don’t cost you more than you want to invest. This is why I would walk up to people at their tables and say, “I’m here compliments of the owner, and it’s your lucky night!” When you approach with that energy, right away you’ve established a good feeling. If, instead, I walked up and said, “Do you want to see some magic?” I’d have given people a very easy path to saying no. Human nature positions us to respond positively to hearing that it’s our lucky night, especially when it’s free.
Sometimes despite my best efforts, diners were rude, but I’d never give that energy back to them. Rather I’d be polite and direct, saying, “I’ll see if I can come back later. Several tables have requests for me. Have a wonderful night and enjoy your meal.” Then I would walk away. I wouldn’t be curt; I wouldn’t be emotional about their response. If I had performed one trick and they were rude, disrespectful, or apathetic, I’d think, Okay, you’re cut off. I have something special to share. Other people want it, and I’ll give it to them instead. In that moment, when they realized I was taking my talent away, many would pull a 180 and try to get me to stay. Often, if it was just one person who had been rude, the whole group would turn against them. They’d realize they’d all collectively lost something of value.
The restaurant gigs taught me the importance of aligning myself with people. One person who is an ally can open so many doors. This is basic sales. Generally, about 5 percent of your clientele absolutely love you and they become your champions. They become your promoters. They’re your hype men or hype women. Recently, my good friends had their first child and asked me if I knew anyone who could help with life insurance. I responded, “Yeah, of course! I’ll put you in touch with Frank, he’s my guy, he’s great!” And that’s what you want to be: the go-to guy or gal for that niche, so much so that nobody else is even considered, it’s a lock.
Your fans will talk about you, whether it’s business or personal. When somebody gives you a glowing over-the-top review, that is worth its weight in gold. When you get people to be your champion, you’re unstoppable. So many instances in my career have come down to a handful of people who supported me. In turn, I’ve nurtured those relationships. I’ve tried to make myself valuable to them, done favors for them, gone above and beyond for them, and shown appreciation for the ways they’ve gone above and beyond for me, because these relationships should always be a two-way street.
Play the Long Game
Some of the biggest TV appearances I’ve landed I can trace back nearly twenty years to my finding the name of an event planner in the yellow pages. (For my Gen Z audience—google that move for a blast from the past.) Back then I would call event planners, saying, “I would love to swing by and give your team a very unique treat and perform a gratis show during lunch, or whenever you have downtime,” knowing that they were the gatekeepers responsible for booking acts like mine. Impress a prospective client and maybe you score a show or two, but impress the right event planner and it could mean dozens of gigs down the line. This was a force multiplier and a way to work smarter rather than just harder. With a planner shilling for me, I booked my first bar mitzvah through what had been a free performance. That bar mitzvah led to another bar mitzvah, which led to a holiday party and a birthday party, and on and on. We went many levels deep into Jewish geography. Eventually this led me to the bar mitzvah of the son of a very prominent NFL correspondent on ESPN named Adam Schefter. I kept in touch with him. I made sure that I never fell off his radar, that he always received my newsletter.
Now, this is one of my best pieces of advice: Always take notes. Whenever I met someone new, I’d be sure to jot down a few lines about what was happening in their life. If someone handed me their business card, the moment I was out of their sight I wrote down the date, where I was, and everything they had said to me in the smallest font you can imagine somewhere on that card. Adam and I continued to cross paths over the next few years on the bar mitzvah circuit, and whenever I’d see him at a party, I’d always know his kids’ names and what the family had been up to. We were friendly. I wrote every detail down because we had a connection and I needed him to know that what was important to him was also important to me. You don’t have to be a mind reader to know that people are flattered when you recall details from previous conversations.
A lot of the time, you’ll find yourself moving in the same social circles. You get hired by one person, and then someone else in their group of friends or family hires you again in a year or two. This becomes another moment to shine in front of an already receptive audience. After well over a decade of knowing each other, Adam said, “I need you to meet my boss who runs ESPN’s football content.”
If I had met his boss twelve years earlier, I wouldn’t have been ready. But by this point, I was a seasoned pro with plenty of TV experience under my belt and was ready for this opportunity. My confidence shined; I performed the right routines and highlighted how my act could be tailored to football, could connect with their audiences. I was in the right place with the right person at the right time…and it only took twelve years for me to get the chance. Ultimately, your biggest goals are going to be part of a long game, and every step along the way adds up. This is the same for nearly every profession. You show me an overnight success and I’ll show you the ten plus years of grinding they did to land that big break. So if your long game as, say, a Realtor is to land a million-dollar listing, every lower-dollar condo and ranch home you sell along the way builds your record and your skills.
Flip the Power Dynamic
Now, you would think that, by channeling my inner mentalist, by paying attention to my timing and killing people with kindness and tapping into human nature, I’d make all the right moves and every decision I made would be the wisest one.
That’s why I need to tell you about the time I almost blew it.
I met my wife, Elisa, when I was in my mid-twenties, living my big single life in New York City. We dated for a few months; it was great, but again, I was in my midtwenties. Sometimes you have the best thing in the world in front of you and you don’t even know it. You could have a winning lottery ticket and not realize it. So…I tried to break up with her because I was immature, too scared to commit and focused on all the wrong things. But when I told her we were done, she rejected my move and just said, “No.” I was completely confused, downright flummoxed. What did she mean, “No?” Can you even do that?
In the span of just a few days, I realized how right she was. Elisa explained to me pretty much exactly what was in my head because it seems she was a far better mentalist than I was at the time. She laid out how stupid I was being, how fickle, how the problems that I raised were minor and easy to overcome. She pointed out that rather than taking the hard road of doing the slightest bit of work, I was just going to throw our relationship away. As soon as I realized what a life with her would offer, suddenly I was the one who was begging for more. With our roles flipped and Elisa suddenly in control, I pleaded with her to move in, as I’d recently bought my first apartment. She just replied, “Slow down, buddy.” The shift in our dynamic reminded me of my early magician days working restaurants, when I’d walk up to a group: They didn’t know if they wanted me, and they held all the cards. A minute later when I would do the first amazing trick, they’d be blown away and they’d say, “Don’t stop!” Suddenly, they wanted me more than I needed them.
Learning to rely on our inner mentalist can be a challenge at first, especially when we’re so likely to default to autopilot. It requires us to take a pause, really assess each situation and person, and put ourselves in their shoes. But once you’re used to taking that second to get your bearings, it becomes easier and easier to figure out your timing and not rush through things, as you’re far more likely to get a negative response when you come from a place of impatience. By taking a breath to de-escalate a situation, and doubling down on kindness, you make space for everyone to have a positive outcome. And when you can prove to others that you’ve genuinely listened to them and what they’ve told you is important, you’re far more likely to get what you need from them.
Remember, none of this is magic; it’s mentalism.
Two
Believe It to Achieve It
The old adage says, “If you fail to plan, then plan to fail.”
That couldn’t be truer in my case. I never go into a performance without a series of contingency plans, in case my initial parachute fails to open. To achieve the best outcome in whatever you do, from selling software to persuading a jury of your client’s innocence, it’s an absolute must to not only visualize your success but also your failure. Being able to anticipate what could go wrong—and create fallbacks—goes a long way toward ensuring a positive end result, so in this chapter we’ll cover how planning for every eventuality is a counterintuitive key to “reading” the minds of others.
Theory of Mind
Much of my planning revolves around the concept of “Theory of Mind,” both personally and professionally. Theory of Mind refers to our ability to attribute mental states to ourselves and others, and to understand that the mental states of others may be different from our own.[1]
Picture this: It’s a rainy summer day during your childhood. You can hear the heavy drops pelting the windows as the wind howls. You’re stuck inside while visiting your grandmother. You and your little sister are killing time until the weather breaks, so you’ve decided to play hide-and-seek. You’ve determined that the very best hiding spot is tucked inside Granny’s closet behind her dresses. However, you also know that your sister is great at finding you. Maybe she even saw your eyes dart toward your grandmother’s bedroom when you decided to play. So you choose a different area because you’re pretty sure she’ll look in the closet first, as she’s also aware that it’s the best hiding place.
Taking the effort to imagine what someone else is thinking lets you step into someone else’s shoes and see the world from their point of view.
And that is a superpower.
When I was a kid working at the restaurant, I learned to take a beat to consider the diners’ inner monologues. I knew they’d wonder, Is he any good? Because there’s nothing more awkward than having someone perform badly, like a lousy singer or an out-of-tune band, and we’ll have to cringe-smile. How long is this going to be? Will he leave soon? Using Theory of Mind, I realized there were at least ten questions people were asking themselves before they even blinked their eyes when I got to their table. My challenge became to answer all ten of those questions in ten seconds or less.
Your body language and eye contact play a huge role when approaching someone else. In fact, Albert Mehrabian, a body language researcher, found that when it comes to face-to-face communication, 55 percent of communication is nonverbal, 38 percent is vocal, and only 7 percent is words, so approach and eye contact have an outsize impact on the impression you make.[2] Think of it like looking at certain animals in the eyes. When you do this, they look down. Direct eye contact can be very awkward and threatening because it feels like you’re crowding them. But if you walk up to an animal at an angle, where you’re really only seeing them with one eye, they get the vibe that you’re one step in, one step out. It feels safer. There’s a similar way to approach people that puts you in a less tense situation. So I would always walk up to the restaurant’s guests in a way that was almost like I was leaving, and that’s when I’d instantly address what I knew they were thinking. This was another way I’d try to set myself up for success.
Let’s say you’re looking for a relationship. So you sign up for a singles event, and yet when you get there, no one’s mingling. Everyone is standing around, looking at their cocktails and waiting for someone else to make the first move. Clearly, it’s awkward, so you could break that tension and shift the energy by calling out how uncomfortable the situation is, saying something casually to your first date, such as, “I don’t know about you, but I was a bit nervous to give this a shot,” all with a grin on your face. The combination of vulnerability and confidence is refreshing to others, even if you don’t really feel confident and are employing a “Fake it till you make it” approach. Maybe you won’t meet the person of your dreams at this event, but at the very least, you’ll break the ice and make some new friends because you verbalized what they were feeling. And who knows what that could lead to?
Here’s another scenario—in this one, you’re a teacher. If you walk into class on the first day, how do you instantly build rapport with your students when they’re on edge and they’re also thinking, Ugh, is this guy going to be dull? Is this lady going to give us a ton of homework? There are all these expectations that are built in, so if you come in and look at the class from the students’ point of view and answer the questions they might not even realize they have yet, you’re going to establish that rapport far more quickly. If you immediately let them know that you’re more interesting than other teachers, those kids are going to want to come to your class—they will look forward to it.
The same holds true if you’re in sales. Every salesperson opens their laptop and says, “Now I’m going to work through my latest product catalog,” and the potential customer’s eyes are likely to glaze over, as they’re so accustomed to this tactic. But if you come in and immediately address what they’re thinking—especially if you guide them there by asking questions—you’re going to have a more receptive audience.
The real power comes from leading with empathy. I like to present my inner monologue out loud when I perform for a big audience. When I get onstage, after the crowd has just watched a minute-and-a-half, high-octane video of supercuts of my most amazing tricks from past TV appearances, people are both intrigued and naturally skeptical. Many of them think this must be fake and like every magic show they’ve seen in the past, filled with sleight of hand tricks. So I’ll say, “You saw my hype reel and you know what? I don’t buy it. Gimme a break…mind reading? We all know that’s impossible. Guess what, I’m the biggest skeptic in the room. If someone was up here telling me that they could read my mind, I wouldn’t buy it either.”
That’s when I’ll add, “Here’s what I want you to know. I don’t read minds; I read people. And each and every one of you can do the same thing, as this is a learnable skill. I just happen to have been practicing for nearly thirty years. Talk is cheap, let me prove it.” Right there, I’m breaking down boundaries and promising them I’m not going to reveal what they’d prefer to keep hidden.
If I were that teacher in front of a new group of students, the first thing I would say is, “If I were you and I was sitting here thinking this class was just going to be dry lectures, I’d be bored out of my mind. So the question I have to ask myself is How do I make this a class that you’ll never forget? One that will make you come in and you’re waiting for the clock to start so we can learn about world history. I want to know from you guys how we can do that because I think this is the most fascinating topic ever, and if I do it right, you will, too.”
I like putting words in people’s heads. Feeding others the vocabulary I want them to use is a way of influencing them, but doing it openly, not secretly. The best speakers lead their audiences to a series of specific conclusions; keeping them engaged and entertained and unaware of the changes taking place in their minds, that is real life mentalism.
The first ten seconds you stand in front of someone are critical; you have to pay attention to everything the other person is giving you, from body language to facial expressions. You have to be aware of everything that might occur to someone when they look you over—how they might judge you. Their assessment of you is set in stone during those first ten seconds. I want you to ask yourself, “Have I ever been in a situation like this before?” If so, look for a pattern. What worked before? Scope out tension or resistance. It’s also useful for you to be conscious of how quickly you judge others and understand that they’re doing the same to you. What are you transmitting and what are they thinking of you? It’s necessary you use that time to set the tone and take control. Verbalize what you believe they’re thinking, expressing their inner voice aloud. Then, you either keep qualifying what they thought initially, such as, “I don’t actually read minds,” or you break down their barriers and burst the stereotypes they had of you from the start.
People always judge a book by its cover—publishers literally design them so you do—and that’s why there’s an adage telling you not to. But it’s futile, because you can’t avoid making a split-second decision about whether a book is for you. The beauty of mentalism is you get to decide what your own book cover looks like. You’ve got to become your own director, acquiring a real, objective perspective on yourself, which is very hard to do. We’re so used to being ourselves that we can’t even imagine listening through someone else’s ears. We all have so much baggage that sometimes we can’t see ourselves the way others do. But when you’re able to step back and assess yourself, to take an unbiased, 360-degree view of how you’re coming across both verbally and nonverbally, it suddenly becomes very easy for you to use that same skill to assess others.
